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Above the common rooms where so oft blood has spilled to drench the beer-smelling floorboards, above the stairwell where many star-crossed lovers have thundered feet in the seeking of a room to spend sweaty, guilty nights. In one such room, she sleeps; lily-pale in the moonlight, a waif whose oft-haughty disposition is dulled by sleep, smoothed to calm. What dreams furrow her brows and drive her eyes to wildly dart, hither and thither beneath their velvet lids?
Perhaps she dreamed of him. The man who came in moonlight; one instant there was nothing, where the diaphanous arms of curtains whirled and pawed futilely at the girl beyond their reach; where the glass remained a brittle barrier to the relentless night. One instant, nothing, and then there was he. Elemental motes of dust gleam upon moonbeams, shine through the window and coalesce; a tall silhouette stands there, a man dressed in black. Wrapped in it; his frame encompassed entirely in the flat matte darkness of his attire, save for the pale spidery hands resting at his waist, save for the face - a white, tapered oval like an inverted teardrop, cuddled jealously by silver-white hair spilling lengthily down his back, as each strand is woven by the moonlight that forms him and then let to flop gently against his strong shoulders.
She stirs, unsure of dreaming or waking; the pale hand stretches forth, curls its fingers with their long white nails and the tuft of hair in the centre of the palm; as if by an unseen reach, invisible extension of those digits the girl is drawn up from the bedcovers, floating with her back arched and her head tipped back, chest thrust toward him. In her filmy nightgown such is a revealing and evocative pose indeed; but it is not the flesh that concerns him, but that which beats within it.
The silvery-white strands part about the hard, cruel face; the sensuous red mouth beneath its moustache, the hawkish nose, the bushy, intensely-angled brows; and the icy eyes, the pale, colourless eyes; the eyes that now fill slowly with colour, as if some vessel therein were burst and leaking its fluid to fill the glassy orb; the pristine lake is stained, the veins creep with blood. His tongue lolls wide and red between white sabre teeth; a sound issues from his throat that no man was ever meant to make.
The wide, high-set nostrils flare with bestial fury; the rumble that spills forth from between his parted lips is the growl of a wolf, feral and merciless, a beast of raw, pure hunger, ravenous and unbridled. Then, it comes; the white hands spread, the body flows forward; he is without shadow upon the floor and without reflection in the window still closed at his back. For what shadow has a shadow, what reflection has a reflection mirrored not of any physical thing? Like great dark wings his cloak flows behind him; he latches upon the woman before him, his face tucked against her belly...
The beast's pale crown nestled there, his hands clasping either side of her trunk; the cold, lifeless hands; the face lifts slowly, drawing itself over thinly-veiled skin, smelling the warmth of living flesh, the pulse and flow of perfect rivers through networks of tunnels uncounted, threading through each inch. The growls increase, the fervor, the pale hard teeth extending daggerlike over the ruddy lower lip; his face is a white theatrical mask stretched like rubber over the visage of some wolven demon; as if the fierce lupine spirit were twisted into the form of man. Then the sabres flash, the red eyes burn. The dams are broken and the rivers flow unbound to fill an aching and empty vessel.
Were it any other time he would never consider such a travesty as now he committed; no, it would not at all suit this being, whose terrifying might was only matched by his subtlety and his wont for games of the mind; but here was the mark of urgency, and of need, for one such game he was preparing, now, and one such thing he needed to complete; thus he did not hold back, but clung his iron arms in a cage of ice about the girl's trembling body, as she gasped and cried the name he had never needed to tell her; the name of his truth that would never be spoken in these walls. There comes a sanguine spray across the wall; but there the droplets did not linger, for they peel away as if of their own volition and flow to him, leaving not smudge nor smear of their touch behind. Veins stand out against her skin and then deflate...
His own by contrast are bloating, now, a network strikingly visible beneath the marble translucence of his flesh; webbed veins thickening with the rich, sweet vitae of a woman in her prime, cut off by this monstrosity, this rapist-lover all at once. For in her dying eyes was adoration, even to the hard cold face pulling away from her throat, standing over her with neither remorse nor malice upon the emotionless facade. His was a beauty of function more than form, of bearing and of presence; and now change was overcoming him, as he stood there still above her form; her bloodless fingers reached up to stroke his cheek, now flush, the terrible bloat dissolving and dispersing itself, evening out into a healthy, living hue...
The snowy curls stain, grey, then salt-and-pepper; finally, then, they coil rich and black, as if ink were running down through his tresses in a less than liquid form; ironic, now, that the girl who gave her last shuddered breath and died with open, loving eyes and silent smile now appeared the reverse of him, the mirror of death to his life.
Then, the deed is done, the horror has ended. There lies only what might be perceived, if any were there to see it, as far more morbid events that follow; in their own subtle and terribly casual way. For now he draws away from the woman on the bed, laying her limp form gently down; his lips twitch faintly into the hint of a wry smile, and he shifts her thighs shut from their wanton splay, her body to straighten from its climactic writhe; a little death and a large one all at once. Both of her slim hands are lifted; he rests them over her chest in repose, brushes her hair back from her face - though he does not close her eyes. No, let they who find her know how her last moments were spent.
It is on from there to matters of business, for now he withdraws from his dark attire a burlap bag filled with shapes both soft and angular, and lays it beside the bed; callous now to the corpse within the room, he unfolds the bag and rifles expertly through its contents; not the macabre instruments of torture one might expect, but books, deeds, papers; traveler’s papers, notes, maps, purses of moneys of a great many lands; trinkets, baubles, taken not for sentiment but for usefulness.
His hawkish face, no longer quite so hard, eyes with discreet calm the objects arrayed before him; he draws forth a walking cane of firm brown oak, tipped with a golden eagle's head; probably not true gold, but the hue is there; the eyes are of emeraldine hue, and the overall impression is one of a wealthy man's artifact for certain. The tall man shrugs off his inky coat, drapes it over his arm; folding it neatly, he places it then within the burlap bag, and unbuttons the shirt beneath; when he is done undressing, and stands there white and bare within the moonlight...
His black clothing tucked away; irrespective of his nudity, he draws forth another set of neatly-folded squares and lays them upon the bed beside the slain girl; his face remains dispassionate as he lifts one square of cloth and with a flick of his wrist allows gravity to unfurl a pair of trousers; these he slips himself into, and does up the belt. Reaching then with fingers no longer spidery or marked with tufted palms, he takes up the shirt and likewise readies it, before slipping it about him and buttoning up.
The waistcoat drawn about him, buttoned; the overcoat then tugged on, a pale grey-brown hue, drab but speaking of a certain quiet style. He tucks his attire about himself; ah, the wry smile; how he wished he were able to see himself in the mirror, to ensure his appearance was as immaculate as he preferred. But such was the price he had long ago paid. He turns to the bag, does up the flap; buttons it, and turns to the door. With casual stride he reaches it, opens it; out then into the light and warmth of the common room, the door shut quietly behind him and locked with the key he had taken from the woman's bedside dresser. He tucks his collar upward and smoothes it down, surveying the room beyond...
