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 fucking 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