Part I

A thin arc of gold spills like a crooked smile from the solitary street lamp beneath me. Its pale ghost flirts with the encroaching darkness, edging over the pavement and disappearing into the narrow alley that butts against the sidewalk. Not a soul stirs in the empty streets below; there is nothing save the dry whisper of newspaper and unnamed debris rattling against the dying wind. The taste of winter brushes my face as I drop silently from the rooftop. But the cold I feel this evening surpasses mere weather - it is a bleak bite into the soul where my blood runs numbly like a cypher.

I pause for a long moment, my eyes seeking out the racing shadows, my ears scanning the crumbling bricks of the building that loom around me. I want a soft surrender this evening...some young prince or princess of the streets to quench what runs not uttered in my heart. I am slowly aware of a refrain - it is the mindless heartbeat of despair. An eternity plays out in that long second before I am rewarded with the music of a mortal heart only a few streets away. Young, female....alone. This evening's perfect offering.

I take my time running her to ground, picking my way through the litter of a thousand careless lives offered up to the night like an apology of indifference. Somewhere in this garish squalor, little dramas are played out by day - petty crimes of the heart that go unmarked and unnoticed by the rest of the world. And at night, these streets close in upon themselves and turn on each other, twisting the maze of hopelessness a little more tightly. Humanity dies in inches here.

I can feel her moving ahead of me, her footsteps a determined flight of survival. Where will you lead me tonight, my little angel of the gutter? What visions of the impossible will dance across your eyes as they meet my own? What dreams of weary innocence will flutter in your heart as they steal like a thief under my skin? And what taste of all that you have lost will I pluck from that perfect bow of your pink mouth?

My foot falls in time with her own as I follow her deeper into the black chill of this starless night. Her needs are simple - she wants only another night's promise of mind numbing sameness that will give way to the assurance of another paste grey dawn and the pale ashes of someone else's dreams. We are not so different, she and I. My needs are simple as well. I want only the lethargy of her regret sliding across my tongue...

It is another step or two and I am upon her finally...a drop in time before I see her, the pale halo of hair framing a face of measured secrets. She turns to me; the light which seeps out of a busted window of another anonymous building catches the surprise on her lips and holds it like a mask. A small, pink tongue flicks over those lips and catches between small white teeth, curling back into an invitation meant only for me. I am so close to her now, I can feel the soft, feathered hair on her arms prickle like electricity against the marble of my skin. My hand slips up to caress her cheek, thumb stroking the still tender skin in awe. Her eyes are soulless - two wounds in a face that have known nothing but the sound of the world's lies reverberating without end. My lips play softly over that halo of pale hair, moving down to gently kiss those two wounds shut before finding that sweet pink bow of mouth. I can taste the little girl who never was and the woman who will never be from her tongue as my arms gather her against me. Pressing her back against the filthy bricks, my hands peel away the thin layer of threadbare blouse and jacket as my mouth slowly seeks out its final communion. There is no one else in the world tonight save she and I... and the starless sky holds its breath. Her words are a warm prayer against my ear as my teeth gently break the delicate skin of her throat, my hands running the length of her back. Her prayer becomes my own, my mouth filling with her supplication...

Prologue

The night was crowded with voices, always a distraction that I had taken decades to learn to silence. But this evening it required no schooling, no act of magic or willpower on my part. Her words alone had captured my attention - no mean feat when the predator decides to come calling. The conversation had started a brilliant spark and traveled to every known recess of my mind...ideas sparring at times..at others finding a comfortable home. There was magic here, a tapestry spun of words and thoughts that was spontaneous and unexpected - an agility of phrase, a quickness that seemed to almost move one step ahead of me. How for all the world can you know someone in a second and yet find her an unfathomable mystery?

I watched the crowd pass in the evening's soft blur above her shoulder, her hair a brilliant whip of chestnut, tossed carelessly like a child's toy in the breeze. She smiled, a trick of flickering shadows that curled around her lips as she leaned into me, her voice becoming that intimate whisper of dark smoke saved only for lovers or those who know exactly where the edge dances in my veins.

"What is it like - the hunt - the taste?"

A question I am asked countless times, and yet this sounded new, as if the letters had been rearranged into a new language - slightly exotic and forbidden. There was a meaning there, a deliberate point....but I was left guessing as to its import. Her eyes were dark riddles and her mouth shadowed each nuance of my thoughts. She sat, her fingers brushing the length of mine in that warm exchange of flesh touching mine for the first time, a visceral hum beating under my cool skin. I ran one finger down the back of her hand, my thumb closing over the fragile pulse straining against her wrist. I have toyed with people before on this subject, giving them the gory and garish details they seem so hungry to assimilate as if they wished to claim the experience as their own - vicarious living at its finest; and I can always be counted on to deliver a masterpiece. It is not all that difficult to feed into fantasies, really, and yet this time I had a hunch the rules had vanished into her wishes. So be it...turn about is fair play.

I grasped her wrist suddenly, pulling her body against mine in a warm slash of night. I could feel her breath catch and the soft release of her will as her cheek found my shoulder, my lips caressing the words against her ear.

"My needs are simple...one basic elixir, born of your kind, found in every pair of feet that tread the countless miles of this earth - world without end, Amen. It does not really matter if I need it or not.  It is not like the comfort of mortal hunger even at its sharpest. And while simple, my palette is a complex monster that would rival any connoisseur in your world. Feed me the swollen heart of what your kind calls monster, those who tear carelessly into the innocent and devour them from within and give it no thought. Their blood is a succulent draught, base honey and acrid copper, flecked with no hope of salvation or saving grace. The killing game is simple and fierce...or I can prolong it, my mind a savage map of my victim's alienation. And dear God, do I ever love to play it out for hours at a time. Killing is an art I have honed on the wicked edge of my own want and time. I count hell in nights."

No movement on her part - my words have not tempted or disgusted. There is no judgment either way, only an acceptance of a half made revelation. Or am I being led into a more provocative confession? My voice becomes more urgent, and her breath is a silent plea teasing the night into something holy...

"Yes, you know what I am about to say...and you want to hear it. The unspeakable, from the lips of the beautiful monster who holds you like a prayer at his side. The blood of innocents. Dear God, how do I even begin to describe it? A primal root that starts its thread in the sunset of your eyes - that spreads in delicate tendrils around a heart that wonders and stands in awe of the uncaring world, that nurtures dreams which most of the world ignores or deems as foolish, that grows into an unbearable beauty of existence that sees only possibilities where others see only shame and regret. It is a taste that is ethereal - ripe dreams, just plucked from hope and a view not tainted by greed or artifice. Seductive and rich - irresistible to the damned...in spades, sweet girl."

There. Delivered to her - her fate for being there at exactly the right time, for listening and lingering. For being the one who dared to understand and expect the truth. But not tonight, and we both knew it. It would be a slow unraveling of wills for us both. Time was going to play its hand for once, turning one card at a time...