Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

A large man tied to a post still stirred. Unspeakable acts had been committed upon his person. He had glazed eyes and blood oozed down the bridge of his nose.

I crouched beside him. “Who did this do you?”

He moaned. I cut him loose and laid him on his back.

“Who did this?” I whispered. “Tell me, and I will avenge you.”

His lips writhed.

I put my ear near his mouth. “The Devil’s music,” he whispered. Then he died.

When I’d been prince of Perugia, wars had been a regular occurrence. The usual strategy was to burn your enemy’s fields and slaughter his peasants. Without crops and peasants to grow new ones, he would lack money or the means to feed his troops. The thoroughness of the gutted village and the sheep carcasses were an ordinary hazard of war. These atrocities meant it was something more.

A bloody footprint in the mud of a sheep-pen either implied the Devil or evilly altered men. The cloven-hoofed print was many times larger than what a ram could make.

I followed the sinister tracks to a rutted road. The dirt road revealed nothing because it was nearly as hard as brick. I looked all around, glanced at the stars and listened. The man had spoken about the Devil’s music. I only heard the breeze. So I hurried north along the road.

On a weedy hill, I heard the piping for the first time. It was eerie and yet compelling. It disgusted me and it stirred lusty memories. I left the road and hurried down the side of the hill, following the piping. I passed unkempt hedgerows and strode through oat fields thick with thistles. A fox yipped from the door of an abandoned hut. An owl winged overhead as it headed toward the piping.

Images of Laura and me entwined in love, of maidens I’d known in my youth filled my thoughts. Was a Darkling still a man in that sense?

I stumbled through an old grove, and I spied a bonfire ahead. It was then the Moon Lady whispered to me. I had run far tonight under her silvery influence. Her siren call dampened some of my lust. I stopped, shocked at myself. The piping remained, but I heard other sounds now. People shrieked. Others howled. There was a roaring sound of fire. The music had trapped me unawares.

I crept through the grove as the piping fed my lusts. I wanted Laura. I wanted any woman. The need was powerful, but I steeled myself and slunk to the edge of the grove. A mighty bonfire crackled below. Around it cavorted all manner of altered men and human hounds. The shrieks came from the center of the flames. People in a great wooden cage burned to death. They screamed, writhed and sobbed as smoke billowed from their flesh.

A huge creature stood upon a boulder with a flat top. He had hindquarters like a goat and goat-like legs and undoubtedly cloven hoofs. The upper half of his body was muscularly manlike and slicked with sweat. Goat horns sprouted from his forehead and he had a long, narrow beard like some obscene he-goat. Many of those cavorting around the fire were like him. The hounds that once were men barked joyfully. Naked women twirled around the fire with horror stamped upon their faces. The goat-men pawed and fondled them, and brayed laughter at their weeping.

One group, however, stood motionless. They were dead-faced soldiers. Among them sat a horseman with a wide-brimmed hat that sprouted a black crow’s feather. He stared at the scene, occasionally snarling and reveling wolfish teeth.

The wretched spectacle revolted me. I understood then that the Old Ones were humanity’s enemies. For I believed I viewed what it had been like in the dawn world. The old legends…they but hinted at the evils that had occurred when sorcery reined. Erasmo wished to return to that time for his own nefarious goals. What prompted these altered men to torture normal folk, to terrorize them so?

I was the Darkling. Maybe the magic worked upon me, had changed me, too. But I wouldn’t war upon humanity. I’d champion it against these vile predators.

I took out my coin and held it between my thumb and index finger. I turned from the bonfire, raised my arm and held the coin in front of the moon. The moon’s rays seemed to penetrate the metal and give an appealing haze to the Moon Lady’s portrait. She kept her mysterious smile, the beautiful profile. Then the coin became warm and dizziness threatened me. The smile shifted. Her portrait-she turned, facing me. She was even more beautiful than I’d realized.

“Moon Lady,” I whispered.

“You must kneel.” Her words were throaty like a cat’s purr but with incredibly sensual overtones. She looked into my eyes. Hers were silver, without any pupils. Her dark hair was like a curly mane. She wore a low cut gown. I wanted to kiss her throat, her lips….

“You must obey me,” she purred.

My arm felt heavy. I wanted to say yes. Then I heard a shout. It sounded as if from faraway.

“What is that?” she asked.

I remembered my plan and aimed her coin at the vileness below. I saw Lord Cencio, Signor Fangs for Teeth, urge his horse through the throng. He shouted at the Goat Man piping from upon the boulder.

I palmed the coin and looked down. Our eyes met.

“I ask that you restore me, my lady. Heal my eye. Give me my former speed.”

“I will,” she purred. “First bend the knee and vow me your soul.”

Part of me longed to do just that. But I whispered, “I am Gian Baglioni.”

She pouted, and she did it in a way that made me desire her above all things.

“The minions of Old Father Night will soon hunt me, my lady. Will you sacrifice me so easily? Or will you heal me and await the day I proclaim you as my goddess?”

“You cannot use me, my Darkling. Kneel. Obey and vow me your soul.”

I tore my gaze from hers and looked down. From upon his horse, Lord Cencio sat at the foot of the boulder. He shouted, and now the Goat Man listened.

The eerie piping stopped. The naked women collapsed as sweat poured from them. The lesser goat-men, the hounds and others looked to the boulder.

“The Darkling is near!” Lord Cencio shouted. “I feel him. We must stop this foolishness and hunt.”

“Do you hear?” I asked the Moon Lady.

She stared at me from out of the coin, and she shook her head.

With an effort of will, I folded my fingers over the coin, and I broke the contact.

“Which way?” the Goat Man asked.

Lord Cencio gazed into the darkness. He lacked a smile, and his eyes burned with insatiable hatred. “We must hunt,” he said.

It made me wonder if he’d lost some of his former power. As a dead man, maybe he was less than before.

The Goat Man rose to his imposing height. He bleated, “We seek the Darkling. So let us hunt.”

I pocketed the coin and slipped away. It had been worth the attempt. It had-

My nostrils flared. My left eye…I closed my right eye, but I still saw the grove in detail, a leaf at my boot. I felt greater strength and knew I had my former speed. I grinned, and I fled into the darkness. Erasmo’s minions thought they hunted me. But now I hunted them.

***

I reached the rutted road at the top of the weedy hill and ran down the other side. In the distance behind, I heard the bleat of angry goats.

My strategy was simple: separate the horde of altered men and kill them one at a time. I no longer heard the howl of hounds or Lord Cencio’s horn.

I crouched behind bushes and waited. I might have miscalculated. The moon sank into the horizon. I would soon have to look for a place to hide. There was less than an hour until-

A bleat alerted me. I eased back a branch. Goat-men filed from behind a dirt hill. I counted nine of them. They bore axes and ropes. They were naked, although their hindquarters were hairy. Each had an outrageously sized member.

I debated ambushing them here. I would keep one alive and question him. Yet I feared that others were near. The country was too open. I tried to see if any of them had a horn. Two carried heavy sacks. They spoke in voices too low for me to catch their words.