Vicente paid Rex and he and Shane began to make their exit. On their way out, Jells tried his old trick again. He loved to get unsuspecting mutants to shake his hand and listen to their skin sizzle and burn away. He was a sadistic punk, but because of his mutation he really had no other means to live other than this place. It was the only joint that allowed him to get anywhere near people and Jells always commented that he was a people person.

Thankfully, though, Shane was a smart enough kid to learn from his mistake…

>> “I’m good,”

Vicente smirked as he followed him out into the cold evening.

Walking back out, the cool air seemed to reinvigorate Vicente. That and the idea of what was to come was all the more exhilarating. If this kid could do as he said he could, then that could mean a big change in both of their fortunes. Vicente never liked how messy his kill scenes could get up. With someone like Shane tagging along, then he could easily get rid of the most valuable piece of the evidence…the body. And then whenever Shane decided to quit or couldn’t do the task anymore, well, a quick bullet into the cranium would solve that problem. Or so he hoped.


>> “So, what did this guy do, anyways?”

He blinked as he returned to reality and glanced at Shane. Of course he needed a reason.

“He was a gun runner, for one of the mob families in town,” he said with a nod. “A near nasty fellow that flooded the streets with his weapons.”

What he didn’t say was that the man had worked for the same man Vicente did. And the only reason they wanted him dead was because he was skimming money off the top. But Shane didn’t need to know that…

Shane nodded, satisfied with the answer. The whole thing was starting to become more and more like the movies, which got him a little excited. This whole evening had taken on an extra layer of surreal now that the mob was involved. 5 minutes ago, he didn’t even know that such a thing existed in this city, and now he was indirectly working for them! What was he getting himself into?

They walked for a few minutes, mostly in silence. It was Shane’s fault that there wasn’t more of a conversation. His face was buried in his jacket, reluctant to come out and his mind was racing trying to imagine what this scene would look like when they arrived. He’d never admit it to anyone, but the sight of blood made him a little uncomfortable. He’d learned out to suffocate his prey long ago, and since he could just swallow them whole, it was a rare event for him to need to draw blood during a confrontation. His companion on the other hand, he had donned the name Blood. He had a hard time imagining that they would share a similar belief system.

It hadn’t been a very long walk at all when their pace began to slow down. The red brick was not far away, and the sight of it started to make him a little antsy. His walking started to become a little wobbly (though to be fair, this could have been a result of the alcohol) and all that was going through his head was “if you have any second thoughts, now’s the time.” He didn’t though.

He quickly regained his composure, looking up the house as the took their last few steps up towards it. “This is the place, I take it?” he asked.

Vicente continue to lead the young man on, towards the house that he had just been to. Gregario Dimitri’s was as nasty a gunrunner as they came. He was a vicious man who did not like a single soul and made sure that absolutely everyone knew that. Prostitutes, his workers, his family, his “friends”, absolutely everyone was in fear of the man because he had an absolutely hatred for everyone. No one was able to escape his malice, not even his own children.

But none of that mattered to Vicente. He ran guns for the Falcone family but the man had started to skim money, a big no-no. You never steal from the family that funds your own endeavors. Vicente had to teach that man that lesson. And it was definitely a bloody one.

When they finally started to arrive closer to the brick house, Vicente’s own apprehensions about being caught returning to the scene of the crime began to weigh heavily on his head. He kept close to the shadows, yet tried to look as casual as possible. As they strolled on, he glanced back to Shane who too began to slow down.

He had to smirk. So far the kid had tried to bolt. Good…

>> “This is the place, I take it?”

Vicente nodded.

“Front door is unlocked. If you head inside and make your way to the second level, you’ll go into the first door on the right, the bedroom. You’ll find your…meal in there. Unless you want me to join you and show you myself?” he said with a slight, inquiring look. “I figure you’d want privacy.”

“I figure you’d want privacy.”

It was such a small thing in the grander scheme, but those few words were enough to alleviate half of his stress surrounding the entire ordeal. An inability to perform (in a sense) was a very likely scenario if Blood had joined them, and despite their friendship in the bar, out here in the cold with a dead body looming few from where they stood, things just felt less… friendly.

“I should be fine on my own.” He said, raising a dismissive hand to the idea of company. He took another look towards the building, following it with a drawn out sigh. Blood didn’t exactly seem excited about this procedure, at least not anymore. He seemed to be a bit anxious being there, and his lack of enthusiasm did little calm Shane down. “Let’s just get this over with,” he thought to himself as he started for the door.

The porch creaked as he took his first steps onto the property. In retrospect, it likely wasn’t very loud, but everything felt very quiet at that point, and the little creak seemed to be like an air horn cutting through the silence. He walked on his toes the last few steps to the door, which thankfully opened without making much of a sound.

The house was eerily normal looking. Nothing seemed out of place, and just looking around offered no information that anything heinous had taken place here. He lingered in the front hallway for a moment, looking around at the pictures of the man and what he could only assume was his family. He could see into the living room from where he stood, and could tell that this man was well off by the impressive collection of furniture just within view through the doorway.

His attention shifted back to the stars though. He’d never known this much about a victim of his before, and he had no interest in starting a trend today. He climbed the carpeted stairs up the second floor as Blood had instructed. When he reached the top, he began to get the vibe that he wasn’t getting downstairs; that something had taken place in the house. There was an odor that he wasn’t extremely familiar with, at least not in that kind of intensity. The smell of blood. As he turned the corner that lead into the bedroom of gunrunner the smell and visual collided and overpowered him causing him to stumble a little bit.

The man was hardly recognizable when compared to the pictures he’d seen hanging downstairs. He was hardly in one piece, and him and everything around him was coated in red. The nose had had on his face sucked back in, shutting down his sense of smell, something he had no interest in making use of right now. The sandwich from earlier was having a hard time staying down, and any help he could give it was a bonus.

He tried to avoid eye contact with the man as he approached it. His head was angled up towards the door and his eyes were still open, staring right at him. Shane took a walk around him, circling to the backside. He took his jacket off and tossed it on the bed, and then with a loud gulp, he spread himself out over the body as best he could. He hardly had the mass to cover the man who hadn’t seemed so large while he was lying there motionless. He did manage to cover the body fully, though.

The familiar feelings of a large kill started to creep back in. the tingling throughout his body as the flesh of the two of them started to merge and absorb into his own. He hadn’t allowed himself to shrink to this level in a very long time, at least not since he’d been good enough to hunt, and the drastic change in body mass was almost painful. The change has a very literal sobering feeling as well, as the alcohol in his system no longer occupies very much at all.

The whole process takes a few minutes to complete, close to 6 or 7, but it get’s easier the longer it goes on. When he finally stops, he’s left lying there on the floor in the same place the gunrunner had been only minutes earlier. He was at least twice his size when he walked into the house, but much to his disgust, he’s lying naked in a pool of blood, and he’s soaked in it.

When he realizes this, he starts to get up quickly and escape from the puddle, but the sudden change in height makes him woozy and he tumbles down again a few feet from where he started. Then he starts to remember his occasional tendency to pass out after a kill. He hadn’t done it for a while, but if anything would set it off, it would be a drastic weight shift like this one.

He starts to crawl a few feet towards the door, but he can feel his eyes getting heavy and his movements start to slow.

And then there’s just black.

>> “I should be fine on my own.”

Vicente nodded as he stepped back with a little wave of his hand and allowed Shane to take the lead. Shane seemed psyched up to do this and Vicente was only too glad to let the boy take the lead. So long as he didn’t screw up. All he needed to really do was run in, devour the leftovers, and vacate the building. What was so tough about that?

“Should be in and out in minutes,” Vicente said with a smirked as he crossed his arms over his massive chest and rest back against the wall of the building.

Standing back, he tried to remain in the shadows as much as possible. As much as he didn’t like being back at the scene of the crime, he needed to make sure that Shane came out of that place safely. And slinking through the shadows would only make him appear all the more suspicious. So, he opted to try to stand out front, looking as if he were simply waiting for a ride, or a taxi to go by. He said nothing to any passerbys and simply kept himself partially hidden so that no one could view his face.

But then time started to stretch a bit farther than he wanted it to. He arched a brow as he checked his watch. The kid…was taking longer than he thought. What, did he get lost?

He sighed as he tried to keep from getting impatient, especially since this was something that the kid was not used to. But still…time was going on a bit longer than he liked and, on top of that, he couldn’t exactly hear any movement inside of the house.

His eyebrow rose. He wasn’t liking this at all.

“Where the hell are you?” he grumbled as he pushed himself off the wall. He climbed the stairs and slipped inside to look for Shane. Not noticing the flashing of red and blue lights down the street…

Shane was in a dream-like state. He knew what was happening. There was nothing new about the experience. They were always the same. He’d spend a few minutes in this fantasy, and then he’d wake up. Truth be told though, he never really knew how long these experiences lasted. Some tended to go on for hours, others only a few minutes.

They were terrible dreams where he felt as though we was awake the entire time, but trapped inside someone else’s head. Some were almost frighteningly vivid nightmares, while others were peaceful and pleasant dreams. Fortunately for him, this appeared to be the latter.

He found himself surrounded by photos of both people he recognized as well as ones he’d never seen before. They were spread out on the floor, and he appeared to be collecting them up. Presumably they had spilled out onto the floor from a box or album. He never quite got a very good look at any of the faces, but a few were definitely faces he knew. He didn’t have much time to dwell on the thought though. The entire scene started to get lost in a red haze before he realized he was waking up again.

It took him a moment to realize where he was again. Or rather, it took him a minute to grasp the situation fully. The puddle of drying red liquid was the first visual he took in, and it was hard to get past that. He was covered in the blood all along he front side. He propped himself up, slowly this time, and the rest of the room came into focus. He felt fairly confident his dream hadn’t been for very long, but any amount of time was likely too long.

The he heard the footsteps coming up the stairs towards him. He was only half aware of what was going on, still waking up, so he did very little to react to the footsteps. All he could do was hope that they belonged to his ally outside. His face relaxed he saw Blood’s frustrated face rounded the. Shane brought himself to his feet as he entered, surprising himself with his regained height.

“I guess I did it.” He said sleepily, shaking the blood from his hands and brushing it off his chest.

Both of the men’s attention shifted to window when the dim blue and red lights started to shine through the window, lighting the otherwise dark room. The lights were getting brighter every second. This night wasn’t exactly going according to plan.

Vicente had stepped into the home and sense of familiarity washed over him. Most people get feelings of déjà vu that they can never explain. Why did a certain place look familiar that they never walked in before? Why did a certain action seem familiar? For Vicente it was different. He knew exactly what this place was because he had just been here an hour or so ago. He was here to kill a man, a man that the Falcone family didn’t want pressing into their business again. And he had succeeded.

He remembered stalking in through the front door, he remembered listening at the sounds in the vast and empty home, and he remembered climbing those noiseless steps one at a time until finally he reached the second landing. It was not hard to find the man from there. The bedroom door was ajar and he had been screaming into a phone.

He had found out about the hit on his life far too late to do anything about it. A few choice words were shared and Vicente attacked.

His victim didn’t stand a chance.

But he left in such a hurry. He could have sworn he heard someone in the house. Whether they be a housekeeper or something, but for the life of him he couldn’t find anyone. Not wanting to take any chances he slipped out and that was when he ran into the kid.

Now that he was stalking the house again, he saw that nothing was disturbed. Maybe it really was nothing more than his imagination. But as he climbed to the second floor and looked over to the bedroom, he growled. This was definitely not in the plan.

The kid was just lying there, taking a siesta! He stormed towards him and he watched as Shane started to stand, looking groggy, covered in blood, and just slightly bigger. A glance to the floor would show that the body was completely gone. His being impressed momentary balanced out his anger towards the kid…

>> “I guess I did it.”

“I see that,” Vicente said with a malicious smirk. But before he could say anything else, he looked at the flashing of lights near the window. The familiar hues of red and blue shimmered outside and he had to growl. “You’ve got to be kidding…” he snarled as he crept forward and glanced out the window. Two black-and-whites had shown up, directly outside of the house. He cursed. Someone must have gotten paranoid. He snapped his head back to Shane, who still look groggy. “Snap out of it kid, we need to get out of h—“

KNOCK!! KNOCK!! KNOCK!![/b]

“Open up! This is the police!”

Between the sound of the knocking downstairs and Blood shouting into his face, Shane found enough noise to wake himself up a bit further; just enough to let him realize how urgent the situation was. There might not be a body any longer, but being the monster covered in the missing person’s blood never looks good, especially with the police. He’d been having far too many run-ins with the cops lately.

“S***,” he said quietly to himself. Then he turned to Blood with a very honest tone, “What do we do?”

The thought that he may have been sod out by Blood had certainly crossed his mind, but since the man was standing right there with him it seemed a little less likely. Coming to terms with the reality of the situation, he immediately wandered over to the bed where his jacket was resting. He quickly through it on, zipping it up and being pleasantly surprised when it fit much better this time around.

KNOCK!! KNOCK!! KNOCK!!

Another round of knocking came, this time much louder and faster then the first. This time, instead of voices calling out, the sound of the still unlocked door being opened creaked through the air.

>> “S***… What do we do?”[/color]

KNOCK…KNOCK…KNOCK…!!

He snarled.

Of course the police had to be here and of course some had to be paranoid enough to call them. Normally Vicente was far more careful than this but tonight he was apparently off his game. Maybe it was because he was thought that someone had walked in on him, maybe it was because he met this kid, but whatever the case, someone was off about this night and he simply didn’t like. Now he had to get out of a house that was being invaded by the police.

As much as he wanted to just abandon Shane and leave him to his own fate, unfortunately he couldn’t do that. The kid saw his face and knew of his powers. If he sold him out then more than likely he would do the same thing in return. So far he had evaded being identified by the police ever since he came to New York and he didn’t want that to change any time soon.

But another loud knock and he knew that that track record was soon to change. Unless they moved fast of course.

Reaching out he snarled Shane by his coat collar and began to pull him after him.

“Come on,” he growled in a harsh whisper. “Don’t just stand there! Unless you want to get caught, of course.” They reached a staircase that would lead up to the third floor just as sound of a door being busted in resounded through the house.

A cacophony of voices followed as officers began peek inside, guns drawn. Vicente snarled again as he began to take the steps to the third floor, as quietly, yet quickly, as possible.

“Don’t just stand there! Unless you want to get caught, of course!”

Blood grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, dragging him out of the bedroom. It only took a few steps for him to cooperate it wasn’t until they were out of the room that he let go. Fortunately for the two of them he seemed to know his way around the house. He led them to the end of the hall where a second staircase waited and the two of them rushed up the stairs as quietly as they could. Then Shane noticed the blood trail.

Fortunately it wasn’t as obvious as footprints would have been, but the drops were certainly visible if you knew they were there. As they rushed up to the third floor, he split his attention between keeping up and figuring out where the source of the drips were, but it wasn’t until they had entered another, smaller bedroom that he found the source. By that point they had already left the trail all the way. Blood closed the door carefully behind them as they entered the room.

“We may have an additional problem.” He said, holding up his jacket to reveal the smear of wet blood dripping from the seam at the bottom. He gestured with his hand the path of a few visible drops leading out to the door. An apologetic look was all he could muster onto his face.

Looking around the room, there weren’t many options left for them. A small closet and a window that lead onto the roof were the only places to go, other then back out into the hallways, but the murmuring of the police below them ruled that out as an option pretty quickly. The window seemed logical to him, so he headed for it, trying to open it as gently as he could.

They had made it onto the third floor and into one of the bedrooms when Vicente softly closed the door and heard the sounds of rushed feet beginning to fill the house. He was slowly beginning to feel like he was cornered but he needed to fight off the feeling. Now was no time to panic. They needed to keep clear heads about them. They could get out of this. After all, it was not like the police knew who were in the house. And by the time they thought to check the third floor, they could be long gone!

All was well…

>> “We may have an additional problem.”

Vicente arched a brow as he glanced back to the boy. He pointed down and Vicente followed the trail downward and noticed that there were several drops of blood, drops that made a trail leading from Shane to the door and beyond. He grumbled then as he listened at the door and heard the sounds of another officer gasp.

“We got a body! Lots of blood too! Somebody get a bus over here!!” the voice snapped.

Vicente growled deep in his throat as he turned to look at Shane heading for the window. Between that and the closely, it was indeed their best option of escape since the police would be descending upon them at any moment thanks to Shane’s little blood trail!

Swiftly he stepped over and casually moved Shane out of the way. Grabbing the sill of the window he grunted as he shoved up and pushed it all the way open. He then nodded to Shane, but not without the smallest of menacing glares.

“You listen here and you listen good. You want out of this, right?” he asked. He didn’t bother to wait for an answer. “Then once you get out this window, you climb for the roof, not down to alley. Once you make it to the roof, find a shady spot to duck down in and STAY THERE. I’ll handle the rest. Got it?”

Who was he to argue? For the first the first time since he took his first steps into the house, he had a specific plan laid out in front of him, and it sounded as reasonable as anything else he could think of. Besides, the tone Blood’s voice had taken on didn’t exactly imply “choice.”

He looked down to his jacket where the blood had collected and gave it a good tear, splitting the dripping part from the rest and tossing the wet fabric into a corner of the room. The he headed for the window.

He peaked his head out, seeing that the roof was only a few feet above them. This was an incredibly easier climb that any of the other building he’d become used to scaling. He nodded to Blood and he stretched his arms out into tentacle length and grabbed hold of something solid on the roof. Then it was as simple as reeling himself in, pulling himself up towards the roof as if he were connected to some kind of pulley system.

On the roof he made a very quick but thorough assessment of his surroundings. A neighboring tree seemed like the best bet he had. He took a few running steps before leaping into the pine needles that would hopefully be granting him shelter and squashed down to the smallest size and shape he could.

All he could do was listen to try and figure out what was still going on. He certainly hoped there was more to the plan then just this.

Shane didn’t argue. Good. He didn’t have time for argument, he needed action. The second that he had turned back to the door, he listened as Shane ripped off the part of his coat that was dripping blood and tossed it across the room. Before long the stretching mutant had vanished out the window and had made his way to the roof. Vicente couldn’t hear whatever moves he was making from the roof but he hoped that he was finally making his way to some covering and hiding out. If not then he did not hold Shane’s life in his hands anymore.

Now, what to do about the officers?

Vicente growled as he heard more rumblings behind the door. They were beginning to make their way closer and closer to the third floor. He could hear then, sniffing at the blood trail as if they were hounds looking for some escaped convict. The very thought of it irritated Vicente, to be trailed like some common thug because of this kid’s mistake, but he knew that angering himself about the situation right now was not going to help him in the least.

He needed a plan. He needed to get rid of those officers without having known that he was in the room, at least something to distract them long enough so that he could make an escape. If they broke into the room and just found him then, that was not going to end well. Vicente was a great fighter and while he was sure that he could kill each and every single one of them, the spacing, the room, the house, none of it boded well for him. All he needed was one officer at the back of the line with an itchy finger and he was a goner. No…he needed to be more clever.

A glance to a standing armoire and he had a suddenly thought. Dashing forward, he opened the dresser up and found clothing. Not the best in the world, but it was just enough. Grabbing a few shirts he began to scatter them across the room but made sure to slip on one shirt as he slowly crept over and unlocked the door that they had run into.

Slowly he stepped back as he picked up Shane’s discard, blood soaked strip of clothing, growled and began to smear the crimson liquid all over his face, arms and the new shirt. Once that was done, he shoved the torn clothing underneath the dress shirt he had slipped on and felt as the back of the shirt began to soak through with blood. Once that was completed, Vicente pulled out a single knife and turned it on himself.

Just shallow cuts, ones that meant nothing, that would heal by the end of the night. Couple on his arms, one on his shoulder. Just enough for effect. Once that was completed, Vicente sighed. He hoped this would work.

His ear twitched, he heard them climbing the steps and they were now at the door. Lying on the ground, Vicente tried to smear some more of blood onto the floor, just to make the scene more convincing. Once that was door, he took on the position of a body had had just been murdered. He paused, slowed his breathing, decreased his heart rate, and stared blankly ahead.

For show purposes…the man was dead…

Shane sat motionless in the tree. He did the best he could to hear what was going on in the house, but mainly if he could make out anything it was just muffled voices. For the most part though it was as silent as he was. It was very unsettling. He wasn’t sure if the silence meant Blood had somehow found a way to escape other then the window, or perhaps had even turned himself in. If there had been some kind of struggle he would have heard something, right? Gunfire, shouting, the sound of something falling over at the least.

It was killing him not knowing.

He started to make the move back towards the roof from the tree when the sight of another set of flashing lights ca into view down the street. Back up had arrived. Obviously his clean up left enough of a mess to warrant precaution, but all it left was more confusion as to why he still hadn’t seen any action.

As the patrol cars rolled up he could hear the familiar squeak of the front porch as the footsteps of an officer exited the front door calmly and approached the vehicle. From where he was sitting, he couldn’t make out the words the man was speaking, but his body language indicated that whatever concerns they had in the house had passed.

The whole seemed fishy to him, but he really had nowhere to go at the moment. Trying to get answers would likely just lead to more trouble, and Blood had instructed him to stay put, so that’s what he did. Climbing up higher into the trees as silently as he could, he managed to disappear into the foliage, his ears opened as widely as they could for any kind of explanation.

A rush of footsteps flowed into the room but Vicente kept staring dully ahead. He looked fairly convincing as a dead body but he knew that there was still a chance that this was not going to work at all. He needed to get away but time was not permitting him to do so. So if he could just fool these officers long enough, he could throw them off of his scent. But it was going to take some of his best acting yet…

One of the officers who rushed in through the opened door, winced as he looked at the sight of the “dead man” on the floor and growled as he struggling to keep his lunch down. It was obvious that he was still a little green and fresh from the academy.

“Holy lord,” the man gasped as he covered his mouth. He turned around to the hall and to a more senior officer who was following up the rear. “God, it’s a bloody mess in there.”

The second officer peered over his shoulder, sighed and shook his head. “Poor bastard.” He crept into the room and knelt down next to the body of Vicente and eyed him closely. “Big guy. Who could have done this to him?”

“I dunno, but that’s disgusting,” the younger officer grumbled again. “Way too much blood.”

The senior shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. There was far too much blood down there to have all come from him. No. This guy, I dunno…” he sighed as he straightened up. “I tell them there’s a new body to look over.” He explained as he made his way to the door but paused long enough to turn back and nod to the younger. “Check the room and make sure I didn’t miss anything, Hellerman.”

Hellerman, that being the younger officer’s name, nodded even though his face was turning green being in the same room with the bloodied mess that was Vicente de la Sangre. He turned and quickly began to scan the rest of the room, trying not to rest his eyes on Vicente’s fallen body. But as he did so, Vicente refocused his eyes and strained his ears to listen for the man’s position. It was only when he was sure that that man was turned away that Vicente slowly crept onto his feet.

He could hear the movement down below. Officers were talking, slipping in and out of the house as they made called in findings and waited for Crime Scene and medical units to show up. It was obvious that Vicente was going to have to be quicker than that. A glance to Hellerman and a small smirk played on his lips. Fresh out of the academy and already he was going meet his end. He could not help the bit of irony that played in that situation.

He crept forward, massive hands reaching out until finally the seized the young man’s neck and followed that with a sickening SNAP!!![/b]

Gently he carried the lifeless body over and slipped him into the armoire that was situated in the room and made sure the securely close the doors. It was only when he knew that the body was not going to pop out that he made his way to the window. It was time for him for collect Shane and vacate…