Though used to the dismissal with which she trounced her abrupt yearnings to pounce on random

strangers walking alongside her and feast on their flesh and blood, the queer smell that ignited a
disheartened hunger inside her cut through the humid air padded with the scent of the abandoned
warehouses and the wet nighttime, like a sudden blow to her sharpened senses.

An unmistakable stench of sweat, Lavender soap and Trésor perfume may have disturbed the oh-so-
good scent of the beloved’s blood, but with her years of experience, it only added some more flavor to
the rare meal. It might sound repulsive to the human ear, but the scent of this sporadic combination of
brawn and blood was like the finest wine to humans, ambrosia to the gods, triggering a yearning for that
bittersweet fare on her tongue almost immediately.

A quick glance, through the wide-rimmed bonnet that had hidden her identity so well for the past few
centuries to her left was enough to drink in the figure of her particularly scrumptious looking and
particularly unlucky prey.

A restless lad taking quick long strides, to disappear further into the darkness of the town, undoubtedly
after a bad day at work. The floor-length cloak wrapped around the intruder and the hat hiding silken
hair wet with the humid air and sweat, was enough to shield them from the misty cold lingering around
the tall buildings, which never had bothered her one way or the other, but it wasn’t quite enough to
cover the distinguished map of veins pumping warm blood through the creature’s system engraved on
smooth, calloused skin.

The smell so suddenly wafting through sharply, hitting her flared nostrils directly was so unbearable that
it almost made her pounce on the unlucky lass but fear for the loss of freedom kept a small rational part
in her alive, at least for a few moments. A few moments until she could have cornered the pray to one
dark corner to leisurely feed on with nobody to interfere.

And now here she was. As her barb fangs pierced through the creamy mellow skin of the stranger like a
stick through a clammy marshmallow to be burned, she could feel the sultry blood, with an iron like
fume, pump through to spray at her mouth, veneering her bold teeth with a succulent overcoat of
spreading red, sending delicious bolts through her body, giving ever the worthwhile chills. The sharp ting
of Sodium absent in the blood she usually consumed made the it even more mouth-watering.

After pulling herself away for a few seconds to take some time and lick off the blood mantling around
her lips, she felt her body spasm with an electrocuted energy she hadn’t felt for aeons due to the human
blood that spread through her veins after years of consuming animals. Emitting an unladylike grunt and
leaning in, she sucked in as much as she could, in case this was her last time having enough fortune run
into such a human coincidentally.

Her hunger, with which her body had been quite irritable since the morning, was savoringly absorbing
the metallic liquid that ran thickly down her throat burning the sides like acids spasming her inhuman
insides, as it did from the enhanced edges of her lips, ruining the expensive fur coat covering pore less
skin. Even when it was obvious that the last breath had left the parted lips of the flabbergasted
pedestrian, she kept on her pace as lively and as forlorn as before.
Now that the blood she had yearned for was thrumming through her lifeless veins, she slipped her
hands from either side of the intruder ignoring the blue fingerprints branded onto its colorless skin,
none other than a corpse currently, clear evidence to how desolately she had fed. Using the thick sleeve
of the coat she wiped at the dried crusts of blood sticking to her skin and brushed off invisible dust from
her attire which bore enough proof to sue her as the one true otherworldly creature responsible for the
killing spree that had been going on inside the town for the recent years.

With a shrug, she looked at her reflection marked on the transparent window of the library she always
loved to visit, enough times to walk there with closed eyes and got on her way along the moon-lit
cobblestone pavement, internally praising herself for the piece of handiwork she had left, which would
give old Mr. Brickhill, the librarian, who would hand her copies of Père Goriot or Wuthering Heights with
a fatherly smile, a seizure and the rest of the mundanes of the area enough terror to keep themselves
locked away at the devil’s hour.
witching hour