He knew the pursuit was trivial but he liked the game all the same. The evening was settling into it’s ethreal glow. This was the visage that Arthur Mist liked the earth the most in. Street lamps were only just beginning  to wink awake like meerkats, surveying the people that ambled by with caution. The New Orleans boardwalk was coming to life below, and Art could barely contain his excitement. It was how he always felt before a hunt, and tonight he thought he felt success in the air. If he could see himself through his tracking goggles he bet he would be as luminescent as he’d been in years.

He was looking to make a big catch today. He’d had a rough winter, with hardly any vagabond passions to speak of. But it was finally beginning to warm, and with that, passions would be more transient . The biggest passions wandered a bit more freely during the summer months, or so Art had come to learn.

He slid his tracking googles over his eyes, watching as the world became dark, but with it, a transposed glow emanated from each body on the street below him. Children shone the brightest, while adults appeared muted. The youngest proved the most habitable vessels, so only the strongest passions occupied there.

A laugh rang out from below, lacking any social hindrance. It had no other purpose but pure, unassailable purity. Art knew that he would have to be swift. Such a call would be sure to attract any vagabond passions wishing to find a new host. He reached for the gun at his hip, pulling it from it’s holster. He clicked off the safety on his third attempt. Even his experienced fingers wriggled with anticipation, making this usually routine act difficult. Keeping his eyes fixated on the couple below did not help make it any easier.

That was the source of the laugh, of course. A young lady in her twenties, walking arm and arm with a young man about her age. Or at least, Art assumed as much based on the glow they both gave off. That might change.

And then he saw it. A fat, purple glow gliding around the telephone wires. It was even bigger than Art had imagined it might be. The source of it’s prey was obvious, and it shot towards the girl who swung in the arms of her man. But unfortunately for her, tonight would perhaps not be the night where she found love. Not if Art had his way.  Vagabond passions of love such as this sold too well on the market.

Art aimed at the purple swirling hue, steadying his hands as it circled the girl twice, examining to make sure it had found its intended target.

But just as it was about to latch itself to its new body, Art Mist pulled the trigger. The weapon went off silently, but that did not make it any less devastating.

The vagabond twisted and convulsed in the air like a salted slug, before falling to the ground.

Art leapt from the top of the bar he’d been sitting on, scaring a few girls who’d just ordered a drink. He grabbed at his backpack, pulling a clear jar without acknowledging the girls. He would have heard one of the girls call him an asshole had he been listening. He wasn’t of course. He was only focused on the task at hand.

Most people thought anger was the vagabond to be worried about. Art had captured one on a few occasions. He’d even successfully wrangled a psychosis passion before. But to think these were to be feared the most was a common misconception.

Of all the feelings, love was the hardest to kill, and certainly the most dangerous. Art Mist would not underestimate the squirming purple in front of him.

Not this time.