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He snapped off the electric lights in the storage room and waited. Within seconds a pair of customers had come into the shop, a big gawky boy and a pale emaciated European girl.

"Back here," he said, beckoning to them, smiling at them, focusing his precious power right on their eyes, glancing from one to the other. "Come."

This was his favorite way to do it, with a tender throat in each hand, taking one and then the other, suckling, lapping, sloshing the hot salty blood around in his mouth, then going at it again, and then the first victim again, letting both weaken at the same gentle speed until he was satisfied. He could drink no more. Three deaths now had passed through him in wrenching spasms. He was hot and tired and he felt like he could see through walls as well as walk through them. He was full.

He took the boy's shirt, white and fresh and clean, and he put that on. The dungarees were all right too. And the leather belt fit. The shoes were big and soft and laced up, and they felt loose to him, but it was better than being stared at, better than having to fight with some little gang of mortals and then flee them, though it was easy enough to do.

Now with the young European woman's hairbrush he cleaned all the dust and soil from his brown hair. And with her dress, he wiped off his face and hands. It made him sad to look at them dead, the three of them, his victims, and he had to admit it always did.

"What sentimental nonsense," said the being talking inside him.

"You shut up, what do you know!" he said aloud.

He walked through the brightly lighted store and back out into the throng in the streets. The lighted towers rose on either side of him; the lights were so beautiful to him, so magical, climbing higher and higher into the sky--strips of blue and red and yellow and orange, and all that artful lettering. He liked their lettering, the Japanese. It made him think of the writing of the old times when people had carefully painted their words on papyrus and on walls.

Why did he turn off the beautiful thoroughfare? Why did he leave behind the crowds?

There it was, the little hotel he'd been seeking. That's where they hid from the world, the pesky young ones, the foolish and blundering blood drinker riffraff.

Ah, yes, and you will burn them now, burn them all. Burn the building. You have the power to do it. The power is inside you here with me.

Was that really what he wanted to do?

"Do as I have told you to do," said the angry voice now in words.

"What do I care about all those blood drinkers hiding in there?" he said aloud. Weren't they simply lost and lonely and dragging themselves through eternity just as he was? Burn them? Why?

"The power," said the being. "You have the power. Look at the building. Let the heat collect in your mind, focus it, then send it forth."

It had been so long since he'd attempted something like that. It was tempting to see if he could do it.

And suddenly he was doing it. Yes. He felt the heat, felt it as if his own head would explode. He saw the facade of the little hotel waver, heard it crackle, and saw the flames erupting everywhere.

"Kill them as they come out!"

Within seconds the hotel was a tower of flame. And they were rushing right towards him, right into the path of the one who was burning them. It was like a game, throwing the beam at one and then another and another. They were each individual torches for an instant, dying quickly to the rainy pavement.

His head ached. He staggered backwards. A woman stood by the entrance sobbing, reaching out to one of the young ones who'd been burnt to the ground. She was old. It would take such heat to burn her. I don't want to. I don't want to do any of this.

"Ah, but you do! Now, lift her out of her pain and her suffering...."

"Yes, such pain and such suffering ..."

He sent the blast at her with all his strength. Throwing up her arms, she threw a blast of her own towards him but her face and arms were already turning black. Her clothes were on fire. Her legs gave out. Ano

ther blast and she was finished and then another and another and only her bones gave off smoke as they melted.

He had to be quick. He had to get those who had escaped from the back.

Through the burning building he ran, easily picking them out when he reemerged into the rain.

Two, three, then a fourth, and there were no more.

He sat slumped against a wall, and the rain soaked through his white shirt.

"Come," said the dictatorial voice. "You are dear to me now. I love you. You have done my will and I will reward you."

"No, get away from me!" he said disgustedly. "I don't do anyone's will."