Lost Girl

Chapter Fourteen: The Jump

He had had a name – a real name – a long time ago, but that name had been lost in the mists of timeless time and lifeless life. He only knew that he went by Tootles.

Tootles knew that some people thought his name was foolish, of course. He might be slightly crazy, but he wasn't stupid. But the nice thing about being immortal was that you could kill anyone who dared laugh at you.

Almost anyone.

There were a few you couldn't kill. And Tootles wondered – feared – that he might have found one of those few. Or that one of those few might have found him.

He felt the fangs biting grooves in his lips. Normally that was a reassuring sensation, a reminder of his otherness; of his aboveness.

But not now.

Tootles looked back over his shoulder. Saw only the vast expanse of the rooftops over which he had been running. Nothing else.

Still, there was something. Someone. He was being followed. Stalked. Hunted.

He turned forward again, still running full tilt, and barely managed to leap over an AC unit. Not that it would have hurt him if he had run into it. At least, not for long. But it would have slowed him down. And he suspected that he didn't have time to spare.

He was glad that he had been turned young. At a physical age of seventeen, he was in perfect condition, even for a vampire.

So why did he feel like he was outmatched?

He looked over his shoulder again. Stupid, but he couldn't help it. Couldn't stop himself.

Nothing. Just roof.

He faced forward.

And slammed to a halt.

Because there was the hunter. Dressed in black, a long coat covering him in shadow, a helmet on his head. Tootles wondered what was under the helmet, but he also didn't want to know. He suspected it was a skull. It was Death come for him after the long centuries, come to claim him at last.

Tootles started to cry. He couldn't help it. It shamed him, made his cheeks burn bright in the night, but he couldn't stop the tears from coming. "Don't," he said as he sobbed. "Don't do it, please. Please, I'm just poor Tootles, just already lost. I don't want to be dead, too!"

The black specter said nothing. And it was the sound of the ghost thing's silence that scared Tootles more than anything else. Even though he knew in his heart of hearts that it was hopeless, even though he could feel his own doom creeping up behind him, Tootles drew the dagger he always kept belted at his waist. He moved fast – faster than anyone or anything other than the First – but the black beast somehow dodged and something shone bright in the night and in the next instant Tootles saw his dagger flying into the dark sky, still held tightly by his bloodless hand.

Tootles screamed. He clutched the stump of his arm to his chest and leapt to the side, knowing that his only chance was to flee, to get away. The edge of the roof was only a few feet away, and beyond that was empty space for a good forty feet before another building jutted into the night like a dark pillar. Forty feet was far, the limit of what Tootles could jump even at his best, but he didn't have the luxury of waiting for a better opportunity. He had to get away.

The roofing buckled beneath Tootles' feet as he jumped, and then there was nothing below or above or around him, only wind and the night and he had an instant in which he believed he would probably escape and live to see another day. He might remain lost, but he would be alive.

Then something slammed into him halfway to the other building. Tootles twisted as well as he could and saw that it was his pursuer. He was surprised. Not that the creature had followed him, but that it weighed so much. Weren't ghosts supposed to be weightless?

But no, this thing was heavy. Driving him down, down, down. They were falling together, and Tootles realized that he wasn't going to make it to the other building. No, he wasn't going to get there, he was headed for the sidewalk ten stories below. Headfirst. He didn't know if that would kill him or not.

And then he looked up and saw the ghost/not ghost swing a sword at him and felt the edge bite into his neck and cut through his spine and Tootles, who had been lost for a long time, crashed to the pavement in two pieces and his eyes closed and he was silent as his killer strode away and disappeared into the night.