The rest was fuzzy.

What else could one expect when satiating a hunger of hundreds of years, when for a vampire to starve to death meant acting carelessly in his efforts to quench his bloodlust and pay for it, not natural causes?

He reached out to the humans, began to tear them apart, and then nothing. Just blood.

Dracula vision was tinged red all over. He felt the blood flowing down his throat, sliding over his skin, warm and refreshing like spring dew. He heard the blood gushing.

It was like a trance. He didn't even know what he was doing, only that it felt good. He was filling the void and that was good. It was the only thing he knew and the only thing he needed to know.

All things, good or bad, came to an end sooner or later.

Dracula awoke from his trance in a pool of blood. For a moment, stupidly, he wondered if it might not be his own. He shook his head, blood still dripping down his chin and staining his lips.

He rested his hands on the ground to stand up. He still wasn't perfect, but he was recovering. He could feel someone else's blood traveling through his body, fixing everything that needed to be fixed. He could feel everything coming back into place.

In his body, that is.

All wouldn't be right in the world until he could sit on the throne in the heart of his castle, reigning as he always had. Until he was the Prince of Darkness again. The Dragon, Dracul.

Step by step.

Dracula turned his head, his neck creaking. It was natural for his bones to rattle like that when he hadn't moved for so many years. A thousand, thousands, who knows. He wasn't interested. Not right now.

He glanced at the bodies of the parents and their children. What was left of them, anyway. He hadn't just been drinking, apparently. He'd gotten a little wild. And he'd drunk too much, to his heart's content.

He'd drained them, just as he'd wished. Too late to repent and turn at least one into a vampire. There would be time, and many other possible candidates.

After all, humans had multiplied like rabbits. Which reminded him...

"I'm too weak now. I have to get rid of the evidence."

He was regenerating, regaining his strength, thanks to the food. But he was far from restoring the fullness of his power. He wouldn't rest easy until he returned to his castle and gathered servants to replace those who had perished along the way.

He had much work ahead of him.

But first things first. Those bodies.

He did the family the favor of burying them in the same place. The metal contraption they were now using to dispose of the trash, for whatever reason. He lifted it off the ground, tossed them in and closed the lid.

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They would be discovered sooner or later. And they would know it had been a vampire attack, though not that it had been Dracula, because the corpses were missing all their blood.

It wasn't exactly normal. Not so soon, anyway.

In ancient times humans had been forced to care for one another, banding together as a community to survive the inclemencies of nature and the things that waited in the shadows. Creatures like him.

But now that they lived in such large cities, how many people could really know this family personally?

How long would it take to miss them and even longer to discover their corpses?

He couldn't be sure, but it made sense. In any case, he had done all he could. It was a matter of luck now. Well, not everything. Almost.

Dracula opened his cloak and summoned a creature of darkness. An imp with the sole mission of leaving the alley clean of blood, the only other thing that would attract attention. Then he returned it to the darkness of his cloak and beyond.

To the phantom castle of the demonic Dracula.

"It's humiliating, but until my power grows I have to tread carefully. In this state, the vampire hunters could wipe me out. Truly disgusting."

He exited the alley, walking tall and proud. His steps were powerful, as they had to be. Even now he felt weak, this was nothing compared to his true self. But for the moment it was enough for him. He had grown tired of feeling so weak very quickly.

Across the street was a black man with some sausages tucked between two pieces of bread on a metal box.

Several humans approached him and received one of those sausages, generously sprinkled with a liquid that he would have thought was blood, but for the smell. Then they got the hell out of there while eating it, but it wasn't for free, of course. First of all, they handed the man some pieces of green paper. Not gold coins, not silver coins, not even copper. Green paper.

"They are nothing more than pieces of paper, but whatever they are, it's obvious that they are currency. I don't have my castle, and I don't have my gold, but it seems it wouldn't matter. Humans. Always changing, always insisting on making things difficult."

What society wouldn't change after such a long time? But that didn't make it any less irritating.

It wasn't the only thing he had noticed. His clothes stood out too much. He hadn't seen a single person so far who wore armor, much less like his. Not to mention his regal cloak or the white scarf he wore around the collar of his elegant shirt.

He would stand out. Maybe not as a vampire, but it didn't matter.

He had to adapt to the times if he wanted to go unnoticed, at least until the time was right. The time to strike.

Dracula retreated into the shadows once more and transformed, this time into a rat. Like bats, carriers of disease. A harbinger of death.

Actually, he had already met Death. They didn't get along very well. But hey, it was just a figure of speech.

In rat form, he explored the city. It didn't take him long to find a store that seemed to be solely for clothing. How many tailors would have to work tirelessly to make so many clothes? Something to keep in mind and learn later, perhaps, but for the moment it didn't matter.

Once inside, he hurriedly made up his mind and multiplied. After all, he wasn't going to be able to steal the clothes while being a single rat. There were a lot of people inside. Talking, distracted. But, even if he was caught they would think this was a plague of rats, not a vampire, not Lord Dracula himself.

He didn't get caught, though. He did it perfectly. Dracula went out the back door into another alley.

Dracula emerged from it in a tight black suit. It came with a red scarf, but he discarded it and kept the white scarf from his original attire. A small concession. As well as wearing clothes of this quality, he hadn't seen anyone wear anything like this. But it was up for sale, so it couldn't be that strange.

In any case, it didn't matter.

"This will do. Few will have clothes of this quality, but I'm not going to lower my standards just so I don't stand out too much from the crowd." He smiled with satisfaction.

Step by step, all in good time. What would be his next move?

The Prince of Darkness Walking Down Fifth Avenue (2): END