By Moonlight Wrought (Bt Moonlight Wrought) (48 page)

         “Triana,” she said in revelation.

         “Eh?” Dirk asked.  “Come back under the
covers.  You will catch cold.”

         “They look like the constellation Triana,”
Cinder clarified.

         “The goddess of Love? Well that makes
sense,” he said, kissing her arm.

         “You don’t want to stay?” she asked.

         “Of course.  But I have business early in
the morning.  I’m going to practice my swordsmanship so I can kill the Fiend
and protect you,” he said with a laugh.  “And I need to check the store before
I go in.”

         “All right,” she said.   “I will just
sleep alone.”

         “Dream of me,” he said, tucking her in
and rising to dress, or he would never be able to leave that bed.

         Cinder watched him leave then tried to
sleep, but something haunted her, something in her senses was telling her to
get out of her room; something terrible was going to happen there.  She rose
and threw on her silken robe, then placed another log on the fire that Dirk had
built for her.  She paced for several minutes then, extremely anxious, dressed
again.  She went to
The
Spittoon
next door.  “That’s not too
far,” she thought.  “Dirk can’t be mad at me for just coming here.”

         The Fiend walked the streets illuminated
by the full moon, plotting Its revenge.  The snow no longer fell and the clouds
had blown over, leaving the deep violet sky as a great canopy over the world. 
It would find that group and kill them all, some more slowly than the others,
of course.  It had no use for the men.  The werewolves had failed in their
simple task, leaving the Fiend more angry and vicious than before.  “I will
kill the men and save the females for my new lair.  I will kill this Selric and
Dirk quickly, in their homes if I have to,” It thought.  “I’ll worry about
investigators later.”  The Fiend stood from where It hid and watched, ready to
go to Bessemer’s first, when It detected a shape and scent It knew well.  The
figure disappeared into a building.  The Fiend waited for hours, and when the
acquaintance failed to emerge, the Fiend pursued it.  Its plans had changed.

         Cinder played at dice, drank, and flirted
for two hours, accumulating over one-hundred and fifty crowns and she thought
it her lucky night, especially when a man came to her, smiling a broad,
closed-mouth grin.  Her heart raced.  Though he wasn’t particularly handsome,
he was nearly as tall as Dirk and much more broad; much, much more.  A great
mass of knotted muscles.  “I’d certainly be safe with him,” she thought.  “Even
Dirk would agree.”  She batted her thick lashes and smiled.  “Hi,” she said,
“I’m Cinder.”

         “Hi,” he replied, sitting down and
gambling with her briefly.  Cinder had been drinking, as usual, and felt her
keen desire while next to him.  With the alcohol blocking her empathic ability,
Cinder’s other senses came to the fore.  She could sense none of his emotions,
but could smell his manliness; his animalistic scent.  His strength was enough
to make her feel small and afraid.  He, in turn, felt her excitement, and he
whispered in her ear.

         “Wouldn’t you like somewhere more
private?”  His whisper rumbled like thunder on a warm summer evening, the hairs
on the back of her neck bristled and Cinder closed her eyes at the
exhilaration, and felt herself tingle with arousal.  She simply nodded in
response, unable to focus her mind for a more verbal answer.  “Where?” he asked
and she pointed meekly at the door.  He led Cinder there and placed her cape
about her shoulders.

         They only had to travel one door over. 
Cinder went in the building, unlocked her door, and went inside her room,
dropping her cloak off and walking enticingly across to the bed.  She placed
one more log on the nearly dead embers then straightened the sheets where she
and Dirk had just made gentle love.  She had wanted more, but she did what Dirk
had wanted that night; soft and loving.  That’s what he needed. 

         When Cinder stood upright after fixing
the bed, she found her next lover just behind her, and she squealed excitedly
as he roughly grabbed her shoulders.  “No,” she pleaded, “not yet.  I want to
do something.”

         “No,” he said.  “I want it now.”  He
tried forcing her back onto the bed. 

         “No, really.  I’m sure you’ll like it.” 
She squirmed, keeping him off balance enough that he could not use his brute
strength to knock her right over.  He allowed her to wriggle free, waiting
impatiently.  Cinder sauntered to her chest of drawers, and from the top one
pulled forth a long leather strap and a silk scarf; a look of deviant yet
innocent excitement on her face.  She walked back to him and he took the items
from her, tossed her on the bed, then fell on her, a wild stare in his green
eyes, as if something he had been long awaiting had finally come.

         He grabbed Cinder’s wrists and bound them
tightly together, very tightly, then tied them to one of the rails at the head
of the bed.  Cinder winced.  “That might be a little too tight,” she murmured.

         “Shut up,” he growled.  “This is what you
want, isn’t it?”  She nodded, totally cowed and anticipatory.  “Well, me too.” 
Cinder tried to speak, but he gagged her with the scarf.  Cinder closed her
eyes, waiting to feel his attention, when he ripped her dress off of her.  She
protested, but could speak nothing.  Twillyfoot flew insanely around inside his
cage, throwing itself against the bars in its excited state.  Cinder was
normally very protective of her clothing, but for the sake of ecstasy, she
didn’t care; not this time.  Something was amiss, but Cinder blocked It out,
thinking it only her imagination.  She put herself at his mercy, and let him
have his will.

         A loud bang woke Dirk from a nightmare. 
The room was cold when he jumped from bed, so he pulled off his blanket and
wrapped himself with it.  Dirk lit the lamp to see what must have fallen, when
he heard the door to his landing outside splinter.  He jumped, startled, and dropped
the blanket so that he could draw his sword, his blood frozen, feet rooted in
fear.  When he heard no other immediate noises, Dirk raised the lamp and walked
cautiously to the door.  Thrust clear through the portal was the blade of a
long dagger.  The door was splintered and the bar was cracked, as if something
of immense strength had been trying to break it down.  “The Fiend!” he gasped,
jumping back from the door.  Dirk looked around, but knew he was alone and
there was no one near to help him.  He ran down the stairs and called his
guards.  The two on duty came with the dog and followed Dirk upstairs.  When he
got there, Dirk dressed fully into his armor, while explaining to them what he
had heard. 

         They all approached the door, but the dog
seemed to sense nothing.  Dirk struggled to free the bar from the door since it
had been shattered in place and was now wedged between the supports.  He then
thrust the door open, needing to heave it against the heavy snowfall outside. 
The roof was covered with many heavy boot prints, but there was no sign of the
Fiend as the chill winter wind whipped briskly over the rooftop.  They went out
and the dog sniffed briefly about, then howled and jerked violently to be free
of its leash.  The first guard held the dog in place while the other and Dirk
looked all about, thinking by the animal’s distress that the Fiend must be
near.  But the dog whimpered and howled not out of excitement but out of fear. 
The guards released the animal and it bolted inside Dirk’s room and hid there,
while they checked the wall around the edges, Dirk peering cautiously up onto
the roof of his room.  They found nothing until Dirk went behind the door.

         There, pinned in place by the dagger
which had been thrust clean through the oaken buttress was a piece of
parchment.  Dirk looked closely at it:  it was the same type of expensive
vellum Cinder had used to pen the letter to the Watch.  On it, written in
thick, dark ink that had dripped heavily before freezing, were the barely
readable words:  “You left her alone.”  The dagger, Dirk saw, was also covered
in the same liquid.  Dirk then looked closely at the ink.  It was blood; frozen
blood.  His mind raced and he began to panic, fleeing at full speed down
through the building and out into the street, off to Cinder’s.

         Dirk reached Cinder’s.  He was frantic
and his lungs ached bitterly from the cold:  he had sprinted the entire
distance.  He stepped up into the building, approached Cinder’s door and
knocked on it.  On the first rap, it eased open.  Still panting like a winded
horse, Dirk pushed the door open and stepped in.  “Cinder?” he called lightly. 
“Cinder?” he repeated.  He could see nothing.  The room was dark:  no lamp, no
open shutters, and no fire.  Dirk’s panting filled the whole area before him
with his frosted breath, like a great fog bank.  The room was freezing.  He
felt no fear; his concern for Cinder overcame all other emotions and he stepped
in.

         As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Dirk
could make out Cinder’s fair skin as she lay in her bed.  He sighed in relief,
briefly shaking off what his soul knew had undoubtedly happened.  He simply
could not accept it:  not yet.  Dirk walked over:  Cinder was staring up at him
and he bent over and took her hands.  They were bound with a leather strap and
were extremely cold, Dirk believed from lack of circulation and he also thought
she might be in shock.  He saw that Cinder was gagged and he hurriedly pulled
the scarf down.  “Cinder?” he asked.  “What’s the matter?”  He got no
response.  Dirk gently smacked her cheek, but it was cold as well.

         He stood and ran to the table to light
the lamp, but it lay smashed on the floor.  “I’ve got to light a fire,” he
thought, “she’s so cold.  But first some light.”  He went and threw open the
shutter to one of the windows.  Light reflected from the full moon off the snow
banks and streamed inside, more than enough to see dimly.  As Dirk turned about
he noticed Twillyfoot lying dead in the bottom of his cage.  Dirk raced back to
Cinder and, sitting next to her, took her hands.  They were clenched as if she
were in great pain and he leaned over toward her, placing a hand upon her
abdomen as he looked closely at her face.

         Cinder’s skin was no longer ivory white,
but now tinted blue.  His hand felt something on her stomach, something bumpy
or warped.  The silk covers and black fur were pulled up to her neck, only her
face and arms exposed.  He pulled the sheets down and saw what his mind was
still fervently denying:  her stomach, like the woman he had seen butchered in
the alley, had been ripped open and blood filled the bed.  Dirk stood in
horror, gasping, trying to breathe, but the wind had been knocked from him as
totally as when the knights had kicked it from him.  He looked at Cinder’s
face, her tortured look and blank stare, all the undeniable pieces hitting him
like a mace.  Dirk’s world went black.

         Dirk woke from his nightmare.  Selric was
holding his hand and smacking his face.  “Dirk,” he called, “Thank the gods
you’re all right.”

         “Selric,” Dirk stuttered.  “Selric,” he
mumbled.  “Selric,” he said a third time, “I had a dream that Cinder...”

         “Dirk,” Selric interrupted.  “What
happened?”  The last ten minutes of Dirk’s life before his unconsciousness came
flooding back as he realized his nightmare was true and that his life had
changed forever.  “What happened?” Selric repeated.

         “I...I got a note,” he said dazed and
looking around, trying to remember where he was.  “And I came.”  Selric helped
him up and led Dirk to the couch on the far side of the room Cinder had bought
with money from their adventure.  Dirk looked back over to the bed and saw
Cinder’s precious face still gazing blankly at the ceiling, her hands like
twisted claws.  He fell face first onto the couch, sobbing slowly.

         Selric walked back to her.  He drew his
dagger and cut the scarf from Cinder’s neck, noticing that the corners of her
mouth were red and gouged from the pressure of the gag, and from her teeth: 
she had bitten through her skin in her agony.  Next he cut the strap from her arms,
kissing the scars gently.  “I’ll protect you,” he remembered himself saying. 
Unable to look at her body, he pulled the blood soaked sheets back up and
tucked her in, folding her hands peacefully upon her breast.  He closed her
eyes and kissed each one, then sat back down beside her, his left hand covering
the grief upon his face, his right hand laying atop both of hers.  “I will give
my life before I let another harm a hair on your beautiful head,” he remembered
as clearly as if the words had just been said aloud. 

         Soon, Selric heard running feet near the
window, and he saw two shapes pass by.  Fiona and Melissa came racing into the
room, having received the same identical note.  “Oh no,” Fiona sighed sadly. 
“No,” she repeated, looking ready to fall to her knees in shock.  The women
could see Selric sitting next to what appeared at first to be a sleeping
Cinder, both of them illuminated by a beam of moonlight:  all else in the room
was pitch dark.  Selric sat staring out the window at the moon, which had begun
to set over a tall building across the street.

         Fiona could smell death in the room;
blood and death.  Sobbing was evident to Melissa from off to her right, under
the window, and as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark she could see Dirk
lying there.  She hurriedly knelt by him, and when he felt her caring, gentle
touch, he stopped sobbing and began to cry, his great torso heaving up and down
uncontrollably, covering and clutching his face, tugging at his beard.  Walking
hesitantly over to Selric, Fiona could see tears on his handsome cheeks as he
looked up at her.  He nodded in answer to her silent question.  She quickly,
nonetheless, checked Cinder to see if there was anything she or her magic might
do. 

         “Well?” Selric asked, after clearing his
throat several times.

         “It’s too late,” Fiona said, shaking her
head.  “My powers aren’t great enough to help her.”  She sat behind Selric and
hugged him.  He took his hand from his face and grasped Fiona’s arm
reassuringly, as the moon dipped behind the rooftops and the spotlight
vanished, leaving the room in chilly darkness.  Selric took a deep breath and
as Fiona held on to him she felt his strength, but as he let out a great sigh
the noble son’s unquenchable spirit seemed to deflate and he sat limply,
forsaken before her and she lay her head upon his shoulder.

         Dirk cried for only a few minutes then
stood, nearly knocking Melissa over in his hasty rage:  he wanted to be strong
in front of them, especially his Missy.  He walked to where Selric and Fiona
were, where he had dropped his sword when he fainted.  He picked it up then
stormed out.  Melissa sat on the couch and looked at Fiona with her head lying
on Selric’s back:  both of them mourning silently.  Melissa was sad for Cinder,
but she didn’t weep.  She wanted to, but it would not come.  She looked after
Dirk, then back to Fiona and Selric, then decided to stay with the two friends,
feeling Dirk wanted to be alone.  She waited for two hours in the cold room for
her friends to rise and depart.  Melissa followed quietly behind as they walked
out, glancing at Cinder as she lay tranquil in her bed, then she closed the
door behind her.