The body slumped against the alley wall like a discarded suit. Lila pressed her lips together until the last trace of his blood soaked into her tongue. The taste was oil and copper and something sour, an old disappointment.

This one, she didn’t remember his name, had sweated as she mounted him, pleaded a little, gasped at his shame amid the trash surrounding them. The first time he hired her, he had tried to impress her with a roll of bills, thick-thumbed and trembling. That night, she infected his soul with a need for her.

The second time, she’d let him talk. Blathering about her beauty and power as she drank freely from him. When he climaxed, every time, he praised her as a lover. The hooks were deep into his spirit, at work, at home, even fucking his wife, he couldn’t get his mind off her, Lila the black goddess.

The third, he didn’t get to speak at all. When they were dying, Lila preferred it that way. Quiet, respectful, surrendering their lives for her. The foolish hope of returning as an undead living in eternal nirvana. Let them hope, but they had best keep their mouth closed.

Voices bored her. Victims were all the same, unless they screamed.

The alley stank: spilled beer, urine, the greasy slick of old dumpsters, cigarette butts mashed to pulp on the cobblestones. But those human stenches faded behind the sharp sweetness of hot blood, which burned in her head and belly.

Snaking out her tongue, she licked her mouth clean, careful not to smudge her lip color. Loving the drama created by her red mouth, the way it commanded attention, the way men and women watched her lips when she spoke.

Her heels, black, needle-thin, designed to break a man’s heart or neck, made a crisp sound as she stood. Street light from the far end of the alley caught the curve of her calf, flashed off the single garnet at her throat. The stone was centuries old.

However, Lila was older, neckless, and she wore her dresses tight and short, and her hair in a long, loose curtain of waves. The curly locks fell over one eye. The police would find her client in the morning, if anyone cared.

But, considering what a pathetic, wretched loser he was, she doubted anyone would. Telling her all about his wife last time, in between his praise of her, about the arguments, late hours, and his string of secrets. Failures, such as him, briefcases, tired eyes, wedding rings hidden in pockets, were always so hungry and so shameful.

Feeling his blood pool in her veins, she flexed her long fingers, and the heat of it rose on her skin, a slow fever. Deep ebony skin. That’s what the magazines would call it. That was, if they could see her stripped bare, framed in neon or moonlight.

By necessity, she preferred dark places out of sight of prying eyes.

Alleyways and hotel corridors, dim lit rooms where nothing beautiful lasted past midnight. The man at her feet didn’t seem attractive at all, not anymore. With his dead eyes rolled up white. If she’d let him, he’d have begged more.

With her tongue pressed to sharp teeth, Lila smiled and knelt beside him one last time to search his pockets. Taking the cash, the small phone, the ugly silver watch that pinched his wrist. She left the little gold ring in his palm.

Souvenirs didn’t interest her; she’s a vampire, not a serial killer. Though the cops would never understand what they are hunting.

In the distance, someone laughed in the street outside. A rough, male sound, mean, careless, but not afraid. If they wandered this way and found her, they would only see a woman checking her makeup in a splintered pane of glass, not the truth.

The predator and prey, side by side, one emptied by the other. Standing, she adjusted her dress and used the dead man’s pocket square to wipe away the last drop of red from her chin. Tossing it, the kerchief settled on his chest.

For the sheer love of the feast, she’d drained him slowly. And the senseless bastard knew it, too; suffering always left a taste. What did he think about, right before the end? Not his wife, probably. Not the money. Sometimes she glimpsed their thoughts when she drank deep enough. Regret was common. Relief, too—sickening and sweet, similar to maraschino cherries in cheap drinks. Profoundly, she hated them for it.

The victims, after they stopped moving, were barely an afterthought. More often than not, she never considered them again.

Lila stepped over the corpse and walked to the mouth of the alley. Her hips swayed with each step, the way she liked, deliberate and sure. Pavement still glistened from earlier rain, reflecting the blinking neon sign of a club two doors down—blue, pink, blue, pink, a rhythm in the night.

Tilting her head, Lila posed in silhouette for a moment, letting her hair fall right. If a living man saw her now, he would think of sex. No, he wouldn’t think of teeth or blood, or how she could crush his windpipe with one swarthy hand.

A car crawled by, engine rattling, headlights scraping the edge of the alley and throwing shadows up the walls. Calm and collected, Lila waited, lips parted, eyes half-lidded with pleasure. The interest he showed in her felt good. The city buzzed around her; she soaked it in, lazy and high on fresh blood.

Full from her feed, no, never. Not enough life or blood, she craved more. Perhaps, she could’ve stopped, but the night hummed with possibilities, and her thirst always came back.

Only for a heartbeat did she feel the other thing. Loneliness, slow as smoke. Once, she remembered tenderness: a child’s hand in hers, a lover’s soft eyelid, a heartbeat she’d pressed her ear to long ago. She forced those memories down, deep and tight. They served no purpose here. She hunted now and would always hunt.

She straightened her necklace and strode onto the sidewalk, leaving her spent client slumped in the dark. His blood still burned in her mouth—a little sticky, a little bitter, not the best nor the worst.

The city would swallow him by morning. Someone would clean up, someone would forget, and she would move on. Her phone vibrated in her purse. She ignored it. Most of her customers called, begged, or made appointments.

Tonight, she’d choose a new toy. So, she played the whore.

Smoking and talking, clubbing men clustered at the curb, searching for any excuse. She watched them from the corner and smiled if they met her eyes. None of them would dare approach her yet.

Yes, Lila enjoyed the waiting, the hunt. How the anticipation made her skin tingle and her thighs slick. When she felt their hungry eyes, it made her thirsty and lustful. She let her tongue flick over of her teeth, once, and vanished into the next alley, searching for something new.

She left a mark on the world with every kill. Someday someone might notice. Perhaps they wouldn’t. Underneath the lights, the city felt alive, throbbing, ugly, and irresistible. Lila walked straight through it, hungry already. Every step drove her heels into the pavement, steady and ruthless, until she disappeared again, somewhere deeper into the dark.

Tom Harris hunched behind the wheel, shoulders slouching more with every minute. The sedan rattled as he crept down the avenue, exhaust and neon and last night’s takeout all trapped inside the car.

With the sleeves pinching his wrists, his suit felt wrong, the collar damp from sweat. He yanked at his tie, but it only loosened a little. The clock on the dashboard blinked: 12:34 a.m. He shouldn’t be here. Should be home, not out in the streets cruising a ... he didn’t want to say it. Not aloud or in his own head.

Red and blue lights from the Pink Panther flickered across the glass. On the other side, a club called Bliss bled yellow and green into the night. He watched the sidewalk, eyes darting. Nobody needs the glossy girls in their browser history.

Just worn faces, long shadows, the city’s leftovers. Tom felt his glasses fog over again. So, he tweaked them with one finger, but they slid right back to an angle. Nothing he wore fit right—never had.

A bus bench flashed by, graffiti red and green, painted over the faded ad. Watching nothing, men in hoodies slouched near the curb. Tom kept his windows rolled up tight. The car inched forward, tires hissing on wet pavement.

Why are you here? Pimps and thieves, he thought. And so, he rechecked his wallet. The bills were sorted, crisp, and counted three times back at the office. Always organized, always prepared. For what?

At that point, he stole a glance at his wedding ring. It stared back, blind, a little too shiny in the streetlights. He hesitated, twisted it off, and slid it into his pocket. The metal left a pale circle at the base of his finger.

He caught his own reflection in the rearview: comb-over thinning, glasses crooked, tie skewed, suit rumpled. He appeared exactly as every other sad man out there, except a little more pathetic.

Or a little more desperate

His chest cramped. He dug a thumb into the knot of his tie, pulling it loose for real this time. It wasn’t a relief. His skin crawled. He wanted out of the car, out of himself, out of the loop of nights much the same as this one. Office days when he’s always wishing for something. Something sharp. Something alive.

The road coiled through a block of burned-out pawn shops and quick-loan places. Tom’s mouth tasted of old, green pennies. He wiped his palms against his pants, but they only got wetter. He pictured his wife, asleep with her hands folded over her book, peaceful.

He’d told her he needed to check on a client, late-night forms. Never the truth. He never told anyone the truth —not even himself.

This was the bad part of town. Did he want something bad to happen to him? Some nights he wondered. Some nights he parked and sat, listening to music turned down, daydreaming of lost girls and sharp women and the final, lucky accident.

Nothing ever happened.

Usually, he turned around and took the long, boring way home. But not tonight.

He slowed at a stop sign barely hanging from its pole. Beyond the intersection, only the sigh of a broken streetlight and the chemical flicker of a liquor store. He rolled forward, scanning left and right. Waiting for a miracle. Or a monster.

She stood on sidewalk, painted into the darkness by a single, nasty yellow bulb. Tall. Black as midnight, but nothing blank about her—she glowed, as though she pulled the streetlight all into herself and held it there.

Her dress was red. No—black, but the way it fit, every shadow made it seem red, black again, and confused his eyes. Her hair hung long, loose, wavy as ink spilled down glass. He couldn’t see her eyes at first.

He braked without meaning to. His heart stumbled. The tip of his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. She wore heels that made her legs go on forever and a necklace, or something old and dark at her throat.

Like she was dressed for a party nobody else got invited to. Tom’s hands drummed on the steering wheel. He didn’t realize he’d stopped moving.

The woman turned.

She didn’t look impatient or bored; the other girls outside the clubs did. She stood perfectly still. She stared right at him. Tom forced himself to breathe. His glasses fogged again. He smeared them clean with his tie, quick, someone might be watching.

“What’s up?” A tender, sexy voice asked in his brain. Shaking it off, he continued to ogle the girl.

She shifted her weight, and that tiny motion was elegant. For a second, Tom forgot everything else. Deadlines. Mortgage. The way his boss talked down to him. The way his wife smelled in the morning—coffee and soap, never perfume. Possibly, he sought to be devoured. The thought hit him so fast he almost laughed.

Or puked out after he’d been consumed.

He remembered the money—again. He checked his wallet in his lap; bills were still there —perfect. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth. He tried to tell himself she was another working girl, cheaper than a divorce, safer than a gun, but in his head, he couldn’t believe it. She was something else. The word “alive” jammed in his throat, too big and sticky to swallow.

With his foot heavy on the brake, Tom edged the car closer. He watched her in the rearview, out the passenger window. Still there. Still gazing at him, he thought for a moment he should open the door and run. He wished to grab her, pin her hands, and get lost in the violence of her. The two desires tangled up together until he couldn’t tell them apart.

Muted by distance, he heard a siren, the clatter of bottles rolling on the ground. The world kept going, unaware, but everything in Tom’s body had stopped. He watched her—her skin, her mouth, her dark eyes promising nothing. But he felt she was waiting for him to act. Sweat curled down his ribs, soaking the shirt he couldn’t wait to throw away.

She stood there, patient.

The opposite of every anxious, hopped-up girl he’d seen on these corners. Comfortable, relaxed, in her environment. As if she owned the block, the area, the whole damn city. And for a moment, he pondered if he was the prey, not the hunter.

He licked his lips. He wrapped his hand around the steering wheel and resisted the urge to honk or wave or do anything to break the spell. Inside his chest, a noise built, thin and sharp, half fear, part joy, and mixed with lust. He hungered for her to climb right into the car and carve him open, spill his secrets all over the seat.

When the light changed—from red to green, he didn’t notice when—he let the car roll forward, a snail’s pace, deliberate, coming closer to her. She waited, hips cocked, one heel braced on the curb. He rolled past, a little, stopped again. This was it. He could still turn back, but nothing human in him hankered to do so.

The thought hit him, she was a question, and he was the answer, stupid and obvious. He watched her under the streetlight, watched her watching him. She smiled, or it might have been the shadow.

Either way, it was for him.

He started to reach for the door handle, thought better. He wanted her to come to him. The repetition in his head: come to me, come to me, please, please don’t disappear. The city kept roaring outside, but inside the sedan, everything shrank down to the two of them, locked together by possibility.

Tom’s throat closed. His glasses slid sideways again. His heart knocked hard against his ribs, out of sync, too slow, too fast, impossible. The car idled. Neon flared and rolled across her dress, making her shimmer. His hands ached for her.

Sweating, staring, he sat there until the story moved forward at last.