Some of my experiences as a Nightwalker are worth sharing; others, however, are not. In the spirit of that motif, I don’t wish to offer encounters that detract from the reason this board was placed here.

Even if, being what I am, everything I do could technically constitute as valid stories for posting.
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A Perfect Night Interrupted

The evening had gone horribly well; my reconnaissance of another neighborhood had revealed far more than I would have guessed, the night was still on the cusp of youth and still an hour from middle age, previous investigations had proved most fruitful, and the guy trying to snag me was actually cute for once, had the money to make it worthwhile, and tasted great, too.

Some nights are just better than others. However, all nights must come to an end.

As my companion escorted me to his apartment, hiding under fire escapes and awnings, my pace suddenly dropped, the path intruded upon by a trail made faint in the rainfall. It could have just been garbage, but for the milky traces of sulfur, stone, and leather; all wrapped in the strongest scent of all: fear so ripe I clenched my new night’s boyfriend’s arm a little too tightly in my instinctive excitement.

“Mmm, yeah, baby,” he squirmed, his inebriation retarding his sense of touch. “I have beer back at my place . . . did I mention that?”

Yes, he had; on seven separate occasions.

For a moment, my insides warred within me: the necessity for blood and the instinct to fight for my territory conflicted strongly, but moderately. Blood was indeed a requisite for my survival, though could be postponed for a bit, as I had fed the other night. Defending my territory was an instinct, but not mandatory. It could even prove troublesome, should I do so out of pride, rather than need.

My choice made, I continued walking, snuggling close and passing the scent as easily as striding through a spider’s thread. It was one monster, one victim, both ignorable. Should it grow more daring, I’d deal with it then. Conscience was the restraint used by the timid to excuse themselves from acting too boldly.

However, it was not to be.

Holy, holy Father, the voice echoed in my mind as inescapable thoughts. I have done what I can. Now I need Thy help. Send someone, I pray, to find my daughter. Please.

If I could sigh at that moment, I would have.

“Change of plans, Marty,” I glanced up, opening my own senses and sniffing. “You have a choice. Wait for me here and I’ll be back as soon as possible; or, I’ll give you back your money and we’ll get together later, say tomorrow night at eight.”

He whined and complained, of course. They always did when I rescinded my services.

“Refund it is,” I counted out the money he had given me earlier, transferring the bills from my pants to his, along with a kiss and my card. “Look me up next time you’re in my neighborhood; I’ll take you out, free of charge—my treat. Don’t follow me. Mind if I borrow your jacket? Consider it incentive to meet me again.”

My ex stood there, dumbfounded and struck, as I skipped a little too quickly into the nearest alley, shrugging into the light, sleeveless vest that went down to my ankles and pulling the hood over my head. Once the shadows safely had me in their warm embrace, I glanced about, found myself quite divorced from onlookers, and raced up the wall, the prayer still echoing in my mind as I sought out multiple targets at once.

Thirteen floors passed beneath me; avoiding windows, rain, and fire escapes was likewise a simple matter. I vaulted the lip of the building and waited, crouched in shadow, hands on knees. For a moment, my eyes took in the soft glow of a pair of skylights sharing the illumination from within and the shadowy, hulking form of a rooftop doorway set in a concrete shell, door ajar, like some panting beast trapped in a picture.

Then I smelled the man, his scent odd. He was in good health, although he hadn’t eaten in 24 hours. He had been pacing the rooftop, and his emotions smelled of vexation and desperation. When the man came into my view, I began to understand.

He was a thin man, his facial features thinly sculpted in such a way that not many women would find him physically attractive. Nevertheless, I knew of him; he was a good priest of a Christian denomination I’d never heard of, a humble man who spoke plainly and acted with a single face no matter his surroundings. All the other girls on the streets who knew of him spoke fondly of him, though I had yet to understand why: he never partook of our services.

His name was Brother Isaac Cheviot. His hands were knit together as if in prayer, his chin bowed and his eyes closed. He was dressed all in black, though his wrists and throat were bound in collars of white. Lips moving soundlessly, the man continued to pace back and forth across the roof. Hiding my nature and observing him quietly, I found an odd fascination in the way he was routinely swallowed by the darkness and then branded by the soft, golden glow of the skylight’s gentle illumination.

He was not afraid for himself. He wore no cross.

“Well, preacher,” I kept the volume of my voice down to a soft purr as I stepped from the gloom and into the light; rain pattered against my hood. “You prayed for assistance. Here I am. What are your sorrows?”

Startled, he spun and faced me quickly. Taking in my scarlet corset, jean shorts, and black platform heels, he averted his gaze, centering them on the roof below our feet.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” he seemed to remind himself, bringing his fingers to his pale lips once and dropping them; marshalling his courage, he began his story slowly.

“Ever since my wife died a few months ago, I’ve found my belief in God swelling. My daughter and I have grown very close . . . yet even still, I must leave her on occasion in the hands of friends in order to minister to others of my flock in need. This past Tuesday was one of those days . . . I left her in the care of a good friend while I ministered to a widow. Her tenuous health doesn’t permit children or those in sickness, and my daughter is both.”

His tale abruptly ended when emotion grabbed his words and held them mute in his throat. After a moment of inner wrestling, he continued.

“When I returned, my friend’s apartment was without life. A glass window had been shattered, the place ransacked. My friend was dead. She had been . . .” he paused, the emotions again coiling about his tongue. Through much effort, he continued. ”My Sophia was gone. All that was left was this . . .”

The distraught priest held up a short, yellow ribbon, wrinkled but bright and pretty, even in the gloom. The tip of one end was dipped in fresh blood and was cut at a differing angle to its partner. It exuded a foul stench.

“That blood isn’t an hour old,” I commented, suspecting foul play but holding out my hand. “You’ve called the police?”

“I have,” he handed the article over, his eyes flashing up to mine as I took it and held it to my nose, sniffing and threading away the masking stink to its true scent underneath; I resisted the urge to put the bloodied end into my mouth and suck. “But they are overworked already and have no time for a missing twelve-year-old girl. Besides, I suspect something beyond an ordinary kidnapping . . . creatures of another sort . . . hell’s minions.”

“Why do you believe that?” I asked guardedly.

“The smell of sulfur,” he insisted, then pointed to the blood dampened end of the ribbon. “The police shrugged it off as rotten eggs and wanted to confiscate the entire ribbon, but I begged them to only take half. If I was to lose my daughter before half a year of my wife’s death, I wanted a keepsake to remember them both, as that was Alice’s before. They took the . . . bloodied end, of course. I kept the other half and put it on the nightstand by my bed. That night, I had a dream . . . of a building’s top that I knew held her. The following morning, the blood had returned as you see it.”

With slow care, I returned the ribbon into his safekeeping, the scent strong in my memory and nose, watching him pointedly as he described more of his dream and his take on its meaning. Then I turned around and returned to the shadows’ embrace.

“God bless you,” he offered in parting; the well-wish sent a spasm through my back, causing me to pause on the lip of the building.

Buttoning the loaned jacket’s front, I turned my head to look back at him, my lips working into a smirk he couldn’t see.

Then I leaped off the edge and into the deepening night.

The apartment’s skylights were still aglow at my return. The slender figure of Brother Cheviot stood routed deep, halfway swallowed in the maw of the concrete shelled beast, his body shaded in gray and twisted in a mute expression of dying anguish. Dancing along the lip of the building’s roof until facing the priest, I advanced, while he talked into a phone, curious with the topic.

“All right, thank you,” he hung up the phone, returning it to his pocket.

Invisible in the black of the night, I waited, curious as he took the steps up, a slow disgorging of prey. He stood watch at the golden doorframe, made whole once more, his features darkened with shadow, but able to be seen by me. He looked fabulously old, the shadows wearing thin lines into a starved face. From the pocket where the phone hid, his fist retreated, the yellow tongue of ribbon drooping out. He reminded me of a portrait of Saint Timothy I had once seen. It could have been interpreted in one of two ways. The first was a dead man at last coming to peace with his tortures.

The second was a man burning in hell for his brethren.

Quietly, I stepped out of the darkness, bearing his daughter’s still form in my arms. The priest’s haunted eyes looked upward, centering on the limp body.

“You’re back,” he nearly croaked, dashing forward and coming to a rest with the girl between us. “Is she . . .?”

“She sleeps,” I knelt as he peeled off a blanket he had tucked about his shoulders to ward off the night chill, wrapping her in its damp folds.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank God.”

“That about covers it,” I nodded.

“Not quite,” Brother Cheviot hefted his daughter into his arms. “Please, come with me. How much is your regular fee?”

I followed out of curiosity. We went down the stairs of the concrete beast, the priest carefully setting Sophia on a worn couch at the bottom and sitting next to her. From the pocket opposite the cell phone, he pulled out a wallet, cracking it open and counting out bills from within. Since he had also asked, I gave him an honest answer. He didn’t wince, merely pulling out the currency and placing it on the edge of the couch. I picked up the money warily, counting it.

“Did you think I did this for money?” I asked, watching him closely.

“No,” he replied. “I just knew you had succeeded. I thought to repay you. I’m sorry if that was offensive.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I replied, studying the money once more before looking at him. “How did you know I’d succeeded?”

In answer, he showed me the ribbon. Both ends were clean and unblemished. I sniffed the tiny stripe of cloth, but could find no trace of blood, fresh or old.

Perplexed but feeling an intruder, I crept up the stairs, closed the door, and watched through the skylights as Brother Cheviot, exhausted, put his daughter to bed and fixed himself a bowl of soup. Finally, I took my prize and jumped, the night swallowing me.

What I found of interest is that you "heard" the man's prayer.

Dose this sort of thing, hearing thoughts from a distance, happen often?

Interesting.
I take it you suffer from the ordinary reactions to Holy objects?
As I have said, there is no such thing as an absolutely unsaveable sentient being, at least from the POV of soteriology. Also the Divine can use what ever tools come to hand. I'm willing to hear more.

Oh c'mon. You applaud when my dad gets cut down in the street yet you let a bloodsucker run around loose?

What's up with you folks.