Joe Santiago died in the early hours of the morning, when the cold seeped down through the buildings and slid through the layers of rubbish that Joe wrapped himself in. He died peacefully and alone, terribly alone. Joe's long life had wasted his body, ate away at his vitality and left him a husk. In the days leading up to his demise, he had even begun to loose his sense of self and place. His last words, slurred, were a greeting to a wife who had long since left him. Still, the aged man passed with a smile. A wobbly hand lifted from his bed and held his wife's reassuringly.

If Joe Santiago had retained his wits, he would have noticed that his "wife's" hand was too pallid, too cold, and too lightly framed to belong to his long lost Anita. And the shadow at his side was to lithe, cold and pale of skin as well.

Fringe sat with the dying man like a vulture waiting for its prey to die. In many respects, the analogy fit perfectly; and it sickened her, but still, here she was: the hunger would not be denied any longer. The Shadow had found the failing vagrant on her routine pass of her "territory", a poorly placed industrial estate. Sensing the man's failing heartbeat, she held off overpowering him and taking what she needed. Instead she had spent the last hour with the man in the cold dark.

Is it charity when I'm going to drain every drop from your cooling body, and toss you into the sewers to get washed away? Fringe had found it increasingly hard to sit by Joe Santiago, to look at him. His hand was beginning to make her skin crawl. It was a rare kind of self inflicted torture.

The moment Joe Santiago passed, Fringe moved with a sudden urgency. Hunger drove her. She dragged his body, hauled it with all her might. Vitae seared through her veins, infusing her muscles; growling the Mekhet flung the man's body onto her shoulders like her were a prize deer of old and she the valiant hunter. Joe Santiago was more bulky than she had anticipated and she staggered quietly to her haven.

The Mekhet feasted till dawn. Her earlier reservations quite forgotten.