go to the next part of Alley
"All Deliveries in Rear of Building"
read the sign in the alley.
I paused, wearily walking up the cracked concrete steps from the subterranean door. My gloved hands caressed the rusted iron support. I leaned on it heavily, felt it begin to give way. Pulling back quickly I smeared rust on my leather-half gloves, on my slick fingers.
No rest here. Better head on home.
And yet, I paused again. The heavy iron door swung open again and three rowdy youths tumbled out, muscled their way past me. I allowed myself to be shoved up against the sweating brickwork of the wall. A distorted techno-beat pounded its path out the open door accompanied by the scents of sweat, beer, and clove cigarettes.
More faintly, the sound of screaming; the scent of oiled leather and...blood.
The door slammed shut.
I could feel the vibrations through the wall, entering my back, settling in my wingscars. Filling in the void. My heart beat counterpoint to the heavy thumps.
Bounding past, the boys mumbled some obsceneties at me and moved on. I rested a few moments more in the stairwell, till their shouts and drunken laughter were absorbed by the drip and clank of the alley.
I pushed myself off the wall and stepped out of the stairwell. Into the darkness.
"All Deliveries in Rear of Building"
beckoned the sign in the alley.
Briefly I turned back to look at the featureless door. Thought of the girl I had just been with for the last hour. Wiped the blood off my lips with a trembling hand.
I licked it off the leather and felt the old familiar sorrow curl up in my stomach to stay.
Sorrow or impotent rage. Whichever. It was getting hard to tell the difference anymore.
She'd obviously been too young to be in the club. Long, dark schoolgirl hair ratted-out to look "wild" and "dangerous" and "sexy" (I imagined the perky ad copy in her latest issue of _Sassy_ or _Seventeen_ had read). Plain silver hoop earrings: a classic. Make-up applied with a steady and heavy hand by a knowledgeable girlfriend. Jeans carefully ripped, a snug bustier. Heels borrowed from an older sister's closet. They didn't fit, she confided to me, and sat down on the red velvet couch shoved against a concrete wall.
I smiled. Another lost one.
"Take 'em off," I told her, companionably. She did. We tucked our feet under our legs.
She had been drinking, she whispered to me, obviously pleased with herself. I handed her my glass, barely touched. We smiled at each other conspiratorially, for all the world like two mischevious girls at a slumber party, not a vampyre and a lost one in a dangerous little part of the city.
"Where are your friends?" I asked.
She gestured vaguely to another part of the club. She drank from my glass. She frowned.
"Abandoned you?"
She shrugged, swallowed more of my drink. I noticed the bruises on her arm. I gently touched her wrist.
With a toss of her wild/dangerous/sexy hair she told me it was just her stepfather trying to boss her around again.
"Fuck him!" she exclaimed, lips trembling.
I bought her another drink. Mine had grown warm.
And she poured out her story that was as old as Christ's agony and as fresh as the blood at each mass.
The faint screams and grunts from the darker parts of the club intruded on her story, but I don't think she noticed. The drifting scent of blood made me lick my lips but I don't think she noticed that, either.
I listened with all my heart and remembered a time when I might've watched over such a one as this. Such a lost one as this.
Now, of course, I take from the lost ones. I can't give comfort as I used to. And vengeance is hard to come by. Justice, even harder.
But sometimes I think I'd settle for vengeance.
We curled up closer on the velvet couch.
She spoke. I listened.
She drank. And I...drank.
The glass held loosely in her hands. Her head inclined to me, the long, dark hair spilling over my shoulder. I leaned in as if to whisper my own secrets in her ear but my lips moved lower and touched her neck. Just a few sips at first...her words trailed off. She sighed, drew closer to me. I drank more. Long, deep gulps, now. I tasted her sorrow. Her hopelessness. Her impotent rage. Her shallows and her depths.
And what did I offer in return?
Just a taste of sweet oblivion.
I left her there, tucked in the corner of the couch. Unconscious. I removed the near-empty glass from her hand. I smoothed her hair. Took one last look at her bruises and left.
Heading for the alley. Heading for home.
I couldn't help her. Couldn't even help myself.
I tasted her sweetness on my leather glove one last time (rust and blood and sweat). Inhaled the scent of her perfume and my leather. Felt the lingering vibrations in my back, in the soles of my heavy boots.
"All Deliveries in Rear of Building."
I walked into the alley.
A door further down opened and I stopped, thick-soled boots clumping to a sudden halt.
It was him. My tormentor. The storm-bringer. Life-stealer. Blood-drinker.
And he was still. Still. Altogether still.
I could sense his weakness. His pain. His...vulnerability.
The sorrow or impotent rage or whatever the hell it was in my stomach stretched and yawned.
I smiled like dull razor blades. A small knife appeared in my hand: a matching grin.
A voice spoke in my head: "Yea, be patient, and he shall be delivered unto thee...Into thy hands..."
I said:
copyright 1996 by Julieann M. Brown-Micko
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