Vampires (2)

Damion studied the faces of the ocean of people he was walking through and inhaled the odd mixture of pheromones through slightly flared nostrils. Mainly, his attraction towards a human worked off of scent. The fact that his victims had a similar appearance was merely a coincidence.

Despite his need to use the human population as a buffet, Damion found them intriguing and enjoyed being in a large crowd of them, throbbing with feeling and life. He liked studying them, finding what made them tick as he had forgotten what being mortal was. Sometimes, with the rare appetizer of conversation before he feasted, he almost felt sorry that he had to end a life, almost.

He stiffened slightly when his mouth began to water at the suggestion of his favorite pheromone and turned to enter a smoky bar. Lucky for him, it wasn't an obnoxious club with a distracting strobe light and loud music that made thought impossible. There was the strumming of an acoustic guitar accompanying a piano and a throaty voice that fought through the constant buzz of talk.

Glancing at the stage highlighted with a yellow spotlight, he ignored the guitarist and vocalist singing into a microphone and making a rather large show of shaking his head with his eyes closed, lost in the music. The piano player with the bluesy chords and the real soul caught his attention as he weaved through the crowd to get a better view of the blonde specimen. He slipped into a seat near the a wall and watched, ordering a beer when a staff member approached, paying for it appropriately, and watching with the untouched beverage warming in his hands.

The hours passed, and the faces in the audience around him changed, but he remained with the same warm beer, watching the same woman, in the same seat. He didn't move.

When the bartender started wiping down the bar, the guitarist stopped and left the stage quickly grabbing his paycheck on the way out, only talking with the apparent owner of the place for a few minutes. Damion was with the last of the stragglers, looking over his shoulder as the pianist began to play one of Chopin's waltz's. His victim would obviously make him wait a bit longer.

He waited patiently, leaning on the corner so he had good view of the front door and the back exit that emptied out into a threatening alley. He ignored the druggie who was eerily silent in a shadowed abscess and breathed in deep every few moments to make sure she was still in the building. He had probably killed one of her ancestors long ago, and the smell had lingered in his mind.

His eyes narrowed when a shady character entered the ally, slinking along the wall. The woman walked out of the door at the same time, looking behind her, laughing. As the door shut behind her, the man pulled out a knife and grabbed her.

Damion sighed softly, wishing he hadn't had to pass that certain bar that night. He knew enough about the evils of human nature to know this man was not asking for directions. He was supposed to be the worst of a man. He would know.

For a moment he played with the idea of doing nothing, of finding another victim, but he approached the now struggling pair anyway. He rested a calm hand on the man's shoulder and said softly, “Why don't we leave the poor lady alone?.”

A picture flashed in his mind for a moment as the man turned toward him. The woman, already bruised, cowering against the wall, her pleas set in a high pitch of panic were lost in sobs as he approached. He was going to kill her. Why not let the thug subdue her first?

His sense of injustice rebelled against his cold logic, and he stared into the woman's grateful eyes as she lost the crazed look of a trapped animal. He wouldn't have raped her. He would have made her comfortable or surprised her. It would have been over in minutes. “I would leave,” he murmured, finding the large man just tempting enough to serve as a replacement.

As the woman scrambled into the recesses of the alley that hopefully led out into another street, he released his prey with a hungry smile. His animalistic instincts began to overpower his human ones, and his last thought was to wonder if the woman had called the police before everything was drowned out by the need for blood.

. . .

The New Orleans' police responded to the 911 call of a panicked woman and arrived at the specified alley in eight minutes to find a junkie babbling to himself in a dark corner and a shoe.

The didn't know the would-be rapist was dead on a roof across the street three buildings to the left with Damion feasting.