Privideniya ~ Chapter 3

 

 

 

Everyone kept telling him to get out of New York for a while. The first snow of the season had come early this year, blanketing the city overnight in shades of gray and sepia. Cold wind seeped in through all the cracks.

 

Raiden was tired of being cold all the time.

 

Money wasn't the issue. He had savings, enough to catch a plane to Tampa, Los Angeles… or maybe somewhere even warmer. To Phoenix or Santa Fe, where the sun would burn hot enough to sear everything else away.

 

But it would be three years this spring since he had killed the man he once thought of as his father, and Raiden was still in the same crappy apartment, in the same dirty city, under the same black sky. He had watched them rebuild the Capital Building, piece the demolished blocks downtown back together.

 

Even on the waterfront, where the destruction had been the greatest, a few businesses had already reopened: some bars, a tattoo parlor, Drive-Thru Liquor, a Mafia pizza place, a 7-11. Pay-by-the-hour motels. One of those smoke shops that sold things like belt buckles with bright green pot leaves on them.

 

It had been a good neighborhood; Raiden could remember when there had been some fashionable restaurants that overlooked the water. It wasn't so good anymore. Not terrible, not by New York's standards, but bad enough that Raiden felt distinctly out of place whenever he went to look at the buckled pavement, at the gutted buildings with boarded-up windows, old businesses that hadn't been bought-out yet.

 

There were certain times of the year when he couldn't help but remember that he had helped cause this. But that was a good thing; it was what he wanted.

 

To forget everything that had happened would have been the same as dying, no different than if he had taken a bullet to the back of the head in the depths of the Big Shell.  Enough people had died already. He wasn't sure which was worse: the ones he had killed, or the ones who had died to protect him.

 

But the only thing that frightened him much these days was forgetting that. Losing sight of one of their faces in his mind, even for a moment, that was all he was afraid of.

 

These days, the night terrors came less and less frequently. In the days after he killed his father, Raiden slept more soundly than he had in years. At first, he had been grateful for that, a small mercy in the midst of a thousand cruelties, but now he couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't the first step on the road to amnesia… And he would lie in bed at night, waiting for the cold clench of dread that never came.  Whenever a sound woke him in the middle of the night, it would be with his tongue already tasting his lips for screams that were never there.

 

What he needed, Raiden had decided, was a fight. But only to remember how much he hated fighting. He needed to risk his life, but only so he wouldn't forget how much he liked having the option not to.

 

The problem with this was that finding someone to fight was harder than he had thought.  He had begun to frequent the bars down by the waterfront, hoping that he'd be able to find someone who would take his shiny hair, his smooth skin, and his thighs that could bend an iron bar as personal affronts.

 

But most nights, he was just ignored, a ghost who had wandered in off the street for Dime Beer Wednesday. It seemed that he had tragically underestimated the number of people in New York who wanted to take a swing at a pert blond prettyboy.

 

Occasionally, a woman approached him. He had invited one home with him only once. Her name was Amber, and she had red hair. She'd dropped a cigarette on his couch and clawed his back to ribbons so that putting on a shirt the next day had stung. In the morning, she had muttered something about being late for work, and left without exchanging numbers.

 

And for a while, Raiden had been satisfied.

 

But it had only been a week, and already he was back at the same waterfront bars, only he went further tonight than he ever had before.

 

The clouds were low, and a biting wind whistled through the shells of gutted buildings. He could hear the lap of waves. It was too dark to see the water, but he knew he was close to it. The air smelled of salt water, dead fish, pollution… Coming here, he thought, was just like coming home.

 

It was the kind of night where the cold would blow right through you, like you weren't even there at all. Raiden's hands were numbed by it, but his instincts were not. That heightened sixth sense, honed by decades of combat, He knew as soon as he stepped through the door of the little dive bar – before he had even finished slipping his ID back into his wallet – that something was wrong. 

 

His eyes narrowed, sweeping quickly over the room. The hazy smoke, the pool tables, the neon Jagermeister sign, the jukebox spitting out American Pie in a raspy Marlene Dietrich voice… Nothing was out of place. Everything was as it should have been. Yet still, he couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck. Cold and intense, and maybe just a little curious.

 

Raiden reached back, slowly, slipping his hand beneath his jacket. There was a hunting knife hidden in the back of his jeans. As hungry as he was for a fight, bringing it along tonight wasn't the smartest thing he had ever done. But these days, going out unarmed seemed unnecessarily reckless, even by his standards.

 

The hilt of the knife was hot and slick in his hand, warmed by his body. His fingers curled around it; as they did, a dry laugh rattled in his ears.

 

"Where do you think you are? Texas? You can't pull a weapon in here."

 

Raiden managed not to jump, but just barely. The voice came from behind him – just over his left shoulder. It was pitched low, but he heard it clearly over the rattling jukebox. It was the kind of low rumbling voice that never had any trouble carrying in a crowded room. The kind of voice that brought to mind thoughts of hot blood and cool steel and cold eyes.

 

Raiden tensed, hand twitching on the hilt of his knife as he turned sharply on his heels. His throat clenched, blowing his first attempt at words. It was a moment before he could speak again, and even then he could manage only short, controlled bursts. "Vamp?!"

 

In the dirty neon light, his skin was washed of color. His hair was the blue-black of a fresh bruise. He was leaning against the wall, his arms folded casually, as though he had been waiting a long time for Raiden to notice him there.

 

Raiden didn't want to think about how many times Vamp could have killed him by now, but, as the man stepped forward silently, his lips curling into a smile that showed no teeth, it was hard not to.

 

"Hello, my little ingénue," Vamp said smoothly. "Aren't you a long way from home?"

 

"What the hell do you want?" Raiden hissed. Even Vamp wasn't crazy enough to attack him in a room full of people.

 

Right?

 

Vamp lifted one hand, the neck of a bottle of beer hanging from between two fingers. "Having a drink. Why don’t you stay for a round? I'm buying."

 

"Bullshit. Who sent you?" Raiden's eyes narrowed. "La-li-lu-le-lo?"

 

Vamp laughed softly. "That's a crazy thing to say."

 

“Don’t call me crazy…” Raiden hissed. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it behind his eyes. Inside his heavy coat, he was sweating. Black spots gnawed at his peripheral vision.

 

He gasped, stepped forward and somehow managed to walk without stumbling. He brushed past Vamp, past the bouncer at the door. Outside again, the cold wind was like a slap to the face, and it revived him. Raiden gasped for breath.

 

The Army psychiatrist said he had a mild case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Raiden called it a gift from his late father, the only one he had ever given him.

 

He slipped around the corner of the bar, into a narrow alley that ran between it and the next building over. It was lit poorly – a distant streetlamp at both ends and a blue neon sigh in the window of the bar – but that was probably for the best. Something was rustling in the shadows, and Raiden wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was.

 

Another pair of footsteps crunched on one of the thin patches of dirty snow. Raiden spun around.

 

The low light cast strange shadows over Vamp’s face; Raiden couldn’t make out his expression from where he was standing, but he didn’t want to go any closer.

 

“What’s wrong?” Vamp asked.

 

“Nothing.” Raiden shook his head. “Nothing is fucking wrong. Why are you following me?”

 

Vamp shrugged. When he spoke, there was the hint of a smile beneath his voice. “Maybe I’m just glad to see a familiar face. Especially one as pretty as yours.”

 

Raiden tensed. Ever since the Big Shell, he had felt that he was growing old too quickly, as though his life had jumped the shark the moment he buried his sword to the hilt in Solidus' warm guts. Only two years had passed, and there were already faint lines around his eyes, already he had begun to find gray hairs nesting among the blond. When it was cold, his left hip ached, the nagging reminder of a splinter of shrapnel he had taken when he was eight years old.

 

But there, under the cadaver-blue neon light from the sign in the window of the bar, Vamp didn't look any different at all. Even his hair was the same, still too long to be respectable, but beautiful enough that no one really minded. Only the dark smudge in the center of his forehead - the hole left by a stray bullet - was gone now, and not even a pale scar showed that it had once been there.

 

Raiden had been proud of that wound, proud that he had been able to leave his mark on a man like Vamp.  And now, even that was gone, like it had never been there at all.

 

Without that reminder every time he looked at his reflection, it was a wonder Vamp remembered him at all.

 

Raiden’s fists clenched at his sides. "What happened to your head?" he asked.

 

"That?" Vamp touched the spot between his perfectly arched brows, exactly where the bullet had gone in. "Just a lovetap coming from you, ingénue." He smiled, tilting his head back to show that fist-shaped stretch of skin under his jaw. He was practically asking to have a few back teeth knocked loose, begging for it.

 

So Raiden didn’t disappoint him.

 

It didn’t occur to him until later that dodging that first punch should have been easy for Vamp. It didn’t occur to him that the other man should have seen his fist coming from a mile away. It didn’t, because all Raiden could think about was how good bone felt against his knuckles, how satisfying it was to see Vamp’s head snap to the side, his mouth draw up into a confused pout.

 

How he didn’t feel guilty about it at all.

 

Vamp reached up calmly, touching two fingertips to the corner of his mouth. They came away with little powderburns of blood on them.

 

“Ow…” he muttered, and licked the blood from his fingers.

 

Raiden stepped back, lifting his hands and pushing up onto the balls of his feet. “I knew I was going to have to kick someone’s ass tonight.”

 

“Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.” Vamp looked him over; the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. “Stop that.”

 

But Raiden could already feel the blood pounding at his temples, the hot flush of excitement in his cheeks. For a real fight, there was nothing better than a grudge match, as far as he was concerned. Except, maybe, a grudge match against a delusional, unkillable psychopath.

 

If he didn’t feel better after this, then he was never going to feel good again.

 

He threw his weight onto his left foot, pivoting to aim a stiff kick at Vamp’s jaw. For a moment before his heel connected, his back was to the other man. He was vulnerable. Vamp’s hand snapped up, catching him around the ankle. It only took a little push to put him off balance.

 

Raiden stumbled a step, giving Vamp the split second he needed to drive a fist into the small of his back. His knees unhinged. He hit the pavement, moving already. Digging his heels in and trying to put some distance between them.

 

Vamp didn’t follow him. As Raiden got to his feet, he only tilted his head a little. “You won't like the way this ends."

 

“Shut up.” Raiden spat the coppery taste of adrenaline from his mouth, raising his hands again.

 

They both moved at once, tangling together in a flurry of punches. Raiden excelled at five types of unarmed combat. Vamp, at least that many. None of that mattered, though, because as soon as they came together they were just another drunken fight in the alley behind a bar. All stray elbows, hissed and breathless curses. Teeth and nails and flying blood. Boots slipping on splinters of broken glass.

 

Raiden couldn’t tell who was winning, couldn’t even tell if they were evenly matched. But it really didn’t matter.

 

One of his punches landed somewhere soft. The next one, somewhere so hard that it probably hurt him more than it did Vamp. Something cracked him on the point of the jaw, making his teeth click together and sparks dance before his eyes.

 

And then, as though the perfect moment had been decided in advance, they shoved each other away. Raiden still shaking his head to clear away the static, Vamp wiping the droplets of blood from his eyelashes.

 

He stepped back, and smiled at Raiden. “What sharp claws you have...”

 

“You sound surprised.” Raiden didn’t wait for an answer. Vamp had lowered his guard, and so he darted forward. His first punch sent Vamp stumbling back against the brick wall behind him, a soft white bullseye against the hard dingy stone.

 

By the time he had drawn his hand back for the second, Raiden could see nothing but that unmarred place between Vamp’s eyes where something horrible should have been. He could think only of the satisfying crunch of a nose breaking under his knuckles.  His hand came down.

 

And then, Vamp ducked.

 

It wasn’t that Raiden notice what had happened only too late to avoid it. It was that he didn’t notice it at all, not until he pulled his hand back and realized that the blood running down his arm was his own.

 

There was a little bit of skin left on his knuckles, a few frayed and lacy scraps still clinging to the bright red meat that had been uncovered underneath. But almost everything on all four fingers, from his second knuckle down to just past his third, had been flayed off.

 

Raiden's jaw dropped. “Oh my god. Look what I just did to my fucking hand.”

 

Vamp had backed off to regroup, but now he dropped his hands and came closer again. He glanced at Raiden’s hand, then and the red smear on the wall. “Just how hard were you planning on hitting me?”

 

“Hard,” Raiden said, distracted. He took off his scarf and wrapped it once around his knuckles. Blood soaked through in a matter of seconds, so he wrapped it around them again.

 

Vamp raised an eyebrow. “Are you all right?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

"Let me see it."

 

Raiden pulled his hand close to his chest. "I said it's fine!"

 

"If it's fine, then let me see it."

 

"Go away. I'll take care of it." Raiden turned away, still cradling his injured hand.

 

“Maybe you should get it looked at.”

 

“No, it’ll be okay. I think the bleeding’s stopped.” As he said that, blood began to show through another layer of the scarf. Raiden bit his lip. “Umm… I think I’d better head home now.”

 

"You look a little pale."

 

"Thank you so very fucking much for that breaking news bulletin!"

 

"My apartment is only a few blocks away. Come with me, and I can patch you up there."

 

"You're joking!"

 

Vamp sighed. "Do you really want to pass out on the way home?"

 

"No…"

 

"So come on. I'm not going to hurt you." Vamp smiled thinly as he turned away. "I don't bite."

 

"Well… all right." Raiden trailed after him, holding his injured hand against his body. "But you'd better not try to pull anything. You owe me."

 

"Owe you for what?"

 

"Ducking."

 

* * *

 

Raiden didn't think it was unfair to say that the building Vamp lived in was a real shithole. 

 

Half the lights in the stairwell were burned out, which made it almost impossible to see the stairs that were loose. Which made it almost impossible for Raiden to walk up them without almost smashing his face on the railing every few steps.

 

The carpet was frayed and torn up in places. The cat-piss colored wallpaper was starting to peel away from the brick. Cockroaches crawled along the floorboards as boldly as if they'd held seats on the Homeowners Association.

 

"This is where you live?" Raiden asked. He didn't feel lightheaded, which meant he wasn't losing as much blood as he had thought.  But it still felt like his hand had been run through an industrial meat slicer. Each beat of his heart made it throb.

 

"I've been laying low," Vamp said, leading him down a fourth-floor corridor to his apartment. "FBI's most wanted and all…"

 

"Yeah, but couldn't you lay low somewhere that doesn't look like the set from a serial killer flick?"

 

Vamp shrugged, slipping his keys out of his pocket and unlocking his door. "I am on the waiting list for a secret underground lair, but you know how New York is."

 

"Sure…" Raiden muttered, following him inside.

 

Vamp slid the chain across the door. "Come in the kitchen."

 

"Oh Jesus, are you going to eat me?"

 

"You'd taste bad. Nanomachines always do." Vamp pulled a chair around next to the kitchen counter. "Sit. I'll be right back."

 

Raiden sighed as he sat down, resting his hand on the counter. This was stupid. Trusting someone like Vamp was a dumb thing to do. Vamp, who probably wanted to fuck him. And kill him. And completely drain his body of blood.

 

Raiden could only hope he got them in the right order.

 

He should have already been on his way out the door, but instead he was looking around the apartment and thinking that Vamp hadn't been exaggerating when he said he was laying low. The place was practically empty. Gutted, as though Vamp had brought nothing of himself along when he moved in.

 

It wasn't very fair, Raiden thought, for him to leave no clues as to what kind of a man he was.

 

Glass clicked softly against the kitchen counter, and Raiden raised his head. Vamp had set down a clear bottle, about two-thirds empty, next to him. "What's that?"

 

Vamp turned it so he could see the label. "I thought I had iodine. I guess not. This is just as good."

 

"Vodka?" Raiden looked up at him. "Vamp. You are not going to pour vodka into my gaping wounds."

 

"Don't worry," Vamp said. "It's the cheap stuff. I saved the expensive bottle."

 

Raiden rolled his eyes. "At least tell me you have something I can use for bandages."

 

"Of course," Vamp said. "I thought I had gauze, but it looks like I'm out of that, too. I did find this, though." He set a roll of toilet paper down next to the vodka.

 

"Jesus…".

 

"Don't worry so much. It's better than field surgery." Vamp set one hand gently over Raiden's wrist, peeling the matted scarf away from his knuckles with the other.

 

"Ow! Be careful, Vamp!"

 

"Adrian," Vamp said without looking up.

 

"Huh?" Raiden winced as Vamp finished pulling the scarf away from his hand.

 

"My name's Adrian. You don't have to call me Vamp." He picked up the bottle of vodka, popping the cap off with his teeth.

 

Raiden's eyes narrowed. "All right, then, Adrian. I told you not to pour that on me." He tried to pull his hand back, but Vamp tightened the grip on his wrist. He upended the bottle over his split knuckles.

 

Raiden screamed.

 

Though he wasn't certain he believed Vamp when he said that it worked just as well as iodine, the vodka did at least wash away most of the blood, finally giving Raiden a look at the gashes on his knuckles.

 

They were actually a little disappointing, as battle scars went. They were all shallow scrapes, nothing broken, no horrible glimpses of white bone. They would heal up in a week, and then Raiden knew he would be right back where he had started.

 

Vamp lifted his hand, tucking the edge of the toilet paper between Raiden's thumb and forefinger and winding the roll around his knuckles. When the little cardboard tube was empty, he tucked the stray end into the bandages, and let go of Raiden's wrist. "There. Perfect."

 

Raiden lifted his hand: a soft white ball, reeking of vodka and blood. "Umm… thanks."

 

"Does it hurt?"

 

"Yeah." Raiden nodded weakly. "A little."

 

"I used up all the cheap vodka, but I've got some of the expensive bottle left…"

 

Raiden was quiet for a moment, though not really because he was thinking the offer over. "Yeah. Okay."

 

Vamp took the bottle down from the top of the fridge, and Raiden followed him toward the door in the back of the apartment. "It's more comfortable in the bedroom," Vamp said.

 

"Oh." Raiden wasn't sure if he should have believed that, especially since the bedroom seemed to him just as empty as the rest of the rooms. There was a bed, a computer up on cinder blocks, a stack of thick books. The walls were bare except for a small crucifix at the head of the bed.

 

Vamp sat on the bed, Raiden on the floor at his feet. They drank right from the bottle, passing it back and forth, wiping the mouth on their sleeves before each long swallow.

 

An awkward silence stretched out between them, one that Raiden wasn't sure how to break. At first, he stared down at the white balloon around his hand, but then he found his attention drawn to the crucifix over Vamp's bed. It wasn't even a nice crucifix. It was made of cheap plastic, and some of the brown paint they had used on Jesus' hair had smeared onto his gaunt cheeks.

 

"Why's it so empty in here?" Raiden asked at last. "It looks like a cell in a monastery or something."

 

Vamp shrugged. "I couldn't think of anything else I needed."

 

"Oh." Raiden took a sip of vodka. "It just… kind of reminded me of my room, that's all. Maybe there's nothing else I need, either."

 

"That's the only safe way to live," Vamp said quietly.

 

"I know," Raiden said.

 

He was quiet for a long time after that. Vamp passed him the bottle; he took it, but didn't drink, only twisted it slowly in his hand.

 

"She died," he said at last. "Emma, I mean. I… thought you should know."

 

"A lot of people died," Vamp said. "That's what people do. They die." He shrugged. "I don't suppose, though, that you'd believe me if I told you that I never set out to be a murderer. I don't… like to make a habit of it."

 

"No," Raiden said. "I get it. I killed a lot of people, too." He looked over, but he couldn't lift his eyes to meet Vamp's. "I'm sorry about Fortune. I know it wasn't her fault."

 

"Fortune…" Vamp shook his head. "You didn't kill her, I know that." He reached down, plucking the bottle out of Raiden's hands. "I just can't help but wonder… if he could kill me, too."

 

"Ocelot, you mean? I wouldn't underestimate him, if I were you."

 

"I wouldn't dare." Vamp's eyes narrowed. "But I will find him one day."

 

"What will you do then?"

 

"Then," Vamp said. He sipped the vodka. "Then… I'm going to tear out his liver and make him watch while I eat it."

 

"Yeah?" Raiden smiled. "You have to promise to send me a postcard."

 

Vamp handed the bottle back. "What about you? What are you going to do someday?"

 

"Well…" This time Raiden did drink. The bottle was almost empty. "I thought I was going to get married. Raise a kid. That kind of thing. But… that wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't what either of us wanted."

 

"You had a lover?"

 

Raiden nodded. "Yeah. I mean… I did love her, for a while at least. But we talked it over, and we realized that we didn't want a baby. Each of us was only doing it for the other. It was a mess. Yelling, crying, broken dishes. But I'm glad it happened. It was going to sooner or later, and at least we got it out of the way before she had the kid."

 

"What happened to the baby?"

 

Raiden shrugged. "Put it up for adoption. We figured that there were about a zillion people out there less fucked up than us. That was about a year ago."

 

"And your lover?"

 

"I see her around, but not very much anymore." Raiden sighed. "That reminds me… I should call her."

 

"Don't do it now. You're drunk."

 

"Yeah…" Raiden leaned his head back against the bed. "So, anyway, I guess what I really want is to make someone happy."

 

"That's pretty vague."

 

"No, I don't mean just anyone," Raiden said. "A specific person. Olga." He looked up, into Vamp's eyes. "She died for me. Well… not really for me. For her kid. It was the same thing, though."

 

"I didn't know she had a child," Vamp said.

 

"They took it from her. You know… them." He could tell by the way Vamp's mouth twisted that he understood. "And they told her to help me out or they'd kill it. I… don't even want to imagine what that kid's been through. I don't even want to imagine what they're doing to it."

 

Vamp nodded. "I understand. You think they're training it to be an agent, right? They are very efficient. They don't let component parts go to waste."

 

"That's right," Raiden said. "So I guess… I guess what I really want is to find that kid. Bring him somewhere safe. Make sure he doesn't grow up like I did."

 

That last part had slipped out accidentally, and Raiden was glad when Vamp didn't comment on it. He didn't say anything at all for a while, and Raiden leaned over, nudging his knee. "Adrian?"

 

"I was just thinking… if anyone knows where they're keeping the child, it would be Ocelot."

 

"I guess." Raiden frowned. "What are you trying to say? We should work together or something?"

 

"As long as we have Ocelot in common, it couldn't hurt, could it? You're ex-Army, I'm ex-Navy…"

 

"Together, we'll fight crime?"

 

Vamp smiled thinly. "But of course. And they say there's no interdepartmental cooperation in the military."

 

Raiden laughed. In the back of his mind, a little voice was screaming that this was a stupid thing to do; it was trying desperately to remind him that he didn't trust Vamp. Remember, he didn't trust anyone? But it was nicely muffled by the alcohol, and easy to ignore. "Well…" he said. "I do still have some contacts. And Solid Snake told me that Ocelot always goes home for a while after he orchestrates something as big as what happened in the harbor."

 

"Russia, then?"

 

"That's right." Raiden counted off on his fingers. "So we'll need information. I'll see what I can dig up. We'll also need guns."

 

Vamp nodded. "Lots of guns."

 

"Lots of huge guns."

 

Vamp ran a hand back through his hair thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you've ever been to Russia, have you?"

 

"No," Raiden admitted. "But you have, right?"

 

"Not Russia proper. I haven't been home in a long time…" He nodded slightly. "But I may be able to call in a few favors in that part of the world, make sure we don't run into any trouble with customs."

 

Raiden thought he had a pretty good idea what sort of people Vamp would be calling, but he knew better than to ask. He was sure he didn't want to know the specifics. "I guess… it's settled, then," he said.

 

"Almost." Vamp's eyes thinned. "How do I know I can trust you?"

 

"What kind of bullshit question is that?" Raiden felt his cheeks flush. "Of course you don't know you can trust me. I don't know if I can trust you, either."

 

Vamp looked down at him, fixing Raiden with his steely blue eyes. "You can trust me," he said, and he sounded so serious about it, that for a moment Raiden was almost tempted to believe him. He really must have been hopeless, if even a crazy vampire – one who had been personally responsible for at least a dozen of his nastier scars - could lie to him so easily.

 

Maybe it just felt good being lied to this casually. It was a little nostalgic, like an album full of old Prom photos.

 

"Okay," Raiden murmured. The bottle of vodka was still in his hand, and he lifted it to his lips, drinking the last of it down without flinching. He had the feeling he was going to need it before this was over.

 

"Okay," he said again. "You can trust me, too."

 

 

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