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Cassias strolled through the broken shadows of Oldtown with singular grace, his leather-soled wingtips making no sound on the uneven pavement. The occasional beam of dingy light from an antique lamp and the glow of the smoldering tip of his clove cigarette the only proof that he existed at all. To say he lived would be a misnomer. Cassias Finch hadn’t been alive for almost a hundred years. In that time, he'd honed his stride. He’d learned to become a part of the nighttime world. It was, after all, his everything. The moon and stars his constant companions. Those celestial bodies and the scent of a hot meal. It didn’t take his remarkable senses to detect the odor.

He preferred to drain the dregs of society. ‘Civil sanitation,’ he called it. His own little contribution to mankind. Though his predilection for blood might make him a monster to the common herd, one had to admit that his taste for the indigent wasn’t likely to stifle a cure for cancer. Besides, the homeless liked to drink cheap booze. Malt liquor lingered in the blood far longer and in greater potency than fine wine. Sometimes, he could even glimpse a hint of that old thrill he’d had back in the days of prohibition. The acrid, almost fetid flavor of a depressant. He couldn’t get hammered, couldn’t even catch a proper buzz, but he fancied the sensation must be close to the thrill a former drunk gleaned from sipping O’Doul’s. A sort of placebo effect. And when he rounded the corner of First and Main, his nostrils flared. Jesus. Someone had too much blood in their alcohol system. Lucky for them, Cassias was around to help.

The inebriant was slumped into a corner behind Sharkey’s, folded in between two sacks of garbage. Trying to stay warm, no doubt. Cassias couldn’t feel the chill, couldn’t even cause steam to rise from his undead lips (hence, the camouflage of a clove), but the thin puffs of vapor rising from the huddled mass told him that his meal was still warm. Cracking his neck, he flicked the smoking butt into the gutter and strolled toward his victim with all the confidence he’d embodied entering a speakeasy when Capone still ran Chicago.

Closer up, the slouched mass smelled like pure ethanol. Perhaps the old sod had gotten ahold of some Wyoming Everclear for his last night on Earth and emptied the bottle. With a vain hope in the back of his mind, Cassias wished it was so. There was always the possibility he could feel his mind slow once more. A chance that he might not hear everything. He stooped, reaching for the battered fedora perched on the stinking mass’ head.

Before he knew what had happened, he was on his back in the trash heap with his quarry.

Though thin, the arm that had flashed out and yanked him into the refuse was surprisingly strong and lighting fast. He swung a wild haymaker, talons bared, at the shrouded bum. His arm was caught before it could connect, clamped into a deft lock, and the elbow snapped before he could so much as curse. The pain was electrifying, sending a flash of sensation up his shoulder that he was not sure until that moment he was still capable of feeling. He sucked air through his fangs, more out of long-forgotten muscle memory than need, and saw with dim horror the jaws that clamped down over his right eyeball.

They didn’t belong to a vampire. That much, he was sure of. If anything, the only remarkable thing about the jaws were the over-prominent incisors. Were-rabbit? The thought might have made him chuckle had the buckteeth not dug deep into his eye socket and pulled one half of his vision free from its housing. This time, he did try to scream, but the dull, flat head of a steel tool blocked its egress.

A hammer, his brain told him. One of those old symmetrical jobs that blacksmiths use to pound horseshoes. It was an odd thought to have as the five-pound weight crashed into his jaw, sending fragments of enamel and bone down his throat like a swallowed round of buckshot. His helpless mark had moved on to the other eye now, gnawing at his face with the fervor of a rat trying to escape a hot pail. In the last few seconds of his afterlife, Cassias Finch wondered what kind of creature could lay such a trap. What unspeakable thing lay in wait for the undead and mauled them like a starving bear?

“You get what you were after last night?” Wilber asked around a mouthful of multigrain Cheerios. Some half-chewed bits of cereal and milk spilled out of his cheeks and into his scraggly beard. Tex cocked an eyebrow and looked at him askance. Roommate or not, the picture of Wilbur dribbling breakfast down his chin in his tighty-whiteys and a stained tank top was just too trailer trash.

“Yeah,” Tex grumbled, reaching for the last beer in the fridge, “Why? You hungry?” Wilbur choked, coughed, and made a retching sound. It would have been satisfying, were Tex not sure he’d end up mopping the floor later.

“Goddammit, Tex! You know I’m a vegan. That’s disgusting.” Wilbur’s objection made Tex rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger before pressing the cold can to his brow. His headache was bad this morning. It’d be better after he had something to eat.

“First of all, you aren’t a vegan. Vegans don’t drink milk. Second, why are you getting all bent out of shape? It isn’t as though I ate your face.” Wilbur gagged again. Once he was done with his theatrical fit, he tried to level Tex with a withering glare. A tall order for a guy in his skivvies.

“I don’t drink the milk. The cereal just doesn’t taste right without it. And you know that kinda shit freaks me out. You and your damned freezer. I swear. They’re gonna have to invent a new classification of sick just for you.” Tex chuckled, pulled the tab off the Silver Bullet, and downed half. It wasn’t good, but after he swished it around a bit, he couldn’t taste manscara anymore.

“Listen, pard,” Tex drawled, “I like you. I do. You’re an alright guy, but don’t think I hold you in any higher esteem than the package of hotdogs I keep in the back of that freezer you hate so much. You’re a renewable food source. A once-a-month buffet I go to great lengths to keep from becoming a pot-roast. Hell, you ain’t even all that pleasing to the palate. You’re greasy, Wilbur. Greasy, chewy, and hard to butcher. You ever think about that?” Wilbur’s attempt at a stare down turned into a hangdog expression. He knew the particulars of their arrangement. He just wasn’t happy to admit the details. “God love you, buddy. You’re the salt of the Earth. But this ol’ boy needs some meat to go with his salt.”

“You tried mutton?” Tex groaned. Yeah, he’d tried gamier flesh. It wasn’t the same. Once you got the craving, that was it. No Beyond Burger would ever cut it again.

“Go back to watching your damned cartoons and let me be,” Tex snarled, “I got to get ready for work in a minute and your bellyaching ain’t doing me no favors.” Wilbur grunted, resigned to his place in the house as a packet of stale bologna.

“Well, you better git if you’re gittin’. You were supposed to be at ol’ lady Wagner’s at nine. It’s nine-o-eight by my watch.” Shit! Tex slammed the rest of his Coors Lite, tugged on his boots, and headed for the door. “Might wanna change shirts first, though.” Tex looked down at his flannel. Shit and Shinola. He hadn’t bothered to change before passing out last night.