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Valentine turned down an alley and found breath in his body to do one more sprint. He zigzagged around fetid mountains of refuse, scattering rats with his passage. His pursuer just managed to start down the alley as Valentine turned the corner at the other end. To the east down this street he saw an end to the buildings. I must be near the lakeshore... and the Zoo.
He pressed himself up against the corner and listened to his pursuer's heavy breathing and heavier footsteps as he trotted up the alley. The man slowed, sucking wind as he approached the alley's exit.
When he knew the man was about to come around the corner, Valentine lunged. He brought his knee up into the winded man's groin. Chain-Mail Gloves managed to avoid the blow, but Valentine's thick thigh still caught him in the stomach. The blow was just as debilitating: The Chicago air left Chain-Mail Gloves's lungs in a gasp, and he bent over in breathless agony. In no mood for a fair fight, Valentine grabbed his assailant by his hair and brought his knee up again. Cartilage gave way with a sickening crunch. The man went down, now out of what wasn't much of a fight to begin with.
The Wolf shuddered, still keyed up. He pulled the gloves from the unconscious man and added them to his sack of weapons, then trembled again. But for a different reason.
A Reaper. Coming, and already so near.
Valentine tried to clear his mind, make it as empty and transparent as a paneless window. He stepped back into the shadows of the alley, moving away from the Reaper. At the other end, he dug himself into a pile of trash, burrowing on his knees and elbows into the filth. He felt cockroaches crunch and crawl as he joined them at the bottom of the sodden refuse pile.
The alley grew colder.
up, you, up, Valentine heard a Reaper say, seemingly in his ear.
The Wolf almost leaped to his feet, ready to fight and die, when he realized the voice was at the end of the alley with the Duke's thug.
Center, center, I've got to center or..., David thought frantically.
you, foodling-where is the terrorist?
"Murfer... motherfucker jumped me," the man groaned, in the sharp honking tones of a man with a broken nose. "I dunno... speak clear, willya? Who? Ohmygod!"
awake now?
"Yessir... umm, I think he went... toward the lake? That's where he was running. Sorta."
you were supposed to follow him, not take him.
"The Duke said-"
the duke isn't here, or he would be taken... instead of you!
A motor at Valentine's end of the alley drowned out the Reaper's low hissing voice. He looked out from beneath his garbage and saw a gleaming red car stop. One of the punks who had dropped out of the footrace sat on the hood, directing it. Rats scattered again as the man jumped off and the passenger door opened.
Valentine heard screaming, the terrible gurgling sound of a man being fed on, from the other end of the alley. The cold spot on Valentine's mind marking the Reaper swelled and pulsed as it conducted the aura to its Master Vampire. All around the neighborhood Valentine heard doors slamming and windows closing.
From beneath a mass of flattened cardboard Valentine watched the Duke, in all his gauche splendor, blanch as he looked down the alley. The Duke gulped, and slunk into the alley toward the scene. His henchman trailed him for two steps, then thought better of it and returned to the car. The Duke rubbed the brass ring on his finger. Valentine wondered if he sought comfort in its touch, or perhaps imagined what having his finger pulled off would feel like. The Wolf read mortal fear in the Duke's eyes before he passed. He let his ears take over, afraid to shift his position. The Reaper had senses other than that which allowed it to read auras.
the good duke, the Reaper whispered, slowly and thickly. eight years with a brass ring courtesy of his aura-drunk lord, dealer of powder-white chemical joy. harborer of terrorists.
"How was I to know, sir?"
you are too ready to do business first and ask questions not at all. you have tap-danced close to the edge of the law too many times: others in the order are beginning to take notice, like this fiasco, my instructions were not clear?
"I just thought-"
you're kept alive to do, not think, the Reaper hissed.
"Well, why should that damn renegade get my money anyway, sir? He's up to no good; throw him in the clink and be done with him."
that "damn renegade" is something special, one of my clan sensed him coming into the train yard, we want to know, who he is going to meet, what they know, and what they plan, his kind do not just wander into town to look around, he's one of that breed our foe-kin use for their dirty work, clean up this mess and return to your club, we will take over the search.
"He said he was going to the Zoo."
a cover story, or perhaps...
"What shall I do with my man?"
