He came to the surface like someone born from stone—one might think of Adam emerging from sand; but in this case, the creature, freshly fed, shed its quarry and rose toward the starry mantle waiting for it above.
His skin, still damp from the earth's entrails, exuded a sweet, intoxicating petrichor and flashed for an instant with the orange blink of a beer sign at the edge of the vacant lot. The vampire breathed. The new air entered his body with a mix of pleasure and rage; it smelled of gasoline, stale bread, kennel stench, and the cheap sugar drifting from greasy night stalls. The city stretched around him like an animal that never sleeps and is about to play.
He was naked.
Two passersby stopped when they saw him step out from the heaps of gravel. One carried a six-pack of beer, the other dragged a wheeled speaker with blue, green, and pink lights. They looked first with the curiosity of those who find a clumsy drunk. Then with distrust. One let out a laugh that didn't dare grow. The younger one clutched his phone to his chest, as if a body without clothes could strip him of a device by the sheer force of secondhand shame.
The vampire tilted his head, not toward them, but to the sound their veins made. He listened to the journey of blood from necks to wrists.
Flup flup…
Flup flup…
He let the hunger rise to his mouth like a millennial memory. He took a step. But he didn't attack them. He walked on a diagonal, avoiding the pool of light from the sign. He sank into the first crack of shadow as if the concrete offered shelter. The two men lost sight of him within three meters. One muttered he had seen worse at dawn. The one with the speaker said he didn't want trouble, that they should just walk faster, faster. They moved away, taking their heartbeats with them.
The vampire thought he could taste the echo.
Flup flup…
Flup flup…
The street narrowed into a row of buildings with damp walls, blind windows, and gates that never opened when you asked for help. A cat arched its back and crossed between his feet, dragging a plastic bag that sounded spectral in the hush of the night. On the corner, a red balloon nodded, tied to a paint bucket. Someone had forgotten it. Or left it to announce something unreadable to anyone who didn't know the code hidden in it.
The vampire followed the scent. Not of fresh blood—the kind that drummed in cars, in cyclists' backpacks, in the bedrooms above the food stalls—but a gentler, sour trace: the sweet runoff of cheap makeup, rancid talc, poorly washed fabrics, hard bread, instant coffee. He followed the wake of someone sleeping in the open under a layer of layers, an onion of wool and plastic, shadows piled one over another.
He found the alley.
The walls were high. Cardboard lay spread out like a territory marked with pride and need. On top, a figure slept curled with care. First a shoe was visible, then the edge of a striped sock, then the sleeve of an orange sweater that had once been bright over a white shirt or smock, and finally a cheap wig that, even crushed, kept a light of colors. The red nose rested to the side, as if she had set it apart to breathe. On her chest, hugged like a comfort animal, a juggling case: chipped clubs, three taped balls, a crumpled scarf smelling of synthetic strawberries.
A little clown.
The vampire came close enough to feel the heat rising from the blankets.
Flup flup…
Flup flup…
He fixed his gaze on the line of the neck that showed.
Flup flup…
Flup flup…
Her breathing was meek and even, as not to disturb the dangers of the night. He ran a hand over the fabric with a craftsman's curiosity; there had been no textiles like this in his ancient memory. It was a skin foreign to the world he had known before he slept. The city above him was different, but the fragility held up by sleep was the same.
The little clown shifted just then. The juggling case thumped the cardboard and released a hollow sound. She made a gesture—barely a grimace that didn't reach a smile, as if she had received applause in a dream.
The vampire lowered his face. He listened to the murmur of her blood.
Flup flup…
Flup flup…
He felt the pulse along the curve of her collarbone. His tongue grew heavy in his mouth. He imagined, without imagining, the first bite of the new century.
He attacked with the surgical precision of a predator in its habitat.
One hand gripped her nape, the other pressed her sternum. His mouth found the artery without seeking it. The first rush was hot and grateful, like water offered in a desert. She opened her eyes late. More than scream, she tried to sit up, to understand what was happening. The vampire prevented the movement with selfish gentleness; without force.
Around them, the shadows seemed to lean in, curious, like a private audience.
The little clown's blood had a clean sadness, the stubborn innocence of someone who learns tricks to pay for the next day. The vampire drank with a concentration almost religious. Her fingers—thin and strong—groped for the juggling case like someone reaching for a talisman. She got hold of a club. Lifted it halfway. And, with her strength gone, let it fall. Her arm cooled at once. A tear cut through the ruined paint on her cheek, mixed with saliva and the fluorescent red that left a trail on the blanket.
When he finished, the vampire held her a second longer, with ancient gratitude. He looked at the body. He needed to get dressed. Dawn wouldn't take long. The sky, between buildings, had only just changed texture: from deep black to dirty blue. At the mouth of the alley, a drunk was singing. A dog turned in circles and lay down against a toppled bin; then it looked toward the vampire, petrified, and scrambled up, fleeing with its tail between its legs.
The vampire undressed the little clown with an efficiency bordering on delicacy. He separated the wig, the smock and jacket that only seemed cheerful from a distance, the pants with frayed ruffles. The sweater had a hole in the sleeve that revealed skin with old bruises.
He dressed slowly.
On his body, the clothes changed character. What on her had been tenderness and faith in the simple act of drawing a smile for a coin, on him became a mockery. The wig settled on his head like an illegitimate crown. He held the red nose between his fingers; he smiled and put it on.
He still lacked something: the face.
He wiped a trace of blood from his lip with his thumb and dragged it over his cheek, along the mouth, smearing it also across his eyes.
The vampire pictured himself before a shard of mirror the little clown used to touch up. He recognized himself without looking. He was beautiful and he was ridiculous.
He took the body. He arranged it with absolute respect. He wrapped it in the blanket with quick practicality. The weave absorbed what warmth remained and the girl's scent. He lifted her and carried her to the back of the alley, where the walls narrowed; there he found a gap, a corrugated-metal door sealed shut, a space between metal and wall through which only a cat might pass.
The vampire measured with his eyes.
No.
That hiding place wouldn't do.
Above his head, a balcony with flowerpots; below, a drain grate clogged with mud.
Then he heard footsteps.
He pressed himself to the shadow. The steps came with clumsy music: spoons clinking in a tupper, the flutter of a bag of bread inside another, a baby's babble against someone's neck. The vampire flattened, invisible. The shadow ceased to be shadow and became part of the wall.
The boy appeared, turning the corner. He was thin, and the world had taught him to move with the defensive slowness of those who guard something borrowed. His face was painted white, with two black lines running from his eyes to his chin. He entered the alley with a gesture that was almost a bow. In one arm he carried the baby, bundled in blankets. In the other, a tray with two foam cups and a fogged plastic container: coffee, milk, bread with peanut butter. He crouched unhurriedly, using his body as a barrier against the cold air so the child wouldn't lose his warmth.
"Love," he whispered, "I'm here."
The baby made a satisfied sound.
The mime set the tray on the cardboard. He readjusted a blanket that now had no owner. He looked around, like someone who knows the open air has hands. He clicked his tongue—a code-sound to announce presence without startling. He slid his hand under the blanket. Touched emptiness. He had a second of simple confusion, a wish to be wrong that made him insist, patting the layers as if they had shrunk. He found the juggling case. Opened it. Held one of the balls. He squeezed it with an automatic smile, a learned gesture to ward off the worst. The smile broke.
"Love," he said, trying to make the words sound like play and not a plea. "Love, my girl, stop hiding. Look what I brought you. It's the sesame kind."
The baby began to sob without fuss, eyes closed, a little sound that came and went like a wave, filling the space where the little clown should have been. The mime lifted his gaze toward the alley's entrance. He saw a patrol car go by in the distance, not stopping. He saw a dog sniffing a bin. He saw a light go on and off behind a curtain.
And nothing else.
"No," he said now, barely moving his lips. "No, no, no…"
He stood still for a moment. He didn't cry. He didn't shout. He took from his pocket a red nose, identical to hers, with a worn elastic. He put it on clumsily—maybe to make the child laugh, maybe to believe the act had power. The baby stopped crying for a few seconds, fascinated by the red dot. The mime smiled the way one smiles on a stage without an audience, with a hurting dignity.
The vampire watched everything from the seam between two buildings. Attention crawled through his body like a disciplined insect. The mime, the child in his arms, marked the invisible borders of the territory with a routine: he spread the cardboard, smoothed the corners, lined up the clubs, set the makeup pot on the small mirror, as if order could summon her. Then he took the coffee and left it beside the spot where she rested her head. The steam rose like a domestic ghost, slipping into the subtle rest of creation.
"It's early," he whispered. "Maybe you went to the market bathroom, like yesterday. Maybe you went to ask the quesadillas lady for hot water. Maybe you won't be long. I'll wait for you."
The vampire lifted his face. Over the rooftops, the line of the sky was paling. Day was coming on tiptoe, but the sun already licked the morning from afar with lazy tongues. The shadows shrank grudgingly, revealing trash, graffiti, cracks that at night look like mouths.
He had to find shelter. His body reminded him of a law engraved before language: the sun is a knife without hands.
He looked up. A wide gutter, almost hidden behind a metal sign hanging midway; above, a hollow between two roofs, where wind gathered dust and leaves. He could reach it. The alley would serve as a staircase.
The mime, unaware of the predator's movement, brought his cheek to the baby's. He closed his eyes. He murmured something only the child and the vampire heard. A promise. A charm. A "don't worry" that reaches no one and yet holds faith together.
The vampire scaled the wall. In two bursts he was level with the balcony of flowerpots. The smell of wet soil and crushed leaves hit his palate. Three more and he reached the gutter, which groaned with a metallic complaint. He stopped. Listened. No one looked up.
He slid his body into the hollow. The darkness there had a cleaner taste. One of those places even cats avoid because there is nothing to scratch. He settled in like someone returning to a habit. Adjusted the wig. Patted the jacket.
Below, the mime remained seated at the edge of the cardboard, the baby against his chest, his back to the wall. The coffee's steam was no longer so visible. The bread began to harden at the edges. At last the city dared to lighten the sky. A neighbor swept the sidewalk with anger. A doorbell rang three times in an apartment that did not open.
The vampire closed his eyes, to wait.
The mime lifted his gaze as if he felt something above him breathing without doing so. He saw nothing. He smiled again, with less faith but the same ceremony. He spoke to the absence as if it were a frightened animal to be coaxed with patience.
"I'm here," he said, and for an instant that sentence was the only roof for his baby and for him.
The first light of day entered the alley, timid. Everything looked like a stage set before the show. The performer was missing.
The vampire, already in his hideout, gathered his strength—he was at a dangerously vulnerable point; it had been centuries since he'd rested so exposed. Below, the city began to speak with the voices of school, buses, showers, and news anchors. A rumor of life in contrast with his endless death.
On the cardboard, the mime tightened his hold on the baby with a reflex from far away. He opened the juggling case. Took out a ball. Tossed it in the air and caught it with gentle hands, careful not to wake the child. He tossed it again. Once, twice, three times. He practiced the day's routine in his mind like a prayer he struggled not to forget.
"You're coming back," he said to no one.
The vampire, motionless, smiled without teeth. The sun climbed another inch up the wall. The city sounded like a gear settling in place. In the high, cold, dry hollow, the monster understood he had everything needed to exist again among the living, among them, feeding on them.
Day finally settled.
And in the alley, an absence was being forged forever.