Halloween. sure he had enjoyed it as a kid that long long time passed. Before he knew what monsters really were. Before he knew they really existed. He knew better now and the hordes of little ones wondering the streets, or revellers and party goes invoking things they thought of as jokes, messing with ancient stories like they had no meaning it made him shudder. Because in the crowds, in the shadows and dreams of humanity the monsters they had once sought to placate still lurked just as real as ever only now half forgotten. Something He is quite sure suited them just fine.

And so this night is not one of revelry for the recently crowned king of Autumn, tonight he gathers what wits he can about himself does his uttermost to to fight the battle of knowing what is what, made oh so much harder by the costumes and crowds and press of it all and sets to the streets. Making no effort to mask the menace of his presence.

The first he comes across a mother and her three children. He stops under the street light and turns to face the across the street impossible to miss and the mother doesn't hurrying her children faster through the gate and into the house. The lights don't turn on inside but it's not until he see the front room curtains twitching that he resumes his nights work with a lengthy stride.

Some to old to be out but to young to be drinking but are anyway hooligans booing and screaming at passers by from an ally receive a lesson in real fear. The first they know of it is the sound of a bag of rubbish hitting the ground exploding open from the force of the through. It gets their attention and as they squint through the gloom one is scent, the sacrificial lamb to investigate. The light above the backdoor to a shop shatters in a shower of glass and shadows as a rock hits it. Spooking him. Nothing happens no homeless person or monster come barrelling from the darkness. He begins to laugh but the mockery of his friends dies on their lips as the giant drops from the fire scape above landing, looming over even in the crouch the poor lone investigator, a snarl only an ogre can make ripping from him. The local ally cat screech in dismay at this disruption and the teens scream fleeing back onto the public street.

The vagrant, the drunk and the antisocial sloshing booze from a bottle in brown paper bag. Tucked in the back corner of a parking lot whittling away the hours till the sun peeks above the horizon with cheap liquid fire for warmth. The shadow that fallows over them in the dark several time the size of its monstrous origin as he stalks powerfully forward violent intent writ clear in each step. These hardened folk of the streets did not square easy and he knew that much. The cold glimmer of steel fills his left hand as the long knife is drawn from its sheathe on his belt and he casually effortless runs it along the chain link fence next marking the boundary of the carpark. The rhythmic clink of metal on metal perforating the ear counting down his arrival, adding tension to the moment. They feel it they see they tense up m, they stand debating fight or flee. His lunge his size and power settle it scattering them he hopes towards numbers, towards communities to places they will be better kept tonight.

He had burnt through the guise of the wyrd, the hidden life tat kept him in the shadows, he had no doubt that night but it would reassert itself in due time, steal the image of him the detail from their minds quickly dissolving him into a being of shadow and ferocity and danger. That was the point, the goal. The experience should stay with them well enough the deep feeling of unease, of fear. Maybe one day it would even save their lives.

And so he continues patrolling searching striding with no direction being lead by whim and need. And those he encounters in the dark and quiet corners of the night are sent running back to the safety of home, of lights, of communities. Places they could be less easily taken. Until the red bleeding of the sun foretells the break of day, then it is time for home and for bed.