He blinked twice, once with his normal eyelids, then again with the eyelids hidden beneath the normal ones. And now, his pupils looked more like black olives than human eyes. He looked down the alley again. Almost had her. “They wear masks. Did you know that, that they wear masks?”
“Yes, don’t we all,” said the man with the goatee. Then, as he accidently inhaled more yellow dust and it tickled his nose, he sneezed and shook his head again.
And that made Osiris chuckle. I made it potent, removed the impurities and stripped it down to the active chemicals. Within five minutes, you’ll be sleeping, or dead, he thought. “You just inhaled enough nightshade to kill a ninety-kilo (roughly 200 lbs.) man.” Osiris grinned, and his teeth seemed sharper and longer than they were just a moment ago.
“Yes, I’m sure you are correct… but I am no man.” The goateed man ran his hand over his mustache and down past his pointy beard. And as he did so, his goatee along with the yellow dust vanished from beneath his palm. “So, Osiris, it would behoove you to stop relying on your magic dust.” Why doesn’t he remember me? “And you really don’t remember me? You don’t remember my face? Perhaps you would remember the name. Set. A long time ago, I was known as the Egyptian god Set, the god of disorder, the god of the desert.”
“Set? Set, yes. Now I remember.” Osiris blinked away the black olive pupils, and his eyes momentarily returned to normal. “Yes, my name was Osiris. I was a god—a judge of the dead, balancing the scales of justice and weighing good and evil—as if that were even possible, as if good and evil were just absolutes that could be weighed like baskets of grain—or like the souls of men. But then… I was a man, a real man, not like this.” He held up his broken, wounded hand. Prodding at it, he could see the splintered bone beneath his hollow, leathery skin. “I was a real man, made of flesh and blood. And… I had a wife, and we had two… But then they died, but I didn’t. And I thought, why? Why live? Why should I get to live? Why did they have to… Why do…” Osiris looked up at Set, half-lost in both his thoughts and surroundings.
Osiris was once a god. Once. Now he was a shell of his former self. Now he was the ripper, a stranger.
Set put his hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “My friend, what happened to you?”
Osiris fixed his cap and dusted off his pants. With a puzzled look, he rubbed at his wounded wrist. Eventually he looked back up at Set and grinned again. “They wear masks. Did you know that?”
Set, what an old name, it was. And it was a name that he was not particularly fond of. But right now, he had other issues, and he had had enough. Shoving Osiris’s head back and slamming into the wooden fence, he then swung him across the alley and slammed him into the brick wall on the other side of the alley. Set huffed before catching a whiff of the ever-present stench of urine. For a moment, he almost missed the stringent smelling nightshade. “Osiris, what happened to you? What the hell are you doing out here?”
Again, Osiris blinked twice, and the black olives again replaced the pupils of his eyes. Ever grinning, he calmly said, “What am I doing? I’m removing their masks. The flesh, their skin. Their skin is their masks. Only in death is their truth. Only in death are they ever honest—honest to the world, honest to themselves. It’s what’s on the inside that matters. But first, you have to remove their masks.”
It was all madness. Set grabbed Osiris by the neck and slammed him down onto the cobblestone, his hand planted at the ripper’s throat and his knee firmly in his chest. Studying the ripper’s face, Set huffed again. Masks, flesh, murder. He’s not making any sense, no sense at all. The sanest thing Osiris did was to kill the women before he began mutilating their bodies. Sometimes a quick death was the only gift the gods had to offer.
Right now, that didn’t matter either. Osiris was gone. The philosophical, always optimistic god that Set once knew; he was no more. Dead and gone, he decided. Now, Osiris, his one-time friend, was nothing more than a half-remembered relic. Looking down at the thing on the ground, the husk of his old friend was squirming and hissing at him. Set pushed on Osiris’s chin, stretching out and exposing the old-god’s neck. Set watched Osiris’s neck squirm as two large lumps slid beneath and around the skin of it–like two burrowing beetles beneath a silky bedsheet. And with that, Set knew for certain that he was too far gone. Osiris was tainted, corrupted by man-flesh and the temptations of humanity. And not wanting to believe it but accepting it nonetheless, Set snarled with disdain at the thing on the ground. “You are an abomination, a monster.”
“Yes, I am. And now… Set, my old friend… what will you do? Will you kill me?” he asked—his words a jumble of fear, pity, and contempt. “What will you do, Set… my old friend?”
“Set… Set is dead.” He stood up and dusting himself off. “Set is just as dead as Osiris is.” He held his hand out to the side, and just then, his stovepipe hat flew through the air and into his palm. Dusting it off, he slid it back onto his head before smoothing his fingers over its brim. He paused momentarily and looked down at the ripper with the torn open hand. Goodbye, old friend. Then he added, “And no, I am not going to kill you. But I cannot speak for her.” Then he brushed off his coat, adjusted it, and then stepped away.
Blood dripped from his left hand as the man with the stovepipe hat walked down the alley. The blood dripped down like maroon and black paint droppings and splattered over the old gray cobblestone. And the dark trail of blood splatters followed him as if he were a wounded animal.
The wound—inflicted by the Set himself and through the use of his suddenly-sharp fingernail—was deep. A bone-deep puncture wound in his thumb, it was. Digging deep into the fat fingerprint of his thumb, he made sure the wound was good and deep, and painfully. Eventually removing the dagger of a fingernail from his thumb, he smeared the blood around in his palm and felt the sticky, warm wetness and smiled. Least I’m not completely empty, he thought, not yet anyways.
Distracted by the ordeal, he hardly realized that he had company. While it was late and relatively quiet, the commotion had still attracted a crowd. Roughly ten-to-fifteen observers—mostly prostitutes, johns, and paupers—had gathered at the edge of the alleyway and were watching. And as the man approached the stunned crowd, he felt obliged to address them. He lazily waved his bloody hand at them and said, “Run along now. Nothing to see.” And as his hand flapped at them, his blood splattered and drizzled at them as well. And as it did so, staring in fear and awe, the crowd took as a step backwards while the man took a moment to again observe his blood-covered hand. Still not empty.
Then, flicking his hand towards the ground, splattering whatever droplets were still there onto the stone walkway, he continued walking. “Go on now, let the ripper pass… and tell your friends.” And as they blinked and darted their eyes at-and-away from him and whispered to each other, before they knew it, he was gone.
In the alleyway, Osiris sat limply on the ground and flexed his hands and examined his own injury, his damaged arm. Now looking more insane than ever, he was now talking to himself. “A man. I was a man once. I was a god. Before I was a man, I was a god. I had a…. But now… They all wear masks. The mortals and their masks, I must show them. I have to show them, show them the tru…”
A rattling sound, the sound of a thousand rattlesnakes, interrupted him and filled the dark alley with noise, and an even darker shadow swept in, over him, then lingered over Osiris. “Once gods, now monsters,” it whispered to him.
Suddenly frightened, Osiris stared up at the darkening shadow. He scooted across the cobblestone and towards the nearby brick wall of the alleyway. “You? You? I remember you. You… you are asleep. You’re supposed to be asleep. It’s not time.”
“It’s your time,” the shadow whispered to him, soft and sultry.
“No, you’re asleep.” He looked around as he continued scooting towards the wall on the palms of his hands and the bottom of his butt. Looking around, he did not see Whitechapel any longer. He saw nothing, nothing but darkness. “You’r
e not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“I was asleep, but my sleep was disturbed. The nightmares and fears of the women of the night… they are loud and not so easy to ignore.”
“They wear masks,” he whimpered. And then, if it was even possible, the shadows seemed to grow even darker around him, swallowing him. Osiris continued scooting over the cobbled ground until he finally ran out of space, and his back smacked into the stone wall. And as the blackness of night swallowed any available light, he shook with fear as he drowned in the darkness. “They wear masks, but they can’t wear masks. They have to reveal themselves, and I—I have to help them.”
“So you cut them; you cut them up? That is how you help them? No, you are the only one who wears a mask. And you, you who preys on them, you do so for one simple reason… because it is easy. That’s it. They’re easy prey, because they are desperate and hurting. And the desperate and hurting are always easy prey.”
“I reveal them. I help them to…”
“No!” the shadows barked at him. “You cause them pain to relieve your own—That’s it. Now, how you rationalize your actions, that is a more fascinating puzzle. But the truth of the matter is: ‘I just don’t care.’”
“Perhaps you wear a mask as well,” the ripper snapped back with some hidden courage that came from nowhere. “Maybe that’s why you can’t see them.” Then he grinned as his one good claw slid out of his wrist. He yelled into the shadows that surrounded him, “And what about you? What have you become, the Queen of Prostitutes?”
“No, I am the queen of so much more.” The rattling grew louder and the shadows grew darker. “But, I hear their cries nonetheless.” The ripper’s claw shattered spontaneously and from seemingly nothing. Then the wooden fence (opposite the alley) did the same and exploded into spears of shattered wood and shot through the darkness. Like a thousand arrows, the wooden barbs shot through Osiris’s chest.
His burst of courage was gone once again, and fear filled the monster, the predator of women. The shadows grew thicker and blacker around him before swallowing him up, lifting him into the air, and then slamming his grinning face into each of the ten steps that led down to his flat.
“Foolish creature,” the shadows whispered. “Not all men are equal, and not all gods are equal. As for me, I hear the pleas of all women; refined, loose, and innocent, all alike. I feel their pain. I hear their prayers. And sometimes… sometimes, I wake up and answer them.”
The shadow slammed his face against the brass doorknob and then flung him through the busted wooden door of his flat and into an even darker room. The wooden door creaked on its rusted hinges, and the shadows whispered to the ripper one last time. “Am I their queen? No, I am their vengeance.”
The wooden door slammed shut, and the ripper was never seen again.
Prologue II : From the Depths of Hell
In a desolate wasteland beneath a crimson sky, there sat a stone structure. From afar, it looked no different than an ordinary gray well. Up close, it was massive and something of awe. The stone bricks were perfectly curved and perfectly shaven. The mortar that lied between them was perfectly lain and perfectly sanded. It was a hulking smoke stack wrapped around a stadium-sized black hole.
A sharp clacking echoed from within.
Entering it, one could see that the black hole was lined with a spiraling staircase. And every ten yards, the walls were marked with archaic torches topped with angry flames. The floors were narrow stone ledges, no wider than a suburban side street. And the stone staircase that swirled down and around the inside wall sank down and deep until they appeared like the rifling of a gun.
Swirling downwards still, the stone staircase grew smaller before gradually faded into the shadows before finally disappearing into the cold blackness at the bottom of the barrel. The darkness held other secrets too. Like a long stemmed asterisk, each of the floors of the lowest levels branched out into long dark corridors. And only one man knew how far they extended or what they held.
The clacking continued, and the echoes were sharp and crisp inside the cold, damp air; cold and cave-like. Yet outside, the air was too moderate to be real. And neither hot nor cold, the desert outside was the definition of desolation.
The contrasts between the inside and outside did not stop there. Outside, the giant stone blocks that made up the tower were immaculate, perfect. But inside… inside, the stone was cold, pockmarked, and battle-scarred; just like everything else inside.
The clacking continued, radiating from the hard soles of an expensive pair of Italian dress shoes that were currently descending the spiraling stone staircase. And each footstep was as casual as can be.
Atop the noisy dress shoes was an expertly tailored suit—custom-made, of course. With hands stuffed in the pant pockets, the tightly-spun wool of the expensive suit fluttered gently with each footstep. The crimson silk lining of the jacket swayed like red ocean waves peeking out at low tide.
The footsteps ended, and the man in the suit paused at the edge of the black hole, somewhere deep inside the stone tower. How far had I descended? he wondered. He knew that he was below sea level and had passed beneath the red sands some time ago. Right now, he estimated that he was nearly a mile underground—deep within the stone cylinder, it almost felt like a coffin. With his hands still jammed in his pockets, he leaned over the side of the nonexistent railing and stared down into the darkness. Like staring down the barrel of a gun. The man shrugged, chuckled, then shook his head; admiring the ominousness of it all. And why not? After all, it was his creation, his idea. The stone tower was a prison, a prison for things that were no longer human and no longer monsters and… no longer gods?
Who was the man inside the suit? It was none other than the devil himself, Vincent Blackwell.
His shoulders slumped lazily as he paused to look around. Replaying ancient memories inside his head, memories known only to him, they seemed to come alive within him. The images of his prisoners flashed through his mind’s eye. He remembered each and every one of them. Some captured as beasts, some more demon than man. Others were nothing more than abominations—unnatural creatures never meant for the mortal realm. Nasty things. Large and small, winged and slithering, quirky or savage, scaled or fur-covered; they came in so many shapes and sizes. The adrenaline rush he used to feel during the hunt came rushing back to him and sent his skin tingling. Dragons, lamias, cave-snatchers, night stalkers, blood trolls, neighbor gnomes, well-whisperers, closet-tricksters, lathels, fire-bathers, lake-sleepers… so many. His lips curled into a devilish grin.
With his hands still seemingly glued inside his pockets, he leaned over the edge of the black hole again, this time gazing upwards. If the bottom of the tower was a black hole, the sky above it was like a supernova.
Atop the stone prison, the sky was blood red with thin and thick clouds, pale and white as snow—vanilla swirls swimming in strawberry sauce. It was beautiful. All of it. Beautiful and twisted and all his.
A lowly growl crept up from behind him and ruined his moment of bliss. He sighed, “Really?”
Blackwell turned towards the grumbling that was radiating from behind a set of tall and thick iron bars. No longer grinning, his peacefulness was replaced by irritation, and his face showed it. Still he remained silent.
From the blackness behind tall columns of pig iron, it was one of the stone tower’s newer tenants. And apparently, it was growing restless. The growling grew louder. Behind the iron bars and flickering torchlight, fangs the size of daggers emerged, and rows of smaller ones followed. Soon enough, both the fangs and growling were joined by a set of glowing eyes—red LEDs in a lightless room. The growling grew louder, the fangs grew larger, and the lights brightened.
The eyes of an animal, angry eyes, they were. They grew brighter and fiercer until…. They were met by a more vicious set. Blackwell glared back at his defiant prisoner. “Just because you are alive now doesn’t mean that you will be alive tomorrow. So, I would not be
so brazen if I were you.” And now, his eyes were the ones lighting up, brightening until they became two angry little red suns.
The growling died out, and the red eyes and the fangs sank back into the darkness. Now smiling and settled, Blackwell cheerfully said, “There you go.” More seriously he added, “Remember, no one lives forever.” Except for me, he thought.
With his Sunday stroll ruined, Blackwell huffed. “Animals.”
Then, as he often did, he snapped his fingers and disappeared into a puff of smoke.
Now a few levels down and someway down a gray bricked hallway, he continued towards his destination. The archaic torches pinned to the stone walls flickered and made the shadows dance. Yet, it was only when the flickering flames synced up that one could see just how far the corridor extended, too far. Gray brick and prison bars stretched as far as the eye could see before disappearing behind the dancing shadows that were once again swallowed up by the darkness. Behind him, a while ago and too far to see, the staircase and the sinkhole had disappeared into the blackness (of the other end of the corridor).
Passing the numerous and identical sets of iron bars, stone walls, and flickering torches, he finally reached his destination, a slightly cleaner, more polished set of iron bars.
With a sharp pivot towards the prison cell, he cocked to the side and peered inside. “Good morning,” he said, not knowing or caring if it really was morning.
A pair of green flames flickered far behind the iron bars. In the center of the swaying flames, white hot irises burned equally hot. Then a voice radiated from behind the fiery emerald eyes. “And there were seven gods and seven sins. And behold, when it ends, there will be seven signs and seven…”
“Yes, yes, yes. Seven. Seven this, seven that. It’s always seven, always with the sevens.”
The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2) Page 2