Since his meeting with Ankers Sr., Chase had been nearly giddy from both excitement and anxiety. He walked the streets in a stupor, replaying the scene in his head and clutching at himself in the likeness of a mortal in frigid weather. What had he gotten himself into... This ultimatum, this confrontation. It hadn't gone anything like he hoped it would. How he wished he could just rid himself of this damnable father. His patient welcoming and tolerance was like mockery, in denial of the contempt he held. But now, confronted with these feelings he understood it to be what it was, that he had always wished for acceptance by his father and love...and all those things a father is to a child. He respected him, surely, but how cold he was, how...vampiric even. It was more than he could bear. Both shadowing him and yet raising him up through expectations. And now this unexpected praise and responsibility. He could feel himself eager to take up the charge. But he also hated it, hated that he was just what his father had made him to be, living or not. Oh how he wished he could return to the safety of his sire's libraries now.

His thoughts dimmed as his walk persisted. He had begun the journey with the intention of acquiring a costume for the upcoming Court. Yet in all his haste these last few nights, he had overlooked his growing hunger. It maddened him, the beast tearing at him from deep within twisting his useless lump of a stomach in knots, a burning need. "Ahh," he moaned aloud as he reached the street corner. This thirst needed to be sated...where would the victim be?

An elderly man waited at a covered bus stop, the type that faced away from the street, the glass sides covered in advertisement posters. His frame was deteriorated with age but Chase could see he had held onto his health late in life. Yet now he coughed and wheezed in the chilled air. Normally he would appear repulsive, the reminder of decay and death, but now, how beautiful he looked. Venerable, regal, like a dying king. The echo of his youth in his subtle demeanor. How sad his fate was, the end to this long life. His eyes met Chase's. How sad they looked, reflecting a lifetime of sorrow, regret, perhaps joy? And how his mind eased as Chase's pressed into his.

Of course it was the blood talking, always the blood that influenced his perspective of things. But almost like poetry he bend his knee before this saintly sir. His grizzled skin was blended with blue and purple patches where the cold had stolen his warmth. "I shall finish your journey," he found himself saying. "And tell you what you long to hear." His voice was raspy, tense from anticipation, the scent of blood, aged like chilled wine in this mortal husk that needed it no longer. The man bent at the command putting his ear beside Chase's head, his neck exposed, pulsing beneath wrinkled flesh.

"Your child loves you, father. Your distance pains him. The icy kingdom of software and circuitry is his to inherit. But he stands to inherit your shame, your indifference. How cold you both are, how drained of conscience and courtesy. But he shall not stand idle, he shall not yield to pettiness and strife. Go, and take your penance. Your child is his own." Had the elderly man not been so mesmerized he may certainly have been confused as Chase displaced his own wicked frustrations upon the man, the stand-in for his father. His teeth bit through the flesh and drained the body to dangerous levels, gorging on the needed blood. He released him, this poor soul, licking the warm wound shut and falling back onto the ground finally, feeling the new vitae course through him. He felt like crying, not from remorse as the man before him sat cold and dying, but from the unfairness of it all.

He got to his feet again, taking a deep breath though he had no need for it. In the distance along the deserted street came the light of the bus along its route. He waited, unafraid, wiping any remnants of blood from his lips. As it rolled up alongside he emerged from the covering, the door hissing open loudly. He boarded it, leaving the unconscious man behind. Surely he would perish before long, but Chase had marked him, had told him his journey's end. It would be his final farewell to his lingering hope for a father's love.