Just another night in New York City.

15-year old Fox Taylor found himself running up the same dark alley in the rain, fighting to see through the barrage of raindrops that were clouding his vision. Clutched in his left hand was a leather wallet that didn’t belong to him, which, as he ran, he slipped into the black sling back hung over his right shoulder. He could hear shouts from behind him- there were at least two people after him, both cops. Both armed. Both had seen him do it.

But they didn’t want him dead. He was just a kid, after all. Dirty, disheveled with torn clothes and scrapes all over his body, with that wild glint in his eyes, but still a kid. He’d been caught once, and he’d been taken to a shelter, where he’d lasted only about a month before the people there shipped him off to an institute. If they caught him again this time, and saw what was in the black bag, he wouldn’t be going to an institute or a shelter. He’d be killed.

That was what the voice told him. And he trusted the voice. The voice had been the only reason he had survived on the streets as long as he had. The voice had taught him everything, and the voice could see some things that he could not. Which made him useful for-

‘Through the steel fence up ahead.’

Fox nodded, and looked up ahead to see a building in construction, almost finished save for some of the upper levels and the walls were mostly still cement gray, blocked off from the alley by a solid steel fence. Behind him, the two cops were getting closer- they had their guns out now, threatening to shoot him.

‘They won’t shoot. Go inside the building.’

He nodded again, and instead of slowing down to climb the fence, started running faster. And when he reached the fence, he closed his eyes for a split second, passing through the obstacle before materializing perfectly well over on the other side.

He stopped, and glanced over his shoulder to make sure that the cops were still following him. Yes they were. Which either meant that they hadn’t seen him phase through the fence, or that they had seen him do it, but pretended not to see it. Either way it didn’t matter much.

The air suddenly felt a lot chillier. Hugging himself tightly, he suddenly realized that his dirty brown coat had been left on the other side of the fence- a sign that he hadn’t grown fully accustomed to bringing other objects with him yet. His bit his lip with disappointment- to think that even after doing it countless times, he could still slip.

Oh well, he thought. He’d come back for it later.

The cops reached the fence, and he finally got a good look at them. One was a woman, with short blonde hair, perfectly fair skin and crystal blue eyes. She had a lean build, which he expected would help her be the first one over the fence. Her partner was a man slightly older than she was, with a thick brown moustache to match his hair and grumpy looking eyes which told him that if he did get caught, this man would be the one doing the scolding.

‘Into the building! Hurry!’

The cops behind him shouted for him to stop as he disappeared into the shadows. They said that it was dangerous.

They had no idea.

He kept on running in the dark, the voice telling him where to turn, where to phase through, and he found himself a good hiding spot behind some stairs. Now all he had to do was wait. As he crouched low in the darkness, he reached into his bag, looking for his knife, he realized that it wasn’t there.

‘You won’t need it,’ the voice told him. ‘You’re a smart boy, aren’t you Fox? Improvise.’

Yes, he was smart. Yes, he was smart, he told himself. He was smart and he knew what to do.

‘They’ve split up,’ the voice warned him after a while. ‘The ugly man is coming this way. If he finds you he’ll shoot you with his gun, because he’s a bad guy. Didn’t you see it in his eyes, just now? He’s a bad guy, and he wants you dead because he hates you. He’s just like everyone else.’

Fox tensed in the darkness when he heard the sound of footsteps coming this way. The figure of the policeman passed him, not noticing him as he walked on ahead into one of the empty rooms, looking completely lost and clueless in the dark. He had a flashlight held in front of him with one hand, and the gun in the other. The gun that he was going to use to shoot Fox. Yes. He was evil.

And so Fox leaped out towards the policeman from behind. He shouted as he jumped, which alerted the older man to his presence. The man turned around just in time to see a young boy with long, wet, dirty brown hair running towards him. With the mud on staining his face, and the wild look in his eyes, the policeman froze for one second-

And in that one second, the boy went right through him.

The man had no thoughts after that. As the boy had run cleanly through him, he hadn’t even had time to wonder what had happened as he fell to the floor, cold and very much dead.

Behind him, Fox held his prize in his left hand-

The policeman’s heart.

‘Very good, Fox,’ the voice congratulated him. In response, Fox grinned proudly. He’d been praised twice tonight.

Three times would be better.

The heart was still warm in his hands, about the size of the policeman’s fist. It felt so fragile…so soft that he just felt like squeezing it just to see what would happen. He didn’t though. The voice didn’t want him to. He’d almost done it once, and the voice had scolded him. He didn’t want that tonight.

He withdrew a glass jar from the bag and carefully put the heart into it. He then slipped it back into his bag, and phased into the nearby wall. The woman wasn’t very far, the voice told him. She was evil too. She looked like a nice person, but she wasn’t. She was the kind who beat up children, who tied them up and locked them in dark basements- just like his mother. Yes, she was like his mother. Like his mother, she deserved to be punished.

He ran faster, passing through so many walls that he couldn’t count them, and when he passed through the last one-

He appeared right in front of the woman, who froze the moment she saw him appear out of the wall.

“Oh my God,” the woman gasped. “Are you…are you…”

She fumbled for her gun.

He charged, jumped through her like he did with the policeman.

Only she was still alive by the time he passed through. His hands were empty.

Before she could react, he quickly coiled his right arm around her neck, pulling her down. They both fell onto the rough floor, with him down on folded knees, still holding her by the neck. She started struggling-

“Shhhh….” Fox whispered in her ear as his free hand slipped into her body, its fingers clutching her heart.

Her eyes widened at the sudden pain, and she opened her mouth to scream.

He moved his right arm up, putting the palm of his hand on her mouth as his fingers closed, grasping the thing tightly before he started pulling it out slowly, ripping the arteries and veins connected to the organ slowly, bit by bit.

“If you make noise you’ll make the neighbors angry,” he told her. “And then I’ll have to punish you. Mommy doesn’t want to punish you, and mommy will stop when you stop making noise, baby, is that okay?”

The woman was dead.

He removed the heart from her body, letting her head down gently as he hummed the tune for ‘Rock-a-bye baby’ calmly, reaching into his sling bag for another jar.

“Well done, Fox. You’ve been such a good boy tonight,” the voice told him.

He grinned again, blushing slightly as he screwed the jar lid tight with the heart safely in it. “Can I go home?” he asked. He then yawned, as though trying to illustrate the fact that he was tired.

“Yes, you can. On the way you can use the money to buy anything you like, Fox. You deserved it.”

“Thank you,” Fox said gratefully as he stood up. He then turned around towards the nearest wall, and, giving the dead policewoman one last glance, walked straight on, and disappeared into it completely.

Meanwhile, the spirit of the dead witch watched on, evidently pleased with tonight’s success. He had been lucky enough to find a shaman who hadn’t received proper training, he’d been even luckier still that the boy was easily pliable, thinking him to be some kind of guardian angel. The boy knew nothing of his duty to Send spirits like him over to the other side. The boy didn’t even know that he was really just another dead person. He hadn’t even had to try possessing the boy to get him to collect the hearts. Just another 12, and then he’d teach the boy how to bring him back. If the boy wasn’t capable, he’d have to find a witch to do it for him.

Either way, it was already a good start. All he had to do was entertain the boy some more, and wait.