Chapter 8: Going to the Movies

Tina Jordan tightened her hand on her brightly colored patent leather pocketbook as she handed her money to the man behind the ticket counter. She knew that Esset was after them, but Boston was a big place. Surely they wouldn't find her so easily. And she wasn't a fraidycat like that wuss, Xavier. She was street smart. She had grown up in the rougher side of Chicago, not to mention she had her handy-dandy little secret weapon, her telekinesis.

Let Esset try and get her. She wasn't going to run around with a big neon sign saying, "Rogue TK here, Esset welcome" on it, but she wasn't going to run like Xavier did. She was going to enjoy her biggest indulgence, movies, and let anyone try and stop her. She went into the theater to enjoy the show.

The movie was longer than she had expected. It was after dark when it ended. She didn't like that too much. She couldn't regret it, though. It had been a blast. For a moment, she wished that Xavier was there. She liked to talk about the movie she had just seen, and the younger teen always had been a good listener. "That just came out today, didn't it?" Tina jumped at the voice that came out of the night.

She whirled around to see a man standing next to the closed ticket window. She had walked right by and hadn't even seen him. He was wearing a white suit, for Christ's sake. How could she have missed him? She calmed herself. He was just a suit. Nothing dangerous there. "Yeah, new release. I like to see 'em before everyone else. What's it to ya?"

The suit took off his glasses and began to clean them. He wasn't a bad-looking guy. Actually, he was pretty cute. Way cuter than Joel Bailey, the guy she was currently dating. Or HAD been dating. Damned Esset. The suit was finally satisfied with how clean his glasses were and slipped them back on.

"It doesn't matter to me what you watch. It does matter who you are, and what you can tell me." He pushed the glasses up with his index finger. "Tina Jordan." His eyes, golden yet cold, met hers.

Tina felt a swell of fear. Esset! He had to be! She threw her purse at him and ran.

Crawford sidestepped the purse, letting it skid harmlessly on the pavement. He watched Tina Jordan run down the sidewalk and into the subway terminal. His talent, which had been balky at times since Farfarello had taken up residence, now performed flawlessly, displaying her stop. He turned and went back to his car.

Everything was working perfectly. The next stop he would find her and follow her to the dead end she so unluckily would pick out herself. There he hoped to get some answers from her.

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Tina craned her head around, trying to see if the suit had followed her onto the train. The car was half full, so she could see easily. She went to the doors between cars and peered into the cars after and before hers. No Esset. She sank onto the nearest bench. That had been too close. She needed to get out of here, get a new address. This one was no good. If he had found the theater, he would find her hotel, no problemo.

She cursed the fact that she had thrown her purse. She was lucky she didn't keep anything necessary in it. It was just a mugger-magnet. Anyone that took it would only have a few toiletries. But she could have used it to carry her valuables in when she got to the hotel. She didn't have time to pack her suitcase, which was her only other bag. "To hell with it," she muttered. She didn't have to go to the hotel.

She had money on her. Everything in her room could be replaced. She got off at the next stop, three stops before her hotel one. Let the bastard find her now. "You dropped your purse, Miss Jordan," a voice called out. She didn't even turn. She stretched out her long legs and ran for her life.

Crawford watched her go, then scaled the ladder on the side of the building he was next to. If he went south across the rooftops, he would be able to come to their final meeting place. "Until then, Miss Jordan."

Tina stopped for a breath, leaning against the rough brick wall. She was at the mouth of an alley, between an antique shop and a brokerage firm. She was in the historical district. It was dead at this time of night; she was the only person she heard moving around. She cursed her luck. She should have headed towards the clubs and bars, any place that had people. Surely Esset wouldn't try anything if there was witnesses around. Here, there was nothing.

She straightened and jogged down the alley. She had to get out of here, stay out of sight. That meant traveling behind the shops, if possible. Service access ways were her highway tonight. She came to a wooden fence instead, barring her way. "Damn it!"

"Yes, a bad stroke of luck," a man's voice agreed. The suit! She whirled around. A soft, muffled gunshot was heard, then she felt pain. Pain like she had never felt before. She collapsed against the wall, slowly sliding down it. She clutched her stomach, felt her own blood on her fingers.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Crawford asked. People who had never been shot before never seemed to be able to get past the pain, certainly not to the point where they could be a threat. Crawford pointed the silenced gun at her temple, smiling when the tough-girl face slid away, revealing the frightened girl underneath. He could work with fear. "Tell me what you know about Vela Berdan and who's behind all this."

----

Schuldig sneered at the white building he was about to enter. Students, many about his age, streamed around him, hurrying to and fro to the classes on the schedules clutched in their nervous hands. Schuldig may have been the same age as some of them, but he was worlds away from them mentally. These fresh-faced young things had never faced life, much less death, as he had.

He didn't need to skim them to know that their thoughts were so naïve, so unaware. They were like babes in the woods. Many had lived normal lives at home until now, sheltered from the hard realities of life by their parents. They had never seen true suffering, never feared for their lives, never been forced to perform or die. Never had they held guns in their hands and taken lives so often they had a favored target on the human body. Schuldig preferred head shots. It silenced thoughts very effectively.

There were whole worlds, dark ones, that many of these students would never see, ones that he was intimately familiar with. He smirked at a young blonde that skirted skittishly past him, an uneasy look in her eye. She smelled predator, but she didn't know the scent well enough to understand what it was that she was sensing. Her instincts knew, though. She was one of the few smart enough to listen to that small, wise voice of primal sense.

Most of the unwary ones were ones that society would have labeled 'old enough to know better.' Since he was taking a night class tonight, there were quite a few older people, people not fresh out of high school. Like the woman approaching him with a practiced slink and a gleam that even a non-telepath could read. Lust, pure and simple. She was following another primal directive altogether, one that shut out the wiser one that would have sensed the killer.

If he was Farfarello, he would have killed the woman for her sinful thoughts, denied her a chance at seeing the error of her ways and redeeming herself. He would have denied the Great Destroyer another soul. If he was Crawford, he would have rebuffed the woman coolly, not even giving her a second thought. She had no place in his scheme of things, so she was irrelevant. Nagi would have turned her away coldly too, but for a different reason. Fear and distrust were the fences that Nagi had around him, buffering him in a cold no-man's-land.

He wasn't any of them. He was Schuldig. And Schuldig loved to play with his prey. "Hello there."

"Hi yourself," the girl said, giving Schuldig an interested smile. "Goin' my way?" she indicated the building they both stood in front of.

"Yeah. Psych class."

"Oh, which one? Spracklen's, or Tatreau's? Maybe we could sit next to each other and share. . . notes," she purred suggestively.

"Notes, hmm? Let's see," Schuldig said lazily as he flipped open his textbook. He had placed the slip of paper in there to prevent it from getting lost. Instead of finding a printed schedule, a note in Crawford's bold hand greeted him: Don't get distracted. Leave the woman alone. Go to class. Schuldig hissed through his teeth. Dealing with a pre-cog could be such a pain. They never failed to know the exact time to ruin all a man's fun.

----

Schuldig yawned hugely, mockingly, at the professor's frown. The man was angry at Schuldig's obvious boredom, but didn't like the gleam in Schuldig's eye, the one daring him to say something. He turned to the chalkboard instead. Schuldig regarded his back with faint disappointment, then dismissed the man. Instead, he occupied himself by drawing mustaches and other embellishments on the pictures in his textbook.

His first class was a bust. The teacher was an uptight prick (French one, at that), the students took themselves much too seriously, and the subject was laughable. What did non-telepaths really think they could understand about the human mind? He swam through hundreds of them everyday and even he couldn't profess to know everything about them.

Sure, he knew many things about the way people thought that would make these professors look like rank amateurs. However, the human mind was too complex. Best just to let it run, and kill off the ones that couldn't function usefully anymore. Survival of the fittest worked for him. If there was a code that Schwarz followed, it was that. And they were at the top of the food chain.

He skimmed through the thoughts of his fellow classmates. Boring, boring— hmm. That might be interesting for later. Let's see, who else? Laughable. Stupid. That kid's nuts. That kid's obsessed with her boyfriend. Pathetic. And that kid needs to stop imagining the teacher naked. It was getting creepy.

There was nothing of any relevance in any of these people's minds. He propped his head on his hand and sighed heavily. He hoped that Crawford was having better luck.

----

Crawford walked out of the alley and turned down the street back to his car. That had been disappointing. Just like the boy and the cellist, Tina Jordan hadn't known where the others were, or who was the one that was helping them, bank-rolling the research program they worked with. She had a little more information than the other two because she was more inquisitive than they were. She was sure that Vela was well acquainted with a local, and that this local would probably know where Vela was because Vela tended to stay close.

Other than that, nothing. Crawford unlocked the car and got in. After Jordan had died, he hadn't gotten any useful visions. He knew that Schuldig had just returned from his night classes, so he might as well return to the hotel and try and sketch out a new game plan, for this one was going nowhere.

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A/N:
TrenchcoatMan – If Esset had been on the ballot, I might have considered it. . .
Lestat197 – Yum, cookies. Everyone definitely deserves one for being so patient!
LoneCayt – He's not your typical student, that's for sure.
Lily – Thank you so much for the compliments. I'm with you. I just can't imagine Schu as a completely irresponsible idiot. I don't think that Esset or Crawford would have put up with it.
Precognition74 – Isn't it funny? As many people would give their eyeteeth for Schu's opportunity, and he doesn't want to go! Isn't that they way it always works?