The full moon shone down bright upon the busy city streets, only to be drowned by the immensely less majestic and more efficient illumination provided by electricity. His gaze skittering from street lamps, to store fronts signs, to finally a wall of televisions attached to a camera adorning one store front in particular, Raven wasn’t sure if he liked the current civilization focus on technology or loathed it. But whatever his opinion, it was suddenly suspended as he focused what had been a glance into a gaze, taking in the image composite before him.

The composite was that of a man. It was a man with a flow of rich bright red hair, large restless emerald eyes, features that were fine and sculpted, though sporting more than the first signs of age overshadowing youth. The man’s skin was pale, so pale was his color that all of his features were seemingly inlayed or carved out of solid alabaster marble. Raven tilted his head to the side looking like a large bird of prey regarding a mouse, taking in all of this, all of the image.

To his surprise, the composite did the same.

The man looked at him, with others appearing about him, moving like a sweeping river. Raven could sense the mortals moving about him and from what his senses told him they matched up. He nearly laughed. It was odd. The vampire had not seen his reflection in…well he couldn’t remember exactly how long. That bit of information was as elusive as most of his early memory, but then it didn’t matter. No, what mattered was the fact that he found himself staring at himself, like a modern day Narcissus.

That did make him laugh.

The mortals that had been sweeping closely around him, seemed to give him his distance then. Raven didn’t mind, no not at all as he smiled.. Instead he gazed at himself one last time and disappeared down an ally way, following like a Bloodhound the sudden smell of blood that came to his nose along with a soft whimpering that was music to his ears.

A tall, wiry man came from one of the doors leading into the walls of the alley way. It thudded shut behind him as his boots made a small tapping sound on the concreat floor. A sack over one shoulder and head phones around his neck, the man who could not ear such noises over the sound of his head phones walked down the alley.

"Shit"

He said, realizing that he was indeed, painfully lost. Another temporary job in attempt to stay a float financially, Navene had picked up a job in this part of town assembeling various instruments who's parts lay in the back of an old music store, which lay on the outer wall of this alley. It was his first time leaving, and already he had gotten lost. Turning around, he realized all the doors looked painfully the same. He winced at his situation, and began walking in one direction aimlessly

"This has to let out somewhere . . . "

He said following its turns.

((OOC: Sorry if these seems like I cut you out, but I wanted Raven to get a feed in, so it would explain why he would let a mortal character live once running into them, so yeah. Also sorry for the long windedness!))

Emerald eyes glittered suddenly at the prospect of prey. Raven’s pace increased and while he was not even close to a run it was a rapid pace that had him like a rush of wind, moving silently and gracefully even in the wet dank of the trash strewn ally way. The sound of a door closing, reached the vampire’s ears, and he slowed, keeping his prey at a distance, his tongue nearly already savoring the flavor of warm life blood. And life blood it would be. Raven was not known for keeping prey alive, in fact he was often called the beast because of his tendency at over excitement, at reveling in his baser instincts and tearing his prey apart.

Ah yes, and the smell of blood fresh in the vein, put him squarely in the mood. He would enjoy his meal this night. His eyes took on a sudden crimson cast as his irises bled, blood filling his gaze, and already he could feel his fangs fill his mouth, then stretching beyond as his nails became potent daggers.

Raven smiled.

There was blood close, and it would be sweet.

It would be hot and rich on his tongue, the flesh supple between his lips, and the screams. Oh the screams…grandiose. That was the only word capable of capturing their majesty, the joy and rapture that threatened to over take him.

He sped up.

The mortal was just in front of him now.

He got closer, a crimson haired ghost. His smirk stretched wide, and then, disappointment. Raven let no sound pass his lips. He made no move of any kind, instead he simply paused as he watched his prey go after prey all its own.

There was another mortal, a man that seemed all too enraptured with his head phones. Raven’s prey, the thing smelling of rich blood and violence, he was moving toward the young man, his bulk unnoticed as the wandering youth had no forewarning of the looming predator, with the knife tucked neatly at his wrist, prepared to slit the other’s throat with a toss of his arm.

Ah, how sad.

Raven had wanted to eat in peace. He had wanted to savor it, but it seemed that was not the case now, he couldn’t not without giving up the rule he had set for himself for this hunt. He would find the human killer before he took his next victim, and the game would be well and truly spoiled after so much work if he were to simply let the brute kill the boy. Though of course, he could eat in peace if the boy were dead, but the game was more important to him than a satisfying meal, just now, so he moved with a sudden and unnatural quickness.

It was like a serpent’s strike, avoidable, if you saw it coming, from a distance. The man had neither advantage, no, he was turned away, and Raven was quite close.

Holding his hand with fingers tight against one another, Raven sped forward, puncturing the massive man first with his nails, then his fingers and finally his arm as he pushed into his meaty thickness as if it were tissue paper.

The vampire caught the man just below his ribs, as he jumped, wrapping his free arm and hand about the man’s throat, choking off all but the barest beginnings of a scream. The killer’s mortal prey likely heard nothing, his music so loud that Raven could hear every lyric now, as he felt blood gush backward and forward, yet still short of even touching the other mortal. Raven held the man like this, like a monkey, hanging across his back, until he gave out and fell face forward.

Raven let got then, and his jaws met the man’s unwashed flesh moments later, his sizeable fangs piercing the man’s wind pipe. As the man’s final life ebbed away into hungry jaws. It didn't take long, and it took even less time for the considerably smaller vampire to grab the man by the scruff of his neck and start halling him up the sheer angle of a nearby wall. The climb seemed almost supernatural, but then it was done and Raven left his victim where he fell.

Mortals would find him eventually. He was empty now though, and of no farther use, but it was not hunger, but curiousity that took Raven along roof tops, after the mortal man that had come so close to death's door. Raven wondered what else he would get himself into.

((OOC: Don't worry about it, it's all good.))

Navene turned the corener and found himself at another dead end. However, a rickety looking lader lead up the brick wall to the roof.

Maybe if I get to the top I can look over the buildings, see where I am. Well, it's better than the grim chance of getting out of this labrynth than I have now.

He thought, slinging his sack over his shoulder and begining to climb the rungs. Slipping a few times, he was all to relieved when he got to the top. Pulling himself over the edge, he looked and recognized where he was. However, roof hoping was something he was not inclided to do. Instead he got his direction right, and knew that he needed to go due north in order to get out of these alleys and back to the main street. From there he could always find the subway and get home.

Navene was climbing back down the lader when he heard a snap. Before he had time to even think about it, he found him falling the six feet to the ground. The rung of this old lader had broken under his weight.

"Ahhh"

The young man groaned as he staired up into the sky, laying flat on his back. He slowly got up, examining the new hole on the sleeve of his black-jean jacket. Navene ruffeled his hair. Nothing was broken, but his body did feel as if it would be bruised. Walking back down the dead end and then taking a turn to the North, he continued on his attempt to get out of the alleys.

((Sorry this couldn't be longer, but I've lost my muse right now.))

Raven had slipped over the opposing side of the rooftop at the first sounds of the man's ascent. His climbing, assisted as it were by whatever supernatural force, allowed him to cling to that sheer surface like some over sized insect. And it was like that that he waited as he heard the almost musical intonations and groans as the old iron ladder’s rungs protest the mortal’s weight.

Raven was sure to be silent as he listened to the young man's crunching footsteps up onto the roof over head. Yet silent didn’t stop him from investigating. In fact that was what he did second best, well third best. His best talent he had exhibited in the ally below. His second, ah well now was not the time for such a thing, but lucky number three he did without a flaw.

He listened intently at the young man’s heart beat, taking in the smell of his skin, along with the companion odors of perpetration and blood. The former scent on his skin, the latter underneath it, companions through and through, scents that were most assuredly enticing, and most assuredly mortal. As things were though, a rather useless thing right now.

Raven was stated for the time being, he had drunk his fill of the murder and even now the last of the effects were still rolling through his head. He could still feel the euphoria, the headiness that caught him like jug of moonshine or whatever it was that mortals were drinking these days, something totally intoxicating. And unlike the mortals and their drinks and drugs, this only served to make him stronger. He felt fabulous, so much so that he was up and on the roof the exact moment he knew the mortal man was gone, though Raven was surprised as he stole a peek over the edge to see the man had fallen.

The vampire almost laughed at the pure irony and tragedy of it, but instead he disappeared, moving into the shadows, letting the dark conceal his movements.

With a few groans, Navene continued to find weave himself through the alleys to suposidly where he would meet the main street. His eyes scanned the alleys around him cautiously, but there was nothing out of the ordinary his mortal sense could ditect. For a while it was this way, the darkened alleys being peacefull enough until he steped on something fleshy. Taking a few quickened steps back, Navene couldn't see through the night's dark. Pulling out a zippo lighter, one he carried around to suport the habbit of smoking, he could easily see the corpse of the killer that Raven had left behind.

Navene shrieked slightly, Falling backwards onto the pavement and clasping his hand over his mouth. The zippo clunked to the foor and went out, leaving in darkness and his vision worse than before, now being unused to the dark. The mortal cursed under his breath, and began to lightly feel around for the zippo. His hand felt something semi warm and sticky, and Navene winced, knowing that it was probably some sort of bodily fluid. Finnally he found his zippo and lit again, only to see that his hand was covered in stomach bile that had creeped out through this mans stomach, where Raven had dug his nails in earlier.

Disgusted, Navene wiped his hand off on the dead man's clothing, and did his best to walk around the corpse. A good citizen would have called the cops of course, but Navene didn't have the time to go through questioning that would come. Besides, he wouldn't even be able to tell the cops where he was, let alone how to get to the body. This has been one hell of a night ready, Navene wasn't ancious to get cops involved and make it worse.

A few blocks away, itching to get home and take a hot shower, Navene finally reached the main street. He sighed thankfully, and waited at the corner to the walk symbol to light up, in order for himself to cross the street.