Dancing With The Moon

Ladies......and Gentlemen,
Have a gander lovelies :) and review please! I thrive on constructive criticism :)
Kisses and snuggles,
Linna

*Ilona- beautiful sunshine
*Bade- Moon
*Desdemon- take on Desde, me, meaning of the devil
*Geist- Soul in German

Chapter 1


“Shit”
Ilona sighed in frustration as she bent over to pick up her keys. I seriously need to get my hands checked; this is the second time today my keys just dropped out of my fingers, she thought to herself. She shook her head and slipped the light pieces of metal into her tan leather-jacket pocket.
The petite brunette with big brown eyes and what her co-workers call the ‘Gibson girlguregure walked the last few stairs of the front of the theatre where she worked as a costumer and sometimes actress, her black heels clicking on the stone. \'It’s so gorgeous out tonight!\' She thought, throwing her arms out wide and spinning in the warm mid-May air. Her heel caught on a crack in the pavement, causing her to stumble and giggle at her clumsiness. “Nice, ‘lona, really nice. You’re gonna break your neck in those someday” she chastised herself, reciting the words recently spoken to her by Marjorie, the head costume designer she affectionately calls ‘theatre mommy’. Stifling her giggles with her hand, Ilona started the short walk to her apartment three blocks down the road.
Unbeknownst to Ilona, she wasn’t quite alone at the theatre. Reclining against an elm tree about twenty yards away was a tall man dressed in what would be conspicuous black during the day; but since it was after nine p.m. in the middle of May, he wasn’t worried about that. There was dark enough for him to be nearly invisible if no one was looking for him.
As he stared at her while she walked away, Bade shook his head at Ilona’s naïveté; renowned as the theatre was, it wasn’t in the best section of town and neither was her apartment. If she wasn’t careful, she could get herself raped, or killed…or worse.
He’d been watching her for three weeks up to this point. Every day as she left work to go home, he’d been there by the elm tree, leaning in a cowboy-like pose with one leather-clad shoulder propped up against the tree in mock support. (He scoffed at that image mentally; if he really wanted to, he could rip the damn thing out by its roots and put a nice new window in the side of the building.) She never noticed him, but he liked it that way; it was much more convenient for him.
Bade never followed Ilona but this night was different. He couldn’t explain it but he could feel a force moving through the universe; one he didn’t like and didn’t want her exposed to. That innerves him most of all; that he should feel fear for one of her kind and want to protect her. He pushed the thought into the back of his dark mind and pushed himself off the tree, leaving an almost imperceptible, shoulder-sized dent in the bark.
He carefully kept himself at least 30 yards away at all times; if he didn’t watch his steps, he would catch up to her in three of four quick strides. She didn’t notice he was there; she was too wrapped up in singing her own jazzy version of “Maybe This Time” from Cabaret. He noted mentally that she had a very pretty voice, but also that she would attract the wrong kind of attention singing loudly while walking down 21st and Geist. “She really should stop that” Bade muttered to himself, “She doesn’t know what she’s dealing with.” Suddenly, a tantalizing aroma caught his nostrils. He decided for one foolish moment that she would be fine by herself and took off in the direction of the olfactory temptation.
Ilona stopped walking as she viewed the lights in her apartment from half a block away. “I left them on again?” she asked herself, irritation clear in her voice, “You know, I think I would forget my head if it wasn’t so far up my ass at this point.” She rolled her eyes at her foolish forgetfulness and picked up the pace again.
Ilona was almost to her front door when she heard a noise behind her. She whipped around, her black-brown locks hitting her in the face. “Hello?” she asked, fear plain in her voice. Silence greeted her and she swallowed the lump of nervous dread that had risen in her throat. Ilona fumbled through her purse for her keys; singing to chase away the feeling that someone, or something, was lurking near her, ready to pounce. She remembered that her keys were in her coat pocket and was just about to reach for them when she was yanked down the stairs and thrown into an alleyway by an unseen force.
She landed square on her bottom, a cry of pain and fear intermixed escaping her lips. She looked around for her assailant but could see nothing. She tried desperately to get up and was rewarded by being thrown against the wall again by the invisible fiend. Ilona struggled helplessly against the unseen iron grips on her wrists, her eyes widening in terror as her attackers face came into view by the light of the moon. His canines extended to a length no human should naturally have. They ended in sharp points, like thick hypodermic needles. His tongue snaked out and flicked across her face as her horror filled eyes say his sunken cheeks and black eyes with rims of blood red. His flesh gave off the smell of rotting flesh. His hair was white and long, with red tips at the ends. “Pretty girl”, he hissed in her ear, “with a pretty voice. Care to sing for me once more?” Bile rose in her throat as she gagged on the smell of his breath. His tongue cascaded down her cheek to the pulsing of the vein in her throat that held her life’s blood. He purred dangerously in her ear as he bared his snake-like incisors and lowered them to her throat. “Mmmm…hold still precious, this wont hurt…much.”
Bade was wiping the blood of his distraction off his mouth when he stumbled upon the ghastly scene in the alley. Ilona was struggling for her life as something was bending over her neck and whispering to her at the same time. \'Oh no,\' he thought, \'No, not again.\' Bade felt the rage boil over in his veins as he launched himself with a feral growl at Ilona’s assailant.
Bade knocked the other creature down to the broken ground and began beating him savagely. He stopped for a brief moment when he heard the thump of Ilona’s form hitting the ground from behind him. In the split second he took to look at her, the other man slammed his fist into Bade’s jaw, sending him flying several feet through the air.
“You shouldn’t mess with things that don’t concern you, Bade.” Desdemon narrowed his soulless eyes.
“Fuck you, Desdemon, she is my concern” Bade replied as he slowly stood up.
“Oh that’s priceless. I’ve gotta write that one down. Since when did you become concerned with the welfare of a bleeder?”
Bade spotted a dead tree branch some 3 feet away from him. “Since you decided to tamper with my reserves!” He seized the branch and threw it javelin-style at Desdemon, hitting him square in the chest. A look of astonishment crossed Desdemon’s face. “Oh, Bade, that’s what I get for a little nibble on your girl?” He collapsed, turning to ash upon hitting the earth.
Bade dusted his hands off on his pants as he walked over to Ilona’s still form. He looked down at her body, sprawled in the dirt, with morbid fascination. \'She’s lovely,\' he thought to himself as he picked her up from the cold ground, \'and she’s coming with me; it’s not safe for her here anymore.\'