《The Prometheus Child》 Prologue-In Which The Reader Realizes They Love My Story And Realize How Awesome I Am Eric paused in his frantic pacing and looked back, as he did our breath caught. He was nothing like the haggard beggar of a few hours before even though physically nothing changed. No, he still wore his matted fur cape that looked to be made out of sewer rats but now he wore it with the gravest of dignity instead of the gaunt fearfulness he once had, now he had an aura that would make powerful men and women blink. On him it seemed like a fine ermine cloak painstakingly crafted by the most elite of craftsmen, and the musty stains on it did nothing to detract from it for it was the man-no, the king-that wore it that made it great. He still pawed the beer bottle between his hands that used to be full just a few minutes ago but now he the way he grasped made it look almost like a scepter, pronouncing his authority to all and sundry, if not how uncertainly he held it close to him. He waved it around in his hands as if he was proclaiming something magnanimous to a crowd and not anything like the symptoms of withdrawal he was experiencing. He could have paraded around on The Street of Legends and not have been out of place, he could have made the people bend a knee to him despite his stark poverty. The image of a Grand Prince or Supreme Emperor would have been complete if he could just keep his heart in it all. If he could just believe that not everything he touched would hate him. If he could but he couldn''t so he held himself closely as he worried over why he received a reprieve from the downward spiral he had been clearly heading. Eric presented an image of shattered grace. Nonetheless, it was incredible what a sense of purpose and excitement could invoke in him. Just a few hours on the trail and he looked more and more like the man whose name was once a hero known to all but now people couldn''t be bothered to spare him a glance for he was forgotten from the short memory of fame. The few people that did remember him either turned away in disappointment or vowed to kill him for what he did to us. Like we would after we were done with him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Flashback To Several Hours Earlier---------------------- Beggars come from all walks of life and in all shapes and sizes but they all have a colorful background no matter who they are. There''s the cliches from the banker who went to the bottle to the stereotypical soccer mom who couldn''t handle it all. There''s the unusual in the telepath that Glimpsed the wrong dimension-walker and the gambler that won it all and lost it all again the day before in the Chronos Casino. And then there''s the most despicable ones like me; the fallen heroes. They were supposed to be Paragons of Virtue, The Untouchable Ones, The Great Good, yaddayaddayadda and so on and so forth. I was considered to be the best of the best, poised to seize the top, but like in any good story I Fell. And fall I did, I fell and fell and fell until I reached the bottom of the barrel and when I did I just kept on going right through until I reached a point where not even Hell wanted me. So I seemed destined to live out the rest of my short and pitiable days clutching a bottle, twitching from starvation, and with only the flies to watch over me until a tall, dangerous blonde walked into my life. The brick-and-mortar alleyways were covered in numerous forms of suspicious grime and rot, so many were the shades in fact that they could pass for what passed for art these days. The dead bodies of humans and things found in fairy tales quickly spoiled the artistic value though. It wasn''t always like this, Macmillan Street was a fairly gentile place surrounded by a cesspool of dirtiness that shone like a beacon of hope and light, until some jealous plebeian that didn''t like the fact that not everyone was wallowing in the filth let loose Literal Hell in the middle of Macmillan Street. The generic demons we handled quite well; they were tough, angry, and packed a punch but so did we. We called down arcane rain, whispered maddening death, and rippling confusion down on them, we nearly pushed them back in an hour but no matter of magic could have saved us the old son-of-a-gun Beelzebub itself appeared. The pestilence he spread was nothing like we had ever seen and believe me when I say we''ve seen a lot. We started dying by the lot; some of us from having our insides dissolved to the consistency of custard cream, some of us from our flesh becoming as soft as wet paper that fell apart at he slightest movement, some of us just had our brains melted the old-fashioned way. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I vaguely heard a voice call out somewhere and even more vaguely I thought I heard my name but I gave a small mental shrug and went on to my daily business of trying to look more pitiable than the day before. Sadly, I have gotten quite good at it. When you were busy dying in a part of town that not even the toughest of gangs would enter for fear of the rampant diseases around here that I miraculously hadn''t died of yet, you quickly become an expert at it. I heard the voice call out again, this time I was sufficiently aware that I could tell it sounded feminine and more than a little annoyed. Ha! Pissed off women was something that I was more than used to by now considering how I am! I heard her impractical high heels click there way over here and I felt the shadow she cast on me as she loomed above. "Mr. Hailstone, how would you like to be a hero again?" I blinked my crusty eyes and ran what she said through my head. After thinking over what she said and I concluded that she wasn''t kidding, I decided to give her a few more minutes. She took my silence for interest and continued with "I grew up hearing the stories they told about you, about how you were the darling boy of all society from the most rarefied circles to the dirtiest bars. I heard about how you could never say no to someone in need. I heard that your magic was like nobody else''s, that it didn''t resemble anybody else''s," She hesitated for a second before adding on "I need you to help me with something only you can, something only your black breath can reach," She wasn''t talking about how my breath smelled when she said that, she was talking about how I could shape reality from the black mist that belled forth from my mouth. How it could become a blade, how it could bring life into being, how I lived and breathed Black Armageddon. It could kill an entire room of people by suffocating them, it could take away a part of my personality to create something sentient and unlike anything else in the world, it could do anything but save me from my own heartbreak. Shaking my regrets away from my mind I thought it over in my head, should I keep on slowing dying or get up and do something? Well, I could always come back to dying a later time I suppose. The fact that she sounded like an angel laced with honey had nothing to do with it, of course. Yep, that sultry voice that promised all sorts of things I couldn''t mention here had nothing to do with it, nothing at all. "Mr. Hailstone was my father''s name, call me Pinocchio since that''s what I am. A puppet that could never become a real boy," The silence that responded to me gave me the impression if maybe she got the wrong person or maybe if even she did, I might have gone insane a long time ago. "But my 9 o''clock is free so far. I''m sure I could fit you in into my schedule," I rushed out before she ran away. "But my demons are a fairly ornery bunch so I would appreciate it if what ever business you have with me would get wrapped up quickly," "I''m certain that they would understand if you were a little late, they seem like patient folk," She quipped back at me dryly, not expecting anything better from me than generic depressing humor. I raised an eyebrow that she couldn''t possibly see under all of the dirt covering my face and wondered if that was supposed to be an attempt at a joke. She presumably decided that I was going to listen to her story and abruptly walked off, expecting me to follow with the confidence and stride of a woman who always got her way. I smirked at that and pried myself out of the garbage I was mired in to follow her. "Oh well," I thought, "It wasn''t like staying here was going to kill me, considering I''m not even real enough to be affected by the diseases here. But maybe perhaps some kind of horrible monstrosity will kill me soon if I follow the pretty lady," With that happy thought in mind, I stumbled on after her like the ragged wreck I am. -----------------------------------------Don''t Forget To Vote And Follow------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1-Emotions Blind I stood up uneasily and as I did, my head spun wildly. I nearly fell over. I leaned against the wall and clutched my head "God, I really have gone to seed haven''t I," I shook my head gamely and tried to muster up a professional smile, one that spoke of competence and reliability, and looked at her face. My heart leapt up into my throat. I have seen many beautiful women throughout my life, but she would be the one that will stick with me forever. Her living, porcelain-white skin. Her heart-shaped face. Her long, curly black hair that fell to her waist. The sapphire dress that blazed with beauty. Her full breasts that were reminiscent of Italian models of the Renaissance. My God, she was lovely. Her pale, pink lips quirked up into an arch and said "Like what you see?" with a teasing manner. "I''ll have you know that I''m asexual and I prefer women to boot," "Oh," I tried to not let my disappointment show too harshly on my face. Leave it to me, a mere remnant of a good man with a brain that has more holes than a reality TV show, to fall in love with someone that I had no chance with. She shook her head with friendly mock-sadness "You men are all the same, you can''t look at a women without imaging her naked, while women wonder what she would be like as a person. That''s why I like ''em," Embarrassed, I put out my hand and tentatively asked "Can we start over and be friends?" Her face lit up and grasped my dirty hands with no hesitation and said "Of course, my name is Ilianna," We walked out of that dirty alley and into the city proper. "So what were you doing out there, all by your lonesome, trying to create your own Walden?," I huffed out a harsh laugh. "Nothing so...introspective or romantic as that. I was trying to atone for my sins in my own bizarre way," She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "That sounds fairly emotional to my ears but maybe because I''m just a feeble woman that doesn''t have a man to properly guide her down the road of being a proper young lady, I''m probably wrong," That elicited a rich, deep laugh that started in my belly and rolled it''s way out of my mouth. "I take it that you''re a feminist, then?" Her face twisted into an ugly expression that I would''ve done anything to fix "Ew. Nothing like those Tumblr misandrists. All they do is rant about things they don''t even know and bully men. They don''t even care about the real issues in Third World Countries. They harass women who don''t agree with what they say. They want to be on top when I want for everyone to be equal. Not to redistribute wealth to everyone but let everyone take a crack at success. I want men and women to treat each other with respect and love. I want people to ignore color and just be friends. I want religion to just stop and let people do what they want. They''re just. Ugh," Relieved that she wasn''t mad at me but at someone else, I raised up my hands in surrender and said "Woah there. You''re kinda preaching to the choir here, I''m an Egalitarian myself," Her brows furrowed in confusion and she dead-panned "What''s that," I blinked my eyes and wondered how she didn''t know what Egalitarianism was when everything she said was practically the core tenets of it. "An Egalitarian is someone that believes everyone is equal and that everyone deserves the same opportunities," She smiled and held onto my arm for a second "That sounds exactly what I want to be, I just didn''t know that there was a word for," I could barely hear what she said over the leaps my heart was making. We talked the miles away with laughter and became fast friends quicker than I would have thought possible. The culture shock I felt when I saw what they had done to my city floored me. Gone, were the institutes of higher learning. Usurping their place, were the gaudy, neon street signs that blared out everything and anything from the crass to the simply tacky. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn''t find the coffee shops where I had spent so much time in. Poorly replacing them, the pungent street carts flooded the streets offering foodstuffs from chow mein to deep-fried gargoyle. They bulldozed the statues crafted by the local artists and plastered ads all over the buildings. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. A tidal wave of greasy rage welled up inside of me. Did they think they could just come into my city and do whatever they wanted with it? Did they think they could roll her over, rape her, and expect me not to care! Ilianna saw my fists that were clenched white at my sides and quickly unwrapped them, prying them apart one finger at a time. She kept on quietly talking to me as she tried to stop me from doing something I knew I would regret later. Oh but, it would feel so good to give in right now. And now was all I had in my mind. I could let loose a flood and wipe away their trespasses, the fact that innocent lives would be swept away along with the sinners meant nothing to me. I could show them the power of a god born from mortal mind, free of the laws of the world. I could pluck away their sight and give them nightmares. how dare they deface my fathers home. I worked past the red haze that held me and tried to listen to what Ilianna was saying "I can''t imagine what you''re feeling right now. I don''t think I ever will. But I do know that whatever you''re thinking in your head right now is scaring me," She paused for a moment and stared into my stormy eyes. There was something that wasn''t quite right. Her eyes. Her eyes had fear in them. Her body was trembling quietly-she tried to hide it but it still racked her body with tears. I looked around me and saw that everyone was staring at us. They were staring at the tall, dark, mysterious man who had murder in his eyes and the scared, perky little girl holding my hand and trying not to cry. They were staring at a dragon and the princess trying desperately to hold it back, even at the cost of her own life. No, they were just staring at me. The monster. I let go of the tension in my body. At that moment, a heavy pressure was visibly lifted away from the people around us. My terrible wrath brought a palpable presence with it, a force that rang from a void that no one could see that sound like a glass bell shattering, that forced the weaker-willed to their knees. I opened my fists and put my hands on either side of Ilianna''s face. She flinched away from my touch and tried not to flee. This hurt me more than any physical would I could have ever felt. I looked at her. At the tears freely flowing from her doleful brown eyes. At the redness in her cheeks. At the determination she showed. "I''m sorry, that won''t happen again. I promise," She looked up at me, this time with a wholesome smile. "Thank you, we all get a little irrational every now and then," She pried my hands away from her face, gently but firmly. Wordlessly setting the boundaries that I must never cross, at the line I must step over regardless of what will happen. We walked together towards a nearby crumbling bar that caught my interest, away from the prying eyes. Away from the few people that wondered how this new appearance would affect the fragile balance of the game board. You never knew what could be hiding behind people''s eyes. Like the tears that fell from mine as I thought about how Father would never recognize this city as his own, not in a million years. They fell slowly, like an aging pendulum on its last legs but still keeping the count of time until entropy would stop it forever, and when they finally felt after what felt like an eternity. They shattered the concrete that they landed on and turned the cracks into iridescent crystal, silently to the senses of the merely mundane but with a roar to those that could see with the Sight, which made it all the more deafening. The webs laid down shining tendrils that wouldn''t have surprised me if they went down to the very bedrock. Thankfully as I had thought, Ilianna was empty of the slightest trace of magic so she didn''t hear the miracle that had transpired behind her. Blind, deaf, and mute to the magic that shook around me she could never see the raw titanic beauty of what lies underneath nature. She could never see the hurt that spilled forth from my overflowing emptiness. ------------------------------------------------------------Don''t forget to Vote and Follow------------------------------ Chapter 2-Dangerous Women I stalked into the bar with power thrumming behind me. I was not in a good mood. The greeter made an attempt at a smile but when I heard the beginning of an introduction so over-used, artificial, and manufactured to be as least offensive that it was just regurgitated franchise plastic, my rage went up another notch that I didn''t know existed. She squeaked and tried to hide behind the oak podium, her brown hair swishing so fast that it was a blur. Time for a lecture from your kooky, crazy, homicidal uncle, kids. The reason why sorcerers used words to work magic was not because some obscure rule of Arcana but because it was safer. You see when you''re working with magic, you''re not just waving your hands around while saying "Hocus Pocus," and hoping that the displacement of air will do something mystical and cool. You''re using the words as a focus to channel magic through. Words are a powerful device that can bend the world into a balloon animal. When speaking an incantation, you''re forcing the primal forces of Creation into a new form and what the incantation means to you will give it its purpose. And the more powerful the association the word has for you, the more powerful the effect. A common question that I''ve got asked was "Then why don''t people just say "Die"and have people drop dead? It''s easy to remember and has of a lot of power behind it," The reason is that when you''re trying to cast a fireball, you''re telling the particles in the air to vibrate rapidly and to move towards a target. When you''re using death magic, you''re telling the cells in his body to experience instant death, be it from crenation-lack of water in the cell-or cytolyis-an excess of water-or something entirely different. If you simply just say "Fire"instead of "Ignis" the entire room might catch on fire since you understand the English language too well. You gave it too much power and you gave it a wider area of effect since it''s connected to too many other words you have said or know. The word "Fire" is too closely associated in your mind to the image of a burning house, to the word "Destruction", to "Fear" and "Panic". The word "Ignis" is to most people just another cool word in Latin that brings to mind a grey-bearded wizard shooting a fireball and so that''s what will happen. A fireball will appear dramatically and go towards the target. Simple. But in a really cool way that will get you all the ladies, of course. Your lack of understanding of the syntax, grammar, conjugation of the language protects you. Your preconceived notions of how Rome was like gave it power. Your idea of how a Level Three Spell in D&D should work lets it be less loud than a flame longer than a grown man appearing out of nowhere should sound. It doesn''t make the area surrounding the fireball colder like how The Law Of Conservation Of Energy says it should since energy cannot be created or destroyed since you never thought about how magic violates the principles of physics. The rapid explosion of the fireball doesn''t create an enormous displacement of air due to pressure that sweeps you off your feet since you never thought about it. Flames only form into a ball naturally when under a vacuum or in extreme low-gravity and yet you''re able to do it anyways because you''ve always associated magical fires to balls. Natural balls of flame are actually quite cold when compared to the normal fires since fireballs consumed so little fuel but since you believe fireballs were epic feats of magic that scorches concrete, they will. But back to the original question. The reason why we don''t simply just tell things to off themselves is that that''s what will happen to them. And to the air around them. And to the building around you. And to the magic around you. And to you. You understand the word so well that you''ve actually managed to apply it to everything around you and the only reason that the whole world didn''t die from entropy is that while the magic does most of the heavy lifting, you still provide the foundation. The universe is simply too big to be wiped out by one person. But Gods however...they could achieve a lot. A frighteningly large amount of a lot, in fact. Does the line "Let There Be Light," ring a bell? So to sum up, you''ll end up with two dead bodies, an unbreathable atmosphere that you can''t cast magic in for several hundred yards around, and a large pile of material so dead that not even cockroaches would go near it. At least for a while until the magic dissipates and things go back to normal. Don''t even get me started on what would happen once God''s Word runs out of juice. Hell, the only reason this universe has been running this long is most likely because of gullible idiots that you''re probably one of. But the sheer amount of alternate Creation stories we have running around plays Merry Hell with the fabric of reality, especially during the Holy Days. All the variant ideas of what a certain day represents gives the universe the worst case of period cramps anyone has ever seen. Ugh, don''t even get me started on Easter. Sure makes dinner with the in-laws I don''t have a lot more entertaining however. There''s a lot more to how magic works than I can explain right now considering how incredibly mad I am right now and I don''t want to tell you the wrong thing and have you turning into a giant peach. Magic is incredibly complicated and you should never use any language you know well to work it unless you want to die, the people around you to die, and possibly get a smiling from an annoyed god. Which is why I threw all caution to the wind and did it anyways. I was at that point where words couldn''t describe the amount of anger I was experiencing; the mix between hurt, a confused feeling of betrayal, and a need to break something usually gets you there pretty quickly. I outstretched my right arm, slowly raised my index finger, and hissed out "Break,". A whirling sea-green drill of energy lashed out and eagerly launched itself towards the laughably fragile podium. It latched onto the polished wood and limbs sprung out of my spell. It''s hands were a thing of all cruel edges and hungry maws. The claws ripped out great chunks out of it and it''s false-mouths ate it up like a Sarlac Pit. Splinters the size of my head flew off and embedded themselves into the ceiling, the floor, everywhere that wasn''t her. A few managed to fly off towards Ilianna but I calmly stepped forward to take the blow for her since I didn''t think she would live long enough to get over her paralysis. "Oh My God!" She hoarsely shrieked out a few seconds after she realized what I have done. She made a few stuttering motions towards my chest as if she would pluck out the pieces of wood that burrowed so far into my chest that only a a few millimeters were visible on the surface. "No worries," I said calmly as I smoothly pulled out the splinters without indication that they had in any way hurt me or that they were difficult to extract. I tossed them out onto the floor, with nothing resembling blood on them except for a few splotches of watery black. "It''s like there''s anything inside of me for them to wound," This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. She gazed at me in horror and ran to the nearest trash bin "I think I''m going to be sick," She was correct and promptly let loose the contents of her breakfast in great, heaving retches. Normally, I would be concerned but now that I was on a mission to cleanse the filth from my Father''s kingdoms, the petty problems of the sinners gave me little pause. But perhaps the casual destruction of His people wasn''t the best possible course of action. I turned back to see what remain of the girl, and I was surprised to find out that she was yet still alive. The mousy little girl that hid behind the broken pieces of the podium stared at the spellbeast mesmerized, ignoring the danger as she gazed upon the fabric of the universe given new form. Her fascination quickly flickered to eyes-wide fear as the spellbeast stopped in its feast for a moment and somehow managed to stare her in the eye despite it having none of its own. It''s maws on its hands grew wider and let out a rippling shriek of gluttony that unnerved even me. A thin piece of worry flashed through me and I managed to wonder if I had somehow miscalculated my control over the thing. "Enough," I decreed but the thing barely gave an indication that it heard me beside a moment of hesitation so small that it would require a scientist to detect it. "Enough," I said again as if it somehow didn''t quite hear me the first time. This time the thing didn''t even the common decency to pause at the words of the it''s master. The thing crept closer and closer to the girl. I drew up my awe-inspiring power into my core and let in a deep breath. I could feel the pressure building up inside of me like a boiler about to explode. The creature leapt at the girl who had turned her back and tried to run away, tears cascading down her face like an avalanche. The words to banish the creature were on the tip of my tongue but before I could say them, the thing imploded into itself. I blinked my eyes in confusion and wondered what great, powerful being destroyed it. The great, powerful being was vomiting a few seconds ago and named Ilianna. Her very impressive chest was heaving as the strain of what she did hit her; sweat came pouring down her forehead, her lovely, apricot-hued tongue fell out of her mouth as she tried to take in as much oxygen as she could, and she looked very pissed at me. She stomped her way towards with bloody murder on her mind as I frantically walked backwards until I hit a wall. "I-I-I-I thought you didn''t have any magic," God Eric, could you sound any less of a wizard of monumental power and any more of a teenager meeting his girlfriend''s dad for the first time. "Well, looks can be deceiving you sonuvabitch," Is it just me or did her eyes get a bit darker?! I raised up my arms to shield my face as I said in a plea for my life "I was going to save her. I swear! I was!" I added when I saw that she didn''t believe a word I said and her face didn''t look any less unforgiving, if anything, she looked more mad. She raised her hands slowly to my face. I flinched. When she saw that I was scared of her, her gaze softened and her hands cupped my face between them to pull my face even closer to her than I already was. "How old are you," She asked in a kind, but firm, motherly tone. I was bewildered by this question, I expected a reprimand or some shouted insult. Not a trivial question. I took in a full breath and said "This body was imagined to be of a man in his mid-thirties-," I broke off as I realized that this wasn''t the answer she wanted. "Not how old your father imagined you to be, I want to know how much of life you had experienced. How many girls you had kissed. How many parties you had gone too. What makes you you," This brought inexplicable shame to my face and I blushed wildly as I said "I have personally experienced fourteen years of life and twenty-seven years of life was imagined for me by my Father," "So you''re just a kid," I turned my head away from her and looked at he ground, saying nothing. "A kid that had his dad stolen away from him. Who had no friends other than his siblings. Who had to kill them when they went insane. A kid that never got a chance to be young," I yanked my head out of her grip and walked towards the doors. "You don''t know anything about me. So stop acting like you do. Let''s just get the job done," I didn''t turn around but I could feel her staring at my back, knowing that I knew everything she had said and more was true. By the time I had opened the doors, I managed to reclaim some of my bravado-not all of it, since some of it would always stay with Ilianna now-and shouted out at the oddly empty bar filled with dusty chairs and tables, a bar that looked like it had never seen a drink put on it, and a female bartender with bright pink-and-blue highlights in her hair "Who''s the owner of this rat-filled dung-hole!" The bartender who had her arms positioned in a weird way and hid her hands behind the counter replied "Me and that was my niece, you ugly piece of work," She swiftly drew out a sawed-off out and aimed it at me. "And this is my little girl," She pulled the trigger and a plume of smoke erupted. I saw the pellets racing towards me in slow-motion, not even trying to dodge them. That hurt more than I had expected. A lot more. I would''ve been coughing up blood if I had any, but I didn''t so I just settled for falling backwards. I stared blankly down at my chest and said "What," I think I heard Ilianna rushing towards me and telling me to hang on but I saw a light that was quite inviting and warm so I thought that maybe I''ll go check that out first. My vision faded to black as I saw Ilianna pull out what looked like a first-aid kit out of somewhere. I managed to eke out a sentence with a dopey smile "Don''t worry, I''ll be back before my bedtime Darling," Chapter 3-The Shadow Isnt So Dark When I opened my eyes, I knew that I was still unconscious. How did I know? Well, you don''t often find yourself meeting someone that looked exactly like you but with a halo around him in the real world outside of that one time I accidentally unleashed Lovecraftian horrors from outside the flow of darkness. Look! That was just once! And that was just a potion-making experiment gone wrong! Look, let''s just get back to the story! I stopped talking when I realized that what I had just said didn''t come from my mouth, it came echoing forth from the shadows surrounding us in ways that were entirely impossible for how the light was shining. I pulled my arms closer to me worriedly and wondered just how much more weird my day could go. The angel-me was just staring at me which wouldn''t have been so bad if his eyes weren''t so painfully bright, like they had been there at the fiery childbirth of the world. Those eyes has seen how the arrival of the universe brought life that wasn''t ordained by The Lord. Those eyes has seen how the first cries of pain, a sound as so far unheard to them, brought our first nightmares and the end of the peace we had never known. I hated to admit but I was terrified, I had been scared before but this was different. This was mind-melting terror that had me glued to the floor. I struggled to control my bladder and I was shamefully proud that I was able to. My body refused to look up at those awful blue eyes but my brain took charge where my body had failed. "What do you want from me," Thankfully, my voice only cracked once during that short sentence. His eyes flickered back and forth nearly imperceptibly as he picked and discarded possible answers before settling onto one. I would have preferred for him to have taken longer but when you''re a being older than Time, you didn''t live this long by being indecisive. "We have been searching for you for years, how did you manage to evade the Ophanim," I winced as his voice which had a chorus of Angelic Cherubs undertones that pounded my ear drums with modulated, multi-pitched sounds that only marginally managed to dissolve my simple, primate brain into gibbering mush. Careful not to offend, I timidly raised up my hand and politely asked if he perhaps could just ever-so-slightly lower his voice; if he didn''t mind, that is. He furrowed his eyebrows and my face certainly did not twist up out of fear, nope it certainly didn''t. I opened up one eye and when I saw that he hadn''t decided to smite me, I breathed a sigh of relief and worked his question over in my head. The Ophanim were the Heavenly Thrones of God, a meta-physical symbol of his Power and Grace. They were more devoid of a sense of self than any other angel which made them less real and even more terrible. They could appear as either an ethereal fog of raw Divinity or a burning wheel the could destroy Creation. They were so Great that the smallest size they can manifest in is of a galaxy. They were utterly invulnerable to all physical damage and possessed precognition about anything that could threatened the universe, which didn''t seem all that useful until you consider that you practically needed to destroy a universe to even scratch one of them. They could create a mimicry of emotion but it was laughable considering how they merely repeated what others were feeling, unable to think for themselves. Unsleeping, moving in paths so fast that they were inconceivable to mortal mind, and able to rip apart the atoms that make up the Earth with a stray thought, they were the perfect extensions of God''s Power. A sentence came to mind that described them perfectly "The Watcher of Creation, greater in breadth, power, and sight than the world. An existence more empty-the true permutation of callousness," Which made it increasingly difficult to think of why they couldn''t Seen me, the possibilities that I could think of were becoming more and more disturbing. "Perhaps it has something to do with the circumstances of my birth?" His eyes weren''t nearly as terrifying as they were earlier now that I had something to occupy my mind with. Nonetheless, it still felt uncomfortable to have them stare unblinkingly at me. He slowly nodded his head which gave me the opportunity to study him more closely. His face was a carbon-copy of mine, the only differences being the neon blue glyphs he had etched into his face. They were of no language I knew, and I suspected that they were of no language in the world entirely, but they made an insane sort of sense to me. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. With a shock, I realized with horror that the glyphs chronicled the history of Heaven-that there were more glyphs beneath his skin, spinning in and out of existence and when I Saw them, I was dragged into them; the hidden wars, the times the entire universe barely missed Armageddon, the time when Lucifer fell. I experienced them in a heady rush of power and clarity, feeling for the first time in my life what it meant to be confident in the truest sense; the utter confidence that no matter what''s happening now, that it will be alright in the end. I lived through the heartbreak that wrenched my heart into an unrecognizable shape when the greatest out of all us all Fell, the Transcendent Son whose one of many names was Lucifer. I could understand everything completely, from the atoms that made up the world to how the universe will end and how He will make it anew. I could drown in the sea of knowledge that was pouring into me and smile the entire time. I pulled out of my trance with a deep gasp and shuddering confusion, I felt as if I had somehow found the answer to everything but it slipped away from my fingertips just as I returned from gazing into the angel''s marks. I felt oddly disappointed but at the same time satisfied, that what I had lost was better lost. I didn''t hear him approach until he held my chin in his hand in a fatherly manner. I froze up like a deer in the headlights. "You must be awfully curious as to what had just transpired but you must not do that again lest you lose all sense of sanity. The machinations of Creation must not be shown to a child who is as innocent as you," I would have disagreed with him on the "child" and "innocent" part if I had somehow forgotten that I was talking to an angel, someone that was infinitely older than me and had seen things so monstrous that the sheer shock factor of them would have killed me. I settled for trying not to have a heart attack. "As I was saying, the reason why the Ophanim could not find me the be the fact I don''t have a soul. I mean look at me, if you were to look inside of me all you''ll find is darkness. Intestines? Nope. A heart? Nope. A soul? Up for debate," The angel only looked bemused. "What, what so funny," I scowled as his grin grew only wider. "You merely lack a few pounds of flesh, but a soul you have and it shines most brightly," He got this beatific look on his face that made him look all smug, not holy whatsoever. But that kinda became irrelevant when he manifested his Curtana-the angelic sword that all have associated with them-to cut open my chest. If I was a normal human then I would be dead by now but as it stands now, I was just mildly worried if the flames on the blade would catch me on fire. He pointed at the darkness inside of me and said "You may be physically empty, but your soul blazes bright," As he said that I saw a silver light emanating from inside of me, so bright that I was shocked that I wasn''t blinded by it. I put my hand out and watched with awe as what I knew had to be my soul floated out to rest on my hand. It was so warm, so bright, it gave me hope. I''m not ashamed to admit that I had tears flowing down my cheek, but they were the happiest tears I had ever had. I stood there staring at my soul for what seemed like forever until I looked back at the angel "I think I know who you are now," He said nothing but I had a feeling that his smile was a little bit more conspiratorial. "I think it''s time for you to go back to them now," I nodded and start to fade back into awareness. I was nearly all the way back before I said "Wait! I haven''t figured out why the Ophanim couldn''t find me!" By the time he replied, it was but the smallest whisper "Worry not, I know why now," Confusion filled my face as I tried to think of what the answer could have been. I realized that I had better things to worry about now that I was about to wake up in the bar of the woman whose niece I nearly killed and thought that maybe I should have taken more time here. ----------------------------------------------------------------------Author''s Comments------------------------------------------------ I require blood sacrifices in order to keep on pumping out chapters but in lieu of that, favorites and comments are an adequate offering to the almighty writing God known as I. Chapter 4-Multiple Levels of Communication "Clear!" I heard vaguely and realized what that meant too late. A lightning bolt smashed its way through my body, the emptiness inside of me keeping the charge longer than it would have and gave me jittery micro-spasms. "Again!" I heard more clearly this time and I had enough of a presence of mind to shout out "NO!" It was surprisingly loud, shaking the entire bar with its echo. It was almost...disturbingly loud. That was an interesting development that I didn''t have time to worry about now, mentally filing it away for later analysis. A woman with pink-and-blue highlights, the barkeep, raised her hands that held the defibrillators up slowly and enunciated slowly "Okay there big guy, relax. Your eyes look a tad bit darker than I would like to see outside of horror movies," I bashfully simpered at her and said nothing in response, but I did let myself look happier. I waggled my brows at her and said with a slight British accent "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," "It''s the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," they both said at once. They blinked at each other in surprise and then a grin both appeared on their faces, which was only removed by their sparkling laughter. "Yeah, yeah. Gang up on the poor caveman here," "Oh, I think all men are dumb cavemen. Not just you," Ilianna said to me jokingly as of that would make me feel better and strangely enough, it did. "Ooh, ooh," I said in a impression of a Neanderthal and scratched my head to add to the effect. The barkeep and I shared a laugh, strange considering that I was shot in the chest a few moments earlier. "You''re awfully calm for someone that I shot, you sure you aren''t going to exact vengeance on me later?" She said in a light tone that still didn''t quite manage to hide her worry about what I would do in revenge. "Nah, I kinda deserved that considering how I was acting when I walked in," I stopped suddenly as I thought of something. "Your niece, is she okay?" Ilianna gave me a weary smile and told me that while her niece, Aimee, was terrified out of her mind she didn''t manage to get far and the worst she had suffered was a sprain ankle from when she fell down running away. Ilianna knew that she wouldn''t get PTSD or anything like that from the experience since she would have seen worst things walking to work from the neighborhood the apartment she lived in were located. The Withering Heights. I nodded wordlessly and turned to the barkeep. "I never got a name, it''s only fair to know the name of the person who nearly killed me," I said this with a boyish smile that told her that I held nothing against her. She burs out laughing again, like a crow with the voice of a canary, and said "It''s Neoma, I think my parents were drunk when they picked that since it sounds utterly stupid," It really did sound stupid but it sounded different and when everyone''s just following what everyone else does, it was a refresher. "It''s better than being just plain, old Eric though," It was really was a pain when you were staring down a group of thugs and when you told them that you were Eric, master of arcane lore and all things mysterious, they all started laughing. I can''t believe how much embarrassment I would have been spared if I just had a more mystical name. I didn''t even have the saving grace of having more than two names! Ilianna must have heard me muttering under my breath and she raised a delicate eyebrow and asked me what I was thinking about. "Oh, just the unfair nature of my name being of a binomial state," The blank stare in her eyes clearly told me that she had no idea what I had just said. I sighed and repeated myself in a way that wasn''t deliberately over complicated "It''s tough being intimidating when you only have two names," Neoma and Ilianna both stared at me for a second before guffawing at me. "Okay, okay. You two can stop laughing at me so much now," The scowl on my face was becoming more and more readily apparent but they finally relented in their ribbing. "When did you two become such good friends?" I asked, slightly hurt for some reason. They looked at each other with a knowing glance that spoke volumes without saying a word, a glance that carried a tactic guardedness, but too much was said with too little leaving me unable to decipher what it meant even if you gave me the Rosetta Stone. I just knew that what they told each other with those few seconds of silence, they didn''t want to say out loud for fear of judgement. I told myself that I wouldn''t pry too deeply into that, we all have secrets to hide. We all have skeletons in our closets. How could I even dare to look at what they''re sweeping under the carpet when the lie I''m telling everyone is the worst one of them all. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The wordlessness in the bar was pregnant with somberness when we all realized, some later than others, that we weren''t telling each other the truth about ourselves, not about anything that mattered. We looked at each other and offered each other a smile that whispered to each of us that we knew why truth was so horrible, it refuses to lie still. We were frauds, pretenders, and shallowness. I''ll leave it up to you to decide who is which. "Birds of a feather, birds of a feather," Neoma murmured with heartbreaking jadedness. We all knew what that meant achingly well, that we were just as bad as each other. I knew now at least partially why they got along so well, they''ve been through the same sort of pain. They recognized the broken pieces and nothing brings people closer faster than mutual misery. The only reason why they hadn''t seen mine until now wasn''t that I had more time to learn how to hide it, I just had to get better at it quicker. She reached for a bottle of unnamed scotch on the shelf behind her and passed a trio of shot glasses to each of us. She poured us equal proportions with professional speed and precision. "To the misfits," We drank. She poured us another round. "To the outsiders," We drank. She poured us another round. Neoma took longer to think of this last toast before finally deciding on the simple "To us," We drank just as quickly as before, but we took the time to feel the liquor burning down out throat like acid. "Back to business," I loudly declared without the slightest hint of inebriation. I looked curiously at Ilianna and realized that she never did tell me why she needed my help. "Say, you manages to drag this bum all the way over here and you still didn''t tell me why you needed my help," It seemed like she had deliberately put off on telling me why she came to me for help with the way she froze mid-move, hand barely removed from the glass. Ilianna squared her shoulders in an effort to force herself to say what she desperately needed me to do, halfway between resolution to ask me despite what I might say and anxiety if I refused. "Hailstone, my family is cursed. At midnight, the oldest in the family has been violently murdered. Heart exploding, liver failing, lungs collapsing," She waited a second before continuing to flick a strand of hair from her face. "Everyone else we hired to find out who was behind it got attacked by the curse," She looked into my eyes stoically "You''re the only person who won''t get affected by it, isn''t treacherous, and is strong enough to get to the bottom of this," "One of these things is not like the other," I muttered unintelligibly under my breath. Before Ilianna had a chance to call me out on it, I said with sinking quietness "And I''m guessing you''re the last one left," She gave me a wry smile and told me that there was another one left but I was such a hard man to track down that he got killed by the time she found me. I mulled it over in my head and told her I would take the case. I interrupted her before she got her hopes up too high "I hope that there''s still money in the family vault to pay for my services," She gave me an aristocratic laugh and announced that even if they bought a new yacht everyday, there would still be plenty of money in the vault until doomsday. "Just checking," I thrust a thumb out and asked if it was normal for their to be blood leaking from under the walls and there to be alien symbols that seemed to be written with the faces of damned souls appearing on the ceiling. Surprisingly enough, Neoma seemed used to this. "Ah fiery Hell," She spat out. "It''s tax day," -----------------------------------Author''s Comments--------------------------------------------- My Blood Priests have informed me that your efforts, while admirable, have not been sufficient to ward off The End Of Days. Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth are approaching closer and closer to our plane of existence while you readers have yet to follow me! The only way to save yourself is to become one of my zealous followers! Chapter 5-The Taxmen We all tensed up and our stress levels skyrocketed to a level where I was surprised that none of us had a stroke yet. You would scoff and say that we seemed as normal as we ever could be, but that came from a lifetime of learning to not show anything on our faces to the Taxmen. They themselves were hardly anything to be scared of, just a regular old human that doesn''t exercise and spends all day on the couch, but The-Powers-That-Be behind them were something to be wary about like a hunting hound to a rabbit. I remember when they first appeared, demanding that we give them the taxes that were supposedly long overdue even though we never had to pay a tax in our entire lives, and we just killed a few of them without a second thought. Then the people that didn''t pay up got murdered in ways both unsettling and morbidly amusing; a gorgon choking on her cereal, a man getting his bones melted, a god simply disappearing. By now, none of us wanted to even remotely offend lest we be killed in ways we couldn''t defend against in any way. Bowing, scraping our heads, and making a joke out of ourselves just because we were too scared of a simple thing such as death. Our Father wasn''t scared when he marched right up to them, laughed in their faces, and to not come anywhere near his children or he''ll show them what he learned in Hell. With that thought in mind, all of my fear of them disappeared like smoke on a windy day and a cruel half-smile came into existence in my face. "Bring it on you bureaucratic sons of bitches, I''ll show you what a Hailstone can do when someone thinks they can bully us," Almost as if they were waiting for my declaration of rebellion turned war to walk in, they strode in a group of six that formed a pentagram; five at the points and the captain that was distinguished with a white cap from all of the other sorcerers draped from head-to-toe in federal grey. Their sauntering swagger was either the product of hundreds of hours in the field or a few days posturing in the mirror. I knew it was the latter since they would never be that overconfident if they knew who I was. Their leader spoke and my suspicions were confirmed when I heard the tacky portmanteau between a Southern Drawl and British Oxford Accent, it made him sound like pretentious and a hick at the same time. Neoma''s eyes were still wide but when she heard that preposterous accent of his, she seemed to be less scared and more amused. He could tell that we weren''t taking him seriously and his face twitched in annoyance. "Ms. Gorvano, I do hope that you have managed to scrape up the few funds necessary to stay in business here?" Her face burned with cold rage as she said "You know damn well that your rates are outrageous and that you gave me the worst spot possible for a bar. A bar is supposed to be relaxing and feel like home, how does putting my bar over a fecking a house where a family was brutally murdered count as sensible real estate?" The little dandy sprat simpered with false sympathy that dripped with condescension "I am a firm believer in what a human can do with a little pressure and suboptimal starting conditions but unfortunately it seems like you aren''t. Now let''s talk about possible restitution-," I had enough of this clown thinking he can walk in a battle formation from The Middle Ages and thinking he can get anything he wants. "Now look here, Nigel, you seem to be under the impression that you''re some kind of hot stuff. I''m here to demonstrate to you that you''re not," He frowned at how I knew his name and then a flash of realization hit him as he looked down at the name tag on his chest. Before he had a chance to speak, I said "Nope, good guess but no cigar. I read your mind," I actually didn''t of course since telepathy wasn''t my forte but it helps to keep an opponent on his toes. I could see the aether warping around his head as he concentrated on keeping an imagined threat out, it''s pleasing to see that before you go into a fight that the other guy some of his focus elsewhere. Ilianna interrupted me before I could dig myself into a deeper hole "There must be something we can do to help her out," I had a feeling that her idea of repayment and Nigel''s were quite different. He looked at her with thinly disguised lust and actually licked his lips. "Well, well, well. If it isn''t the illustrious Ilianna Ganis, I''m shocked to see you here and not hiding out in some bunker or giving it all up at one your infamous...social gatherings," I looked at her with not disgust but wry amusement "Really? You didn''t strike me as one of those types that spent their time engaging in the ah....more carnal sports," She blushed and told me that when your entire bloodline is being killed, you didn''t have time to play around anymore. "I''m not judging, you can do it whatever you want. But it is good to see that you''re taking this a bit more seriously," She beamed at me and I could tell that she liked that I didn''t judge her. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Nigel asked "But perhaps you could make an exception this time for me in order to save your friend," We all looked at him with an expression that asked if he was really serious. He shrugged his shoulders with chagrin and said "You can''t blame a guy for trying. Come on boys, take them down," With those words, the dams of Hell broke loose. Neoma let loose a few ear-shattering shots that caught one of them in the chest and sent him fluttering backwards with a dull thud. They dove for cover behind the tables that were useless at protecting them when Neoma pegged another one and his head burst like a powder keg before they remembered they were sorcerers and put up magical shields. Ilianna was just full of surprises when she took out a trio of sacrificial blades that glowed with green light and held them between her fingers like she was a movie or something. There was no way she could have-. Well, I''ll be damned, she actually managed to hit with them all. The blades seemed to be stopped by the shields and they had smug smiles on their faces that quickly vanished as the green energy lashed out of the blades, through the shields, and leapt towards their hearts to kill them without leaving a mark. Nigel spluttered with indignation when he realized that he was the last sorcerer standing. "Get back! I have a F?rie wand!" He brandished a unicorn horn carved into a wand that had gold thread etched into it that let out a blood-curdling scream each time it was waved. They all froze as they realized that it was the real deal. A wand of the first people to emerge from the primordial soup of life that weren''t bat-shit insane and who were the first to bend reality to their will. There wasn''t any kind of magic any of us could muster that wouldn''t me taken over by the wand. Good news I was old school and while they were all slinging magic around like it a as the OK Coral, I snuck behind Nigel and waited for an opportunity to smash his head in. I threw a roundhouse punch at the back his head and he went staggering forward like an unwieldy bull. He spun around and raised his wand at me but before he could even say a syllable, I grabbed his wrist and snapped it with a sound like a branch falling in winter. He let out a yelp of pain and threw a weak punch at my face that I didn''t even bother blocking, he managed to split my lip and a few drops of black blood fell to the floor. He threw a series of wild punches that I evaded with the simple act of stepping backwards. Filthy casuals, Nigel couldn''t even cast magic without a wand. Once he had exhausted himself, I leaned in and sent a pulse of dark energy towards his heart and he fell clutching his chest as he died from a heart attack. I looked at the bodies that littered the floor like leaves and said possibly the biggest understatement in my life "Well, I think we should run. Like right now," They all agreed and we were put in less than a minute after Neoma picked up more ammunition from her gun safe. Ilianna''s Perspective Eric was more...intimidating than I had thought. He wasn''t just another wizard too impressed with his own power, he was an actual human being. I wonder if all wizards were like this before...The Collapse. So much has changed since he last was here, I wonder if he''ll change too when he finds out about all of the...opportunities available to him. I couldn''t risk someone of his caliber turning bad and leaving us powerless. Glancing around me, making sure there was no one watching, I scraped up his blood that fell on the floor before it became dry and suspended it in a magical solution that would stop it from degrading any further. I went outside before they got suspicious and he gave me a smile that told me he didn''t know how handsome he was, I found that so much more attractive than the asshole guys who were all puffed up on daddy''s money and cargo shorts. I really didn''t want to kill him, but what needs to be done needs to be done. ----------------------------------------Author''s Comments---------------------------------------- Releases might slow down a little since I''m going to be going back to school now from spring break but I''ll try to get them out on a regular schedule if I can. Random Topic: I don''t know why though but I find pho delicious. If you never had it, it''s a type of Vietnamese noodle dish that''s absolutely amazing. You need to go on google and find the nearest place and try some right now. I''m not kidding, it''s delicious. Seriously. Go and try some right now. Go. Now. Or. I. Will. Hunt. You. Down.