The air was crisp and frosty in the late December night. The vampire waited in an abandoned alleyway somewhere on the South Side of Averon City. It was the middle of the night, not a star in the sky that any human could see. Though this particular vampire was not interested in the sky. He stared down at the photos.
Photos of humans he had been ordered to take pictures of.
All were sleeping... all blissfully unaware that he had been watching them. With every click of his phone camera, he silently dared them to wake. It would have been so much fun to see the fear on their faces. His teeth sharpened at the thought. How delicious their blood would have tasted with their hearts beating erratically in horror. He had always loved to feed that way.
The thrill.
He missed the old days of hunting. None of this seduction and wooing to lull prey into submission.
How blasé.
No, hunting was the proper way to do it. You found the right prey, discovered the best way to scare them, and then you gave chase. There was something about the adrenaline coursing through their bodies that made their blood taste sweeter.
A voice echoed through the alleyway, disturbing his thoughts.
"Be quick. I don't have all night."
The voice was commanding but carried a soft purr. The vampire smirked and looked up.
A figure cloaked in shadow stood atop the building to his right, watching him. Without hesitation, she launched herself from the rooftop and landed gracefully in front of him. She wore a pitch-black cloak that concealed her face, but the voice was unmistakably female.
"It is a pleasure to see you, Mistress."
He bowed, though he wasn't met with the same warm greeting.
"Out with it."
That was all she said. No pleasantries. No interest whatsoever in the vampire that stood before her. This did not seem to phase him.
He smiled again and produced the photographs for her.
"A photograph of the girl's parents was delivered right on schedule. I took the liberty of leaving another message."
The smugness radiated from him.
"You and your dramatic displays," she muttered as she sifted through the photographs and then handed it back to him. "Good. Anything else?"
She was already turning away, clearly uninterested in hearing more.
The vampire scowled.
"A thank you would suffice," he replied.
The female vampire stopped and slowly turned back towards him.
Suddenly, two glowing red eyes flashed beneath her hood.
Before he could react, she hooked a claw-like nail beneath his chin and slammed him against the wall. He groaned in pain as she leaned close, her lips brushing his ear so he could hear every dangerous word she whispered.
"Thank you? Certainly. Where should I start? Thank you for not scanning Club Dusk for anyone else before moving forward with the plan. Thank you for allowing yourself to be interrupted when you were supposed to turn the girl. Thank you for letting the Wolf Prince get to her and take her to his warded home. Thank you for colossally fucking up the plan. Did I miss anything?"
She pushed her claw-like nail deeper beneath his chin until blood began to trickle down his neck.
"N-no. You covered it all," he groaned.
She released him.
He looked back at her with something bordering on admiration and watched hungrily as she lifted her blood-tipped nail to her mouth. He licked his lips in anticipation.
He had always wanted her.
She was the only one who truly understood him, who appreciated the hunt as much as he did. They would hunt beautifully together.
"You are lucky I value your powers," she said coldly. "Continue with the plan. We will find another opportunity to snatch her."
"What about the Varcolac New Year's Ball?" he asked.
"No. Too public." A smile crept into her voice. "Though that doesn't mean we cannot say hello."
She gave him a dismissive wave before disappearing into the night.
The vampire smirked as he remembered the last time he had seen the girl.
Oh, what a beautiful hunt that had been.
He had enjoyed watching her walk straight into his trap. It had been almost too easy to plant the idea of seeing the Wolf Prince again and watch her convince herself it had been her own decision.
He remembered following her as she travelled on public transport before walking alone through the dark streets of the South Side. She had known she was being followed, yet she had never once seen him.
That was the beauty of his powers.
He was an Umbrasalire.
A shadow dancer.
He could bend into the darkness itself, slipping between shadows as though they welcomed him home. Better still, he could dreamwalk, stepping into the shadows of another person's dreams and turning them into nightmares.
By the time she arrived at Club Dusk, the stage had already been set.
He smiled at the memory.
Oh, how he had enjoyed making her little heart flutter.
And when he finally sank his teeth into her neck and tasted the sweet adrenaline flooding through her blood, his excitement had grown until it became ravenous. He had never intended to kill her, but had things continued the way they were, he knew he would have drained her completely.
The vampire looked back down at the photographs.
An older couple.
A blonde woman.
Then he paused on the third.
A dark-haired woman with warm brown skin slept peacefully, utterly unaware that she, too, was now being watched.
His eyebrow slowly lifted.
"Delicious."