Equinox

Equinox PART TWO Chapter 10. Lost

PART TWO

10. Lost

The man who passes below me in the street looks a likely candidate.  He is too well dressed for this part of town, should not be here, and his demeanour tells me he knows it.  His smart, woollen jacket is buttoned all the way to his neck, a cashmere scarf concealing much of his face.  He is careful, looking around himself frequently, always aware of what is happening around him.  But he is not aware of me.  They never are.  This place is a depository for the homeless and lost; a cesspit of drugs, prostitution and depravity.  A man like him is not here for the drugs; of this I can be certain.  But he also ignores the women on the corners and in the shuttered shop doorways, ignores their taunts and cat-calls.  What does he want? 

Silently, I drop from my perch over the doorway of the off-licence, and begin to follow, a small black shape barely darker than the shadows to which I cling.  He crosses the street, and after several beats, I follow.  As I mount the opposite kerb, one of the whores spots me and steps forward to block my path.

“Where ya goin’, missy?” she slurs, her breath reeking of cheap liquor and rough, bootleg cigarettes.  I glare up at her.  Her own eyes widen as she notes the crimson in mine.  Some instinct cuts through her befuddled mind to warn her to back off, and she steps away quickly.

I glance at the man, but he has not noticed our exchange, is still walking.  I move back into shadow as he pauses at the entrance to an alleyway and looks around quickly before he enters – he does not want to be observed.  I allow him a count of five, then follow once more.

We are not alone in the alley.  Concealed in a doorway, the entrance to a closed-down night club, is a boy, of African origin and surely no more than thirteen or fourteen.  He steps out as the man approaches, and I quickly, noiselessly, disappear into the shade of a fire escape ladder some fifty yards away across and down the alley from them.

“You Mickey?” the man asks.  The boy nods once.  Money changes hands, and a package is pressed into my mark’s arms.  The boy flicks through the notes as his customer turns away.

“Hey!” he calls in alarm.  “This isn’t the amount we agreed!” 

The man turns back and, without a word, punches the child viciously in the guts.  As he strides away, the boy falls to his knees in the doorway, retching and sobbing.  I’m horrified – monster though I am, I will not stand to see a child treated in this way.  And I know the man is not going to be allowed to live for this.  I am not merely going to feed; I am going to take pleasure in making him suffer before I extinguish the light from his eyes.

As the man passes me, I catch the scent from his package – metal, grease and cordite.  A gun!  Who is making a child peddle weapons?  I’m curious, but I need to deal with one thing at a time.  With one last, pitying glance at the child in the doorway, I follow the man back down the alley as he retraces his steps.  He passes the point I first saw him, then a couple of blocks later, enters a parking lot.  He presses a key and the lights on a Mercedes blink.

I streak forward, too fast for human eyes to perceive, and open the rear passenger door to slip in at the same time as he opens his.  Before he can react, I reach over the back of his seat and haul him easily into the rear with me.  His eyes are wide, his mouth an ‘O’ of terror as he gazes up at me.

“This is for the child you just assaulted,” I tell him.  I crush his windpipe to prevent his screams.  This means he has three, four minutes at the most before he expires, but I intend to make sure they are the longest, most painful four minutes of his life.

Back at the alley, the boy has disappeared.  I pick up his scent, but confusingly, his trail hasn’t gone anywhere.  It is particularly concentrated around the night club doorway, though, and I surmise he must have gone inside.