On a night when the wind howled loudly like a wolf, when the sky was black and then the moon was full, a woman stood outside of her friend's hotel. Her beautiful red hair sat on her shoulders, blowing in the wind like an untameable flame while her dark eyes coolly observed her environment.

Eventually, she strolled into the hotel and lifted the black hood from her cloak up to cover her face. The hotel was a big place made up of thirty-two floors and full of the expected grandeur the rich liked to surround themselves with: golden ornaments, mahogany wood and red velvet. The hotel belonged to her friend, the man, or more accurately the business he owned, the one he had built up from the ground – the one which made him rich fast and made him forget who he owed it all to…

The red woman began to head up the wide open staircase. Skilfully avoiding the hotel staff, she sneaked through the shadows and denied the light a view of her pale face. After walking up thirty-on flights of stairs – she had of course climbed them with effortless grace – she had made it to the penthouse where her friend, the man, was staying for the duration of the grand reopening of his hotel. The red woman knocked three times on the man's door.

Smirking, the woman took a step forward into the room as the door was opened by a young, handsome man with unruly hair and violet eyes, now shimmering with surprise and fear.

"Do you believe?" the woman asked smoothly, something akin to amused curiosity playing in her eyes. The man paled rapidly and took a few hurried steps back. Following him forward with a long cackle full of malice, she asked again.

"Do you believe?"

"This isn't necessary! I fulfilled my end of the bargain!" the man cried, hands shaking as he held up his arms appeasingly.

"Do you believe?" she repeated, "It's all I'm asking. Answer." Quivering with fear the man tripped backwards over his feet. As he lay on the lavish carpet of his penthouse suite, the woman looked down on him – all dark beauty and regret.

"I'm begging you – I – I have a wife, Aoko, and children and," he sobbed, "I promised them, one last show, I would –"

"Silence," the red woman cut him off coldly. She did not wish to hear about his wife. Commanded by its mistress, silence fell. The woman stared the man down her elegant nose, turned upwards towards the moon she could see through his suite's window. At least the moon could be his witness.

"Do you believe?" she asked for the last time. The man started to speak - fully ready to beg again – finally sagging when he understood – when he understood there was no hope because he – and whispered despondently, "I don't believe."

Grinning, the red woman daintily lifted up her left hand as if it could do no harm before pointing one finger at the man, simply willing it all to be, and watching him writhe.

As he slipped into oblivion, his vision darkening ominously, he watched the cruel, cruel woman slip away with her left arm tinted blood red. She would probably never be caught. No-one could catch her, no-one even knew her and if they did, god help them. His wife would never know. She would assume such horrible things about him. Maybe that was what the red witch - Akako as she called herself – what she wanted. What a shame, was the man's final thought, that he didn't have time to…

And then he died.