So he just stood there on the terrace, blending into the shadows, as if he was one himself, and continued to watch the lovely woman below as she sat all alone with the melancholy hugging her moonlit face. Lloyd took a drink from his glass that he was holding. When it caught the light of the moon, it twinkled like a diamond set by an open fire. Mercedes didn't notice the moon reflecting off Lloyd's glass while she sat on the marble slab. The night was beginning to take on a chill. Mercedes' short bursts of breath were illuminated by the moonlight. The breaths quickly passed in and out of her, in strangled gasps. She whimpered, cutting the delicate music emanating from the house and cutting a notch into Lloyd's already pained heart. Lloyd was over-head and yet he wasn't there, and he watched the beautiful young woman destroy her own spirit. He wished that he knew her thoughts and yet he couldn't imagine what they could be. Little did he know the pain that her heart and soul were struggling to overcome. Little was he aware of the agonies that gnawed away at her, from inside -- put there by the great god of the land, the ArchBishop. Mercedes could hardly tolerate it any longer. She could feel the absolute Evil, drawing strength right from her spirit. The Evil grew stronger as it fed off the will residing in her emotions, and so killed them. The Evil killed all the love within her, including the love towards her beloved and promised husband, Hartford. She believed that she could not go to him soiled, even if so turned that way by the Almighty ArchBishop. Her virginity, raped from her by a god, destroyed her fragile spirit and maimed her belief in the True God. Yet, with this belief of her's weakened, she still tried to pray. A tiny voice issued from her. Lloyd's ears perked and his heart beat stronger. He could hardly hear her but her voice was like a nightingale, and he forgot the pains from his own wounds as he concentrated to hear her over the music coming from the inside the mansion. It was a prayer from her heart. Lloyd felt uneasy as he listened and he could smell the stench of Evil lingering in the night air. While Mercedes prayed, she heard the ArchBishop's course voice repeating through her mind, saying to her that he will bless her. She knew that she was stained with the kiss of Evil and she prayed to the True Living God, to forgive her. Captured in the slashes of lunar light that filtered through the leaves of the trees above Mercedes, Lloyd thought that he saw a momentary glint of metal. Her voice became louder, struggling in hiccoughed gasps. "Oh help me, God! Do not turn your eyes away from me, for I must destroy the demon that was milked into me; and yes, myself, for letting it be within me!" She lifted her clenched hands into the air and Lloyd finally saw what she was holding. A shaft of light broke the tranquil conformity of darkness and he knew that it could be nothing else but a dagger.