Still unsure why he was bothering, Geoffrey tugged on the door handle only to find that it hardly shifted. It surprised him that the doors were locked. The priest had been present later than this both of the other times that they'd spoken.
The tiny sign to the right of the door still declared that the church would be open for another hour, but Geoffrey's knocks on the battered wood failed to bring the sound of footsteps he'd been hoping for.
After a few minutes of waiting, Geoffrey realized that some of the people lounging in the fire escapes and doorways across the street were starting to watch him. Suddenly feeling as though his guilt was emblazoned on his forehead, the vampire turned and strode up the street at a faster pace than he normally used.
Geoffrey walked for another half hour and then realized he was in the area where Imastious' target lived. It would be a small matter to find another place from which to observe him, but Geoffrey didn't know if that was a good idea or a terrible one. Would knowing the target better than he already did make things easier or harder?
Geoffrey's heart rate went up as he tried to make the decision, but as he turned onto a side street the decision was made for him. His target was standing on the corner.
A host of possible actions went through Geoffrey's mind, paralyzing him as he once again felt that everyone looking at him knew what he was considering. Someone across the street exited a small store and the spell was broken. The gentle click as the door swung closed freed Geoffrey to walk over and enter the store.
From inside the store Geoffrey would be able to watch his target, and as long as it looked like he was shopping, nobody should suspect anything.
Slowly picking up a variety of fruit, Geoffrey pretended to be squeezing the individual pieces to test for ripeness, all the while watching his target through the window.
Before Geoffrey had picked up and discarded his fourth honeydew, a busty sixteen-year-old Armenian girl walked over to the target and handed him several bills. Geoffrey couldn't see what the girl received in return, but the expert way that the hand-off was performed left very little doubt in his mind. He'd just witnessed his first drug sale.
The drug dealer slapped the girl's butt as she turned to leave, and then ducked a slap, laughing as she stalked off.
For a moment, the vampire's rational side tried to assert itself, tried to stop his mind from replaying the assault again and again, but the scene refused to leave. By the third replay, the Armenian girl had been replaced by the girl from his dreams. The fourth replay featured the girl Geoffrey had saved, and a cold fury awoke inside the vampire with an intensity that would have scared him had he been entirely in control of himself.
The mounting pressure inside Geoffrey's head suddenly found a release as his thoughts pushed free of the physical shell where they normally resided and reached out towards the drug dealer.
As the first tendrils made contact, they seemed to stab into the other man's thoughts of their own accord. The torrent of fragmented, brittle memories and thoughts that raged down the connection and assailed Geoffrey's mind were incredibly vile.
Teenagers he'd given their first dose for free, living in a burnt-out shell of a building. Girls he'd taken everything from until they had only their bodies to offer in trade. Rivals gunned down from the shadows. It was all that the vampire could do to maintain his sense of self against the depravity that tried to wash away his identity. It took an incredible act of will, but he was somehow able to stay level-headed enough to force a simple thought back through the link.
Home, the man needed to go home.
The anger flooding through Geoffrey was only barely leashed. The metal table holding the fruit he'd just dropped groaned in distress, and he absentmindedly let go, releasing it before the sheet metal bent completely away from the frame.
Geoffrey's target flinched slightly as the vampire cut the connection. It was a piece of evidence that his efforts might have worked, but the information barely registered against his fight to steady his trembling legs. The fight to keep the fury raging through him from taking complete control took everything he had.
A few seconds later, the target exchanged words with a couple of the other dealers and then turned and headed into his apartment building.
Geoffrey took a deep breath and then walked out of the store, his anger pushing him to follow as soon as the drug dealer disappeared around the corner of the building.
Entering the building, with a casualness that felt forced, Geoffrey quickly found the stairs and headed up them trying to remember which floor he'd been on when he'd observed his target from the fire escape. He was pretty sure it was the fifth floor, but now wasn't the time to be wrong.
Once the vampire hit the fourth floor he slowed down and stopped taking the stairs three at a time. The doubts which had plagued him were gone now. This man needed to die. Geoffrey would be serving justice--no more, no less.
Geoffrey reached the fifth floor and turned towards the footsteps approaching from the left. He'd do it nice and easy, just like Venice had taught him. A quick strike to the neck and it would all be over.
The vampire slipped the retaining strap off of his katana but held it with his left hand to ensure that it didn't fall to the floor. It sounded like the man had reached his door. He was just around the corner now.
Keys jingled just ahead, and then Geoffrey turned the corner to see his target opening the door. Before Geoffrey could take another step the drug dealer reached into his jacket and then Geoffrey was looking down the barrel of a handgun from just ten feet away. "Besides being stupid, what are you, cracker? Some kind of Goth detective? People don't come here unless they live here, want drugs, or belong to Five-O."
Geoffrey's mind was blank. The reflexes that took over when he'd saved the girl were shockingly absent. He teetered on the verge of hysteria as his rage evaporated, giving way to terror. He was going to die. How stupid could he have been?
Unsatisfied by Geoffrey's lack of response, the drug dealer walked a couple steps closer and yelled. "Answer me before I bust you, mother effer."
Geoffrey tried to answer. It was as if time had slowed down, but his oxygen needs hadn't altered. He couldn't get enough air, couldn't get the words out. Despite that, he felt himself come to a decision. If he was going to die, he would die fighting rather than just waiting to be executed.
Still seeming to move at half speed, the vampire drew his sword with his left hand and dropped to his knees as the katana slowly arced up towards the hand holding the nine-millimeter semiautomatic. A pressure wave tugged at Geoffrey's hair, and then his right hand joined his left on the long hilt of his sword. The lethal length of steel jerked slightly in his hands as it swept through the dealer's arm.
As the Glock fell to the ground, time seemed to speed back up to normal. Reflexes that went far beyond anything Venice had yet shown him took over and Geoffrey leaned forward, sweeping his weapon back around in a lightning strike to the man's neck.
Looking at the pieces that had seconds before been a living person, the vampire started shaking as the cushion of fear no longer shielded him from what he'd done. This hadn't been self-defense. Geoffrey had deliberately set out to kill this man. He was just as much of a murderer as his target had been.
The realization that his ear hurt, that the fluids trickling down his neck had to be blood, nearly drove Geoffrey over the edge to panic. An inch to the side and that bullet would have blown out the back of his head. What had he done? What had he gotten himself into?
With a mental effort that he hadn't believed himself capable of, Geoffrey pulled himself together. He had to get out of the building. People would have heard the gunshot; they would have already called the police.
Geoffrey looked around and then spying the open door to the drug dealer's apartment, quickly slipped inside, pushing the door shut with his foot as he went past.
Chapter 8
With darkness already closing in, fleeing the scene of the crime had been relatively easy. The f
ire escape had allowed Geoffrey to access the roof. From there it was just a matter of running from rooftop to rooftop until he reached the end of the block and climbed down another fire escape to the street.
Once the vampire had made it far enough that he wasn't in immediate danger of being apprehended by the police, he'd stumbled over to an alley and vomited. Shaking and weak, Geoffrey hadn't wanted to do anything more than head directly home, but instead he'd found a nearly deserted apartment building in which to hide for a couple hours while any search for him cooled down. After that, the route home had been long, circuitous, and filled with frequent stops to check for tails.
Geoffrey couldn't afford to have someone follow him home. If that happened he'd never even see them coming. Being gunned down in an ambush would be no more than he deserved but he was more concerned over the fact that he didn't feel more guilt. He did feel guilty, but it seemed like he should feel even worse. Maybe it was just that emotion on the scale that murder really deserved couldn't be maintained for very long.
Geoffrey breathed a sigh of relief as he finally entered his building and started up the stairs. He reached his door and unlocked it, but paused as he realized he wasn't alone. The vampire reached past his exhaustion, and clumsily tried to extend his thoughts as he'd done earlier against the man he'd murdered.
For several seconds, as he waited in the darkness, Geoffrey's efforts met without any success, and then suddenly, it was as if he'd pierced the surface tension on a bowl of water. A few tendrils of consciousness drifted free of his body, questing for another mind.
Geoffrey grabbed his head in pain and fell through the now-open door as something incredibly powerful lashed out, striking his thoughts hard enough to cause him to withdraw them.
"You've earned yourself some leniency by finally making that kill, but don't presume that it extends to allowing you to try and access my mind."
Imastious rose from the shadows that had hidden him in Geoffrey's chair, and walked towards the younger vampire, who'd fallen to the ground. The violence of the mental attack to which he'd been subjected left Geoffrey more than a little disoriented. As he looked up in confusion, Imastious shook his head.
"So your efforts were unconscious. That is unfortunate, as my response will no doubt lead you to discover your latent abilities sooner than you otherwise would have, but it's truly of little importance."
Imastious reached into one of the pockets on his suit coat and fished out a large stack of currency. "As I said, you've done well. You're free to do as you will for the foreseeable future. Here is sufficient money for your needs. Venice or I will let you know the next time you're needed."
After Imastious had left the apartment, Geoffrey locked his door and then collapsed onto his bed, steadfastly refusing to look at the stack of money on the dresser.
**
Geoffrey's dreams over the next few days and nights had been terrible blood-soaked things that left him shaking and cold each of the many times he'd awoken. The vampire had found that he could no longer keep a meal down. Each time he tried to eat, images of the drug dealer falling down in a spray of blood had invaded his mind, causing him to become physically ill at the way his body responded to the thought. It was bad enough that he was a killer, but craving blood like this surely was a foretaste of the hell that the priest had warned would await him.
The hunger was a curse, starting as a slight inconvenience about the time Imastious had left and then growing to a constant torment within a few days. In a way, Geoffrey welcomed the pain and discomfort. It did seem a fitting punishment, but it held within it the further seeds of his damnation. If he continued to go without, he would eventually lose control just as Venice had warned. Any doubt he might have had of that fact had been pre-empted by what had happened in the train tunnels. He'd already started losing track of time, so it couldn't be that much longer before he would find himself in unfamiliar surroundings, covered in blood.
Geoffrey finally pulled himself out of bed, showered, and left his apartment. After so many hours of torment, he'd thought he was resigned to the prospect of assaulting, and potentially killing, so that he could feed, but the vampire quickly found that the cold-blooded reality of stalking a target was more than he could handle.
He encountered four different girls. Each of them had seemed more than willing to go somewhere secluded with him, but he couldn't bring himself to go through with it. Once he'd spent a little while talking to them they'd become people to him. People with goals and fears. People with dreams, dreams that he couldn't risk extinguishing. There was just too much chance that the hunger would take over and push him into taking too much.
Instead of satisfying his craving, Geoffrey found himself once again walking the nearly deserted streets of the city as he looked for some kind of way out of the eternal hell in which he was trapped.
Realizing that he wasn't getting any closer to a solution, Geoffrey made a decision that he knew he'd eventually regret. The vampire looked up at the street signs to orient himself and then set off in the direction of the tiny church that had come to represent all the things he wished he was, at the same time that it condemned him for what he'd become.
Geoffrey already knew what the priest would tell him, but in a way he was looking forward to it. He deserved to suffer, and if nothing else, this would serve as one more way to achieve that end.
As he covered the three miles to the church, Geoffrey practiced reaching out with his mind. It might have been nothing more than his imagination, but he thought it was becoming easier to sense the thoughts of those around him. If he kept the mental touch light enough, then he didn't get bombarded with so much force. The surface thoughts he was able to read seemed like they would usually be more than enough for his purposes.
The vampire hadn't ever thought of the neighborhood he was approaching as being particularly bad, but the closer he got to it, the more the thoughts he sensed turned dark and fearful. It seemed impossible that people could really live like this, constantly worried about whether or not they'd survive to pay the next set of bills.
As Geoffrey got within a block of the church, he expected to find people more at peace, but instead he found the opposite. Something was obviously wrong. The tranquility that he'd felt before couldn't have been completely imagined, but that had changed. If anything, it seemed he was approaching the epicenter of the despair in the area.
The tiny building came into view, sandwiched between a pair of five-story apartment buildings, and Geoffrey's fears were confirmed by the sight of a pair of teenagers lounging next to the door. A cautious, sensible part of Geoffrey demanded that he turn and go back the way he came, but a strange sense of fury had started to bubble inside of him. How dare they take something sacred from him! It seemed only right to take something equally precious from them in return.
The bored gang members looked up disinterestedly as Geoffrey approached them, but they started exuding a sense of menace once they realized that he wasn't just going to pass by.
"Ain't gonna be no services tonight. Get lost."
Faking an easy, complacent smile to buy himself time, Geoffrey reached out with his thoughts. The amorality the vampire found before him was so sickening that if he hadn't been cushioned by his hatred, he probably would have once again been physically ill. These boys had killed, repeatedly. They'd killed for sport, for money, and even just to increase their reputation.
While he was digesting the implications of the gang members' thoughts, Geoffrey crossed the remaining distance to the church door. The closer, shorter gang member apparently decided that the vampire needed additional persuasion.
The hand that shot towards Geoffrey was probably just meant to grab him, but conscious thought never entered into his response. Geoffrey saw a flash of movement, and then found himself sliding backwards and to the left as his right hand reached up and plucked the shorter man's wrist out of the air.
About the time the vampire registered the fact that he had moved, his left ha
nd came up in a knife-hand strike that crushed the other man's throat.
The second gang member's mouth had dropped open in surprise at the sudden explosion of violence that hadn't been accompanied by any of the posturing that he'd come to expect from his time on the streets. The teenager was still trying to understand what exactly was going on when a slightly curved, razor-sharp tanto that Geoffrey hadn't remembered drawing sliced through his neck.
Time was of the essence. Geoffrey needed to move quickly or the cops would arrive before he would be able to escape.
Geoffrey slipped through the door, and drew his katana, his thoughts reaching out for threats. The stink of sadism was strong throughout the building, seeming to justify the vampire's actions as he cut down one person after another all the while screaming. "Where is he, what did you do with him?"
Figures, all dressed in brown to some extent or another, charged towards Geoffrey, only to stumble and fall as the soulless edge of his sword took their flesh. The anger and hate burning inside Geoffrey shielded him from the illness he should have felt. The entire experience happened in a haze that obscured irrelevant details and reduced everyone to mere targets while simultaneously shielding him from the pain of the minor wounds he was receiving.
The vampire cleared the chapel and then moved to the tiny office and other attached rooms. The last gang member took refuge in a bathroom in a futile effort to hide, but Geoffrey pinpointed his thoughts, burst into the tiny room, and picked the teenager up by his throat.
"Where is he, what did you do to him?"
The eyes that stared back at Geoffrey were so fear-filled that for a moment the vampire thought the boy had retreated behind a shield of insanity. It didn't really matter though. He would take what he needed regardless.
Reaching deep into the gang member's mind, Geoffrey sifted through the chaotic thoughts, slicing through memories, hopes, and fears, until he found what he was looking for. The gang hadn't killed the priest, at least not as far as this kid knew. They'd just realized that the church was abandoned and thought that they probably had their turf so cowed that nobody would do anything about it if they moved in.