Darker London

Isla had been without her car for the last couple of weeks, not because it no longer ran but because she didn't want to risk exacerbating the problem and she'd been too busy with work to take it in to be repaired. But finally she had the chance, so she drove to the address of her mysterious half-brother's garage and pulled up on the forecourt.

Getting out, she pulled on her jacket and headed inside. "Hello," she said, poking her head into the workshop. "Anyone around?"

It was somewhere near 3am on Friday night when Isla got home from the party she'd been at. Her costume had been boring and simple, having neither the funds nor the time and inclination the last week to do it any better. And so for Halloween Isla had been the most boring devil in the world, a costume that consisted of her favourite little black dress accompanied with spangly red devil horns, pinned on devil tail and plastic pitchfork. Isla thought a demon dressing as a demon was probably the best costume choice that could ever happen.

In the kitchen of the church house, the pitchfork had found a home on the island in the middle, and Isla was tottering less-than-soberly between cupboards and toaster and kettle, not yet considering to take off her high heels. (Red as well, so at least they matched her costume bits.)

It had been a good night, and in the interests of it being a good Saturday, Isla had decided she needed to properly sober up before she fell into bed. Tea. Toast. Water, lots of that one probably. Good idea, water was, even for a demon such as herself. Isla had really drunk a remarkable amount of alcohol - something which would have been clear to anyone who knew her constitution. She was not an easy drunk, and she'd enjoyed the constant offers of shots that had come her way tonight.

But maybe she didn't need to sober up quite yet.

Isla still had a half empty bottle of gin with her - delightful, lovely, happy gin - and she took another swig from it now, the kettle boiling hopefully in the background of her life, a suggestion of more adult ideas than gin.