Dawn's Cold Moon

nswer me this doctor: Why am I now so reviled?" Christian lowered his head and pulled nervously on his fingers.

Jameson lay down his pen and leaned across the table. " You tell me. Why do you think they revile you?"

" I do not know. I am no more or less a monster now, than I was before, when I walked among them."

" But surely Christian you must understand their..."

" Understand?" he roared. The cell was suddenly filled with his fury. " Understand what doctor?"

Christian rose to his feet, his shackles clinking loudly against the damp cement. He towered over Jameson. His shadow was cold, impossibly cold.

" They point at me now as they would some poor beast in a zoo. It is easy for them. The creature is behind bars, devoid of threat, and yet they thrill at the proximity to such an animal. For me they have nothing but scorn." He laughed bitterly.

Christian's eyes glinted fiercely in the moonlight which streamed through the cell's window, set high in the stone wall. Jameson glimpsed a calculating venom in his glare. The answer perhaps, if one existed, danced there in his eyes.

" You must realise: Things have changed, circumstances now differ. They see you in an entirely new light. They cannot, just as you, be blamed. They fear you, and not without some justification."

Christian turned slowly, his eyelids blinking lazily. " And you doctor. Do you not fear me?"

Jameson rose to his feet and approached Christian. " I respect you and that which you become. But fear: No."

" I walked among them, was one of them. They respected me. Now it has come to this. I am no different now than before. Why do they hate me with so much passion?"

" They are scared Christian. They no longer know you."

" Oh they know me. They have always known me. I beat as a heart in the breast of each and every last one of them. Perhaps this is why they hate me so. They see dark filaments of themselves in me. It scares and exhilarates them."

He fell silent, turning to the window. He gazed up at the moon, his jaw slack, face upturned.

" Christian, the hour grows late and I still do not have what I will."

" It is your time doctor. You bought it."

"I need to know more."

" Why?" Christian snapped. There was a throaty menace to his voice.

" The road to solution begins with knowledge. If I am to one day help others like you, cure them perhaps..."

" There is only one cure for the likes of me doctor."

" But none of this is your doing," Jameson pleaded.

" Then why in God's name must I bear punishment? Why must I be sacrificed for crimes born not of my own intent?"

Christian slammed his fists into the wall. He turned, his knuckles raw and bleeding. A tear snaked lazily away from his eye and rolled down his cheek.

" It is for the good of the people, you know that."

Jameson glanced anxiously over his shoulder. " Please, tell me what you can remember."

" I have already told you doctor, I remember so little. No details, no emotions - only the blood and the pain."

" Let us start there then." Christian lurched back to the table and sat.

" What happens Christian. How do the episodes begin?"

Christian closed his eyes and focussed in on his breathing. It was deep and rhythmic.

" I can tell only of sadness and terrible loathing. Every pore, every fibre of my being burns with hatred and this hideous wave of melancholy. It becomes unbearable, like the heat from some hellish sun. I see blood, a dense warm veil of blood surrounding me."

" Good Christian. Go on."

" Then nothing. I wake with a tremendous sense of relief. I feel purged, cleansed somehow." Jameson was scribbling frantically in a leather-bound journal.

" How often do these episodes occur?"

" It is difficult to say, perhaps three, four times a month."

The sun had begun to climb the sky . A new light stole into the cell, lighting the walls that dripped with verdigris and ice cold beads of moisture. The light was a murky blue and frigid. Jameson eyed the dawn angrily. It was bringing death.

" I am a good man doctor. Please ensure that whatever legacy remains, that it should paint me a good and virtuous man." Jameson cupped his hands over Christian's and nodded slowly.

The interview had ended. Already he could hear the gallows being tested, and the nearing footfalls of the gaolers, priest and executioners.

There was so much to learn, so many myths to dispel, but Lycanthropy was a new discipline and much maligned by the people of these dark times. With such little time left, to press on would prove futile. He had gained what little he could from Christian Moller.

A thousand questions burned in his mind, but they lay barren and unanswered, in the ash-blue, teary gaze of this condemned man.

A man.