Chapter one:

The over done, pure shadow colored, cloak billowed in the, slow and ominous, wind from atop the new church's highest most steeple. The over done sleeves were so vastly over done in size that they covered everything in them in a veil of darkness. Frayed terribly at the ends, with some threads swishing menacingly from random areas of darkness, and a dark grey, but far from the blackness of the cloak, colored fabric was wrapped around a face. This gave two impressions, from a distance, the image of a skull's jaw, and from short range, the impression that the thing you were facing had no face. The black fur forming a mask around the red brown eyes blended into the shadow the hood cast over its master, and thus completed the image of something that was shadow, darkness that was impossible to kill. If you were standing inches from the figure, you would see two narrow black paws standing agilely on the point of the steeples decorative crucifix.

Dietrich was waiting for the moon to come out, so as to create the most awe inspiring dramatic effect possible. Slowly the weapon he had concealed inside the overly large cloak came protruding out of one of the large sleeves. In the dull light of the many stars it still glinted eerie black wood twisting and overlapping in places except for where its master held it, was bare black perfect smooth, and of course the third place he held it from was the Cooper Symbol attached to the end of this scythe. Dietrich had practiced so many times with the scythe he could conceal its full length in side the cloak, and jut it out of the large sleeve slice something through and through three times and place it back in his cloak all in the time of 3.3 picoseconds (keep in mind that 134 milliseconds is the time it takes for light to travel around the earths Equator, so 3.3 Picoseconds is the time it takes light to travel one millimeter.)

The full moon emerged form behind a blue tinted cloud, and the scythe glinted hungrily for blood in its wake. Dietrich moved his feet a blur the cloak billowing behind him in such a way that even from a close distance it looked like the cloak had no feet. He porously held the scythe out behind him moving it in small circles. He knew that doing this added to his appeal of something that wasn't alive, nor there because it added the effect of something being held by nothing.

Dietrich jumped onto a near fruit stand and then on to a eudemon hanging high in the air. His feet barely touched the bouncy fabric propelling him onto the diagonal edge of the roof. A light guard was coming his way; slowly he retracted the scythe jumped down in front of the guard a good five feet away. A mixture of shock and fear spread across the light guard's face.

"I-I-I-Is this some kind of sick Joke?!" the Guard shouted voice wavering. When Dietrich said nothing the guard seemed to lose the control he had and fired the bayonet he was holding, and the small metal ball, now orange, slammed a small whole through the cloak missing Dietrich by a good 6 inches. The cloak, being so big it made him appear a good foot wider than his slender body actually was. He looked at the whole where the bullet passed. The hole seemed to instantly close.

"W-W-What is the meaning….How---"

"'A man can die but once'…Whilst the lingering mortal fear of death, pain, and darkness prevails. It does none but light the sparkling flame of a comical commerce." Dietrich said cutting off the guard. The Guard, now staring at Dietrich in disbelief blinked in confusion, and, in that splits moment of blackness, Dietrich's cloak ruffled and no more than a second later did three glints of silver appears around the guard. An unendurable white-hot convulsion of agony exploded inside the light Guard's stomach spreading rapidly through his body. No sooner had the pained reached his chest did he feel the amount he inhaled drastically decrease. Dietrich smiled through the grey cloth, knowing all too well that the fool would soon gasp for breath causing movement, and he would topple to the ground in three separate pieces. That was exactly what happened. A thin red line suddenly appeared in a circle around the guards vocal chords, the middle of his clothes began blossoming in crimson blotches, and finally his eyes grew a thin line across them and the guard fell; first half his head and eyes second the rest of his head and finally his torso. Oddly enough his legs remained firmly planted to the ground. Best leave them that way, it might add to the dramatic effect, thought Dietrich as he burst into a run again.

Dietrich had run into five more guards on the way two of which he killed by decapitation and two he beat to death with the blunt end of the scythe, his hands and feet, and the cooper hook. It was in front of him the castle belonging to a large cobra who worked for Clockwerk.