I have introduced myself into the poet’s circle. Once again my aristocratic status has its advantages. My only doubt is that perhaps I have the wrong fellow. Doubts visit me in the small hours of the night… I wonder if the poet is indeed next, and if his friend Jesper is indeed the creature in disguise.
What if I am planning on killing an innocent man?
Though I have tracked the killer tirelessly over the last two years and get little sleep, racked with worry, I do not feel the worse for it. In fact, I feel more energized than ever before. I fear I do indeed have the same malady that afflicted Ffyllon, though such a fantastic malady I could never have hoped for. To feel so powerful, youthful, to be able to heal quickly. It is a miracle, though perhaps a dark one.
June 17, 1765
Copenhagen, Denmark
A terrible thing has happened! I can scarcely write it down. Damn my hesitation. Jesper was indeed the villain, posing as the poet’s friend. Jesper invited the poet to the opera, where he had purchased a box for the evening.
I followed, repeatedly checking the box nervously during the course of the opera. I saw the creature make its move, dragging the poet down below the lip of the box. I leapt up from my seat and ran to the box, where the creature was already feasting upon the poor man’s throat. The unfortunate fellow had not even time to cry out.
I dashed into the box and grabbed Stefan, who had shifted into what I have come to think of as his true form: a shadow of a thing, all black with no features save a pair of red saucer eyes and a mouth full of vile teeth.
As I rushed forth, hand inside my waistcoat to produce the weapon, the creature met my rush, lifted me up effortlessly over the lip of the box, and flung me down.
I crashed painfully into the seats below, injuring several operagoers. A commotion stirred up, the orchestra and singers still attempting to proceed with the performance in spite of it. One woman I had landed on screamed, and I struggled to right myself.
In the end, by the time I had returned to the box, the poet was gone, leaving a bloody trail. I can only assume Stefan dragged off the body to devour in some secret place.
I feel responsible.
How can I take up Ffyllon’s sword if I cannot save even one life? And I fear this may be the first in a string of murders I will be unable to prevent.
Spooked, Madeline closed the diary. She didn’t want to know this-didn’t even want to consider that the one person who knew what was going on had failed in the past.
She flipped through the rest of the journal. The entries grew further and further apart, sometimes only one or two every twenty years.
The last entry, dated February 22, 1922, read, “Hate myself. Hate myself. Hate myself. Hate myself.”
Blank pages followed. In the back, a number of pages were filled, listing names she assumed were victims. One column contained the name and the other the fate of the person. “Couldn’t save” was written after each name in a scrawling hand. The list went on for pages and pages, almost all with “Couldn’t save” written next to them. Only three entries differed. One read, “Died of natural causes before creature could kill.” Another read, “Incarcerated in H.M. prison before creature could kill,” and the column next to the last name was blank. She froze as she read the name: Madeline Keye.
Horrified, she realized Noah had never saved a victim. Not even once. Some had escaped being eaten, but only through coincidence.
Her safe haven suddenly seemed as dangerous as going it alone.
But where else could she go?
At least Noah was knowledgeable, even if he hadn’t been successful. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him, discovering everything as he went, both the horrible with the good.
She sat for many moments with the book closed on her chest, unsure if she should stay or flee and hope for her chances. She debated for a long time, feeling the terrible sadness of the book sweeping over her.
Madeline checked her wrist, ensuring she still wore the bracelet. She unhooked the latch and lifted the tiny lid. Inside, coiled and gleaming, was Ellie’s thin silver bracelet, the one she’d lost that day. She rarely touched it herself, and would never wear it. Locked inside the metal were such powerful images of Ellie that when Madeline touched it, she almost felt her friend was there, like she could talk to her and Ellie would hear her. She touched the bracelet gently, just the tip of one finger resting on its surface.
Images swept over her. Ellie sitting next to her in math class. Ellie and she watching movies on a Friday night, popcorn strewn around them. They’d met when they were five, on the first day of first grade. Huddled outside the gray stone school building that chilly morning, waiting for school to start, they’d begun a conversation with each other, comparing their similar woolly hats. The talk turned toward age and birthdays. Being only five, neither could remember their exact birth date (they left that and the toy-giving to their parents), but they were both sure they’d been born in late October. It was close enough, and they became instant friends.
When the other kids teased Madeline or tried to pick fights because they were scared, Ellie was always ready to jump in and let her fists fly. An intense flash erupted of Ellie standing over one bully on the jungle gym, shaking her five-year-old fist threateningly after shoving him into the monkey bars. Another image sprang up of Ellie thrusting a tree branch into the spokes of a bully’s BMX bike as he tried to flee the area after calling Madeline a series of unflattering names. The jerk had flipped up over the front of his handlebars and landed with a terrific smack in the middle of the street. It was a hot July day and the bubbling tar on the street had stuck to the boy’s face.
“Ellie.” Madeline breathed softly. Her friend shimmered and swam into view, sitting next to her on the foldout couch.
“Hey, Mad,” she said softly.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“I know. And that’s okay. You’re a good person. You’ll figure it out.”
“I think you’d want me to help.”
“You’re probably right,” Ellie answered, a wry smile turning the corner of her mouth.
After a stretch of silence, Madeline said, “I think I really like this guy.”
“I can see why. He’s hot.”
“And nice. And he has a noble quality about him, too.”
“Your knight in shining armor come to take you away from all this madness?”
“Or maybe to take me into all this madness.”
“That’s not as good.”
“I know,” Madeline answered, nodding in the darkness. She watched her glimmering friend, remembering the curve of her brow, the mischievous look she could get in her eye, all the years of happiness they’d had, and all the years that had been taken.
“I miss you.”
Ellie met her eyes, sadness glistening there.
They sat in silence then, Madeline not sure of what to say, not needing to say anything. That had been their way in life. They understood without needing to say much.
Finally Madeline closed the latch on the small silver box, Ellie’s image shimmering, then vanishing into the darkness. She set the journal aside, her mind drawn back to the Sickle Moon Killer, the story fresh now in her mind. She could distinctly picture his face, that terrible knowledge that he’d been caught, the desperation, needing to get rid of them. She lay awake nights sometimes, terrified he’d escaped from the penitentiary and was on his way to her house. Or worse, already there, breathing laboriously outside her bedroom door, seething with hatred and waiting to crush the life out of her in revenge. The fear hadn’t stopped until she learned he’d been killed in that fight.