December
One of the great tragedies of human existence is that most of them, most people, never live long enough to realize it when they are paid a visit by one of those unique, life-changing opportunities that come around only a handful of times in the span of any one human lifetime.
Of all the gifts inherent to my condition, time is without a doubt the single most valuable. No amount of speed or strength can ever surpass the power of a keen mind. There will always be a surplus of thugs lining up for the scraps that fall from the table of the man of intellect and time is one of the most powerful tools when it comes to sharpening one's mind.
Today was one of those rare opportunities, a development that offers the possibility of fundamentally shifting my fortunes to the better in a lasting way. The interesting thing about opportunity is that you can't plan for a specific development, because you'll never know quite what form it will take. You can however plan for the inevitability of the opportunity.
If you keep your eyes open, eventually opportunities will arrive and the more you can do beforehand to prepare yourself for their inevitable arrival, the more benefit you can parley out of them.
So much of it simply comes down to time. Time and a willingness to accept the unavoidable level of risk that comes with any attempt to better your station.
I was playing dutiful errand boy for Imastious again tonight. He wanted a message delivered to the local tribe of the Latin Kings to make sure that they knew they were trying to muscle their way onto the wrong block.
The actual hit was simple. Three gangbangers with cheap pistols and no training are no match for a trained operative. I dipped the hand of one of the fallen in a pool of his own blood so that Imastious' calling card was evident at the scene of the crime, and then disappeared into the night with the four kilos of cocaine that the three of them had been about to cut with baking powder.
Imastious still thinks that he's got me on a tight financial leash, but it's finds like this over the last two decades that have allowed me to build up the resources I'll need to eventually free myself from him. As long as I continue to promptly spend everything Imastious gives me in suitably flashy ways, he'll never wise up to the fact that he's lost one more hold over me.
I've infiltrated the White Tears deeply enough that I can use them to move any drugs I come across. That means that I shouldn't have any problems liquidating this batch of drugs and using the cash to quietly invest in a promising biotech company I've had my eye on for several months. I've already made a significant purchase there, but liquidity concerns have kept me from investing as heavily as I'd like.
I was more than two miles away from the hit, walking in slow circles in an effort to confirm that I hadn't been followed, when I heard her. She was gagged and tied, partially trapped underneath an abandoned couch in an alley that was filled with rotting garbage.
Even in New York, people still take pity on children, and this one couldn't have been more than three or four. Once I got far enough into the alley I was able to see her without needing to actually get within more than a dozen feet or so of her.
I don't have nearly as many enemies as Imastious, and there shouldn't have been any possible way for an enemy to know in advance that I would be coming by this particular alley, but I've been doing Imastious' dirty work for long enough that I've largely inherited Imastious' enemies and some of them are incredibly powerful.
I knew that the safest route would be to simply walk away and leave the girl there to die, but the biggest inconvenience of my condition is keeping myself properly fed. New York has long had a significant population of homeless derelicts, but while few people notice them while they are alive, once they start turning up dead in greater than normal numbers the police invariably get involved.
This girl obviously had been left outside on purpose. A kidnapper would have just killed her rather than risking that someone would find her before she died from exposure. Only parents could have left her here like this. They'd desperately tried to create a situation where her death might look like an accident.
They might even have reported her as kidnapped, but they would have been sure to leave her far away from her home so as to ensure that she wouldn't be found. As long as I was careful to dispose of the body no one would be asking any questions.
I sent tendrils of thought out in every direction questing for other minds, but the area was unusually devoid of other people. Once I was confident that the girl didn't represent some kind of trap, I let some of my mental probes touch her. The reaction from her mind when I touched it sent me stumbling back into the side of the building behind me.
Other vampires, pyromancers or telekinetics, are sometimes able to detect when someone tries to insert a tendril into their minds. Other mentalists, unless they are so young as to not have developed their abilities at all, invariably know as soon as another mentalist tries to influence their thoughts, but this time was the first instance where I'd encountered such awareness from a human.
She didn't just know that I was inside of her mind, she grabbed ahold of my probes and used them to push an intense burst of fear inside my mind. I broke off the contact instantly, half expecting her to follow me back and attempt some kind of mental attack, but she remained trapped, both physically under the sofa and mentally inside of her own mind.
I watched for several seconds as tears continued to trickle down her tiny cheeks and muffled sobs shook her fragile body. The possibilities were almost limitless. She could serve as the perfect trap. It would no doubt be a project requiring years of effort, but given the strength she'd already displayed, it was possible that I could use her to break free of Imastious in one fell stroke.
There was nothing threatening about her exterior, but if I played my cards right, that unassuming form could hide a warren of blind alleys and dead ends. Imastious would touch her mind carelessly and find himself pulled in deeply enough that it would take all of his concentration and strength to keep from having the pathway back to his body severed. He would finally be completely at my mercy.
It was the lowest-risk path, but there was another route that promised even greater rewards if it worked correctly. I could keep her alive until she was old enough to turn, and then if she survived the change I could train her up as my disciple. If she was this strong as a mere human, then she'd be an exceptionally strong mentalist once she was a vampire.
In many ways I realized I was in the same situation that Imastious had found himself in many years ago. It wasn't necessarily something designed to be reassuring, but if I were able to avoid making the kinds of mistakes with her that Imastious had made with me, then she could help me kill Imastious. Even more importantly, she might also provide me with a strong enough power base to avoid being sucked into the clutches of one of the other vampire elders after Imastious was dead.
The risks of the course I was considering were terrifyingly real, and I've found that immortality has the effect of making one even less willing to risk death, but in the end there was only one valid decision. It might be another two or three decades before I come across another opportunity like this girl. I'd be willing to wait if I thought that the intervening time would decrease my risk in undertaking the endeavor, but ultimately it wouldn't. I already have enough wealth that even doubling or tripling my assets wouldn't add appreciably to my security, and I knew that my mentalist abilities would grow only slowly over the next century.
In the end, I realized that there wasn't anything to stop me from terminating her a year from now or three years from now or even two decades from now if the risk became unacceptable. I moved the couch off of her, untied her, and then helped her to her feet. Her name is Lucy, she confirmed that she is indeed three years old and she agreed to come home with me where it was warm.
It wasn't until we got back out onto the main road and into better light that I realized why Lucy looked so familiar to me. It was obvious that she wasn't going to be able to keep up with me, I was reaching down to pick her up when it hit me. The tear-streaked face looking up at me was almost a perfect match for Beth.
Slender face, soft brown hair, and brown eyes that seemed wiser than anyone her age could possibly be. I tried to deny the likeness, but it was unquestionably real.
In hindsight, I believe that I handled things well despite my shock. It is only reasonable to expect that over hundreds or even thousands of years that I'll continue to run into people who bear a strong resemblance to someone from earlier in my life. As I think back over the last decade or so, I can remember no fewer than three other instances where I saw someone who looked like a younger version of some past acquaintance. This is just the first time that someone has reminded me of the older sister who took on the bulk of the work involved in raising me. Right up until Imastious killed her.