81

You stroll up Elgin Street, passing beside benches and well-tended trees as you take in the sights and sounds of the park. It's been years since you've spent time hunting here and it feels good to be back. Comforting somehow. One of the few memories of your first month as a vampire not shrouded by fog is of Corliss taking you here for your first hunt. To say it was exhilarating would be an understatement, and it left an imprint on your undead psyche that bursts up like a weed as you soak in your surroundings.

You walk through the main entrance and pass by the central fountain. It's quiet during these chill winter months, but when you stalked your first mortal, it had been bubbling and splashing away just loud enough to muffle the struggle as you dragged the unwilling man into the northwest corner of the park and fed ravenously behind a row of empty benches. If Corliss hadn't been present to stop you from draining him dry, the night might have ended with a very different exercise, but fortunately—both for you and your victim—body disposal was a lesson to be learned at a later date.

One of the most attractive things about Confederation Park as a feeding ground is its location central to the most notable Kindred locations in Ottawa—an easy walk from Parliament Hill and the luxurious offices and living spaces enjoyed by the native vampiric population. Feeding here is limited to the upper classes—Primogen and their immediate childer, friends of the Prince and Seneschal, and so forth. As most of these Kindred are typically interested in stalking a finer breed of meat, the park goes largely unharvested—a boon to you, as the local population has no reason to raise their guard. A field of unconcerned sheep leaves the wolf with easy pickings, after all.

You can almost hear the gurgling fountain from all those years ago, but this time you stalk through a silent gloom, gliding toward the elderly gentleman like an angel of death. He doesn't raise his head as you approach, but a twitching in his gnarled right hand betrays him. He knows you're here.

"Have you come to take me, then?" the old man asks suddenly. His ragged voice sounds tired and world-weary, like he's seen one too many winters. "I've been coming here for almost a year since you took Samantha, waiting for you to come back and take me too." He tilts his head back and pulls a cloth cap from his balding head, clutching it to his chest. "Have mercy on me, specter. Take me to my wife."

You're caught off-guard. Far from giving you the nostalgic hunt you craved, this mortal is greeting you as though he knows your business quite well. You once heard it said that those with one foot in the grave could sometimes sense un-death, your lack of a beating heart and the reek of your damnation. But such tales are often impossible to verify. In theory, anyway.

"Will you say nothing?" the old man says, peering up at you. "I'm ready—I've made my peace. Just make it quick."