Chapter 2

“Jack. Take a breath. I’m not forcing you into anything. This is not an offer you can’t refuse.” Jack stirred lightly when he felt a hand on his shoulder, but otherwise kept his forehead on the counter “Think on it. Take a few days.”

“A few days? Yeah ... yeah I think I’ll do that.” He pushed himself from the counter and stood there for a moment. Julias was standing across from him, the counter between them, and was kinda smiling, and kinda frowning. His expression alien and unreadable, Jack only grew more nervous, and eventually turned around.

“And here I thought we were going to talk about random shit.” Jack walked to the door, put his hand on the handle, and took a glance back.

“Sorry,” Julias said, and the man gave an apologetic shrug.

“So, this change, this job ... anything illegal?”

“Illegal? Not ... really. Different world, my friend. Different rules.”

“ ... mafia. This sounds like mafia stuff. That’s why you have all these suits.” Jack’s words apparently caught the big guy off guard, cause Julias laughed and set his drink down.

“Cherry on top. Agree to join me, and I’ll hook you up with a bunch of suits.”

“Damn man. That...” Jack almost removed his hand from the door handle. “I’ll definitely have to think about that. Cya.”

It was a cold night. Jack couldn’t help but shiver a little when his feet hit the sidewalk. The sun had set hours ago, and the moon was clear in the sky. At least as can be clear in a dense city. Even at this hour, people were walking the streets. Business suits and classy dresses were common. Sharks and call girls no doubt, but at least it wasn’t as obvious or dirty as his neighborhood in the Alley.

“Even the prostitutes make me look like a low-class pleb,” he said. He couldn’t help but laugh at himself and adjust his tie. Presentation, presentation.

The bus station was a good twenty-minute walk, but the streets were crowded and the police didn’t exactly sleep. Jack didn’t worry, at least not about the people. The cold was starting to set in, and he could feel his toes starting to go numb. Business shoes were not good with cold.

“Excuse me.”

Jack almost jumped. The voice beside him was smooth, alluring, feminine and inviting, but extremely unanticipated.

“Shit! Sorry, uh ... yes?” He turned to face the mysterious woman, and struggled to keep his jaw from dropping. She was gorgeous. Long red hair, pale skin, sharp blue eyes, and dark lips. It was unfair how gorgeous she was. The coat she wore, black and long, hugged her figure nicely and highlighted her thin physique. She was standing in an alley between two of the buildings, and her eyes almost glowed in the darkness.

“Do you know Julias?” She spoke so smoothly, so softly, that Jack found himself taking a step toward her. What was so inviting about that voice? At eye level with him, her gaze was unrelenting, but intoxicating. It pulled him, and almost as if a hand was tugging at his neck, she took another step forward.

Her eyes were just like Julias’s.

“Uh ... yes...”

She grinned at him and licked at her lips in a not-so-subtle way, just like Julias would when flirting with a girl. With a raised hand, she beckoned the boy into the darkness. The cold was suddenly not a problem, and Jack stepped toward her yet again. The background shuffling of others grew quiet as he went deeper into the darkness toward the woman, and quieter yet again when his mind grew hazy.

“Did he ask for your help?” One of her fingers pressed to his chest, but it only magnetized him. Attached to her finger, Jack was deep into the darkness now. Any light that would normally line the walls in the alley were blown, yet the stranger’s eyes were still clear in the black, like how a cat’s eyes caught light.

“He ... did...” The words just came out. No resisting, nothing.

“Then you’re the one I’ve been looking for.”

He didn’t even see the knife.

“I wonder if he took me seriously.” Julias paced back and forth from his window, and only occasionally glanced out to look at the city lights. His eyes were fixed on his drink of red. His last attempt at maintaining at least somewhat normal eating habits.

He leaned forward and put his free hand against the window, but still his eyes stayed on his drink. The swirling pool of red was not transparent, and his gaze drowned in it.

“How am I going to do it? How could I explain ... I mean ... with Viktor it was ... Yeah, I don’t want that.” With a weary sigh, Julias walked back into his kitchen and put the glass on his counter. “I don’t want to hurt him, and now I just left this bombshell on him ... he doesn’t deserve that. I can’t give him half-truths. Fuck Viktor. None of that manipulative shit.” The whole conversation had been a horrible attempt to recreate Viktor’s proposal, and just like then, the proposal had been terrifying. Smart. Way to ruin everything, Julias.

He snatched the glass up and raised it with his sights set on the sink. With a strained hand and tight grip, he slowly, very slowly lowered the glass back down.

“Don’t smash the glass, control yourself,” he said between clenched teeth. After putting the glass down, he walked toward the door, all the while looking at his shaking hand. He flexed and released it while his skin grew more and more pale. “Blood stains are a bitch.”

“Where’s that kid gone?” Julias strolled down the street as fast as he could without drawing attention. It was a cold night, but he didn’t mind. While most everyone was in trench coats of some shape or another, Julias stuck with the suit. It was a nice suit; he felt good wearing it. He felt tall around these people. They were just sheep, after all.

“Yeah, I wonder ... how he’ll feel walking down this street after it’s done.” A woman walked by and took a moment to glance Julias up and down. She was attractive, with her blond hair tied into some fashionable shape against her skull’s crown. Julias managed a small nod and kept walking. “Never the same. He could shut himself up even more, or ... become cold and dead. I don’t want another Viktor. If this is going to work, he needs to want it. I can’t trick him into this.”

He kept walking. That was it then. He’d have to explain to Jack tonight what this was really about, instead of letting the man stew for days with all his half-truths.

“I wonder if he’ll hate me. I wonder if he’ll tell anyone. If he told anyone, and I had to clean up that mess, and kill him...” No, don’t think about it. Jack was a smart man, and a disturbingly tenacious little man at that. He could trust him. But shit happens, and if Jack did indeed try to spread the truth once the secrets were out, it would be on Julias’s head.

“Fuck, not just my head. This isn’t just a business deal. He’s your friend. He’s your—” His voice stopped, and he came to a dead halt in the street and looked around. Something wasn’t right. His insides clawed at his ribs and demanded aggression. Someone was inside the domain. Someone was on the hunt inside his domain.

He broke into a run. People in his way were quick to move, and those that didn’t were tossed aside. A few unlucky people found themselves more than knocked aside, and more than one crashed into nearby members of the street crowd with loud hollers of pain. He got faster, and bulldozed through a couple holding hands, each getting pushed to either side and landing against the sidewalk with bone crunching noises.

There was no way someone would have picked this night of all nights. Someone must have known, someone was watching him. Fuck, where’s a Mekhet when you need one. Jack couldn’t have gone far, he had only one possible route to walk, and he could glance down the alley of each as he ran by, but it was a long shot. Whoever was in his domain could have just taken Jack and run, or pulled him into the sewers, or worse.

Rage built inside him. Whoever it was, he was going to tear them apart. He was going to sink his fingers into their limbs and rip them out of their sockets. You do not just walk into someone’s domain without permission, and there was no way this was done by accident, especially not on this night.

Finally, he could smell his friend. Jackpot. He had only to glance down an alley to see the coat of a woman, and the falling body of a boy. Oh god, if he was too late.

“Get away from him!”

The woman pulled away with a jolt. She gave him a glance, only one, before she turned and ran. She was like liquid. Her motions were beyond fluid and her speed was beyond his grasp. Daeva bitch. It had to be. She must have drawn Jack in and ... and...

“Jack! Shit, Jack!” Julias got to his knees and looked down over his little friend. “Fucking hell Jack, can you hear me?”

The small man coughed up blood, curled up on his side, and splattered some of it onto the street. He was always tiny, but now he looked like a spec against the dirty asphalt. Just a kid with a buzzed head in a bad suit, bleeding everywhere.

“I ... I just got stabbed, didn’t I?” Blood was seeping out of where Jack kept his hands to his stomach. Julias fought to keep his eyes from staring at the growing pool. He would kill that Daeva with his bare fucking hands, with his teeth! No, not now, he had to focus.

“Move your hands, I have to see.” Julias wrapped his grip around his friend’s hands and pulled them away. Jack fought against him, groaned and moaned in pain, but Julias’s strength easily overpowered him. “Hold still! I have to see how bad it is.”

His hands gripped into Jack’s suit and shirt and lifted it. His desperation even ripped it, but then, it was a cheap suit. He’d really have to buy Jack a nice suit after this.

“Ok, I’m seeing ... ten holes. Fuck that Daeva bitch! Shit shit shit.” He let Jack curl back up into a ball as he stood up. Panic-filled eyes looked around from deep within the alley. It would take only a second to get Jack out into the street, and maybe ten minutes to get him into a hospital. What good would that do? He’d been stabbed ten times.

“I ... I’m not a doctor, but I think...” The little guy coughed up some blood between words. “I think ... I’m dead.”

“What the fuck Jack, how can you ... you’re dying!” Julias pulled Jack up to sit against the alley wall.

“I guess I’m just ... intellectualizing? I’m sure ... it’ll hit me ... later ... when I’m dead.” Being sat up brought a new fit of coughs, and Jack clutched at his stomach hard. Julias could see it wasn’t only from pain, the kid was actually just trying to keep his guts from spilling.

“Well stop intellectualizing! God damn it Jack, I ... shit this is my fault.”

“ ... wha—”

“That Deava cunt! She did this to you to get at me, to stop me. To ... hurt me.”

“Daeva, I don’t un—” Another coughing fit cut Jack off, and he stopped trying to talk. Instead, his draining eyes looked up to Julias. The little guy’s face was getting very white.

“Jack, I ... fuck it. Jack, I’m going to help you.”

“You ... look at me.” Jack pulled his hands away from his stomach, which let loose another pool of blood to spill over his fingers. “I’m dead Julias, just ... take me to the hospital, so ... mom can get me after.”

What the fuck was wrong with this kid? He was dying, he would be dead in minutes, the amount of blood pouring out of him was insane. And yet he was just accepting it. His last moments would be spent just happily giving in? No.

“No, fuck that, fuck that ‘quietly into the good night’ shit you stupid bastard.”

“But ... you can’t—”

Blood stains really are a bitch.

“Yes I can ... yes I fucking can.” Julias reached down and pulled Jack up into his arms. The tiny guy was weightless. He took him deeper into the alleyway, and then, jumped.

“Holy...” Little Jack tried to yell, even flail a little, but the small man was exhausted and shivering. Good. It made carrying him up the side of the building easier. Julias jumped the fire escape railing, and then onto the railing of another, and another still, until ten floors were scaled in a matter of seconds. He landed on the rooftop, where only darkness and moonlight waited.

“How did—”

“Do you trust me?”

“Julias, I—”

“Do you trust me?” Julias yelled this time as he sat down. He put Jack down between his legs with his back to his own stomach. He cradled the small guy in a hug, and rocked him back and forth. He was getting cold.

“ ... yes.”

“Then just relax. Just relax and take a breath.”

“I don’t...” His words trailed off when Julias sank his teeth into Jack’s neck.