Of course, what they don’t tell you when you’re immortal is that after all the years, decades, and eons that you get to watch go by, the thing which drives you to insanity is not that you’re sanguinivorous. It’s not The Hunger. It’s not the adaptation to new technology and jargon. It’s not the thousand revolutions around the sun you rarely get to see.

It’s the boredom.

It’s the brain-clawing, mind-numbing repetition and rote mixed with the inescapable notion that all things will crumble at your feet. The world will rise and fall, like lungs breathing. It will be alive, which means, eventually, it will be dead. It’s really just a matter of how. Would it be war? A mass extinction event? All were cards on the table, but tonight would be something far, far simpler.

It would be Sayre, and his fangs.

In truth, the hunt would do little to fight back the boredom. It was something to do. Something he was good at. A well-placed shadow. A distracted human. All he had to do was be ready, and the rest would fall into place.

It always fell into place.

Did Sayre really need to stalk this man down the cobblestone street on a dark, foggy night? No. 

Did he have anything else to do? No. 

Did he care? Also, very much no.

Sayre stuffed his hands into the pockets of his slate-gray, woolen frock coat. It sat heavy and warm over the dark gray plaid suit and black cravat that protected him against the whipping breeze that slapped from the corners of brick buildings. The fog and moths danced in the gaslight of street lamps, whose haloes flicked calmly, and other-wordly. Dozens of them lined down the street, blinking out-of-sync, and Sayre couldn’t help but feel like some creature was watching him. It would have made him chuckle had the wind not ripped against him, filling him with cold air. A pluck of his fingers lifted the red knitted scarf higher and he tucked his chin into the warmth and hid his fangs. With the brim of his hat tilted, he was nothing but shadow. If he angled it just right, he could hide his stormy sapphire eyes behind its shadow and peel back his lip so he was all at once nothing but darkness and fangs. A visage of death.

Tonight, he gave no such effort. This hunt was a lazy stroll to kill time. To kill boredom.

Sayre twitched his nose: honed and homing in on the man, but, in the fog and the stench of the sewers and piles, and piles of horseshit—Dear fuck! Why was there always horseshit? And why was it always the foulest smell?—he couldn’t really follow his mark. In the end, it didn’t matter.

If Sayre wanted, he could sniff that man out from a busy street. If he had a taste of his blood, he could’ve tracked him across the city. Across the continent. It was a gift all of his kind had, but his was noted as the most potent.

The Man He Was Following turned a corner, and so did Sayre. Another gas-lit street. More cobble-stone. More fog. More sounds of their shoes against the stones—the man’s some shoe; Sayre’s a boot. More fucking horseshit. 

The man stopped; Sayre mirrored. He stuffed a hand into his breast pocket and pulled a rolled cigarette from an ivory and wood case. He tapped it rhythmically three times, before he stuffed it on his lip, struck a match, and inhaled. Smoke filled Sayre’s lungs. Filled his nose. He welcomed the burn. His eyes, however, never dropped from his mark. Before him the man grumbled and leaned a hand into the metal railing of a staircase, twisting his body and foot to shift something from his shoe. When he stood, grinding his toes into the street, Sayre took a second draw. Then, the man was on the move once more. And, so was Sayre.

Down the street they went. City denizens had already long hunkered down for the night, huddled close to the fireplace and pot-stoves. Sayre caught glimpses of this in the windows they passed. A street of rowhomes, silent. Inside, they were probably reading some penny dreadful—something which poked at what he was, and to his great amusement, came rather close.

The others like him whom Sayre had met over the years had various opinions about those books: ranging from hilarity to absolute fury. Sayre, on the other hand, did not care. Honestly, it made things easier. The lounges that bloomed from those volunteering were a great boon. It reminded him of the days he could go to cook-shops and pick up food before heading to the ale-house to meet with his friends…when he was human. The novelty of on-demand blood wore off after the first few years, and now that it was 1880-whatever (honestly Sayre didn’t care about the years anymore), going to a lounge was not nearly as enjoyable as going to a restaurant, or a club, or an anything. Sayre had been alive—well, you know—for hundreds of years, and yet, the hunger was always the same, the hunt was always the same, the sex, the nights, the days, the never-ending cycle, the slow-constant-march-onwards—it was always the same. 

Being immortal was supposed to be fun, and yet, Sayre was bored out of his fucking mind.

When The Man He Was Following turned and ducked into a shop, Sayre curled his back to the wall and loitered. He relished every long inhale. The burn in his lungs. Others might have thought him wasting an opportunity, but Sayre was grateful for the diminishing odds. Please, he thought, please try to make a run for it. Hide. Find company. Surprise me.

Sayre flicked his cigarette away as he climbed the couple stairs to the shop. He slipped in without bothering to read the sign, a mistake he was about to regret deeply. 

The shop was small, cozy. At first glance (smell), it was an apothecary and general store. A great wall of mismatched drawers stretched from floor to ceiling behind a fine wooden counter (something more akin to a slice of a tree), a metallic, black and golden cash register sat alone in the middle. Around it, little jars of plants and things. The rest of the shop were shelves of books, and skulls, and dried flowers, herbs, and trinkets. Shelves were bulging and sagging from the immense weight of it all.

Sayre didn’t bother taking inventory, or notice the black cat sleeping atop a bookshelf, lost and indifferent, except for the flick of a tail. Instead, Sayre walked across the stone floor, as any normal, human customer might have. He thought about poking a book on the table just to make it seem like he was really shopping, but who was he kidding? He was bored, and more importantly, he was hungry.

He felt his jaw ache. His stomach started to growl and roar, demanding sustenance as much as his soul was yearning for it. The Hunger could be overpowering. It could be perverse and macabre. It could be a thief—robbing him of everything. It demanded payment, and it only wanted one currency.

Sayre tilted his head. Eyes lost to the shadows of his brimmed hat. His lips peeled back over elongated fangs. His hand, bare at the moment, but normally gloved, reached. He didn’t care if the man screamed, if he thrashed about the room. He didn’t even care about boredom anymore. Now…now he was hungry.

The Man He Was Following had a jerk in his shoulders, like an alarm rang through his bones. He turned around, staring Sayre dead in the eyes. The man gasped. The recognition was inescapable, and instantaneous.

“I paid my dues!” he shuddered, far more angry than terrified.

“I don’t care,” said Sayre—a voice like midnight and velvet.

The Man He Was Following lifted a pointed finger. “You have no right. No right! I will tell—”

Sayre stepped closer. “Tell them what?” His outreached hand twisted, and the man lifted to the tips of his toes, magically held aloft—another of Sayre’s more unique powers. 

“I paid my dues!”

“I—don’t—care.”

Rifling through a jacket pocket, the man pulled out a token of wrapped wicker and dried plants. A rabbit foot charm dangled from it. “See! See! I am protected!”

Sayre scoffed. Of course this man had a token: an item for which the city’s rich and powerful paid copious amounts of money to various witches and soothsayers, and elders of dens to make sure that they were never dinner, or breakfast, or occasional spontaneous brunch (a well-made Bloody Mary was enjoyable to all—especially when it came with fresh Mary). At the moment, Sayre was aching for more of a midnight snack. He tilted his head up a little, piercing, stormy sapphire eyes examining the token. There was no fear in his expression. If anything, there was a twinge of confusion. The same face an adult makes when a child brings them their page of crayon spaghetti doodles, and with a smile and gentle voice asks, ‘what is it?’

Sayre didn’t bother with such pleasantries. He blinked and sighed, and shook his head. “Whose?”

His cheeks flushed with indignation. “Does it matter!” The Man He Was Following huffed, a petulant child told ‘no,’ again. 

“No,” Sayre said slowly with the pull of his lips into a menacing grin. 

The Man He Was Following twitched to bark his adamance, but the words he had prepped in his throat faded into a gasp. His final thoughts crushed and swallowed as Sayre lurched forward and dug into his throat. Fangs and teeth against the trachea. A classic move amongst fanged predators. The man was dead within seconds, and as Sayre moved for another bite—this one to pierce the jugular—a foul current rippled across his tongue. 

Sayre dropped the body to the ground. It crumbled with a horrible thud! and crack!. A thumb lifted to his lips to pull the blood from it, to compare the sight to the horrific taste. His tongue flicked in disgust.

This happened on occasion. Sometimes, Sayre could properly judge a wine by its label. He had rushed and found someone rotten. Inside, and out. A fact which Sayre would soon find out, just not at that moment; for as he stood there with his dark glare, and dark hat, and dark suit, and dark intentions, and fingers to his bloodied lips…the door behind the counter opened and out stepped a woman with pulled back hair, fine dress and bustle, dark lines of charcoal about her eyes, and a glance that rolled over Sayre to the dead man on her floor staining it red.

There was a long silence. The air sat heavy and burdened with unease. Uncertainty.

She stepped forward. Her eyes glued to the body. Hands lifted.

Sayre braced for the scream. He braced for the sudden fling of his body to hurl himself to her, to silence her, but instead a: “Shit,” fell out of her mouth, soft and quiet, and annoyed.

Sayre didn’t say a word. He had figured some sort of complication would arise from his lackadaisical attitude, but wasn’t really intending on feasting twice. Though, his first attempt at dinner was unsatisfactory. Absolutely zero compliments to the primordial, genetic chef.

Another long moment rolled onward, counted by the soft ticks of a clock.

“Well?” she said, gesturing to the body; “Are you going to clean up, or do you intend to waste all of him?”

Sayre remained silent, stunned by her lack of response. This added to her annoyance.

She rolled her eyes and leaned back through the door with a, “Hazel! Get the mop!” before she stepped towards the dead body, the growing puddle of blood, and Sayre. With a lift of the hem of her skirt, she pushed the tip of her boot into one still arm. “Do you know how difficult it is to remove blood from grout?” She flicked a scathing gaze to him. “Damn near troublesome,” she grumbled.

Sayre tried to speak, but his jaw was locked shut. Forced shut. Spelled shut.

The proprietor let out a grunt with the shake of her head, then moved for the door. “Well, pick him up!” she ordered and swung a hand for the hallway behind her.

Sayre wanted to scoff at the audacity, at the idea that someone could order him around, but his hand jittered away from him. His shoulder jerked. Each joint fought, but each one succumbed, and soon the dead body was in his arms, flung over his shoulder, and his legs were moving. Following.