Prologue:
Umbra Venandi
(Shadow Hunter)
The dream is always the same.
The nightmare. The need. The anger.
It always bleeds. It always lies. It always tries to remind him he was and never would be...normal.
He tries to fight it. But he can't fight it. He can't even pretend to fight it. He just...feels it and dies with it and tries to deny it..but the mind is a master of making us the victim of our own pain.
With a putrid touch, the darkness clings to him. Tendrils, tendrils, curls of smoky death and stealing pain. He watches it creep. He watches it slide over the cobblestones and slither toward him like snakes made of oil. It touches his loafers and slips fingers up his calve.
His whole life, he's felt it there, waiting to claim him. There's no way to stop it. There's no way to slow it down. It cleaves and clings at once. It loops around his leg and over his groin. It sucks at his dick like a whore. It leeches into his guts and finds his spine and snaps it until he screams and collapses, a victim of its swirling touch.
His body lets it rise above him, a succubus, a Lilith, a liar. It fucks him while he dies, soaked in darkness and blood. It steals his soul from his open mouth. He watches the world turn red and black with rot and blood. He can only watch it rise. Something inside of him feels defeated. It's not really fear; it's more like numb acceptance. He's so tired. He's fought so long. He just wants to rest now. Just rest and give in.
There's a weeping in the distance, so soft that at first, he thinks it's merely the wind through the tree tops. But it comes again, louder this time, closer. The weeping is full of rage, of fear, of despair. And he knows that voice. He knows it.
It calls to him, crying into his blood, "Get up...get up...find me. FIND ME."
In the sucking black, he finally finds his voice, "Get the fuck off me."
The darkness quivers with denied rage.
He shakes, shakes his body, shakes his soul and the darkness recedes, hissing. It doesn't want to be denied its ultimate prize. The weeping is louder now almost as if it's just out of his sight.
He begins to run even as part of him fears he will be too late. The darkness follows, close, closer, just at his heels. He feels trapped between fear and courage. Which will save him? Which will save them both?
He stops in the middle of the street and the darkness halts, pulsing.
He opens his mouth and screams out a name.
The darkness echoes in hissing whispers.
The weeping fills his ears.
His hands are filled with blood.
And the horror of knowing he's too late.