The Hunter and the Prey

Snake moved quickly through the crowds and grabbed his target by the shoulders. The poor shmuck squirmed as Snake drove his knee into his spine, shoving him face-first into the rain-slicked pavement. Passers-by passed on by. Snake laughed from deep within his throat.

“No-one cares, little man. Let’s go.”

Without further waffle, Snake pulled the squealing man to his feet and flung him into a nearby lane. He was wearing a trenchcoat and suit—both expensive. The man was skinny but Snake reckoned they’d fit him, after he took them from the soon-to-be-corpse.

“Waddya want?” the twerp cried out. Even in the darkness of the dead-end alley, he could see the fear in his eyes. It was delicious.

“Your f$%king heart on a platter, little pu$$yman.”

That sent him into hysterics. His cries bounced off the walls like ping pong balls. It was brilliant. Snake licked his lips and showed him his knife.

“I’m gonna use this on you, real slow. You’re gonna feel every bit of it, as I open you up like an envelope.”

The man was crying. Snake obligingly continued.

“I’m gonna put your intestines in your hands, and I’m gonna let you try put them back in. I’ll leave you with one eye, so as to see.”

The cries turned to broken screams. Cracked howls. The coward backed up to the end of the lane, facing his future butcher, his hands desperately clawing at the walls, as if hope lay somewhere behind the sodden bricks and mortar. “No,” he kept whimpering. “Please no.”

But Snake didn’t answer. He didn’t see. Something above caught his attention. The city’s buildings were world-renowned for their gothic design. Spikes and peaks and shuddering heights of black marble and grey slate. Gargoyles and half-faces peered down at him in judgement. Rain turned to sleet, and the sky was lightening ever so slightly, but there was no moon. Snake wasn’t religious, but something was up there, watching.

Waiting.

“All right, let’s get this over with,” he grumbled, mostly to himself.

He was now a mere six feet away from the shaking businessman. The pleasure, the anticipation, the foreplay, was dissolving like plastic in acid. There was still the tingle, the hint of what was to come, but he felt tense, as if a giant magnifying glass were over him and a giant eye was leaning in to peer at him.

Or maybe it was the drugs. He shrugged (and shuddered a little) and moved in.

A crunch, from above. Looking up, he frowned at those gargoyles. The businessman went to race past but Snake delivered a halting punch to the would-be escaper’s chin, knocking him flat. Those gargoyles...was there a new one there? That was nuts. But where there were five before, now a sixth... It was slimmer, it had long, thin horns. No, not horns, two slender spikes, and...

...its head was tilting slowly from left to right like a cat sighting a mouse...

The shape moved and leapt forwards and down, tendrils stretched out, its wings opening and rippling in the late night air, eyes glowing bright white, a snarl erupting from its chest.

Snake jumped back and waved his knife up at the plummeting demon, yelling out, turning to run away but two iron fists slammed down upon his shoulders, flattening him to the muddy tarmac. The beast landed upon him, the eyes inches from his own, and in a voice that surely originated from the lungs of Satan himself, he grunted three words.

“You’re mine now.”

Snake lost all sense of machismo. All the fizz had drained from his chest and loins. The kill was a long-distant dream. That poor helpless businessman was gone from his thoughts. Now there was just him, and this being from another place and time.

Those two fists struck again, this time plunging into his stomach. His blood burned like acid and he whined. A double-punch like no other. The hands, thick and black and leathery, wrapped around his throat and heaved him up off the ground and off his feet until they were dangling freely in the air. With all his courage of which there was very little, he forced himself to look into those white soulless eyes and cried out.

“Who are you?!”

The beast, shaped like a man but bulkier and tougher and ice cold, drew him close, seemed to consider something. The lips parted, curled to reveal teeth glinting bright white in the darkness. Then the head tilted, the eyes narrowed to silver slits, and it flung him out into the city streets, into the path of an oncoming police squad car. Its wheels skidded in the misty road surface and stopped dead a foot from his bloodied face.

Heart pounding, body trembling, he looked back into the lane, the dark pit from which he thought he would never return, the deep chasm from which that awful creature now leapt, back onto the maze of rooftops and belltowers and watching gargoyles, racing and running like a man fused with the worst of mortal nightmares, all jagged edges and flapping wings and furious empty eyes. He felt not the grip of two policemen throwing him into the back of the car, he cared not for the fate that awaited him.

All he could think about was that horrid marking across the demon’s chest, the golden circle, broken at its centre by the slender outline of a giant bat.