Jared Faustus is a sixteen year old boy, yet his life is not like other teenage boys, or so he'd heard.
As Jared got ready, combing his spiky black bedhead out, his sister, Selene, popped in his room, her black curls bouncing behind her. "Jared, Mom and Dad are going the Occulta meeting today, they won't be back for a while." she said.
Jared was surprised by this, for The Occulta didn't have meetings on weekdays. "Why are they having a meeting today, Sel? Are the vamps getting out of hand again?" he asked Selene.
Selene shrugged, "All I know is that Dad said it was important, and Mom wouldn't spill it." The Occulta is the government of the Skourae, beings that protect the Earth from supernatural threats, but also strive to coexist with the supernatural. They couldn't call it unnatural, for they are unnatural.
Jared just shook his head and kept on combing. "Well, the least we can do is start a hunt while Mom and Dad are gone." Jared said.
Jared and his family, like most other Skourae, live on a continent not known by the regular humans. It is called Elari.
As Jared got dressed in his casuals, dark jeans and a Metallica t-shirt. He peered out his window, people were walking the streets like usual, Jared's enhanced senses picked up the group of Nephilim―teenagers―walking down the sidewalk, all types of cars were driving up and down the streets, Silverados, Impalas, Altimas, Civics, Tundras. He looked around his room, a poster covered wall, a messed up bed, and a CD collection.
Jared made his bed and went downstairs, the stairs were slippery in socks, so he had to hold on. Downstairs, a maze of hallways that led into the living room, smelled like bacon.
"You're going to burn yourself," shouted Jared.
"No, I wo―dammit!" swore his sister.
"I told you." he replied.
He navigated the hallways, passing the library, he'd be in there later, and the arsenal. He made it into the kitchen, where Selene, clad in a Bon Jovi shirt and pajama bottoms, was cooking.
Jared pulled out his phone and checked the time, it was 7:30 AM in Elari, they went by Brazilian time in the Northwestern Part. Selene had finished the bacon and already had eggs with it. They both sat down and started to eat, Jared wolfing down what he'd been fixed.
"Slow down, it won't run from you." said Selene.
"You don't know that," said Jared. "With magic, anything is possible."
Jared looked up from his plate, leaned back, and looked at his sister. She had probably been up watching TV last night, her eyes had dark circles underneath them, and she yawned every now and then, or maybe the circles were just because she hadn't put on her makeup. "When Mom and Dad get home, I'm curious to see what it was about. Demon activity you think?" Jared asked his little sister.
Selene rubbed her eyes, "I doubt it, demon activity is rare nowadays. It has to be something weird though, maybe a vampire who can walk in the daylight?"
Jared thought about the absurd concept of a daywalking vampire, How does that happen? A hybrid?
He put it in the back of his mind and got up, he was going to the Library for research. His house was an average Skouros household, three stories, big yard, et cetera. Nothing like the Faustus Mansion that his Uncle Abraham lived in. That had been in the family for generations.
Jared turned down the hallway to the huge study that was the family library, it had shelves upon shelves of books, from tales of killing beasts to children's books. Jared had already been in the library earlier, so he'd had books on the Elder Beings, Vampire Hordes, lunar cycles, et cetera. He sat down and flipped to a page in Liber Primogenitam, it states:
Y'Dhere
This Elder Being rests on the Council of Elders. He is the Being of Wisdom, which seems to include anything the Mind holds in the Skouros. Through telepathy he communicated with a Skouros who happened to be the daughter of Solomon Ranim, who founded our race, he told the Daughter of Solomon, "Your race is destined for great things, so are you, Child." Iris spent her entire life trying to figure that out, discovering most of what we know about the Eldest.
Jared hadn't seen this one before, he'd heard about Y'Dhere before, but not about the woman he talked with. Jared muttered to himself, "That's a new one." his entire teen years he'd been interested in the Elder lifeforms that live in Daesol, the Skouros aspect of the Afterlife, or that's what Jared had been told, he did believe in Daesol, because he'd seen Gehenna, but he didn't believe in an afterlife.
Several hours later, after Selene popped in a couple of times, he closed a book on the Fair Folk, dangerous people they are, he thought. He got up from the desk and returned down that well-lit hallway back to the living room, where Selene was on the couch watching reruns of old cartoons.
As Jared sat down the door busted open, and the looming figure of Keith Faustus rushed in, with Rose hot on his heels. "Dad, what's going on?" asked Selene, looking a bit frightened at their father's expression of steel.
Keith grabbed a blade off of a weapon rack by the recliners, "Jared, Selene, grab your gear. We have a leakage in the Shadows." Jared did not ask why, he'd learned not to question his father.
"Yes, sir." he and his sister had said in unison, rushing off to get their battle gear and weapons.
Jared's room was the third door to the right, opposite to Selene's. Jared's room was strewn with books and vinyl albums of bands like Metallica and Green Day. His weapon of choice was a Kiltine claymore, the blade hummed with blue luminescence. The light blue blade perfectly balanced in his hands. His battle gear was on, and he was ready to go.
The Family regrouped in the living room. His father was already in his gear with a glowing blade humming at his side, his mother and sister had their hair tied back, his mother brandished an electrum claymore, while his sister had a bow made of iron.
Rose Faustus turned to her children, "The Shadows, as you both know, house lesser demons, dark elementals, revenants, vrykolakas, et cetera. Therefore, we must be on guard at all times, anything we see could be an illusion."
Jared nodded, "It is also the home dimension of the lycanthrope disease correct?"
His mother nodded to that, "Yes, indeed it is, be careful to not get bit by a single vrykolakas, because it could do one out of two things, Turn you, or you become a lycanthrope."
Their father nodded, "Let's go, we don't have time until we are dispersed." Keith had already made it to the door and out to the Portal that had been set up for their arrival in Ethiopia.
Waiting for them was Sir Jonathan Perry himself, a man of tall stature and salt and peppered hair, dismissing Skouros left and right. Jared's father exchanged few words with Perry as possible and motioned for them to go through.
As Jared and his family jumped into the Portal it felt like time slowed down around them, the blue walls of the wormhole through matter felt like sand as they flew through it, their eyes having to squint from the light it gave off. A few minutes later, time stopped, for them anyway, and then they arrived in the Ethiopian Highlands.
The Ethiopian landscape was filled with craggy, forest topped mountains with trees down the side, the blue sky cloudless on a bright and arid July afternoon, all was like it was normal. Yet Jared knew it wasn't, for an unearthly wail pierced the air, followed by a chorus of guttural howls.
Their father stood still, not an expression on his face, "Jared, Selene, I want you two to make it down the side of the mountain best you can. Your mother and I will scale the other side."
Jared nodded, "Let's go, Selene." he said, starting his way down the shrub-filled path of the mountaintop.
Jared pushed through shrubbery and cut it with his shimmering blade, while Selene trailed behind, bow drawn and arrow nocked.
Another scream came out from the valley below that sounded like a woman being tortured, Selene shuddered, "I can never unhear the wails from these missions."
Jared nodded, keeping an eye out for the smallest of the supernatural. "I've heard the screams and pleading from Gehenna too. These aren't as bad." he said, his inky eyes darting around the landscape.
After a while, and several wails later, they reached a cliff they were going to have to scale. It was a steep cliff no doubt, but for Skourae, it was an easy scale. "I'll go first." stated Jared, getting a foothold in the crags of the cliff.
As Jared got his hold in the cliff, he felt a wave of an unimaginable stench down in the valley, he kept on going, for he had several ideas of what it could be.
"Is it safe?" asked Selene, her icy eyes peering over the edge.
"Well, yes and no." he replied, "I smell either a revenant or a draugr."
Jared kept on climbing as Selene took hold. "A draugr is a new one, I thought they were only reanimated god-corpses, and that only." she replied.
As Jared descended, the smell got even worse, "They are, but I doubt it, it could just be an animal." said Jared.
Selene rolled her eyes, although it was unknown to Jared, "Since when is it ever just an animal?"
Jared sighed as he jumped two or three feet to the ground, "Rarely, very, very rarely."
Selene jumped to the ground, "Exactly." she said, a proud look flashing across her face, then the smell hit her, her face scrunched up and she gagged, "That," she said, "is no animal." Jared pulled his black undershirt over his nose and kept on moving, slicing the underbrush.
As they got closer the smell vanished, as if the creature had been slain. Albeit Jared knew better, he still kept on guard. As they crept into the valley, there was a sight to behold. There were their mother and father, getting to work, fighting off a lesser demon, the thing was a sight to behold.
