Rumsfeld moved through the great city like a phantom, slipping between streets half-drowned in mist, his presence dissolving into shadow before any wandering eyes could register him.


    The city slept; only a few restless souls stirred behind thick, hazy glass, lanterns flickering like dim sentinels against the night.


    Elsewhere, drunkards staggered from gin houses, piss-stained and slack-limbed, muttering half-formed prayers to an unhearing god.


    He ignored them.


    There was no need for hurry—yet.


    The night belonged to him.


    The river lay before him, its oily skin black as ink, its broad and deliberate form gliding past the sleeping city with an eternal patience that mocked his hunger. Along its banks sprawled the docklands—a maze of warehouses, piers, and moored vessels, some abandoned, others waiting to bear their burdens with the coming day.


    Morning was still only a rumor.


    The thought of it sent a slow, dull ache through his bones. The early sun would not kill him, but it would sap his strength, prolonged exposure reducing him to a frail husk until night reclaimed the sky.


    And he could not afford that—not now.


    He needed shelter.


    But more than that, he needed to feed.


    The hunger clawed at him, raw and consuming, eroding the thin wall of restraint he had so carefully maintained over decades. In the northern moors, it had been more straightforward. There, he had survived on game—deer, hare, even wild dogs when desperation demanded it. He had kept himself weak by choice, lingering in decay rather than embracing the monstrous inevitability of what he could become.


    But here?


    Here, the great city swarmed with life.


    Filth. Sickness. Desperation.


    Soon, the streets would swarm with the clatter of carts and the stench of human industry.


    Here, he could feed properly. And if he fed properly, the transformation he had long resisted would finally be complete.


    This is necessary.


    The thought came unbidden, unchallenged.


    Yes. Let Reginald see what the Blackthorns have made of us.


    Ahead, a lone figure stumbled along the cobbled street, a man deep in his cups, swaying like a marionette with half-cut strings.


    Rumsfeld inhaled.


    The man reeked of gin and sweat, his blood sluggish with drink but warm beneath the surface, his heartbeat a slow, steady drum—ripe for the taking.


    But there was another scent.


    A woman.


    Nearby, in the mouth of an alley, he heard her laughter—low, knowing, tinged with something brittle. A man was with her. The quiet rustle of fabric, the soft grunt of exertion—he knew the sounds well enough.


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    His lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile.


    Three bodies. Three offerings.


    It would be enough.


    With the barest crouch, he sprang.


    The drunkard didn’t even have time to scream before Rumsfeld seized him by the throat, yanking him into the alley. The force sent the man’s head cracking against the stone wall. He twitched once, then went limp, stunned but still breathing.


    Good.


    No artistry here—just efficiency. He would not feed on this one—this one was to stoke the fire.


    Holding him up with one hand, Rumsfeld braced his other against the man’s forehead and tore his throat open with a single jerk.


    The blood bloomed in the dark, hot and coppery, the violent spray drenching him.


    Rumsfeld groaned, the warmth washing over him, igniting something deep in his marrow. The scent, the taste—the sheer ecstasy of it sent him reeling.


    It was not enough.


    Not nearly enough.


    He let the man slide down the wall, still twitching, his life draining out in pitiful gurgles.


    The lovers had gone still.


    The woman leaned against the wall, her hands braced, her partner''s grunts syncopated with the slap of flesh. She hadn''t yet registered what had happened, but her hips were frozen mid-motion. The fog of pleasure still clung to her expression, but beneath it, creeping fast, was the dawning awareness that something was wrong.


    Rumsfeld watched, detached, as the man finished with a shudder. Pathetic. Human coupling had always been a dance of desperation—clumsy, fleeting, a spark struck against the void. He''d known it once and craved it. Now, it seemed as nothing more than crude drawings on a cave wall.


    The man, still inside her, stared at Rumsfeld with bleary, unfocused eyes. His expression hung slack-jawed with drunken confusion.


    He had not yet processed what stood before him.


    Rumsfeld tilted his head, amused.


    I am an Angel of Death, he thought. That, my friend, is what your addled mind fails to comprehend.


    The moment stretched—then shattered.


    The woman’s eyes flicked down to the body at his feet, to the puddle of blood spreading across the stones, to the thingstanding before her—black-eyed, soaked in gore.


    Her mouth fell open.


    A single word, barely a whisper, slipped from her lips.


    “No.”


    Rumsfeld moved.


    With inhuman speed, he tore the man from her, spun him around, and plunged his hand into his chest.


    His fingers curled beneath the sternum, wrapping around the still-beating heart.


    The man gasped, his post-coital haze evaporating into pure terror as the pain struck him all at once.


    Rumsfeld squeezed.


    Blood erupted from the man’s mouth in a thick, gushing torrent, and Rumsfeld caught it—drank it in heavy, greedy swallows, moaning low in his throat as the warmth flooded him.


    The woman screamed.


    He silenced it with a single look.


    With a final crush, he burst the man''s heart like an overripe fruit, and the body crumpled.


    Rumsfeld exhaled heavily.


    He turned to her now, licking his lips.


    Her hands trembled as she pulled down the hem of her dress, as if preserving her modesty might protect her from the horror she now faced.


    Pity.


    He took a slow step forward.


    She backed against the wall, her breath shallow and frantic.


    "Please," she whispered, palms raised as if her flesh could deflect damnation.


    Rumsfeld smiled, his fangs glistening in the moonlight.


    Rumsfeld crowded her against the wall, blood-slick fingers hiking her skirt. His hips pressed hers—a pantomime of the act he’d just witnessed.


    Nothing stirred. No heat, no pulse of desire. Only the hunger, vast and yawning.


    Try, hissed the ghost of his humanity. Remember.


    As she struggled in his arms, he felt it—the pure terror coursing through her veins, spiking her blood with the chemicals that heightened the rush, that made it sublime.


    He pressed his mouth to her throat and bit deep.


    Ecstasy roared through him as her blood hit his tongue—sweet, vital, alive—but his human desire remained inert. A statue. A tomb.


    Her body bucked against him.


    Her heartbeat hammered wildly, erratically, as he drank her down, her warmth filling him, strengthening him, transforming him.


    Yes.


    This was what he had denied himself for too long.


    The agony of starvation unraveled, peeling away the last of his restraint.


    And with it—


    The last of his humanity.


    He pulled back, panting, his lips stained black with blood.


    She twitched in his arms as death neared.


    He laid her down gently, brushing the hair from her face.


    She would return.


    He would find her.


    Guide her.


    Teach her how to feed.


    How to serve him.


    After thirty years, he would no longer be alone.


    As she took her last mortal breath, he leaned to whisper in her ear.


    "I must leave you for now, but we will meet again… and then you will see how beautifully we rot."


    Dawn''s first blade cut the horizon as he melted into the shadows. Behind him, the alley stewed in carnage—a poem written in viscera, its stanzas clear.