Pulling off heat soaked sheets, Lauriette slid from her four poster bed in a trance like state. She glided in this way to the terrace, which stretched over the twinkling sea of lights that made up Montreal. Her skin wet with perspiration gleamed in a bath of moonlight, her slip of a nightdress clinging to her fragile form. She stretched her arms to the heavens. Ensconced by two stain glass windows depicting the rose of Sharon, she resembled an angel about to take flight off a scared cathedral.

The image was captivating; it caught the hunter off guard. Her energy was an amber hue; its force pulled him to the precipice of the ledge. His arm reached out of the shadows, fingers extending toward the image on the opposing tower. As suddenly as the vision had appeared, it was gone. He had lost his chance. The delay, what had caused the pause in the need, which would not relent. He had seen beauty before but it had never made him stop before, his mind devised clever accusations. He pulled the collar of his trench coat around the darkness that comprised him and drew himself into the ancient power.

Lauriette felt chills like tiny daggers scrape icily up her spine. Now fully conscious she flicked water over her face and gazed into the mirror above the porcelain sink. Her copper hair hung in damp curls framing her ghostly pale face; her eyes misted and weary blinked away tears. The moon goddess had called her out she reasoned and fled back to the comfort of her bed.

Days later as dusk settled on the unsuspecting city, Lauriette sped along the streets that lead home. Still dawning her nurses uniform, proof she had left the hospital in a rush. Her mind was on a thousand things and nothing at all. She headed down the back alley to her apartment, when from the shadows something dashed in front of her car. She swerved into some trash bins. The emerald sky was being swallowed by the approach of night and she could not tell if or what she had hit. Panic rose in her throat like bile choking her. She could not bear the though that she might have injured someone.

Outside her car in the hazy light she leaned over the crumpled body. She noticed immediately that his head was bleeding and his trench coat was splayed open revealing a leanly muscled torso. She crouched over him and drew back strands of dark black hair. She retracted her hand as if bitten as his onyx eyes flicked open. She reached for her cell phone to dial 911. But his heavy hand clumsily knocked it away. She reached for it again. With great effort he shook his head and whispered “No…no…don’t call...no police”

As he trailed off she touched a button to dial, but something stronger that reason made her pause. He struggled to sit up. She checked his vitals, fear melting from her body. The desire to take away his hurt consuming her mind. Her copper curls formed a halo, the whiteness of her uniform shone in the failing light. His voice a gentle hum whispered “angel…an angel”.

Despite the scare, a light laugh escaped and she shook her head. He refused her offer to be driven to a clinic, and instead he tried to stagger away. At a complete loss she offered her home. At this time the stranger turned and nodded.

She managed to help the six-foot man into the rickety elevator to her loft; lifting the grate she helped him into the living room. He stretched out across her couch as she tended his wound. Unblinkingly he took in every aspect of her memorizing the contours of her face. She smiled at the beautiful man before her. It was as involuntary as breathing. His eyes mesmerized her; they were onyx pellucid pools that sucked her in like two black holes. Eyes, they were what made her succumb.

The feeling of velvet on his lips scared him. His mouth burning from her touch was numb to the pain. They were reduced to intertwining limbs and lips locked in a perfect fit.

Alone on the terrace he laughed to himself he was a monster, no something far worse. Formed form a betrayal at the beginning of this time his kind were far worse than the fallen ones. This innocent was unaware of what her tower reached towards. Unlike the tower of Babel whose builders sought to reach heaven, her tower peaked into a portal to hell.

He felt her presence too late, she appeared beside him. A talon traced the lines of his gash, and then applied pressure re-opening the wound. A trickle of blood slid down his cheek and yet he did not turn his head to face her. A voice that dripped with venom spoke “She’ll make a perfect sacrifice”.

He grabbed her wrist with a strength that would have obliterated any human bone to the dust from which it had originally been formed. Looking into the voids where eyes should have existed he yelled “Leave us”.

She caught up a drop of his blood on her tongue, filled with malice and jealously she wrote words in his mind with her claws. He grabbed his head in pain. The word tomorrow echoed as she departed.

He gripped the rail tightly, creating a slight bend in the metal. His eyes penetrated the night, searching for escape, finding only the deep of midnight. He turned inside.

He stood in the door of bedroom, watching the gentle rise and fall her chest. She was this amazingly peaceful creature. Hours past, she lulled him to quietness which was something he had never known. Stillness in ones being, the chaotic world shunned. He never thought it possible to touch her, yet he had. Transformed, reborn, never. He could not love yet he still felt this intensity to protect her.

Morning rose in the east and set again, the furies that demanded blood beckoned, imploring with their wails of hate, screaming until his mind was about to rupture. Their collective force drawing him back. Lauriette oblivious to his pain wrapped gentle arms around him. He stepped back. He could see the love in her eyes. And he was happy.

He wound a single golden spiral around his finger. Uncoiling it slowly, he looked once more into Lauriette’s eyes. He leaned forward, brushed velvet and heard the waves of the sea.

It took few steps to reach the balcony; behind him lay the place where his heart and soul should have been. The hands of darkness, awaiting their sacrifice broke the fall.