Prologue
People are vindictive, conniving, greedy and traitorous; and they say we’re evil! Years ago, before money was a concept, people shared and helped each other. Now we watch them steal and try to destroy everything that is good about their world. And hell, I’m damned,
so I might as well go along for the ride.
Sam
Crouching on a balcony of the Lilt Hotel, I watched the pub brawl break across the road in one of the bars. All evening the men had been downing alcohol, trying to numb the difficult divorces and stuck-in-a-rut jobs that were their lives. The only difference between them and me seemed to be that I can’t just numb my problems. Mine were biological and physical. For me to numb any of mine I had to feed. To become intoxicated would require a lot of blood or blood with high alcohol levels. That was the only reason I ever waited this long for a feed; so that I can find a human full of alcohol. I can’t get intoxicated the other way. I might be damned but I would never drink enough like that. It would kill the human, and that was just not something I would ever do, despite what other vampires deemed natural.
As the brawl ended with one man splayed on the floor, his nose bleeding, it was all I could do to stop myself feeding straight away; though it wasn’t likely the other humans would notice, they were too drunk.
As the other men walked away down the street, I jumped lightly from the fourth storey window and landed gently on the balls of my feet, of course making no sound as I stalked forward. The human on the ground was out cold. He wouldn’t have noticed if I’d been wearing a huge neon sign saying, "Hello, I’m a vampire and you’re my next meal.”
Either way, I simply knelt at the human’s side, turned the man’s head, and bit down, as my natural predatory instincts elongated my fangs. I didn’t bother to move the human out of the road. No one would see me feed, and if they did they’d think I was just trying to help. I kept a listen out for any footsteps or heartbeats in the street as I drank and felt the blood run down my throat. I could already feel the alcohol absorbing into my system, blurring my senses.
I finished feeding and licked over the bite marks to seal them. The man would wake in the morning feeling drowsy and a bit sore, but it would just feel like he had a hangover and broken nose, which was true. He wouldn’t suspect anything else was wrong. Standing to leave, I brushed the dust from my knees and then walked back towards my hotel.
Eventually I had to return to my true home to clear up all the problems that may have arisen in my time away. I had still yet to hunt down the vampire I had sworn to kill though. I know it’s never a good idea to hunt him down when I’m drunk, but it was free time, and the alcohol had stolen away my reasons for delaying the task. Normally I would have had no idea where to start looking, but right now the best idea I had was to look around bars similar to the one I had been haunting. Even if I didn’t know Marseau as well as I do, it was most likely Marseau would be around the upper class bars, waiting for the challenge that sober, well-educated people bring.
I scoped out the majority of the bars in the upper end of town and didn’t come up with much out of the ordinary, just a couple of vampires out to enjoy dinner together. No sign of Marseau. He must have either fed already or have gone elsewhere tonight. One way or the other it was probably best that I hadn’t found Marseau.
People are vindictive, conniving, greedy and traitorous; and they say we’re evil! Years ago, before money was a concept, people shared and helped each other. Now we watch them steal and try to destroy everything that is good about their world. And hell, I’m damned,
so I might as well go along for the ride.
Sam
Crouching on a balcony of the Lilt Hotel, I watched the pub brawl break across the road in one of the bars. All evening the men had been downing alcohol, trying to numb the difficult divorces and stuck-in-a-rut jobs that were their lives. The only difference between them and me seemed to be that I can’t just numb my problems. Mine were biological and physical. For me to numb any of mine I had to feed. To become intoxicated would require a lot of blood or blood with high alcohol levels. That was the only reason I ever waited this long for a feed; so that I can find a human full of alcohol. I can’t get intoxicated the other way. I might be damned but I would never drink enough like that. It would kill the human, and that was just not something I would ever do, despite what other vampires deemed natural.
As the brawl ended with one man splayed on the floor, his nose bleeding, it was all I could do to stop myself feeding straight away; though it wasn’t likely the other humans would notice, they were too drunk.
As the other men walked away down the street, I jumped lightly from the fourth storey window and landed gently on the balls of my feet, of course making no sound as I stalked forward. The human on the ground was out cold. He wouldn’t have noticed if I’d been wearing a huge neon sign saying, "Hello, I’m a vampire and you’re my next meal.”
Either way, I simply knelt at the human’s side, turned the man’s head, and bit down, as my natural predatory instincts elongated my fangs. I didn’t bother to move the human out of the road. No one would see me feed, and if they did they’d think I was just trying to help. I kept a listen out for any footsteps or heartbeats in the street as I drank and felt the blood run down my throat. I could already feel the alcohol absorbing into my system, blurring my senses.
I finished feeding and licked over the bite marks to seal them. The man would wake in the morning feeling drowsy and a bit sore, but it would just feel like he had a hangover and broken nose, which was true. He wouldn’t suspect anything else was wrong. Standing to leave, I brushed the dust from my knees and then walked back towards my hotel.
Eventually I had to return to my true home to clear up all the problems that may have arisen in my time away. I had still yet to hunt down the vampire I had sworn to kill though. I know it’s never a good idea to hunt him down when I’m drunk, but it was free time, and the alcohol had stolen away my reasons for delaying the task. Normally I would have had no idea where to start looking, but right now the best idea I had was to look around bars similar to the one I had been haunting. Even if I didn’t know Marseau as well as I do, it was most likely Marseau would be around the upper class bars, waiting for the challenge that sober, well-educated people bring.
I scoped out the majority of the bars in the upper end of town and didn’t come up with much out of the ordinary, just a couple of vampires out to enjoy dinner together. No sign of Marseau. He must have either fed already or have gone elsewhere tonight. One way or the other it was probably best that I hadn’t found Marseau.