Anton had spent a length of time sat at a bench in West Jackson, watching God's ungrateful creations pass him by. Hunger marked his face and the clothes he wore, the white short-sleeves and the taken tie, gave him the look of a Mormon missionary, pulled out of a Central-American jail. He wondered how many of these people took all of this for granted as the Beast hammered against the walls of its prison. Flaring with hunger, it wanted to take somebody apart and drink deep.

Eventually the Haunt saw a woman step off a bus and start to move down the sidewalk towards him. She was plain, a little heavy, and wore some kind of uniform. It would be hard to associate her with anything as grandiose as the moral decay which Anton believed had consumed this part of the world. However, the Haunt was prone to fasting. His impression of her was distorted not only by a mad purpose, but a mad hunger. To him she might as well have been bent over a trash-can, everybody else on the bus lining up behind her. It helped the condition, to tie a purpose to bloodlust.

The Haunt thrust a twitching hand into his pocket as she passed him by, then waited two passing cars before rising from the bench and walking after her. Street food, they called this in Chicago. Ready-Red in Philly. In Detroit it was simply Ends. To Anton Flores, though, this was Work. He ran a calloused hand over his face as he tails the woman, feeling the frozen rigor-rictus he only ever saw reflected in the disquieted faces of others.

As the distance between Anton and his quarry lessened, he began to lope quickly towards her. If she'd noticed the strange sound of his movement, it was too late as she passed the alley. The woman howled out as he slammed his palm into the left side of her head, bowling her into the lonely alley and onto her knees with one powerful, practised pimp-slap. The Haunt sidestepped in and pulled her up, pinning her to the brick facade by the fractured side of her face, holding a hand to her mouth, feeling the hot panicked breath.

"Don't you look at me," he buzzed, in a breathy whisper.

He felt her try and bite the palm of his cold hands, so he slammed the side of her head into the wall once again, feeling her jaw loosen. The Sanctified didn't sermonise to kine, but there were other languages available to them. Anton preferred to use his solemn hunger. He buried his teeth into the pasty neck of his prey, drinking deep and handling her violently as he felt warm red fill his cold grey. The Beast disappeared beneath the waters of his consciousness. He felt her collarbone give as lost count of the shallow breaths tickling his ear.

When he became lucid, she was limp, but conscious. Face swollen, clothes torn, her wound had been licked away. She looked up with confused, pained eyes, and he gazed back wearing the countenance of the Beast. He watched her struggle and strain on broken ribs, before he vanished from the alley leaving only a wet, ragged chuckle in the air.