chapter 2
The mark was there, like Elder Chang said.
Tall and skinny, hands jammed deep into torn jeans, wearing a green Element sweatshirt with the hood pulled low over his face. He looked like any one of the common street skater thugs that seemed to have taken over Centennial streets, and I squared my shoulders, adjusting the bag strap on my shoulder.
He leaned against the metal railing to the stairs leading down into the subways, high-tops scuffing the pavement and I took a place next to him, hands in my coat pockets for warmth. He looked like a skater punk from Venice Beach but Centennial is nothing like Los Angeles; more like Chicago as far as the winters go.
I couldn’t see his face very well under the hood. Probably just as well as he’d be dead soon.
“Pretty crap weather, yeah?”
He sounded young.
I nodded. “Yes. But I wish I was in California.”
“California,” he replied with a low whistle. “Wish I was there.”
Was he supposed to reply?
“Well…see you around,” he said and walked off, artfully blending into the masses of people looking for a good time in downtown Centennial.
But no matter how good he was at hiding, I was better at finding.
Tucking my chin into my coat collar, I followed him as he skirted the crowds of intoxicated people, hands still tucked into his pockets.
Did the boy know he was going to die?
I shook my head and followed him into an alleyway that would cut across to State Avenue.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the job.
The alleyway smelled and looked like any other alleyway. The sharp, astringent odor of urine fought with the sickly sweet stench of vomit and I skirted along the wall as the mark paused in the middle of the alleyway, hands in his pockets, head down.
Why did he stop?
He straightened up.
The glint of a slim, sharp blade caught the moonlight as he pulled his hands out. “I know you’re there.”
Any attempt of play-acting would’ve simply been moot and I stopped, close enough to the mouth of the entrance to make my escape, should I need to, but far enough so that people would not notice me. Most people didn’t, anyways. Alleyways are the proverbial black hole in the city. “What of it?”
“I know what you’re gonna do.”
His hand clenched around the switchblade. Strange weapon, that. It took a special kind of bravery to use a weapon like that. If an enemy got that close to me…
His voice was not so high pitched, not anymore, and I added another five years to the initial eighteen years estimation of his age. “And?”
He turned around slowly. “I can’t let that happen.”
“No?” Outwardly, I was calm, passive, I shifted my feet to a wider stance, able to better defend myself should he fly at me. “Do you know what must happen?”
I wished I could see his face, but the hoodie was pulled far too low for me to make out anything but a willfully set chin. “I get to lead you to the residence of that vamp. Noir.” He spat on the ground, as if the very name stung his tongue. “I create a diversion. Attempt to murder Noir. Then you’ll come and…rescue the vampire. Chang made it very clear, that old-ass son of a bitch.”
Never had I heard Elder Chang referred to in such a manner. “You seem quite certain.”
He took a step forward. “I prepared to give everything up. They got my girlfriend. I was going to ask her to marry me. The night before I’m supposed to ask, she went missing. I got a note from her a week after.”
“At least she was still alive,” I said, although in retrospect, perhaps it was not the best thing to say.
He kicked a garbage can over and refuse fluttered in the wind, along with the scent of old decay that made my stomach wobble. “No! She’s not. She’s f*cking dead. I can never see her again. Do you know what that’s like? To fall in love with someone and find out you’ll never be able to see them? Never be able to touch them again. Never be able to see their smile. It’s like hell. No. Hell would be better.”
If he took another step, matters were going to come to a rapid end. As much as I felt sorry for the poor bastard, I had a job to do and I would not let a stupid, angsty young man stand in my way. “I am sorry. There’s not much more I can say. But you and I….we have a job to do. Were the Elders to know of your dereliction, you would be put to the blade.”
He laughed, a harsh caustic sound. “No shit, Sherlock. But guess what? It’s just you and me here. And I don’t think you’re going to tell them…are you?”
“It’s no concern of mine, whether you do your job or not,” I replied. “However, because your task is intertwined with mine, you are keeping me from fulfilling my duties. And that is something I will not stand for.”
“So what?” he taunted. “Are you going to kill me?”
I never killed a person without a contract. “You are the sacrifice. If you don’t die, I can’t get close to Noir. If I can’t get close to Noir, I cannot do my job. Give me one good reason why I should walk away from you.”
I couldn’t think of a reason why I would.
Silence reigned for a moment and inexplicably, he flicked his switchblade shut.
“I don’t want to die.”
On second thought, that was a pretty good reason.
But I had my orders.
“No one does. Not really.”
“We can do this another time,” he said quietly, so quiet I barely heard him over the howl of the cold, biting wind. “I don’t want to die. Not now. Not until I get the bastard who turned Shannon.”
Ah. He was one of those individuals. “Retribution?”
He opened his arms out wide and I thought I saw the glimmer of a smile amidst the shadows of his hood. “After that, I’ll be more than willing to die for the Elders. I wouldn’t have another wish in the world. Help me find the motherf*cker who took Shannon. Help me find him and I’ll help you get into Noir’s good graces. How’s that sound?”
A tantalizing proposition. “What if I refuse?”
He pulled out the switchblade again, although this time the blade remained hidden. “Then we duke it out, right here, right now. I’ve heard about you, and I’m not an idiot. Only one person’s going to be walking out of here, and it won’t be me.”
Was I supposed to be flattered? “You’ve put me in a difficult situation.”
“That’s better than being dead,” he said. “I won’t rest until I find out who turned Shannon. That’s all I want to do.”
“Elder Chang would not be pleased.”
“F*ck him.”
I regarded the young man, clothed in shadows, the woefully small switchblade making my lips twitch up. “What’s your name?”
He paused, almost as though he was afraid of telling the truth.
“Jase,” he said. “Jason, but you can call me Jase.”
“I’m--”
He stopped me. “I know who you are. Pang.”
I winced. “Hwang.”
“Pang, Whang, whatever. Same difference, right?”
“As long as you don’t mind me calling you Face.”
“Ah.” He stowed the blade away. “Point taken.”
But I couldn’t have him calling me by my last name. Not if he was going to mispronounce it every time. “Ran is easier.”
“Guess so.” He took a step back and I let out a breath I hadn’t even known I’d been holding. “So? You’ll help me?”
I relaxed my grip on the leather strap across one shoulder. The bag was the only way I could walk around with my sword. Regardless of what you see in movies, normal people can’t walk around with weapons in plain sight. The police tend to look down on that sort of behavior, especially in such a corrupted hellhole like Centennial.
“I don’t have a choice, do I? I can either kill you here, and find some other way to get into Noir’s fortress, or I can help you with your revenge scheme, wasting a bit of time, and then get into Noir’s home the way I was supposed to.”
“Don’t think of it like that.” A gust of wind blew down the alleyway, ruffling our clothes, pushing the hood off his head. “You’re just helping a friend. That’s all.”
A security light chose to turn on at that moment, bathing him in pale, sickly light and for a moment, it gave him a golden halo glimmering around his dark, shaggy head.
Eyes as dark as obsidian watched me carefully as he pulled the hood back over the features that should’ve belonged on a celestial being.
Pity.
I opened my mouth. “It is a shame to see such beauty go to waste.”
“Beauty? Me?” He let out a hoarse laugh. “You need to get your eyes checked.”
I shrugged. I was never one to belabor a point. “What happens now?”
“Depends. How soon do you want to finish the job Chang gave you?”
As if that even warranted any sort of answer. “What should I do?”
He looked over his shoulder warily. “What say we take this conversation somewhere else? You never know when someone might be listening in.”
“I can’t feel anything.”
“Better safe than sorry,” he said.
It seemed almost too simple. Help the beautiful one avenge the “death” of his beloved, and in return, he would willingly submit his life for the furthering of the Fellowship’s agenda. Too simple. It felt wrong. “Before we leave here, there is something we must do.”
“Yeah?”
He made as if to walk past me and I put a hand on his wrist. Even through the thickness of his sweatshirt, his nerves jumprf at my touch. “A pact.”
I hadn’t noticed his height, having already categorized him into the compartment labeled “dead” in my mind, but this close, it struck me just how close we were. He was a touch under six feet and we stood almost eye to eye.
What a novel feeling.
He nodded. “Guess I should’ve expected. You don’t trust me.”
You don’t trust me.
What an understatement. “Don’t take it too hard. I don’t trust anyone.”
“I don’t either.” He made a point of looking down at my hand still on his wrist. “Do you mind letting me go? I’m not going to run away.”
“ I only have your word on that,” I said. “At this point, I’m afraid it doesn’t count for much.”
He wrenched away. I let him. “Fine. Whatever. Pact me away. Just don’t touch me. Ever. Got it?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It was not my place.”
He tilted his head in a considering manner. “You sound all proper and shit. That’s f*cking weird.”
“I was raised to speak like this,” I said, wishing I didn’t sound so defensive. “Meanwhile, you sound like you were born in a gutter.”
His teeth glinted in the darkness as he grinned widely. “In the projects. And damn proud of it.”
To each his own. “Give me your hand.”
He extended it, palms up. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”
“Pain is irrelevant,” I replied. “It’s more symbolic than anything else.”
“What is?”
I flicked my wrist and a small dagger fell into my palm, the point almost so sharp to be invisible. Quickly, I scratched a line across his palm before he could resist and did the same to mine.
“What the f*ck are you doing?”
I clenched and unclenched my hand, urging the blood faster. “Blood of mine, blood of yours, and now we are bound by an oath.”
I rubbed my palm against his, even as he tried to squirm away. For a man, he wasn’t exactly fearless.
Clearly, beauty wasn’t everything. I didn’t know why I felt even the slightest bit of disappointment.
“Are you crazy?” he shouted. “Haven’t you f*cking heard of AIDS?”
“I can’t imagine it would be much of a problem, seeing as how you’re going to dead soon,” I replied and let him have his hand back.
“You think I give a rat’s ass about me? I was talking about you, you f*cking idiot.” he muttered and I watched the blood drip down his fingers to pool on the ground. “I swear to God, all you f*cking killers are crazy. You’re all nuts, you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I said quietly, nodding at his hand. “You’re bleeding.”
He continued muttered under his breath as he tucked his hand into his pockets. “Wasn’t the first, won’t be the last. Are you done? Stupid weird voodoo shit, if you ask me. I could’ve written you an affidavit and could’ve saved us a scar. Like an oath is going to keep me from lying.”
“It wasn’t just the words,” I said, as I tucked the dagger back into the wrist sheath. “Your blood runs in mine, now, just as my blood runs in yours. If we are separated, I’ll be able to track you. If you decide to run away…well, you won’t be able to.”
He was silent for a moment and then pulled out his hand, staring at the wound already starting to clot. “That’s pretty freaky. Will I be able to do that, too?”
“No.”
“Sounds like I’ve got the rough end of the deal,” he said, sighing. “So you’ll be keeping an eye on me, then? Sounds kind of invasive.”
I followed him out of the alleyway. “Don’t be ridiculous. At least you’re still alive.”
“Yeah, but for how long?”
I stayed quiet and he laughed mirthlessly.
“Dude, this sucks.”
He didn’t know half of it.