The Heart of Stone

by Adam Knight

  *

  "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.

  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

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