A Midnight Hunt

Kasimir could feel the thirst pulling at him. He’d gone without for longer than normal, and now he was paying for it. He’d been distracted today, and it had nearly cost him his quarry. A barmaid cut herself on a knife, the scent of blood in the air pulled his attention away from the man he now stalks down the winding side streets of the town. He’d made his escape then, the man slipping out the back door and out into the darkness. The man was easy enough to follow, haste making him careless, his panicked heartbeat a siren song to the blood starved dhampir. As much as Kasimir hated his curse, he couldn’t deny it was occasionally useful. His prey glances up and down the street before ducking into a shadowed alleyway behind a building; a butcher, from the smell of it. As Kasimir approaches the shop, he can hear the man fumbling for some keys, standing before a cellar door in the ground by the butcher. We can’t have you getting away just yet, can we? Kasimir thinks, muttering an incantation as he raises a hand from beneath his cloak. As Kasimir clenches his fist tight, the man grunts in pain as his muscles lock up and the keys fall from his stiff and unmoving fingers. Kasimir approaches the paralyzed man quietly, the only sounds the squelch of his boots in the mud and the man’s frantic prayers to whatever dark gods he worships. Taking hold of the man’s shirt collar, Kasimir ends the blood curse holding the man in place, before throwing him to the ground. Forgetting his mission in his thirst, he pins the man to the ground before pulling his head back and sinking his fangs into the man’s neck, his scream of pain echoing into the night.