I love to feed on the shame and embarrassment men feel when I turn them down. They are quite delicious. For a while, I didn’t realize I was doing it, but now it’s a habit I’m glad to keep.
It’s not common knowledge, but energy vampires can feed on emotions other than pain. The problem is, to manifest as an energy vampire you have to have lived a life that encouraged pain in others as a human first, so most people think that’s the only way. If you are the child of an energy vampire instead—like I was—you have an easier time avoiding the dark.
Not that this rule has ever helped me, because I’ve only ever hurt those around me. The dark has always been my home. I’ve lost count of the men I’ve preyed on. I’m the opposite of my half-sister in that way. She doesn’t let the loneliness of being an energy vampire turn her into a sour apple. The only energy she feeds on is that of her husband, an incubus sex demon. Apparently, they taste like candy. The only other person she has fed on was our father, the energy vampire that created us. He’s gone now. Good riddance. Both of our mothers are safer for it.
My sister’s wedding was sickeningly sweet. Helping take care of their daughter while they were on honeymoon was also depressing because of how fucking cute it was. She got her happily ever after and that won’t be the case for me. How could it be when I love to inflict pain?
I’m back home now and desperate to feed. A week away from my destruction is too much.
I pull the pleather pants up my legs, satisfied they make me look like a hot piece of meat, and add my heels and the red tank top that makes my breasts look extra perky. It’s a generic come fuck me outfit, but the classics work for a reason. I keep my makeup simple most days but do take the extra moment to apply dark winged eyeliner and quickly pull a brush through my bleach blonde hair. My light-colored hair washes out my already white face further, but the eyeliner and contour help balance my complexion. I’m due for some toner but I’ll deal with that in a few days. Food comes first.
I go out to feed on men about four times a week, rotating through bars to make sure I don’t hit the same ones too often, or my food may stop approaching. As a female energy vampire, my existence is like a Venus flytrap, so the prey comes to me. If I wasn’t an energy vampire, I’d likely hate the attention, but for my breed of demon it comes in handy.
Music fills my ears and the essence of smoke and sweaty bodies hits my nose. I take a big whiff, feeling all those that have already shamed themselves in my bones. I use my five senses to feed, unlike regular vampires that have to ingest blood for life energy. It’s all the intention behind it. Before I fully realized my abilities a year ago, I would only use sight and took a strange delight in seeing people I hated hurt, without consciously realizing I was taking some of that energetic force from them. Now, I admit I prefer touch and taste, but that’s not always easy to swing in a bar setting. Of course, I occasionally sleep with my prey, but I usually regret it when I have to deal with them after.
I sit at an empty stool and the bartender fetches my regular, a bloody mary— which I honestly got into because of the irony—and I wait for my food to come to me. I don’t have to wait long before it’s delivered.
“Hi, gorgeous,” my prey says.
I turn to the man and retort, “Hello, average.” He’s arguably handsome, but telling him that won’t help my goal to fuck shit up.
He blanches and turns away. A nice quick hit for me, but I’ll get full eventually. He can go off and find someone else to woo—I don’t want to pull the cutest guy from someone else tonight. I can be charitable.
“Was he bothering you?” Snack Number Two asks me. I smile up at him. Bingo. He has an air of desperation that Mr. Handsome did not.
“A little,” I pout. “Will you stay with me just in case he comes back?”
“Of course.” He calls for shots from the bartender. When he sits, I let my knee linger against his.
We talk for half an hour and I leave little offensive digs peppered in, causing dips in his energy before pulling him back in with smiles or a brush of my hand. I’ve gotten enough drinks in him that I know he is about to be more reckless, so I get a trap ready.
Over his shoulder I spot someone with lingering eyes. I stare back at him and play with my straw, calling him in. He comes forward and pats Snack Two on the shoulder.
“I think your girl wants my attention,” says Third Snack. I wink at him to confirm my interest.
Snack Two turns to the stranger and scrunches his face. “Hey, man. We were talking. Get out of here.”
I stand up and throw my cherry stem into my latest glass. The bartender gives the bill to Snack Two.
“Wait, Kandy, where are you going?” Snack Two asks, using the fake name I gave him as he reaches for my arm. I let him hold it, keeping the connection when I deliver my blow.
“To fuck a real man,” I tell him shamelessly. I have no intention of sleeping with Third Snack, but this is part of my process.
“You bitch,” Snack Two spews, as expected.
“Hey, man. Watch it. She just knows quality when she sees it,” my new idiot responds.
I step back and Snack Two throws a punch at New Idiot—all according to plan. I slide over to the corner booth covered in darkness with a broken lightbulb, sit on the edge, and watch with a smile. The fight escalates, with Idiot’s friends coming in to defend, and I inhale my triumph. Sweat, blood, smog, alcohol. I take another deep breath and feel the underlayer of testosterone, horniness, aggression, anger, and disappointment.
“Tastes good, doesn’t it?” A deep voice questions behind me.
I’m pulled from my feeding and turn around. I am not alone in the dark booth.
“I’ve always enjoyed eating from your prey,” he says, leaning forward to reveal more of his face. He’s golden-tan, freckled, with red hair and deep brown eyes. He wears a leather jacket that seems a smidge too big on him, and I can’t help but smile slightly at the sight.
“Who are you?” I ask, shaking off the smile. He knows I’m eating, but he doesn’t feel like an energy vampire.
“Asher, a son of chaos, and you are?”
For some unknown reason, I feel a desire to answer honestly, but I don’t. I have no idea what a son of chaos means and I don’t like being in the dark. Figuratively, that is. In practice, the dark is nice.
“Kandy,” I reply instead, giving him the fake name I usually use with my meals.
“You don’t strike me as a sweet candy,” he comments.
“Well, I’m more a Warhead candy you are meant to choke on,” I joke, a little uneven on the playing field.
“I would believe that with so much destruction happening everywhere you go.”
“How would you know that?” I ask him, uneasy with the familiarity.
“I’ve seen you here and in other bars around the city.” He takes a sip of his cocktail.
“Maybe I should let the police know I have a stalker.” I add an edge to my tone.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He smirks.
“What would you do if you were me exactly?” I challenge. The air around him feels like confidence and desperation simultaneously, a tang to his mannerisms I’m having trouble identifying.
He tilts his head to the side, eyes dropping to my neck and chest, before returning to my eyes. “Kiss me, of course.”
“What makes you think I should give you that pleasure?” I ask, wondering how this man’s energy could be telling me so many conflicting things.
“Chaos demons taste good,” he says, and I’m intrigued. Is this like a succubus thing?
“What do chaos demons do?” I can’t help but ask. His body inches closer to me in the booth.
“We thrive on violence, danger, adrenaline…We need it, so we create it. Chaos demons and their harvested energy are responsible for six of the top ten most destructive wars.”
“You must be good at this work then,” I comment, thinking we’d have something in common. I don’t have an interest in war, but I do certainly like the taste of destruction.
“No, actually, I’m horrible at it, which is why I follow you.” His serious expression morphs into that of a cutie pie, eyes wide and open, looking down into my own with warmth to them.
I’m so surprised by his answer that I don’t notice him lean forward until he is only centimeters away.
“I’d follow you anywhere,” he whispers and bends that last inch.
When our lips touch, I’m dazed. He tastes like this whole evening, all the hurt men behind me, the violence in their punches, mixed with the adrenaline of the police coming in to break up the brawl. All the pain I caused is given back to me in a second helping on his lips, but there is a layer of emotion I haven’t felt in a long time beneath it…
Admiration.
When he pulls back and shares that small hesitant smile with me again, I blink several times, not understanding.
A bang comes from behind us and I snap my head in the direction of the doors. A group of men come through, whistling low and appreciatively at the beat-up men being dragged away for public disturbance. Half are in fitted suits, the others in more biker-like outfits like Asher. They look around the room and spot me. Or, at least I think they’re eyeing me. When they get to the table, they look at my position and Asher’s, the evidence of our kiss still plain on my swollen lips and flushed face. Some of them seem intrigued by our closeness, others neutral.
“Good work, Asher,” the burly man in front says, nodding toward the fight, and I’m stunned again. Did they just congratulate him for the fight I started? Knowing now that chaos is their goal, it seems so.
“See you later, Kandy,” Asher says and slides out of the booth, leaving with them. I can only stare after him, jaw dropped as anger boils up.
That son of a demon has been taking credit for my work.