Seven

Aliyah slept, and dreamed. Into her unconscious mind crept images, images of blood, death and gore. She twisted and turned trying to get out of it. In her mind she saw a dark figure, standing over a plain, the landscape was bathed in read light, and upon the fields people were dieing, the shadowy figure stepped forward, she couldn't see his face, but he spoke to her. "They will bring me forth, and I will bring ruin upon the landscape. You will never stop me!"

Aliyah bolted upright in bed, sweat had soaked into her matrices, and she was soaked. Walking over to the window, she pulled it open and looked out into the night. Now she knew that which lurked out there in the darkness, preying on the humans that wandered into the night. A brief thought crept into her head, what if Charity were taken by one of those things, almost as quickly she dismissed the thought. She tried to go back to bed, but she couldn't sleep, every time she closed here eyes she saw that dark figure, and a killing that it had brought with it into her mind, she pulled a book from her shelf and began to read.

The following morning she stretched and rubbed her eyes, the book she had been reading fell to the floor as she pulled he self to her feet. She looked over to the clock, 7.30; she had plenty of time to get ready for school.

The school day went pretty uneventfully.  Outside of geography Aliyah bumped into Merry.

"Hi, where's John?" She asked looking up and down the corridor.

"Oh, he's not feeling well." Merry shrugged, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "We should be going in."

Aliyah turned to look at the rest of the class filing in. "Yup we should." They followed the throng of students in.

There was a scream from the front of the line, Aliyah pushed past a group of girls and to the front; the scene that greeted her was one of utter horror. "Oh my god." She whispered.

Aliyah was sitting on a straight-backed wooden chair; sitting across from her was Chief inspector Anderson, he was overweight and balding, and seemed to have a grudge against her.

"So, Mrs Whitehead could you tell me one moor time what happened?" He said leaning into the desk.

"Look officer, I already tolled you. I didn't see anything. When I heard the screams we, my friends and I pushed forward to see what was going on." At the mention of her friends he looked down at the page in front of him.

"That would be Meredith and Jonathan?"

"Yes. Can I go now?" He just nodded. She got up and pulled her jacket from the back of the chair.

Outside she found Dr Brody and Merry talking.

"What's up?" she asked slinging her bag down on the table.

"Dr Brody wanted to know about what happened to Mr Goodwood." Merry said.

"What did you see?" Brody asked.

"He was on the floor, his heart was ripped out," She shook her head at the images. "There was a circle of blood around him, it had symbols on it."

"Can you remember what the symbols looked like?"

"Not really, just patterns, lines in the blood." She tilted her head back rubbing here eyes.

"It's ok don't worry." He said. "But I do have one thing to ask you. Do you think you could go back, and get a photo of the pattern, they've moved the body."

She just looked at him; no words were necessary. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it necessary, but I think it may be related to the theft of the Odon statue."

"How?" Aliyah asked.

"They may be using the blood rights to call the power of the statue."

Aliyah pushed the police tap aside and stepped into the classroom. Apart from the removal of the body nothing had been moved, she pulled the digital camera Dr Brody had given her and pointed it at the pattern. Something about it struck her as familiar, it was a double circle divided into eight by lines, like a wheel within a wheel; there were symbols within the circle. She quickly took the picture, and left. But the feeling that she had seen the symbol before haunted her.