C1 The Hunt (1)

A mysterious figure was seen perched at the very top of the high-rise building, and the people walking below appeared to him to be no bigger than ants.

The road below was congested, and the traffic lights resembled the longest, most vibrant, and headless snake he'd ever seen. It slithered around corners and forked off into alleys and other obscured areas of the city.

His perceptions were sharpened, and he was pushing himself to the limit, almost to the point of exhaustion.

His veins were pulsating and throbbing so strongly that it was almost possible to see them through the pale white skin that covered his scalp.

His kind, in contrast to other creatures of the night and the dead, possessed the ability to make simultaneous use of all five senses without encountering any difficulty in doing so.

This ability allowed them to gather information about their surroundings much more quickly. It was in part due to the sharpness of his sense of smell that he was able to zero in on the origin of the sounds emanating from a structure that was situated five blocks away.

He gave a gleeful grin. His mouth opened as if to take a whiff of the air with his fangs bared. This night had a feel that was almost identical to the atmosphere of an ordinary evening. The mischievous side of him had an unquenchable desire to stir things up – to churn up the placid waters and to challenge the established order.

He took a long, deep breath for the umpteenth time and his face scrunched up as he attempted to concentrate hard past the noises of vehicles and heavy machinery that strongly disturbed his eardrums. Regardless, he dug deeper—allowing his concentration to get past the sounds of music from car stereos and get past the sounds of more than a million people who populated the city of New York as he had always known it to be.

He repeated the process whenever his focus got distracted and up his effort to get past all of these interruptions in order to locate the response to his unanswered questions.

‘The caliber of this evening keeps reaching new pinnacles of excellence.’ Nathan mused to himself, even though he would never run out of food – of blood, regardless of whether or not it was pure, he knew that he would never go hungry. Even someone who had just been bitten for the first time would be overcome with emotion in such a setting, and he wasn't one of the unholy ones who could be considered a newbie.

For him, the entirety of the city was analogous to Walmart in the sense that it provided him with a plethora of choices that he simply couldn't pass up.

He had no intention of sugarcoating the situation, but he couldn't believe how many centuries had passed. Five hundred thirty-three years to be exact.

As he focused his maroon-framed eyes on the block he was scouting, he could smell virtually anything; in fact, he could smell more than anything.

He clenched his fists around his head as he tried to pick out the one scent he was after from among the myriad of fragrances that were swirling around his hooked and pointed nose.

He felt himself wince in pain as he did this.

The fact that there was a brisk wind blowing through the city in October, which caused his trench coat to flap behind him as he walked, did not help the situation one bit.

The smell of blood was immediately overpowered by the smell of human perspiration, soap, feces, and urine that emanated from the humans who were running by—a perfectly normal anticipation for the species with the lowest genetic potential that has ever existed.

Nathan turned his head away and pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to stop the wave of nausea that was making him jumpy.

The putrid smell of humanity that permeated most of downtown New York caused him to retch and feel the urge to throw up, he hated humans even more than they deserved to be his next meal.

In normal circumstances, it was not known for vampires to experience the compulsion to retch or throw up.

There was one thing that he had always liked once he had sniffed so hard and if he was able to smell past their numerous stench, it was the rich smell of the life-giving fluid, which was something that he and his kind lacked in great quantity.

Nathan was a picky eater who gave careful consideration to the foods he consumed in order to limit the number of mourners who would be attracted to his wake. In spite of the fact that he was a maverick and a rogue, he would be putting himself in danger if he consumed the same things that other vampires fed on.

That would put him in a precarious situation in which he could be easily murdered by just anyone. He had strict preferences and high standards as a predator.

Additionally, he was not a part of any of the vampire gangs that existed.

After having to fend for himself for a considerable amount of time, he had reached the point where he had developed the skills necessary to become proficient in both hunting alone and spending his days without the need for the company of another person. As a result, he was in a position to increase his life span and reduce the frequency of his binge eating, all in an effort to avoid drawing the attention of people he did not wish to associate with him.

While he stared at the ever-increasing traffic of the city, his magical and supernatural senses combed through the odors, much like a person would do if they were to pass by a number of chafing dishes containing the most mouthwatering meals. And in the space of ten seconds, his nose was able to successfully acquire whatever it was that he was looking for.