Dead Tempted - BOOK 1 - Pomegranate Seeds

PART ONE - GENESIS - Prologue

ET TENEBRAE ERANT SUPER FACIEM ABYSSI...

{And darkness was upon the face of the deep}

Donovan stumbled on the virgin frost of his manor house garden. It did not matter what he looked at in the shadows, he could not escape the horror he had just witnessed; the inhumanity he had arrived too late to stop.

How had so much blood come from something so small? How had so much evil come from something so beautiful?

He slipped on the icy, cobbled path and his knee hit the floor, the impact jarred his joint and shuddered up his leg, making it slightly numb, but it didn't stop him from protecting the little bundle in his arms.

He had a brief flicker of concern that the child might catch a chill in the mid-winter air, then blood dripped crimson roses onto the frost and he remembered.

The man yelled at the night sky and the moon with its congregation of stars; cursing God and his cruelty.

"He is not here to listen to you, Donovan," a voice hissed behind him. "Nor does he care."

Donovan started and turned around, still on his knees and gripping his precious bundle too tightly.

Firelight leaked from the open doors of his large home, casting shadows on the stones and creating stars in the snowflakes that had begun to fall. The light did not reach the cloak of the midnight figure and it cast no shadow but itself. The thing was tall and wide with strength and somehow also gaunt and deathly, as if a breeze might knock him down but the weight of the world was no burden.

Donovan tried to focus his eyes on the creature. His vision was blurring through the water of his tears and it was easier to stare at the ground than upon the black hollow of the cloak where its face should have been.

"You are him? The one they call master?"

"And you are he who denied me and refused my invitation to join my followers, Baron Wintre."

"You offered me money and power I already have. I will not serve you."

"Is that so? And what if I offered you something you no longer have. A life perhaps?"

Donovan looked down at the baby in his arms; lifeless and cold.

"What do you want?"

"What is it you want?" The demon's voice held a thousand souls in one. He stepped closer to Donovan and his bundle, bringing with him the darkness of shadow and a cold to rival the surrounding ice.

Donovan reluctantly loosened his grip so the creature could see into the bundle. He held out a long, black clawed nail and used it to pull out a silver crucifix from within the cloth. The cross skittered down the chain away from the hand that had revealed it.

"Please, help us," Donovan pleaded as the faceless creature looked down at him. "I will serve you, if you bring back my daughter."

"Is the soul of one worth that of many others?"

Donovan's mind hesitated where his heart hadn't. He looked down at the white and red cloth in his arms and his heart won his mind over.

"I will find a way to make it so."

The creature laughed, making Donovan cringe. "We shall see."

Flurries of snow followed the demon's path into the Under-realm. White flakes hovered in the air around him as he strolled through the emptiness of the void towards a wriggling bundle on the floor.