Excerpt: Childhood lost

Prologue

He hung suspended against the night sky, not quite visible to any onlookers, had there been any onlookers. A tattered, milky-white cloak fluttered slowly about his black leather-clad form, though the night air was quite still. A dark green hood covered his head and shadowed his features.

Slowly he raised one black clad arm. A heavy silver bracelet writhed around his wrist, seeming to direct his arm to his right. He drifted in that direction, then raised a curious loop of green metal and glass up to his eye. There! An intense light showed it to be his Heart's Desire for this night's dark work.

This whole week he had haunted her steps unseen, listening to her conversations, probing the edges of her dreams; but now he was content with what the Aleyix had selected. It was a dark business indeed. He let his lips curl in a grim, cruel smile.

Little did he know, but his visage resembled no one so much as that of his ancient enemy...

The shroud drifted him silently through the wall of the house. This wasn't flying, no, not in the way that he dimly remembered it should be, filled with laughter and good memories and happy thoughts and pixie dust... It was more the stuff of nightmares, chills, and inexorable dooms.

He stood in her room, his feet suspended less than a hand's span above the floor. He listened to her breathing, easy, unlabored; asleep yet in her innocence. Soft brown curls framed a face that was rounder than she liked. He had heard her complaints and read her diary...

This one wanted to grow up. She practically begged in her diary for a way to escape from this edge of childhood into the life she wanted to live. In a very real way, he was helping her realize her dreams.

He carefully replaced the green metal loop in a pouch at his belt and let the Aleyix squeeze his wrist in anticipation. Yes, it was a dark business he did these days; but he told himself that he was helping others with their problems. He reached down for the other pouch, the heavy one, and carefully withdrew the Object. It shown with a malevolently green glee. He was careful not to let it touch his bare skin or the Aleyix.

Holding it now with two hands above the sleeping girl, he gritted his teeth and remade the world...