Rain pelted down in sheets on the small, sleepy British tourist town. Not a thing was spared; no umbrella, poncho or raincoat could keep the few year-round inhabitants dry. They all hurried along, ignoring each other and the two red-haired young men that passed each other in the street. One went to the town bookshop. The other, with the collar of his trench coat turned up and wearing sunglasses to to hide his face, ducked down an alley.
"You're late," Drew scolded, pulling down her hood as Doyle scurried up to the shop window.
"Engine trouble," Doyle replied with a smirk. "Got the book?" She pulled one corner out from under her coat. "Good."
The door opened with a musical bell. "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to stand out in the rain?" the elderly shopkeeper said, beckoning them inside. "Both of you, in, in! Hurry now." She stood aside and held the door as Drew and Doyle passed.
"Thank you," Drew said. She unzipped her coat and took out the book.
"Not a problem, dear." The shopkeeper waved dismissively, taking a seat behind the front desk. "You were going to have to come in sooner or later- there's a law against loitering. If you need anything, my name is Zephaniah." She picked up an old-fashioned ink pen and slid on a pair of half-moon glasses that hung on a chain around her neck.
"Actually, we came to talk to you." Drew went to the desk and set down the book. "We think one of our parents bought this here, and we were wondering if you could help us with something," she explained.
Zephaniah set the pen down. "I sold this to a man named Donovan Blackwell back in the fifties," she said incredulously, taking the book and flipping it open to a page marked with a ribbon. "Your father, you said?"
This time Doyle answered. "Yeah, he was, but that's not why we came. See, my sister here believes in magic and prophecies and stuff, and she thinks you might be able to tell us about them." Doyle reached over the desk and tapped the page on the right. "She thinks we might, you know, be them or something."
On the faded paper were two pictures from centuries before: a white-haired young girl in a black dress, staring soullessly at them, and a much younger redheaded boy who was viciously stabbing a rag doll with a dagger. There was a twisted smile on the boy's face, as if he was overcompensating for his sister's lack of emotion. Both had red eyes. Below the pictures was the story of the prophesy and the two red-eyed children. Someone- presumably Drew and Doyle's father- had scrawled something on the margin of the page in black ink, as if they were in a hurry.
NOT AGAIN.
Zephaniah shook her head. "Oh, honey. I've had a few come in before worried about them, but you're the first to think they are them." She set the book back on the desk in front of her and leaned over it so she could speak quietly to Drew and Doyle. "But you best listen to your sister, young man. Prophecies have a strange way of coming true, especially around here." The book snapped shut with a loud thump and before either of them could register what had happened, Drew and Doyle were back out in the rain.
"Uh, sis? What just happened?"
"I truly don't know."
Dorian stepped through the back door of the latest in a series of run-down hideouts, watching the security footage from a dozen different cameras turn his sister's face blue. "Delilah," he said to the back of her head, pulling off his sunglasses. Delilah spun from the monitor bay silently. He held out a picture from the bus stop on the outskirts of town; just minutes before: a blurry but still recognizable Doyle Blackwell.
"Sister, it is time. Our father walks the earth once more."
