Assassin of the Damned

— 3-

A lady stood over me. She wore a flowing, silvery dress, sheer enough to hint at the wonderful curvatures underneath. She had dark curls, hot eyes and that beguiling smile. It was the lady in the moon, so perfectly beautiful that it was frightening. I lay on a slab of stone in darkness. An archway to my left glowed with a fiery red and there were roaring sounds like a mighty furnace.

She held a bow stave. It might have been ivory. Strange designs twined about it. She thrust the stave hard against my ribs.

“You’re late,” she said. “And now you dally, playing foolish games.”

The blow against my ribs made me snarl at the pain. I struggled to rise. If I could, I would tear that stave from her hands and swat her backside. No one thrashed Gian Baglioni as if I were a common serf.

She ignored my feeble efforts, and I wondered at my weakness. She tapped my chest with the stave.

“My patience has limits, signor. You’ve already slumbered far too long. Old Father Night has gained a march on me, maybe two or three. His minions abound.”

She tapped my chest harder.

I gingerly touched my ribs from the first blow and felt to see if any were broken.

“You’re not the Darkling,” she said, “not yet. So these heroics must cease. Hurry to the castle. Neither my patience nor my strength is unlimited-unless it is that you wish to return as you were.”

“Erasmo…” I whispered.

A frown creased her brow. It destroyed the image that she was a young maiden. It also caused her eyes to shine dangerously. They were strangely silver and molten with threatening power.

“You’re late,” she said. “Now you must hurry.”

She began to fade as the red glow from the arch increased its hellish hue. The roaring sounds grew. Then fear tore at me. From out of the darkness shuffled a naked man. Dirt dribbled from his grimy hair. He shuffled toward the arch and his eyes were blank and his face stiff like a mask. I struggled to rise. I strained with all my feeble strength. The shuffling man looked like me.

I called out hoarsely. It didn’t matter. He or I shuffled toward the arch, toward the red glow that roared with a fierce fire. He shuffled toward what seemed certain doom.