His thought process was interrupted a moment later as Hugh jumped in excitement a few yards away. “I think I’ve got something here!” Hugh exclaimed.
“Yes, well what is it?” the sergeant demanded, visibly annoyed at the interruption. “Go on, speak up!”
“I ran a piece of the victim’s finger past the print scanner, and I got the name Edgar Candia. That ring any bells with you?”
“Edgar Candia, eh? Hmm . . . let me think.” He stood there, lost in thought for a minute before it dawned on him. “Yes, I know exactly who that is. He tended to keep to himself, but several of his neighbors complained about him anyway – said weird noises could be heard from his yard at night. Also, one couple kept complaining that he’d stare creepily at their young boy for hours on end. There were even rumors that he was into dark arts like necromancy, though of course no one could ever prove anything.”
“Necromancy?” Hugh wrinkled his nose as he scoffed at the idea. “As if that were even real.”
The sergeant gave him a sideways glance and let out a dry laugh. “Yeah, normally I’d agree with you, but you come across a scene like this and you start to wonder.”
Hugh shrugged his shoulders. “Any idea who would want him dead?”
“You mean, besides a priest?” the sergeant jested. He shook his head. “No, not really.”
Just then, a third detective came running into the field "Sergeant Jack Witherspoon!” he shouted. The man was holding a piece of paper in his hand and waving at it frantically. It looked like he had been running for hours to get here as fast as possible.
“What is it, Byron?” the sergeant asked. “Better be important,” he added, too quietly for anyone to hear.
Byron stopped for a moment to rest and catch his breath before saying anything. “We just got a report of two more similar murders in Urgam, and they are requesting your assistance immediately. They said they need your occult expertise.”
Jack did a double-take. “Did I hear that right? Did you really just say that there were two similar murders in Urgam?!” Byron gave a small nod in confirmation. “Why, that’s over a thousand miles away! How could something move that far that fast without a teleporter? I don’t believe it.”
Byron let out a cough as his breathing started to stabilize. “Believe it, Sergeant. Whatever this thing is, it’s not human.”
Jack’s eyes glazed over like he was lost in thought. “This situation reminds me of those old tales people used to tell about Death Beast murders. But no one’s seen a Death Beast in a thousand years!” he said, more to himself than anyone else.
"Oh come now, those are just fairy tales to scare children,” Byron insisted.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Jack argued. “You’re still young. There’s much you have yet to see.”
Byron snorted in disgust. “You and your old-timey beliefs. Let’s just get going.”
Sergeant Jack and his companion Hugh started to argue with Byron over the validity of the old tales, but the conversation never got very far. As they prattled on amongst themselves, a crimson-robed figure glided through the trees towards them. They were too absorbed with their petty disagreements to even notice.
Then it happened. One moment, Byron was waving his fingers like mad and the next he was staring in disbelief at the tip of a scythe blade sticking out of his midsection. Byron’s lifeless body fell to the ground a moment later.
Jack stared at Byron’s dead body, then his eyes trailed up to the wraith-like figure that had just killed his friend, his face contorted in equal parts revulsion and disbelief.
“Jheriem have mercy,” Jack uttered.
“It’s too late for that,” the demon replied, its voice seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. With two quick flashes of its scythe, Lange Du Mort cut down the two remaining detectives before they could move. Their bodies fell to the ground, their faces frozen in a half-scream, a fitting monument to the demon’s carnage.
* * * * * * * * * *
Lange Du Mort lifted one bony hand and siphoned off the souls of the fallen to augment his power. As the demon worked its eldritch spell, a shriek sounded from off in the distance. One of the civilians who had originally stumbled onto the scene had come back to see if the detectives needed help. He stood at the edge of the clearing, mouth agape.
“You know what to do,” a dark, foreboding voice boomed inside Lange Du Mort’s skull. “Finish up here and get moving, we have work to do.”
The corners of Lange Du Mort’s skull curled up into a semi-smile. It knew just what to do, alright. “No witnesses,” it said. It turned to face the civilian, sending a chill up the poor man’s spine, and laughed.
Several hours later, a man answering to the name of Sergeant Jack Witherspoon returned to his post. No one seemed to notice that he was acting a little strange, or that his partner hadn’t returned alongside him. Nor did they notice the slight rasp in his voice as he announced suddenly that the call about the demon attack was all a hoax.
It wasn’t until the first body fell under the attack of the imposter’s scythe-like weapon that anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary at all. And by then it was far too late.
Chapter OneTeryn, the Wizard
“And humbly and with great reverence for all things
Shall the great leader start his quest.”
Book of Gallian, 12:3.
Year 4999 (Present day)
Teryn woke with a start. He was covered in sweat and his back ached. He looked at his magic clock on the wall. It was only four in the morning. He sighed and covered his head with the bedsheet, willing sleep to return. Alas, it wouldn’t come.
His mind went back to the dream. It had been the same dream he’d had for several nights now. A tall, enigmatic man, face shrouded by the hood of a billowing black cloak, frantically searched everywhere
