Another sleepless night.

Another sleepless night. One more notch for the bedpost, though I’ve little need for those. And a new name for the books...

I sighed, as though I had air in my lungs to expel with the shadow of sympathy. But sympathy, if I feel at all, I felt not. One more excuse for life extinguished and Death hung triumphant in the 10th floor flat. The body lay still against the headboard, as if resting, or freezing, frozen for a few moments until decay rode in on Time’s winged chariot. You’ll crumble to bone and dirt and no grave will ever marketh your beginning or your end. Only I, with a memory so long I have little need of murderous meticulousness, would mark your name in my little black book.

I’m nearing the end of this particular volume. A remarkably cruel decade. You stand out amongst the other characters as one particular malefactor. But all bad guys meet their sticky end. The sole ceremony of your death comes whilst I etch you onto my ceaseless list. So long sucker, oh the irony is iron sweet. I flick the book backwards with a thumb, plethoric pages glide with violent foes whose normal names bedeck the worn paper; dispatched from this world, dancing gratifyingly before my eyes.

I glance back at the body. Pale, so ephemeral, blood beaded on the neck ready to spill down the collar bone, a raindrop balanced for an instant on a spider's web.

You entered mine. My web. The black widow within this city’s walls. Villainous perhaps, venomous for sure. Ensnared by the flash of a smile and exposed flesh. Although men like you don’t require invitation. I licked my teeth, savouring the last delicious tang of your life force. You were a waste of the air in your noxious lungs, save the final beg for mercy. The hunter becomes the hunted. I rocked with laughter born of blood crazed mirth. I know men like you. So many names in my private pages. But blood is blood and by your cursed god is it divine.

A dozen chimes bit through the balmy air. Midnight once more. Distant traffic blared on, intoxicated voices of late September full of joy in the last throes of Summer. The harvest moon lay beyond the cirrus clouds. A corona of magic and energy unknown framing the disc incandescent. In the life before and beyond the mortal coil as I stood now savouring the blood of my last hunt, I looked to the moon, my companion in this endless night. For night will come again, and with it the lust.

In the last of these warm nights the people are wild with it. Heartbeats race with drink and desire. It makes them bold, careless. Easy prey. For the night is full of dangers beyond my own decisions. Although one less specimen haunted the women of the neon clad night, there were always viler things crawling out of the capricious woodwork of dark. What trouble lay to tempt me as we sank deeper into the shadows and approached the witching hour? Malice throttled through my body with bruxism. Diamond hard denticles deadlier than an assassin's blade. Clenched with anticipation and hunger.

But first, a rifle through the treasures of the deceased. I moved with speed, my hands casting with distaste between microwave meals and porno magazines. Grubby flatpack furniture, smeared with ash and the grime of unknown unpleasantries, littered with bills in bold red font, keys which now lead nowhere, dusty cassette tapes never to be played again, amongst the flashlights, cable-ties, knuckle dusters and switchblades which would furrow the shadiest of brows.

My hand scuffed the edge of the chipboard which lay upturned in the bottom of the last drawer. A smile curled up on my lips as I looked into the stunned eyes of the cooling corpse, always so predictable. I ripped up the base of the drawer and brought out a scarlet rusty tin. I scored the edge with a keen nail and popped it open with ease. The aroma of worn leather wallets, the sweat of a thousand palms, and the papery scent of Benjamin Franklin’s face which stared knowingly from the two hundred $100 bills. Another wry laugh escaped me, for nothing is certain except death and taxes.