Charlton grimaced every time the plaintiffs’ lawyers referred to him as “Good-Time Charlie” while assassinating his good character. He’d been cleared criminally, so what if it was on a technicality, he’d done nothing wrong. All this acrimony towards him was nothing more than regret, a way to rationalize a sordid past and leave it behind.
Lilith remained obscured in the shadows. Studying the creature for a tell, anything to gain advantage. Watching as doomed suitors offer wealth and sacrifice in exchange for favour. Each left retreating, begging for mercy in the flashes before receiving a final, brutal verdict.
She expected something sinister in its fiery red eyes. Instead, she glimpsed something she understood, a loneliness shrouded behind the beast’s perpetually shifting facade.
Disarmed for a moment, it sensed her in the darkness. She wasn’t ready, but it was time…
Gaze averted, her eye catches something engraved in the brimstone.
A beast indebted offers servitude,
A stitch of time and don’t be rude.
Securing the beast’s loyalty would be a momentous feat, she thought as she entered its lair, but weeks of ruminating over every detail wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t choke back her screams…
Her fingers stroked the rough-hewn thirteenth-century leather cover. Ancora had outdone herself, Lilith thought.
She flipped until the hand-bound pages fell to the spell she sought. A grin formed as she skimmed the incantation. Lilith wanted to recite it but the bookseller had warned of dangerous consequences. Forbidden to ask for assurances she would need to manipulate the beast into believing it offered to protect her freely. Revenge would have to wait.
The shop’s bell rang as Lilith entered, high on thoughts of exacting justice.
Ancora was accomplished, a bibliopole with access to ancient texts. Her services came with risks, but she’d track down an early edition of “Spells and Curses.”
Abigail’s students gathered along the escarpment edge.
“I can see my home,” one student said pointing.
“Everything below, including your home, was once at the bottom of a great inland sea,” Abigail replied. “This outcropping was one point along a thalassic shoreline, nine times longer than today’s remnant lakes combined.
His rule began with the knowledge that he could never live up to his mother’s reign.
Ricky and Calvin had smashed a Baconator and Spicy Chicken respectively.
“There is something magical that happens when you dunk a salty French fry into a Wendy’s chocolate Frosty,” Calvin said as he dropped the ice cream laden potato onto his tongue.
“Bloody hell! That is disgusting, I’m going to hurl. What’s wrong with you?”
“Come on bro, salty and sweet united, it’s a match made in heaven, dude!”
“More like hell, everyone knows you gotta use vanilla!!!”
Barin, stood outside the gate, his face illuminated by the gleam of moonlight filtering through the deadwood canopy. Ringlets of midnight black flow cascaded around his ghoul like features, grotesque shadows dancing across an olive-skinned canvas. He would have to hurry.
Morning approached, the arbitrary beginning of each new cycle. The shadows that betrayed him were subdued by the light of day, reflecting only a pretty façade. The cauldron churning within concealed behind a perfect jawline, witty charm, and a penchant for expensive wine. Sometimes the hunt was too easy, they were drawn to him like moths to the flame, lambs to the slaughter, or whatever overused cliché you can think of.
He was an aficionado for the macabre as witnessed in his gruesome acts. This was the part he liked the least. He felt a sense of trepidation as the gate creaked open. It was insubstantial when compared to the innate drive that had pushed him to feed. An emptiness filled him as he searched the rows of tombstones for the familiar glow of candlelight that marked fresh dug graves.
He set her lifeless remains down and pulled a souvenir from around her neck. His instinct and heart in constant conflict, like opposite ends of a battery, one providing energy and the other extracting every drop. Still, he loved every one of his victims.
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