Free By Moonlight Wrought (Bt Moonlight Wrought) by John Crandall

open.”  But Akeen kept losing
his concentration:  there were children playing in an abandoned building across
the dark alleyway.  Akeen sat huddled, hidden deep in the recesses of the back
doorway to Barlow’s, trying to gain entrance, safely out of sight of any
passing watchman.
             The youths were screaming, calling for
each other, playing some game of hide-and-seek.  Akeen tried again, this time
he was disturbed, he thought, by the wind.  But when he turned he noted no sign
of any gusts, just the smell of a dusty draft.  He hadn’t noticed before, but
as he peered into the alley behind him he saw the door across the way standing
ajar.  Returning to his work, Akeen tried the lock yet another time, but to no
avail:  he felt something, a distracting, stale stillness.  He drew a deep
breath and tried again. 
             The children continued to call out.  This
time it sounded as though it was an end to the game.  “Damned kids,” he said to
himself.  “Maybe I’ll go scare them off.  Why don’t their parents watch them
better?  It’s getting so a thief can’t make a living anymore.  We used to be
the only ones out at this time of night.  Now, no telling who or what is out
and about,” he grumbled. 
             “Darcy.  Darcy!” at least half-a-dozen
light voices were calling, so Akeen slid his pick back into its case,
muttering.  “That’s it.  Those kids have had it.”  He stood and spun around,
intent on driving them off.  Akeen was out from under the overhang and into the
alley before he looked up.  In the warehouse doorway ahead was a shadow; a
darkness.
             Akeen stopped, puzzled, and reached his
hand out, gingerly, to touch the disturbance.  There was a movement of blinding
speed.  Akeen’s arm was jerked aside so forcibly that he was flung, spinning,
into a pile of wooden crates, dazed, his arm numb and hanging limply at his
side as he sat up.  The shape dropped a sack, tied closed at its top.  Inside,
something wiggled, struggling, and Akeen heard muffled whimpers.  The shadow,
manlike, but taller and much broader, glided toward him.  Akeen struggled to
his knees and with his uninjured arm, pulled forth his knife.  He held it,
trembling, as immense fear crept over him.  The small blade shone in the
moonlight, but gave him no security. 
             As he tried to stand, Akeen saw the glint
of steel arcing sideways toward him and he opened his mouth to scream, raising
his arm to fend off the blow.  Neither happened.  His forearm, then head, fell
to the ground, followed by his body falling backwards into the crates with a
crash.  The Fiend threw the sack over Its shoulder and disappeared again into
the shadows, speeding back to Its lair.
     
             Cinder replaced the stopper to the
crystal vial and deftly set it back on the shelf already overladen with dozens
of bottles, all different sizes, colors and shapes: flagons, flasks, jars,
decanters, ewers, phials and vials, some jeweled and some crystal, some plain.   “Is
there nothing in which I can interest you?” she asked Jiles Anderson, watching
the smile come over his face.  “You have been in three times this week and yet
you have bought nothing.  Ms. Sanders will think that I cannot sell her
perfumes.”  Cinder looked at him pleadingly, holding up yet another bottle. 
Her childlike face drooped into an irresistible pout.
             “I know what I’m interested in,” Jiles
replied.  “I’ll take that,” he said pointing at the jar in her hand, “and the
last three you held as well.”
             “But you did not even smell this one.”
             “I trust your judgment.”  He moved close
to Cinder, smelling her neck.  “I like that, too,” he finished.  Cinder giggled
and backed away.  She picked up the last three she had shown him, the one she
was wearing, along with that she already held and took them over