Herald

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  A Word From The Author

  Copyright © 2019 BriTe Publications

  Herald

  Copyright © 2019 BriTe Publications

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permissions, send a query to jedwardsstone@jedwardsstone.com

  Cover Design by Fiona Jayde Media

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-9991205-1-1

  Visit the author at www.jedwardsstone.com

  Facebook: JEdwardsStone

  Twitter: @JEdwardsStone

  Instagram: JEdwardsStone

  Goodreads: JEdwardsStone

  (Full links provided at back of book).

  For my angels, M, T, & B.

  An unsettling sound echoed throughout the chamber, that of something hard hitting the surface of something porous and moist. He ignored it, walking forward as he threw the last head roughly to the ground, coming to stand directly in front of the oily blackness of the pool before him. The other heads rolled around, bumping gently into one another before coming to rest, inanimate and cold. Their unseeing eyes stared into the darkness with disinterest and apathy, as though they had met their end at the edge of the blade with the same air of stoicism their faces now contained.

  The cold prickled beneath his skin, icy needles in the dark. Although he could not see into the depths of the seemingly infinite blackness, his senses led him true, and he found his way. He had long been stripped of the gifts of the Council, but he did not require them now. He had been here before and knew his path. He allowed himself a moment of self-indulgence, scowling with resentment at the memory of the Council – his erstwhile brothers as they sat upon their gilded thrones.

  Returning his mind to the moment at hand, he stared expectantly into the pool, unable to see into the tarry depths but knowing still that the creature was there.

  “Do not keep me waiting,” he said irritably, the power of his voice creating an almost visible ripple throughout the thick darkness surrounding him. The cavern was ancient, and the very air itself seemed to object to his presence, his voice belatedly echoing off walls from an unfathomable distance away.

  Just as he was about to lose his patience, something stirred in the depths of the pool. The water caught what little light there was here, but rather than reflect it, it seemed to absorb it. He turned his face in disgust, the smell of sulphur and rotting flesh rising upwards to assault his senses.

  Serpentine coils churned just below the surface. The water lapped lazily and slowly on the shore, giving away the fact that what appeared to be water was actually an unnatural, viscous liquid. Any human would have enough wits about them to know of the poison it held within.

  But he was not human.

  “The Guardians,” a thousand voices whispered in hushed tones, yet he knew there to be only one being here – a singular, foul creature, greedy and capricious. He cared not for it – only the secrets the creature harboured as it lay hidden in its cavern for millennia.

  “Their heads you have brought,” the voices hissed, coils unravelling below the waves as multiple snake-like appendages roiled out of the water at once, reaching for the dead things where they lay.

  “The heads. . .” they said hungrily.

  He lifted a leg and slammed it down on one of the creature’s many limbs.

  “Not until you give me what you promised.” He pushed his leg down more firmly until an ugly squelching sound could be heard below his foot. The creature moaned and tried to retract its appendage, but he only pushed down more firmly. “Give it to me!” he shouted now, angry.

  The creature, unlike most, did not fear him.

  A thousand voices laughed softly at once, increasing in volume. It echoed throughout the cavern, reaching nearly intolerable decibels. Human ears would not have withstood the sound. He was unmoved by the display.

  He lost his patience and drew his sword. In the blink of a moment, a millisecond, he lashed out and severed one of the creature’s arms.

  All at once, the appendages withdrew. The creature shrieked, the pool splashing around the coils that defiantly lifted themselves upwards. He stared back into the darkness, unwavering at the challenge. The threat meant no more to him than the lives of the Guardians whose heads he had taken for his purpose.

  “The heads you have brought, but the sword you still possess. . .” the voices cried. “Give us the sword.”

  “The sword,” they hissed in lower tones. “Give it to us. . .”

  “I will not,” he said, sheathing the sword just as quickly as it had been drawn. “If you do not give me what you promised, I will invoke the blood covenant. You will be destroyed for your treachery.”

  The creature recoiled further, and he knew he had hit his mark. He smiled menacingly into the waters.

  “We will not give you the means to reach the Disc without the sword,” the voices hissed, “that was not the bargain.”

  “No,” he agreed, it had not been the bargain. He wanted the Disc, but that would come later. He was here now, for one thing only. The Disc would mean nothing without the strength to wield its power.

  “What will you have, then?” the voices whispered. The pool continued to roil darkly, plumes of smoke now rising upwards, creating a mist of poisonous gas and saturating the cavern.

  “Give me my army,” he responded, smiling slowly.

  The coils snaked out, snatching the heads and pulling them into the depths below. Whatever fate awaited them, he cared not. The creature had its prize for now. He did nothing to stop it from retrieving its tokens.

  The pool stilled. He could already feel it – the change. It would soon penetrate the waking world, the world of humans. The war was within reach. Soon, he would retake what was his.

  The silence was more deafening than the voices that cried out moments before. He knew it was done. A glimmer of the strange light somehow escaped the blackness of the pool and lit across his face.

  His grin dripped with malice.

  “It is done,” the voices whispered, in unison, then apart.

  “It is done. . .”

  “done. . .”

  “done...”

  “It is done. . .

  . . .Azrael.”

  I first felt it in the spring of my eighteenth year. Wrapped in my dirty blankets, a nightmare pulled cold sweat
to my body. The mattress springs had long ago torn through the filthy fabric, my body strategically angled to avoid being stabbed before succumbing to sleep. But in my mind, I ran from something, screaming as my feet were pulled ever downward, as if in quicksand. The more I struggled against the bonds gripping my legs, the more I sank into the unknown abyss. Every movement served only to strengthen the hold the unknown entity had, pulling me down into the abyss.

  I lurched upwards into a sitting position, sweat dripping down my face and creating an uncomfortable sensation as it eked its way slowly down my back. Every drop made my skin crawl, nails down a chalkboard. I reached up, wiping my dripping nose as I tried to steady my beating heart. I became aware of the fact that I had been crying, and I scrubbed rapidly at my eyes. It didn’t clear the dream from my mind, and I shook my head rapidly as I tried to regain control.

  “Jesus,” I muttered quietly, wrapping my arms around myself and taking a shuddering breath.

  “Get it together, Larin.”

  Annoyed at myself, I tried to reshuffle back into my putrid mattress. Falling asleep in this house of decay was always a long and drawn-out process. A dripping sound nearby alerted me it was raining outside. The roof was on its last legs. Full of holes, the ceiling dipped in a threatening way, as though the house itself was sagging under the weight of its own miserable existence. An array of dirty pots lined the rooms and hallways of the single-storey, two-bedroom house I shared with my older brother and father. My father usually passed out wherever the moment called him, having no need for a bedroom. Calling him a “raging alcoholic” would be an understatement. My brother used the room next door, although you could hardly call it a bedroom. Getting into the room alone took an effort of Olympian endurance, covered as it was with empty beer bottles and rotting take-out containers. The only item of furniture was a stained mattress and a chair without a seat. There was no point in wondering why it hadn’t been discarded – everything in this house belonged in the city dump.

  I didn’t dwell on the thoughts of my family. I had no idea where either of them was this night, but nothing was unusual in that. They were usually off doing god-knows-what with god-knows-whom, sometimes disappearing for days at a time. It had been like this since my mother died ten years ago, but frankly, things weren’t much better when she was alive. I just took it as I did everything else, with a grim sense of acceptance.

  The thing I used as a pillow had long given up its purpose in life, leaving me with only with its carcass. I pulled it around my ears and shut my eyes tightly, attempting to drown out the noise. The dripping of the rainwater created a cacophonous symphony as it bounced off the scattered array of pots and cracked linoleum, preventing me from finding respite.

  I sighed and sat up, attempting to mentally shed the remnants of an uncomfortable sleep. I didn’t get out of bed, having nowhere else in the house that was preferable to my current surroundings. I don’t know how long I sat there, hunched over, unseeing, into the darkness. The pinging noise of the rainwater hitting the pots continued, and I looked up to the ceiling. I was rewarded with a heavy pellet of rain as it hit me squarely in the eye.

  “Oh, for the love!” I cried, rubbing violently at my eye, wondering what ailment I could expect from the bacteria accompanying the water as it traversed through the mouldy ceiling panels.

  Suddenly, I felt something odd.

  My eyes still squinted from the assault moments ago, I reached over my shoulder and felt around for the thing that had distracted my attention. It was as if someone had poked my shoulder blade, hard, leaving an uncomfortable tingling sensation in its place. I reached further back, touching the smoothness amidst the scars from the times my father forgot himself in his moments of inebriation. He often took out his frustrations of life on me, but these episodes of violence were thankfully growing fewer and farther between as I had grown older. I recalled the day with sullen chagrin; the shift in his behavior had come nearly overnight.

  Not having a woman in the house to guide me and care for me, I knew little of what was supposed to be happening in my body. One afternoon, I had gone to the bathroom and noticed blood where it shouldn’t be. I screamed and ran into the living room.

  “What in God’s name is your problem?!” my dad shouted, pushing himself up from the sagging couch with one arm to face me. He was frowning angrily, a half-drunk bottle of Budweiser in his hand.

  “I’m bleeding!” I sobbed, running to him with my arms outstretched. “Daddy, help me!” The lights suddenly went on behind his eyes and he recoiled from me, pushing me back just as I arrived at his side.

  “Goddamnit, Larin,” he said, pushing me back hard. I lost my balance and fell on the ground, looking up at him in shock. I continued to cry. He wasn’t kind, but I didn’t think he would turn me away at such a moment of urgency. But he looked down at me with an expression of disdain mingled with amusement. He didn’t know what to do, but that certainly didn’t stop the humor of the moment from seeping through.

  I remember feeling frightened, but also shocked at his reaction. I was obviously dying, but he felt only . . .amusement? I stared at him with my mouth open in shock. The feeling of betrayal overtook the fear, however momentarily.

  Sam had stood up when I had rushed into the room, also holding a drink in one hand. He knew what was happening, had happened, and looked at my father in disgust.

  “Give the kid a break,” he said angrily. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Dad laughed, shaking his head and sitting back down on the disgusting thing that passed for a sofa. “So, you deal with it, Mr. Knight in Shining Armor.” He laughed drunkenly but shifted in apparent discomfort. He didn’t like having to be a parent, and it was clear he had no idea what to do when it came to raising a girl. He lacked, absolutely, the capacity to deal with me.

  Sam was six years my elder. Being nineteen, he was too old to be a friend but too young to step into the role of a parent. He wouldn’t know how to, anyway. Neither of us had positive examples to follow.

  My dad barked out a short laugh and belched, dismissing me by returning his gaze to the television. I could still see his discomfort. I would grow to learn that “women’s issues” made men squirm, but my father was already insulated that night in an emotional protectant called a Beer Buzz. That protectant did nothing to quell his anger and rage on numerous occasions, but it effectively blocked the requisite feelings of love and compassion you’d expect of a parent.

  “Larin,” Sam said to me, “Google it. But trust me – you’re fine.”

  I Googled it. We had no money, no computer, but for some reason, my father always had a phone. Who knows what he used it for, or how he could afford it, but this night he let me use his prized possession to Google the particulars of what happens when girls get their periods.

  After that night my father didn’t hit me as much. He did though, at times when he was particularly drunk or particularly angry at something and needed somebody to take it out on. That somebody was usually me, and I learned to lay in a ball on the ground with my hands protectively around my head, saying nothing lest I make my father angrier. If I kept quiet, I could usually get away with being knocked around a little. A bloodied nose was thankfully the mildest form of injury, and it usually ended when my father saw blood. Once, he had knocked me over and I stood up, defiant. I told him to go to hell. I was rewarded by being punched directly in the face and knocked into the wall before I crashed down onto the ground. It was one of the rare occasions he actually hit me in the face, knowing that visible bruises would have to be explained. He limited his assaults to areas I could cover with long sleeves or jeans. But this night I had broken the cardinal rule and spoken back. As I lay on the ground, my vision blurred, he stomped as hard as he could on my hand, and I could hear the crunch of my ring finger as it broke.

  I hid it the next day at school. When they noticed in gym I couldn’t hold a basketball, I laughed and told a ridiculous story of clumsiness. The black eye happened at the same
time. I pretended I had fallen somewhere, I can’t remember now. I had gotten good at making excuses. So good I could have taught a masters class on How to Hide Beatings Given to You by Your Father. In retrospect, I should have said something more. Gotten help. Anything would have been preferable to living with my father – even going to a foster home. But my father told me of the evils that existed outside our home. He brainwashed me into believing there was a fate worse than being stuck where I was. That social services would take me and do unspeakable things to me. I know now that he only wanted me there to keep the welfare cheques coming in. If I was taken away, his allowance would be cut.

  Had I only known then what I know now...

  But I didn’t.

  So, I hid it. Every bruise, every bump, every scar. Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20.

  My brother was no help, he’d received his fair share of beatings as well as he grew older. His were just as bad if not worse. I remember finding him one day after school on the floor of the kitchen, both eyes so swollen he couldn’t have opened them if he tried. I picked up a cloth and wiped the blood off the fridge where he’d probably been smashed into repeatedly, judging from the pattern of the carnage. When he’d woken, I helped him into my bed, neither of us saying anything to the other. It was just our lot in life. We had accepted it.

  One day, he was too big to push around, and he fought back. I’ll never forget that first night when Sam and my dad had at it. I remember kneeling down beside the couch, covering my ears and screaming as they toppled the coffee table and broke the old television.

  Returning to the present, I pushed those thoughts aside.

  I groped around at my back, but feeling nothing, withdrew my hand and laid back down. I exhaled uncomfortably as a spring bit into my side, adjusting my position yet again.

  Just as I thought I would give myself over to sleep, the sensation was there again. This time, the urgency of the poke couldn’t be brushed off as my imagination.