Monster

3. The Compass

1825 October 19th

Ten O'clock at night

The Compass

That night, the streets of Torun were empty, just as Elsa had expected. This did not intimidate her yet. Not that the windows were closed,curtains drawn, store fronts abandoned, and not another soul besides a member of the SKS whom lurked around the bend of any street. The members of the Safe Knight Society were about twenty yards away from her. She kept hidden in the shadows, her steps light and careful as can be. She darted between the buildings, under verandas, when they split up and a few came her way.

She held one of her father's weapons; it was a small handgun, the bullets tipped with wood. She had expected the door to his workshop to have been locked, but it was not. Elsa assumed it was because she had never mentioned the SKS much before, more importantly, had never insisted she be allowed to join! Her father never felt the need to take precaution and lock up after his hours spent constructing his weapons because he never had a reason to.

Lucky she had snatched a weapon before those precautions started to take effect!

After the members walked a good distance away, she felt so alone. Stepping back onto the street again, she looked around... All of a sudden the goblins felt make-believe again. She smiled. In the middle of the street she danced, her dress flowing out around her as she laughed.

"You shouldn't be here."

Her laughter erupted in an embarrassing sound; a cross between a squeal and a gasp. As she turned she saw it was a man. Under the gaslight he stood, holding a weapon that looked very much like the one her father had at the fireplace the night before.

"Who are you?" she called.

"Doesn't matter. I know who you are, though. You're Elsa, daughter of the SKS leader."

Elsa arched an eyebrow. "Well, you cannot order me to leave."

The man smiled, and suddenly he looked younger than Elsa had thought him to be, which was about thirty. "I was not ordering you to do anything, Elsa. I was easily stating that you should not be out here."

She held back a glare. Seems he did not particularly care if she went back indoors or not. Suddenly that angered her.

"Carry on your... dancing," he said nonchalantly. Elsa couldn't tell if he was smiling teasingly or sneering. "But beware, since September there have been monsters out at night."

"How do you know?"

"Because each week we discover at least one dead or dying body. Each," he continued before she could interrupt, "bloodless."

Her father had not mentioned these regular deaths. "A sickness?"

"They are always found in the morning, lying in the middle of the street, at times in an alleyway."

"Wolves?"

"Each man is found with bites on their wrists, sometimes in odd places like their ribs or thighs, but most every time on their necks, where the skin is vulnerable, the blood perhaps easiest to get to." He looked closely at her, his eyes gleaming in the darkness.

They watched each other for a long time, each silent. The only movement having been the undetected civilian peering from their window.

"Men?"Elsa finally said. But her mother had been killed by one." They are all men?"

The gentleman nodded. "What woman is out late at night, alone?" He gave Elsa a curious look. Before she could shoot back a response, he started to walk. "Come along now, you are—"

She stumbled behind him on the cobblestones. "No! Until I see these beings, I'm going nowhere."

"What makes you believe you'll be able to see the light of day tomorrow if you run into one of them?"

"Because you, I can see, are going to help me kill it."

He stopped and turned back toward her. She eyed his weapon. It looked like a sword, the blade steel on one side, wood on the other, and attached at the end of the leather-bound handle was what looked like a compass. "What is that?" she asked, pointing to the compass.

"It lets me know if one is near."

"How so?"

"It'll begin to point in the direction that's the coldest, because with the monsters comes less heat, for they are cold-blooded."

She began to speak—

Suddenly the dial in the compass began to spin in all directions.