stunting his active hours whilst extending everyone else’s;
increasing the likelihood of witnesses to his dining habits.
Would that the opera season coincided with winter. Culture,
corpuscles and comfort all under one opulent roof. Or more
specifically, between the discreet velvet curtains of a private box.
Instead of sampling the splendour of Covent
Garden, he lingered in the least salubrious of places; the
labyrinthine slums of the East End. And a particularly ripe
section of it, at that. The lane probably had a name; all
these rat-runs did, but using it gave the miserable location
undeserved significance.
The baked, bare earth beneath his polished boots
hosted the evacuated contents from the bowels and
bladders of at least three separate species. And under the
onslaught of relentless heat and new deposits, the smell —
which he was spared by virtue of breathing being optional
— defied description.
Humans needed oxygen. He –they– needed human
blood and this evening, a little co-operation. Her thin
blood refused to clot, demanding more of his precious
resources than time. Flagrant inconvenience forced him to
loiter in dark alleys to avoid accidental corpses and very
deliberate manhunts.
Forced him to dispense his vitality a drop at a time
as insurance against discovery. At least the solstice was
behind him, if only by days. The daylight, if not summer,
had done its worst. London had yet to.
As if eavesdropping and giving credence to his
thoughts, the nearby human rookery cawed and clattered.
The poverty-ridden populace, en-masse crammed tightly
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