 
The Heart of Stone

A Novella, by – Adam Knight

Copyright 2012 by Knightfall Productions

Smashwords Edition

O-Ball was in a good mood, four grams of smack normally makes it real easy to feel that way. Business was good. The kids on the street nearly doubled their normal sales for last month's supply of heroin. That kind of profit calls ... no, demands ... for a celebration.

Thus, the party. O-Ball's suppliers were talking about giving the gang leader the funds he needed to expand his territory. They were even footing the bill for

O-Ball and his "main men", as a gesture of good faith on their part. Five tables had been reserved in the gang's favourite drinking establishment, the Night Machine. Needless to say, O-Ball and the boys were living it up and pounding them back.

The Street Masters was what O-Ball had named his "organization". It wasn't the worlds most original name, but he thought it sounded cool and kind of menacing at the same time.

Regardless, the Street Masters were public enemy number one as far as the City of Winnipeg's police force was concerned. As it stood, the Street Masters were just within months of cornering the city's heroin market, almost casually taking business away from the biker gangs. The police were baffled, not to mention outgunned. The police force had already lost the services of nine good officers thanks to confrontations with O-Ball and his gang.

Only the beginning, as far as O-Ball was concerned. As soon as O-Ball's suppliers came through with the necessary cash and weaponry, the Street Masters were going to be taking over everything. The streets. the pigs ... Everything !

As always, O-Ball was wearing an outfit that probably could have fed a family of four for a week and a half. Designer cotton slacks, 180-dollar Doc Martin steel-toes, a stained white undershirt, with the look of a Calvin Klein. Finally was his trademark, a glistening leather jacket with metal plates decorating it's shoulders and sleeve cuffs. Around his neck were several thick gold chains, rings on most of his fingers and in both ears. His hair was shaved to the scalp on the sides and back while the thick mound on top was slicked back and meticulously combed. Adjusting slightly in his seat, O-Ball made sure that his glock was still comfortably in place at the back of his waistband and reached for another drink.

His "main men" consisted of four people. Slyck, Daco, She-La and Dave. All of them were having a righteous good time; stoned, drunk and ready to party 'til dawn. There were several women practically hanging off O-Ball as he sat in his seat. The dark-haired cunt on his left was making a point of catching his eye every time he looked over. He could fuck her anytime he wanted. No question. No problem.

No challenge.

The other four tables were filled in a similar fashion. The street kids who had gained the most scratch were there, getting felt up as much as the others by the street hos. Pinko, his little Asian dealer in the south end, was certainly getting a bit eager. He had his pants open and was trying to get his bitch to go down on him right there in the bar.

Glancing over his shoulder, O-Ball made sure that his bodyguards were still on their toes. He motioned one forward. "Tell Pinko to do his fucking pants back up. He knows he has to wait 'til later." His guard nodded briefly and went over to Pinko. The kid didn't look too happy about it but he didn't say anything after O-Ball caught his eye.

"Dumb fuckin'' chink," he muttered, raising his drink.

Something warm and wet probed his right ear at that moment. "Mother fuck!" O-Ball swore, jerking his head away and spilling his drink all over the table. He scowled fiercely at the blonde with the tongue piercing who just leered back him at him dreamily, teasing at the straw in her drink suggestively. Her eyes were totally glazed over from all of the heroin she'd been shooting.

"S'matter O-Ball?" she asked in a thick voice as her hand strayed from his crotch, sliding up to his belt buckle. "Aren't 'cha havin' fun?"

He just sneered at her in response and replaced her stray hand on his groin.

Taking a pull on a beer, O-Ball surveyed the bar. For a Wednesday it was really packed with people. The night's lame gimmick was "Industrial Goth", so there was nothing remotely resembling an actual song pounding out over the eight-thousand watt sound system. All of the weirdoes in the Village were out: the guys wearing skirts, the people with seventeen different hair colours. The people with painted faces, the fags, the homeless losers ... all of them. And the smart ones were giving the Street Masters their space. The ones that weren't as smart were quickly educated on the matter.

O-Ball blindly pounded back another shot of whatever Daco had put in front of him and grimaced. He briefly contemplated smoking another joint when, out of the corner of his eye, he found a challenge.

Standing near the bar was a young woman who, quite obviously, did not fit in with the rest of the crowd. She was young, probably just out of high school. Her hair was a delicate honey blonde and her mode of dress was definitely not the norm for the Night Machine. Halter top, pressed jeans and a sweater knotted around her neck. Definitely not the norm.

But exactly what O-Ball was looking for.

"Where y'goin, O-Ball?" Dave asked as his boss stood up, shaking the hos away from him. "Th' servin' bitch is bringin' us drinks."

O-Ball settled his jacket more firmly about his shoulders and sneered in contempt at his messed up lackey. "Y'see that cute pussy at th' bar?" Dave leaned to get a better look and nodded when he saw her. Slyck licked his lips contemplatively as he leered. "I do believe that I'm in the mood for some fresh meat, boy-eez." Slyck and Dave laughed hard and made some crass joke as O-Ball turned away. He absently noticed the hos he'd had with quickly shuffled over to his "main men" and started working their talents on them without even changing expression.

O-Ball motioned for his hulking bodyguards to keep an eye open but remain out of sight as he started to weave his way through the crowd. The people who recognized the gang leader gave him a wide berth while those that didn't gave him a wary look and just let him pass.

Halfway to the bar he made eye-contact with the chick. She started to recoil in surprise but O-Ball smiled widely and waved to her in a friendly fashion. The girl seemed to relax slightly but started to look around the rest of bar, purposefully avoiding his gaze.

Still smiling innocently, O-Ball sauntered up to the bar and ordered a club soda. The bartender, recognizing O-Ball for who he was, gave him a surprised look but wisely kept his mouth shut. O-Ball eyed the woman carefully for a moment or two longer, wanting to make sure that he had the approach that he wanted to use all set up. Finally he stepped a bit closer to the girl and spoke in a very casual tone of voice. "I hope that you'll forgive me for saying this," he began confidently. "But you look really uncomfortable."

The girl started in surprise. "Excuse me?" she said, her voice warbling musically over the DJ's blaring selection of industrial noise.

O-Ball smiled again with a laugh and leaned in towards her. "I was just saying that you look a bit uncomfortable. You know, a bit out of place."

"That's for sure," the girl said, laughing nervously. "I don't know why I ever let my friends talk me into coming here."

"I always love it when my friends do that," O-Ball chuckled knowingly. "They convince you that going with them to some place that you've never been to before is the most important thing that you could possibly do. And then, the minute that you get there, they disappear and leave you all alone with nobody to talk to but strange guys who come up to you from out of nowhere."

The girl laughed again, more genuinely this time. "True enough."

O-Ball made a show of looking around the bar. "Where are those friends of yours anyway?"

The girl pointed out onto the dance floor. "They're out there picking up wallets and changing lightbulbs behind that girl with the silver hair and that guy wearing the ancient army gear."

O-Ball laughed genuinely that time. "You know," he said, still chuckling slightly. "I've been looking for a way to describe to my other friends how these people dance in their gothic style for ages. But now that I look at it, I'd have to agree with you. Picking up wallets and changing lightbulbs." He laughed again. "Can I use that line?"

"Go right ahead, the patent doesn't take effect for a while yet." she said with a sly grin. "My name's Crystal. Crystal Reilly." The girl reached out her hand and smiled warmly.

O-Ball shook her hand gently, inwardly smirking to himself as he mentally undressed her. "A pleasure, Crystal. My name's Michael. Michael Davis. My friends call me Mike."

"How original of them," Crystal said with that same sly smile.

O-Ball smiled as well and took a sip of his club soda, trying not to let his distaste for it show.

"So what do you do, Mike? Are you in school?"

O-Ball shuddered visibly. "Perish the thought. No, I've been out of the system for years now. I'm into sales and marketing."

Crystal was obviously impressed. "Really? I never would have guessed ..." She broke off abruptly then, an embarrassed look flushing across her face, afraid she'd offended her new acquaintance.

O-Ball waved his free hand reassuringly. "Don't worry, all of my other friends say the same thing. Believe me, I only dress like this on my own time." He forced himself to take another sip of club soda before speaking again. "So what about you? What do you do?"

Crystal shrugged her shoulders softly and O-Ball absently took in the jiggling with a very quick, well practiced flicker of his eyes. "Well, I'm going to the University of Manitoba in the fall. It'll be my first year and I'm kind of nervous about it."

"What faculty?"

"Arts."

O-Ball made a face. "I'm sorry to hear that.

"Why? Have you heard something bad?" Crystal asked, slightly worried.

O-Ball chuckled. "Don't be worried, I was just playing with your head. I can tell that you'll breeze right through."

She smiled in relief. "Well, I guess we'll see."

Roughly fifteen minutes passed. O-Ball used the time to his advantage, pushing his nice guy persona on crystal just as strongly as he could. He tried to learn as much about her as he could as fast as he could. Without any difficulty, O-Ball began to win her over.

The DJ finally got around to changing the song. One selection of blaringly loud noise was replaced by another selection of blaringly loud noise. This time it sounded like the chorus of screeching cats had been replaced by someone grinding a power saw across a plate of sheet metal.

"This is going to sound awfully crazy,?" O-Ball said with a perfectly casual voice as he made his move. "But I actually kind of like this song."

"This qualifies as a song? " she asked with her sly grin.

"Well, technically. Anyway, what I'm basically driving at is, would you like to pick up wallets and change lightbulbs with me?" He smiled at her winningly with just the right touch of uncertainty to make her say ...

"I'd love to."

The song was a long one, during which O-Ball slowly worked his way towards Crystal's body in sensual, swaying motions. She allowed him to dance closely at first and even smiled at him as they started to grind up against each other. Peering over her shoulder he could just make out Daco, Dave and the rest of his crew making their lewd and obvious gestures from across the bar. O-Ball leered then and decided that he'd had enough playing around.

Determinedly, O-Ball grabbed a double-handful of Crystal's ass and started to lean his face in next to hers.

Crystal placed her hands on O-Ball's and tried to move them away. "Hey, take it easy Mike. I'm not into that sort of thing" She said calmly, obviously thinking that he was just playing around.

"What sort of thing?"

She forced a laugh. "You know what I mean, now cut it out."

"What for, Crystal? I know you want it."

She started to look around for her friends while still trying to get his hands off of her. "I barely know you, Michael. It's way too soon!" Her voice was obviously trying to remain calm and was just as obviously failing.

"What's that got t'do with anythin''? I want you, you want me. Where's the problem?"

"If you don't take your hands off of me I'm going to ..."

O-Ball took his right hand from her ass and grabbed a handful of breast instead.

Crystal screamed piercingly and shoved O-Ball away from her. She stalked off the dance floor at top speed, pushing her way through the crowd.

O-Ball slowly ran an arm across his mouth and completely dropped all semblance of his facade before striding purposefully after the girl. One of the more observant Goths tried to get in O-Ball's way but took a solid punch to the teeth and collapsed into the crowd.

The crowd seemed to melt out of his way as O-Ball continued his chase.

Seeing that she was being followed, Crystal immediately picked up her pace and ducked into the women's bathroom.

Waving his bodyguards towards the advancing bouncers, O-Ball stepped right up to the door to the women's bathroom and slammed it open. There were several screams from the pisser's occupants as O-Ball entered. Crystal jumped visibly and pressed herself up against the wall between the sinks and the first stall.

O-Ball merely glanced at the other women in the room. Without question they fled, leaving the gangster alone with the horribly frightened young woman.

"It doesn't have'ta be like this, Crystal," O-Ball began, his face an absolute mask of cruelty as he took one step forward. "All that you gotta do is walk out of here with me an' all of this ... " He cut off after being struck in the face with a spray of thick spittle

O-Ball slowly wiped at his face and let his gaze bore through the back of her head. "You're fucked, bitch"

Crystal was rapidly becoming hysterical. Tears of fear had begun to stream down her face as O-Ball implacably stalked towards her. She frantically rustled through her purse and whipped out a small aerosol can, aiming it the gangster. "Stay back," she pleaded, her hands shaking horribly.

O-Ball snatched the can from her trembling fingers with one quick motion while his free hand reached for Crystal's throat and slammed her back against the wall. Clinically, O-Ball read the label on the aerosol can. "Salon Selectives B-Label hairspray. I'm impressed, Crystal. This would've done wonders for my do." He negligently tossed the can away and reached for the fastenings of her pants. "You bitches always have'ta choose the hard way when it comes to fucking. I really don't get how someone like you can enjoy this."

Crystal started to beat on O-Ball's chest and shoulders, but she was too panicked to put any real force behind her blows. Her face was slowly turning a shade of purple that nature never intended and her arms flailed more slowly as O-Ball's ever tightening grip slowly choked the life out of her.

Finally managing to tear open her slacks, O-Ball deftly unbuckled his pants and withdrew his penis, making sure that Crystal got a good look at it. "Now I know what you're thinking," O-Ball sneered. "You're thinking, Holy Shit! I've never seen a dick that big before!" He chuckled. "S'all right, I hear it all the time. But you can say it if you want." Cruelly, O-Ball jammed the fingers of his free hand up between her legs, probing, and licked at the side of her face like an animal.

"How bad do you want it?"

"P-please ... please ... " Crystal whimpered, her voice a choked rasp

He slapped her across the face. "Answer the question, bitch!" he roared

She just tried to turn her head away and closed her eyes.

O-Ball sighed and swung his arm back for another strike, pausing briefly to take aim.

A vice-like grip latched painfully onto his wrist. Before O-Ball Could even open his mouth, he was hurled the short distance through the air into the bathroom wall. Stars exploded in front of O-Ball's eyes as he crumpled to the floor, gasping to fill his lungs.

O-Ball forced his vision to clear and looked up. There was a very large man standing in before him. Absently, the gangster realized that Crystal had slid down to the floor and was curled up into a little ball, trying to cover as much of herself up as she could.

Forcing himself to his feet wasn't too difficult, the drugs that he'd taken earlier were taking away most of the pain that he should have been feeling. "I don't know who the fuck you are, asshole. And I don't fucking care, because I don't fucking care about dead fucking men, mother fucker!" he exploded, spitting and gesturing spasmodically.

The man, who was almost six-and-a-half feet tall, didn't change expression as his rock-grey eyes gave O-Ball the once over. Then he intentionally turned his gaze away and swung the bathroom door shut.

O-Ball looked quickly examined his opponent. The fucker's shoulders were wide and he looked to be fairly solid. No body-builder, but definitely solid.

He was wearing faded blue-jeans with a hole in one knee and black motorcycle boots that came up to his calves. His shirt was grey and wrinkled. He wore a black bandanna over his hair and a black leather overcoat that hung down to his knees.

The man, who had yet to say a word, took two steps across the bathroom and looked down at Crystal. His eyes narrowed and the bland curve of his lips twitched slightly in distaste.

Crystal had huddled up in a ball and her face was pressed protectively against the wall.

O-Ball's hand itched to pull out his piece but he didn't want to make any sudden moves.

The man's eyes flicked over to O-Ball again, still no expression on his face.

O-Ball tried to meet the man's stare with as much malice as he could manage.

Finally he spoke.

"You fuck with that?"

O-Ball blinked in surprise. "What?"

The man inclined his head towards O-Ball's now flaccid penis and quirked one eyebrow disbelievingly. "You fuck with that?" The man's voice was dead calm, no inflection or expression beyond a slight rasp.

O-Ball's face went livid and he stopped caring about everything. "Mother fuck!" he screamed, reaching for the Glock at his back.

The man rushed forward, grabbing the front of O-Ball's jacket with one hand. O-Ball brought out his Glock but the man casually knocked it away with his free arm. The Glock fired harmlessly into the wall and ceiling as the two of them wrestled for supremacy.

It was a short fight.

O-Ball's ears rang as the big man leisurely slapped him across the face. All of the gangster's ability to fight back left him at that point as consciousness started to slip away. Feeling the man grab him by the back of his head and force him to his knees O-Ball tried to flail his way free by swinging blindly. He was then pushed around until something solid and cool to the touch pressed against his chest. It wasn't until his entire head was submerged in foul tasting water that O-Ball realized that his head was being forced into a toilet bowl.

O-Ball screamed, fighting and writhing ineffectually for air. The man's grip was like granite. O-Ball surfaced just long enough to grab half a breath before being forced back into the filth. Twice more the man did this to him. When he was finally done, O-Ball was hauled to his feet and forced to look directly into the man's flinty grey eyes. Neither man said a word for a long moment.

A silver-haired woman that O-Ball vaguely remembered seeing on the dance floor stuck her head through the bathroom doorway and peered in. "Hey, Stone. Aren't you done yet?"

*

"Hey, Stone. Aren't you done yet?" Donald asked.

Halen Marcus glanced up from the water fountain and regarded his friend carefully. He hated it when the other kids called him 'Stone'. They knew his name, after all. He never once called them by names that they didn't like.

Then again, he never did say much of anything.

Wiping his mouth, Halen straightened up and motioned his friend forward. Donald moved in eagerly as Halen shielded his eyes from the sun's bright light. It was going to be a hot day if the fog didn't roll in from the ocean too early.

Halen watched as the other children began their individual treks home. Several boys were trying to get an impromptu game of rugby going over on the playing field. Briefly, Halen thought about asking if he could join the game before abandoning the idea. Most of the boys setting were older than him and probably didn't want an eleven year-old tagging along and getting in the way.

Donald finally came up for air. Halen chose not to make a comment, though he had several that were right on the tip of his tongue. None of them really offensive.

"Walk me home?" Donald asked between gasps of breath.

"Sure," Halen replied with a faint shrug. It wasn't the first time Donald had made the request. The other boys tended to pick on Donald because he was smaller than them and too fat to run away when they chased him. Halen had tried pointing out to his friend that if he didn't always show off how smart he was in class that they probably wouldn't bother him as much.

Donald wasn't really all that brilliant when you got right down to it. He just took the time to study.

As they started on their way, Halen could see the other boys in his grade whispering and pointing in their direction. He ignored it without a second thought. If they were going to try anything they'd have done it by now.

Since Halen and Donald had become friends Donald hadn't had a single incident with the school's bullies. Halen had broken an older boy's nose for pushing Donald into a mud puddle. They'd both been given a lot more respect from that point on.

Halen had always been bigger than the other boys so it was rare when anyone even looked crosswise at him. It wasn't so much that the others were scared of him getting violent, Halen was normally very passive. It was just his complete indifference to anything they did to him.

Everything from insults to mud-throwing to framing him for petty crimes in class just rolled off Halen like water. Quite simply, he didn't care enough about what they did to him to ever give it the attention it deserved.

After awhile the others realized that they couldn't get a reaction out of Halen, so they left him alone. As a result, he earned the nickname 'Stone'.

As they walked along, Donald rambled on about what he was hoping his mother was cooking for dinner. He rhapsodized about her roasts and vegetables before composing whole sonnets about her pastries and desserts. Halen smiled sadly, wondering what it would feel like to want to go home for dinner.

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" bawled a newsie on the far street corner. Over his head he waved a fresh copy of the newspaper's evening edition. "Hot off the press! Nazi Germany invades Poland! Churchill swears retaliation! Read all about it!"

Halen barely glanced at the vast number of people rushing to buy a copy of the paper as he and Donald walked past. "I wonder what that's all about?" Donald mused, looking back over his shoulder.

Halen shrugged minutely. "Who cares?"

"It sounds important."

"It's not like it'll effect us, Don." Halen explained patiently.

Donald seemed to think about it for a moment before deciding to agree with his friend. They walked for a while longer, weaving their way through the veritable mob of older people in business suits and overcoats who were all in their own particular hurry from one place to another. At every street corner there was another newsie spouting pretty much the same thing as the first one had. People were clamouring to get a hold of that paper, almost desperately. Halen felt the faintest tug of curiousity forming in the back of his mind but easily forced himself not to think about it.

It didn't take long for them to reach Donald's apartment building. It was an expensive place with four-bedroom flats on every floor. The doorman under the awning nodded politely to Donald and held the door open for the two boys.

Halen spent a futile moment silently hoping that Donald would invite him in for dinner so that he wouldn't have to go home yet, but Donald turned to his friend and sadly waved goodbye. "I'd invite you up Stone, but my grandparents are coming over for dinner and my mother and father are going to want me to get all dressed up and stuff ..."

Halen waved his friend off. "Don't worry," he said with a faint grin. "I got to go home anyway."

"Maybe tomorrow, Stone? I don't think that there'd be anything wrong with ..."

"Yeah. Maybe tomorrow." And with another small wave, Halen turned and walked away.

Briefly Halen considered weaving his way home, deliberately taking the most roundabout route that he possibly could. But then he squared his small shoulders and forced himself to walk in a straight line to his own apartment building.

It was quite a ways from Donald's building. Halen's home was in the older, poorer area of London. Where there were cobblestones missing in the street and where the lampposts were malfunctioning every couple of blocks, when they even worked at all. There were small groups of young toughs or thieves hiding down the alleyways. Some could be seen, the better ones couldn't.

Halen ignored them. He had nothing they wanted anyway.

He shuddered as he walked along, hugging his arms to his chest and watching the sidewalk directly in front of him. A sudden breeze had rolled in and was taking away any extra warmth the sun could have provided. In truth, it really wasn't all that cold. Halen just felt a sudden chill running up his spine.

The long bangs of his shaggy light brown hair kept drooping in front of his eyes. Halen had to repeatedly blow it out of the way just so he could walk without being too irritated. Besides, the effort kept him from thinking about the lingering sting of pain from the welts on his back.

Absently, Halen noticed that there was a crowd forming in front of his seven story building. Most of the people were shouting and pointing up into the air. Mingling with the crowd, Halen started to follow their gaze, looking up at the sides of his building.

Up on the ledge to the sixth floor stood a woman of approximately middle age. Her blond hair was mostly grey now and she was dressed in some very worn clothing. The shoulders of her blouse were ripped in places and the seam up along the side of the skirt was mostly split. She was clinging to the side of the building and she appeared to be crying.

There was a slight breeze that flapped her skirt about her legs and tossed her hair out of her face. Halen's breath caught tight in his throat as he realized that the closest window to the woman was the one to his own flat! And the closer he looked at the terrified woman the more he recognized what she was wearing and how she shuddered in the cold and how she ...

"Mom," Halen breathed disbelievingly.

For too many long seconds Halen stared, unable to think clearly. Then someone in the crowd jostled him slightly and his gaze was broken from his mother's form, settling upon the building's entranceway.

He moved without thought, sprinting for the door with his heart in his throat. He passed the people crowded around the stairs and practically flew into the building. Halen hit the staircase at full tilt, taking the stairs two at a time, silently cursing at himself every time he stumbled in his haste.

He burst through the doorway to the sixth floor landing and staggered down the ill-carpeted hallway to the flat that he shared with his parents. His book bag lay somewhere back on the staircase, forgotten in his frantic plunge. His breath came in shallow, painful gasps and his legs burned from the exertion he'd put them through.

Reaching the door to his flat, Halen prayed that his mother hadn't locked it because his keys were back in his book bag and would do him no good now.

The door was partially open and off one of it's hinges. Halen frantically shoved the obstacle out of his way and stumbled into the flat, falling to his knees and elbows.

The shouts of the crowd could be heard through the open window as he scrambled towards it awkwardly, his hands trying to push him up as his legs propelled him forward. The tattered curtains flapped in the breeze and obscured his view outside.

Finally reaching the window, Halen placed his hands on the base of the sill and stuck his head out, crying out for his mother as he did so.

But he was too late

As if in slow motion, Halen watched his mother take the fatal step away from the wall onto insubstantial air and begin the plummet downwards to the unforgiving cobblestones.

Halen screamed, uselessly reaching out his hand to her as she fell. Every twist and turn of her rapidly descending body burned into his mind, never to be forgotten.

When her thrashing body struck the street, it made a sickening sound and, grotesquely, bounced. Then it remained still, never to move again. Her bright blood seeping out onto the street under the too bright sun.

People quickly crowded around her, obscuring her body form Halen's view. Absently, Halen realized that he was crying. But it was detached, as if he couldn't believe what he'd just seen. His body was going through all of the motions, the tears rolling down his face and so on. His mind - his tortured, abused mind - refused to let him feel anything except cold, angry thoughts.

Pushing himself away from the window, Halen forced himself to look around the flat. There were signs of a struggle everywhere. The sitting table and two of the chairs had been turned over and there was broken crockery covering the floor in places near one wall.

Letting the tears fall down his cheeks unchecked, Halen woodenly walked through the rest of the flat and stopped in the kitchen.

On the counter right next to the stove was a sheaf of paper with hastily scrawled writing on it. Without curiousity, Halen picked it up and passed his gaze down over the words.

Halen, the note read. I'm sorry for everything that's happened and everything. I tried, God knows I tried. This isn't your fault, don't let him tell you it is ... I just can't take it anymore. This morning was the last.

He replaced the note on the counter and walked into the living room. With a bit of effort, Halen managed to pick up and settle the big easy chair in it's proper place. He stared at it for a brief moment before he sat down, facing the open door to the flat.

He waited.

His father could be home any second.

*

"Stone?" Kaitlin asked worriedly, punching him lightly in the shoulder. "Are you okay in there?"

Shaking his head, Stone shoved away his memories and realized that he was still holding the gangster called O-Ball up in front of him. The gangster was sopping wet from his dunking in the toilet and was slowly coming back to full awareness. Stone briefly considered snapping the bastard's neck and just being done with it. But he managed to restrain himself.

Stone shook the gangster fiercely one last time and negligently tossed him to the floor. He turned to his silver-haired friend and nodded curtly. "Sorry, Kaitlin. Just ..." He tossed his head to one side to crack the joints in his neck and was rewarded with a relieving series of pops. "What'd I miss?"

"Not much," Kaitlin replied, running one hand over the pistol that she had belted at her slender waist. "After you took out this slime's bodyguards, Yule and I entertained his friends at the tables for a few seconds until they decided to play nice."

Stone nodded and heard a faint whimper. Looking to his side he saw that the girl was still huddled against the wall in the corner and was now eyeing them both fearfully.

Slowly, Stone lowered himself to one knee and reached out a cautious hand to her. "Are you all right?" he asked as softly as he could, silently cursing the hideous rasp in his voice.

She started fearfully, trying melt into the wall and pull away from his reaching hand. Slowly, so as not to frighten the girl any more than she already was, Stone placed a gentle hand on her ankle to make contact with her on a physical basis. At first she thrashed fearfully, trying to break the grip. But Stone held on, not applying any pressure, just holding on. Slowly, very slowly, she stopped kicking just stared at him. She was obviously unsure of everything.

"Wh - who ... Who are you?" she whispered, trying to hold her torn clothing together.

The big man smiled and slowly removed his overcoat, passing it to her. "My friends call me Stone. Take this, you look cold."

Cautiously the girl took his jacket and covered herself with it as best she could.

"What's your name, kiddo?"

She didn't answer for a long moment. "Crystal," she finally whispered. "My name's Crystal."

"Well, Crystal," Stone said as gently as he could. "I'm sorry that I didn't get here sooner"

There was nothing either of them could say to that.

Carefully Stone helped the girl to her feet and placed his coat around her shoulders more securely. "I hope you're all right."

Crystal almost smiled as he led her out of the bathroom and into the bar proper.

"Hey Stone," Kaitlin interrupted, holding the disheveled O-Ball up with a hammer lock. "What do you want to do with this guy?"

Stone eyed the gangster warily, keeping himself between O-Ball and the girl.

"Bring him along," he said quietly.

Out in the main room Crystal's friends rushed forward worriedly, embracing Crystal, apologizing and making a big fuss over her. There was a great deal of crying and hugging involved. Stone stayed out of the way of it all.

Two of the Night Machine's bouncers came forward then with blankets to cover Crystal up and to escort her safely home with her friends.

As Crystal was in the process of removing Stone's overcoat and covering herself with the blankets, Stone took the opportunity to look around the rest of the bar. Most of the patrons were being very smart and staying well back from the action. Unfortunately there were a few sickos looking at scene with a great deal of voyeuristic delight.

Off near the tables stood Yule in his military fatigues, watching over the subdued gang members and their cowering whores and lackeys.

Hearing a faint groan to his left, Stone glanced and saw one of O-Ball's bodyguards pushing himself up from the splintered remains of a table. The nearest bouncer reared back and scored a kick to the side of the gangster's head, sending him back off to dreamland. Stone and the bouncer exchanged a brief nod of approval.

One of the other bouncers handed Stone his overcoat. He slid it on with some relief, checking to make sure that his .44 AutoMag was still in it's proper place, strapped high on the inside of his coat between his shoulder-blades. He was about to turn away with Kaitlin in the direction of Yule and the tables when Crystal managed to catch his eye. While they were too far away for them to say anything to each other, the look she gave him was all he needed.

Stone nodded politely before following Kaitlin to Yule and the others.

"Hey," one of the other bouncers called. "We've gotta give this guy over to the authorities."

Stone paused mid-stride and leveled a blank look at the bouncer. The young man had been about to come after them when Stone's gaze brought him up short. He looked like he wanted to say something more but couldn't seem to make his mouth work for him.

Yule stepped forward and flashed his military badge at the young man. "It's all right, son," he explained. "Just tell the officers that Colonel Windsor was present an' will b' handlin' th' investigation."

The bouncer uncertainly took Yule at his word and turned away, hurrying after the others while trying to make it look like he wasn't hurrying.

Stone took a light punch to the arm from his friend. "Go easy on th' kid, Stoney. He's just tryin' t'do his job."

Stone said nothing and turned to the gang members

Kaitlin roughly shoved O-Ball down into one of the chairs and plainly ignored his whining cry of pain. Yule, obviously enjoying himself, stepped forward theatrically and glowered menacingly down at the gangsters, waiting until he had their full attention before speaking.

"Do you lads happen t' have any idea just how much trouble ye' re in?"

"Go fuck yourself," O-Ball spat, defiantly looking Yule right in the eyes.

Kaitlin tensed automatically but Stone laid a restraining hand on her arm, trusting Yule to be able to take care of the situation without completely losing his head.

"Let me put it t' you this way, lads," Yule went on, as if nothing had interrupted him. "You may think that no one and nothin' can touch you, an' fer th' most part ... yer' right. I do know th' right people that could very quickly put y'in gaol ..."

"Yeah, like that'd fucking last you piece of shit!" O-Ball cut in flagrantly, a picture of absurdity. Soaking wet, beat up and believing he's in control. "We're Street Masters man! We got so fucking many Goddamn connections that there ain't no fucking way we'd spend even one fucking night in the house! Fuck you, mother fucker! Get your dumb talking, piece of shit ass out of my face!"

Yule's eyes narrowed dangerously and his hands tensed, ready to pop his claws. Stone quickly grabbed a hold of Yule's arm to calm him down. Yule snapped his gaze over to Stone's and they shared a look. Yule took a deep breath and nodded minutely.

"As I was sayin' " Yule went on, a bit more subdued. "Sending you t' gaol would be a complete waste o' time on all sides o' this. So, I guess we've only got one option. We'll have t' kill you." It must have been the casual way in which he said it that caused the blood to drain deliciously from O-Ball's face.

Kaitlin noisily cracked her knuckles in a very unladylike gesture.

Stone sighed. Inwardly he wondered how he'd ever managed to hook up with such a violent, perpetually looking for any excuse to fight, pair of friends.

That wasn't to say that Stone himself didn't want to see these guys dead, it was just that this was hardly the time or the place. For starters, the Night Machine was a very popular bar and it was very packed tonight. Needles to say, there would have been more than a few witnesses. Hell, we couldn't even drag them out of here without even the biggest of idiots being able to figure out who was responsible for their untimely demise.

And, most importantly, there was just no way for them to do anything without violating one of the most basic rights and traditions.

Glancing quickly over to the far corner of the bar, Stone saw the married Malkavian couple, Steve and Scarlett Masterson looking on with great interest. The Right of Domain is one of the most respected of all the Traditions and the Night Machine was their domain.

Stone decided that it was time for him to take matters into his own hands before Yule and Kaitlin decided to piss in someone else's backyard ... again.

Stone stepped forward and got in between his friends and the gang members. Silently he motioned for them to step back out of the way as he set to work. "Let's cut to the chase," he rasped, immediately getting the attention of both groups. "We're not going to arrest you and we're not going to kill you ... At least, not here." He added that last part to act as a reminder for Yule and Kaitlin. They both gave him ever-suffering looks that spoke volumes.

"So let me put it to you like this." Stone paused for a moment and leveled a finger at O-Ball. "You lead this rat pack, right?"

O-Ball eyed Stone warily. "What the fuck is that t' you?"

"Answer the question or I'll rip your ears off."

The gang leader blinked. "Yeah," he muttered. "I'm in charge, fuckface."

Stone grimaced wearily, his raspy voice like sandpaper over granite. "Some originality would be nice, shit-for-brains." He paused for effect. "I'm the guy you want. Ain't that right, Cue-Ball? I'm the guy who just killed your action with that chick, after all. I'm the guy who took your rep and just pissed all over it. Ain't that right?"

O-Ball said squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. The other Street Masters eyed their leader surreptitiously, knowing that his status with the gang was in serious jeopardy. The way he dealt with the situation would crucially affect the rest of his existence with the gang.

And everybody knew it.

Stone paused for second to look back at his friends, silently begging them to keep their mouths shut. Turning back to the self proclaimed Street Masters, Stone bent at the waist until his face was inches from O-Ball's and sneered.

"I bet that you want a piece of me real bad, don't you Screw-Ball?"

O-Ball glowered, obviously trying to hide the fear. "That ain't even a fucking question, man," he muttered.

Stone rose back up to his full height and took a step back. "Show up at the Market Stage in the Exchange District. Tomorrow. Midnight. Bring all of your little butt-plugging buddies along with you if you want. If you've got the balls to face me, maybe you can save your precious rep."

O-Ball's eyes narrowed suspiciously. His distrust showing in his eyes. "What's the deal, mother fucker? You just want me to bring my boyz out and throw down with you and yours?"

Stone shook his head. "No. Just me."

Kaitlin and Yule started trying to get his attention at that point but he resolutely ignored them.

O-Ball's eyes narrowed. "Bullshit! Y'gotta have some kinda thing up your fucking sleeve to make y'want to do something this fucking retarded."

Stone shrugged. "Maybe I've got a death wish. Blow me."

"What? Will there be a fucking SWAT team there or something?"

"For the last time, toolbox. It'll just be me and my gun. Waiting for you and

your band of Fairy Men."

The gangster eyed the big man with suspicion. "You gotta have an angle, man! Why the fuck are you wanting to do this?"

Stone sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Fine. Call it a turf war then. The city isn't big enough for the two of us. Whatever it takes to get you and your asshole buddies to show up there." The rest of the gang was starting to squirm in their seats and mutter to themselves at that last comment, but a firm glance from Yule and Kaitlin kept them where they were.

O-Ball started to laugh softly. "You are fucking crazy, man. You're outta yer damn mind if you think you can take on me and my boyz."

He shrugged again. "So call me crazy. I'd still be a step above you on the evolutionary scale, No-Balls."

O-Ball lurched to his feet at that point, his gang members following suit. Some of them were scowling, the rest just looked like they wanted to get out of there. "Fuck you, man. If you're actually stupid enough to show up tomorrow ..." He laughed then, looking around to his buddies for support. "I'll fucking kill you."

Stone actually grinned in a thin line and said nothing more

O-Ball led his "main men" out of the Night Machine in search of greater crime and debauchery to wallow themselves in. On their way out they were chanting some sort of mantra, or group saying.

"Get a bloody life," Yule muttered under his breath before turning to follow after his large friend. Stone was heading over to the bar and was desperately trying to ignore his friend's worried comments.

"Are you out of your Goddamned mind, Stone?" Kaitlin queried lovingly. She was waving her arms in frantic motions, her silver hair falling down in front of her eyes as she ranted.

"Listen, Stoney," Yule tried, running a hand over his close cropped hair. "I know why yer' wanting t' do this. And in' all honesty, I agree with ye. One hundred percent. But there's no way that you're going in there alone."

"No," Kaitlin contradicted firmly. Both Yule a Stone cast her a curious look. "There's no fucking way that Stone's going to go in there alone!"

Stone had little difficulty in restraining a laugh as he rested his forearms on the bar. There was little in this un-life that made him jovial enough to even want to smile. Save for his friends of course.

Cutting them off with a short wave of his hand, Stone stared at each of them pointedly. "I appreciate what you're doing, but stop." Shifting his gaze until he was focusing solely on Yule, Stone put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Yule, you're my best friend. On top of that, you're my Primogen. But I owe you my life. And I will not allow you to put yourself in a position where I might end up owing you one more. Not if I can avoid it." Yule looked as if was about to object, but a long, hard look from Stone's steel grey eyes was enough to make him realize his friend's seriousness on the matter.

Turning his gaze over to Kaitlin, Stone realized that he was probably going to have to be just a little bit more persuasive. He cleared his throat softly as he organized his thoughts. He carefully rejected the first three things he was going to say to her and settled on, "Look at it this way, Kaitlin," Stone began, speaking through the perpetual rasp. "There are just too many people who'd be put out with me if I let anything happen to you. Starting with your boyfriend over here," he gestured to Yule who reluctantly nodded in agreement.

"Secondly, I can't picture your Gangrel Primogen, Tyger, being too happy with me after finding out that I put her Wip in danger. Lastly there's your 'grandfather', Damian McAllister. In his case, I'd rather rip my own arm off than get him even slightly irritated with me." He could see Kaitlin starting to weaken and quickly tried head off any future conversation on the matter. "And besides," Stone went on, looking sidelong at Yule. "I need someone to make sure that this guy stays out of the fight."

"Hey!" Yule cried indignantly while Kaitlin fought a laugh.

None of them spoke for several long moments, no one sure what needed to be said.Finally, Kaitlin reached up to lay a hand on Stone's shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "Well, just don't get overconfident you toolbox. I know how strong you are when you want to be and sure, they are only humans after all. But you can be killed if they hit you with enough firepower. And you can be sure that they won't be holding much back."

Stone shrugged non-committally.

Yule then placed his arm over Stone's shoulders and smiled at his friend with that energetic, completely devoid of thought grin. "Look, Stoney. I'm sure ye' ll b' fine. Just don't do anything too nuts. I've lost an awful lot of friends in my time, I really don't want to lose any more."

Stone nodded his head in agreement and resolutely looked down at the bar's counter, heavily leaning against it as he lost himself in thought.

*

Gunfire.

Nothing could be heard over the gunfire save for Donald's screams of pain.

His own gun was somewhere on the behind him, forgotten. All that Halen knew for certain was that his best friend in the entire world was balanced precariously on his broad shoulders. There was the bright blood of life streaming down his back and legs. Halen could see it mingling with the soil at his feet as he trudged along desperately, unwilling to stop.

Unable to stop.

They were technically safe, meaning that they were back within the Allies' compound. Never mind that enemy mortars were flying erratically through the air, destroying tanks, tents and everything else they hit along the landscape.

In the near distance was the medical tent, just under two hundred yards away. Halen's knees started to buckle at just the thought of carrying his friend that much farther.

Donald was past screaming now, too much of his blood had drained away for him to have much energy left. As it was, his body had started to go limp. "Donald!" Halen shouted over his shoulder, right into his friend's ear. "Stay awake! Please buddy, we're almost there!"

Donald's eyes fluttered open weakly, a small grin spreading across his lips. A bloody froth bubbled up at the corner of his mouth as he exhaled.

Halen shifted his friend up higher on his shoulders and focused his eyes on the medical tent. With great effort, he shoved aside the pain and weariness in his legs and plodded on towards the tent in a shambling run.

Shells started to go off all around him, destroying vehicles to his right and tossing fellow soldiers into the air to his left. The return fire from the Allies quelled the sudden Nazi upsurge, sending them back behind the own lines.

Overhead a fighter jet lost an engine, it was an Allied plane. The frighteningly human howling noise the plane made as it plummeted earthward sent such a shiver down Halen's spine that he had to turn and watch it crash behind the German lines. The eruption blew skyward in a massive ball of flame that seemed to stretch to the heavens.

Halen never saw the pilot eject.

Swallowing thickly, Halen continued to stumble towards the tent.

Lying on the ground in front of him was one of their own, someone that Halen never got the chance to meet. There were wide gashes throughout the body where the blood had dried and darkened until it was almost black in colour. The man could have been his father if he'd guessed the age right.

Just another reminder that Halen shouldn't even have been out there, never mind Donald.

Finally, they stumbled through the medical tent's flap and into a scene out of a horror story. Screams of pain permeated the air as dozens of patients were being administered even as Halen frantically looked around for a place to put his friend down.

Halen dropped to his knees, accidentally losing his grip as he did so. Upset beyond words, Halen grabbed a double handful of Donald's blood-soaked flak jacket and tried to haul him up with what little strength was left to him. Donald's face was slack and very, very pale.

"Medic!" Halen cried out, his voice cracking from the strain. "Medic!"

There was no one available. Halen could see that as he looked around. Every surgeon there was moving as fast as they were able, trying to save as many lives as they possibly could. All of them were desperately busy.

Rationally, Halen recognized this.

He wasn't feeling terribly rational at the moment however.

Using the last of his strength, Halen scooped Donald's limp body up in his arms and gently placed him on the nearest table. Halen was crying, he could feel it now. The tears were rolling down his face in great tracks, mingling with the sweat, grime and blood already there.

"Medic!" he weakly cried again, though not really expecting anyone to answer this time.

Grabbing the collar of Donald's flak jacket, he tore it open, revealing the multiple gunshot wounds in his friend's chest and belly. There was no hope, even Halen could tell that. There were two gaping wounds in his chest on the left side and another in his belly.

But he couldn't just let him die. Not without a fight.

Halen scooped up a handful of cotton balls from the next table and began to press them into the wounds, trying to staunch the flow of blood. Absently he realized that Donald's blood had already stopped flowing and that he was no longer even breathing.

But he had to do something!

Anything.

Even if it broke his heart ...

At long last, Halen gave it up. There was just nothing he could do.

Taking his friend's cold hand in both of his own, Halen dropped down to his knees and pressed it to his forehead, weeping uncontrollably. "I'm sorry," he mumbled between sobs of loss. "I'm so bloody sorry."

How long Halen stayed like that, he couldn't have said. He couldn't have cared. There was nothing else for him to do.

It could have been minutes later, it could have been hours later. His perception was shot. Someone placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. He started, flinching away from the human touch and pressing his face into his dead friend's hand, unwilling to meet anyone's gaze. He was still murmuring continual apologies under his breath as the hand touched his shoulder again.

"Leave me alone," he whimpered. The hand was joined by a second. They were gently pulling him away from Donald's body.

"Please, come away," a gentle voice insisted soothingly. "There's nothing more that you can do for him."

Slowly, and with great reluctance, Halen allowed himself to be pulled away. Peering up through murky, tear filled eyes, he saw two doctors, crimson staining the front of their surgical smocks, sadly pulling a mostly white sheet up over Donald's pallid face.

This started a new wave of guilt and sorrow for Halen. He lurched to his feet and buried his face in his palms, trying to get away from the comforting hands. He didn't want to be comforted, he wanted to be left alone with his guilt until it killed him too.

Something solid struck him in the belly and knocked the wind out of him. He absently realized that he'd run into an empty surgical table. The hands were back at his shoulders, trying to turn him around. Numbly, Halen allowed himself to be turned, the frantic feeling he'd been experiencing suddenly gone with the air.

"What's your name?" the gentle voice asked.

Clenching his fists at his sides, Halen closed his eyes and didn't answer.

"What's your name," the voice asked again, more softly than before.

He forced his lips to mouth the words, "Halen Marcus."

"What was that?"

"Halen Marcus," he repeated, just a bit louder and with the barest tough of the frustration he was feeling.

One of the hands gently cupped his chin and angled his head up. He stubbornly kept his eyes closed. "Look at me, Halen Marcus."

With great reluctance he opened his eyes. Not six inches away from his face was one of the nurses. That's what Halen assumed anyway, seeing as how she wasn't dressed in a surgeon's scrubs. She had long red hair that was tied back, to keep it out of the deepest set of green eyes that he'd ever seen.

"Are you all right?" she asked, flicking her gaze over the rest of his body, checking for a wound or an injury.

Halen shook his head disjointedly. "No."

Her face became more concerned. "Where are you hit? I can't see."

He tapped the knuckles of one hand over his heart and felt his stomach twist into even tighter knots than before. "The minute Donald got shot ... " He couldn't bring himself to continue.

The nurse placed both of her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "You did everything for him that you could, Halen Marcus. You have to believe that."

He shook his head adamantly. "No, I didn't," he insisted. "I allowed him to enlist with me."

The woman Blinked at him in confusion. "He didn't have anymore choice than you did, Halen. In case you hadn't noticed, there's a draft in effect."

Halen avoided her eyes and stared at the floor for a long moment. Slowly, with great resignation, he met her gaze. "What's your name?" he asked her quietly.

"Shannon," she replied softly, confused at his sudden question.

He held her gaze a moment or two longer before once again looking away. "How old do I look to you, Shannon?" Halen asked as he ran his sleeve across his face, trying to wipe away the tears.

She played along with the question although the look on her face said that she suspected what he was going to say next. "I don't know, maybe twenty-two? Twenty-three?"

At any other time, Halen would have smiled. "I'm sixteen." She nodded in resignation. "When I heard that the army was drafting men from eighteen and up, I told them that I was eighteen. They gave me a funny look when I couldn't produce any proof but they accepted me anyway." He shrugged minutely. "I guess they were running low on cannon fodder."

"But, why?" Shannon asked, the confusion evident on her face. "Why on earth would you want to come here?"

Halen's eyes grew flinty, the old anger cutting through his sorrow like a knife. "I got tired of my father's constant abuse." He rolled his head in a weary motion. "I guess I just wanted to be able to fight back against ... something. Whatever that means."

There was a look of pity on her face that on any other day would have angered Halen further. "Does your father hit you?" Shannon asked quietly.

Halen shook his head minutely. "Not since my mother killed herself. He started blaming me for her suicide. He kept saying that it was all my fault! That if I wasn't such a rotten ... That if I had been a better child ... it's not my ..." He forced himself to calm down.

"Anyway," he continued, vaguely gesturing his head towards Donald's corpse, purposefully not looking at it. "When Donald found out that I was joining the army, he insisted on joining too. I tried to tell him that it made no sense. He was too young, too smart ... He had a future ..." His voice caught in his throat, choking off the rest of his thoughts. He covered his eyes with one hand as his guilt and sorrow washed over him once again.

Shannon gently took him in her arms, leaning his head against her shoulder and soothing him with her soft words. Trying to make him believe that he had done all that he could. Halen heard the words, but all that he could see was the image that had been etched into the back of his mind. The image of Donald, happy, smiling faced Donald. All excited about being in his first actual confrontation with the Nazis only to be negligently cut down in the opening seconds of battle. Halen would never forget the look of horror on Donald's face once he realized what had happened, his rifle slipping from numb fingers to fall into the trench he had just climbed out of ...

Halen forced the image from his mind and carefully pushed himself away from the helpful nurse. "I'm sure that you've got other people to help ..." he began, trying to avoid her gaze.

She laughed slightly, bitterly. "Well, not exactly." It was her turn to avoid his gaze. "I'm certainly no doctor. Hell, the very sight of all this blood makes me queasy."

Halen glanced at her curiously. "Then why are you here?" he asked, vaguely gesturing around the tent with one arm.

Shannon grimaced and looked down at her hands. "I just ... I just couldn't stand the thought of staying home in Toronto, safe as could be while all of the people that I grew up went off to their deaths," she explained, pushing a loose strand of her hair behind one ear. " I just felt that I had to do something. So, I signed on as a medical aide and, while I know everything from CPR to how to bandage most minor injuries ..." She sighed regretfully and purposely avoided looking around the tent. "Well, let's just say that there's nobody coming in here with anything resembling a minor injury."

There was an uncomfortable silence for several moments

"Well," Halen began reluctantly, hitching up his belt and settling his flak jacket about his shoulders. "I suppose I'd better get back out there."

Shannon grabbed him firmly by the arm and shook her head. "Not in your condition, young man. You're way too distraught to take part in the fighting. You'd be dead in seconds." Halen opened his mouth to protest but Shannon covered it with one of her slender hands. "And I've seen too much death already today to allow you to become one of the nameless masses. And that's an order, soldier-boy."

Halen bowed his head silently in acquiescence even as the feeling of relief spread to every corner of his body. He had a moment's guilt for feeling the relief and tried to push it aside. He'd had enough. "Thank you," he croaked weakly. More than enough.

"For what?" she asked with a wan smile.

He shrugged slightly, not wanting to feel better about himself yet but wanting to express his gratitude. "For giving a damn about a dumb kid who's in over his head."

She smiled more openly. "Anytime," she said as she squeezed his arm.

Nothing was said for several minutes. Patients of all shapes and sizes flowed in through the tent's flap at an alarming rate, but not a single surgeon called for Shannon's assistance. Halen didn't mind the comparative solitude any more than Shannon seemed to.

"Where's Toronto?" Halen asked suddenly.

"Excuse me?"

"Which part of the States is Toronto in? I've never heard of it."

She laughed. A real, genuine laugh. "I'm not from the States. Toronto's in Canada. You know, that big country north of the forty-ninth parallel?"

"Oh." Halen could feel himself blushing. "I didn't know ... You ... you sounded American."

Shannon smiled reassuringly. "It happens all the time, my English friend. Our accents are usually a bit less definable than yours are."

Halen actually found himself beginning to smile. "I suppose. But I can't really tell ..."Over Shannon's shoulder, Halen saw one of the surgeons get ripped open as machine gun fire split the air with staccato thunderclaps. Three exhausted Nazis lurched into the tent and began laying down a cover fire. Patients and doctors alike were toppling under the barrage.

His instincts taking over where his training had failed him, Halen grabbed Shannon by the waist and dove over the nearest table, tipping it over as they tumbled past. Bullets ricocheted off of the metal legs and base of their impromptu shield.

Mist and steam burst into the air as stray shots caromed off of various compressed oxygen tanks and the like, rapidly reducing the visibility inside the tent. It was a small miracle that none of the tanks had burst into flame.

All of the sorrow and guilty feelings fled Halen's mind as a sort of cold fury washed over him. He pulled his bowie knife from out of one boot and handed it hilt first to Shannon. "Stay down," he hissed to her as he tried to survey the tent through the clouds, peering carefully over the edge of the table.

"What are you doing?" Shannon hissed frantically.

"Just stay down!"

Halen began to crawl away, trying to circle around to where he had last seen the Germans.

The Nazis appeared to be controlling their gunfire now, being more selective with their shots. If anybody else in the tent was still alive they were making surprisingly little noise. Every person that Halen came across as he slithered along the floor was either dead or dying by the looks of things.

The Nazis stopped what they were doing and spoke to each other in German for a brief moment. Halen's German was terrible, but he thought they said something about splitting up. Carefully peering up over a table, Halen saw one of them heading in his general direction. He began to look around for something to use as a weapon and came up empty. There was nothing useful within immediate reach. For the first time in minutes, Halen's own mortality began to have an impact on his thinking and he started to get scared. But he shoved it aside, knowing that he'd expected to die from the minute that he signed up for this war. Every Second after that was borrowed time and it was up to him to make it count.

One of the other Nazis barked out something and fired his machine gun. Somebody screamed. The Nazi closest to Halen turned to make a comment to his friend.

Halen surged forward.

He leapt from his hiding spot and caught the Nazi from behind, driving him headfirst into a table. The man's helmet took the brunt of the impact, but Halen was a big boy and very strong. The German was still groggy.

Not giving the man a chance to react, Halen placed one of his hands under the Nazi's chin while his other hand grabbed an ear. Halen wrenched powerfully and heard the man's vertebrae snap grotesquely, feeling the bones separate beneath his fingers.

Gunfire riddled the table in front of him, dangerously close. Halen scooped up the dead Nazi's machine gun and quickly scooted away on his hands and knees.

Both remaining Nazis were advancing on him, firing sporadically. To make matters even worse, the air was rapidly clearing up as his options for cover became fewer and fewer.

Racking his brain for some sort of a plan made him just slightly careless. One of the Nazi's spotted him and shouted to his friend. They both opened fire on as Halen scrambled away. Bullets passing so close to him that he could feel the wind as they shot past.

Red hot lead rocketed past Halen's large frame on all sides as he desperately tried to find someplace to hide. Bullets ricocheted with bright sparks and with loud noises off of the metallic tables and objects all around the young man.

Suddenly the gunfire ceased. Both Nazis seemed to be swearing in German as they started to casually reload their weapons. Hope lit up Halen's face like a switch. They don't know that I've got a gun!

He was in motion even before he realized what he was doing.

He too two powerful running strides slid feet first at the Germans, firing his machine gun as he dropped. He clipped one of the Nazis in the side but pumped lead full into the chest of the second man before his weapon stopped firing. When the bloody corpse fell to the floor, Halen discarded his empty gun and scrambled towards the lone remaining Nazi at top speed.

The German threw his gun at Halen and took a step back, wincing at the pain in his side. Halen ducked under the flying weapon and swung a massive uppercut at the Nazi's jaw. The man narrowly avoided the blow and drove a fist into Halen's belly, following it up with a cruel blow to the young man's throat.

Halen dropped to the ground, gasping for breath through his now swollen trachea. He started to get to his knees when something thin and sharp started to dig into his neck. Garrote! his mind shouted at him as he desperately clawed the wire, fighting for air.

The Nazi was shouting in German, speaking words that Halen couldn't hope to comprehend as he fought his way to his feet. Both men jockeyed for position as Halen slowly began to lose consciousness.

Ignoring the wire, Halen's hands groped around until they found the back of the Nazi's head. Using that as a handhold, Halen pushed up to his feet and began to thrash around wildly, trying to do anything that could break the German's hold on the garrote.

Apparently desperate himself, the Nazi, a smaller man than Halen, jumped high onto his back to keep the pressure on Halen's neck. With the dexterity of a prize winning bull rider, the Nazi wore Halen down.

His strength swiftly leaving him, Halen did the only thing that he could think of. He leapt up into the air as high as he could and landed flat with the Nazi beneath him.

The German lost his grip on the garrote and started to cough, painfully gasping in pain. Halen tore the wire away from his throat and stoically ignored the fact that he was bleeding as he too fought for air.

The Nazi got to his feet first and withdrew a small knife. He reversed his grip on it and held it over his head, ready to drive it down. Halen caught the man's belt with one hand and cruelly punched the Nazi in the groin.

The Nazi's voice cracked as his knife slid from numb fingers. The man's knees wobbled and he looked like he was about to topple forward when Halen surged up, hammering his fist into the point of the descending Nazi's jaw. There was an audible cracking sound as Halen felt something give under his fist.

The Nazi's body was launched almost a foot into the air before it collapsed to the ground never to move again.

Halen dropped to his knees, one hand pressed against his bleeding throat and the other on the ground to steady himself. Shannon had appeared from behind the table and was running over to him when the room began to spin ...

*

Stone traced the faint scar that wound from the base of his jaw around to the other side of his neck with his thumb. He coughed once at the painful memory and tried to push it away.

He absently noticed that he was being given a wide berth by the crowd in the Night Machine. He had nearly two feet of clear space to both his right and left while rest of the bar swarmed with people. Many of them were trying pretend that he simply wasn't there as they poured more alcohol into their systems.

Stone stoically accepted this as he scanned the crowd for a lack of anything better to do. The bouncers who had helped out that girl were back now, resuming their proper places at the door. One of them nudged the other and gestured towards Stone, mentioning something. His buddy nodded his head enthusiastically and gave Stone a very respectful look.

Stone turned his gaze away with a grimace and tried to find something else to look at. The last thing that he wanted to do was draw attention to himself.

Several young women who had powdered their faces white and coloured their lips, eyes and hair black were looking at him approvingly. Stone contemplated going over and speaking with them for about a half second, but a faint twinge of the familiar pain stopped that thought before it even got started.

Kaitlin and Yule were back on the dance floor, trying to make the most of the remainder of the evening. It was well into April and the nights were starting to get noticeably shorter as summer approached. Not that Stone had anything against summertime, it was simply the lack of darkness that made him uneasy.

"Mr. Stone," spoke a vaguely familiar voice to his left. "Might I have word with you?"

Stone turned his head towards the voice and inwardly winced. Steve Masterson, the owner of the Night Machine and representative of Clan Malkavian stood there in all his splendor. He was not a terribly imposing man, but to look at his appearance was like trying to understand what Picasso was thinking of whenever he painted.

A touch over six feet in height and maybe one hundred and fifty pounds in

weight. His hair was in different lengths and colours, depending of course on which side of his head you were looking at. Several earrings were dangling from each ear and a chain connected his left ear to his nose. Military style boots, one was without a lace while the other was covered with a steel plate. Multicoloured and patched pants, with a shirt that appeared to be made of fishnets. A leather jacket with bright, but disjointed doodlings airbrushed over practically every inch. He wore a leather, forearm bracer on his left arm and chains wrapped around his right wrist. The dog collar was a new one as far as Stone could tell, he didn't recognize it.

Taking a deep breath, Stone swallowed his pride and put what passed for a smile on his face. "What can I do for you, Steve?"

The Malkav grinned impulsively and threw an arm over Stone's shoulders. Stone tensed slightly but didn't react in any other way.

"I just wanted to thank you for helping to keep the peace earlier," Steve said in a conspiratorial whisper, as if passing on some super secret information.

"You're welcome," Stone said, trying to slide away from the Malkav without him noticing. "If that's all ..."

"But that's not all!" Steve exclaimed, jumping back from Stone suddenly and bumping into several of his clientele. The people looked at him a bit strangely, but Steve didn't seem to notice. "I wanted to repay you!"

Stone became very wary and resisted the impulse to find someplace to hide. "How so?"

Steve waved one hand in front of himself jerkily, as if unaware he was even doing it. "No, don't worry, it's nothing too crazy," Stone highly doubted that. "I just wanted you to know that I pay my debts. I don't need any stupid Seneschal or Prince or Harpy telling me that I owe somebody a boon when I know very plainly that I do."

"Well," Stone rasped in a reasonable tone of voice. "That's very noble of you. But it's really unnecessary. I wasn't trying to put myself in your debt ... "

The Malkavian's face got suddenly very dark. He stepped nose to nose with Stone and stared menacingly into the bigger man's eyes. "Are you saying that you're too good to receive something from me?" he asked in a threatening voice that was more than slightly tinged with insanity.

Stone held the gaze for a long moment, giving himself a moment to think of the best possible response. Finally, he relented. "Not at all Mr. Masterson. If you feel the need to repay me for freely given assistance, I welcome it."

His face brightened immediately. "Great!" He then turned and motioned to his bartender who came trotting right over. "Mark, I want you make sure that my friend Stone gets free drinks from my special stock whenever he wants. Not just tonight, but every night. Is that understood?"

Mark nodded, giving Stone a knowing glance. "Of course, Mr. Masterson," He then went back behind the bar, preparing Stone's first drink.

Stone narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the Malkavian after the bartender was gone. "I don't have to worry about your special stock, do I?"

Steve shot back a hurt look. "The blood's clean," he assured Stone with a faint tone of exasperation. "I drain it fresh from my ghouls every evening."

Stone was still unconvinced.

Steve threw out his hands expansively, unknowingly knocking over one of his waitresses. "Just because I'm a bit crazy doesn't mean that I'm stupid! I try to run a legitimate business here. Besides," he added as an abashed afterthought. "My Primogen Bean would kill me if I did anything to make you Brujah any more mad at us than you already are."

Stone relaxed a bit. "My apologies, Steve," he said with another faint smile. "I guess I've got no reason to mistrust you."

Steve shrugged as Mark came back with a huge mug. Steve took it from the bartender and served it to Stone himself. "Ah, well," he sighed lustily. "What are you gonna do?" He then snapped his gaze to his left wrist and checked the time from a watch that wasn't there. "Dear God!" he exclaimed loudly. "I have to play the bagpipes now! Enjoy your drink." And with that, Steve Masterson dashed off into the crowd hollering for his wife Scarlett to fetch his pipes.

Stone shook his head with a sigh as the Malkavian sprinted off and turned his attention to liquid filled mug in front of him.

Stone sniffed cautiously at the dark blood. It smelled clean. Tasting it on the tip of his tongue reassured him that it was not tampered with and definitely human. Chilled too.

Draining the mug in one long pull gave Stone a brief headrush as the now familiar surge of energy surged through to every corner of his being. From the tips of his fingers to the roots of his hair he felt the life fill him. The scuffle had taken more out of him than it should have, but Stone shrugged it off. He had been angry and, consequently, had gotten a bit overzealous in his rage. It's not like I broke the Masquerade or anything, he reassured himself.

Yule and Kaitlin left the dance floor then, taking up positions on either side of him at the bar.

"What was that all about between you and Steve?" Kaitlin asked curiously as she scanned the faces of the other people at the bar.

Stone looked at the mug in his hand and placed it down before answering. "Just a bit of inter-Clan politicking."

Yule clapped his friend on the shoulder with a friendly laugh. "That's th' way Stoney. Business and pleasure in one night. Just th' way it should be."

"What pleasure?" Kaitlin interrupted with a frown. "He just stood around all night. He didn't even dance once."

Both Stone and Yule looked at each other briefly before turning back to the Gangrel. "Trust me, Kaitlin," Stone said bluntly. "You don't want to see me dance." Yule shook his head vehemently to emphasize the point.

"Oh, whatever," Kaitlin shrugged. She turned to Yule then. "Let's get out of here, this place is boring me."

Stone easily suppressed the urge to grin as he watched his friend sigh wearily. "Where d' ya want t' go now?" Yule asked, just slightly exasperated.

Kaitlin shrugged again. "I dunno. Someplace downtown." Then, as if everything had been decided, she spun on her heel and walked towards the door. Yule held both of his arms out to the sides and looked to the ceiling, silently pleading with the heavens for some sort of positive response.

He didn't get one.

Over the noise of the nightclub, Steve Masterson began playing the bagpipes with a surprising amount of skill and no lack of enthusiasm.

Yule's expression became pained. "She's tryin' t'drive me mad, isn't she?"

Stone nodded slightly and pat his friend's shoulder, pushing him after Kaitlin.

Once out on the street, Stone adjusted his bandanna and slipped on his Ray Bans before crossing the street to catch up with the now bickering Yule and Kaitlin. He fished around in his overcoat pockets until he found a fresh toothpick which he quickly inserted into his mouth.

With very few exceptions, the Osborne Village in Winnipeg had to be one of the more interesting places that Stone had ever been to. It was considered to be a poorer area of the city by everyone who didn't live in or around it. But Stone found that it was undeniably rich in culture and friendship. Everyone was at least passingly friendly with everybody else, be they squeegee kids trying to earn a buck or two from passing tourists or older folks who just liked paying cheaper rent in an area that was close to downtown.

As he trotted after Yule and Kaitlin, Stone tried to think of a good reason to go off on his own so that he wouldn't have deal with hearing their petty bickering. It wasn't that he didn't care, he just was tired of dealing with it all of the time.

Turning a deaf ear to their conversation Stone focused his attention on Yule's van. It was an older model Ford that had been only slightly modified. The body was now mostly bulletproof and there was a small armory under the back seat. When Stone had asked Yule about the necessity of the armory, his friend had shrugged broadly and said, "Well, y' can never be too careful."

"Why can't I drive?" Kaitlin asked indignantly as Yule unlocked her door.

Stone could hear Yule sigh even as he slid into the back seat. "Because it's my van."

"But I'm a good driver," she insisted angrily.

Stone covered his eyes with one hand. The argument was always the same. The topic was usually different, but the flow was always identical.

Yule would make a seemingly innocent comment or ask a harmless question.

Kaitlin would immediately take a defensive stance, alarmed that her boyfriend would dare to question her well thought out motives and plans.

Yule would then assure her that he wasn't trying to offend her.

Kaitlin would take offense to that, wondering why he offended her if he didn't mean to offend her and assume that he's keeping something from her.

Yule then tries to apologize for whatever he said that was wrong.

Kaitlin then takes offense to the fact that he doesn't know what he said that was wrong.

Yule then asks how he's supposed to know what he said that was so wrong if she won't tell him why she's upset.

Kaitlin then tells him to shut up.

Yule shuts up for a minute.

Kaitlin sulks.

Yule would try to say something stupid to cheer her up.

Kaitlin tells him to shut up.

Yule would try this same losing tactic a couple more times.

Kaitlin tells him to shut up a couple more times.

Yule finally loses his temper and begins to snipe.

Kaitlin then snipes right back.

Stone sighed wearily. It was always the same.

Yule quickly drove the van through the crowded streets of the Village and made his way to the Donald Street overpass. Kaitlin and Yule were still bickering slightly, interrupted occasionally by Yule's screamed out insistence that the people of Winnipeg should "learn t' fucking drive or get off th' Goddamned road!" But Stone still wasn't really listening to what was being said. He was busying his mind by counting the number of tiles in the roof of Yule's van.

"Stoney," Yule called, trying to get his attention. "What d'you think about ..."

"Leave him out of this," Kaitlin interrupted harshly. "This is between you and me, Yule."

"But, I just wanted his opinion on ..."

"No, you just want him to agree with you so that you can feel justified about what you're saying."

"That's not what I meant."

"Isn't it?"

"No, it's not."

"Then, what is ..."

The van suddenly lurched to one side with a loud squeal of metal on metal.

"What in the hell?" Yule exclaimed as Kaitlin yelped in surprise.

Stone braced himself and looked out the side window. There was a black BMW being driven by some punk, keeping pace with them on their right. The car seemed to be full of people as they sideswiped the van again.

"Christ!" Yule swore, trying to avoid the rest of the traffic with little success. An early motorcyclist was forced off the road and smashed through the front window of the Canada Trust building.

"What do these guys think they're doing?" Kaitlin yelled, swiveling madly in her seat, trying to get a better view.

"Kaitlin! Sit th' fuck down!"

Stone looked out the other window and saw at least two other cars trying to surround the van. Driving one of the other cars was O-Ball.

Yule swore at the top of his lungs, as he frantically slid the van through traffic.

"I guess they couldn't wait until tomorrow!" Kaitlin snarled ferally.

Stone did a quick head count and estimated at least five cars now, with a minimum of four punks per car. "They've brought some friends," he said as the van was rocked again.

Yule tromped on the gas and simply tried to outrun the self-proclaimed Street Masters. But the thugs were driving smaller vehicles with greater maneuverability. They easily kept pace with the van, ramming it from all sides. They crossed Portage Avenue en masse, causing several minor accidents and a great deal of confusion.

Gunfire sounded as some of the gang members began to shoot at the van.

"These boys're gettin' serious," Yule muttered as Kaitlin started to growl. Stone was simply trying to keep from getting bounced around like a pinball.

Several bullets ricocheted harmlessly off of the van's armoured hide with great showers of sparks. Suddenly, one shell managed to spiderweb the windshield from the inside.

"Jesus, Kaitlin! Roll up yer' Goddamned window! I can't see now!"

"Just drive, Yule!" Kaitlin hollered as she grudgingly rolled up her window.

Stone reached under his seat then and pulled out the strongbox holding Yule's small armoury. He wrenched it open, snapping off the latch in his haste. He was then thrown to the side of the van as Yule swerved onto Ellice Avenue, slamming one of the gang's cars up onto the sidewalk.

"Try to keep her steady," Stone shouted as he prepped one of the automatic rifles.

As the van swerved and lurched, Stone steadied himself on one knee and slid open the van's side door. The nearest BMW saw what he was doing and pulled even with the van. The driver looked in the van and Stone had the privilege of seeing the haughty look slide right off of his face as brought the up the M-60.

Stone opened fire. Bullets tore through the driver of the BMW and took out the punk in the passenger side as well. He could clearly hear the remainder of the car's occupants scream as he ejected the empty cartridge into the street.

The BMW swerved dangerously out of control and angled directly into the van's path. Yule grimly floored the gas and drove straight ahead.

The impact spun the BMW away crazily. And, with a terrified scream from the remaining passengers that all three of them could easily hear, the runaway car crashed headlong into the Olde Spaghetti Factory. Five seconds after the crash, the car exploded in a ball of fire.

Another solid impact from the other side of the van caused Stone to lose his balance and almost fall out the open door. As it was, his rifle clattered to the street leaving him unarmed and vulnerable. With a heave Stone forced himself back into the van. He looked forward and tried to see through the badly cracked windshield as the van was hit once again.

"I've lost control!" Yule shouted. The van careened over a curbside and smashed through a small fence. Tree branches snapped and flew away the van continued on it's wayward plunge.

"We're gonna crash!" Kaitlin hollered through grated teeth as she braced herself for impact.

Stone said nothing and curled himself up into a ball, quietly preparing for the worst.

The van swerved awkwardly up a small flight of stairs before slamming headlong into one of the concrete pillars to the Market Stage in the Exchange District.

*

"So, this is the place?" Shannon asked with a warm, supportive smile.

Halen looked up at the all too familiar sight of the seven story building that he'd called home for as long as he could remember. Unconsciously his gaze was drawn towards the window on the sixth floor that was part of his father's flat. With a great amount of effort, Halen forced himself to look at the faded bloodstain on the cobbles not ten feet in front of him.

Shannon followed his gaze and breathed in sharply. "Is that .." she began, not able to finish the question.

Halen nodded slowly. "That's all that's left of her now I suppose."

There was a long, uncomfortable pause during which neither of them said anything.

Shannon wrapped both of her arms around him and leaned against Halen's shoulder familiarly. Comfortingly. She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. "You don't have to do this, you know. We can buy you more clothes."

Halen smiled down at her and gazed longingly into her deep green eyes. He tried to speak but had to clear his throat violently to get beyond the rasp. "I know. But I have to at least see him one last time."

"Why?" Shannon asked feelingly. "You can't tell me that you owe him anything?"

"Oh, I owe him everything," Halen objected with a sudden, angry glint in his eyes. "I owe him for sixteen long years of Hell. I owe him for driving my mother to suicide. I owe him ..."

"Shhh." Shannon urged, placing one of her fingers over his mouth to keep him from speaking.

Halen calmed himself down and wrapped both of his arms around her slender frame. She held him right back, silently giving him the support that he needed.

They kissed softly under the cloudy London night sky for a brief moment, ignoring the chill November wind. Rain began to fall lightly around them, but they didn't seem to care. They had each other, that was all that mattered.

"What did I ever do to deserve you?" Halen asked quietly as the rain began to fall more heavily.

Shannon quirked one of her famous half-smiles and cocked her head at him. "Well, you saved my life, for starters."

"Big deal, you saved mine first."

Shannon laughed. "True enough."

"I think that you'll have to give me a better reason then, won't you beautiful?" Halen squeezed her protectively against him.

"All right then," she nodded in acquiescence, her long red curls bouncing slightly. She pursed her lips in thought for a moment before looking up at him coyly. "You made me fall in love with you?" she suggested softly.

Halen smiled. "And God knows you certainly didn't make that easy on me."

"I should say not! I'd have hated for you to think that I fell for every dashing young man in a uniform who saved my life."

"Really? Just how many of us poor saps were there?"

Shannon smiled lightly and kissed him again. "Just you."

Halen laughed. "Come on, let's get you in out of the rain."

Lightning streaked across the sky just as Halen opened the door for Shannon. He turned in surprise at the violence of the thunder, and at how close it sounded.

"Something wrong?" Shannon asked, following his gaze into the sky.

Halen shook his head negatively after a moment. "Nah. Let's just get this over with."

They climbed the stairs in silence. It was a strange homecoming for Halen in both a good and a bad sense. There were many times that he had climbed these stairs with his mother as a child. There had been happy times in his life before, it was just that the bad times seemed to outweigh all the good ones.

As they reached the sixth floor landing, Halen had an incredibly strong flashback of an eleven year-old version of himself sprinting down this very same hallway with his heart in his throat. His heart was in his throat again, but this time the anxiety was more of a wrenching sensation than a pounding necessity.

Shannon squeezed his hand and they continued on.

They stopped in front of the door to his father's flat. Halen took several deep breaths as Shannon ran her hand up and down his arm soothingly. He stared woodenly at the door, suddenly hoping that his father wouldn't be home. Halen was afraid that he'd somehow revert back to a childlike state if he even saw the man. But, after only a brief hesitation, Halen cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. In one brisk motion, he opened the door and stepped through.

The flat was mostly as he remembered it. Dirty, unkempt and with the stench of stale tobacco and old whisky permeating the air. Much of the old furniture and ornaments that he remembered from his youth seemed to be missing. Most likely pawned by his father for more booze.

"Who's there," slurred an older man's voice from around the corner.

Halen didn't answer right away and Shannon didn't say anything. She squeezed his arm comfortingly, letting him know that she wasn't going anywhere. Halen walked until he rounded the corner into the living room.

There, in the same chair that he'd had for as long as Halen could remember sat his father, Harold Marcus. Former beat cop turned retired drunkard. Fifty-three years old, balding, pot-bellied and filthy. He looked like he hadn't shaved in three days and bathed in even longer. His undershirt and slacks were rumpled, obviously slept in and stained. He wore no socks and his suspenders were laying on the floor beside the chair.

As always, his father's chair was positioned right next to the radio so that he wouldn't have to actually get up and change the station when he wanted to listen to something else. The ashtrays were all overflowing and there were stray cigarette butts and empty liquor bottles lying everywhere.

"I said ..." Harold Marcus began again before noticing that someone else was in the room. He squinted his bloodshot eyes at Halen for a long moment before he recognized him. When he did, he leaned back in his chair with a completely unreadable look on his splotchy face. He took a long, silent pull from the whiskey bottle in his left hand and ostentatiously wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm.

Halen forced himself to stand rock steady and not squirm under his father's harsh scrutiny. Shannon stood right behind him and tried not to seem too noticeable. Outside the window, the rain was pouring steadily. Lightning lit up the dim room and the thunder drowned out the radio.

Deliberately grinding out his cigarette butt into the arm of his chair, Harold Marcus took another brief pull on his whiskey before speaking. "Just what in the hell are you doing here?" His voice was ragged, the product of chain smoking and alcoholism.

Halen cleared his throat. "I came to gather up the last of my things ...."

"Your shit's gone," his father broke in, sipping from his bottle. "When you left, I had all of your leftover crap sold for more important things."

"Yeah, I can see that," Halen muttered darkly.

"What was that, boy?" Harold snapped, lurching out of his chair and taking a wavering step forward. He pointed a nicotine stained finger at his son and snarled. "Are you daring to talk back to me?"

"It's not going to be like that, Dad," Halen retorted quietly. "I'm twenty years old now. I'm not the little boy that you kicked around anymore."

Harold laughed coldly, flexing his fingers. "Just because you're bigger than me now don't mean that I still can't kick your ass!"

Harold Marcus had been an imposing man at one time. There was no question as to which side of the family Halen got his size from. The older man was easily over six feet in height. And, though out of shape, his arms and shoulders were still very thick. Most frightening of all was the dead look in Harold's eyes. He looked like a man who truly did not care about anything.

Halen lowered his eyes first. He had been praying that this sort of thing wouldn't happen. He had truly wanted to avoid a confrontation. "Dad," he began before his voice gave out on him, dying in a raspy cough.

"What the hell's the matter with your voice," his father asked irritably. He motioned towards the ugly scar around his throat. "Did you cut yourself shaving in the army or something?" He chuckled brokenly at his own poor joke.

Shannon lurched forward then, her eyes flashing with a horrible anger. "A Nazi nearly killed him. Most of his vocal chords are destroyed and he'll never be able to ..."

Halen grabbed her by the arms and slowly tried to push her out of his father's sight. "Shannon, please don't," he pleaded.

Harold Marcus stared openly at the tall redhead. He took another drink from his bottle. "Who's this then?" he asked harshly, daring his son to say something.

"She's none of your business," Halen snapped.

His father's face went red with indignation. "You bring some tall, flame haired harlot into my house and you have the nerve to tell me that it's none of my business!" he hollered. His finger jabbing repeatedly and his bottle-wielding arm flailing around blindly. Cheap whiskey sloshed over the lip and fell to the filthy carpet.

"She's my fiancee!" Halen shouted back.

Harold blinked in surprise and took a step back. He seemed uncertain as his son's eyes blazed dangerously.

Shannon seemed to want to say something else but Halen put a hand on her arm and silently urged her to silence.

Halen went on more calmly. "We were just coming back here grab the last of my stuff before going to the airport and catching a plane for Canada." He paused to let his words sink in. "That's right, Dad. I'm leaving the country. You'll never see me again. I just thought that I'd make sure you knew that." He paused, his heart in his throat. "Even after everything, I thought ... I thought that you had a right to know."

There was another long period of silence during which the only thing anyone could hear was the rumble of thunder and the crackle of the radio hissing in the background.

After taking another drink, Harold's face darkened visibly as lightning flashed outside, silhouetting him for a brief moment. The squawking could just barely be heard amidst the heavy thunder background. "You useless fucking git," his father muttered.

"Halen blinked. "What?" he blurted incredulously.

"You've got some fucking nerve, I'll say that much." He took another drink.

"Dad, what the hell are you talking about?"

Harold Marcus lit another cigarette and threw aside the empty pack before speaking, each word accentuated with a puff of smoke. "You come crawling back here, into my home after God only knows how long ..."

"Four years, Dad," Halen interrupted softly.

He pretended that he'd never even been stopped. " ... You come back here, asking for stuff that you lost any right to after you ran out of here with your tail between your fat little legs." He took another drag from his cigarette. "And you have the gall to bring her here!"

Halen was bewildered and far too upset to comprehend. "I ... I don't understand."

More lightning and thunder rocked the London sky as Harold's face got darker. "You brought her here to rub it in my face, didn't you?"

Halen could take no more. "What are you talking about?"

"You know how much I loved your mother!" Harold Marcus screamed drunkenly, stunning Halen to complete silence. The silence dragged on for several minutes before Harold continued. "And now, years after you killed her, you have the out and out gall to bring this harlot here, into my home, to make me realize what I've lost all over again!"

Halen wanted to scream in frustration, his eyes beginning to fill with tears. He blindly walked the few steps to window and pointed out to the stormy sky beyond. "I rushed in here to keep her from jumping that day, Dad!" Halen had begun to sob brokenly by this point. "You didn't have to see her fall to the street! You were off getting drunk! AGAIN!"

"You shut your mouth!" Harold screamed. "You will speak when I tell you to and not before, do you hear me boy!?"

"I will not shut my mouth!" Halen was nearing complete hysteria and couldn't find any way to stop himself. His hands were pulling at his hair and his face was contorted painfully. "You killed her, Dad! You treated her like shit! You beat her! You took advantage of her and you called her down at every single opportunity! You may have not actually thrown her out this window, Dad. But you did the next best thing! You made her do it to herself!"

Harold howled in frustration and hurled his whiskey bottle at his son. Halen, not expecting the sudden attack, was caught completely flat footed and watched as the bottle ricocheted off his head and crashed through the window to the street below. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled outside as Halen dropped to one knee, the rain now pouring into the room and starting to soak into his clothing.

"Halen!" Shannon cried, stumbling towards him. Tears openly rolling down her face as she was overcome with emotion.

Harold Marcus strode forward and swung a vicious backhand blow at Shannon and connected just on the side of her jaw. "Stay out of this, Bitch! This is between me and him!" he snarled in anger.

Everything seemed to slow down for Halen. He saw the exact moment in which his father's hand struck Shannon's face and heard the smack of flesh even over the roar of thunder from outside. He watched as Shannon's lithe body twisted, her long red curls flailing madly as she collapsed to the floor.

He could feel each drop of water trickle down his scalp as everything slowed down for him. His pulse seemed to pound directly behind his ears, every fiber of his being seemed to tingle with a particular energy and electricity.

Every bottled up feeling, emotion and hatred that he had stored since the beginning. Every nasty thing his father had ever said or done to him or his mother. All the names that he had been called, all of the awful things that he had seen, all of the feelings and people that he had let roll off of him like the rain water now rolling down to the floor off of his shoulders.

Halen Marcus cracked.

Stone cracked.

He never remembered surging forward to tackle his father to the ground. He never remembered what he had been shouting. But he never forget how wonderful it felt each and every time he drove his fist into that fat, old bastard's face.

His arm was like a piston-driven jackhammer. Pounding down relentlessly, over and over again. He lost track of time, space and being. He just screamed and flailed away amidst the biggest thunder and lightning storm that London had seen in years. Rain poured into the room, making the floor slick and slippery to walk on, but on his knees Stone couldn't have cared less as he continued to relentlessly beat away on his father's face.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Stone regained his senses.

At long last he stopped driving his fist down. His shoulder slowly began to let the rest of him know that it was sore and tired. His fist was bruised and split at the knuckles, dripping with blood that was only partly his own.

Looking down at his father's face, Stone could barely recognize him. There was almost nothing left of his original features. Teeth were missing, the jaw was grotesquely broken in at least two places. Blood covered every inch of flesh and was puddled beneath his head and spreading across the floor.

Dropping his father's limp form to the floor, Stone noticed the most horrifying detail of them all. Harold Marcus' head was twisted at an angle that was impossible for a living person.

Harold Marcus was dead.

Stone quickly, and to his great surprise, found that he wasn't in the least bit disturbed by this fact. It just seemed like the only real option left to him.

Rising to his feet, he stared down at his father's corpse and ran his bloody hand across his lips, leaving a crimson streak behind. He just couldn't bring himself to feel anything at all.

And he was trying.

That was when he remembered Shannon.

Snapping his gaze to her, he saw that she was huddled against the wall on her knees. The tears had stopped rolling down her face but a look of abject horror remained. Her luscious red hair was ragged and her eyes were wild. Her lower lip had started to swell from his father's blow, but it didn't look to be at all serious.

Stone held out his hand to her and tried to calm her down. "Shannon," he said calmly.

She swung her gaze towards him, the fear intensifying.

"Don't worry," Stone reassured her, smiling through the blood on his face. "It's me ... "

Slowly Shannon rose to her feet, always trying to keep her distance. She shook her head. "No," she whispered.

Stone was confused. "What do you mean, 'No'? It's me!"

Shannon shook her head more fiercely and began slinking towards the door. "No," she insisted. "No, it's not." And then she turned and bolted, slamming the door to the flat behind her.

Stone stood there, staring at the blank wall for a long moment, not quite registering what had just happened. Then he slowly made his way to the door, picking up speed with every step.

He burst into the hallway. "Shannon?" he called softly.

She was nowhere to be seen.

He bolted for the stairs, bursting through the door leading to the landing. Faintly he could hear the sounds of footfalls at the very bottom of the staircase.

"Shannon, wait!" Stone called as he leapt down the stairs, heedless of his own safety and well being.

He kicked open the doors to the building's entrance without breaking stride and was soaked to the skin after taking two strides. "SHANNON!" he bellowed, searching in every direction for her. Off in the far distance, Stone thought that he could faintly see someone fleeing away from him. He started sprinting after that image, repeatedly calling out her name.

As he ran on, the rain got heavier and the visibility got worse. Almost immediately, Stone lost track of any image he'd had of Shannon. And after five minutes of sheer sprinting, Stone realized that he'd lost interest in finding her.

He kept running though. He didn't know what else he was supposed to do. He'd murdered his father, forever destroyed any chance at happiness that he may have had with the woman he loved.

No friends. No family. No feeling.

He was Stone.

How long he ran for, Stone could never have said. But when he finally tired, he staggered to a stop and stumbled into an alley. He had every intention of collapsing into a gutter and laying there until he died.

Lightning flashed brightly, silhouetting a dark figure sprinting directly towards him down the alleyway. He was dressed all in black and appeared to just have been severely beaten.

Stone watched dispassionately as the figure turned his gaze forward and caught sight of him. There was a brief widening of the eyes before the figure smiled.

In shock, Stone saw that the figure had abnormally long canine teeth.

Vampire!, his mind screamed at him.

But even before he could tell his mind that it was obviously imagining things, the figure moved impossibly fast and closed the twenty foot gap between them in half a second and sank his teeth deeply into Stone's neck.

Both men crashed to the alley's garbage strewn floor. Stone gasped in pain as he felt his very essence of being leaking out of his body. Immediately he began to lose strength and sight.

Now that he was being given his wish of death, Stone suddenly found that he no longer wanted it. But he no longer had control of his arms or legs. As it was, he was slowly losing the ability to open and close his mouth.

So he fought back with the only weapon left to his disposal, and bit down into the vampire's neck.

Blood flowed into Stone's mouth and trickled down his throat.

All went black.

*

"You guys check that side. Me and Daco'll check on this side."

"No problem, man."

"What's the point, man? These fuckers are probably dead already."

"Listen you useless mother fucker, no one gives a fuck about your fucking stupid opinions. These fuckers messed with me, so we're gonna make sure that they're fucking dead. Is that all right with you, mother fucker?"

In the crumpled heap of Yule's van, Stone grimaced humorlessly. He was alone, both Yule and Kaitlin had turned invisible after the crash, slipping out through the devastated windows and were waiting for him to make the first move.

Stone grimly remembered Yule's whispered words to him just before he'd rendered himself invisible. It'll be just like old times, Stoney. Outnumbered and lovin' it!

That's Yule for you, Stone told himself. All full of life.

He could hear the gangsters as they bantered back and forth with each other, none of them wanting to be the first one to check sure they'd finished the job.

Stupid mortals.

For a brief second, Stone almost pitied them.

Almost.

After all that he had been through in his extended life it was hard for him to feel any sort of pity for people anymore. Most of these punks came from good homes, with parents that loved them and cared for them. And they turned their noses up at all of it. He quietly worked himself around until his feet were pointed at the back doors to the van.

Don't these children realize just how lucky they have it? Do they care what their ancestors did for them, what they sacrificed so that they might have the best possible life.

"I bet the big fucker shit his pants before he died, O-Ball. I'll betcha!"

"Shut the fuck up and check the van, dickless!"

Stone found it very hard to feel anything for people at the best of times. People like the Street Masters ...

I can't even bring myself to pity them.

Stone kicked out his legs. With ferocious impact, both doors crumpled like newspaper and ripped away from the van at an incredibly high velocity. She-La and two other members of the street gang were pratically torn in half by the hurtling debris.

As Stone leapt out of the van, he had saw O-Ball's jaw drop in shock.

"Shoot him!" O-Ball screamed, leveling his pistol at the Brujah.

Stone had managed to draw his .44 AutoMag and get off a couple of quick shots, incidentally ripping gaping holes in the closest punk, before getting absolutely bowled over by gunfire.

Stone lost pistol amidst the repeated impacts and was thrown to the back of the Market Stage where he tumbled down the steps on the far side. The pain he felt was significant, but nothing that wouldn't take him more than a couple of seconds to heal.

There was a feral, almost feline roar of delight followed immediately by a bloodcurdling scream of pain as Kaitlin leapt into the fray. Stone had no idea what she was doing, but it didn't sound like something that he wanted to see.

Gunshots were being fired rapidly and frequently. Howls of pain and anguish added to the mix, creating a veritable symphony of death and destruction. Stone had been so many of these pointless confrontations over the years that he'd almost become desensitized to it all.

Almost.

But there wasn't a night that didn't go by where Stone didn't wish, more than anything, that he could have been raised in a good home. By a loving mother and a caring, supportive father. Maybe a sibling or two, anything but what he'd had.

Maybe things would have been different. Maybe he would have been able to avoid the perpetual world of darkness that he was forced to live in as a parasite. Drinking the blood of the human race to survive.

Sure, he was incredibly powerful. He had a few good friends that he could normally trust.

He was fairly well respected.

He had a home.

Generally, he was content.

But he would never be happy.

Very briefly, Stone hoped, as he did every night, that Shannon had gotten over that what had happened in his father's flat and had found a way to move on with her life.

He hoped that she was happy.

"Stoney, we could use a hand out here!" Yule called from somewhere out of sight.

Stone sighed resignedly and quickly scanned the immediate area. Seeing the small, ten foot birch tree rooted not three feet away from him, Stone lurched to his feet and casually uprooted it. He climbed the stairs to the Market Stage and surveyed the melee.

Kaitlin was on her third victim. A gang member was peering into the shadows beside the stage intently, his pistol leveled and ready. Then, materializing from thin air, Kaitlin tackled the poor bastard to the ground. The guy fired his weapon harmlessly into the air, screaming as she ruthlessly sliced him open with her claws.

Stone shuddered and looked for Yule.

Yule was facing off with what appeared to be the remaining five Street Masters. They were trying to shoot him with their weapons, but Yule kept turning on the speed and dodging just out of the way of each shot the instant before it should have hit him.

He was obviously hurting from the way he continued to dodge as opposed to going in for the kill. Yule wasn't normally one to dick around with a couple of humans.

Stone had torn off the shredded remains of his leather overcoat and bandanna. His shirt had become untucked during all the excitement and his scraggly brown hair blew freely in the cool wind.

He hefted the tree once like a javelin, reared back and let fly. The tree sliced through the air at a blinding speed, brutally impaling one gang member and incapacitating two others with it's branches.

Yule sped forward, pouncing upon the incapacitated gangsters. The last two Street Masters turned to Stone and stared in sheer fright, not believing what was happening to them. They opened fire. Stone advanced implacably, stoically ignoring the minor damage that the bullets caused as they tore through his flesh.

One of them, finally seeing the futility of the situation, turned and fled. His buddy, Stone believed that he was the one called 'Slyck', fired his gun until the clip ran dry. Then he dropped his piece and rushed forward maniacally, all coherent thought gone.

Stone felt an ever so slight twinge of pity for Slyck. He was a young man who'd just made some mistakes in life, after all. He probably didn't even know what he was getting into when he joined the Street Masters. Most likely, he'd joined because he wanted to be accepted by somebody. By anybody.

Regardless, there was no question that Slyck's innocence was gone. Any childlike naiveté was long gone before this day. And all of the wrongs he'd done and the crimes he'd committed had finally caught up with him.

Stepping into the blow, Stone caught the gang member with a tremendous punch to the side of the head that sent teeth flying like rockets in every direction. The rest of Slyck's body executed a wrenching, twisting, pinwheel flip that resulted in the multiple snapping of his spine before it crashed into the ground.

Dead and lifeless.

Just like me.

The fleeing gang member Stone left to Kaitlin's perverse amusements. He'd barely made it fifty yards when she pounced on him with a howl of sheer glee. Stone turned away and began examining the rapidly cooling corpses all around him.

Yule walked towards him then, handing Stone his AutoMag. "Y' okay, Stoney?" he asked, his face full of concern. "Y' seem a bit distracted."

Stone tucked his pistol into the back of his waistband and continued to scan the bodies. "I don't see O-Ball. Did you get him?"

"The leader?" Yule asked, then shook his head. "I don't think so. Kaitlin may have got him, but I dinnae think that you'd recognize any one of Kaitlin's victims." He shuddered.

Stone eyed Yule ironically. "She's your girlfriend," he reminded him pointedly.

"I know, I know."

They were silent for a few moments, the sounds being Kaitlin's bizarre squeals of delight as she dissected her latest opponent. "Bloody Gangrel," Yule muttered.

"Does all this ever get to you?" Stone asked cautiously.

"All what? Th' killing?" Yule clarified.

"Not just that, I mean ... everything." Stone was silent for a moment longer.

"Being ... a vampire."

Yule sighed with exhaustion heavily overlaying his voice. "Stoney, I'm gonna tell ye th' same thing now that I told ye forty years ago when I found ye laying that alley wit' th' antideluvian crouched o'er ye. We either survive ... or we die. Morality stops becomin' an issue at that point."

Stone grimaced. "Yeah, I know."

"Why d'ya ask?"

"I don't know. It just seems all so petty." Stone gestured towards the corpses all around them. "People are always doing such retarded things to each other. Hurting, killing, getting them addicted to chemicals ... All for what? What's point of trying to rape some girl in a nightclub bathroom? What's ..."

Yule clapped a hand on Stone's shoulder when he ran out of things to say. "We don't have t' like everythin' we see, Stoney. But even guys likeye and me can't change th' world. All that we can do is live in th' world as best we can and try t' retain as much of our humanity as possible."

Stone was quiet for a moment. "But if this is the way that humanities going ... I don't know if ..."

"Stone! Yule! Watch out!" Kaitlin screeched.

There was a squeal of tires and a huge spray of turf as one of the BMW's roared to life. It swerved a bit a first before straightening it's path and pointed nosefirst at Stone and Yule. Stone narrowed his eyes and peered into the rapidly approaching car, trying to identify the driver.

O-Ball.

"Christ!" Yule snapped, blurring out of harm's way at top speed. Reaching Kaitlin's side he turned back and saw Stone set his feet and wait for the car's impact. "Stoney, y' bloody maniac, move!" he hollered, starting to run back towards his friend.

Stone merely narrowed his eyes and waited. O-Ball's eyes were very wild as he leaned in over the steering wheel, intent on Stone.

It was the instant before impact:

O-Ball was screaming.

Kaitlin was screaming.

Yule was screaming.

Stone was expressionless as always.

Placing both hands out in front of him, Stone locked his arms allowed the BMW to plow straight into him. There was an immense cacophony of noise. Metal screeching, glass shattering, people screaming. The car's hood, engine, front axle and body folded around Stone's outstretched arms.

The tremendous force drove the immovable Stone back a good ten feet, plowing up the turf with his feet as the momentum carried them. His arms quivered with the strain of what he was doing, his shoulders threatened to fly out their sockets and his back teeth rattled with the impact.

Then, everything stopped.

Stone took his hands from the car, prying them from the permanent indentures in the metal. The smell of burnt rubber, tortured metal and gasoline permeated the air.

Shaking his arms and legs out, Stone checked to make sure that nothing needed any immediate healing.

He looked at the wreck for a moment. Then he saw O-Ball.

This sudden, incredibly powerful motion had rocketed O-Ball body headfirst through the front windshield like a homing missile. His limp form was half sprawled on what remained of the BMW's hood.

Leaning forward, Stone reached out and grabbed O-Ball by his hair, picking him up. His face was a bloody mess and completely slack. There was no question that O-Ball was very dead.

"Why," Stone demanded of the gang leader's corpse. "What was the point of it all?"

"Stoney! We've got t' get outta here! The cops' re comin'!"

Stone didn't take his eyes off of O-Ball's face. "I'll be right there," he called out. He continued to stare, looking for some sort of an answer.

Any sort of answer.

Anything.

O-Ball's face slapped onto the hood of BMW with a wet sound as Stone released the corpse with distaste. He looked down at the remains of the gang leader and turned away.

Ten strides away, Stone looked back over his shoulder. "I hope you thought it was all worth it."

Then, as the red and blue lights were becoming more prevalent along the streets of the Exchange District, Stone became one with the shadows and slipped off into the night.
Author's Note and Legal Disclaimer

The preceding work of fiction is intended for entertainment purposes only. Any reference to actual places is only to provide a sense of space and relevance for the reader, and is in no way meant to take advantage of or exploit other people's properties or brands. In addition, any similarities between characters mentioned in this book and actual people is purely coincidental.

As a proud, full time resident of the City of Winnipeg it seemed only appropriate to begin my literary journey in my hometown and display pieces of it prominently in this novel. The axiom "write what you know" has been essential for me in this process and I am hopeful that this tale becomes a fun read for other citizens of Winnipeg, whether current, former or future.

Please leave a Review of this Book HERE (<https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/269795> ) – I would love to hear what you thought, positive, negative or otherwise.

If you have enjoyed this book I invite you to join the OVERDRIVE Official Facebook Page HERE ( <https://www.facebook.com/OverdriveSeries> ) and start a conversation. I will be visiting it as often as I can to provide insights and updates for future stories and answer any questions you might have about this or anything else I might have written or done. While I am not currently writing anymore gothic, vampire related fiction if there is enough interest I may do so again.

You can also follow me on Twitter ( @OutlawAK ) . Through this forum I will talk about the progress on my future books, upcoming pro wrestling dates, my workout routines and various other entertainments that make me laugh. Hopefully they'll make you laugh too!

Thank you very much for taking a chance on my work. Writing has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember and I am grateful that you took the time to read my work.

Regards,

Adam Knight – July 1, 2013

Author Page - <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/OutlawAK>

Facebook - <https://www.facebook.com/OverdriveSeries>
