For a moment our gazes crossed like swords. Suddenly the stranger took a quick step away from the bridge, as if fleeing from my unwilling, insistent attention. But I, as if mesmerised, looked after her, I just couldn't let her go. Let go of that magic.
Shit! What was I thinking?
I mentally berated myself for allowing myself to stare at some mortal, and, by an effort of will, albeit a hard one, I pushed the thought of her out of my head and remembered my immediate plans for the evening – to get away from the world and be in another reality for a while. But that memory brought back another, unwelcome memory-the scent of the stranger's blood, so tantalising. I would kill her and drink every last drop of that delicious blood.
No. Not this time.
I had principles I did not deviate from, even for the sake of such a unique flavour: killing girls and children was taboo for me. I hunted people who had already tasted life. The category of my victims started from the age of thirty to fifty, and I unmistakably felt the age of my victims, determining it by the smell of blood, and in the years of my life never made a single mistake. I felt that the girl I was interested in was still young, about twenty-two years old. Let her live. Maybe in eight years I'll find her and taste her blood.
With these thoughts I drove back to the castle. There, leaving the Toyota in the garage, I walked to the city.
In the morning several people were once again reported missing in Prague. When I heard this, I grinned: these were the hunting tracks of Markus and his fiancée. All the Prague newspapers wrote about these mysterious disappearances, including the cries of unhappy relatives and appeals for vigilance. The citizens of Prague discussed the news with bitter sighs. I, on the other hand, was filled only with indifference and derision.
CHAPTER 3
I passed the physics with flying colours: it was easy to tell what I had learnt long ago and knew like a proper name. And, although at this period of my life studying was a burden to me, being a part of modern universities was interesting to me at all times, and I was curious to see how education, its system, was changing, how every year new and new, unrepeatable faces appeared. At one time my hobby was people-watching, but this activity soon became nothing but a source of frustration and contempt for me.