Streaking through the skyline, she glances about feeling the chill of the air it is her favorite time of night close to dawning of a new day yet still dark, she's hungry and hunting. The easing through the backstreets and alleys her sense of smell and hearing heightened since the turning alerts her to the many different sounds of the night and the stale beer spilled in the streets its Mardi Gras here in New Orleans the hunt will be quick. She rests a top a shadowed rooftop closing her eyes and listening instensly. She opens her eyes as she hears muffled words and stumbling steps. Before her eyes sharp and quick as they are pick out the lost soul she hears the heart beat slow and rhthymic raising her hunger to new heights. She watches as the figure approaches her, the body tall and stout swaggering from side to side barely keeping balance, she smiles a man who has decided to tempt fate this night in the back alleys.
As I continue to watch him draw near reflections of the nights events, many of nt kind will be ignorant and take full advantage of the freedom of Fat Tuesday and will feed in the open. "I despise them for what they are and what they do, no shame in who they take innocent or not".....yet what am I, who am I to place judgement for am I not one of them"? A memory flashes in her mind......"I was once innocent, naive just a young girl".......she shivers, "I am no longer that innocent young girl that was many many years ago." Eyes flickering as I notice the continuing movement in the alley my prey draws nears to where I am perched, body becoming rigid as crouching lower like a cat stalking its prey. Laughing to myself "Oh Mon Ami, you have just walked your last mile!" Just as I am about to launch myself down to feed my hunger I sense something else. Someone like me, not just of my kind but as if made from the same as I was made, a kindred soul family in some odd sense as if the one who made me made this one too! Looking around yet sees nothing yet still sensing the presence. Feeling the change in the air, dawn is fastly approaching I must feed. Brushing off this rude interruption I swoop down to my awaiting meal.
With stealth like movements it is nothing to engulph this drunken fool into my arms, cradling him like a child my teeth already at full length pierce his tender flesh. The bitter hot sweet fluid rushing into my mouth so satisfying.....Cradling him deeper into me my arms wrapped deep around his body I am lost in the feed my body and mind aware to his full life span sensing his sadness of a loss. Someone he loved so deeply that this was no accident for him to be in this alley this night he wanted to die......but this past is not of the present but of the past, a past he cannot understand yet feels every sense as if he lived it himself. I slow my drink to better interpret the exchange.......yes this is not the present but a past life a different era one all to familiar. As I envisioned this life of his understanding his pain a name reaches to the surface. A look of horror and pain crosses my face as I quickly release this mortal. Looking deep into the face of this stranger questions come to light, "Can it be so"? "That name unspoken for ages nearly forgotten", "Angelique" whispers low across his lips. "Why does he speak my name, why does he have my memories, who is he"
