As fetid ocean waters rise under the Santa Monica pier, the sound of joy and laughter echoes out from the distant festivities. There's a blocked off part of the street, an animal attack tarped over and covered by uniformed officers idly mumbling conversations in flickering lamplight.

Watching from afar, someone with broad shoulders and a large coat pretends not to watch. She has a cigarette between her lips, her eyes are empty and sallow. Large dark circles making them puffy and the red cracks betray months without rest. Her hair is thrown into a tight auburn bun, and the smell of tobacco permeates every part of her being. She ashes it with mis-matched fingernails, covered in chipped emerald nail polish. Her trench coat has stains of something dark, and the very edges are frayed from years of use. Her phone is out, with a professional lens attached to slyly take photos.

The corpse is barely visible under the cover, looking like an industrial accident. It's just one of a dozen distractions that keep everyone's attention tightly wound to the life around them rather than anything more worrying. A diner calls to travelers in the night, Surfside, a place that looks like it should have closed down decades ago, but somehow clings to life.

Click, the near-silent photograph as the officers don't even bother to care to notice is saved, blood spattered pier recorded on the device. A buzz pulses in the background of the sight, like a speaker set to infrasound. Finally, an ambulance arrives, more clicks, more photographs. The body is moved, slipping out from under the tarp to show the vomit-inducing horror of ruined flesh, shattered bone and deep organ-spilling furrows that happened across its frame.

There's a smile as she looks at her phone, it looks like she was going to be making rent and then some with this photo-package. Then she switches her phone to try and get video of the corpse being re-tarped and loaded, ten, twenty, thirty seconds of video. She walks around the corner for another angle, a more complete photoset to sell off. She laughs as she notices an airtag alert, Danni is approaching but she'll be far too late by now. Top of the pack agai—

There's a noise, the paramedics mumble, "Did it just move?" As the corpse is loaded into the back of the ambulance. Doors shut, and a second later, screaming starts. Blood flows out through the ambulance doors as police stare, minds racing from the sluggish pace of late night duty to sudden events. The screaming stops, blood dripping curtain-like from the back of the ambulance.

Holy shit, she thinks quietly, did I get that? She steps quickly, athletic shoes silent on the pavement, as she tries to get a better angle. A closer angle she focuses entirely on the phone, trying to keep everything steady, horizontal, and in frame. Her heart is racing, but there was so much money to be made.

Drawing their weapons, the officers move towards the ambulance shakily, calling in, "Something's going on, off the pier." They arrive at the back of the ambulance, the bravest one among the two opening the backdoor with a careful hand. A mass of blood pours out as the back opens, the ambulance interior dark, coated in filthy human residue, two pale corpses on the floor of the vehicle.

A glinting set of eyes at the back is all anyone can see. "Get out-hands up-step away from the vehicle-stay down!" A cacophony of conflicting commands hits them, guns pointed at the glinting pair, unresponsive as they are. The infrasound buzzing grows, rippling into itself, becoming audible, leaving a taste in the air as streetlights flicker in their aged and broken down hulks of urbanity.

The camera catches what eyes do not, a flicker of motion, a scream, one gunshot that sends a scarlet arc into the inside of the vehicle, and then both officers slip, falling over like puppets without strings. Puncture marks on their neck evident from the torrential pulse-pour of blood that escapes them.

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Both cops are dead, you need to run. Her mind yelled, as a second voice whispered, Get closer, cannibal photos? When has there been a cannibal on the six-o-clock news. Safety? or Money? She wished it was a harder choice. She backed up, trying to see if the thing would walk out of the ambulance, under the light. Get a better photo.

A ruined body no more, a naked, wide-eyed, fanged woman slips out of the ambulance, drenched in blood, a bullet hole over where her right lung would be having evacuated out into a hollowpoint exit wound that should have her gasping the last five breaths of life. Instead, she's tapping the corpses of the cops, looking aggravated.

"Look at all this!" They shout, half-mad voice, "Just because you couldn't leave a dead body alone." The voice drops to something low and primal, almost inhuman. Intaking the air around them with a sharp breath, eyes wide as saucers, looking drugged.

That is a threat to you Katherine, move it. The thought crystal through her mind, as she very quietly tries to walk away. Listening, but not looking. If you don't stare you're not involved. Just keep walking towards the pier.

The creatures hair is light, blonde, falling into curls past her shoulders, its short and small and lithe, maybe five two, maybe a hundred and ten pounds. It's not breathing. It speaks, "Hey, don't run." Voice flitting down trash-filled streets and past diners in the emptiness of a late night, early morning.

Don't run. Running makes it a chase. Katherine's mind shot out to her, just keep walking. You didn't hear her, she wasn't talking to you. Boardwalk's full of people, just get to it. Slip in the night.

"Running's so much harder." It croons, the slightest tilt of french in their words, so close, as if breathing them into Katherine's ear, as if running a hand in her hair, "You can stop for me, right?" It asks, careful, pleasant, smelling of copper and lavender.

You could stop, for a second? That wasn't her inner voice, Katherine realized. It was… Something else. Stopping was danger was it in her head? She smells so nice though… Stow that for later, keep the pace tried and true. You're almost pulled away now surely. She couldn't move that fast right?

A hand grasps Katherine's, small and dainty and strong, "Right?" It asks, eyes black, fangs dripping with pulsating blood, the thick coating of stolen vitae over its whole body.

If she was going to kill you, she'd have just done it, "Right." Katherine responded, looking at her, trying to hide the fear.

"Can you lean down for me?" She asks, brushing a hand through her curls, staining the blonde a scarlet. Smiling bloodily, promising something for the task.

"Ah, sorry, got a thing." Her response attempted to be smooth, but fear had crept up all six feet into her throat, and decided to plant itself there, "Rain check?" She reaches into her wallet, and tries to hand the woman a business card.

"Mhm, I can make do." She jolts, mouth moving to Katherine's wrist, teeth press against the skin painfully-then an explosion, the universe goes white, everything loses meaning except the point of absolute joy, it pulses and pounds through every inch of reality, a feeling unlike anything, lasting seconds, but stretching past eternity and into infinity. A buzzing weakness backs it, a tiredness covered up by the feeling of godly pleasure.

Shit, Katherine's mind has simply shut-off at the feeling, leaning into it, leaning into this thing. At least if she was going to die, it wouldn't hurt. She wraps an arm around the other pulling into an embrace, before everything starts to go black.