Prologue
"Roger? Open up, it's time for dinner."
Maria knocked thrice, then three times more.
"I made your favorite…You know, that Korean Beef Stew you love so much."
It was then that she heard the crash.
Maria opened the door, and saw it. The walls of Roger's office had been filled with scratch marks, cut into the paint to reveal the gray cement underneath, and they all said the same thing.
THE ANGEL HAS ARRIVED THE DEEP ONE WILL FALL
She saw Roger on the floor, face-down, half of a protractor a few inches away from his left hand. She rushed over to him, and turned him over.
What she saw chilled her to the bone.
Roger had painstakingly carved ornate runes and symbols into his body, so alien to Maria that simply staring at them made her head hurt. She gingerly touched one of the wounds. Roger moaned, a sound so soft, you could say he didn't moan at all. But moan he did, and as he wheezed his last breaths, Maria held him closer to her breast. She could feel him dying in her arms.
Then, in a voice so low, it was almost a whisper, Roger said…
"CALL…MAX."
