DARKNESS RISES

PROLOGUE

Yvanna stepped from the Red Dragon restaurant and pulled up the hood of her cloak. It would soon be winter. A chill wind blew down from the river, touching the world in a moonlit coat of silver-white. She shivered and moved off across the cobbles, her footfalls echoing through the darkness. The wide expanse at the centre of the market (known as the Square) would be filled with butchers and bakers and wine sellers and fire breathers during the hours of daylight, yet now, it was filled with nothing more than a pallid mist that hung close to the ground.

She gazed up at the City Hall to catch sight of the time. It was almost midnight. The great bell tower - a wondrous monument of modern engineering - rose proudly up into the night sky, its golden clock face near incandescent in the darkness.

She left the Square exactly as the clock tower struck the final chime of midnight. Illuminated as she went by pale globes of azure fire which hung on iron lampposts on either side of her, she moved off wearily through the empty streets. The glass orbs were filled with an eerily luminous gas which the Magisters, the silver robed wizards who protected the city, lit every evening at sundown. The Magisters had been performing this service for more than fifty years, so she rarely paid the mysterious spheres any heed, yet tonight, she felt exceptionally alone on the dark streets. Her footfalls seemed unusually loud in the near silence and she was grateful for every bit of light she could get, even if it did come from the arcane power of wizards.

She did not like being alone on the streets after dark. The city was not safe; it was said there was a murderer stalking the shadows and that no one was safe from his blade. Her husband Darrel, a guard in the City Watch, had insisted on her having an escort from the restaurant on her way home on the nights when she worked late, yet tonight she had worked a double shift and had sent the guards away hours before. No sense in them wasting their time, not when there was a killer on the streets.

She was beginning to regret that decision now. She was not normally skittish, but tonight there was a brooding foreboding in her heart that stripped the resolve from her soul and left behind only fear in its place. The murderer had killed only last week: a woman of her age, down by the Docks.

That the murderer was among them only made the killings so much more terrible. It could be anyone, a stranger, or worse, a familiar face …

She turned a corner to see a group of the City Watch, garbed in their dark woollen tunics and leather caps coming toward her. Patrolling in a group of four, their short swords at the ready, they smiled as they approached. For a moment, she considered asking them to escort her home, but the thought made her feel foolish. She was so near home now - what could possibly go wrong? She only had to scream and they would come running.

Not far now …

Feeling somewhat safer, she moved past the Watchmen and up a winding hill where the largest town houses in the city sat on a long street that wound around the eastern side of the city. From there she could see the grey-white castle of King Vale XVII, and to the south, the Avenue of Gods, where the temples to the many deities were housed in their glorious majesty. She could see stone buildings and great gleaming towers, the brilliant golden roof to the temple of Auraran, and the massiveness of the Church of the Lord.

She went past the Brewery where she slowed to peer in through the gates, seeing the carts lined up in neat rows by the stables. Then she hurried on once more.

Soon be home. Soon be safe …

She passed the Wizards' tower, a pale finger of white stone that rose up into the night sky. A thin trail of smoke was the only sign that the reclusive masters of all things arcane were at home, for not so much as a flicker of light came from their mysterious tower.

She turned a corner, fiddling with the keys in her pocket and not looking where she was going. The street was narrow with town houses on either side. A cart could pass with ease down the cobbled way, but little more.

It was then as she hurried through the shadows that she almost bumped into a man who loomed up out of the darkness.

"Excuse me," she murmured without looking up. Startled, her heart was pounding and fear flickered across her senses. She suddenly felt very alone.

The figure did not move. She could smell alcohol on his breath and stale sweat on his body. She tried to move around him, yet the stranger stepped to his right to block her path.

"Fancy some company tonight, darling?" he said in a slurred voice.

Feeling the cool metal of her keys under her fingers, Yvanna risked a glimpse up at the figure before her. It was a tall man garbed in a hooded cloak. She could see his eyes gleaming in the darkness, and he swayed as he appraised her. He may have been a drunk but he was probably not a murderer.

Yvanna exhaled a sharp sigh of relief; she was used to dealing with drunks.

"Oy!" the man said sharply. "I asked you a question."

She tried to back away, yet the man took her arm and swirled her around. She looked up into his unshaven face, and for a moment, there was silence.

Yvanna felt her lips tremble. She bitterly rued letting the Watch Men go and her heart raced frenziedly. Was this the murderer, she asked herself inwardly, her thoughts filled with all manner of imagined fears. Should she scream?

Yet at that moment, a trio of scarlet-garbed priests of the Lord came around the corner. They stood in their brilliant robes, watching Yvanna and the stranger, who immediately allowed his arm to fall passively to his side.

"Is there a problem, here?" one of the priests asked in a powerful voice.

"No," the man replied sullenly.

Glad of the formidable protection of the clerics, Yvanna muttered a whisper of thanks and moved off down the street.

"Are you all right?" one of the priests called out, yet Yvanna did not stop to reply. She merely nodded and slipped off through the darkness.

She did not stop until she reached her home. There, she unlocked the door and slammed it shut behind her.

Standing in the peaceful darkness, she breathed out slowly and thanked the gods that she was safe.

Knowing she would be alone until the early hours, she locked the front door and wandered wearily into the kitchen. She placed her bag on the table and dropped her long cloak over a chair. She lit some candles and removed her pinafore. The restaurant had been busier than she had seen it in months and she was exhausted. Darrel would not be home for hours, and so she made her way upstairs, removing her clothes and slipping into bed, taking comfort from the cool, soft sheets. She was too tired to eat, or even think. She just wanted to sleep.

She closed her eyes and sleep came quickly.

But Yvanna was not the only person to be in her house that night. There was another; someone who had no place there. The stranger counted one thousand heartbeats before he rose up from underneath the kitchen table. He had been present when Yvanna had entered the kitchen. He had smelled the scent of stale perfume upon her legs, had even brushed past her with his light touch as she stood, unknowing, an inch before him.

He slipped out from under the table and stood listening to the noises of the house in the near darkness. It was silent upstairs, yet the constant creaking of the wood was a strange comfort. It was almost as though the house were breathing, in and out, in and out.

He opened the kitchen door and slipped like a shadow across the hallway. Illuminated by a fragment of street light, his bald head glimmered for a moment and his pale flesh seemed suddenly bright against the darkness. He went quickly across the hall and walked up the carpeted stairs, one step at a time.

As he reached the landing, one hand grasping the smooth banister beside him, he stopped to smell the cool night air. The woman was all alone in this big empty house. He had no idea where her husband was, for the house reeked of a man, but he was not here this night.

It was just as well. It would not do for him to have to kill them both. He hated killing men. They were dirty and unclean and it took him weeks to scrub away their taint from his flesh.

No, he mused, she was most certainly alone. He licked his lips in anticipation.

He moved across the landing and toward the door where she slept. He did not know her name, nor did he care. He only wanted to feed. He had known she was to be his next when she had smiled at him in the restaurant a single night ago. He had been sitting alone and she had come over, bringing him red wine and smiling with that youthful innocence that had made his heart swell with desire. He knew he must have her and had followed her home that very night. He had been hiding in the house ever since, secreted away, silent and invisible, sleeping through the day and awaiting the right moment to come awake, to come alive to feed on the succulence of the living.

He rested his head against the door, savouring the moments before feasting. The unpainted wood was cool, chilled by a midnight draught that swept through the house. Then, filled with anticipation, he slowly turned the handle, opening the door a sliver at first, and then wider, until pale moonlight illuminated him in the entrance.

At once, the woman was awake, although it was not true alertness, merely the dreamlike sense that one is not entirely safe. She lay, eyes open, listening to the silence and wondering whether it was Darrel who had returned home early.

Then, realisation struck her: she was not alone! She looked around nervously. There standing in the doorway was a stranger, the glint of silver at his side. Slight, she took in his full appearance: short with a smooth bald head and dark eyes. For a moment she stared, wide eyed without comment, then her heart raced and she felt terror rise up within. She opened her mouth to scream, yet the stranger was upon her, wrapping a powerful hand around her mouth and pinning her to the bed with the other. She tried to cry out, tried to fight, but he was too strong. Madness fuelled his body and she knew even then that it was impossible to resist.

He stared down at her, his brown eyes dark and filled with curiosity. He kissed her brow, gently, softly, while she trembled beneath him. He could smell the rich scent of her virtue. It surrounded her, an intoxicating mix of innocence and youthful exuberance. So fresh! So inviting!

She lay still, looking up into his eyes with a silent plea: please don't kill me!

He bowed his head to her in a moment of precious reverence, then with absolute skill and total precision, raised his knife and slashed down with his blade.

Again and again and again, until all that remained were bloody ribbons.

Then he fed.