By Moonlight Wrought (Bt Moonlight Wrought) Read online

  When they had finished, each was embarrassed and guilty, though neither knew why. Maybe it was the spontaneous eruption of that bout of lovemaking. Maybe, to Melissa, she was afraid she had lost all his respect by coming on so strong and clear. To Dirk, sweet innocent Dirk, there was the hope that he had not taken advantage of Melissa, but also the worry that he had.

  This non communication and subsequent silence led the new lovers to believe that each was unhappy with the other, or at least their performance. Both dressed silently and went back to the Grizzly Bar, though no mention of it had been made between them. Both wanted to remain together despite their embarrassment and they walked there side by side, neither seeming to lead; neither seeming to follow.

  Nearly an hour had passed before they finally got around to discussing their act in broad generalities, hushed tones, innuendoes and guilty looks. “Well…what a night, huh?” Melissa murmured while looking down the bar away from Dirk.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “I’ve enjoyed it,” she added.

  “Oh yeah,” he agreed, though not wanting to sound as enthused as he had. “I mean, it was enjoyable. I…I like being with you…I liked being with you…um…even more tonight. Not that I don’t like being with you other nights…”

  “Yeah…I liked being with you tonight, too. As much as ever.”

  “Not more?” he asked, finally able to look at her, noticing then for the first time as he studied her, Melissa still looking away, the tiny hairs that he had made stand up upon her taut flesh when he would gently stroke her. She looked at him, her face worried for a moment. Then she smiled and nodded.

  “More,” she said, blushing for only a moment before punching his arm. “Gods, Dirk! Lighten up.” Just when he thought the night had been imagined, Melissa back to her old all-work self, she grinned, leaned in and kissed him briefly, heavily, before pulling away and looking down at the bar.

  “Beer!” he called and the barman delivered them drinks and they stayed together late into the night, their bodies touching ever so closely, but touching almost always. They returned to work together the next day friends as before; no less but maybe a little more.

  Mrs. Pembroke, widowed mother of three, followed her eleven year old son Willy to the warehouse from which her daughter Darcy had never returned. As the two approached, they saw a group of watchmen holding a crowd at bay in the alley next to the building. Mrs. Pembroke broke into a run, leaving Willy jogging slowly behind. The matron pressed through the crowd and up to one of the lawmen.

  “Stay back, ma’am,” he said with little emotion.

  “What is it? What’s going on?” she asked, trying to push past him.

  “I told you to stay back,” he warned, grabbing and restraining the mother.

  “My daughter never came home. They were all playing in there last night!” she said, pointing at the old, dilapidated building. The crowd mumbled.

  “It’s nothing like that,” he said, “just a dead vagrant. Gorgrin, get the constable,” he said to one of the other men who quickly, if not begrudgingly, did as ordered.

  Constable Mason had not witnessed many scenes as bloody as this one, but such ferocity was becoming more frequent. He watched the blanket-draped body lifted into the back of the wagon that then lumbered off down the alley away from the crowd. Gorgrin informed the constable that he was needed and also what he had overheard Mrs. Pembroke say. Though his beard showed gray and his belly a slight paunch, Mason was still tall and broad, a commanding figure, especially when fixing his gray eyes on someone in the cold confident stare for which he was known; a glare which made those upon whom it was fixed feel like confessing everything they had ever done wrong or illegal since the time of their birth. This intimidating nature was one of the most important traits the constable of the rough Dock District needed to keep the respect of his rowdy citizens.

  Mason followed Gorgrin back to Mrs. Pembroke. “We’ve found no children, ma’am,” he said. “You say that they were in there?” He looked to the warehouse with an indicative nod.

  “Yes, but all the other children came home. I came down here to tan her hide for sneaking out of the house last night, but when I saw the crowd I became afraid,” she said, clinging weakly and faintly to the lawman. Constable Mason ordered half-a-dozen of his men to search the structure again, leaving only one to hold the crowd, and one to direct the street sweepers in cleaning the grisly scene.

  “All right people, let’s go home,” he commanded. A few citizens lingered still, but dispersed when threatened with jail sentences for disobedience. Mason then led Mrs. Pembroke through the alley-side doorway of the warehouse and into a small room filled with crates and seemingly worthless junk. They waited there for the return of the watchmen and finally after a quarter of an Andrelian hour, the militiamen started to return, their findings negative.

  “Maybe she is at a friend’s home or still hiding somewhere. That dead man didn’t hurt anyone and we’re still trying to piece together his murder. Maybe we can find a few clues to your daughter’s whereabouts there. We can only hope that she wasn’t involved somehow. She probably saw it and is now all shook up. I suspect she will return home soon, but we will stay in touch, nonetheless. I urge you to do the same if you learn anything.” Constable Mason wheeled around and sauntered off, knowing there was nothing else he could tell her; nothing else he could do: and he did not think Darcy would be found, at least not alive.

  Mason did not like it. This was the third mysterious disappearance of a girl or young woman in his jurisdiction, and also the fourth bloody murder there in the previous few months. There were at least two dozen murders overall, but this one matched just three others in its ferocity and lack of clues and motives. Besides Darcy, two other young women had disappeared. It wasn’t uncommon for people to come up missing, but these earlier two did not fit the classic mold. The ladies were not associated with the seedier dissidents of the city, so it was unlikely that they had been taken or killed in some underworld deal. They also left valuable possessions behind, so they were not murdered or kidnapped during a burglary or robbed for their money, nor did they leave town unannounced. One had disappeared from her bed, which showed both signs of having been used as well as having been a scene of a struggle; the covers torn halfway off of the bed and blood smeared everywhere. The other disappeared while traveling from her home to that of a friend one evening after midnight.

  These were related. Mason could not prove it but he felt it. And it was bad. All this took place just in his district alone. He had talked with the head constables from the other eleven city districts, and they had been experiencing similar disturbances. Some of the more inexperienced called them coincidences or said that it was just a ‘bad season.’ Mason and the other few with as much experience as he knew it was much more than that and they too were worried: the murders would not stop of their own accord.

  Cinder walked into the store, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the darkness she experienced after the bright daylight outside. “Hi,” she said to the girl at the counter near the door.

  “Can I help you?” the clerk replied, looking Cinder up and down, showing a clearly false smile.

  “Yes. I need a wardrobe. Can you help me?” Cinder replied sweetly, seemingly oblivious to the woman’s rudeness.

  “I’m sure we can do something for you. Go all the way to the back, through that door...that’s where the furniture is. I’ll send someone back.”

  Cinder walked down those vast aisles with goods and articles and merchandise stacked all the way to the twelve foot ceiling overhead, and in the back she found the wardrobes. Cinder eyed a particular one, this piece made of expensive dark wood from the jungles of the south, with a mirror along the back of its inside and mirrors on each door so that when opened one would get a three sided view of him or herself. When Dirk came to her, Cinder’s jaw fell open.

  “Hi,” she said slowly, swaying over to him. “I’m Cinder,” she said brightly. Though Dirk recogn
ized her beauty he thought that she was just another irritating tramp.

  “Can I help you?” he asked with an impatience no one hearing it could deny.

  “Mm-mm,” Cinder affirmed without insult. “I want that,” she said pointing at the wardrobe. Dirk didn’t realize that Cinder was actually pointing at the three reflections of Dirk she viewed in those three mirrors.

  “Well, let’s go pay out front and I’ll deliver it for you,” Dirk said, and he led Cinder back to the desk where she promptly paid her expensive bill with shining gold coins, not the more common silver or copper pieces of the realm. “I’ll bring it sometime today,” Dirk said, turning to leave the gorgeous woman alone and away from his tortured soul: had Dirk not recently met Melissa and found someone so close to his heart, he may have been much more interested in Cinder. As it was, he only saw the Cinder he disliked.

  “I will not be there later. Could you bring it now...please?” Cinder whined, unsure why this man, of all the men she had met, seemed to not be attracted to her. How was that possible, she wondered?

  “I guess I can. I’ll be out front in ten minutes,” Dirk sighed. He turned and went again to the back of the store, looking to be in no hurry at all. Cinder stood out front, kicking her heel with both eagerness and impatience on the corner of the step, watching for her deliveryman to appear. Momentarily, Dirk pulled around the corner, the wardrobe loaded in the back of the wagon; Melissa had gone on her own delivery and so was not there to help, nor stop Dirk from going, which she certainly would have if she had seen the half-elf with her own eyes.

  Dirk came to the front of the store and stopped the wagon. Cinder stepped down to the street. Dirk looked at her to which she replied simply with a spry smile. He sighed, tied off the reins and jumped down, getting behind Cinder to assist her up into the wagon, but he could not find a suitable handhold: she was built much differently than the wardrobe, than any furniture, and his conscience would not let him simply grab her anywhere and hoist her aboard.

  Cinder looked back over her shoulder at him, peeking past her mass of jet black hair, and Dirk put his hands gingerly on her waist to lift her, but eased his grip, almost dropping her, when he felt how delicate and tiny her hips were. Despite his initial timidity, Dirk managed to raise Cinder with ease and place her in the seat without incident or undue embarrassment to himself; though her dress was so short he could see the garters of her thigh-high stockings and black lace panties as he lifted her up. Though this attired on a woman was nothing new to Dirk, he thought how different she was from Melissa. He climbed up and drove stoically on, her smell obvious to him. The scent, that of perfume and one much more faint and indescribable, was pretty and, for what he thought her type to be, none too strong.

  “I’m Cinder,” she said again, bending forward to intercept Dirk’s sight, grabbing his attention. He, in turn, simply glanced at her: she was smiling innocently, her long shapely legs crossed.

  “What?” Dirk asked, seeing her smile.

  “I’m Cinder,” she repeated, holding out her hand. Dirk shook it, half wondering if he should kiss her appendage. Cinder’s hand was so gentle, so delicate, that Dirk was astounded, especially when the forbidden thought crossed his mind of how sweet the rest of Cinder’s body must be. Dirk had never touched a woman so tender and the uninvited idea continued to invade his mind, one in particular of how careful he would have to be to avoid injuring the delicate woman if Cinder ever granted him favors.

  “I’m Dirk,” he answered, forcing the carnal thoughts from his mind and wondering why, for the first time in his life, such perversion was now dancing in his head; a head that seemed swimming from too much alcohol. “I think it must be too warm,” he sighed, feeling a bit woozy.

  “It is hot, no?” she asked. “See.” Cinder took a handful of her luscious curls and pressed it to his face. The dark locks trapped the sunlight, making her hair warm, if not hot. “I think maybe I will cut it soon.”

  “That would be a shame,” he said. “I mean...it’s pretty...long like that.”

  “I know. I like it too. The heat doesn’t really bother me. I work inside all day and only go out at night usually, anyway...except...except on my day off,” Cinder said as if offering up proof for her time there with him.

  “Oh you work?” Dirk pried, thinking that he already knew what it was she did when she went out at night. Nearly the entire populace of Andrelia, if not all of Mendanar and the rest of the world, found prostitution a necessary and hardly-evil occupation, officially supported by at least one temple and regulated like any commercial industry. Dirk stood in the minority in his shyness and condemnation toward the ladies of the evening.

  “Mm-mm. I work at The Winds of Spice. You know? The perfume place? I keep the books and work the counter, too.” Dirk perked up, pleased in knowing that Cinder was not a prostitute, at least by main trade. If she sold her services after hours, she would not be that different from many of the harlots in the city. It was, as in any time in any world, a sordid but easy way to supplement one’s income.

  “Oh, you sell perfume?”

  “Yes. You should stop in and buy something.”

  “I don’t make that much money,” Dirk chuckled, guiding the wagon past an argument between two merchants, whose goods were scattered over the street and whose wagons lay partially wrecked from an obvious collision.

  “Well, you could stop in and see me anyway,” Cinder gleamed. The wagon hit a rut just then and Cinder grabbed Dirk’s arm for balance. She liked it for its size and she squeezed him hard. Then harder. But Dirk did not flinch. Cinder smiled and laid her head upon his shoulder with a sigh. Dirk tried to pull away a little; he was perspiring and Cinder was so fresh he did not want to taint her. Perspiration was a particularly human thing, and smelled so to Cinder. It was manly and not unpleasant, the kind of sweat raised on a clean man used to hard work, not the nasty pungent odor of a someone who so seldom exerted himself that his body seemed to be ridding itself of a fester. Soon, too soon for Cinder, they reached her apartment.

  Dirk locked the brake, tied off the reins and got down while Cinder stood up and, before he was ready, jumped toward him, giggling. He caught her under the arms, his thumbs under her breasts, and he set her down gently, almost hurriedly as he tried to free his hands from her feminine parts. Cinder looked up at him, batting her long, thick lashes and Dirk was entranced by her eyes; their size, their violet-blue color, and by the irises. He thought for an instant, just an instant, that they looked oval-shaped, just slightly longer up and down than they were from side to side, feline in a way.

  He stepped back and walked to the rear of the wagon, giving the woman a wide berth. Cinder watched him flip down the tailgate and leap up into the back. “Why don’t you open up?” he asked and when Cinder giggled, he added, with a blush: “Your doors?” he asked without looking at her, sliding the wardrobe toward the open back end. She stepped up into the covered doorway and opened the portal.

  Cinder was leaning on one foot against the wall, her other leg back, knee bent and foot against the wall as well, and she watched Dirk jump back out and pull the wardrobe, its mirrored and expensive doors tied shut, down onto his back. Dirk’s muscles bulged as he held it there, his back hunched over. He trudged around the wagon and stepped up onto the walkway, his pant legs so tight, they looked as if carved in marble. Cinder bit her lip, thinking how perfect he was: quiet, handsome, sexy, and strong; very strong. She put her foot down and moved inside just ahead of Dirk, emphasizing the swing of her hips as she went.

  “First door on the right,” she said. Dirk went inside the building, trying to keep his eyes from her. A hallway lay ahead, extending clear to the back of the building where it branched left and right. There were two other doors on the left wall, and one on the right standing open, Cinder just beyond it. Dirk heaved the wardrobe inside the room, just clearing the doorframe.

  “Where do you want it?” he asked, and her playful mind clicked.

  “Any where you wan
t to put it,” she quipped, raising her brows. The room was dominated by, actually built around, a huge fireplace. To the left was a way around the hearth to a small kitchen. Directly ahead and to the right was the largest area of the apartment: the living area. Past that, to the far side of the fireplace, Dirk could see a large bed covered in a rich black fur. The gigantic piece filled most of the niche in which it sat. Scattered throughout the living area and on the bed were garments, all over, as if what had held them had erupted, spewing forth clothing instead of some molten dredge. Dirk crossed to the middle of the room and put the wardrobe down against the right hand wall, that wall to the front of the building. He blew out his breath, his face red from exertion and beads of sweat streamed down his face, dripping onto his shirt.

  “Would you like me to wet your shirt for you?” Cinder asked. While Dirk liked the idea of having a cool, damp shirt on his body, he thought it highly improper. “Come on,” she pleaded. “I don’t mind. You’ll feel much better. And I will feel much better, after making you come and deliver that during the hottest part of the day.” Dirk shrugged his shoulders, brushing off Cinder’s request as he untied the doors, opened them, and examined the mirrors for any shipping damage. When he turned around, Cinder began to untie the strings securing his shirt and he did not stop her. Her breath was cool against his sweaty chest, and when his shirt was unfastened, he lifted his arms out and Cinder took it through the hallway and into the small kitchen beyond.

  “Now you see why I needed the wardrobe,” she called out with a chuckle.

  “Yes,” Dirk said, looking around. Like Melissa’s room, there was no furniture, only the bed and a basket, evidently the garment volcano, since it, too, was overflowing with clothing. Dirk noticed all kinds of beautiful garments, a dozen high-heeled shoes, hose of every color, even a black cotton jumpsuit hanging from the mantle. It looked more like an assassin’s getup than something the woman there with him would put on that delicate frame. He heard Cinder operating the pump and the splashing of water as it spattered into a wooden sink. Dirk looked through the fireplace and saw her legs on the other side, so he bent over and peered in, then stood up and walked around.