Donovan Blackwood stood at the bay window in the ballroom, staring out at the storm.
Lightning lit up the sky, illuminating the acres of his property in blue light. The rain fell in thick sheets over his land, over his home.
A decade alone in this place, since Angela left him for the demon Amiel, seduced by promises of power... and now Angela was dead.
Andrea.
His little girl - maybe not his at all. Yes, she looked like him; she had his eyes... but given the abilities of Amiel, there was no telling.
He hid her away, but that was a decade ago. The Order considered her a threat. Tainted.
He was alone; retired and alone. Fat, and complacent. He was always a larger man, tall and even regal in his time, but time and excess made him lazy, and muscle sagged, and withered.
Wealth, and luxury were the rewards for an old man with impeccable service, bereft of any sons who would receive his estate when he was gone... and what good was any of it? Three stories - four if you counted the vast attic - a ballroom without parties, or dances, and three beautiful cars. They were things, like trussed up corpses at a wake. Nice to look at, but the spirit of it all was gone.
Long nights in the study lamenting his lost family, too tired to be angry, to angry to be hurt. The Men am Women of The Order; the sons and daughters of The Inquisition knew the risks. They knew they were at war. They knew they may survive their children, and that their fallen were honored dead... but the dead did not care. The dead had no use for accolades, or wealth, or cars. A mark in the family crypt to gloat over a successful service, and glory in the field of battle. Sacrifices that left old men bitter, and alone.
Donovan grimaced. Ten-thirty-five. It was time to go and drink down his sorrows in the study, to stare at old pictures, and long for his youth when he was useful; to slip in and out of sleep dreaming for the thing what might have been.
He paced at the bay window a moment longer. Lightning flashed, and the storm answered back with an applause of thunder, as though it marveled at its own ferocious nature. Greet eyes from the courtyard, only a moment, but when his eyes adjusted, no one was there. He turned, his worn boots heavy on the marble tile, a man of good health, fortune, and leisure, feeble under the weight of guilt, wandering to his study like some drunkard lost in a museum of thanatology.
He found his way into the study, and poured himself a glass of aged scotch. In his life, only four times did he know this drink; the day he returned from his advanced education, the day he married, the day his father died, and the day his daughter came into the world a perfect wrinkly pink newborn, all wriggling toes and screaming toothless mouth. He drank down the first glass in a single drink, and poured another. Perhaps tonight the good Lord took him while he dreamt his restless dreams. Perhaps he woke tomorrow with a splitting headache.
Donovan carried his glass of scotch carefully to his chair, sat, and sipped while staring at the portrait of his wife that hung from the wall behind his desk. That antique, unused relic from the days where hunting meant putting in footwork, research, and study. The thick layer of dust and cobweb told the story of a man no longer needed, no longer wanted; it told the story of a man who one day simply stopped.
The pencil he last used at that desk the day he learned Angela left with Amiel - and took Angela with her - sat where he placed it eighteen years the prior. His gloves lay neatly, folded over one another, untouched, the same.
Donovan hated this place, hated the indulgence. Everywhere he looked, a different arrogance, a different vanity, and it was his, all of it his, and how it lorded over him, a sharp contrast of the man he was, and the man he became,
Thunder rumbled through the halls of his estate. He ignored it. The second crash of thunder, he realized it was not thunder at all.
"Just a visitor." He nodded, a lazy, distant expression on his face. The drink was in him now, his head heavy, and thick. He waited half expecting a raven to flutter in and perch above his door, but only from the most macabre reaches of his imagination could it ever be. He heard the crash of wood and glass, even as he watched it exist inward from his chair. A naked man lay in the shards, and splintered wood, twitched a moment here, twisting a moment there; bleeding from wounds that healed even as he watched, and when he rose, Donovan stared into the gaunt face of Jonathan Walker; Jonathan's face, but not his eyes. They were the same green; the same bright, thoughtful green, but they were eyes lost to the wilderness; dilated large, and hungry for violence. They were the eyes of not merely a predator, but a monster.
Donovan sat his glass on a small table next to his chair. "I heard he died, but I ddn't expect to see you."
"You have clothes."
"...and you don't. Oh. You're asking me if I have any for you."
Bane grimaced.
"Cold out there, huh? I'm getting the impression you're not used to cold. You're a big boy, aren't you?"
"Clothes."
Donovan stared past Bane, eyes fixed on the painting of Angela. He wondered if Andrea looked anything like her mom. She was such a tiny thing last he saw her. "Let me be clear, and not to be discourteous to someone so new to Driftwood, but fuck you, monster. I don't have shit for you."
"Useless."
"Real. Alive."
Bane narrowed his eyes.
"I didn't have to steal my skin to walk among men, and I don't have to pretend I'm something I'm not."
Bane tilted his head.
"Your clothes."
"Come and take them, coward "
"I may let you live."
"I am Donovan Blackwood. My line has been since the foundations were laid for Driftwood. We had a good run... but I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid of dying."
Bane smiled, baring Jonathan's wolfish grin. "We will see what things you fear."
Donovan Blackwood made no attempt to fight, did not struggle, and gave Bane no reward for his efforts. There was no begging, or screaming.
Donovan passed bravely quietly as thunder echoed over Driftwood.
The old man's clothes were getting tight; the clothes of The Order, Bane drew his knowledge from Jonathan's residual memories. Fatigues worn by Witch Hunters, Donovan's were a dark gray - almost black - and faded. His duster was getting tight in the arms. The pants were riding higher of on Bane's legs. His bones - the boy's bones - hurt with growth. He did not bother donning the traditional hat of the order.
✟ ☧ ✟
Bane stared in his reflection in the window, and the scarred face of Jonathan Walker stared back. He grimaced, and the reflection grimaced back. Bane narrowed his eyes. He hated the boy's face, and the genuine guilt and disgust he felt in himself - for himself - when he saw it in glass, or the still pools that formed near the flowing creek. He was too big for the (cowls, they're called cowls) hoods worn by the traditional hunters in The Order.
They the lights in the house were out.
Bane closed his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose, and exhaling slowly through his mouth.
Jonathan Walker is dead.
He is dead.
There is only Bane.
There is only Bane.
Jonathan walks the endless scape of the (forever lands) (the mind field) (Realm) sleeping giant, the Dead God Taal.
I am Bane.
I am Bane.
Bane prowled the shadows surrounding the small house. Familiarity swept over him, and he pushed it out of him.
Jonathan knew these people.
Knew of these people.
They were no one to him. Bane uttered a curse user his breath, pressing on, circling the small house twice. Windows locked. Doors locked. The front, and back doors were etched with rough arcane spells for protection; spells that were supposed to make the small house not invisible, but unnoticed. Symbols that may work on mortal men, but not on him.
...but why here?
He shook his head sharply. Bane tired of second guessing himself. Before this body, this frail, weak flesh, he knew only the will of Taal... but Taal's will cost him his corporeal form at the hands of a mortal man. Mostly mortal. Soulless. False life.
Finley. Cassus Finley.
Bane stopped, ducking to a knee a moment, and pushed his pan to his forehead. He closed his eyes, and breathed. This had to stop. The flesh he inhabited was supposed to free him, to do his will as he will without the domination of Taal. Instead, he found himself at the mercy of a dead man's memories, his drives, and compulsions.
Jonathan Walker is dead...
...but was he really? When they passed one another as Jonathan gave in, and followed the mutilated girl, did they not touch? Was it not his intention to taunt the boy as they crossed from one side to the other?
Was his action in arrogance, and had that arrogance cost him?
No. His was a will that came only shortly after the dawn of creation. From Taal's endless kingdom he watched through the fog of time the rise and fall of man repeating itself, from smallest tribes to the greatest empires; the rise, and fall of giants, a flood that drowned the world, and the world's re-population; the rise and fall of empires, and the selfless - and some in his circles would say foolish - sacrifice of a Jewish Carpenter. His was the will of ages, and who was Jonathan Walker to him?
He is no one.
He is me. I am him.
No. I killed him. Jonathan Walker is dead, and gone, gone, gone, wandering aimlessly with his mutilated girl.
Bane opened his eyes, standing suddenly. He stared in his reflection in the window glass, sneering at his reflection. His face, but not his face. He stepped three paces back, crouched, and leapt through the window.