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of metal were placed at odd angles in hallways, facing the doors and windows. The slivers reflected images of grainy wood or curtains that didn't billow in the wind-not with shutters bolted shut as soon as dusk approached.
There were things of the night that cast no reflection, which had no shadow.
On this particular evening as doors slammed and lanterns were lit, as children were dragged into soon to be locked tight homes, as even taverns closed for the night, the darker shadows of night slowly crept in from the west. The wind was still, as everyone in the city of Abaddon, the priest in his church, even the Earl on the Hill, waited...

*

Two men strode down the deserted streets; they did not fear the dark and all that it implied.
One of the men was Friar Lochinvar, a watchman, or, as they called themselves, a warden of the faith. He was a brawny man with dark, curly hair. He wore a studded leather jerkin under his robe that jingled when he moved. His sandaled feet were broad, the nails yellowed. A battered, silver crucifix hung from a leather cord around his neck. His dark eyes missed nothing. He had fat, hard hands with dimpled knuckles. A sheathed sword dangled from the rope around his waist. A faded, frayed, red ribbon was wound loosely around the hilt of the short sword. Every so often one chip-nailed, blunt finger would reach down and stroke the tattered bit of ribbon.
Lochinvar's companion, Ian, was a younger man, though a watchman like himself. The young man was armed with pike, crossbow, and several sharpened wooden stakes in a quiver on his back. A short handled, heavy hammer was an uncomfortable weight on his hand-made leather belt (a parting gift from his mother; she had wept when the Brothers took him at the age of twelve). The young man was slender. His crucifix was mint-new, unmarked. His gray eyes were clear, eager. His face was smooth, unlined. He was young yet.
The church was as tightly shut as every other building they had walked past. Lochinvar pounded the door.
Ian smashed the brass bound butt of his pike against the door with a snarl of frustration.
Lochinvar arched his brow at the boy. He was too eager. But that would fade on it's own, in time.
A voice came faintly through the cracks in the door. "In the name of God, who's there?"
Lochinvar, picking splinters from his knuckles, shouted back at the door. "Wardens of the Faith, Father Dorian. I am Friar Roderick Lochinvar, and with me is the young acolyte, Ian McCollough. The Church has

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