Proluge
“Before we begin, it is vital you understand that there are a number of irrefutable truths to reality. Principle of these truths is that monsters truly do exist, and this is not some metaphorical statement on the nature of humanity, I mean that monsters are real, the vestigial fear that you felt as a child when you would gape into night darkened shadows in the corners of your room, and knew, knew with all the certainty of your still forming mind that the shadows were watching you back. The breath and growl under your bed, the thump in your closet, all of it as real as your first morning coffee.
Now that you realize this truth, you must confront the trap of understanding. What this means simply is that in the desperate need of the rational mind to categorize and codify the unknowable, it assigns terms to what it fails to grasp, in the most simple of ways, white and black, day, night, good and evil. This is the trap that catches us, the trap that we ourselves construct as we dive further and further into the hidden places, and forgotten realms of our species shared history.
Accept that you will never truly know why a thing is as it is, instead accept that it is and that it can and will affect you, usually in ways that will be horrific and long lasting, once you accept this reality, much like confronting ones mortality on the end of a bungee cord, and releasing your fear of that unknowable quantity, you are freed of your fear of the monsters teeth, and thankfully once you learn to no longer fear the monsters teeth you learn that you posses such teeth yourself, and that monsters can learn to fear as well...”
The crackle and hum of florescent lighting and electronic devises served as a soundtrack to Edward Parker's late night, one of the last souls in his office, he labored long after the majority of his co workers had left for the day, long still after the passing of the janitorial crew. Edward used to leave at the same time as the rest of the office, back before the affair, before the consequences of to many drinks and lonely nights on business trips to small and insignificant places around the country.
Tonight, like many others before it, Edward passed his time in work to drown the voice in his head and the aching, empty void in his guts, his ring finger still itched slightly where his wedding band used to reside. The sudden flash of lightning and the later crack of thunder jerked him from his work, to stare empty and almost longingly out the window of his office. His reflection on the glass, back lit by the storm darkened sky seemed sickly, a weak, wispy thing, lost of it's true human fullness. For a time Edward stared at his middle distance and with a heavy sigh saved the account he was working on, collected his things and started his long, lonely trek back home.
The cold wet rain greeted Edward as he left the lobby of the building, silent uncaring city streets glistened with cold neon and artificial light, only further darkening his already low spirits, spying no taxis, and in fact very little in the way of road traffic he turned up the collar of his overcoat, and started off towards the nearest subway, his mind on little other then what his meager dinner would consist of, what the nightly monologue of the late show would be, and how to close the account he was working on, so full of this minutia in his head he almost missed the sound of the child's voice.
“Help...please...”
Two simple words, spoken with an utter pitiful sadness, a pleading sound that came from the dark of an ally. Edward stared intently into the gloomy dark, searching for the source of the voice, but only darkness could be seen, and so it was that Edward would have simply dismissed it for a trick of his ears, or his imagination, were it not for another flash of lightning and from further back in the ally, the shape of a small figure, hard to see, but no bigger then his own son Jack. In that small flash of light the vision of filthy clothes, of stained and worn jeans and of an old soiled oversized jacket over an equally disheveled hoodie, yet nothing could be made of the child's features.
“Help...please...”
Again the pleading, soul wrenching voice came from the darkness ahead, and as if in a trance, Edward stepped into the alleyway. “Hello? Are you hurt, whats wrong?” He called out to the child as the smells of the ally assailed his senses, rotting garbage, stale piss, and something else, something that made his reptile brain shriek ancient long forgotten warnings.
“Over here...please help...”
The call of the child's voice came from further up the ally, and into the dark Edward went, pursuing the voice, stumbling over hidden things in the dim light, twisting, turning this way and that as the pleading voice called, coaxed him further on. Soon the darkness was so great that he resorted to using his smart phone's limited light to illuminate the path before him, till at last he saw the child once more. Stepping into a open area beneath three towering structures he stepped over to the child and knelt down. “Whats wrong, what do you knee...” Edwards voice trailed off as the dim light of his phone shone up into the hoodie, revealing an emptiness as black as the deepest reaches of space. He could only stare in detached wonder as the shape fell away, and the darkness before him exploded into a mass of writhing tentacles that surrounded a puckered orifice that rolled open to reveal circular rows and rows of jagged, angular teeth.
The quiet of the city streets was broken slightly by a scream, primal, animistic in its origins, a desperate cry of fear that was just as suddenly silenced by a quieter, crunching, wet tearing sound before all became still once more. In the days then weeks that followed, Edward Parker's disappearance was investigated, though no leads would be discovered, no trace of the man found, in time it would be assumed that he had either committed suicide in despair over the failure of his marriage, or he had left his previous life behind to seek to reinvent himself in another place. His personal effects would be dispersed amongst his family, friends and creditors. As for Edward, in time he would be forgotten, one of the many sad souls consigned the annals of the lost.
1.
“Magic...magic is perhaps the greatest albatross our particular social circle carries around our collective necks. Of course it is power, true power in it's most raw form, but ask the new old guard of Russia just how fickle raw power can be, the lessons of Chernobyl will linger on for another five to seven generations. But remember this, there is none, not one agreed to consensus as to what magic truly is. Be it life force, cosmic energy, the psychosomatic results of an unknown hive mind that Humanity carries? There are as many theories as there are theorists. What we all can agree to are a few important thing, magic is the tool of creation, the powers that exist beyond understanding are believed to use magic to create what we call reality. Magic seems the simple solution to your problems. You are hungry, create a banquet from nothing, you are cold, make the air burn with ethereal fire, but there is always a price to be paid for your use of the power. Simple thaumaturgy dictates that what you take in the creation of magic you must also pay for in some manner, you are not exempt from this cost, use magic wisely, for the costs of it's use are completely unpredictable. While you are able to wield the tools, you are not their master, remember this young acolyte, you are for all your abilities, all your talent, all your potential...you are simply borrowing someones toys, and we are not entirely sure if they are aware of this, and if they consent.”
Jorge Velasquez lay in his bed, eyes wide, as still as could be managed for a boy of five. The whispers beneath his bead were back. This was the eighth night in a row now, just as he was about to drift off to sleep, the whispering would start. The first night he had thought it was his father watching the television out in the main room of the apartment, but the whispering had called his name, told him things that the television could not know, and told him that at the end of the tenth night, he would be eaten.
No matter how many times his father had been called to look under the bed, there was nothing discovered, and after each search, the whispers returned, mocking, taunting, laughing at his torment. His ears filled with the sound of his heart and the horrific whispers were suddenly presented with a new sound, a strange, crackling sound, and from the door to his room came an odd acrid smell, sweet and metallic. The boys eyes locked on his door as the handle to the door slowly turned, and when the door opened bathing him in the light of electric lamps and the flicker of the television he shook.
The doorway was filled with a backbit form, that came into focus all at once. A tall man, lean of build, close cropped ginger hair under a black bowler hat and a well tailored black and white pinstriped suit, the shine and reflection of mirrored glasses gave the boy a vision of his room, distorted and off looking in the cure of the reflective glass. Beyond the man Jorge's father sat in his chair, as still as a statue, a bottle of his favorite beer in his hand, tilted to his lips and in the terror of the moment, the child could only wonder at the sight of the beer trapped in the air, as still as his father.
“Well this complicates things...you... you should be asleep.” The man in the doorway spoke, his voice oddly accented, stepping into Jorge's room the man stepped over to his window, the large leather clad case in his hand now visible, as the strange man reached the window he placed the case on Jorge's desk. “So, why is it that you are not...hurm?” the man looked over, a slight, thin up turn of his lips.
“Are you here to eat me?” the boy finally found his voice as he realized the whispering under his bed had grown quiet, and an almost palatable tension seemed to hang in the air.
“Eat you? That is quite an odd proposition...” the man removed the bowler hat, setting it down on the desk, before smoothing his hair back with a gloved hand. “Why would I wish to eat you young man?” slowly the man moved to the bed and knelt down next to Jorge.
“That's what the voices say is going to happen...” the sound of his own voice seemed tired, resigned to some dark fate that his young mind could not properly grasp.
“Do they now?” a brow arched over one of the lenses of the mans glasses. “Are the voices coming from your closet...or under the bed?” a gloved finger pointed first to the small door set into the far wall, then pointed down towards the floor.
“Under the bed...” Jorge's voice was a horse whisper now, his body tense and damp from perspiration. “They say they will eat me on the tenth night...”
“Well we cant have that now can we...by the way...my name is Connolly, Tom Connolly...you are?” the gloved hand extended towards the young child and Jorge eyed the gloved hand for a moment before his manners kicked in and he took the offered hand. “I'm Jorge.”
“Pleased to meet you Jorge...I am going to look under your bed, I need you to do me a favor, stay as still as possible, can you do that for me?” Jorge simply nodded then asked quietly. “Are you a policeman?” the tall man simply grind as he unbuttoned his suit coat, sliding it off to reveal a well cared for shoulder harness, two holstered pistols with intricate carvings and designs along the exposed metal, and further down, a long dagger, it's hilt glinting silvery in the light from the main room. “Of a sort...of a sort, now then Jorge, I need you to close your eyes and count to ten.”
The child closed his eyes tight, counting the numbers slowly. He did not see the strange man draw the dagger, he did not see him slide into the gap between the bed frame and the floor, he did not seem him seemingly vanish into the inky blackness that resided there. When Jorge reached ten he kept his eyes closed for a time after, listening intently to the silence of his room. A moment, minute, hour, eternity later, his bed rocked and jumped as if a great force had tried to lift it from underneath. A scared scream came from the young child's lips as the bed bucked and jerked, then just as suddenly it grew still.
Silence once more fell across the room, and the child looked around, almost expecting the monsters of his mind to come rushing at him from all angles. When from below he heard a soft thump, and a heavy breath. “Well now, that was unpleasant...” from the darkness beneath his bed the strange man crawled out. “You will be pleased to know that the whispers will not be returning ever again.” as the man rose to his feet, Jorge noted the large gash on the mans left arm, and his brows furrowed as the wound seemed to close on its own.
“What happened?” Jorge asked as he felt a great weight seemingly lifted from his soul. Slowly his eyes grew heavy, leaded, and the first real sleep the bow would have had in a week was about to claim him. “Oh, not much, just a little cleaning, never you worry about it, sleep young man, sleep and dream of wonders, dream of the future.” Tom watched the boy slip off into deep slumber and smiled softly before turning back to the desk. Opening the case on the desk he started to assemble the custom built rifle inside. Once the weapon was prepared he took from the case a bullet inscribed with symbols and runes. A moment is taken to adjust the optics on the rifle, before the weapon is loaded. The mans breath slows, and his vision turns to a tunnel as he stares at the odd mirror across the alleyway through the scope of the rife, watching the street around the corner.
Time passes and a car arrives, men in black suits with wires in their ears get out, set up a perimeter with bulges in their coats, and iron in their hands. From the limo they surround steps a beast in the skin of a man. His sneer is telling as the false man looks around, and were one to stand close enough the scent of sulfur could be smelt. From the child's room the ginger hared man exhales and squeezes the trigger of the rifle, the weapon bucks against his shoulder, the bullet with the markings takes flight, the magics involved force the bullet to ignore the laws of physics, the bullet whips around the corner of the building and finds it's mark in the are between the eyes of the thing that pretends to be a man.
Confusion follows as the false man falls to the ground, the body dissolving into a fetid, putrid puddle, the men in black suits scan the windows and rooftops, they will search with futile vigor. In the child's room Mr. Connolly stands, dissembles the rifle, and returns it to the case. Turning to the door he pauses and regard the child. Stepping over he extends a hand and a small plush bear appears in his hand, clad in a knights helmet, with sword, shield and long crimson cape emblazoned with a white cross the teddy bear appears to be a stalwart sentinel with a pleasing stitched mouth smile. “Every child should have their own guardian young Jorge...sleep and know that you are protected.
Mr Connolly gently lifts the boys arm and places the bear next to him, and as if on que the boy pulls the bear to his side in a slumbering snuggle, the suit jacket is put back on, and buttoned, the bowler hat returned to it's place atop the ginger hair. As he turns at the door, and looks back at the child and the teddy bear, he tips the brim of the hat and the bear salutes him with the sword before snuggling it's self against the slumbering child. Slowly the door closes and Jorge Velasquez dreams of great and wondrous things.
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