Order Of The Golden Dawn - Chapter 1

Order of the Golden Dawn - Diamonds



A treacherous winter’s night, icicles drooped off the rooftops and the stars were concealed by a thick blanket of fog. The trees were shaking brutally from the blustery weather, and hail made a violent impact on the ground with every stone. Darkness swallowed Scotland. On a small island, a group of people were gathered in some kind of abandoned village hall. One of the young men gazed from a window, observing anxiously in the vague lighting of a lonesome streetlight, as the weather controlled the outdoor world. His olive complexion appeared to glow with each strike of lightning. The hall itself was in near-perfect condition, yet it greeted you with a stale odour, the kind of smell that made you want to vomit the second it struck you. Candles were haphazardly scattered around the room, sending shadows flickering over the walls. Six people were the only visitors at the time and the lack of people in a usually busy well populated room made the place look even bigger than it was, most of them were in the main, largest room, but two men were talking privately in a corridor that led to the toilets. The Spanish man with the glowing skin turned his attention away from the window and towards the only woman in the hall.



“Aurelia, remind me why we’re on this godforsaken island again?”

“You know why Aleixandre, now stop moaning, we have to be here.”

He didn’t have to be there at all, and in fact there was no real reason why they were in the middle of nowhere, it was just the place chosen to hold this particular meeting. Another man walked towards them and sat down on what appeared to be an old fashioned stool to join in the conversation. “Aurelia’s right, Astin trusts us to get this right for him. We’ll wait for Raymond to come back with the stuff, and then we can go back to England.” Aleixandre sighed, there was no point saying anything else on the matter, he knew everyone in the room was as stubborn as could be. “When’s Raymond supposed to be here?” Aleixandre asked in an attempt to make conversation, it was strangely awkward, which was unusual as they were all very close friends, in fact they were pretty much family. “About thirty minutes ago.” Aurelia said, rather bluntly.

“Ah.” Aleixandre couldn’t make anything else come out his mouth. His friends were being as frosty as the weather was outside. He could only wonder, they couldn’t possibly know could they? No, of course they couldn’t, he’d covered his tracks as best as he possibly could, there was no way they could know. He put any doubt to the back of his mind and snapped back out of thought to realised he’d been staring at Aurelia. “What?” she questioned.



“Sorry, just daydreaming.” Aleixandre said, and he cleared his throat with great exaggeration. Aurelia turned to the man who had joined them and smiled. The man was called Nero, he was born in Italy. His dark long hair rested on his shoulders and he was constantly flicking hair out of his eyes. Nero was extremely strong minded; he put this down to having grown up without knowing who his parents were. He was still none the wiser and at times it frustrated him, but he never spoke about it, and he never let it show. His eyes were prolific and the colour of them resembled that of a beautiful lagoon. Neat eyebrows rested above them, and he’d been told he had the best of smiles, by Aurelia in fact. Everyone was relatively sure she had a thing for Nero, she was constantly looking at him and smiling, and made sure she spoke to him at every given opportunity. Aurelia got up, after finally ripping her eyes away from Nero and went to look out the window. She found the horrendous weather peaceful, beautiful in fact, and took a deep breath in as a whisper of fresh air and a drop of rain gently struck her through a slight gap in the window. “Well, I gotta pee.” Aleixandre interrupted her little moment and walked off to the toilet. “Charming.” She said, while he was still in earshot. She returned to gazing longingly out of the window. She was just watching the silver droplets of rain, lit up under the streetlight, when she felt something on her hand. She looked up and saw Nero staring down at her. God, he was tall. She let out a tiny gasp but didn’t move her hand, although she could feel it shaking.



“I didn’t hear you get up... I was just watching the...”

“Weather” Nero finished for her.

“Yes” She was too focused on the fact his hand was on hers to think of anything else to say. The slight breeze that managed to find its way into the room brought Nero’s scent to her. It was a gorgeous smell, not one of those cheap aftershave smells. It was a delightful treat for her senses, after having to cope with the halls musty smell for the last couple of hours.

“Magnificent isn’t it?” Nero asked.

“Huh?” Aurelia was taken back, and though for a second he was reading her mind.

“The storm, most people despise them, complain that it makes them miserable and stops them doing things they want to do, things they have planned. But if they wanted to do them that badly, if they were that important, then a little bit of rain wouldn’t stop them. I would be happy even if it were to rain every single day.” Aurelia just stood and looked at him in amazement at the truth other words that just came out of his mouth. “Wow” She wanted to kick herself for only giving one word answers, so she forced herself to say more. “That’s so true, I’m exactly the same, and the rain makes me happy.” He smiled and turned to look out the window again, keeping his hand perfectly still. It was warm on Aurelia’s skin. “That’s the good thing about living in England, one of the things I like, plenty of rain.” Aurelia’s smile grew a little bit. She wasn’t sure if time was just going slowly because she was talking to Nero, or if Aleixandre was taking exceptionally long in the toilet, or both. She decided it was the first one; it was a much nicer though.



Aleixandre was finally just coming back from the toilet when there was a strange scuttling noise outside. Nero and Aurelia turned to each other. It could have been Raymond but there had been no sign of him coming up the path. The scuttling stopped, they both waited for a minute, rooted to the spot. Aurelia let out a sigh of relief when the sound didn’t restart. “Must have been the wind blowing the leaves around.” But after saying that, she noticed the trees were still, there was no wind anymore. Suddenly, something leaped up from under the window outside and smashed both its hands on the glass and let out a low pitched groan. Aurelia shrieked and she and Nero both fell backwards onto the floor, Nero caught her so she didn’t fall as hard, even if she was extremely strong and could have taken it. Nero got up and hit the window. “RAYMOND!” he shouted, “That’s not funny!” although he was laughing now. He helped Aurelia to her feet. Aleixandre was almost in hysterics. “You’re meant to be the brave one.” He directed his remark at Aurelia. “Ha. Now, go let Raymond in.” He obeyed and went to unlock the front doors. He opened them to see a drenched unimpressed looking Raymond. “Raymond! Am I glad to see you?!” He opened out his arms for a hug, but instead of hugging him, he pulled out a pristine, fifteen inch hunting knife and sank it with precision into Aleixandre’s heart. “Betrayers deserve to die; we have no time for them here.” Raymond said to the dying Spaniard. Emotion almost drowned the words out. He pulled the knife out, letting Aleixandre fall to the floor in front of him. He was soon devoured by a pool of his own ruby red blood. Raymond checked his pockets and took out a diamond shaped stone; it had a pinkish kind of tint to it. “So it’s true” Raymond said. “That’s interesting, very interesting.”