Ryan had been on the street for several weeks when he met Cloudy. There were a handful of people living in Deadtown who left scraps and old clothes on the doorsteps for him. Even though these offerings were clearly intended for him, he'd become so cautious he would wait until no one was around before darting from his cover and collecting them. Then one day, as he was hungrily wolfing down the half-eaten chicken salad sandwich left for him, the door opened and a pair of masculine hands grabbed him and dragged him inside.
Ryan's first instinct was to try to escape, and he began to kick and scream, biting the hands until they let him go. Ryan scampered across the room and tried to make himself as small as possible, wedging himself under a table. He glowered at the white-bearded man in the tie-dyed shirt who was standing between him and the door. Ryan had seen enough TV to realize that the old man was supposed to be a hippie.
"Damn it, kid! I'm just trying to help you, that's all! There's no call for you biting me like that!" he snapped, sucking the blood from his wound.
The bearded man didn't look very threatening, but then Ryan had learned through painful experience
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) that things in Deadtown were often deceiving. The anger in the hippie's face drained away after he got a good look at Ryan.
"Jesus, kid! I've seen fatter alley cats than you! Look, I'm sorry if I scared you—it's just that I didn't want you to run off, dig? I've been seeing you from a distance for some time now, and it's been botherin' me that a li'l dude like yourself is on his ownsome. Where's your mama, kiddo?"
"The monsters took her."
"Monsters—? Which monsters?"
"The Pointy ones."
The bearded man made a face. "Your old lady's Esher's squeeze?"
"My mommy's not old!"
"I know she's not, kid. It's just a turn of phrase—never mind."
There was something about the bearded man that Ryan liked. Maybe it was because he looked like Tim the Bouncer, who worked at one of the clubs where his mom danced. Tim the Bouncer had a beard, but it wasn't white, and he wore tie-dye, too. He also wore a leather jacket and rode a motorcycle. His mom had told Ryan that Tim the Bouncer was an angel, although Ryan had never seen any wings or a halo on him.
Maybe this man was an angel, too.
No longer afraid of being attacked, Ryan looked around his surroundings for the first time and saw that the whole room was full of books. He slowly crept out from under the table, his head swiveling in every direction.
"Are these all your books, mister?"
"Sure are. Do you like books, kid?"
Ryan nodded vigorously. His eyes widened as he spotted a familiar dustjacket. He picked up a copy of Make Way For Ducklings, holding it as if it were an ancient treasure. The gleam in his eyes was that of someone who has seen an old friend.
"I used to have this book! My mommy would read it to me before I went to bed!"
"Would you like to read that book, son?"
"I—I can't read yet."
The bearded man smiled and motioned for Ryan to bring him the book. "That's okay. I'll read it to you, if you like."
Ryan looked at the hippie, then down at the book, then back again. "My name's Ryan."
"Hi, Ryan. My friends call me Cloudy."
Ryan giggled. It was the first time he'd done that in a long while. It felt good. "That's a funny name."
Cloudy laughed. It sounded like he hadn't done it in a long time, too. "Isn't it, though?"
From that moment on, Cloudy was Ryan's friend. He loved and trusted the old hippie more than anyone in the world—except his mom. And if Cloudy said the strange lady was okay—then she was okay.
Even if she was a monster.
Ryan put aside the picture book he'd been pretending to look at and walked over to stare down at the strange lady. She was lying on the floor, on top of an old Army blanket. Cloudy had pushed aside some of his books to make room for her. She was still wearing her street clothes—she hadn't even bothered to remove her boots or jacket. Her arms were folded across her chest, hands resting atop her jacket. She didn't seem to be breathing. Ryan couldn't tell if her eyes were open or shut because they were covered by sunglasses. Ryan leaned closer and stared at his twinned reflection in the mirrored lenses. He'd gained some weight since hooking up with Cloudy, but he still looked thin. It made him look a lot older than five.
He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, giggling as his mirror image did the same.
"Good morning to you, too."
Ryan yelped and scuttled backward as the stranger unfolded her arms and sat up. She swiveled her head to follow his movements, her gaze still shielded by the sunglasses.
"I wasn't making fun of you! Honest!"
"I believe you, Ryan. You needn't be afraid of me." She stood up and stretched, her leather jacket creaking. "Where's Cloudy?"
"Out doin' stuff. He'll be back soon. It'll be dark in an hour." He paused for a moment, eyeing her speculatively. "Are you really a monster?"
The stranger nodded as she patted down her pockets. She didn't seem to take offense at the question.
"You could say that."
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"What kind of monster?"
The stranger grinned at the boy, revealing pearly white fangs. "I guess you could say I'm the monsters'
monster."
"Cool!"
***
Ryan squinted for a moment, then pointed at a youth whose shaved head was covered with a web-shaped tattoo. "He's one." He paused for a long moment, then motioned toward a thick-set black man with tangled dreadlocks and a wicked-looking machete hanging from his belt. "He's usually there, too. I think they're friends."
They were watching the safe house in which Esher kept Nikola imprisoned when she wasn't dancing at the club or keeping him company. Although they were less than thirty feet away, the handful of Pointers hanging outside the entrance did not notice them because they were standing in the storm drain across the street. Ryan was perched atop a plastic milk crate so he could see over the drain's concrete lip.
"Do you watch from here every night?"
"Mostly. Unless it's rainin'—then I can't. That's how come I can get away from the Pointers so easy—I slip down the old drains and hide from them."
"Aren't you scared of the rats?"
Ryan shrugged. "At first I was scared—they'd hiss at me and stuff, but I learned that if I carried a stick or threw stuff at them, they left me alone. Cloudy says they're more scared of me than I am of them, anyway. Besides, they're just animals."
"You're a brave kid, Ryan. Braver than most men." The stranger smiled and patted the child's head.
Ryan went completely rigid. At first she thought it was because she'd touched him; then she glanced up and saw the door to the safe house opening. The vampiress from the night before—the one armed with the crossbow—stepped out and motioned to the black man with the machete, who briskly clapped his hands.
The Pointers gathered on the stoop snapped to attention. One of them produced a cellular phone, and a second later the black '57 Cadillac pulled up to the curb.
"That's Decima," Ryan whispered, pointing to the vampiress. "I hate her. She's mean." There was a vehemence to the boy's voice that was far older than his years.
Decima turned to the door of the safe house and gestured with an impatient wave of her crossbow.
Nikola stepped through the door and stood under the entrance light, blinking as if confused. She was dressed in a white velvet sheath that clung to her like a second skin and exposed plenty of thigh and cleavage. One of the Pointers at the foot of the stoop broke into an unabashed leer. The machete-wielder saw the banger was looking at Nikola and came barreling down the steps toward him.
The Pointer's leer disappeared, to be replaced by a look of genuine fear. He took a couple of steps backward, raising his hands as if to shield himself from a blow. "I didn't mean nothing by it, Obeah! I swear t'God I didn't—!"
"There's no point in swearin' to your god to me, fool!" Obeah thundered. "This is Deadtown—only devils hear your prayers here!" With that he brought down his machete with one powerful stroke. The Pointer screamed as blood geysered from the stump where, moments earlier, his right hand had been. His companions swore and jumped back, but did not offer to come to his aid as he collapsed onto the sidewalk, clutching his wrist.
"You dissed Lord Esher with your thoughts, if not your words!" Obeah intoned. "Such insolence is not tolerated!"
Obeah struck quick as lightning. The Pointer cried out as the machete sliced down toward his face, severing his nose as cleanly as a surgeon's scalpel.
The stranger was more impressed than shocked. "So Esher has a Tonton Macoute guarding his intended.
Interesting." She suddenly remembered Ryan and glanced down at the boy. He was watching the Haitian take apart the Pointer with an eerie calm. When she looked up again, the errant Pointer was lying on the sidewalk in a widening pool of blood and Obeah was carefully cleaning his machete blade.
Decima grabbed Nikola by her upper arm, hurried her down the stairs, and pushed her into the back of the waiting car. Obeah climbed in after her, while the tattooed skinhead got into the front passenger seat.
The moment the car doors slammed, Ryan hopped down off the milk crate and gathered it in his arms.
"C'mon—we've got to follow her!" He wiggled down the concrete throat of the drain, pushing the milk
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) crate ahead of him until he came to the open mouth that fed into the main sewer. He then carefully lowered the crate onto the narrow walk that flanked either side of the sluiceway.
"We're underground. How can you follow them when you can't see where the car's going?"
"It's Thursday!" Ryan explained as he hurried along the walkway. "She always goes to his place on Thursdays—just like she always goes to the club on Wednesdays and Saturdays!"
"Whose place?"
"Esher's, of course!" Ryan replied, rolling his eyes.
The House of Esher was exceptionally large, dating from a time when people built in a grand manner.
What distinguished it from the other buildings on the block was the fact that there were no others on the block— only piles of rubble and yawning, symmetrical holes that had once been basements. This was not the handiwork of urban renewal—Esher had ordered the demolition himself. He liked to see company coming long before it arrived. It had taken the Pointers the better part of two years to raze the neighborhood. There were sentry posts at either end of the block, manned by older, more experienced gang members armed with Uzis and repeating shotguns.
Still, the block was not without its residents. Candlelight flickered and reefer smoke rose like ground mist from the outlying basements the Pointers used as combination crash pads and barracks. The holes closer to the House, however, were completely dark, their contents far more sinister. These served as entrances and exits to the House, connected by subterranean tunnels, and were used exclusively by the Kindred. Many unaffiliated fledglings and those who had yet to bind themselves fully to Esher waited out the daylight in their shadowy depths.
The street outside the House was alive with Pointers sporting colors, milling about aimlessly. Some lounged on the wide stairs leading to the building, while others perched on makeshift stools fashioned from cast-off crates. The oldest of their number looked to be no more than twenty-five, while the youngest couldn't have been more than thirteen. There were no women to be seen among their number, but the lack of female company was compensated for by a plethora of firearms, as each gangbanger sported some kind of weapon in his waistband.
"Interesting," the stranger muttered from her perch atop a six-story tenement two blocks away. "This Esher has built himself quite a little army of sociopaths."
"How can you see that far with those glasses on?" Ryan asked, squinting in the direction she was staring.
"I can't see anything from here!"
"My eyes aren't like yours. I can see things better at night than most people can at high noon."
"Neat! Like a kitty, right?"
"Kind of."
"I used to have a kitty named Koko, but the landlord found out and made us get rid of him. He said Koko had fleas. He was really mean and I hated him. The landlord, not Koko."
The stranger knelt and placed her hands on Ryan's shoulders. The boy's collarbone felt like the strut of a kite under her fingers. "Ryan—I need you to do as I say, understand? I'm going to try and get inside Esher's stronghold and find out what I can about your mom. But there's no way I'm going to be able to sneak in."
"So how are you gonna get in?"
"I'm going to ask him for a job."
"Huhn?"
"It's clear he's looking for hired muscle—both human and Kindred. If he thinks I'm his friend, then maybe I can catch him while he's not looking. But I can't let him know that you and I know each other. I want you to get back to Cloudy's as fast as you can without being noticed and stay there, okay? And if you see me on the street again, pretend you don't know me, understand? Your mother's life depends on it."
Ryan nodded, his features taking on a solemnity made even more poignant by his extreme youth. "I understand. You're going undercover, like the cops on TV."
"You've got it. Now get on back to Cloudy's. It's not safe out here."
Ryan headed for the rooftop door, then turned to look at her. "Do you have kids, lady?"
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) The stranger nodded, smiling sadly. "Once. A long time ago. A little girl."
"What happened to her?"