Slim Pickings

The body shrivelled on the ground, wriggling like a great, drained worm. Aelgus felt somewhat satisfied but still hungry. The girl’s aura had been radiant. A cool shimmering blue that had made his stomach growl and his mouth flood with saliva. He should have known it was the cocaine she’d shoved up her nose that gave off that false light. Once he had dined he found her life energy to have been paltry, a snack, little more than a morsel. He watched the rapid desiccation of the remains. It was his way of licking the bowl clean.

Scattering the human pile of light brown dust with his naked left foot, he looked at his watch for the date, not the time. September the 20th. He sighed, things moved too rapidly down here on the material plane. He had to get his fill before the sun headed back across the equator. Six months had passed, he was still so hungry and it was almost time to sleep. He had no time to waste. He went over to the bed, picked his crumpled jeans off the floor and slipped into them. His t-shirt was on next, then to the mirror. He’d seen himself in better shape, and in worse. He remembered the last time he’d went back to nowhere without being sufficiently fed. He’d overslept and came out in the spring equinox thirteen years later, a dazed and famished ghoul. He’d devoured the energy of six people before he could show his face in public. Sticking to the shadows had not stopped him from being spotted though. The Mount Vernon Vampire, the papers had called him. There was even an artists rendition of what he looked like, at least according to the descriptions given by friends of the boy scout he had attacked and eaten. It wasn’t even in Mount Vernon, it had been in Queens Park. Aelgus guessed they just liked the alliteration.

No, this time he would go to sleep on a full stomach, so to speak. He would sustain his life-force enough to sleep a century and still come out strong as an oak, looking like Diarmid O’Dyna. The night outside was dying, being burnt away by the morning sun, it was time for Aelgus to find the dark, to switch off from the world for a time, and contemplate his next move.

He left the girl’s apartment, unable to recall her name, unconcerned. Aelgus was too busy scuttling up the east side of the street, staying inside the shadow of the tenements as best he could. His lair was not far and the shards of dawn light too weak to be much but a minor physical inconvenience. Still, by the time he made it home, his borrowed skin felt raw in places. It would heal quickly enough, in the dark. The basement let in no light, was warm and quite spacious. He lay down on the rectangle of earth and grass and within seconds de-coagulated, seeping back into the ground in pinprick bursts of red light.

At nightfall, he re-emerged as a cold white mist, solidified and was completely ready for the hunt. He knew he couldn’t be choosy with his hunt and so for his stalking ground, he decided to choose the Nightclub, Cleopatras. A local meat market, known locally as Clatty Pats, which referred to the décor as much as it did the clientele and their various cocktails of sexually transmitted diseases.

Such things as viral or bacterial infections were, to Aelgus, condiments. A little spice sprinkled throughout the meal. The life energy of disease organisms was still just life energy. Animals were no different but it had been a long time since he’d relied on them, they were too difficult to hunt compared to humans, who never, well rarely ever, sensed what he was. Aelgus climbed out of the basement, brushed off the dust and walked into the hallway where he reshaped his look for the night. Changing the length and colour of his hair, he settled on a short blond cut and filled out his muscles, but not too much. Settling on dark brown irises and a square jaw, he nodded at the image he’d become, it was a good look. He had chosen his stalking ground and knew that his prey liked to consider themselves, perhaps subconsciously, as predators and so he had to act as bait. His lure was handsome but not so much as to be unapproachable, strong, but not powerful, young but not childish. He knew what they wanted, those greedy, lustful, fecund and oblivious women were his favourite dish. Tonight he would dine on as many as he could. He licked his lips as he set off.

The nightclub opened its doors at half past ten but the nocturnal wildlife didn’t fill the place until after midnight. By then he already had devoured a sixteen stone drunk in a cubicle of the female toilets and flushed her dusty remains. Her energy was mostly stored in the rolls of fat, good eating but less than delicious. He didn’t want to bloat himself on junk food and so, after leaving the toilet, he sat by the corner and waited to see what he attracted. The place was like a buffet. An underage teenager with the virginal white halo giggled by, a few dancers passed, each with the simmering, stimulated ice-blue glow. There was a woman in her thirties, whose aura was that marble of red and black that suggested toxicity saturated her being from her spiritual core to her heavily tattooed epidermis, such energy was tainted, best avoided.

One after another he scanned them looking for the right one, looking for something he could get his proverbial teeth into.

And there she was. Her light exploded from her like volcanic fire, burning orange and yellow. A woman in her prime. She was tall, her curled raven locks pinned up, revealing her long thin neck. She wore a black dress that clung to her like a second skin, covering her from her ample bust to her shapely groin. He sent out his will until she looked at him square in the eyes. The animal magnetism was irrepressible. 

She approached with a gait so fluid that it seemed like she was floating on water. From lips stained purple with paint she smiled as she sat next to him. “Hi there,” she said. “I’m Katy.”

“Jason,” Aelgus lied, it didn’t matter, she was already sliding her hands across his thigh, upwards as she leaned in. 

“You look like you could be fun.” She said. He didn’t reply, she wasn’t waiting for one. Instead, she began to kiss him. Her energy field was so tempting that it took all his will not to devour her there and then. He slid his hand up her back, pushing her toward him. Katy seemed to like this and in a second had straddled him. Both her hands were on his face. “So, want to go back to my place?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, adding some excitement and enthusiasm to his voice. 

The two of them left, hand in hand into one of several waiting taxis where she teased him further, stroking his sculpted penis through his trousers until he realised he would need to stiffen it in order to maintain the charade. Her attempts at foreplay continued up the stairs of the close and he reciprocated. Soon he would dine on everything she was, which gave him the impetus to continue the ruse.

Inside her apartment, she rammed him into the back of the front door. Her mouth working on his, then whispering her animal crudities in an attempt to arouse him further. It took all his effort not to drool. Leading him by the hand into the bedroom, she kicked off her heels and sat on the bed, her legs spread wide. “Come on then,” She whispered lasciviously, “fuck me.”

He giggled. She would be fucked all right, just not in the way she expected. He walked towards her, undoing the belt of his trousers, pulling out the large prong of a penis he’d given himself. She saw it and said only “Yes.”

She peeled off her dress. He had to admit, she was an admirable looking sow, of higher pedigree and breeding than one would expect in such a place as Clatty Pats. He was going to enjoy this and vowed to savour every morsel. As he slid into her warm moistness, he tried his first bite. It didn’t take, sliding off her like an egg off warm Teflon.

That was odd, he thought to himself as she pulled him onto his back with some strength and sat atop him, grinding their groins together. He put his hands on her hips and dug his fingertips in. She responded positively to that but he still could not get a grip on her energy.

“That’s it. Yes.” She purred. Her pace quickened and he could feel something, a tingling that… wait a minute, she was trying to eat him!

It seemed to dawn on her at the same time. “Aw for fuck sake!” she said and detached from him. 

“Oh no.” Aelgus sighed.

Both glamours were broken and the two lay on the bed looking at each other as they really were. “I should’ve fucking known it was you, Aelgus.”

“God damn you, Ceamth, I thought we’d settled this the last time.” Aelgus sighed. Ceamth was a Baobhan Sith, but for centuries she’d been calling herself a Succubus. She knew only to work the south of the river.

“I know, I know,” she pleaded. “But come on Aelgus, it’s desperate over there.”

Aelgus was indignant. “We’ve got two days Ceamth, two fucking days before we go back. I’m nearly empty.”

“I’m the same. It’s slim pickings at the moment, why do you think I chanced it over the river?” Ceamth replied. 

“This is a nightmare,” Aelgus growled. "I’m going to have to just go after everything that moves now. I’m really pissed off.”

“I’m sorry, look, if it helps we could team up. Women these days are a lot more trusting of men if another woman is around.” Ceamth suggested

Aelgus thought about that. She was right, if they worked together the two of them could probably go into the dark full to the brim. It wasn’t strictly within the rules of the game but who was going to care? “Fine,” he huffed. “But I swear, you better not fuck this up.”

“Gimme a break, I’m as hungry as you are.” She protested.

Aelgus didn’t reply, just shook his head. This was the third time this had happened in the last hundred years. It wasn’t just embarrassing it was, well, unprofessional. 

“Since we’re here anyway,” she started, her voice coy, he watched as she shifted back into the form of the busty black haired girl. “You fancy a fuck?”

Aelgus laughed. “You are unbelievable.”

“Is that a no?” She chuckled.

He manifested his previous look and said “No, it’s not. Get over here.”