[continues from Of Dragons and Angels.]
Eathan shoulders his way through the crowd, glancing at the map the angel has given him as he makes his way to the nearest transportal.
Almost nervously, the assassin runs his fingers over the small indentations on its surface which mark roads, bridges, and other points of interest as he steps into the transportal. //This better not be a wild goose chase.//
A voice emenates from the ceiling of the chamber. "Please state your destination."
"Bounty Six." He picks a city name off the map at random. "Old Kular."
"The cost will be 97 credits. Please -" the instructions cut off as Eathan swipes his credicard across the laser reader.
"Processing."
Eathan feels a slight tugging sensation, and...
--
..he is standing at the end of a brightly-lit city block. Neon and xeon signs reflect endlessly down the mirror-and-glass facades of the buildings.
//*Old* Kular?//
//The nightlife is out in full force,// he thinks, watching the shifting, noisy, colorfully-dressed crowds roam the streets. //And,// he thinks, chuckling slightly, //so are the pickpockets.//
--
//Ah! Got it!// The child slips the small crystal ring into his pocket, and grins as his victim saunters down the street, blissfully unaware. //Now for that rich one over there...//
Another figure is watching the boy with interest... a figure that could be straight form a biker magazine, with his windswept mane of hair, and long frizzled beard; the man watches, waiting in the shadows, himself...
His eyes stare through the boy, toward the man on the other side fo the bar; he's waited a long time... a _very_ long time.
His grin suddenely turns to a gasp as a strong arm reaches out from the shadows and pulls him back into their blackness
"I didn't do anyth - "
//There you are, Ethan, you lousy mouse... or is that rat, now? I'm sure you've gone for an upgrade to Asshole 4.1, now.//
Eathan glances up. He scans the street, but recognizes no one. His eyes are dark.
The figure continues to taunt the man, knowing that his anger will eventually lead to a mistake, should he think of the one that that has driven Ethan for so long.
//What the - who here could *possibly* know me?// he thinks. //Watch what you think about rats. They have sharp teeth.//
//Sharp teeth... but their wits are dull... that's probably got the rest of the "rat pack" you were slumming with... one fo them a brother, I recall. Talk about someone who deserved to have his ass blown away.// The voice continues to prod Ethan, trying to let the goad work into the mind.
Eathan's throat tightens. He licks his lips, but he does not reply.
"Quiet, and don't run," the voice growls, and sets him down.
The child's face pales as he looks at the man before him.
"Where's the best bar here?"
//Still likes scaring the children, I see... what a lousy bully you make Ethan.// The biker continues to let his thoughts of disgust and hate for the man run through his mind, without concern of them being heard.
Eathan's eyes narrow.
He smiles, a thin line under his thick, straggly beard. //I can't wait to show you what intimidation really is, you pompous peice of shit.//
//What a nut! He could've asked anyone for that, and - //
"You *know* what I mean, shrimp." He scowls. "I'm not asking for the place with the best wine in town. Where do you go when you need to know stuff, and know it now?"
//Ul's...// The biker thinks with a slight shrug.
"Ul's," the boy manages, his voice a squeak. He shivers. The guy gets out something silvery - //A map, not a blaster,// the child finally realizes.
"Where?" he asks.
The child points with a clammy finger, then, at the stranger's glare, dashes off down the street.
With a smile, the figure watches the boy rush from his newly aquainted bully, //That's right, little mouse, run for your hidey-hole while I follow the trash, ready to take it to the dump.//
--
//Ul's. Let's see what we can find.//
--
A few minutes later, Eathan steps into the bar.
He sits down in the back, and watches the flow of both people and talk throughout the room.
People milled about the bar, looking like many did when they came to such a place. Some acting chummy with others, when they've had one round to many, others quietly sipping the foam from their mugs, lost in their own thoughts and myseries. One small, wirey fellow sits at the end of the bar staring into the bowl of grouda nuts before him. He holds the glass of dark brown liquid in his hands, and does not move unless someone bumps into him. With a couple of looks toward Ethan, he shivers, then looks down at the bowl again.
//Ruai's dead!// He thinks. //What the hell do you think you're gonna find here?//
He sighs. //I've got to try something.//
//Well, what are you waiting for bully, why don't you go intimidate the bar-maid... or better yet, the scrawny little man serving everyone. You'ld never guess what Ul knows, himself, Ethan.// The biker thinks, nodding when the barmaid comes past his table, setting a mug of foamy beer down for him. He sits back with his feet up, watching the assasin as if he could set the man's clothes into flame by staring hard enough.
Eathan's neck prickles. He slowly turns in his chair and finds himself looking directly into the eyes of a man who looks like an advertisement for a biker convention. He blinks.
//That's right, take the bait, you little rat.// The voice continues, watching, waiting for the right moment.
He gets up from his table and walks over to the biker, ignoring the gouda-nut obsessed man's glances.
The biker watches Ethan, as if staring into a hated foe's eye. "Wha'da you want? I don't dance with flamers like you!"
Eathan looks at the man. Something about him stirs an old memory...old, old...He shakes his head. //Hell, the people I've been meeting in bars lately - I'll be meeting Ru next.//
//What you waiting for, little rat? Can't handle a drunk old biker when you're facing him? Going to wait until he turns his back, and then knife him, Ethan... that's just like you, RAT!//
Eathan's mindvoice had previously been closed to the man's thoughts, but when Eathan 'picks up' his own name, he pays more attention to them.
//What are you waiting for Ethan, don't you like taking on someone who is bigger than you? Would you rather be bullying children again?//
Eathan flinches, but ignores the statement.
He soon realizes that this man is the same whose thoughts he heard as he was questioning the pickpocket. //Hell.// He blinks. //I'm being trailed. Maybe Izzy sent me here to die.//
With a grin a figure in the back of the room watches the scene playing out before him... He knows that by drawing out the mortal, the meddler will be showing his face again. He continues his game of "cat and mouse" his thoughts relaing to Ethan with a vengeful plan in mind. //Trailed, no, I wouldn't want to step in the slime of your remains... especially after you've seen that your foes stand up to you, you spineless peice of shit.//
"May I help you?" he asks. There is no edge to his voice, but no pleasantries either. Plenty barfights had been started this way, but so had some of his best business deals. That kind of look, Eathan had learned early on, always meant something. It was best not to ignore it.
"You lookin' fer yer sissy boyfriends? You come into the wrong bar, then, pal!" The biker begins to rise, showing a slight sway to his movements, liek he's had a little too much to drink.
Eathan looks at the man for a second more, trying to place him...then, failing, he nods coldly. "Looks like I have," he says. He turns, and leaves the bar.
The biker watches the smaller man, ready to pound him to a pulp, or so he believes, he staggers toward Ethan as if he's trying to intimidate teh assasin, the achohol scent strong on his person.
The biker sits, again... he and his friends laughing at the assasin's retreat. While from deep in the smoke and darkness, another watches him, waiting to make the right move. As the smaller man goes outside, the figure slips out hte back, into the shadows and fog of the night.
He stands outside, down the street, looking at the half-lit neon sign blink on and off, on and off. //Shit. Maybe I'll come back later when the nightlife is less armed and more drunk.//
With a blocking of his mind, a force that nothing bi-passes, the figure cloaks his body in a like manner, and begins to follow the assasin, waiting, ready to pounce at the most opportune time.
Nothing may bypass the man's mind-cloak, but someone senses its blocking. //What the - what *was* that?//
The form ebcomes shadow, wrapping and morphing around Ethan's own, so as not to be detected further.
The constant flow of others' thoughts around the edges of Eathan's mind has accustomed him to the ebb and flow of people's thoughts. The assassin knows with that the only time minds 'disappear' that quickly is when their owners are killed without warning.
The shade watches it's prey, knowing that he will soon find the one he really wishes to harm.
He draws his long daggers and holds one in each hand. Wether the killer is after him or not makes no difference - killers, Eathan knows, don't hesitate to get anyone who blocks their way.
With a slight feral smile, the shade tags Ethan, moving with him as if he were the darkness left in the man's wake. Watching... waiting...
Eathan can sense the position of the 'black hole' in thoughts the man leaves behind him like the trail of some invisible slug. He can feel the other's non mind-touch against his own. As the shadow-form wraps around the assassin, Eathan can feel portions of his own mind being blocked by the other's force, a numbing, pins-and-needles feeling. It is joy and terror all at once. //By not knowing, I know.//
//You only think you know, boy... wait and see what you'll learn about your own inner demons before thinking you're the cock of the walk.// The shade thinks, holding it's thoughts reclusive from the man in front of it.
Eathan blinks, and bares his teeth. //I know all I can handle about *those.*//
Eathan tilts his head, then steps back into a deeply shadowed corner, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. He moves into a fighting stance, then stands in the corner like a statue.
//And what do you think you're hiding from Ethan?// The voice taunts his mind, a show of letting Ethan know he cannot hide in such a manner. //I'll watch you until the other comes for you... fool, and then you'll both fall.// The shade lies, working to fake out the mortal he embraces in the dark.
All his senses are alert, but still nothing happens. He opens his mind as much as he dares to the area around him for a split second, and gets no clues from his reading of other's minds. //Nothing. When nothing's happening, *something's* going on,// he thinks, //and I don't like it.//
With another smile, the shade remains with the mortal, following him where ever the man might lead.
~It's time to play hide and seek.~ A pause. Giant milk-white bats flit around the neon streetlights, their wings filtering the glow. The streetlight hums. Or perhaps it is the bats. ~I'm it.~
Eathan turns, and with a lightning movement plunges one of his daggers over his left shoulder into what appears to be empty space directly behind him.
The shade slides against Ethan's body without so much as a velvet touch, it's incorprial form snaking against him as if it were his own skin.
The other goes back and slices through the air not half-an-inch over his own head, where the not-feeling feeling is strongest.
The blades slice into air, and nothing more. //Damned.//
A laugh echoes through Ethan's mind... ~You have to do better than that, boy.~
~Why do you stalk me?~
~And who says I'm stalking you... perhaps I'm just a part of you that needs to be let out before I take over... a dark side that you keep at bay.~ The hissing whisper of a voice echoes in his mind, trying to show bloody scenes and painful memories with a relish and gleeful smile to the inner eye.
Eathan stops dead in the middle of the dark street. "At bay?" he whispers, both to the shadow and himself. He almost laughs at the absurdity of the idea. "At bay..." he shakes his head. He blinks. //That's where it was,// he remembers. //First Kill.//
The shade does not torment him any more, but watches the scene in Ethan's mind with a delight that the man would never truely know.
--
The grey-blue waves wash over the sand, dark, cold and damp in the predawn light. The tide sighs against the rocks.
*hiss...hiss...hiss...*
Eathan stands under the run-down timber pile dignified with the name "pier" and lets the water climb up to his ankles, ignoring the coldness and the millions of small moonfish swarming around his feet.
*hiss-hiss-hiss*
//I wonder if it is still here....//
He searches the pier's name-rock foundations with his eyes until he finds the stone he seeks.
The deeply engraved etchings are half way underwater by this time, but still readable:
'Darus and Lariana: Betrothed autumn fifthmoon.'
'Ruiai: Born spring firstmoon.'
'Lariana: Died winter nomoon.'
Those words are etched deeply and painstakingly, the next are hardly more than scratches in the rock.
'Eathan: Born winter nomoon.'
He blinks back tears.
*hiss-hiss-hiss*
The sound of a redgold, a lonely 'ta-ya,' rings across the sands.
Eathan draws his throwing daggers.
The redgold is no shorebird.
A heavy, fast tread sounds on the pier. For a moment, the grey dawn light is obscured by the passing of someone overhead, and Eathan's hiding place is plunged into blackness.
*hiss-hiss-hiss*
Eathan works quickly. His long, thin fingers fit easily through the slats. He finds the man's sandal-lace and gives a quick tug.
*hiss-hiss-hiss*
The man moves down the pier, and Eathan can hear the *slap-pad-slap-pad* noise of the untied sandal. //Any time now...//
*hiss-hiss-hiss*
The voiced curse comes stimulntaneously with the mental one. ::It must have come undone on the rocks.:: Eathan silently launches himself out from underneath the pier just as the man looks up from fastening his sandal. ::No rocks,:: the man suddenely realizes, suprised, as the daggers hit him.
*hiss-hiss-hiss*
The blood leaks down between the slats of the pier and drips into the cracks in the name-stone engravings. Even the waves cannot wash it away.
The sun rises on the ocean bay, blood-red.
--
~Keeping darkness at bay?~ This time he does laugh, silently, almost insanely.
~This profession does not allow such a luxury.~
But there is no more from that sickening whispered voice... nothing following him further, the shade sated and fattened on the memory, it disperses into the night, waiting for it's next victim.
Eathan frowns. //The thing is gone,// he realizes. With a sickening lurch - one that the assassin both hates and welcomes - his mind falls back into its normal state. If one can call Eathan's mind 'normal.'
//What did it want?// he wonders for a moment, then dismisses it from his mind. //It mustn't have been too important.// He shrugs, and sheaths one of his daggers.
When he reaches the intersection of the alley and the larger street, he pauses in the shadows. He looks leisurely up and down the street.
The bar is at the far end, to his left. The sign buzzes for a moment, then flickers and dies. Curses are heard from inside. A small child of indeterminate sex, face covered with tiny white marks, is shoved out onto the street. The door slams behind the child.
The muffled roar comes through the door and floats down the street to Eathan. "When you're done, you're back in. Not before."
The child looks up at the light, then at some sort of probe in its hand. ::Kieber-shit to you!:: The probe clatters down on the ground and lands with a dull thud in a pile of garbage. ::I'm not recharging the damned sign if I -::
The words are spoken, as well as thought, though the child does not mean to speak them.
A moment later, a beefy hand reaches out of the door and grabs the child by the hair. "WHAT?" ::Little bastard.::
The child quakes in fear.
"You're gonna recharge that sign. Now."
"No, I'm - uggh!"
"Now." The man points to the probe.
With reluctance, the child bends over and picks it up, and presses a button on it. A click echoes down the street.
The man points to the sign. He does not let go of the child, but holds it well away from himself.
"I -" the child begins, but soon the words are cut off in another strangled gasp. Reaching out with the probe, the child aims it at the light, presses another button, puts its head down. Another click.
Sparks fly out of the sign. The ones that do not fizzle out and die before they hit the ground bounce back up in all directions. Many hit the child in the face. The tiny whimpers of pain are immediately choked off by the man.
The smell of burning flesh is in the air.
This goes on for perhaps twenty minutes before the sign is again lit ::Damned kid,:: the man thinks as he drops the child to the ground.
There is a yelp of pain as the bare soles of the child's feet hit the spark-studded ground, then a smacking noise - the sickening sound of flesh hitting flesh - and a slamming door.
The 'snick' of a sliding latch is heard.
The child gets up and pounds on the door until there are small blood streaks on the wood. ::Third time this week...damned...not two dvoraks for this shit! 'Room and board included,' yeah right.:: A few tears trickle down the child's cheek. A hissing noise of pain is bit-back as they hit the burn-marks.
Then, suddenely, the street is again plunged into darkness.
::Fuck!::
The assassin cannot see the child, but he can feel the fear and anger that is twisting up the child's insides.
A low bass rumble: "Sign...!"
A few minutes go by.
The door creaks open. The music and warmth and food-smells flood into the street.
The man shuts the door and stands over the child.
"I can see you don't want that money again this week, you little - "
*click-click*
And the street is flooded with bits of light bouncing through the night like small demented fireflies.
Eathan stands nearly as transfixed as the man with the sparking sign-probe rammed through his chest.
It is nearly a minute before the man dies, but the sparks go on and on and on, hitting the man in the face, and reflecting in the child's eyes.
The assassin blinks, and runs over to the child. He presses the button. The sparks diminsh, then cease altogether. The child - Eathan, now, can see that it is a girl - stares at the man, at the probe. He takes her arm and shakes her. He does not bother sheathing his dagger.
"Ul?" he asks.
"No..." the girl's voice seems very far away.
"Good. Now get that and let's go."
She pulls the probe out of the man. Blood gushes on the ground and sizzles on the hot pavement.
"Where?"
"Who the hell knows? Away." He doesn't give her time to argue, but grabs her arm and pulls her after him, down the nearest dead-end that he knows is not a dead-end, but a passage for those who know how to use it.
//This Random better go somewhere safer than here,// he thinks as the chain-link fence appears to melt around them.
[continues in Look What the Kat Dragged In.]
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