His teeth sank into the boy’s neck and he felt a warm spurt of blood fill his mouth. A deep calm came over him. The chattering in his head fell silent. The fidgeting and twitching in his arms and legs stopped. The deep itch dulled. He felt like he was plugged into the universe, or as if the universe was plugged into him. As he drank, he looked up at the stars. They seemed to spell out a message for him, if only he could read it. He squinted and strained, his brain throbbing in his hot head. What were they trying to tell him? No good. No good. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the blood. It tasted like life, clearing out all the poison inside him, cleaning his tubes and guts, lighting up a million stars within his brain. He shuddered with pleasure.

The boy was still moving, feebly trying to break away from his grip, but St George was holding him tight. When he’d drunk his fill, he’d give him to the others. They were sitting in a circle around him, waiting. The closest were the ones who’d been with him from the start. His lieutenants. And behind them, in circle after circle, the others, spreading out, filling the park. Sitting there, quietly waiting, their faces lit by moonlight. And out past them, all around, working their way through the city streets … his army was hunting. Maybe that’s what the stars were showing him. The sky was a map and each star was one of his people. He was at the centre, the brightest star of all. And they were all connected, in a circle of light, so that he was out there hunting with his people, and they were feeding with him now.

They’d only found this one child so far tonight, but there would be more. Each night it took longer as they emptied the nearby streets, and had to search further and wider.

He was always the first to feed. Sometimes only drinking the blood; sometimes tearing off the flesh. The blood was the best part. The blood was electricity, driving his brain and body, blowing away the darkness and the fog. And with the blood came the memories. Flooding into his thoughts. His life up there in the stars, and in the jungle, travelling across the sea, searching for a new home and finding it inside this body.

This body.

This man.

Greg … Greg Thorne. Of Greg’s Organic Gaff.

Meat is life.

He was Greg. He had to hold on to the memory. It was like waking from a beautiful dream and feeling it slip away from you. He’d been a butcher. With a son. A boy. His own boy. What was his name …?

His boy?

No good. Not coming.