Nightmares

[Shadowlord]

((The events depicted occur on the night of Wednesday, January the 7th.))

The West End at night was a glamorous place - glamorous, and filthy, with a glittering veneer which only barely, occasionally concealed the underlayers of pain and desperation. It suited the elf's mood perfectly.

He was clad in his 'street' garb, collarless zip-up leather jacket, snug-fitting slacks, and black leather-topped sneakers to match the coat. One sleeve concealed a chromed watch, but aside from that he moved from shadow to shadow without accoutrement. Not even the ArCane, which in some quarters was too much a signature of his identity.

It was nighttime, and he was just another shadow in the aimless, milling throng of the Red Light District. West End's was perhaps not as dangerous as Dockside's, but the petty glamour of painted faces and aged, dumpy businessmen simply had better funding for its gilt, and at times, a more vigilant Watch presence.

Coming up on a block lined on both sides with casinos, brothels, and the odd seedy little bar jammed into the available cracks of two-story buildings, Shadow paused in the colorful illumination of a streetlamp, still festooned with dangling, sad looking Christmas lights. Was he then to continue this way, and endure the likely catcalls, the offers. Was he to stroll right into this hotbed of sin?

He was torn, split within himself; some side of him was emerging which had nothing to do with the summer's taint of evil, nor even with his fall from divine grace. In a human, it might be called a mid-life crisis, but the time span of an elf defied the concept. He could endure thousands more years; he could wither, diminish within a week and be gone. Life was too uncertain for philosophy.

A piercing scream shook him from his thoughts, the sound coming from a nearby alleyway, the spill of streetlight hardly denting the black shadows which consumed the tunnel-like gap between two converted brownstones. His amber eyes narrowed; the scream was followed by coarse laughter, the sound of several men's voices, and Shadow's adrenaline immediately began to fuel him. His already piercing sight sharpened, the rotten perfume smell of the streets became more pungent, and reality seemed to slow down, to gel around him, as he flowed into action.

He was at the alley mouth in an instant; an onlooker would have only seen a flicker of movement, before the elf stood coiled in shadows, in range to witness the sight of which his ears had already warned. Six men in a half-ring menaced a young woman, not much more than a child to old elvish eyes; her back was against one of the brownstone walls, and dumpsters hedged her on two sides to form a convenient trap. Already the group of men had been at her enough to have torn and partially dislodged her clothing - an escort's miniskirt and tanktop, which he clutched against her front with one hand, the other upraised in a futile gesture of warding. These men would not be denied by screams, nor the sobbing tears which had already flowed freely to mar the girl's cheap makeup.

Cold filled the Keeper as he witnessed the scene, felt the unfocused, drunken lust of the men, and the sharp terror of the girl. Felt it, and then did not. His heart became ice; his eyes too, sheened over with blue, radiating frost like the depths of a glacier. There was no emotion left in him, only purpose.

"Do you believe in hell?" he said quietly, his right hand extended - a sword of pure ice grew from his palm, a single-edged, curved sword like an elf blade, its glassy length sharp as any steel razor. The largest, and foulest-looking of the six men shot a glance over, and after a brief study of the slender elven interloper, barked a derisive laugh. "'Ere boys, we got ourselves a fancy elf t' play wit' too. Wot, ya didn't want ta join in, then? She's enough for all of us!" With another rough cackle the man tossed his head back, even as his compatriots began to gather up, hefting cudgels and belt-knives in preparation for an easy kill. The girl was wide-eyed as she looked on, frozen in place, a deer in headlights.

"Because if you do not," Shadow continued, his voice as cold as his eyes, the sword. "You might want to start, now." A sheen of cloud, or pollution, misted Rhy'din's twin moons, one full and the other waned to a crescent, casting both in a disturbing red hue. Like menacing eyes, they glared down upon the nightbound city, and the alley itself. Blood moons were not simply for wolves, or vampires.

The leader of the men, who had pushed himself out to the front of the ragtag group - he was at least that brave - curled his lip into a snarl. It would be his last living act; in a blur of motion, the frosty sword was cleaving through his neck, sending it spinning off to land with a wet thud against a building wall. Ice may have cauterized some of the hot blood which fountained, but it yet coated the elf's face, the remaining street toughs, and even the girl with its sordid spray.

Shadow heard, distantly, her screams resume as he flowed into the next form, his posture meant for killing, for the ending of life. This was no Arena duel; every motion was designed for fatal effect, not for flashy display. Two more heads came off, and more red ichor splashed around the killing ground, before the last three men could even begin to act. One of them, perhaps the most intelligent in his cowardice, turned tail and ran. Or tried to, as the elf's next whirling cut split him through the torso from right shoulder to left hip, leaving the halves to slide apart, his mouth still able to scream awhile before shock and darkness took him.

Within seconds it was done, six men's heads and limbs arrayed around the alleyway in a haphazard abattoir. Gore splattered the elf, the bodies, and the girl; it deepened to a more sickening, purplish crimson under the baleful red stare of the moons. Slowly, Shadow's head turned to the screaming girl, his eyes still glazed by ice, the sword slowly melting in his hands to leave the life's blood of his enemy dripping from his fingers. "Shut up," he said quietly. A hollow echo in his tone was reminiscent of the killing cold of a high mountain's peak. "Get out of here. Get out of the West End, you foolish, foolish girl. Out! OUT!" The last word was like mountain thunder, like the meeting of frigid and heated air in a sharp clap. He reached into his jacket and produced a billfold, soon stained with red, and threw it at the woman.

Shock had stopped her terrified wailing; instinct bade her pick up that billfold, and, still clutching her torn clothing against her, she fled. As if the very demons of hell were on her heels, she fled. She might not have been far wrong. "The night is young," Shadow murmured, glancing down at the grisly scene he'd wrought. "The West End is full of evil." Arctic, hollow, his voice, as a tear formed under his right eye - swiftly frozen to a small, icy trail.

Flecked head to toe in blood, he continued down the alley, moving for the next, a silent predator. Just another shadow in the night.

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The following morning, with the sun's first red-streaked rays dawning like feathery gore across the skies, the elf strode up the pathway leading to the Park's fortified manorhouse. He still had not cleaned the blood from his hands, nor his grim, icy features. His expression was well suited to the leafless, wintering trees thrusting from the grounds, like gnarled black corpsefingers.

Winter had truly arrived, in Battlefield Park.