• In an alley you found them, the alley entrance blocked by motorcycles; a low whistle from one leatherclad young man brought him out. A vampire, you could tell at once, and beyond him the tumbled bodies of recent prey; a dozen or more gang members stood around him, a common insignia on their jackets. Some, by their glassy eyes, you could tell were his bloodslaves; others, a predatory glint in their eyes, seemed like his willing accomplices, doubtless taking the wallets and valuables from those on which he fed.

    His magnet eyes looked on you, and you felt a curious lassitude come over you. Though your thoughts screamed at you to get away, you merely trembled as he approached, and circled you. "A new one," he said in a low voice. "Someone has not been careful." He stood contemplating you for a moment, then said, "Learn..." And drew a sharp thumbnail across his neck, opening a vein. Taking your head in preternaturally powerful hands, he pressed your mouth to the flowing blood, and bade you drink.

    As the blood thrummed rapturously through you, images and snatched of memory came to you as well... The tramp of sandaled feet down a road of dry-laid stone... A glimpse of moon through misty night as you drain a blue-painted savage of his blood. Not you, you realize, but him, Morias as he calls himself. A battle, mail clad knights and primitive firearms, a voice bawling for God and the Lord Protector... The creak of a ship sailing through the night Atlantic, the feeling of being gorged with blood, a thousand slaves chained in the holds providing a ready supply... A field strewn with dead and dying in blue and tattered grey, a revenant prowling amid them and giving surcease to wounded men... Living as a schochet in Brooklyn, on the blood of animals supplemented by night-time forays... The glorious 70s, when another body more or less on Brooklyn streets raised no questions.

    Morias pulled away -- the wound at his neck visibly healing in the moonlight. "You must lose these foolish inhibitions, young one," he whispered. "We are predators and they are prey; it is the natural order."

    He lowered you to sit against a wall, and gestured to his gang; in an instant, motorcycles roared away; and with a sardonic look at you, he took to the air, flitting batlike over the tenements, to the river and Brooklyn beyond.