Her fingers fly through the pages, another day, another mark, another meal.
“Most Eligible Bachelors in Manila.” Today was looking extra delicious.
Her top mark was Arrevelo Moreno, founder of Noir Wines. The article called him “The next big thing in the F&B industry.”
A connoisseur, this one might prove a challenge and a challenge is all that she needed.
See, she had perfected her game stretching centuries back, it was all too easy in the past to scrounge for her next meal.
She was beautiful, and sometimes that was enough.
But enough was never enough.
Through the years she had gotten bored of eating for survival. She called others like her ‘Pathetic’ for being guided by their stomachs.
The tender light from the moon illuminated her room and settled on a barong that lay in the corner of her room.
What was his name again?
Hidalgo or something close. She was just a young waif then, having recently been initiated in the ways of those like her.
He was a nervous young man, never believing that he was handsome or accomplished enough for her. Those things didn’t matter to her then. Once she saw how healthy and well-fed he was her belly grumbled.
And then came the nights.
The sunlight was her enemy, temporarily negating her powers. But it was easy enough to excuse herself from the day by saying she had ’sensitive’ skin. Her fiancé believed her of course, anything out of her mouth was gospel to him.
She prepared herself for the first night, remembering the words of her elders.
There were two ways to feed, one was to let her tongue taper to that of a needle and prick her victim’s neck. Another way (and one she preferred) was to insert her tongue into her victim’s mouth and imbibe the flowing blood, making it look like she was passionately kissing him.
How many times had she kissed a man like that, she wondered? Hundreds, thousands?
That was the truth of youth, at least with her kind. Feeding was their only prerogative, everything else was secondary.
Until it became boring.
Seduce. Feed. Flee. Repeat.
It was on the advent of this century that she decided to challenge herself.
Her victims became more and more powerful.
Artists, politicians, businessmen, the more famous the better. It was the thrill of almost being caught that fueled her frenzy.
Of course that meant she needed to change as well.
She never had to deal with camera phones centuries prior but that was part of the fun.
It was amazing what she could do with a little makeup and some wigs. No one that knew her had ever seen her real face.
But back to Arrevelo. It seemed that he fancied the nightlife around the district of Poblacion. The word through the grapevine was that he was always at one specific bar he would always go to.
Now what did he like? Research was almost as fun as finishing the hunt.
She searched through the society magazines, social media and random rumors to get an idea of what he was looking for, physically at least.
Slim, Morena and artsy, that was his last girlfriend. And his last before that. Sometimes this was too easy.
Going up to him was no issue, he was already inebriated by the time she got to him. The thick smell of his cologne was suffocating, but she was in too deep to disengage.
They couldn’t hear each other over the roar of the music which was wonderful. Small talk made her skin crawl.
She kissed him right on the dance floor, her tongue the thrill was indescribable, feeding right in front of everyone at the bar.
The rest of the bar patrons cheered as they kissed in the dim light. She took him by the hand and lead him out of the bar into a nearby alley.
It was already at its peak point, she could not resist the hunger anymore. She forced her tongue down his throat and reveled in the sweet taste of blood.
Her blouse was stained wine-red as she observed the grisly scene. It was still dark out and this meant she was able to transform into her bird-form.
She flew, barreling down the skyscrapers and taking in the few stars that were visible.
This was the best day of her life.
Until the next one.
=—————————————=
Written by Karl Gaverza
Copyright © Karl Gaverza
Inspired by the Mandurugo description in The Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology, Maximo Ramos, Phoenix Publishing, 1990 and 101 Kagila-gilalas na Nilalang. Samar. 2015
Anggitay Illustration by Abe Joncel Guevarra
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