Hi! This is a really old story that has been gathering virtual dust in my folder for some time now. Thought it was time to bring it out into the light of day. (Be kind.)

Disclaimer: I do not own Petshop of Horrors.

Prologue - Pride

The man stepped back, breathing heavily. In front of him lay the body of the very recently deceased "Darling Dotty", a figure well known in that area and a girl of the street corners. She had been a relatively pretty girl, much cuter at least than many of the whores in the neighbourhood, with long curly hair and large eyes. Now she was dead, and the knife in the man's hand was red.

The man heaved suddenly, throwing up what little he had left of his dinner, one hand against the wall to steady himself. He was sweating all the way through his shirt, making the heavy jacket of his suit stick to his back. He looked down at his hand in disgust, wiped the knife against his trouser leg and stuck it back in his pocket, fighting down the nausea that threatened to rise again at the thought of what that knife, that tool of murder, had done. No. What he had done, with that knife.

He heaved again, but there was nothing left in his stomach and the only thing he felt was his gut being twisted inside out. Wiping his hand across his mouth, he tried to figure out what to do next. He had to get out of there quickly, but should he wait until he was calmer so that he didn't look suspicious? Or was it more dangerous to linger, since then he could be caught at the scene?

"Oy," said a voice, and he very nearly passed out. He was going to be caught and convicted, he was going to spend years in jail, his career would be ruined...

He turned around slowly, his stomach leaden (despite having been so recently emptied). But meeting his gaze was no policeman. It was a young man, wearing oriental-looking clothes and no shoes. His feet looked strange – they were far too long and the nails, like those on his fingers, were so long and pointed as to best be described as claws. He was smiling, and his teeth were white against his tanned skin.

"Are you willing to share her?" he asked. For a moment the man thought the stranger meant sexually, and the bile rose in his throat as he thought that even for a necrophile you had to be twisted to be turned on by that wreck of a body, but then the young man went on, "I would normally hunt for myself rather than scavenge off others, of course, but the truth is that I'm so hungry that right now I could hardly find the strength to kill a toddler. Would you mind if I had just a limb or two?"

The man stared. Slowly his disgust changed to horror as he realized the stranger was serious, and then to anger. "God, you're sick!" he exclaimed. "You mean you'd eat her? What kind of a twisted bastard are you?"

The strange figure leaned his head to one side, looking puzzled. "Am I sick for wanting to eat her?" he asked. "What, aren't you going to?"

"No!" exclaimed the man, sick to the stomach. The stranger frowned.

"You mean you didn't kill her for food? Then what didshe die for?" he asked, slowly walking forwards and crouching down beside the corpse. The man backed away until he stood against the wall, swallowing and swallowing to force the bile back down his throat. "I mean, it can hardly have been self defence, she doesn't look as if she could threaten you..." The youngster paused, and then looked steadily up at the older man. "Sounds to me as if you're the sick one here, if you killed her for no reason at all."

"I had a reason!" snapped the man, as much to reassure himself as to tell the other. "She... you don't understand... she was demanding more money, always more money, or she'd tell what I... it's illegal, you know, to buy from, from, from people like her. It isn't in – " he glanced dubiously at the other's clothing and tried to discern what origin they had, but gave up " – in some countries, maybe, but here it is and if it got out that I'd been... buying from her, I – my career would be ruined! I would get fired, I wouldn't be able to find a new job either, I'd lose everything I'd ever worked for!" He shouldn't be saying this. He should be denying he had anything to do with Dotty's murder, should be getting on his way. Later he would explain to himself that it had been the guilt talking. He would try not to think of those large, dark, reproachful eyes, drawing him in and forcing him to speak.

"She's just a whore anyway!" he exploded, shaking his head as if to shake away the guilt.

"Whore..." said the young man thoughtfully and quietly. He was sitting next to Dotty's head, caressing one of her long curls with slim fingers. "This means that she gets paid to satisfy lonely men, I believe." He looked up, and smiled. "What do you do for a living, you of Great Ambition?"

"I – I work in the tax department," said the man in confusion.

"So you get paid to take people's money." The youngster let the lock of hair fall back to the ground. He was no longer smiling. "I think she makes her customers happier than you do. And I think, that if a person's line of work is what decides whether that person has the right to live or not – that's what you said, isn't it? – then you deserve to die more than she did."

And as the man looked into the other's eyes he saw a ruthless, hungry being, one that cared not for the hierarchical structures of the human world but only for whom was worth eating. Here was someone who made no difference between humans; the good or the bad, the rich or the poor, the respected citizens or the scum of the city – all were equal to him. The ultimate sense of justice, in a way.

The man turned, and ran. He ran until his heart pounded, caring nothing for secrecy or discretion, ran all the way to the nearest main street where he hailed a cab and gave the driver an outrageous amount of money for getting him home to his apartment as quick as possible. And the entire way, until he curled up on the sofa in his living room and hugged his knees tightly to stop shaking, he was sobbing; terrified that he would be caught, ripped limb from limb and slowly devoured by an inhuman creature that knew nothing but the joy of the hunt.

Meanwhile, the young man sat in the lane, eating his fill. He had made sure to leave enough of the body for the police to do their work properly, but there was no sense in letting good meat go to waste. Later the crime techs would be able to find evidence that pointed straight to the man who had killed her – one the police had been keeping an eye on lately. They would also see that a large animal had been at the corpse, but would put this down to one of the many stray dogs that wandered the area.

Witnesses would easily recall how strange the suspected murderer had looked when he rushed out of the alley Darling Dotty was later found in, and they would comment on how quickly he got away from the area – almost as if chased by something. Guilt, they would say, nodding their heads wisely, and it might make for a story in an evening paper. The man would be convicted of manslaughter, and would then be facing a sentence of – at the inside – twelve years. Yet he had known all this, known what it was he risked, when he chose to kill a woman whose only fault in the world was greed. He had chosen to risk spending the next decade in jail when the alternative was humiliation and shame.

The youngster licked his fingers, and grinned up at the stars.

"Strange creatures, humans," said Totetsu.