All Souls Pass
Part
Eight: Macy
was out one the large, hinged window in the bottom floor of the loft within ten
minutes of York laying down to sleep. It was his favorite means of coming and
going into the loft, magically be-spelled so that only York and Macy could get
it open and it led straight to the fire escape. It was so much faster than the
lift and Macy tended to only use the internal access to their home when he had
to. Out
on the street, he pushed his nearly black sunglasses up his nose. The glare from
the snow was blinding but fortunately, there were enough quarter bloods with
sensitive eyes still around that he could walk into any convenience store and
buy a dark enough pair. Not like the pair he was wearing was from a convenience
store, it was some designer name or another that York had bought for him because
he said they looked hot on. Macy never turned his nose up at anything York found
sexy, ever. He
tugged his fedora a little lower over his face, letting the shade protect him a
bit more from the sharp sunlight and the wicked burn it would deliver to his too
pale skin in a very short time. He’d pulled on his coat mostly to not draw
attention to himself instead of for warmth, it wasn’t cold enough out yet to
really bother him but people looked at him funny when he played in the snow
without one. Prepared with gloves in place and properly dressed, Macy crouched
on the cold metal for a moment and opened his senses. Behind
him he could feel the soft, muted feel of his lover. Sleep and the habit of
hiding himself kept York a quiet echo against his mind but in front of him,
several streets away, was a bright, shiny version of York. It made it too easy,
so he slid to the snow covered street in an elegant drop and looked for less
obvious clues. There
really weren’t sidewalks here, this area hadn’t been intended for
residential life but footprints came and went from the buildings around them.
They’d been turned into fancy apartments but the area around their building
was almost deserted. There was only the muffled, softened footprints of York’s
shoes from when he came home and one sharp, fresh track leading away. The
boy was, at the least, smart enough to not walk in the snow. Even if Macy
suspected it was because his shoes were still wet instead of a concern for
leaving tracks. The prints led into the road and from there got mixed in with
the rest of the plowed and salted slush. He set off down the street, humming
happily to himself. Even
without the energy trail to follow, Macy would have been able to find the boy.
By scent or by instinct, any vampire worth his fangs could track someone he’d
mentally marked as prey. They were, after all, predators, and few creatures were
really able to elude them once on a hunt. One, scrawny street kid didn’t stand
a chance and it was more a practice in amusement then real tracking. The
kid made a bee line to the rougher areas of the city. Moving along the handful
of blocks where whores and pimps roamed, he skirted it without ever quite
crossing it. He slipped into a Kum N Go twenty four hour convenience store, the
name of the chain and it’s tendency to be in the seediest sections of towns
always made Macy giggle. He hovered outside in that there, not there over looked
in plain sight way a vampire had and watched the kid circle the rows. A
pack of condoms, a box of cinnamon flavored pop tarts and a liter of soda joined
the packet of ding dongs in the boy’s hands, all of which got spilled onto the
counter. He watched the kid request and be given a carton of cheap ass
cigarettes when it was pretty clear he was underage. The clerk just rang him up,
and the boy paid for his items with some of the cash York had given him, only
instead of accepting a plastic bag, the kid shoved everything, minus a single
pack of smokes, into his backpack. From
there, Macy followed the kid to a local fast food joint. About the only kind of
restaurant to survive down in such a hard luck area of town besides one single
sit down twenty four hour diner that welcomed as much as frowned on the junkies
and whores that made up it’s clientele. From across the street, Macy saw the
boy ordering food and knew from the wrapper it was a large meal, double double
meat meat cheese cheese burger with large fries and soda. He hummed the
restaurant’s jingle while he watched the kid happily inhale the huge meal.
Paid for, again, by the money York had shelled out for nothing. The
kid didn’t linger and even Macy could tell the huge amount of food was a feast
to the boy. He ate almost to quickly to really taste it, glancing to the clock
set high on the wall several times. Before he left the restaurant, the kid
disappeared into the men’s room for an ungodly amount of time. Macy figured
the kid was shooting up or something but when he emerged the dampness from the
jean jacket was gone, or mostly gone, dried under the hot air hand dryer in the
men’s room. “Smart
kid.” Macy nodded in approval and slipped a little further into the shadows as
the boy hit the street again. It was then that Macy picked up a sense that he
wasn’t the only one following the boy. The new eyes were recent, only since
the kid had made it back to what must be his home turf and Macy shrugged and
slipped around to see who else was eyeing his prize. He
found the woman a half a block away, slipping in and out of shadows with almost
the same ease he had. Half blood, at least, but not a full because there was no
way a full blood would have let another full blood sneak up behind them. She was
good though and Macy watched as she tracked the boy strictly on a visual bases
as he made his way down snow covered streets. It was absurdly easy to slip in
behind her, nearly standing on her shadow. “A
little early to be looking for dinner.” He whispered. The
woman jumped, startled and spun around. Under her wide brimmed hat was stuffed
purple and black dyed hair and her sunglasses were just as dark as his own, only
under them, her eyes were pale yellow. She crouched a little in her surprise,
drawing a blade from inside her coat and half hissing in alarm. “Stop
that, you sound like a pissed off cat.” He squinted a little at her and
vaguely knew her face. She,
however, didn’t have to squint to know him. The blade was instantly put away
and she bowed her head deeply, exposing the back of her neck in the process.
“Elder.” “Stop
that too.” He warned, the light amusement dropping from his tone. “You’re
one of Oscar’s people, yes?” “Yes,
Elder.” She kept her eyes just lowered enough to be respectful but not enough
to totally drop her guard. “It’s
a happenstance of birth that I’m full blood nothing more, stop it.” “It’s
required to show due respect, sir.” She explained softly. “Stupid,
dumb ass, overblown, self important ass that Oscar is I can imagine so.” The
woman actually gasped slightly at hearing anyone speak so of her leader. Macy
just waved it off. “What’s your concern with that boy?” “What
boy, sir?” “Don’t
play games with me child!” He snapped back and wanted to take her by the
throat, he held back, barely. That
froze her breath and made her more frightened then when first startled. A full
blood was always dominate, even if it was inside of her own home, if a full
blood set a single foot inside it became his territory. A smart half blood that
wanted to live didn’t debate that situation. “I’m
under orders, sir.” She nearly squeaked out. “What
are they?” “To
follow with visual only, not to engage no matter what occurs but the human…” “Yes?”
“He’s slippery, sir. Gets away from me and the others. We’ve a difficult
time of it but he always ends up back home, eventually.” “What
others?” He was starting to get a fluttery, excited feeling in the pit of his
stomach. Maybe, this would be more amusing then he’d hoped for! “An
elf, sir, golden one and a human priest.” “What
order does the priest belong to?” “Black
Cross, sir.” That
raised his eyebrows. “And what do they say about following the boy?” “I’m
under orders to not engage them as well, sir.” He
knew how Oscar worked and if he’d so limited his tracker the other two must
have been also limited. It was turning out to be a very odd situation, indeed.
York had been right to follow the boy, something was brewing and that was always
a risky thing in this city of theirs. “Go
away.” “Sir?
Respectfully, I can’t sir.”
The rage snapped him. “Go away before I snap your silly, stupid, neck and send
your fangs to your precious pathetic lord!” Even
past the darkness of her glasses, the darkness of his, she could see the anger
flash in the crisp, clear green eyes but she held her ground. “Sir…” She
tried again. “Go…
now… or….fight me.” He snarled and stepped forward, impressed that she’d
stood her ground so long. The
half blood swallowed hard, and dropped her eyes. “Yes, sir.” She caved and
ducked her head as she slid sideways to get a few steps away. She didn’t turn
her back until she was halfway down the alley and then it was only for the
heartbeat she needed to leap onto an over hanging fire escape and disappear
across the metal framework. Macy
took a moment to settle his blood. His territory was defended and he was only
slightly disappointed that it didn’t require any bloodshed. When some of the
sharp, primal anger had faded, he reached out with his senses and found the half
blood truly gone and following her was an elf and a human in the hopes of being
led to the boy that had slipped their ever present watchful eyes. That
made him smirk. They’d be surprised when she led them not to the boy but right
to Oscar’s doorstep. He wondered if the pair were good enough to back off
before being spotted and disposed of and frankly didn’t care either way. Happy
again, he turned his thoughts to the very curious human and again followed him
into the bright, crisp snow. The
boy made no further stops, his nose gone red from the crisp cold air. Macy
caught up to him when he was turning into a building. It was like the other
couple of dozen on the block, cheap, run down, old five or six story apartments.
Built during a boom in immigration a nearly a hundred years earlier but built
with quality of life in mind. Meaning, simply, they were smaller, six stories
tops, with ten apartments per floor that really would have been better suited to
four apartments per floor. Even in their heyday they’d been cheap, options and
one tiny two room apartment would house an entire family. Now the buildings were
owned by drug and slum lords, pimps and the like and housed crack heads and
whores who didn’t mind the rough, dangerous neighborhood. It was, simply put,
one step up from a squat. Macy
liked it. He’d stayed in worse, that was for damn sure but places like this
were amusing. Not that he was bemoaning the beautiful, comfortable loft that
they had, he liked his space but he minded the elements less than York did. A
tiny little apartment with little to no heat, that offered an ever changing
parade of faces living out the drama of their lives around him, well that was a
good Friday night. There
were men and women sitting about the steps at the entrances to some of the
buildings, dealing in spite of the cold weather, and a handful called out to the
boy as he made his way by. He ignored some, waved back to others but mostly kept
his head down and trudged along to his own stoop. None of them called out to
Macy, even when he walked right in front of them, they just didn’t see him.
Their eyes slipped around him and over him as if he really were invisible and it
made him grin. It would take a creature with greater will power than a normal
human to be able to lay eyes on a full blood that didn’t want to be spotted. He
followed the boy right up his steps and into his building, moving a few feet
behind him as silently as an unspoken whisper. The walls were painted a cheap,
pale lime green that was peeling away close to the ceiling and was covered in
spray painted gang tags along the bottom. The kids stopped at a line of steel
mailboxes and dug out a key, opened a box that matched an apartment on the
fourth floor and didn’t look surprised at the empty contents. Only,
as the boy turned the corner to the main hallway, Macy had to step back. The
only door at this end of the steps, which should belong to the building
supervisor, opened. The man that emerged was taller than Macy and wider, not
just broader in the shoulders but two, three times heavier in fat as well.
Middle aged or beyond, his thinning hair was greasy and slicked back in an
effort to cover his lack. He had on olive drab plain cotton work pants with a
thick brown leather belt and no shoes and in spite of the cold his only shirt
was a sleeves undershirt that clung to his round, heavy stomach. It showed off
the man’s thick, strong, work strengthened arms well and even though he was
fat, there was no doubt he was strong enough to bounce most of the tenets
around. The
boy instantly tossed up his hands. “Don’t start on me, Mr. Gossman, I had a
long night but I’ve the rest of the rent.” “Poor
hustling baby.” The man mocked. “I gave you a shot kid. I’m not interested
in the rest of the rent, all of it would be welcome.” “All
of it? I was only seventy five short, Berty was supposed to drop their share and
the other seventy five off.” “Well,
none of your crackhead boyfriends have been by and you’ve an hour to clear
your shit out before I throw you out.” He stepped forward, towering over the
skinny boy. “You hear me kid!” The
boy nodded hard. “Wait, I got, I got some money, hang on.” He dropped his
backpack off a shoulder and dug inside and quickly came up with the three
fifties York had given him, two of the twenties and a ten. He thrust the folded
over cash at the man. “Here, it’s two hundred.” The
man didn’t touch it. “Rent’s three.” The
boy tugged the pack back over a shoulder. “It’s all I have, you’ll get the
other hundred.” “When?”
“Soon.”
“Wrong answer, kid.”
“Tomorrow?” “Better.”
The man took the two hundred and made a show of counting it. “Must have had a
night to be sporting this green.” “So,
we’re good until tomorrow?” The boy started to back toward the steps. “Hold
it! I don’t run no charity show here. You want the extension, you earn it.”
He pushed his apartment door open and the female moans from a porno tape lightly
drifted out into the hall. “I
thought you didn’t fuck boys.” The
man snorted. “I’m no fag, boy, convince me to be nice and give you the time,
the way you were so convincing to make me rent to your underage ass in the first
place. That or pack up and get.” The
boy’s face was a mask of cold indifference. “Going rate will be knocked off
the total owed, I assume.” He tossed out as he moved to the apartment door. The
man laughed and caught a strong, meaty hand on a slender shoulder. “Not
likely, boy, and if I don’t have the hundred tomorrow by four, you or one of
those crackhead roommates of yours will be the central entertainment at a
friend’s party. That will work off some of the debt, some.” He laughed again
and shut the door behind them. Macy
hovered outside, out of sight, and waited. He didn’t need a picture drawn to
have a pretty clear idea of what the boy was doing in the super’s apartment.
It was only about a half hour before the boy emerged, only this time his face
wasn’t as coldly masked off. He glanced down both sides of the hallway to make
sure no one had seen before he hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder and
took the stairs two at a time. He
could have followed, even on the stairs the boy wouldn’t sense him following,
but Macy had a pretty clear idea from the mailbox where the boy’s apartment
was. He slipped back outside and around to the side of the building. The fire
escape ladder was up but that didn’t matter, an easy jump had him on the
lowest level and from there it was a quick climb up to the fourth floor. It took
a little scrambling around to find the right windows but he made it there in
time to see the boy entering into the apartment. The
place was three rooms, a living room kitchen combo, tiny bathroom and a super
tiny bedroom. The living room had an old, black and white television sitting on
an overturned cardboard box with rabbit ears all twisted at angles. Instead of a
sofa or chairs was a single bed mattress on the floor with sheets and blankets
rumpled up against the wall. Tossed on the mattress was a pair of half naked
boys, older looking than Lucky but not old by any means. They were curled
together, as much making out as watching whatever show was flickering on the tv
and quite obviously stoned out of their minds. “What
the fuck!” The boy shouted as soon as he’d kicked the door shut behind him. The
pair giggled and came up for air. “Hey, Lucky’s alive!” “Of
course he’s alive, idiot, he’s standing right there.” “What
the fuck?” He shouted again. “You’re both fucking flying! Is this where
the rent money went? So you two could stay in the warm and get fucking stoned
all day?” The
pair glanced at each other and the darker haired one shrugged. “You weren’t
back, we didn’t have enough to cover so figured if we were going to get kicked
out might as well have a damn fine party first. Here, try some.” He groped
after the mirror and the clumps of powder dropped on it. “It’s really good
shit!” “Fuck!”
Lucky paced the living room, livid with anger but his eyes drifted to the drugs.
“You know I’m not a junkie like you.” The
lighter haired one snickered. “Yeah, you just do a line and than rant about
the evils of drugs. Denial sweetheart is deadly, be proud! Come on, you know you
want a taste.” The
boy looked surprised for a second. “Actually, I don’t want it.” He said
more to himself than to the pair giggling on the bed. That didn’t surprise
Macy, York’s healings tended to re-set everything and even if the boy only
casually used, he was now given a clean slate. “Awww,
more for us!” “Fuck,
you two don’t get it!” “Why
sweat it baby, we can’t pay anyway. Chip in and we’ll get take out, have a
real party!” “Morons,
focus! I paid Gossman two hundred already, so cough up what you’ve left and
get out working tonight and we might, might not be homeless tomorrow.” “Two
hundred? What did you do last night?” “Doesn’t
matter, cough up my seventy five.” They
giggled again and hands went back to groping each other. “You
spent my money on drugs too?” “We
had debts…” “Fuck!”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Is there anything left?” The
only answer was giggling. “It’s
not funny, fucktards! I just had to…” he stopped and drew a breath.
“Fuck.” “Hey,
don’t sweat it, we’ll help you get the rest, when’s he need it?” “Tomorrow
at four, or one of us is working a party for him.” “No
problem, but, you’re missing the party here!” “Fuck!
You two are unbelievable!” He shook his head and started toward the private
bedroom. “Hey,
Lucky? We were talking, and it doesn’t seem right that you’ve got the
bedroom. I mean, there’s two of us and one of you and all.” The darker one
pushed. “Privacy man, it’s not cool when you go to the bathroom when,
we’re, you know?” “Not
right?” Lucky said softly. “Not right! I pay half the fucking rent! I blew
Grossman to get him to rent to us! Not right!” He yelled. “Fuck!” He
hurried into the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him. Macy
had to slid across the metal escape a bit to see into the other room. He watched
the boy shove a wedge of wood under the door and click on a small, dim lamp. The
room was sadly empty. A single mattress again was tossed on the cheap carpet
covered floor and a beat up wood nightstand had the lamp sitting on it. A wind
up alarm clock was perched on two feet instead of three and leaned wobbly
against the lamp. An empty soda can was being reused as an ashtray and on a
flattened black trash bag was a neat stack of folded clothes. One, maybe two
outfits if that and the boy dumped the clothes Macy had washed out next to the
others. The
boy dropped his back pack next and pulled off the damp sneakers, setting them to
the side neatly. Very carefully he fished his pack of cigarettes out of the
front pouch of the backpack and lit one. He took a couple of long drags, pacing
around the room with a sharp, worried look on his face. Macy watched as the boy
sobbed, hiccupped and held in the panic that was threatening to take him over. “What
am I going to do? What to do?” He shivered and dropped to the floor. Knees
were pulled up and the boy backed up against the wall. There he folded over
himself and shuddered, not quite sobbing, but obviously shut down in a panic
attack. The cigarette burned to ash, forgotten in his fingers. Macy
hovered outside until the boy dropped the filter into the soda can and shook off
the panic. He uncurled a bit, lit another cigarette and sat taking long slow
drags from it. When that one joined the first in the can, he stood and stretched
out, wound the alarm clock and set it before he unfolded blankets and laid down
on his dingy, thin mattress. Even then, Macy waited until the boy was soundly
asleep before moving on to look for answers elsewhere. Remember.... This story is being updated a day
sooner on the website! www. sapayne.com so check it out and also come by for
random PWP posts in the finished stories that occasionally pop up in the public
areas! And if you can't wait a week to find out what happens, join the site and
read ahead with three chapter updates a week! Thanks for reading everyone!! www.sapayne.
com | 