Rambling writing trying to add depth or personality to a character for Shadowrun.
***
The ember of Prinz’s burning deepweed shone red in the omnipresent dark of the alleyway. Rain, or something very similar to rain, poured from Uptown overhead.
Like a furnace grate opened, Prinz exhaled a long ribbon of multi-colored smoke from his luminous, scarred mouth. It wafted up to meet the rain.
Falling angels, rising demons.
He was just starting to enjoy the spoils of his latest run when the flutter of hundreds of wings jolted him. The sound came from deeper in the alley way and was accompanied by a brilliant warm light that cast long, twisted shadows in front of him.
“Don’t say it.” A firmly masculine voice intoned.
“I wasn’t gunna.” Prinz said, the corner of his mouth smiling.
The boy turned to gaze admiringly at the bronze-skinned man who towered over him. Six wings shrouded him, moving of their own accord - two hid his face save for his mouth, his sensuous charming mouth; two covered his feet; and two bore him above the ground.
“Your thoughts are dark. I thought I’d bring some light.”
“My hero,” teased Prinz.
“That’s my calling - buoying up mortals.”
Prinz toyed with the butt of his deepweed. It was starting to affecting him. Reality’s fraying edge out of the corner of his eye. “Is that what you call it.” He was being thoughtful in that obvious way that teenagers do when they want to broach a subject but want someone else to speak first.
A pair of car headlights shone their beams down the alleyway. Prinz’s immediate reaction was to duck behind a nearby dumpster. The vehicle passed without slowing. Casting his eyes around, Prinz saw he was alone again save for a stray dog.
“Why so dark?” The dog asked, without pause.
Prinz walked back into the alley, his steps slowing, until he too stood on all fours in the form of a ratty stray dog. “The last Johnson,” he said.
The pair of dogs padded out into a sprawling abandoned lot, crisscrossed remains of a fence poked up from the sickly overgrowth.
“He’s some kinda fundie. Die-hard Christian.”
“There’s an irony in that phrasing.” The dog lolled.
“I handed him the datastick at the end. Touched him. Felt sick.”
“Did you fuck with his thoughts?”
“Naw. They fucked up enough. But his brains an open book. I saw the stuff he done. The stuff he’s willing to do.”
“Is this going to turn into another introspective ‘am I the bad guy’ discussion?”
“I already know the answer to that one.”
They stopped at a crossroads. A single red light blinked over the intersection. All travelers stop here.
Prinz shifted upright again. His tats glowed for the briefest moment.
The dog sat on his haunches and looked up smiling. “Did you learn anything?”
“They’ll be meeting at the chapel on Gramercy Park tomorrow night.”
With a contented bark, the dog turned and trotted away. He had what he needed.
The last mouthful of deepweed smoke billowed form Prinz’s nostrils. He stuck his tongue out. “Get thee behind me, Satan!” He shouted down the empty street.