Prologue
The sun had long since sunk beneath the horizon, and along with the darkness came a cold wind, rocking every tree and tearing through the lonely streets. Though the man hunched over his desk was safely indoors, with the heat turned up and warm dinner waiting for him on the stove, he couldn't help but shiver every time a branch rapped at the sides of the wood house. Because something about the night did not feel right. The way the wind whined and howled, the constant tap, tap, tap against his house, and the fact that he had been living in comfortable safety for practically too long. This twisted wind seemed almost a warning of what was to come, a predecessor to death, as if the Earth itself had been holding its breath and letting it out on this very evening, the one where everything would change
Though the man knew nothing of what was to come, he had been expecting it to happen for a while now. After all, it was only a matter of time before they found him, and his family.
Now feeling slightly paranoid, he considered reaching for what he had concealed in the secret space behind the left drawer on his desk. When his hand was halfway there, though, he stopped, feeling foolish. He had never been one to give into fear and ridiculous hunches. So instead, he turned around, flicked off the lights, and headed down the creaky stairs and into the kitchen. After grabbing some things from the cupboards, he seized the big pot off of the stove and ladled some soup into his chipped bowl. Sighing, he sat down to eat, one at a table meant for five. It was almost depressing.
He deliberated waiting for his wife and daughters, but they would probably be a while seeing how chatty friend's parents were and all the traffic at this time of night. Besides, he was hungry and didn't have all that long to eat because those bills wouldn't pay themselves. So there he sat, in the eerily quiet house, the silence indoors greatly contrasted by the gale outside, eating his soup while the dusty light bulbs overhead flickered, nearing the ends of their lives. But the warmth of having food in his stomach was comforting, and soon his earlier jumpiness seemed laughable. His confidants were trustworthy, he had gone to great lengths to protect and hide his family, and they didn't even know a thing. Of course, little did he know that most of his confidants were dead, their secrets extracted in the final moments before their deaths. Had he known the full extent of the danger he was in, he would have taken his family and fled a long while ago, seeking protection. Instead, he sat content, slurping his soup and keeping a watchful eye on the dusty clock to make sure he didn't linger in the kitchen too long.
He was almost feeling smug at this point, but the smile dropped when the wind suddenly stopped. His breath hitched and he froze. He considered passing it off as nothing until he started hearing noises. They were faint at first, but it was obvious that they were coming closer: the sound of footsteps. He dropped his spoon, a mess the last thing on his mind at the moment, and scrambled out of his seat and stumbled to the window. At first, he only saw his sandy-haired, bespectacled reflection looking back at him, but as he squinted out into the inky darkness, he could make out faint shapes trudging down the street.
As calmly as he could with his heart pounding as wildly as it was, he sat back down at the worn table and tried to collect himself. He was hardly moving, keeping his ears attuned to the people silently slipping down the street. He was trying to convince himself that they would just pass by his house and disappear down the street, but years of care and suspicion won out over sensible logic, so he sat perched on his seat. Something about these people, moving so silently and with such conviction, left him nervous. His anticipation only grew as they came closer, and peaked as his hopes were dashed: there was the unmistakable sound of his front gate being creaked open, and he wasn't exactly expecting company.
Leaping off of his chair, he half soared half tripped up the stairs, his sock-clad feet making him slide and blunder. He tore into his office, ripped the drawer open, and swiped through the space behind. He barely made it downstairs in time to receive three sinister knocks. Taking a shuddery breath, he hesitated before turning the corner into the living room and pressing himself against the wall. The people outside knocked thrice more before the door swept open, as if out of its own accord.
Barely daring to breathe, the man drew his fingers over the worn stick of ebony he clutched fiercely in his hands as the hooded figures prowled into his house. Though he couldn't see them he could hear their cloaks dragging across the floor, and they were growing closer. If he didn't seize his chance now, he would lose the element of surprise, and along with it his life, so he took a deep breath to steady himself, and then flung himself out from his hiding place.
Out in the open, he could see that there were an overwhelming nine masked persons, all of whom spun around to face him. He felt a twinge of despair, which he swallowed. Though he knew it was a pointless battle, he could at least take as many of them as he could down with him. So he raised his wand and started throwing spells. Soon the room was filled with bright, flashing lights, ricocheting off of the walls and glowing shields, filling the room with plaster, ceramic, and bits of glass. He was almost feeling good about himself, having taken down several opponents, when he was launched backward by a dart of red light.
He knew it was over the moment he hit the ground, his breath snatched from him, leaving him helplessly staring at the ceiling through cracked glasses. His wand had been flung out of his hand on impact and was now lying uselessly a few feet away. As he lay there, dazed and unable to move, he heard footsteps stomping over. He closed his eyes and winced, ready to brace whatever torture was to come. Instead, he was yanked roughly to his feet. Two hooded figures stepped beside him, gripping his arms with iron fists, and standing intimidatingly at his sides, trapping him. Now that he was upright he could tell that he was shaking and wild-eyed, trapped like prey. It made him feel pathetic. He refused to spend his last moments like this.
So instead of cowering, he straightened his spine confidently, a resolute gleam adopted in his eyes, staring straight ahead at the figure that had come out of the shadows to stand in front of him. He combed the charred darkness under the hood, searching for facial features, but its entire face was thrown under a shroud of darkness and gloom. A small lump formed in his throat, which he discreetly swallowed. The being in front of him chuckled, cold and calculatingly.
"So, I assume you know why we've come." A chilling voice emanated from the black hole of a face, a voice akin to daggers scraped on stone, the harsh bit of winter, the howling wind. In response the man simply narrowed his eyes, defiantly silent. The being growled and stepped closer, the lights in the house flickering and casting it's silhouette eerily around the room.
"We are here to take what's rightfully ours. Where is the girl?" Hissed the shadow impatiently, his voice demanding authority, ownership. The words hung in the air for a second, filling the spaces once occupied by the furniture that lay smashed on the carpet. Then, in a moment, they were shattered like glass, fractals twisting through air, as the scrawny man courageously spit a large, disgusting glob of saliva on the face of the being before him. The room itself reeled its breath in, overtaken with shock as the figure stood frozen, the spit still damp on its hidden face like a solemn raindrop on an inky umbrella, a warning of a storm. Seizing the silence, the man spoke.
"If you were hoping to leave here with that information, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint. All I can say is that she is not in this house, you can tear it apart brick by brick and you will not find her. You may try me and break me and... torture me, but I will never tell you. Her secret dies with me. As a father, husband and protector it is my sworn duty," the man dictated, words clear and crisp, pouring as much enthusiasm he could muster into the empty words that were mere distractions, "My love, I am sorry." He murmured to himself, too softly for those around him to hear, as he looked up and away from the ring of darkness around him and the evil in front. The evil that was furiously wiping his saliva off of its face and looming closer, murder written in his frame.
Then, with everyone caught off guard, the man lunged forward, forcefully breaking through the grips on his fist though there was the sickening crack of a bone breaking. He had no intention of these people staying in his house and lying in wait for his unsuspecting family, nor did he want to be tortured.
So he rolled forward, scooping up his wand with his good hand and desperately firing a spell into the air, his words dwarfed by the chaos around him as his captors surged forward to regain control over him. But they came too late to stop the shimmering flames that crawled out of the man's illuminated wand. They emerged tentative at first, but as the enchanted flames reached higher and greedily leeched off of the oxygen and power around them, they grew stronger, faster. Soon great coils of searing flame licked at the walls, filling the house with unbearable heat.
The flames consumed the wooden house, swallowing everything and everyone, a great bonfire. To all the neighbors, it appeared that gas had leaked and a spark had fueled the flame, a tragic accident. Nobody would know the truth, the way the man had killed himself to save his family, and just before the flames consumed him he smiled. A sorrowful smile, filled with regret that he would have no more time with those he loved but also glad that he had bought them more. For now, they were safe. He knew someone who would figure it out soon enough and take them under their wing, somewhere safe. And so he closed his eyes, shutting out the screams of the cloaked beings around him, and was swallowed by the starving fire.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but by the time the firefighters arrived and doused the fire, all that remained was a charred imprint of where the house used to be, and, unbeknownst to them, the ashes of ten people now scattered in the wind.
