Prologue

Prologue.


The night was cool with a strong wind billowing the ancient willow trees which lined the drive way to the old Georgia mansion. The manor was once an old plantation home that had fallen into disrepair a few decades back. That was until Meredith Morcroft bought it and repaired all the old damage along with adding a few new subtle, but nevertheless unusual, architectural designs that only a trained eye, or perhaps a particularly astute observer, might notice. All the angles of the home no longer met at the expected 90 degrees, causing an odd, but not all together evident, slanted distortion in many of the rooms.

Inside the home, all the electric lighting was turned off and the hallways were lit only sparingly by purple candles that Meredith had made herself. The candles bore on their surface certain strange markings that someone well versed in occult lore might understand. Meredith sat alone in the living room in her wheelchair. Her 68 years in this world had changed her hair from its raven black to gray, and it had lost much of its thickness. She slowly placed her wrinkled and spotted hand to her thinned hair and thought about her youth, when she had let it hang down to almost her waist. Tonight, it was tied up in a bun on the back of her head, and as her hand drifted back down to her lap, a smile crossed her pale, thin, cracked lips. Once, she had been a celebrated beauty. She thought about the days when she was a nubile temptress and then of all the men who had desired her. She thought of those suitors only briefly though, before her mind wandered to her long dead, Joshua. She had loved many men in her life, but none like the man she would have married. He was a man of both power and vision, and it was his dream which still drove her to this day. Realizing that there was important business to attend to tonight, she pushed all these thoughts aside.

There was no time left for an old woman to wander in the past, not when the future of so much was still at stake. She had spent most of her life in pursuit of one goal, and now in her twilight years, she had come to learn of the one thing which could ruin it all. A thing which she had believed long gone from the world. Meredith was a woman of not only wealth, but also of influence amongst a certain unscrupulous circle. She had used both to try and alleviate the problem through more mundane means, but they had all failed her. The thread of her life was too short now to take any more chances. She had to act to destroy this threat immediately. When one dedicates themselves so completely to a cause, then they must protect it at any cost, she rationalized. She sighed deeply, and then called out for her son, Sebastian.

He silently entered the room dressed in a plain white, buttoned shirt and black slacks. Sebastian was a tall and thin man with thick, wild brown hair, whose features were too sharp too be attractive, and whose manner was too blunt to be charming. Meredith wandered briefly to herself at how he had seemed to miss all of her social graces. "Is everything ready?" She finally asked.

"It's all done."

"Good, then let us be finished with this. Come, take me to the room." Meredith motioned him towards her impatiently.

Sebastian came up behind her, took hold of her wheelchair and rolled into the foyer. Meredith could hear the winds outside howling their rage against her as they slowly made their way towards the locked door at the end of the hall. When they reached their destination, she placed her hand against the ancient, thick wood and steadied herself. The door had a circle with a triangle contained inside of it, all with a line across the middle, burned into its center; this was the sixth seal. She could feel her old heart racing in anticipation of what was to come, like the momentary exhilaration that precedes a dangerous stunt. Meredith took a small silver key from around the chain on her neck, and unlocked the door. The old mansion had been built over a place of power, and this room was the nexus for that energy. The lock clicked and the door slowly swung itself open, unleashing a sudden burst of cool air and a loud moan. The spirit of the house welcomed its mistress.

As Sebastian rolled her into the room the door closed itself behind them, and for a moment, there was only the dark around them and a soft, sobbing sound. Suddenly, the chamber was filled with the light of a hundred red candles flaring to life all at once. The inside of the room was large, far more so than the outside should allow it to be. There were many words in old and dead tongues written across the walls, along with shelves of strange, and long forbidden text. The cabinets that lined the south wall held jars of exotic materials and there were two circular diagrams carved into the old stone floor in the center of the room. The larger of them was marked by the various sigils on its interior, whose purpose was to keep what was outside of it from getting in. The smaller circle had similar designs on its exterior, to keep what was inside of it from getting out. Though the surface was cool to the touch, there were ripples in the air rising off of the designs, like what one might see on black asphalt on a hot summer's day.

Most notable of all though, was the naked young boy bound in the smaller circle. He was no more than 15 years old and he cried softly to himself, having long ago given up on begging for mercy. His frame bore the gangly signs of those awkward years when some parts of the body raced ahead of others. Still, he was far too thin, almost emaciated, as though he had been starved for sometime. His ebony skin was smooth, but reddened where all the hair on his body had been plucked away. "Give it to me." Meredith said dispassionately, as she extended her open hand. Sebastian reached into the left pocket of his slacks and produced a small, hand sewn bracelet made from the boys hair and then placed it in Meredith's palm. She rubbed it momentarily with her thumb, as she briefly examined the gruesome thing and noted the dried blood covering it, before slipping it over her wrist.

Wordlessly, Sebastian turned to leave the room, but before he did, he stole a sidelong glance at the tormented captive who was the result of his own handiwork. A sadistic grin spread across his face as he opened the heavy wooden door and slipped quietly out. Meredith rolled her wheelchair to the edge of the diagram and then threw herself from its prison onto the floor. The landing was hard on her enfeebled body, but she bore the brunt, and inch by inch, crawled her way into the center of the larger circle. Once there, she pulled her legs up about her and sat still for a long moment, closing her eyes and letting the energy of the room fill her soul and bolster her will. When her resolve was fully set she began to chant. She spoke in a language that has never been recorded, for words such as the ones she used could not be put to the page. These were words of power, the words spoken by the old ones who existed beyond the boundaries of our reality, the dark and insane things that lurked at the edge of sanity and sought to tear the world down into their own madness.

Though the air in the room was still, the candles began to flicker and dim as the old woman rocked her body back and forth and the volume of her raspy voice increased. Abruptly, Meredith fell silent and her eyes shot open. She looked around the room as though expecting to see someone new there with her, and although there was no other to see, she felt its presence nonetheless. She narrowed her eyes and spoke aloud, " Are you here?" A screech like the sound of a thousand razors sliding against each other began to ring throughout the room and Meredith reflexively flinched and grabbed at her ears. The boy in front of her became wide eyed with terror and renewed his struggle as he began to scream out for help.

"Yes..." A smooth and calm voice echoed in her mind, though she was hard pressed to hear it as the cacophony around her had not subsided.

"I am Meredith Elizabeth Morcroft, and by right of my heritage and the power of the sixth seal, I call to you and compel you to hear and obey me, Malial!" Meredith shouted out over the noise.

"I know you and your ilk well, blessed of the dragon." The voice had taken on a mocking, superior tone to it and Meredith could feel its presence creeping through her mind like maggots writhing in her brain. She summoned the reserves of strength in her to bar its path and force it into submission. Suddenly, the voice was furious and screamed out with a thunderous roar, "I will hold your spirit to this world as I devour your innards and satisfy my lust on your broken body!"

Without warning the candles flared around her and the room was filled with an unbearable heat. The sound of metal against metal increased a hundred times over and the boy began to wail all the louder. Meredith felt disoriented and she knew couldn't take much more of this. She placed both hands on the floor and opened herself up to the flow of its ancient power. It filled her like the first breath of air after having been under water for far too long. She used that strength and shouted her will at the demon, ordering it to submit itself to her. The battle between the two raged on for what seemed a lifetime over again, but in the end, Meredith succeeded in her task.

The light from the candles died down and the temperature cooled. The shadows of the room seemed to pry themselves free and crawl out of every corner. They drew up around the petrified boy who had stopped his shouts and now lay only trembling. Almost lovingly, the living darkness began to caress him and then to force itself into every orifice of his body. It pried him open and sipped into him like a sluggish black smoke heavy with tar. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

Meredith sat still, waiting for the transformation she knew would soon come. The young man lay there not moving, only moaning softly to himself as his consciousness was eaten away. As Meredith looked on, his body began to convulse and his skin rose and moved like a hellish serpentine creature was slithering just beneath the flesh. The abomination inside of him started to coil in his midriff and his sunken stomach bloated as though he were pregnant with some unspeakable blaspheme. His legs began to make an odd popping sound as the bones shifted themselves and the flesh became wet with a thin film of slime. The toes elongated and webbed as the color of his body from the waist down turned to a sickly green. Meredith observed with keen interest as the boys lower region became something like a huge frog. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his tongue began to flop outside of his mouth as it grew long and fat.

Without warning the child-thing in front of her broke the ropes binding it and sprang upright into a crouched position. It looked on at the old woman before it through the useless whites of its upturned eyes and sat as though it were preparing to leap on her at any moment. Meredith met the things blank stare with a determination that masked the fear she felt swelling up inside of her.

"What would you have of me?" The thing in front of her asked as its body heaved forward obscenely, as if it were trying to copulate with some invisible mate.

"Our goal is not so different, Malial. You know well what is coming, and I mean to see it happen. I have bound you to find and kill, Michael Demhart." Meredith said, exhausted from her ordeal.

Malial glared malevolently at her as it lashed its tongue through the air. "You dare to presume to order one of my kind, bitch!"

Meredith held up her right arm from which dangled the morbid bracelet her son had crafted earlier that night. "You will do my bidding, hellspawn. The choice is no longer your own."

At the sight of the bracelet the demon bowed itself before its new master, silently vowing to exact an excruciating revenge on all the Morcroft line. "As you will, he shall die."