"Yeah?" came via what sounded like nothing else but an actual death rattle from the New Yorker sharing their sidewalk whom Spike had tentatively picked for tonight's dinner victim.
Looking over again the aged man hunched inside his shabby coat with deep-sunk eyes and a very pale face that he'd come out of a dark alley to confront moments ago, Spike changed his mind at once, justifying this with a quick thought:
*Not like this bony bloke seems all that tasty, anyway.*
Giving a half-shrug of apology, Spike brushed past the man, muttering from out of the corner of his mouth on the way, "Sorry, mate. Thought you might have a light, but I just remembered they were in my pocket. Ta, then."
Eyeing the back of the blond Englishman in his leather jacket predatorily stalking away, Detective Phil Fish of the NYPD couldn't help thinking that over the years, for some weird reason no vampire had ever bothered to attack him or even do something more aggressive than the usual short encounter just like this evening on his latest walk to the squad room.
Under his own breath, Fish grouchily complained to nobody in particular, "Hey, I don't always come across like I'm gonna keel over in the next damn second, do I?"
This veteran cop more than familiar with what lurked in the city's darkest corners headed again towards the police station down the block, wincing at the familiar twinges of agony coming from below his waist at every step. *Nobody better get in my way tonight when I need to use the precinct mens' room!*
Author's Note: Done a few weeks ago when unlike all the other times when he was falsely mentioned to be dead, Abe Vigoda the actor who wonderfully portrayed one of the most eccentric cops ever written on the tv show Barney Miller did in fact pass away. Created for a tribute to a classic 1970's character.