Prologue
Prologue
Now, this was how the night had been; there had been nothing to suggest that it wasn’t quite the same as all nights were—chilling, calm, and intriguingly alluring, and that, there was everything wrong or otherwise sinister.
The moon was a little less white than silver; it had tucked itself quietly behind dark grey clouds. The cool night wind ripped through the trees, rustling and shivering their leaves.
There was a strange unsettling stillness, then, the piercing shriek from a big black bird soaring effortlessly through the sky. It cruised down and landed on the cathedral’s gigantic bell, then it tucked its wings close, and pecked eagerly at its feet.
It lifted its head. Its eyes the color of a prasiolite.
“Yes, I’m listening,” said a voice. A match was struck in the dark, and the man brought it up close, then he lit the candles in the candelabras, the reddish yellow flame brightly illuminating his face. “There isn’t much to think about, you just have to get ready and get down here.” he said. “Yes, everything’s under control.”
“Are you sure?”the voice on the other end of the phone asked. “I mean it’s just, I’ve got this feeling…a very weird one.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Duncan,” the man said. He finished lighting the candles, then snapped a finger, the flames in the scones lining the wall igniting with a soft pop. “She’d be here, and he will too. Everything should be just as planned.”
“I know that,” said the voice. “I just can’t get rid of the feeling that’s something isn’t right. Elris can’t be trusted; she wouldn’t just have agreed without a fight, and Azrael isn’t a trustworthy fellow either. He must have a plan up his sleeve.”
“Azrael won’t be able to do anything,” said the man. “We are two steps ahead. And you need not worry about Elris, there’s only so little she can do. I trust you’d be able to handle her. Get down here, we should be done before any real damage is made.”
“And what if we aren’t?”
“Then we make use a plan b. That’s that then Duncan, I’m going to have to hang up now, I’ll need my strength.”
“Listen…” said the voice.
But he had hung up.
The man slid his phone into his pocket, and glanced around the church, taking in the empty pews, the drapes which were billowing , the flickering flames. His eyes landed back on the altar; the towering figure which was nailed to the cross in front of him—staring quietly at it for a moment.
“You must be enjoying this,” he said. “I’d say a prayer, not for me—for your followers.” He retrieved the note he had written from his chest pocket, and slid it underneath the pulpit. “There isn’t much time left for them,” he said. “You have to do something this time around.”
And for the first time in six thousand years, he joined his hands humbly in prayer, and his eyes fluttered shut before the cross.
Lightning streaked through the dark clouds.
The fogs were starting to drift along the spires and the barbed wire on the walls outside, gliding lazily about the open field. It was an incredibly silent night. The bird was still there watching, waiting patiently. It tried to steady itself on the bell, and then, upon failing, it flapped its wings and landed gingerly on the roof of the cathedral.
A car arrived just then, it headlights cutting through the darkness and piercing through the fog, and falling on the walls of the cathedral’s Imposing facade. Engine sputtered. The car’s tires crunched over granite as it jerked to a halt, venting out a burst of smoke from its exhaust.
The woman released her grip on the steering wheel. She was an elderly woman dressed in an oversized fur coat, somewhere in her early sixties, her hair was a mix of black and white and grey, held loosely in an elegant bun.
She unfastened her seatbelt, and looked through the windshield at the cathedral ahead, then over at the seat beside her, at a knife which rested on a leather-bound grimoire, which rested on the seat. It was an unusual knife with a blade as red as blood.
“You sure he’s inside,” asked the man sitting behind.
“Hopefully,” she said. “He should be.”
“Ring him up. Tell him we’ve arrived.”
The woman pulled the key from the Ignition. “What use?” she said. “I’m going in. I’ve got to put an end to this once and for all”
She grabbed the knife and the grimoire. “Pass me the bag.”
He did so, handing her a duffel bag.
“The Golem.”
He handed her a weird looking voodoo doll, crafted from clay. She stuffed the grimoire and the knife into her oversized coat, the Golem she kept in a separate inner pocket. She grabbed the bag by the strap, and pushed open the door, and alighted.
“I should be back in less than thirty minutes,” she said. “Stay in and keep watch.”
“Your wish is my command, my lady,” said the man. He gave her a dry, almost mocking smile, then he added. “I mean, her highness.”
The woman proceeded to the gate then, loosening the chain which held it. A clank. A clang. The rattling of metal. She dumped the rusted iron-steel to the ground, pushed open the gate with an earsplitting squeak, and then, she entered.
The man jolted his head out the window. He watched concernedly as she made her way towards the cathedral. Midway in her journey, a considerable distance from the gate, he thrust open the door, stepped down, and shut it back with a slam.
He rested against the car and lit a cigarette.
His eyes were still shut, and he hadn’t said a word or moved. The flickering flames still burning gracefully in the candles around him.
The door to the cathedral grated inward a little, and the woman slipped in through the small opening, shutting the door behind her.
She observed the church cautiously, her eyes scanning around the empty pews and every corner.
“I had begun to think you weren’t coming,” said the man.
The woman’s eyes settled on him. She took one last glance around, then started walking towards him, her heels echoing off the floor.
His eyes opened and he pivoted to face her, “You are late,” he said.
She halted in her steps, dumped the bag directly at his feet.
“What’s inside?”
“Money,” she said. “Seven hundred. I’m willing to give you more if you want.”
“Seven hundred.”
“I’ll make it a million. Two million.”
The man stared at her, incredulous, then, “We do the spell tonight,” he said “You keep the money.”
“You don’t listen, do you?” the woman asked.
“To you, no, I do not. I believe you came with the book.”
The woman leered at him, then reluctantly and helplessly retrieved the grimoire from her voluminous coat, and handed it over. The man collected it. He flipped through the pages. “Which spell was it?”
“Page 33,” she said, hesitantly, then. “You have no idea what you are doing.”
He stopped flipping on a page: the title proudly proclaiming ‘Ritus Memoria Alternandae’. There were drawing of skulls, and brains, and clouds, and fogs.
At the bottom, left Corner, was scrawled in cursive writing different from that in which the spell had been written. By the laws of the mind: memories are eternal, forgotten but never erased. To rewrite what was, memory must be lifted and bestowed upon another, or stored in a state.
“Is this the one?” he asked
She gave it a glance and nodded hesitantly.
He read through the spell, “Duncan will be here any moment,” he said. “We’ll wait. We shall begin once he arrives.”
“Then what?” She asked. “After the ritual, he gets back to his life? What happens then? What do we tell the town?”
“The town.”
“Look, our lives are starting to get better after a long time”
“Your son is alive.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve moved on.”
“You’ve moved on,” he said. “His wife hasn’t. And I’m pretty sure Herma wants her father.” He turned away from her. “We are not going to have this discussion again, Mrs. Elris. I believe I’ve made my intentions clear.” He kept the grimoire on the altar. “Do you think of him?” He asked. “Ever.”
“In the past two years, did you know he was alive?”
“You told me.”
“And you do not wish to see him?”
“I do not wish to complicate things.”
“For who? Yourself?” The man scoffed. “You truly are a mother—a heartless and selfish—”
“I do the things necessary to protect my home.” She said, slipping her hands surreptitiously into her coat.
“Protect your home?” He turned to her and—
Thwack.
His breath hitched.
“Yes,” she said, her voice darkening.. “I do the things necessary to protect my home.” She yanked out the knife and sent it back in.”
And slowly, the knife sank deeper into his stomach, and he collapsed to the ground.
There was a low guttural cry. There was someone watching him from a distance in between the trees.
The smoked dispersed freely from his mouth, twirling aimlessly into the night air. He took a drag, let it out, then another drag.
The fog had begun to thin out and clear, and the insects were chirping. He observed his cigarette; it was near finish. He pinned it in his mouth, then retrieved his phone from his pocket, and checked the time.
From the roof of the cathedral, the bird observed him through a drawn and hazy vision. It made the same low guttural cry, and the man’s gaze darted up. He squinted his eyes, saw nothing but a clear rooftop.
His eyes narrowed even further, and he shrugged, his attention returning to the phone in his hand. His eyes caught on the woman struggling to drag the body out of the cathedral.
“The hell,” he said, and dashed over to help her.
“Guessing it didn’t go as planned then,” he asked.
The woman nodded, “Had no choice, he was proving more stubborn than I expected,” she said, breathlessly. ’Help me take him to the car.”
The man transferred the weight of the body unto himself, and began to drag it towards the gate.
The woman dashed back into the cathedral. She returned a while later with the duffel bag, and the grimoire, and started her way towards the car—stepping out of the gate, chaining it, and entering the car.
She banged the door shut.
She dumped the bag and the grimoire on the front passenger seat, took a deep breath, then darted behind.
He’s still breathing,” said the man.
“Yeah,” she replied. “It’s my ill luck. He certainly is something. Nothing Kiti Maju wouldn’t be able to fix.”
She pressed in the key into the ignition and the engine roared to life.
The tires rolled back, reversing, and soon, the car glided down the lonely road, slowly and gradually picking up speed.
The bird had seen it all. From the roof of the cathedral, there was a low guttural cry. It fluffed then unfurled its wings, then it dived toward the ground, shedding and distorting its avian form as it did so. And there, on the ground, stood a man. A pale man in a black cloak with ghostly eyes the color of prasiolite and jet black hair.
He looked around, then, amusingly, dryly, and bitterly, he said. “Well, that was interesting to watch. A fool that one. A big fool. A worthless unthoughtful spineless fool who deserves that body. A big fool you are too Duncan, come on now, we’ve got a lot to do.”
In the dark, somewhere in-between the trees, Duncan's hand curled into a fist.
