CHAPTER 21

/ Luke /

In front of me the eucalyptus wavers in the mist, like pairs of bleeding hands. I stand in the middle of Alamo Square, taking in the night from the crest of the hill. It's my favorite time of year, my favorite time of day. Autumn in San Francisco brings with it darkness and gloom, that ever-present fog pressing down on the city like a hand from a vengeful god. I feel more at peace, more at home, during this season where the world grows a little quieter, muffled, and life slows down a little.

Humans move too fast these days. They always have, for as long as I've walked among them, but in the last half a century they've leaped forward at supersonic speed. Always rushing, too busy trying to pay for a life that they're too busy to start living.

And I get it. They only have so many years. Eighty to a hundred if they're lucky. If they're unlucky, death swoops in following a grave illness or a freak accident, cutting them off before their time. There's no escape from it either. Death lurks at every corner. I understand the urge to keep moving, keep trying to fill the days, not knowing when you'll be taken out.

Yet, they miss so much. They miss out on the fact that life isn't about getting to the next thing, the next paycheck, the next high, the next rung of the ladder. It's about the smaller moments, where there's time to breathe, when this big impossible world whittles down to one thing.

But it's that one thing that remains elusive to so many, including me.

Still, I stand in the middle of the square, letting the fog roll over me, the mist whispering things in my ears, music from the clouds and the ocean from where it all began. I feel plugged in, the sounds of the city dropping away, until it's just me and the mist and I can't tell where I begin and it ends. I am one with the dark, the way I'm supposed to be.

Laughter snags me out of my thoughts and my eyes open. Through the fog I can see a bunch of drunk teenagers, though they can't see me. They're far away, near the Painted Ladies. I can smell the booze on their breath, in their pores. Cheap beer, maybe Pabst, and one of them has been drinking a sugary vodka drink. In my gut I feel a pang of hunger, but I pay it no attention. It's been a while since I fed and when that happens, even unsavory teenagers can stoke the appetite, but I'm not who I once was. Most of us aren't. Even vampires evolve.

Still, I shove my hands in my coat pockets and turn away from them, heading up the path to the street, to the house. I don't need to be tempted, and in my experience, coming across drunk teenagers never ends well. Their growing brains are so much more open to the unknown, and often they're actively seeking it out. When a vampire appears before them, they recognize the "otherness." They feel fear. And when teenagers feel fear, especially drunk teenagers, they can lash out. And when they lash out, well…

Sometimes they die.