by Matt Nord

Created on: December 26, 2009

Santiago had been stalking the drunk for three blocks.  The staggering, disheveled man was oblivious to his hunter’s presence even though Santiago was going to no great lengths to maintain stealth.  He’d given up on caution in recent years.  This existence of hiding from the human world was growing old to him.  He longed again to be part of something in which he didn’t need to stick to the fringe’s of this world.  Hence, he’d become increasingly reckless in his hunts, almost daring, nay begging, to be discovered by this people group that he’d once been a part of.

The man was now no more than ten feet in front of Santiago.  He stopped and stood wobbling in the light of a streetlight looking around like he was lost and looking for something.  Santiago stopped, as well, watching the man, trying to look into his mind.  Usually, he had no trouble with this, but for some reason he wasn’t getting anything but a strange vibe of hunger.  Santiago surmised that the inebriated man must be looking for a diner.

He noticed something about the man’s eyes when he turned a bit more toward Santiago.  They were strangely glassy, almost milky, but he looked too young to have cataracts.  Maybe he was blind and lost.  He didn’t have a cane.  Could that be why he was stumbling about?  Maybe he wasn’t looking for something, but listening as he turned this way and that.  Santiago sniffed the air, but didn’t smell any alcohol.  Maybe he’d been mistaken about this man.  There was only the faint smell of urine and feces… and something else.  Apparently the man was so inebriated that he’d soiled himself.  

Humans can be a disgusting lot, Santiago thought to himself, but that was one of the things that fascinated him.  It had been some time since his turning, and he’d almost forgotten what it had been like to be human.  Vampires could be so pompous, so fake, so full of themselves.  That was why he never sought out the company of his ilk.

Not that it made much of a difference.  Be the man a drunk, blind man, junky, or priest, Santiago’s hunger was growing to the point that he could no longer wait to feed.  He move in with inhuman speed, a mere blur to the naked eye, and embraced the drunken man as a lover would, as he’d done countless times before.

Santiago knew there was something

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