WOE: Moonlight

Prompt: For this week, I’m offering you this opening line:
“Two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane.”

Previous visits with these characters are here and here.


Two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane.   As his wings folded quickly behind him, Boone had a brief moment to watch Melchior materialize from the shadows in front of him.   The man moved toward him, the shadows grew cold tendrils which slithered over the ground, pulling life out of everything it touched. Even the moonlight seemed to falter.  The creeping darkness curled around Boone's legs before his innate warmth drove it back. The nauseating stench of a freshly opened corpse seemed suspended in the air around Melchior, but Boone took two steps forward anyway.

"You wanted to meet?" The muscles in Boone's jaw twitched as he fought his revulsion.

Melchior seemed to inhale the shadows around him, his yellow eyes glaring as his body seemed to become larger and more solid.  Malevolence animated the man, despite his great age.

"Why did you return the money from our contract?"   Melchior's breath hissed in the air, and carried his voice back toward Boone.

"The engagement was broken," Boone's voice was flat, impassive. He breathed in shallowly through his mouth, which helped.   "I returned your money, since there is no longer a need to kill the woman." 

Melchior coughed harshly. 

"I do not care if there is a need," he barked. "I want her dead."

"Why?" Boone asked. "She poses no threat. Your son will find someone else."

The air around Melchior seemed to shimmer, his anger a living creature encircling him.

"She consorts with dragons!" he spat.

"Dragons?"  Boone snorted, a mistake. His hands fisted, even as he kept his voice even.  "Have you been smoking that medicinal marijuana, old man?" 

"If you won't kill her, I will find someone else! That woman must die." Coughing harshly, he seemed to collapse in on himself, his body disappearing as the shadows collected themselves around him.  When the darkness was a solid mass, it began shrinking out of existence, taking its foulness with it.

Boone waited, his whole body clenched, until the mass of darkness was swallowed and the moonlight returned to its former brightness completely before he leaned over and threw up.