This guy never gets a chance to see it. Not unless the sensation of it coming in under his rib cage and pushing up into his right lung is so distinct that it paints a picture in his mind’s eye. Normally I’d jerk it around a little once it’s in there, make sure things get settled quick, but we go down hard with me on top and the blade making a new hole for that carbon dioxide to hiss out of and that knocks the blade around more than enough. He’s not exactly dead when I pull it out, but near enough not to quibble with me when I poke a hole in his neck and catch the last few strong pulses of blood from his carotid before things become official. After that I have to get a good seal with my lips against his skin and suck pretty hard. When my mouth pulls off, it sounds like the half-clogged drain nearby.

Do I feel bad about it, killing a sad man who just went a little nuts when he lost the only thing he cared about to maybe a sadder case than he was? Yeah, I do feel bad about it. Thinking of where I’ve been in my life, where I could be right now, the kind of plays I’ve made over the years that put me down here, I feel very bad about it.

I’m not saying I’m better than this, just that I don’t like where I’ve come to. Even if it is my own fault. I’d been the type to get along and go along a little more, I’d be doing OK.

Not that it matters.

I changed who I am, I’d have to change everything. I changed who I am, I’d never have made it as long as I have. I changed who I am, and likely as not she’d never have looked twice at me.

Thinking about her while I’m drinking this guy’s blood in the filthy dark makes the taste go sour in my mouth. Not that I stop. I’m no fool. Eat what you kill.

I finish it, as much as I can take, then roll the corpse toward the sucking sound and feel the current grab him and pull his foot from my hand and he’s washed down to a lower place. I find the wall and use it to guide me back around the hole and out the way we came. It’s too dark to know how bad I look, how much blood is coating my mouth and cheeks and chin and neck, but I’ve looked at myself in the mirror before so I have a pretty good idea. When I find some light I’ll clean up a little. Not that it’ll require a great deal of grooming.

Standards down here being what they are, a man only has to do so much to pass as human.

There’s not much to know.

A guy living in the sewers, what do you need to be told that you can’t figure out for yourself?

Figure he fucked up somewhere along the way. More than once. Figure he’s got enemies. Many. Figure he’s got reasons for not just running far away. One reason is, he’s got nowhere to go. Never been out of the City. Another reason is, he has certain minimum requirements as far as living conditions.

Anonymity. If not crowds to get lost in, then a place where no one cares who you are or what you’ve done.

Darkness, he needs. Night is best, but protection from solar UV rays will do. Too many of those and he erupts in a welter of pustules and wet scabs. Seen pictures of guys with severe eczema? Picture that in your mouth and ears and nose and on your eyes. That’s what the sun does.

And people, he needs. Not to practice his social graces, but as a food supply. Blunt, but there it is. Not like I’m hiding anything. No food supply, he starves in short order, goes crazy just before he dies, crazy strong and crazy fast and woe betide the motherfuckers in his immediate proximity when it happens.

Sound like something’s been left out of the equation?

Yeah.

Figure there’s a girl.

Guy living in a sewer. There’s got to be a girl in the story somewhere. My story, it’s thick with them. Lost girl, rich girl, smart girl, dyke girl, crazy girl, tough girl, pregnant girl. Over the years, I’ve dealt with all of them. Dead girl. Yeah, her too. But only one matters. My girl. A girl worth sitting in filth for. Waiting. Watching. Feeling the walls of the tunnels for vibrations that will tell you something about what’s going on up top.

What the hell is going on up there? Who’s bought it? Who’s still kicking? How are the cards coming off the deck and where’s my play? Confused? Well come late to a tale, you got to expect to have to tread a little water.

Last thing is this, I’m not the way I am because of god or the devil. I’m like this because it’s who I am. I’m a bastard. That I happen to be a bastard that got infected with something called the Vyrus that turned me into something called a Vampyre, that’s just bad news for a lot of people who happened to cross my path over the years. Not because I’d have left them alone if I wasn’t infected, but because being infected makes me a damn sight harder to put down than I’d have been otherwise. Some people, they’ll argue against that. They’ll tell you there’s something mystical about the Vyrus. Some will tell you it’s nothing but a bug, a bug that makes us special, makes us dangerous. Some will say it makes us sick, makes us need to stick together, makes us better off if we went public and got help. Some will say that we need a cure. Some hover around the top of the fence and put off making a choice about which yard they’ll jump into.

Those people, they’re all at war against one another.

My bad.

I’d have kept my mouth shut, it wouldn’t be happening. But that girl, I needed to see her, and I needed a distraction to make it happen. Starting a war seemed what the occasion demanded.

Looking back, I maybe made a mistake. Not about starting the war, but listening to the girl. When she said to leave her where she was, I shouldn’t have listened. I should have dragged her out. I’d done that, we’d be gone from here already.

So I like to think. In the dark. With nothing else to think about. Sit and brood on what I should have done. What lives saved. Which throats slit.

Even a guy like me, we get one go-round, and regrets come with the ticket.

Just I never had time to entertain them before. And now they’re all that’s come to the party. Makes me want to kill.

Chubby Freeze finds me curled in a ball in the shack I took over from Q-line Dave after he went under the tracks of the Hudson Valley Express.

Chubby makes a lot of noise coming up on the shack, which is good. It keeps me from acting rashly and slipping the amputation blade behind his windpipe and pulling it toward me. But it doesn’t keep me from putting it at his throat while I ask him what the fuck he’s doing down here. What does keep me from putting the knife to his throat is the gun his boy Dallas is holding on me.

Probably for the best. Me and Chubby, we’ve always been friendly for the most part, I’d hate to kill him without a good reason. Of course, the fact he’s found me is a pretty good reason. But I’d maybe like to know if there’s anyone else knows I’m down here.

If there’s killing to be done, I’d just as soon have a complete list.

– You don’t look well, Joe.

Some people, they feel strongly that the obvious must be stated. Me, I’d take it for granted that some poor son of a bitch holed up in the tunnels was gonna look like shit and spare the commentary. Not that it hurts my feelings, just that there’s only so much time in a man’s life, so why waste it stating what’s clear to start with.

Chubby squints and purses his lips.

– No, you do not look at all hale.

I point at the grease stains on the trouser cuffs of his three-thousand-dollar custom-made suit.

– You’re gonna need some sprucing up yourself, Chubby.

He fingers the material gathered in pleats at the front of what passes for a waist on a man that big around.

– I made a point of wearing one of last year’s. I generally give them to a charitable organization when my new wardrobe arrives from Hong Kong, but I’ve found it’s wise to hold back one or two. For grubby work.

I nod at Dallas, the pretty boy with the well-defined muscles and the gun.