Night Prayers (5 page)

Good-bye.

Shit… what dredged up THAT old walnut?

Mica blinked his eyes and watched the strawberry blond continue jogging up the street away from him.

Oh.

Eleven years and he still phased out at the sight of red hair.

Leaning back against the side of an all night video rental store, Mica took a deep breath and licked the salt off his lips. A few years back he actually tried to find out what happened to Piper. He hoped she'd taken his blessings and Bible and found God… or at least her way back home.

Wherever that was.

He'd never asked. And he never heard from or about her again.

But he still checked out every red-head who passed. Just in case.

Mica ran his hand through his lank brown hair and watched another jogger — this one a middle-aged Philippino
— dart into traffic between a stretched limo and a Ram Van. And marveled at the miracle. Less than a month earlier, at the world famous intersection of Sunset and Vine, Mica had seen a kid in a Raider's jacket try the same thing and become road pizza.

The kid had probably been a Gang Banger, but Mica prayed for his soul anyway.

Hell, he prayed for them
all
.

Every last one of them.

A girl with a green dragon tattooed across her forehead glared at him. Mica tipped his red satin uniform cap at her and smiled. She flipped him off.

A normal exchange for "The Strip".

Stepping away from the building, and back into the thick of the sidewalk traffic, Mica lifted his arms ala Mary Tyler Moore and smiled.

"I
love
this town!"

"Then go fuck a manhole cover," a man wearing a short-sleeved garbage bag over stained long Johns growled at him.

Mica spun on his imitation Hush Puppies, grasped the man's knobby shoulders and pulled him in as close as the stench of cheap wine and well-aged sweat would allow.

"You can feel that Love, too, brother — just open your heart!"

The man shrugged away Mica's hands and quickly brushed off his shoulders with excrement caked fingers.

"God damned
pervert
!"

He knocked past Mica and stumbled away, muttering angrily to himself. Mica watched the man until he was swallowed by the meandering crowd and shook his head. Oh well, the night was still young.

Checking his watch against the large neon-encased clock in the Pawn Shop
(We Accept Used CDs)
Mica quickly readjusted his cap and joined the steady flow pushing eastward. It was 9:48… which just gave him enough time to
almost
make it to work on time.

It still bothered him that he couldn't spread The Word as a full time occupation. But even a preacher has to eat, and the Lord
had
provided him with gainful employment.

Such as it was.

Sighing, Mica stuffed his hands into the black-and-red satin jacket (that was also part of his uniform and probably the reason the man had misunderstood his pure intentions) and ignored the rhythmic grunting that was coming from a narrow alley between the porno bookshop and Army/Navy Surplus store.

Tried
to ignore it.

Halfway across, Mica looked in. In the backwashed glow from the streets, he saw four people exchanging points of view. One man was slamming his rod into the narrow ass of a teenaged boy while a second was doing it doggy-fashion with the kid's girlfriend. Mica knew they were sweethearts by the way they held hands and smiled at each other while their clients humped away.

True love — Hollywood style.

Mica mumbled a quick prayer for their enlightenment and hurried away… as much for the fact that Luci could be a real bitch if he wandered in late, as for the uncomfortable tightness in the crotch of his jeans.

He could handle the ignorance and injustices and even the overt hatred…

… but the constant testing was wearing a little thin.

When Allison realized how long she'd been running it was like hitting a brick wall. She stopped so fast she left skid marks. She'd always thought running was the biggest joke ever played on the populace by the medical profession, and had even gone so far as to explain her theory to her P.E. teachers…

… none of whom had listened, and made her take extra laps just to prove her wrong.

But
now
.

Allison pressed her hand against her chest and smiled. Her heart wasn't trying to explode out of her ribcage. It wasn't
beating
, either, but it was still an improvement.

"Maybe there's something to this vampire business after all."

Smiling, Allison fluffed out her wind-tangled but still perfectly dry hair and walked to the corner sign post just ahead of her.

Lankershim Blvd and Hartsook.

Where the hell was that?

Leaning against the thin metal pole, Allison looked back in the direction she'd just run in from as if that would give her some clue. The Silver Concho was near the Lopez Adobe on MacClay and San Fernando Road and good of
Buck
had followed the Road north another couple of miles before turning into the deserted
(hah, hah)
parking lot. Somehow, along the run, she'd turned off San Fernando and onto Lankershim and was in…

Allison looked back at the street signs and would have gasped if she'd still been able to.

… North Hollywood.

The sign post felt cool as she grabbed it. Even though orientation had never been her strong suit in Girl Scouts, she knew the area well enough to know she was roughly twenty to twenty-five miles away from where she'd left Buck. And the Security Guards.

They wouldn't be looking for her in North Hollywood, considering she'd taken
off running and it would have been impossible for a woman to go so far a
distance in —

She checked her watch quickly and smiled.

— in twenty minutes.

A mile-plus a minute. YES! Finally… something that worked!

Giggling to herself, Allison faced back toward Lankershim and watched the traffic lights shift from green to red. There was no reason to draw attention to herself by breaking a minor law… especially when she was drawing enough attention just standing there.

She smiled back at the three black men in the rusted out Impala next to her.

"You sure do have some kick-ass legs, baby," the man hanging out of the passenger's side window said.

"You really think so?" Allison asked,
innocently
sliding the jogging shorts higher up her hips so they could see she wasn't wearing any underwear.

She could almost hear their cocks begin to harden. She
could
smell the blood racing through their veins.

"Oh, yeah… you
know
it, baby."

The driver muttered something as the light turned green and was ignored — by everyone but the irate driver in the VW Bug behind the Chevy. A
beep
from the horn only got the Bug owner angry glares and shouted threats.

Allison waved as the Bug peeled out.

"Some people," she said, shaking her head.

"Yeah. You want a ride?" The man's voice was syrupy sweet. "Ain't safe for a pretty thing like you to be out so late."

Ten o'clock. Yeah…
real
late.

"Thank you," she said as the back door popped open and another dark face smiled up at her. The man looked like he ate pit bulls for breakfast. "Gee, this is
awfully
nice of you. I guess I really am a little tired. Hope you don't mind if I accidentally fall asleep."

This time the sound of belt buckles being unfastened and zippers sliding open was unmistakable.

Allison added a graceful "oh, are my feet sore" limp as she hobbled to the car.

"How can I
ever
thank you," she asked.

"We'll think of
something
, baby," the man in back laughed.

Allison joined them.

She always did prefer dark meat at Thanksgiving.

The moment the late model pick-up pulled into traffic, Allison maneuvered the Impala into its space and cut the engine. Finding a parking spot on The Strip had been hard enough when she'd been alive. She wasn't going to let the fact that she could easily sprint to any location along Sunset Boulevard in mere seconds deprive her of the pleasure of screwing over some other motorist.

Some things didn't
have
to change.

Leaning across the welded chain steering wheel, Allison looked through the insect-splattered windshield at the pedestrians ambling along the sidewalk.

Hookers propositioned plain clothes Vice Officers, neo-hippies flashed Peace Signs, tourists huddled together like frightened quail and pointed at the strutting Homeboys, Taggers nonchalantly shook aerosol cans, joggers jogged and shop owners kept a watchful eye.

Allison smacked her lips. Welcome to
Tinsel-Town Take Out
.

It was a veritable smorgasbord.

One that she'd fit into perfectly once she slipped into something a little less blood-stained.

It was lucky
(for her)
that the three men had decided to rape her one at a time in some back alley. Not that she'd been worried about not being able to handle them… but it made things so much easier.

She chuckled softly, remembering the look on the others' faces when she stepped around to the front of the car, buck-assed naked, and said "Next".

Allison's chuckle eased into a purring hum as an overly developed hunk in a speedo and muscle tee sauntered by
— arrogantly ignoring her and all the other drooling females.

And she
was
drooling.

And still hungry.

Dammit.

Sitting up, Allison jabbed a finger into her belly and listened to it gurgle. It sounded like an under-filled water bed.

How much could the average Vampire hold before it exploded?

That was just
another minor detail
Seth hadn't bothered mentioning before he split.

Bastard.

Let's see, there was Buck and the three dudes in the alley… At six-quarts each, give or take a pint when I tore off their heads, that's…

"Shit, that's twenty-four quarts!" Even a
non-human
body couldn't hold that much liquid.

Smoothing down the front of the blood-soaked blouse
(that's another couple of cups right there)
, Allison checked her tummy for any unsightly bulge. And relaxed.