Demons are Sometimes Human

The first victim.

The thudding of his footsteps on the pavement was only a whisper through the noise of the street. Black cars with tinted windows drove past with bursts of dark smoke following them closely. Police sirens were a constant echo throughout the dimly lit side street. People peeled out of the shadows as he walked down the street, like rats to the scent of blood. They were the low crowd, prostitutes and drug dealers sniffing out their next "client". But they weren't what he was looking for. They could still be traced.

It was nearly midnight. The moon hung heavy in the sky, turning a blind eye to the scene below. He was nearly at the edge of the city, and the steady crawl of cars had slowed to a trickle. There was only one person that he could see other than himself, and even then it was hard to make out the figure in the dark. But he knew that this was the one he wanted.

The man sat with a hunch, dirty clothes layered over his body. He drank from a flask in a paper bag and his only companions in the darkness were the flies that buzzed around his head. The man didn't hear the soft footsteps behind him and barely noticed as a rope slipped under his chin. And then it was pulled taut, tied quickly behind his head as he gasped for air, fingers slipping in an attempt to grab the tight noose. The man fell backwards, face convulsing in pain, discomfort, and suddenly fear. The silver knife that had before merely been behind his back was unsheathed now, and it stabbed down overtop the man's heart. It ripped and tore erratically through the flesh and cloth that covered the victim, carving the shape of a cartoon heart into the writhing body.

The man's body shuddered once, twice, and then was completely still.

The killer stood, untied the rope from around the body's neck, and placed it neatly framing the heart. He then wrenched the knife out of the man's chest and washed it off with the remaining alcohol in the flask the man had previously been drinking from.

And then he turned on his heel, and he was gone.