Prologue

The city had a life of it’s own, even at night. Amber had known this fact for the better part of a century, an empty, dark century that had swept past her as the world she had come from changed. She had not really been part of that change but she had come to know the life of her home. That life had helped to sustain her, even as the hunger inside her remained. It could be satisfied for a moment but such times were always fleeting.

The girl climbed up the rusting fire escape with surprising agility, making a great leap from the top of a dumpster onto the metal framework. She clung to the edge of the metal lattice work, crouched. Her dirty, black hair hung out from under a tattered stocking cap. Her jacket and jeans were smeared with dirt from long forgotten sources and her face caked with grime. Amber felt her senses edge up a notch. Her hunting instincts were taking over.

Her prey was near the end of the alley, plump with her source of sustenance. She could feel vital fluid pumping through the creature’s system even at this distance, throbbing with energy and life. The twin calls of the prey were irresistible to Amber: the call to hunt and the call to drink.

Amber swung herself over to the far side of the platform she was on. The metal made a slight clattering noise. Her prey was focused upon it’s own meal, not her. The girl lowered herself in the thin spring darkness of her home town and issued a guttural growl, the shapely form of her body coiling for an attack.

Amber pounced like the deadly predator she was. The young girl couldn’t make the jump to her prey in one leap. She had to use her urban home for that. Her legs and arms touched upon a second, overturned dumpster. She was moving at a supernatural speed. A casual observer would’ve had trouble following her form with the naked eye. She landed on all fours like a cat and her hands were close enough to her target to snare it.