Hunger Monsters:Things That Go Bump

[DarkledMind]

It was a typically gloomy early summer day in London. (Not that it was early In the day, oh no, quite to the contrary. What was hunted is also a would-be hunter, and she stalks at night.) The sun had not quite dipped below the horizon, and the few remaining bright beams danced along the underside of the clouds. Grey turned to a quiet peach mixed with silken champagne for just a few moments before the sun's smile faded completely into the plum and blue hues of twilight.


In these precious few moments, Antony stood out in the middle of the street. His rampant hair was tucked back into a black ribbon. The chestnut waves now tamed fell In nest locks down his back. His toned and lean body stood lazy, shoulders rolled forward and hands in the pockets of his black pants. His dark eyes looked around with a soft reflection of the quiet beauty he witnessed. And when the sun faded away with with a with a parting glimmer, so too did that softness. Tony looked down and around him. Dark eyes now reflected contempt for those of flesh and blood that trotted and drilled their meager lives away. Their heads tucked down, intent only on on their destination, their needs and desires. None of them stopped to witness the day's fantastic end. Rarely did the sun shine like this! So soft were the colors that faded away and in and out of existence!


They don't even stop to witness each other. Shoulders rubbed together without even even a passing glance. Cigarette smoke was blown into their faces and they blinked it away like fog. They spoke as If no one could hear them, shouted In someone's ear as If they didn't even exist. And they weren't the only one prowling about. Stray dogs hunched over themselves and walked through the mire of feces and urine that collected in the drains. It was a disgusting place full of disgusting people and disgusting things.


But that wasn't so bad for him.


Tony got a whiff of of a familiar scent. Turned on like a switch, his eyes turned from dark and sullen to a bright and alert green, his pupils changed to slits, and his nose flared unnaturally, changing with each intake of breath. He turned and looked at the poor man. A deep rattle when the man breathed confirmed Tony's suspicion: the consumption, tuberculosis. But like all the others, this man continued to walk along like his lungs were not filling with a viscous blood. Yet, Tony could smell that the man was concerned, desperate, depressed, scared, angry, and all those other delicious feelings one got when they were at death's door. As Tony took the first step to turn, rather than his foot contacting with the ground, he seemed to step up into thin air. Soon he was no longer human. His eyes no longer had any pupils at all, instead they were an airy ghostly white with no definite edge or eyelids, simply fading and blending Into his olive toned skin like a painting. A smile spread across his features, too wide and crooked for his face. Even without pupils you could see his eyes unfocus as he drifted into a doped up haze. He hunched over and floated behind the dying man, dragged along by a rope that was not seen or felt by anyone but the hunger. His jaw unhinged with a sickening pop, and teeth grew Into sharp metal spikes as he let his jaw drop down, deep into and the blackness of pain and death began to swirl up around the man like a tornado and...


He stopped.


Quickly reverting back into his human form, Tony shook the cold from his ethereal skin. (Another flesh and blood human walked through him, unaware of the reality bending event that had just occurred.) No. He could feed on the dead man walking. And It would be sweet and fill that hole of his that seemed to replace a stomach. But it would not be satisfying. Like eating a cracker when you need a whole, hot meal. He had a hot meal, just waking up back in a town house not far from here.


Even though he wasn't human, and didn't even exist on this plane of reality, Antony tried to act human. Walking on the streets, obeying physics like a good boy. But he didn't have time now. He had waited too long watching the sunset and then getting distracted... he was so hungry. But a long build up makes for a better release. He chuckled at the thought as he flew through houses and people, a cold, burning pain building along his spine as he disobeyed his human side. Like he really had a human part of him any more, he mused.


And he was In her home office before she was. Or just after. Hopefully right before. Or wait, just after might be nice too, because she was likely to return, and to see an Intruder has entered while she was awake? Rather jarring, don't you think? Another dark chuckle that he let echo through the house.


Tony settled down, leaning up against her desk lazily, like he belonged here. He crossed his booted feet and relaxed a bit more, unbuttoning his silky and loose white shirt. He looked more like a pirate than a Victorian age gentleman, but he could be who he wanted, and those damn stuffy Victorian outfits. So much wool and linen was scratchy and just plain uncomfortable. But as he thought about It, Tony added a few more layers of clothing: a vest, a jacket and a light coat over his shoulders. Didn't want to seem too unreal on first meeting.


He lazily picked up a pen and scrutinized it behind lidded eyes. Despite being ethereal, he had been practicing for months on how to manipulate the environment around him. First it started with heavy breathing next to her door, then footsteps, followed by small objects levitating and being displaced. Now he could comfortably move a chair across the room, almost like a real person. He snorted distastefully and fluno the sharp tipped pen into the wooden door.


Oh yes he had been planning on this scene for some time now. He had yet to enter her mind, to see her thoughts and woes (it would be too tempting to feed off of her sweet sorrows, and he had no doubt she was sweet as nectar,) but he saw his effect upon her. A slight twitch in the brow, a stutter in her collected words. He was not a presence in her thoughts but an underlying disease of the mind. And the switch from a back of the mind Itch to what he had planning? Oh he would sup like a king...


@Lucyfer

 

[Lucyfer]

After living for over 2,000 years, the black-haired vampiress found that much of the supposed curse of her state bothered her very little. She had gotten used to the idea of never seeing the sun again. She had long ago accepted that most people she knew would die before her—even other vampires. So few had what it took, after all, to survive as she did, for as long as she did.


There were those older than her, of course. Many of them had learned she didn’t take well to posturing.


She had killed vampires older than herself, after all. The first one she’d killed had been much older than she.


Yet, one thing that Lucia Amatiel did not get used to was waking and sleep.


A vampire’s sleep was like death. There were no dreams. There was also no light at the end of the tunnel. There was nothing—no sensation, no thought, it was a dead stop, a pause, from the event of falling asleep to the event of waking.


As such, her blue eyes always opened with a start.


Blood began to pump through her body again, awakening the limbs as she stumbled out of her own bed. A coffin wasn’t necessary, though some humans thought it was. No, Lucia slept comfortably on a canopy bed of blue hues. It was all meant to be relaxing, but Lucia always felt frazzled and panicked when she woke.


There was always a note at the end table, though, written the dawn before. Lucia reached for it and paused, forcing herself to read the tasks at hand for the day.

Today’s Agenda


1. Check the den at the Thames.


2. Write to Marius.


3. Pay a visit to Lord Beaumont.


4. Deal with the Thames issue.


5. Prepare a location for the oh-so great “senate”.
​

Lucia’s own sarcasm amused her. Vampires liked to play at politics with their senates and their princeps and their so-called overarching laws. That was why she had to write Marius, a man of her own era—well, as close as they really got anymore. He was some years younger than her, but he understood why they were going to shut down this budding senate before it gained power and convinced neonates that they knew enough to have a voice.


‘The Roman way.’


No one knew how to play at politics better. Knives, slander, bribes, and fire—and she had more money than Crassus would ever dream of having.


The Thames issue was what was really bothering her. She had many opium dens, but the one on the Thames had been experiencing more than the usual amount of trouble, and she hadn’t been able to pin down just what it was. At times, it seemed supernatural in origin, the sort of thing she might actually want to see a hunter about for advice, but at other times it seemed more common, more familiar.


A poisoned whore made her suspect hunters, since that one had been one of Lucia’s favorite meals. It wouldn’t be the first time hunters had tried to get at her through her food. It wouldn’t be the last.


So, Lucia dressed herself. A ring of a bell brought in a woman, who was soon to be off to sleep, to assist with lacing her into the corset that squeezed useless organs tighter against her, and laced up the back of her purple gown for that evening’s business. Lord Beaumont liked purple, and she aimed to please when it came to that man. He was useful, for the moment, after all.


“May I rest now, Amatiel?” the blonde asked, “or shall I serve you in some other way?”


She wore a black choker. All of Lucia’s servants were food, all quite willingly, for they knew the pleasure the bite brought when Lucia willed it. Though she always woke hungry, she did not always grant her servants that release, “You may rest, Anne,” she said.


Human servants were necessary. They would protect her body when she could not do so, and with the strange happenings Lucia had been feeding from them less and less. They needed their strength. Even Anne, though she looked like a doll, was a skilled fencer.


“Thank you, Amatiel,” she inclined her head deeply, before scurrying out of the room.


Lucia could no longer see herself in a mirror. When her hair had been long, it made styling it monotonous. Now that it was so short, she simply brushed her black bangs out of her eyes, and walked out of her room, tossing the paper into a fire that had been started in the main lounge on her way to her office. She had to bring along her accounting book to the Thames den.


Before ever entering her office, though, she paused.


For a trace second, something seemed off. The skin beneath her clothing felt colder than it ought, but then she shook it off, like she shook off an unwelcome truth, and moved to her door and opened it.


There was a pen lodged in the wood. That was noticed only out of the corner of her eye.


What truly caught her attention was the figure leaning against her desk, a gentleman by appearances, but her mind rang with alarms that he wasn’t at all what he seemed.


With inhuman speed, she took the pen from its place in the door, brought the door close behind her, and brandished that pen like a weapon.


Certainly in her hands, it was, to most creatures. She’d have no trouble putting it through someone’s flesh, muscles, bones—eyes. That was what she looked with calmed fury in her own eyes. The hint of a smirk was on her lips, the promise that if this individual did not have a very good reason for being where they were, they were going to regret it.


Even if they did have a good reason, they might still regret it.


“What are you?” Her tone was calm, pleasant, even.


Not who, not why, not how—those were not so important as the fact she did not smell blood from him, not human and not vampire—no blood at all. All things had blood, all things were prey, but this figure before her did not have such a scent.


That alone was reason enough for all of the alarms in her head, warning her that this was not a thing she could trifle with. After all, how did one kill something that didn’t bleed?