Dance with the Devil

Epilogue

   So now that I had my strategy it was only a matter of approaching her in the way that was least threatening, the least likely to make her take off running.

   I cleared my throat in attempt to shake some of the roughness that was sure to tone my voice after the long night I had spent in the tavern, and swung my arm behind my back, concealing my knife before I rounded the corner of the building.

   “Excuse me miss?” I asked in as soothing a tone I could manage, “are you in need of assistance?”

   Her gaze snapped up to me, and for the first time I saw the childlike features that had been hidden behind her curtain fall of hair. I took in her curve-less frame for the first time just then, her sopping wet clothes clinging to her as if she wore nothing at all, she was young indeed. It made my excitement grow testing my breeches. Maybe she was of the untouched. Maybe I would be the first to part her legs.

   Why she was wet didn’t matter, she hadn’t gone running but a lengthy pause would make her suspicious that I was measuring her.

   “My dear, what has you out at such a late hour?” I continued with my words of comfort as I inched closer to her, “These streets are no place for a young girl such as yourself, here, let me help you home.”

   Her eyes darted to the dead woman I could not yet see on the alley floor and then back to me as she clung to the infant.

   “I can help you home…”I trailed off as I moved beyond the pile of wooden crates obscuring the woman’s body.

   Her dead eyes were empty and staring into the night, her frizzy red hair was matted to one side of her head with sweat as if she had recently exerted some energy. I thought maybe she had tried to fight the vampire off, maybe run from her. But then my eyes fell on skirts, damp and bloody. She wasn’t as sodden as the vampire was, the moisture only clinging as far as her knees, but there were no obvious tears in her dress, no open wounds that could have leaked blood onto her skirt.

   My eyes shot to the infant in that vampire’s arm, “Tell me, did you let her do the work or did you rip it from her body you sick whore?”

   It was the wrong thing say and she hissed at me, her face twisting into a purely animalistic scowl as she bared her fangs. But even she knew the evidence was against her, knew even a deft man could put things together.

   “I am not the whore here,” she spat.

   “And that gives you the right to steal her child?”

   I took a good look at the dead women with that thought. No, no I couldn’t remember having her, it wasn’t my child.

   “I stole nothing,” she hissed again and clutched the infant tighter to her chest. Much more and neither of us would have to worry about it because surely she would strangle it.

   “Well it’s not yours.”

   Stating the obvious wasn’t winning her over, actually it seemed to the opposite effect and I cursed as she tore into the night, knowing I was not in any shape to for a lengthy chase. I wouldn’t have left the tavern at all had my pockets not gone dry, much as my glass. But this was a chance I could not lose just because of a little haze clouding my mind.

   I started after her, tripping on the discarded items in the alley before stumbling out onto the clear road.

   She was already gone from my sight, but that was not to say I didn’t know where she went. As I leaned over, huffing to get some air in my lungs I watched as a door not three houses down latched shut. The amber glow from the fire burning inside spilling out onto the cobblestones for just a moment before the night went dark once again.