Prologue

(Secret Circle)

The Rise of Tupakula

Seven years later…

Diane sat on the edge of her queen size bed wearing only her bra and panties, and the stretch marks from her son, Tyler, were indelible, and she hated them. With the help of her trust fund, she didn't have any problems paying for college at the University of Oklahoma, and after she finished with school, she decided to stay in a small town called Misty, Oklahoma. Even though Tyler had her last name, it was unmistakable that Brian was the boy's father, but she hadn't seen him since the fight all those years ago. Her pregnancy collided with her school life, and forced her into an alternative school that allowed her to graduate high school a year prior than her peers. She didn't miss Faye or Cassie, but Melissa weighed heavy on her heart because they had an enduring bond, but after she sided with Brian for one split-second during the battle, all her relationships back home crumbled. She kept a nervous optimism Melissa would forgive her, and even though she did, their relationship was never the same.

Misty's population grew to a whopping ten thousand citizens in just over a few years, and she acquired a nice, quaint home near Quail Lake, and in the evenings, she watched the sun set on the water. She purchased a mid-level diner on Main Street called Faith's Bar and Grill, and since she lived square in the Bible Belt of America, she made sure nobody knew about her witchcraft. It took her only a few minutes to slip into her business attire, slap on some makeup, and feed her son a quick breakfast before she dropped him off at Robert E. Lee's Elementary School down the street from Faith's Bar and Grill. When she walked into the facility, Patsy, her manager, had already opened the restaurant at four o'clock in the morning, and Leroy Jenkins, the cook, had a mess of bacon in the oven. Patsy, a twenty-eight-year-old redhead from Muskogee, played the role of an innocent girl from small town, Oklahoma, but Diane caught Leroy and her twice in the backroom naked, and she told them she would fire them if it happened a third time. Patsy was well into her thirties.

Mister Crowley, an older man who owned the quarry on the outskirts of town, sat at the bar with the Misty Gazette, the local newspaper, and read about the death of a girl professing to be a witch. "Somebody took the girl's right hand," he said. Diane looked at the grimace on his face, and could tell he was disgusted. "It happened over there in Muskogee." He shook his head in disbelief, and then said, "Just a horrible group of people living in Muskogee. Rotten to the core."

Diane grabbed one of the papers out of the machine, and scanned the column for any severed limbs. When she read the bottom of the page about the killer cutting off his victim's right hand, she gasped. It didn't mean the killer was a succubus, but it also didn't mean he wasn't a succubus. When it came to the succubus, raping the victim wasn't always the case, but most of the time it happened. During the process, he'd drain the body of all its vitality, and in the end, it would just be an emaciated corpse.

Even though Muskogee was only about an twenty minutes away, her desire to enter a town with a possible succubus was none because they craved witches imbued with dark magic. Her powers blackened during her pregnancy, and since that day, she felt her soul darkening more every day. She tried her best to find spells to alleviate her desire to work in darkness, but most were only temporary spells, and the desire always grew back stronger. Often, she imagined Brian returning just to kill her, but she never imagined rekindling their romance, and with them being apart for so long, she didn't think she could have a relationship with him.

"See! Muskogeans act like their town is this bastion of goodness, but that's all a facade," he said as he cut his pancakes up on his plate. Diane looked over at him for a moment because she didn't quite understand his line of reasoning.

"Every town has its problems," she stated.

He smirked, and then took a bite of his pancakes. "Not like Muskogee. Nothing is like Muskogee. On the surface, it's just like every other town. High school football, basketball, and some baller impregnates the homecoming queen is all normal, small town stuff, but there's much more in Muskogee."

She looked over at the old man with the balding head, and craggy old face. He had a couple of missing teeth on the right side of his mouth, and a worn appearance. "Like I said earlier, we all have our issues."

"Misty never hired some country singer to write and sing a song about it. Muskogee has that, 'I'm so Proud to be an Okie From Muskogee' nonsense." He laughed. "They got the world fooled with that over the top, campy song."

"You're just a little old hater, Mister Crowley," she said.

He chuckled. "Maybe. But behind all that 'we don't smoke mary jane' is something insidious."

"Like what?" She asked.

"Vampires," he said calmly, and with a straight face. He threw some money on the counter, grabbed his hat, and walked toward the door. "Don't go to Muskogee, Missy. It's not for you."

"That guy's a loon," Patsy said with a smirk. "The closest thing Muskogee has to vampires is preachers and vacuum cleaner salesmen."

Regardless, Diane felt a need to travel to Muskogee because of the possibility of a succubus. She knew vampires existed, and it was possible Muskogee had a few; however, she didn't think they lived and bred in the small town. In her Book of Shadows, it had several chapters on the bloodsuckers, but she never took them seriously. But when it came to the elite vampires, they wielded magic, controlled human behavior, and killed with ease. There was only a few vampires like that in all the world. She doubted any like that existed in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The morning traffic hauled into the eatery, ate, and left with little fanfare. The money rolled into the business, and Diane left around nine o'clock in the forenoon.

Muskogee…

She traveled down Sixty-nine street. It was a highway that went north into Muskogee, Oklahoma, and the town looked like any other town with approximately forty thousand souls in it. It was the early fall, and the trees had that golden, fall beauty. It appeared Sixty-Nine turned into Thirty Second Street, and then she made a right turn by a Kum & Go store. The police found the body of the young woman with the missing hand in Rotary Park, a little past the swing set.

Diana parked her car on the north side of the park. She noticed the golden trees of fall. There was a big spooky house directly across the street from the park. It looked like it had mystic powers, but she wasn't sure. She walked near the swing set, and looked around for a moment. She had a magic crystal that detected for succubus residue, but didn't find anything at first. When she walked near the basket ball court, a warm, tingling feeling encompassed her entire body, and she felt the woman's presence. The girl was probably no more than sixteen years old, black, and naturally athletic. She gasped.

"The girl was a Wiccan Warrior," she said under her breath. The images of the young woman filled her mind with hope because she didn't know anything about a Wiccan order of fighters. She tried to focus her thoughts on the creature she fought, but she couldn't generate a mental picture of it. The girl's name came to her, and it was Harley Ann Cooper, a Wiccan Warrior with great powers and the ability to kill with her bare hands. She fought against a gaggle of vampires, but she couldn't see their faces because one of the vampires used magic like an expert.

Suddenly, she felt a pain in her head, and didn't know what to make of it. It almost overwhelmed her because it was so intrusive. She sat down on the ground for a moment so she could shake it off. "What's going on with me?" She asked herself. Twice, she felt like something hindered her from breathing, so she decided to leave the park. When she walked over to her car, a tall, heavyset black man stood by her conveyance, and it made her nervous. He dressed like a man of means, but she didn't trust him. He wore some thick glasses with a steampunk, Gothic top-hat. He had goggles placed on top the hat with a long, black trench-coat.

"Diane Meade, how are you doing?" The tall black man said.

"How do you know me?" She asked calmly. Looking on from a distance more than an arm's reach, she folded her arms.

"Please don't be afraid. You're among a fellow witch," he said, "I'm a Wiccan Warrior." The large man walked over to her, and Diane stumbled backwards.

"Please, don't come any closer," she said.

"Diane, my name is Christopher Wallace," he said softly, "I'm nearly eight thousand years old."

"You don't appear that old," she said with a serious look on her face.

"I've been chasing a demon nearly my entire life," he said. "An elusive demon."

"You look familiar to me," she said.

He laughed. "Yes. You've seen me on television," he said, "I was a rapper in another life."

"But you're dead," she said. "You were shot."

"I had to disappear because my cover was blown," he said, "I was trying to catch Machiavelli, a demon that feeds on dark witches."

"Is he a succubus?" She asked.

"He's much more than that," he said, "He's a eight thousand year old demon. In the old world, they called him Tupakula."

Chapter Two

(Gaining Knowledge)

The smell of cinnamon buns permeated throughout the eatery, and she ate one while reading her Book of Shadows. The leather book had her family name written on the front, and she called it the Meade Bible. Through the pages, she looked for Christopher Wallace's name, and found him mentioned a hundreds of times in the center of the book. He had an entire section of the book dedicated to him, and his epic battle with Tupacula. It was a thick book, an intimidating read, and it had over three thousand pages in the first volume. Maybe the book went back some two thousands year, or longer, but it was older than Christ, at least the spells and potions. In any case, she needed to learn as much of the story as possible.

The Meade Bible had two hundred pages written on the birth of the vampire, and it started with Tupacula, the first son of Cain. According to the book, Adam and Eve weren't the first human beings on the planet, but from a prominent family in what would be modern day Zambia. When Adam-of the royal family-married a peasant girl named Eve, the King banished his son from the Kingdom. According to the text, Adam was forbidden to partake of the peasant girls, at least in a serious manner. The King referred to the peasant girls as the forbidden fruit. They had ways and ideas contrary to that of the royal family; therefore, taking a bite from the peasant's apple meant banishment from the kingdom.

When Adam left the Kingdom, he took his inheritance with him, and traveled to what would be modern day Tanzania. Within months of settling, Eve gave birth to Cain, and Adam gave him all his attention for the first five years; but after Eve gave birth to Abel, something inside of Cain changed. He felt threatened by his younger brother. When Cain turned twenty-five, he grew crops as far as the eyes could see. When he brought some of his crops to his father, Adam scoffed.

"The real wealth is in the livestock," Adam said.

"But what of all the work I've done?" Cain asked.

"It's of no consequence. Your brother is the greater provider, and has my blessing."

Cain walked away from Adam emasculated and hurt, and he grabbed a hatchet from the back of the hut, and watched Abel as he herded his sheep. He walked behind his brother, and slew him in front of his father, and it nearly destroyed Adam. Without anything except the clothes on his back, Cain spent nearly a year roaming the land until he came to a witch named Medusa. Her beauty enticed him in ways he hadn't imagined. She had a soft face, ripe olive skin, and an agreeable disposition. Her hut was without a man, in the middle of nowhere, and she knew how to use a spear. She invited cain into her hovel for some sustenance, but he wanted more. Reaching for her tattered clothing, she pulled away, and then he threw her to the dirt floor. She didn't have a chance against his massive strength, and he had disagreeable relations with her. She tried to resist, but he placed his left forearm across her neck until she didn't have the power to fight back. When he penetrated her, she repeated a chant, and after he climaxed, he was frozen in place.

Cain lay frozen on the floor, stiff, and quiet, and Medusa slid from underneath him. His semen dripped out of her, and she said, "I shall have your son, and I will name him Tupac. He shall grow strong, and take his place in your grandfather's kingdom. She tied Cain up inside her hovel, and he tried to escape on several occasions, but it was futile. She raped him repeatedly, but he didn't have any control over his erection. When she gave birth to her son, she spent years training him on how to be a warrior. Cain died on Tupac's tenth birthday.

When Tupac turned eighteen, he left home with his armor, and traveled south to his Grandfather's Kingdom, and Adam had already passed. His uncle Shem controlled the Kingdom, and when Tupac approached him, he pulled out his spear, and threw it at Shem. It went through his uncle's chest, and before he could claim the land, the followers of Shem slew him, and threw his body in the marshes.

Medusa found her son, and the guards had stabbed him all over, and he lay lifeless in the marshes. She cried over her poor boy, and brought his body to the burial site on the outside of the city. Carefully, she buried his body in the moist ground, and performed a conversion ritual that changed her son from a man into a demon. Two days later, he awoke from his resting place, and clawed his way to the surface. The first vampire had the ability to walk in the daylight. When she found her son eating a dead child, she guided him to a body of water with the boy's heart. She bathed her demon, and cleaned him up. When he stepped out of the water, she called him, "Tupacula."

Diane didn't read every sordid detail mentioned about Tupacula because she wanted to read the part about Christopher Wallace, but in the olden days, he was called Geb. He was nothing but a boy when Tupacula had already begun his reign of terror. Relaxing, he sat on the old river, and skipped rocks across it. He saw a group of men dressed in black robes marching across the hilltop, and they had a child with them. It piqued his curiosity, and he followed behind the men. Once they came to the temple atop the hill, they grabbed Geb, and told him to leave.

"What are you doing here?" One of the men asked. "This is sacred land."

Immediately, he descended the hill, and didn't think anything else about the priest. He walked home, but the next day, he went back up the hill, and he found most of the priest dead. Their necks had been ripped out by some wild animal. He ran back down to the village, and told the town's people what had happened. A group of women, about twelve, grabbed Geb, and splashed some sheep's blood on his face, and went into an ancient chant. He passed out on the floor for approximately a day, and when he awoke, he had great powers. When rumor spread that another witch wounded Tupacula, the order put Geb in a deep sleep for two thousand years.

"I was born in nineteen-ninety-three," she said to herself, "I'm not prepared to tussle with witches and demons older than recorded history. This is crazy."