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Description
Hank scanned the crowd that ebbed and flowed across the club’s dance-floor. The heat was oppressive and a thick miasma of tobacco smoke hung heavy in the air. This probably would have bothered Hank if he actually needed to breathe but he had kicked that particular habit several years ago.

The primal beat of the music from the club’s sound system pounded in his ears as he waited for his mark to reveal itself.

Hank preferred this method of hunting. No fuss. No wasted energy. If you just hung around a place like this and kept your eyes and ears open the perfect target would always present itself. He grinned when he thought about how some of the other Kindred, especially the older ones, sneered at this approach. They seemed to think that if you weren’t stalking terrified mortals through moonlit back alleys and leaping on them like a fuckin’ lion on a gazelle then you just didn’t deserve to be called a vampire. Screw em’, Hank thought. If they wanted to play their ‘hunter and prey’ games then let them. Maybe they could get themselves a nice little write-up in National Geographic. Hank’s grin grew wider. He closed his eyes and pictured that lame English dude in the safari suit hosting a brand new documentary on the Discovery Channel.

“And here we see the noble vampire in his natural habitat. Notice the fluidity of movement as this magnificent creature brings down that helpless little yuppie who should have known better than to go jogging in the park after sundown”.

The strong scent of jasmine hit Hank’s nostrils and he opened his eyes. The perfume emanated from a cute little redhead. She was wearing a white silk blouse and a short black skirt that looked like it had applied with a spray-can. The top two buttons of her blouse were undone revealing a hint of cleavage. Just enough to be tempting, but not enough to be slutty. She had an ass that looked like you could bounce a quarter off it and her perfectly formed, stocking-clad legs ended in a pair of black, high-heeled shoes.

Hank caught the chick’s eye. He smiled and gave her his best mischievous wink as she passed by. She rewarded him with a lingering sideways glance and a half smile.

“All things come to those who wait” Hank thought.He waited a respectable few seconds and then followed Little Miss Redhead toward the bar.

An hour later and with more than a few drinks under both their belts, Hank took the young woman by the hand and led her towards one of the fire-exits. Hank was pleased. He hadn’t even needed to use the ol’ vampire mojo on this one. Oh, she had played it coy at first but as her liquor consumption increased he realised that she was out prowling for prey of her own and that suited him just fine. She was giggling as Hank hit the silver bar of the fire door and pushed it open. A high pitched alarm began to sound but it was swamped by the deafening music.

The door led to the alley behind the club. A few feet to their left the alley ended in a graffiti covered brick wall. To the left it stretched for about fifty feet before it opened onto the street. The club was one of Hank’s regular stomping grounds and he knew this area like the back of his hand. He had also used this alley on many occasions before. The streetlights provided just enough illumination to see with and foot traffic along the side-street connecting the alley was minimal at this time of night. As the door closed behind them the chick…Hank had already forgotten her name…burst into another fit of drunken giggling.

“An alley?”, she laughed, “You take me to the most wonderful places baby”.

“Hey,” Hank said in mock indignation as he manoeuvred her up against the wall. “We’ve only known each other for an hour and already your nagging me”.

He brushed his lips against hers, then began to nuzzle her neck. She sighed. Hank could feel the heat of her body as he pressed himself against her. The smell of jasmine filled his nose but underlying this was a stronger odour. Blood. Warm and fresh. It set Hank’s senses on fire. As he traced the line of her jugular with his lips his fangs lengthened. He kissed her neck and sank his fangs into the vein. The babe gasped and her eyes widened. Then slowly they closed again and a dreamy expression crossed her face as she was lost in the ecstasy of the feeding.

While he was still breathing, Hank had sampled just about every narcotic known to mankind. Heroin, crack, speed, mescalin, absinth. You name it and he had done it. He had tasted euphoria in all its forms. But nothing…nothing could compare with the sensations that came with that first mouthful of blood from a warm and willing vessel. Nothing even came close to the bliss of draining the very essence of life from a living being. It was like every high he had ever experienced in his life all rolled into one, only better. The chick moaned. She grabbed Hank by the hair and tried to force his face even farther down onto her neck. Hank’s fangs sank deeper into her soft flesh and she cried out with pleasure. Hank loved it when they got into it like this.

“Oh yeah” he thought “I may just have to get your number baby. You are definitely worth a second visit.”

He didn’t intend to drain her dry. Leaving a trail of corpses across the city was a good way to get some tight-ass archon on your back. It wasn’t Hank’s style anyway. Drain her just enough to leave her weak and she would come out it thinking she had just had the mother of all fucks. Then send her on her way to be snacked on again another day.

Hank ground his pelvis into the girl’s groin. Before the embrace he would have had a hard-on that a cat couldn’t scratch right about now. But then he guessed that you couldn’t have everything could you? Hank sure as hell didn’t miss much about his previous life but if you forced him to pick something it would have to be the sex. He had experimented with screwing since the change, forcing blood into his flaccid penis. However it just wasn’t the same. The babes certainly appreciated a guy who could keep it up all night but Hank found that when there was no earth-shattering climax to look forward to the actual bump and grind just wasn’t worth the effort. He still climbed into the saddle every now and again although he didn’t know if it was habit, machismo or just plain nostalgia that made him do it. He had heard a couple of the elders say that the desire for sexual contact would eventually disappear as the years rolled by. Of course those crusty relics probably never got any pussy in their breathing days anyway so it wasn’t exactly a great loss to them.

Hank reached down under the girl’s skirt. He thrust his hand down the front of her panties and stroked the damp mound underneath. The dull thumping of the music from the nightclub began to reach a crescendo. The babe was also heading towards a crescendo of her own, her breaths coming in short gasps as she rapidly approached orgasm.

A raspy voice echoed down the length of the alley.

“Leave her alone.”

Hank’s eyes widened in surprise. The chick let out a moan of disappointment as he detached himself from her neck. He looked over his shoulder and saw a figure standing in the alley less than a dozen feet away. It looked like a bum. It was wearing a dirty, threadbare overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that hid the upper half of its face. The figures hands were thrust deep into its coat pockets.

Hank swore under his breath. How the hell had he snuck up on him like that? He must have been too caught up with the babe. That was careless. How much had the bastard seen? The Ventrue were always whining about the importance of the Masquerade and cleaning up loose ends. If this asshole had seen too much Hank would have to make him disappear. But that would entail having to let his little chickadee go before he had drunk his fill. Fuck it. Fuck the Ventrue and fuck the masquerade. So what if some street-trash caught a glimpse of him feeding? He wasn’t going to lose this sweet little peach because some bum wanted to play Sir Friggin’ Lancelot. Who was going to believe the rantings of some old boozer anyway?

“Piss off rummy!” he snarled, “If you aren’t out of my sight in five seconds you don’t want to know what I’m gonna do to your face!”

Hank turned back to the girl. Her eyes were closed and she was making a purring sound in the back of her throat. Her hands came up to her chest and she started squeezing her breasts through the thin material of her shirt. A slight trickle of blood made it’s way down her delicate neck from the puncture wounds inflicted by Hank’s fangs.

“Oh man, can I pick ‘em or can I pick ‘em?” thought Hank.

The bum spoke again with a voice that sounded like he had been gargling with gravel.

“Leave her alone.”

Hank whirled around. His hands bunched into fists. He took two steps towards the bum and bellowed at him.

“Hey! I told you to FUCK OFF!”

The bum’s right arm came out of his coat pocket and snapped forward. Hank caught a sudden glimpse of an object in his hand before a jolt of searing pain exploded in his right eye socket.

“And I told YOU to leave her alone”.

Hank screamed and stumbled backward, his hands clutching at his face. Something hard and cold was protruding from his right eye.

He dropped to his knees. The pain was intense. From a dark place deep within Hank a primal red rage rose up to meet the pain. It quickly swelled and eclipsed the piercing agony in his head. A guttural growl escaped Hank’s throat as he gripped the metal jutting from his face. With a vicious wrench he tore it free from his eye-socket. Blood flowed down Hank’s face along with the jelly-like pulp from his ruined eye. The offending object was a thin, flat throwing knife. Its surface was a dull black colour. A crucifix had been engraved in the metal surface at one end of the blade. It gleamed bright silver against the black.

The beast within roared and strained at the chains holding it captive. Hank felt the fury begin to overtake him. He fought against it. He didn’t want to lose himself in that primitive rage now. No. He wanted to look in this motherfucker’s eyes as he ripped his heart out of his goddamn chest. He wanted to remember it.

With a roar like a wounded bull Hank charged. The ragged figure made no effort to move out of his path. However when Hank came within three feet of the bum a wave of nausea swept over him. Bright, fresh pain ripped through his head and it seemed that every muscle in his body went into spasm. Despite this the vampire’s charge still carried him towards his assailant. At the last possible second the shabbily dressed man swayed to one side. As Hank flew past him the man pivoted. In one graceful motion the stranger’s arms came up, striking Hank on the shoulder and back, adding the force of his own spin to Hank’s already considerable momentum. The vampire cannoned into a rusting dumpster, his head striking the metal with a sickening crunch.

Lying face down in the filth Hank’s anger was quickly replaced by bewilderment. What the hell had just happened? Through a haze of pain he pushed himself to his knees. He saw a large bloody dent in the side of the dumpster. He reached up and touched his head. The area just above his right temple felt soft and yielding. Crushed, he thought. He tried to move his neck and was rewarded with an awful sound like that of dry branches snapping. He screamed in pain. There was also an excruciating burning sensation in his shoulder and back where the bum had struck him. It felt like someone had seared his flesh with hot iron.

Hank’s head spun. Who was this man? How the Hell had he done this? In six years as a vampire Hank had never gotten this smashed up, and he had thrown down with some badass mothers in that time, both mortal and Kindred.

Hank heard footsteps coming towards him. The appalling feeling of nausea overcame him again. He doubled up and vomited onto the ground. Blood erupted from his throat in a crimson fountain and splashed onto the ground. Retching, Hank opened his eyes and saw directly before him the boots and the frayed cuffs of the pants that the bum was wearing. Accompanied by more of the terrible crunching noises from his neck, Hank looked up. He stared straight into the twin barrels of a sawn-off shotgun that the raggedy-man had levelled at his head. He spoke as he slowly eased back the hammers of the weapon.

“And David said unto the Philistine, ‘This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee’”, he said.

The pain and nausea robbed Hank of any reply.

A thundering drum solo boomed out from inside the club. The shotgun roared and Hank’s head came apart like a ripe melon, splattering the dumpster and brick wall with blood, scalp and brain-matter. The sight of Hank’s headless corpse slumping to the ground finally broke the young woman’s ecstatic trance induced by the vampire’s bight. She screamed and threw herself against the fire-door. Her fists pounded on the metal as she pleaded for someone to open the door.

The raggedy-man calmly took a large plastic bottle filled with liquid from underneath his coat and emptied the contents onto Hank’s body. The strong smell of lighter fluid merged with those of trash and gunsmoke. Taking a match from his pocket he struck it against the metal dumpster and let it fall onto the corpse. Fire quickly engulfed it. The flames threw macabre, dancing shadows upon the walls of the alley. All other odours were quickly engulfed in the stench of burning flesh.

The young woman was screaming fit to burst as she punched and kicked the fire-door but the pounding music continued to deafen those inside to her voice. Over the crackling of the flames she heard the bum walking towards her. She turned around and pressed her back to the door. Silhouetted by the flames of the burning body the man looked like the embodiment of death. He stopped several paces from the woman. With the fire behind him his face was in shadow and his features were hard to define. She did however get a glimpse of a pair of red-rimmed eyes as her back slowly slid down the door’s smooth surface. Her backside came to rest on the floor of the alley and she drew her knees up under her chin. Tears ran down her face, smudging her makeup. She couldn’t take her eyes from those of the man. They burned into her head. She felt like she was naked. Like her whole life was laid out before his gaze. She felt like this man was staring into her soul and was weighing up what he found there.

“Oh Jesus” she said, “JesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesus.”

The man spoke. His voice had lost some of the harsh edge he had exhibited earlier and there was the faint trace of an accent which, in her terror, she couldn’t place.

“You know in the middle ages when a woman was found guilty of consorting with demons she was generally burnt at the stake,” he said.

“Oh God please”, she sobbed, “Please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything you want. Just please don’t hurt me.”

“You are a wanton harlot”, he replied, “But as the Saviour once showed compassion to one such as you, so shall I. Go home. Go home and forget what you saw here tonight. Forget me. If you go to the police then I will assume you are a willing pawn of these abominations. I will find you and I will kill you."

The young woman whimpered like a trapped animal.

“Go”, he said, “And sin no more”.

The young woman watched as the raggedy-man turned and walked away. He was quickly swallowed by the shadows.

Description
Hank scanned the crowd that ebbed and flowed across the club’s dance-floor. The heat was oppressive and a thick miasma of tobacco smoke hung heavy in the air. This probably would have bothered Hank if he actually needed to breathe but he had kicked that particular habit several years ago.

The primal beat of the music from the club’s sound system pounded in his ears as he waited for his mark to reveal itself.

Hank preferred this method of hunting. No fuss. No wasted energy. If you just hung around a place like this and kept your eyes and ears open the perfect target would always present itself. He grinned when he thought about how some of the other Kindred, especially the older ones, sneered at this approach. They seemed to think that if you weren’t stalking terrified mortals through moonlit back alleys and leaping on them like a fuckin’ lion on a gazelle then you just didn’t deserve to be called a vampire. Screw em’, Hank thought. If they wanted to play their ‘hunter and prey’ games then let them. Maybe they could get themselves a nice little write-up in National Geographic. Hank’s grin grew wider. He closed his eyes and pictured that lame English dude in the safari suit hosting a brand new documentary on the Discovery Channel.

“And here we see the noble vampire in his natural habitat. Notice the fluidity of movement as this magnificent creature brings down that helpless little yuppie who should have known better than to go jogging in the park after sundown”.

The strong scent of jasmine hit Hank’s nostrils and he opened his eyes. The perfume emanated from a cute little redhead. She was wearing a white silk blouse and a short black skirt that looked like it had applied with a spray-can. The top two buttons of her blouse were undone revealing a hint of cleavage. Just enough to be tempting, but not enough to be slutty. She had an ass that looked like you could bounce a quarter off it and her perfectly formed, stocking-clad legs ended in a pair of black, high-heeled shoes.

Hank caught the chick’s eye. He smiled and gave her his best mischievous wink as she passed by. She rewarded him with a lingering sideways glance and a half smile.

“All things come to those who wait” Hank thought.He waited a respectable few seconds and then followed Little Miss Redhead toward the bar.

An hour later and with more than a few drinks under both their belts, Hank took the young woman by the hand and led her towards one of the fire-exits. Hank was pleased. He hadn’t even needed to use the ol’ vampire mojo on this one. Oh, she had played it coy at first but as her liquor consumption increased he realised that she was out prowling for prey of her own and that suited him just fine. She was giggling as Hank hit the silver bar of the fire door and pushed it open. A high pitched alarm began to sound but it was swamped by the deafening music.

The door led to the alley behind the club. A few feet to their left the alley ended in a graffiti covered brick wall. To the left it stretched for about fifty feet before it opened onto the street. The club was one of Hank’s regular stomping grounds and he knew this area like the back of his hand. He had also used this alley on many occasions before. The streetlights provided just enough illumination to see with and foot traffic along the side-street connecting the alley was minimal at this time of night. As the door closed behind them the chick…Hank had already forgotten her name…burst into another fit of drunken giggling.

“An alley?”, she laughed, “You take me to the most wonderful places baby”.

“Hey,” Hank said in mock indignation as he manoeuvred her up against the wall. “We’ve only known each other for an hour and already your nagging me”.

He brushed his lips against hers, then began to nuzzle her neck. She sighed. Hank could feel the heat of her body as he pressed himself against her. The smell of jasmine filled his nose but underlying this was a stronger odour. Blood. Warm and fresh. It set Hank’s senses on fire. As he traced the line of her jugular with his lips his fangs lengthened. He kissed her neck and sank his fangs into the vein. The babe gasped and her eyes widened. Then slowly they closed again and a dreamy expression crossed her face as she was lost in the ecstasy of the feeding.

While he was still breathing, Hank had sampled just about every narcotic known to mankind. Heroin, crack, speed, mescalin, absinth. You name it and he had done it. He had tasted euphoria in all its forms. But nothing…nothing could compare with the sensations that came with that first mouthful of blood from a warm and willing vessel. Nothing even came close to the bliss of draining the very essence of life from a living being. It was like every high he had ever experienced in his life all rolled into one, only better. The chick moaned. She grabbed Hank by the hair and tried to force his face even farther down onto her neck. Hank’s fangs sank deeper into her soft flesh and she cried out with pleasure. Hank loved it when they got into it like this.

“Oh yeah” he thought “I may just have to get your number baby. You are definitely worth a second visit.”

He didn’t intend to drain her dry. Leaving a trail of corpses across the city was a good way to get some tight-ass archon on your back. It wasn’t Hank’s style anyway. Drain her just enough to leave her weak and she would come out it thinking she had just had the mother of all fucks. Then send her on her way to be snacked on again another day.

Hank ground his pelvis into the girl’s groin. Before the embrace he would have had a hard-on that a cat couldn’t scratch right about now. But then he guessed that you couldn’t have everything could you? Hank sure as hell didn’t miss much about his previous life but if you forced him to pick something it would have to be the sex. He had experimented with screwing since the change, forcing blood into his flaccid penis. However it just wasn’t the same. The babes certainly appreciated a guy who could keep it up all night but Hank found that when there was no earth-shattering climax to look forward to the actual bump and grind just wasn’t worth the effort. He still climbed into the saddle every now and again although he didn’t know if it was habit, machismo or just plain nostalgia that made him do it. He had heard a couple of the elders say that the desire for sexual contact would eventually disappear as the years rolled by. Of course those crusty relics probably never got any pussy in their breathing days anyway so it wasn’t exactly a great loss to them.

Hank reached down under the girl’s skirt. He thrust his hand down the front of her panties and stroked the damp mound underneath. The dull thumping of the music from the nightclub began to reach a crescendo. The babe was also heading towards a crescendo of her own, her breaths coming in short gasps as she rapidly approached orgasm.

A raspy voice echoed down the length of the alley.

“Leave her alone.”

Hank’s eyes widened in surprise. The chick let out a moan of disappointment as he detached himself from her neck. He looked over his shoulder and saw a figure standing in the alley less than a dozen feet away. It looked like a bum. It was wearing a dirty, threadbare overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that hid the upper half of its face. The figures hands were thrust deep into its coat pockets.

Hank swore under his breath. How the hell had he snuck up on him like that? He must have been too caught up with the babe. That was careless. How much had the bastard seen? The Ventrue were always whining about the importance of the Masquerade and cleaning up loose ends. If this asshole had seen too much Hank would have to make him disappear. But that would entail having to let his little chickadee go before he had drunk his fill. Fuck it. Fuck the Ventrue and fuck the masquerade. So what if some street-trash caught a glimpse of him feeding? He wasn’t going to lose this sweet little peach because some bum wanted to play Sir Friggin’ Lancelot. Who was going to believe the rantings of some old boozer anyway?

“Piss off rummy!” he snarled, “If you aren’t out of my sight in five seconds you don’t want to know what I’m gonna do to your face!”

Hank turned back to the girl. Her eyes were closed and she was making a purring sound in the back of her throat. Her hands came up to her chest and she started squeezing her breasts through the thin material of her shirt. A slight trickle of blood made it’s way down her delicate neck from the puncture wounds inflicted by Hank’s fangs.

“Oh man, can I pick ‘em or can I pick ‘em?” thought Hank.

The bum spoke again with a voice that sounded like he had been gargling with gravel.

“Leave her alone.”

Hank whirled around. His hands bunched into fists. He took two steps towards the bum and bellowed at him.

“Hey! I told you to FUCK OFF!”

The bum’s right arm came out of his coat pocket and snapped forward. Hank caught a sudden glimpse of an object in his hand before a jolt of searing pain exploded in his right eye socket.

“And I told YOU to leave her alone”.

Hank screamed and stumbled backward, his hands clutching at his face. Something hard and cold was protruding from his right eye.

He dropped to his knees. The pain was intense. From a dark place deep within Hank a primal red rage rose up to meet the pain. It quickly swelled and eclipsed the piercing agony in his head. A guttural growl escaped Hank’s throat as he gripped the metal jutting from his face. With a vicious wrench he tore it free from his eye-socket. Blood flowed down Hank’s face along with the jelly-like pulp from his ruined eye. The offending object was a thin, flat throwing knife. Its surface was a dull black colour. A crucifix had been engraved in the metal surface at one end of the blade. It gleamed bright silver against the black.

The beast within roared and strained at the chains holding it captive. Hank felt the fury begin to overtake him. He fought against it. He didn’t want to lose himself in that primitive rage now. No. He wanted to look in this motherfucker’s eyes as he ripped his heart out of his goddamn chest. He wanted to remember it.

With a roar like a wounded bull Hank charged. The ragged figure made no effort to move out of his path. However when Hank came within three feet of the bum a wave of nausea swept over him. Bright, fresh pain ripped through his head and it seemed that every muscle in his body went into spasm. Despite this the vampire’s charge still carried him towards his assailant. At the last possible second the shabbily dressed man swayed to one side. As Hank flew past him the man pivoted. In one graceful motion the stranger’s arms came up, striking Hank on the shoulder and back, adding the force of his own spin to Hank’s already considerable momentum. The vampire cannoned into a rusting dumpster, his head striking the metal with a sickening crunch.

Lying face down in the filth Hank’s anger was quickly replaced by bewilderment. What the hell had just happened? Through a haze of pain he pushed himself to his knees. He saw a large bloody dent in the side of the dumpster. He reached up and touched his head. The area just above his right temple felt soft and yielding. Crushed, he thought. He tried to move his neck and was rewarded with an awful sound like that of dry branches snapping. He screamed in pain. There was also an excruciating burning sensation in his shoulder and back where the bum had struck him. It felt like someone had seared his flesh with hot iron.

Hank’s head spun. Who was this man? How the Hell had he done this? In six years as a vampire Hank had never gotten this smashed up, and he had thrown down with some badass mothers in that time, both mortal and Kindred.

Hank heard footsteps coming towards him. The appalling feeling of nausea overcame him again. He doubled up and vomited onto the ground. Blood erupted from his throat in a crimson fountain and splashed onto the ground. Retching, Hank opened his eyes and saw directly before him the boots and the frayed cuffs of the pants that the bum was wearing. Accompanied by more of the terrible crunching noises from his neck, Hank looked up. He stared straight into the twin barrels of a sawn-off shotgun that the raggedy-man had levelled at his head. He spoke as he slowly eased back the hammers of the weapon.

“And David said unto the Philistine, ‘This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee’”, he said.

The pain and nausea robbed Hank of any reply.

A thundering drum solo boomed out from inside the club. The shotgun roared and Hank’s head came apart like a ripe melon, splattering the dumpster and brick wall with blood, scalp and brain-matter. The sight of Hank’s headless corpse slumping to the ground finally broke the young woman’s ecstatic trance induced by the vampire’s bight. She screamed and threw herself against the fire-door. Her fists pounded on the metal as she pleaded for someone to open the door.

The raggedy-man calmly took a large plastic bottle filled with liquid from underneath his coat and emptied the contents onto Hank’s body. The strong smell of lighter fluid merged with those of trash and gunsmoke. Taking a match from his pocket he struck it against the metal dumpster and let it fall onto the corpse. Fire quickly engulfed it. The flames threw macabre, dancing shadows upon the walls of the alley. All other odours were quickly engulfed in the stench of burning flesh.

The young woman was screaming fit to burst as she punched and kicked the fire-door but the pounding music continued to deafen those inside to her voice. Over the crackling of the flames she heard the bum walking towards her. She turned around and pressed her back to the door. Silhouetted by the flames of the burning body the man looked like the embodiment of death. He stopped several paces from the woman. With the fire behind him his face was in shadow and his features were hard to define. She did however get a glimpse of a pair of red-rimmed eyes as her back slowly slid down the door’s smooth surface. Her backside came to rest on the floor of the alley and she drew her knees up under her chin. Tears ran down her face, smudging her makeup. She couldn’t take her eyes from those of the man. They burned into her head. She felt like she was naked. Like her whole life was laid out before his gaze. She felt like this man was staring into her soul and was weighing up what he found there.

“Oh Jesus” she said, “JesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesus.”

The man spoke. His voice had lost some of the harsh edge he had exhibited earlier and there was the faint trace of an accent which, in her terror, she couldn’t place.

“You know in the middle ages when a woman was found guilty of consorting with demons she was generally burnt at the stake,” he said.

“Oh God please”, she sobbed, “Please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything you want. Just please don’t hurt me.”

“You are a wanton harlot”, he replied, “But as the Saviour once showed compassion to one such as you, so shall I. Go home. Go home and forget what you saw here tonight. Forget me. If you go to the police then I will assume you are a willing pawn of these abominations. I will find you and I will kill you."

The young woman whimpered like a trapped animal.

“Go”, he said, “And sin no more”.

The young woman watched as the raggedy-man turned and walked away. He was quickly swallowed by the shadows.