Then the police came out, and the vigilantes. I walked the streets without fear of them at first, for they noted my silhouette and deemed me ineffectual. But as my nightly raids continued, as the pitiable victims continued to open their locked doors to their doom, the men began to gather their fear into groups, and some ancient memory in me awakened and began to fear them. I would see them, standing in groups or roaming the streets, silently, unobtrusively armed. Their black silhouettes backlighted by streetlight or starlight reminded me of villagers in torchlight. Through a growing sense of eternity, mixing past with present with future, my eyes saw frantic fathers, brothers, and grand­fathers, grief-stricken and worried, but my mind’s eyes saw witch hunters, lynch mobs, and angry, outraged gatherings turning monstrous themselves.

I danced around them, darting behind trees, bushes, around the corners of houses. I danced around their impotency, knowing that my time in Wilton was shortening, yet drawing it out past all limits of good sense. I should have left Wilton a month ago, but I hadn’t. I couldn’t bear to leave my Diana, my Daniel. My home, my soil. I would be more careful.

And then I awakened Daniel, like a fool, and the next evening I found a crucifix dangling over where I slept.

It had been Daniel’s work, I knew it in an instant. He loved me too much to give me away to the mobs who would rip me apart; he knew too much lore. No, it was clear he hoped to immobilize me with his puny effort, so as to talk to me, to control me—his very own succubus that lived in his cellar. His secret. The one secret among many that my Daniel and I shared.

I unhooked the crucifix and examined it while listening to the sounds overhead. It had, no doubt, belonged to his mother. I considered waiting for him, but then I knew that he would never come down while his family was awake; he would wait until they were all asleep. We would rendezvous in the darkest of the night. I had time to leave and return.

I slipped out the door and felt the light misty rain falling around me. The land had turned green in the past few weeks, and the fresh smell of damp earth and the rotting spoils of winter decomposing floated lazily on the air between the raindrops. The town’s paranoia swirled about my feet like a hungry cat, and I smiled to myself, knowing that adrenaline adds spice.

There was a new scent on the air this night, though, and it was fear. One single, sharp, acrid note of fear wafted clearly though the obstacle course of the mist. Someone was outside and afraid. Someone close.

I swung my cloak over my shoulder to keep the rain out and started off.