Divine Savior (3 page)

She was a cute little thing, blondish red hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. She was clutching a ragged dolly, which had seen much better days, like it was her lifeline to something. He could sense that the child was ill, but not overly so, not anything a good dose of antibiotics wouldn’t cure, and probably a good meal or two. When the child stopped outside of the apartment door he had sensed was the woman’s, he saw red, his fangs dropping in response.

So, he thought. She had a child she was neglecting while she got high. He could just see it; see just what was happening on the other side of the door. He imagined the little girl huddled in the corner eating her bread crumbs, clutching the doll while good old mom shot herself up on the tattered dirty couch. The bitch probably ate her fill then tossed whatever was left to the little girl. No wonder she was ill; there was no one to care for her.

He knew that he was probably exaggerating the situation, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Colin had lost his true life for a mother and her children and it went against everything he was to see a child abused even now.

He left as soon as the little girl went inside the apartment. He didn’t think that the fates could be so cruel, to finally show him his mate and this is what he would end up with. Not that he was ready to admit to anyone she was his just yet. When he looked up from his brooding, he found himself in the seediest part of town, abandoned apartment complexes and warehouses. He was spoiling for a good fight and figured this was just the place to let off some steam. Besides, going back to the house only meant that he would have to be around Aaron and Sara, and he so was not going there.

Colin Larimore returned to his bed just as the sun was rising a few hours later. He had had a hellish night, and just wanted to sleep. If only he could get “that woman” out of his head and her little girl. He had smelled her all over the child, so he knew she was hers. Why a woman would use drugs like that when someone depended on her for her very life was beyond anything he could ever understand. Colin was now a vampire because he had taken a beating for a woman who had stolen a loaf of bread for her children. He had claimed that he had taken it and eaten it so that it could not be returned. The beating had cost him his life. As he lay dying, his life draining away from the hundreds of blows to his body, a vampire came to him offering him a different life, a better life.

And that was how Colin had met and been turned by Aaron. Aaron had been so impressed that the then human Colin had done something so honorable that he had saved Colin from a slow death and changed him. Aaron had been the enforcer for the then Master of the Realm, or parts of Paris, Vald deMorass, and Colin had joined the fight. They had become fast, tight friends, and had remained so since. When Aaron, a now fourteen-hundred-year-old vampire, had approached Colin about following him to this realm when Aaron became the master, Colin had made the move with him. They had been covering each other’s backsides for so long that it was just second nature for Colin to do so now.

~~~

Shade had been out all day job hunting. One place after another, “Sorry, we need a permanent address.” “No, sorry, you’ll need a phone to work here.” “No transportation, no job.” The list was endless. And the jobs that would look the other way were with people, men especially, who wanted to have sex with her rather than hire her. No, thank you.

Up until a couple of years ago, she’d had a job for about six years, helping out in a pizza shop making pizzas for five bucks an hour. The older couple was nice, and she could take home any pizzas that got screwed up. She had never messed one up, but it happened sometimes. More and more mistakes had been made toward the end of their being open. Once she thought about it, she realized that it happened almost nightly toward the end. She often thought that they knew she didn’t have a lot of food money and messed one up weekly for her to take home. The pizza was always an extra meat, extra large and it always seemed to happen at the end of her shift.

One of those bigger joints had moved into town and ran them out of business with their lower prices and cheaper ingredients. Then about three months ago, they, too, went out of business.

She had an apartment then, well, a single room really. There was hot running water when the pipes didn’t freeze up every winter. It also had a communal kitchen that she never used for fear of catching something from one of the other fifty people living there with her. Rats and bugs that lived there pretty much had a run of the place anyway and there was a single bathroom per floor. Yeah, it was a dive, but it had a good, sturdy lock on the door that she had put there and a window fire escape just in case someone got over zealous when they were high.

Shade was walking up the stairs of the warehouse when she felt a disturbance in the air, a heart beating frantically. It was faint, but a quick pace. She carefully pulled out one of the knives she had gotten at the Army/Navy store. No one was sneaking up on her without a fight. As soon as she had been able to afford it, she had bought several means of protecting herself.

Shade was always armed with at least two knives at any given time, and was really quite good with them. She practiced daily throwing it into the bull’s-eye she had set up in the warehouse, and seldom missed the red circle. Whether she was throwing underhanded, over handed, it didn’t matter, she was always dead on. A girl living on her own just couldn’t be too careful in this neighborhood. She had also set up an obstacle course that ran through two of the other warehouses that were close to the one she lived in. She ran the course every day, rain or shine. It kept her in top shape and it also helped her relieve the stress of being homeless. She had also set up a few bolt holes just in case situations like this one arose.

Creeping along the largest open area on the second floor where she lived, she could feel she was getting closer to whatever or whoever it was. Shade carefully opened her mind to the being closest to her and breathed a deep sigh of relief. The dog was back, the stupid mutt. He only came into the buildings when it was cold, or someone had frightened him, which was his own shadow most of the time, if she were truthful. So she started toward him with a smile and her hand out to pet him. When she felt the other presence, it was too late to react. The last thing she saw before she fell to the floor was an ugly man with nasty teeth and his large fist coming at her at an alarming rate.
Well, fuck
was her last thought as she went down for the count.

Shade lay very still when she woke up. She didn’t want whoever was around to know that she was awake just yet. Her head pounded like a sledge hammer had hit her, and it might have been for all she knew. Again, Shade gently reached out and beyond the tiny room she was in. She realized she hadn’t felt the other man until it was too late because it was extremely difficult when someone’s mind, like his, was too everything. He had felt fear, rage, anger, hunger, and happiness at such intense degrees, running so quickly through his mind, that she could not track him.

She realized that she was still in her building, and that for the most part, she was alone on this floor. The dog was nearby, but he wouldn’t come any closer to her than he had to. As easily as she could, she moved to a sitting position to take inventory of her injuries, and nearly threw up, the pain shooting from her cheek to her head, making her sick.

After several minutes of breathing through her mouth, trying to steady her head, she was able to get to standing position. Dizziness swept through her and, again, she had to breathe deep or pass out. Searching her body, she noticed her weapons were gone, damn it. She hoped, suddenly, that if she met the guy who had hit her, she was not going to be killed by her own knife. That would
so
suck!

It was full night now, Shade noticed, so she must have been lying there for a couple of hours. That explained why she was so stiff. She was cold too, she realized with a shudder. Keeping close tabs on the surrounding area mentally, she went in search of her attacker and her knives. Shade would like to try and avoid whoever hit her, thank you very much. She would have to find another building to live in now; this one was too dangerous to stay in any longer. The man knew where she was and that she was a female. She was not worried so much about him, but that he may say something to the wrong person, and that person would come find her.

The Hitter had made himself right at home in the area where she found her knives, if his things there, too, were any indication. It looked as if he was planning to stay awhile. He had put up some of his things, a couple of cans of food and an opener, and there was a pair of mismatched gloves. There was an assortment of other things, too, things she was sure only meant something to him.

Shade knew that he had not meant to hurt her really. He was just cold and he was probably just as frightened as she had been when she had walked in on him. Him coming inside like he had hopefully meant that he had enough sense to stay warm, for which Shade was thankful for. He had tried to hide himself away, but she had an advantage over most people in that she could feel where his body heat had been, his signature as it were. Plus, he smelled really bad. It had been a very long time since he had had a proper bath or any other kind of clean up, she realized.

Shade didn’t disturb anything of his things. She just gathered what she wanted of hers and left. After she had stuffed her little bit of home into some bags, she looked around where she had spent the last couple of years. She was moving on, taking nothing that he had touched. This was not really saying much; she made the entire move in one trip and carried all her belongings in a plastic grocery bag. A few clothes were all she really had.

Shade moved into her new address later that night, finding a building she could live in. She had scouted this building out before, but found that it was a little too close to the city proper for her tastes. Maybe it would not be so bad now that it was getting colder again, she thought. It did put her a good three miles closer to the kids, which was also good. Shade imaged that the brick structure might hold too much of the heat in the summer months, but the hot days of Ohio weather was still months away.

This site, while smaller than the building she had just vacated, was a little more modern and had running water, which was a surprise. It must have been on the city water system at one time, she thought. There still was no electricity, but she would gladly trade that for not having to go to the little river she had found to take a bath every day. Now with the cooler weather, it was an eye opening experience now that the water temperature had dropped to fifty degrees.

The floors were hardwood planks. While scared and dusty, she could sweep them up in no time. The walls were covered in aged plaster. One whole wall was floor to ceiling windows that opened out with a crank. Amazingly, all the glass was still unbroken. Several of the rooms on the upper floors still had their doors, so that was where she settled. She would use those smaller rooms, probably used as an office at one time, as her bedroom. Scouting around, she found a serviceable desk that she could use as a table and several crates to hide her things in. She had learned not to clean too much on the outter part of the areas and to make sure she kept her footprints to a minimum. If too much was done to an area, transients would come looking for things to steal.

When she was younger, she used to dream about living in a real house, one with running water and heat when she wanted it, but after so long, she had all but given up. Lately, she would settle for three square meals a day and a steady job. Her needs had certainly lowered over the years, she thought with a grimace. Or maybe, she just had gotten a little more realistic. Grim, but true.

Shade had left her blankets for the man at the other place, figuring he might need them more than her. Plus, she was not sure she could stand to touch them after he had. She kept seeing his nasty teeth just before he hit her and then there was his body odor as well. She gently reached up with her free hand and touched her jaw where he had struck her. It was not broken, but it could have been and then re-healed before she had gotten up. The marks from her fall and his fist would be there for the normal amount of time, just like a normal person, healing slowly and fading over time.

It seemed like the more severe the injury, the faster it healed. Which, when she thought about it, made sense. She would heal until she was no longer in a life threatening situation.

Shade had once fallen badly going down a flight of stairs. The step had broken from her weight and she’d tumbled down the ten or so stairs, hitting her head several times against the wall and stairs before coming to an abrupt halt. When she regained conciseness later, she realized that she had punctured her arm high on her bicep. The wound had bled a great deal if the pool under her had been any indication. Within ten minutes after she had woken up, the wound was completely sealed and all that was left was the bruising that accompanied most traumas. She became more careful in the future; the experience had been a real eye-opener.

~CHAPTER THREE~

It was well after ten o’clock two nights later while she was still looking for supplies to furnish her new home when she came upon Brent and Becca out walking around downtown without coats. Becca had on her shoes, but Brent was in a pair of slippers and a single glove.

Brent was holding Becca’s hand and practically dragging her behind him. He was zigzagging back and forth across the busy streets. Seemingly unaware of the cars honking at them and swerving to miss them, he continued on a path that only he seemed to know. Shade moved out to them mentally and found that Brent was hurt and hurt badly. Someone had raped him. Brent’s own mother sold him for her medication, as she called her drugs. She could get a fix. This was not the first time his mother had done this, Shade was sure. It made it no less horrific for the young boy, even after all this time. Her mental touch also showed that he was bleeding and in shock. Shade approached them slowly and cautiously for she did not want to have him run the two of them into the oncoming traffic again.