World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - I Live in a World of Darkness [Complete]

[Adrian Moss]

I live in a world of darkness. It is the kind of darkness that eats like a cancer at people’s dreams. It’s a darkness that vanquishes hope and devours possibilities until only a pale shade remains waiting for death. It’s a world that’s been home to me long before I lost the Sun and came to fear the flame. It’s crappy to see what it does to people, but no one can change it. Or is that no one will change it?

They come across the dinner looking for me. They have that look. You know the one. The look of people that both work two jobs they hate – real back breaking labor too, just so they might have an easier life in some distant future. Those people worn down to the bone, which take all the shit life piles on them, and live in fear of what tomorrow brings. If they have ever had a good day in their lives, they’ve had to share it and it wasn’t 24 hours long.

They sit down and they look disappointed in what they see. I imagine they would get up if they had the choice – any choice. They don’t. By the time you get down to me, you’ve run out of options. I’m not even a PI, but a wannabe. My one saving grace is how much I charge. I work for free.

No, I don’t really know why. That much brainpower is beyond my limit. Anyway …

They start talking about their daughter, what a wonderful person she was. She was going to UCLA and wanted to work on one of the major papers in town. Thing is, she was a graduating freshman and I don’t really think they are the ones to get those kinds of jobs, so I file that away for later. She wasn’t dating – yeah right. Parents never know, especially if they start dating some lowlife like me. She didn’t have a car. She didn’t have any close friends. She didn’t have much of a life – no dating, clubs, extracurricular, nothing.

They also tell me the police have no leads and one kind soul in the department has told them the case is going on the back burner forever. That makes sense. The LAPD looks after those who pay the most taxes first and everything else is trickle down criminal economics. No room for a poor out of town kid and one homeless Hispanic boy who got killed – another victim would have been nice to know about, no one outside of her parents to care for the dead, not after the 24 hour news cycle.

Stupid me, and I can hear my sire calling me stupid even though he’s half a world away, I take the case. I’ll find out who killed their little girl. They can’t even manage a smile of encouragement. I’m just not the type of guy to inspire confidence. Maybe it would help if I made eye contact more and muttered less. I’ll have to try that some day.

“When are you going to start?” the Father asks when I get up to leave.

“Right now,” I reply. I want to say back something catchy like ‘I’m burning moonlight’ or something like that, but I don’t. I would probably botch it anyway.

[Adrian Moss]

I walk the ground that the Daughter died on. I’m carrying copies of the original crime scene photos the parents gave me. I figure some Good Samaritan Cop slipped them out when he told them there was nothing more he could do. There isn’t any tape on the ground of course. That’s a Hollywood myth. There is no official marker to show the point of demise, but fortunately I have the pictures to help me recreate it.

Anyway, I’m my usually fucking brilliant self. I walk the wrong end of the alley for ten minutes before I figure out what I’m doing wrong. Once I get it right though, things begin to fall together with sickening clarity. The Daughter got gutted here, there are defensive wounds, and then her throat was slit.

She was killed first and then the street kid came into the alley and was killed to. I pace it out and walk the scene over as the kid would have walked coming up the alley. I look at the pictures. The kid died from one thrust to the heart. A pretty lucky shot, if you ask me. Then the kid fell … right here.

I don’t like it. I walk the scene over again, taking my time. It takes me nearly thirty minutes for my brain to decipher what my instincts are telling me. The Boy died first. The girl was the follow up victim. Now the scope of the attack becomes more evident. The side of the alley the girl came up had plenty of places, on a dark night, for an adult to hide. She had come across the killing – somehow – and rushed to help the Boy. But why did the Boy have to die then, some poor, homeless nobody? The cops had totally written off the kid’s death. Why?

I go back to the Girl. How did she get here? It seems clear enough she was following somebody. They are no clubs close by: no one of interest for her around here and even easier places near campus for her to get drugs and the like. Plus it was late at night when the murders happened and no sign she had been held then killed. I go with my gut. It tells me that she followed someone here. Without a car, that means someone took her here and then lied to the police about it.

Now I’m getting somewhere. I have two angles to go at this from. I’m going check out some of my street contacts to see what I can find out about this kid, what he was into, and who he was running with. Maybe one of his friends saw something.

I’m also going to find out who this girl was hanging out with. Someone gave her a ride, because they haven’t found a car close by that she could have used. I’m going to find out who that person is and he, or she, is going to tell me what the last few hours of her life was like – and who she was following to that last encounter.

The real world has given up on these two victims. No one of any importance cares. They are already falling through the cracks and they aren’t even dead a week. It is the destiny of the small people to go this way – not with a whimper, but forgotten as if their lives never had any worth. I don’t want to accept that. I don’t want to see people devoured and I try to do something about it. Too bad the only one that cares for them in this way is me. I’m so weak and the Darkness is so strong. Isn’t that the way of things?

[Adrian Moss]

It takes me the better part of a week for me to figure out just who she was hanging out with. The police gave me the hairy eyeball, the campus security gave me a fist to the kidneys and I had to act like it hurt, and I broke into a room. It seems the Girl was with this guy who was running a campus Webzine, whatever that was. I guess it’s an online newspaper, which would have fit with the girl’s interests and ambitions. To me it looked like two young kids who hadn’t figured out how the Great Pendulum swung. This Webzine took on campus and near-campus crimes and published them out to the student body – real hardcore stuff.

I broke into the guy’s room, no problem. Normally it is a pain in the ass, but maybe my good efforts are paying off. I search the room and find some stickies in a woman’s hand. One is a license number and there is a phone number with it. I find a laptop stuck under the bed with her name on it. I open it up and – crap – the files are encrypted. That’s a full-scale roadblock for me. I put the thing away.

I go over to his system. It comes on at my touch. I don’t know were to look first. I waste about an hour trying to navigate the thing and end up promising to take a computer course next semester if the Computer Gods will just give me a damn, bleeding lead now. They aren’t listening, but other, darker gods are. The Asshole I’m looking for comes home.

Asshole’s name is Randall Wilson. Library Science is his program, so I don’t think he will be that physically tough. The door opens. The room is dark. Wilson must be tipped off by the glow of his monitor, because he stops and then turns to run. I reach out and grab him; only he’s a bit bigger than me so I end up pulling myself against him.

I want to say something, but the Prick goes first and slams me back into the room and onto the bed. Yeah, I’m some great Lord of the Night. I bounce off of the bed and draw my knife. The guy just stares at me.

“Come in and sit down,” I rasp through angry teeth. I’ve got my angry teeth out and they really want to fight. The Me side of the equation doesn’t want to have his head beaten in by a Library Science Major.

Surprisingly, the guy comes in and shuts the door. He’s hesitant and it takes me a minute to realize he’s scared. I really doubt he is afraid of me and before I can say something to ruin the moment, he starts talking.

[Adrian Moss]

“I swear I’ll be leaving town soon. I just had to …”

“Get your dead girlfriend buried?” I ask with as much wit as I can muster.

He looks at me.

“I don’t care about that … her. I just had to … clear up some things. Listen, I’ve shut down the site and I’ve bought tickets. I’m gone. Just don’t kill me.”

I put away the knife. Instead of trying to play some trick on him, I ask about the Girl. He tells me about her until he starts to become suspicious. Right when he starts to say something, a Bowling Ball taps at the door. It taps again. The Wilson guy looks at the door then at me, but I’ve pulled my Houdini. I don’t want to be meeting anyone with hands that big unless I’m a block away with as sniper rifle.

The guy is cared again. I don’t blame him, because fear is why I’m hiding. He gets up and answers the door and, sure enough, there are too Meat Walls standing there. They push their way in soundlessly and I don’t like the way the balance on their feet – like prize fighters. Wilson is stuttering all over again. I move over out of the way. I think about the door until Meat Wall Two shuts it behind himself. Now it’s just the four of us. The three of them is more appropriate since I’m not going to get involved in this level of pain and suffering.

Wilson has been doing all the talking when Meat Wall One does something really strange. He sniffs the air like a bloodhound.

“Someone has been here recently,” he growls out in a gravely voice like a man who takes and extra shot of Draino with that scotch.

They look around the room. Wilson starts blubbering. Not that I blame him, but he’s about to ruin my secret and that would totally suck for both of us. Two puts his hand on Wilson’s shoulder so Wilson starts to cry. One looks around the room, in the closet and bathroom and finally goes to the windows. Can you believe it, one of the windows is open and the big guy looks out and around. He even looks up, as if I was some damn spider monkey.

“No one is in here,” says Two.

One shakes his head as if confused by something, but keeps his mouth shut. Now they shift both of their attention back to Wilson.

What happens isn’t pretty, but it’s predictable. They make Wilson sign the note. You know the one, were you confess to the crime and tell the reader what a scumbag you are and how you can’t go on living – your suicide note. Then the two Meat Walls hold you down while they inject you with a deadly dose of heroin and its lights out.

The Meat Walls straighten up and leave the room. I get busy. I take the note because I don’t want this case to go away. Next I call 911 and report the overdose so maybe, just maybe, Wilson will live. It seems the guy’s only real crime is cowardice and I’ve got plenty of that vice to spare myself. I grab the girl’s laptop. When I head out into the hall, the guys are still visible at the elevator.

It seems like I forgot something, like getting ‘cloaked’ after the phone call, and now they see me. They give each other a look and come running. I run for the door and get through it before they are on me. I do my trick again and keep running down the stairs. They come in hot on my heels, but pull up short. I’m just about to grin when I hear one of them tell the other those words I never want to hear.

“It’s a damn vampire.”

[Adrian Moss]

How in the hell do they know I’m a vampire? Isn’t that supposed to be a secret? Not about just me, but all of us?

I guess these bozos aren’t normal and I keep running for the door out of here. Hell, I like being the only one in the know when supernatural things come up. I like that kind of loneliness – it gives me a smug sense of superiority and I don’t get to feel like that much in this life. Two comes right down the stairs after me. He’s racing me to the door out of here – not good. I lose track of One above me. He’s coming down by an alternate route, I’m willing to bet.

He’s got longer strides, but I’m faster on my feet. It’s too close but I’m betting the farm that I can get away from him once I’m outside. Getting out the door will cause him to see me, but once out of sight its ‘One-trick-pony time’ again. I’m still ahead and I hear him scramble down behind me. I just have to get around the corner.

I bounce off the broad chest of Meat Wall One. He is only momentarily surprised and then his “oh” becomes a toothy grin. Ole Meat Wall Two is coming up hard behind me and I’m about to become a pain sandwich. I squint my eyes down hard and will the shadows to hide my worthless hide.

And I’m gone, or so their reactions tell me. I side step onto the sidewalk to avoid Two from running into me by accident. The two guys are left with only each other to hug.

“Stay out of this, Kindred!” shouts number One, surprising me. “We’ll hunt you down and drag your corpse into the light. Are we clear?”

No, I’m not dumb enough to respond by any way short of phone, text pager, or e-mail. That would blow my trick and these two would be all over me before I could do anything about it. No, I take my comfort in the sounds of sirens coming and the knowledge these creeps, mighty as they might be, don’t want to be around to explain their – and their Master’s – tie to the OD upstairs and his computer blog, or whatever it is.

I skulk away to my own car about a block away and plot my next move. I know I’m not bright enough to take their good intentioned warning to heart. I know I’m the only one who is looking into this and I know nothing is going to change if I stop giving a damn.

Of course, there is giving a damn and then there is survival. This will have to wait a night because there is going to be some prime feeding tomorrow night at this frat party and … suddenly my world isn’t so dark anymore.