DESCENT INTO A REALM OF INSANITY:

RAVENLOFT CALLS TO THE CHOSEN ONES

PROLOGUE:

SIR MAXWELL HARRINGTON'S

RAVENLOFT REALM CALL

DECEMBER 1888: LONDON

SIR HAMILTON'S ESTATE

I shuddered as the wind blew through the small gap under the front living room door. Quickly I pulled the wooden rocking chair closer to the blazing fire. Warming my hands and covering myself in a thick red dyed woollen blanket.

I looked over the intricate ornate box. A trinket, a gift, maybe a child's toy. Who would know what such a precious artefact of antiquity truly represented and what was its purpose. The box displayed an intricate design of symbols and hieroglyphs.

They were made visible only by the application of a wondrous 'magical' dust I had acquired from a wise woman in India on my last visit there. The locals had called her a witch but still they revered her through simple minded devotion to an unknown power.

I had been warned by my friends, acquaintances and fellow good gentlemen of the London Explorers Guild for Distinguished Gentlemen. They had quite the concerned look on their noble faces when I showed them my little box of horrors as I was now calling it.

I used my old magnifying eye glass to study the design and gradually I traced very lightly with my fingers which resulted in a complicated mechanism of gears and wheels to spring to life under my fingers.

Feverishly my hands worked in rhythm to the pulsating steel box before me. I was most surprised when an eerie assortment of disturbing lights and shadows were cast onto the surface of the walls, floor and ceiling.

At first the images seemed to be of people from a distant time easily recognized by the garb they adorned themselves with and the setting of what seemed to be ancient Egypt. But ever so slightly those wonderful images began to distort. A myriad of visages assailed my mind. The room began to spin uncontrollably. The voices were terrible. A cacophony of wild murderous shrieks, wails, cries and shouts left me dumbfounded and dizzy.

Then the room and indeed the world turned black. I awoke slowly and painfully. My blurred vision returned excruciatingly slowly as my eyelids felt as heavy as lead weights. To my shame and folly I must admit in that terrifying moment to feeling something I had not experienced since my youth, fear.

It was a well pronounced and exaggerated fear of the unknown. I was like the fumbling student I had once been at university and seemingly I had reverted to my cowardly self once more.

Then the visions in my mind. Those terrible ungodly visions. How I regretted my foolishness. If only I had listened to my piers. At first I wondered who had let out that ear bursting screech that would deafen even the most hard of hearing. Frightened and horrified simply by the sound of what seemed to be wailing, pleading people begging for mercy from their as yet unseen assailant.

Before I had chance to react I was set upon by roguish hands. I thought them to be demons. I struggled and panicked and ran. They screeched after me and manhandled me to the floor. Ripping at my skin they tore away at my flesh leaving bloody red pools of vital essence spilling from my body.

In the background I was surprised to hear a lone woman crying out. She knew me and spoke my name as I was unceremoniously butchered on my own living room floor. The shouts and now screams were ear bursting and left me shocked that someone would act so savagely in front of a lady.

Strange what comes to mind when faced with ones imminent and untimely death. Then there was commotion all around me throughout my room. Strong hands pulled at the demon wrenching him away from me and I continued to flail around. I seemed to be hitting something soft and bloody.

To my horror and I almost wish my sight had not returned so abruptly. I found myself atop a servant, Old Henry Sharpe. The full scale of the horror was only now registering in my mind. I know not from where or who I had acquired an Egyptian ceremonial sacrificial dagger.

Blood dripped from its tip and covered the blade to the jewel encrusted hilt. My eyes shot to the bloody red ruby as the dagger's centrepiece. Again the images of a great evil event thousands of years earlier had taken place and was now replaying with me in the starring role of the demonic villain.

And then again hands all around me dragging me off the faithful and loyal servant, Henry. All around me was bloody carnage. I fell to the floor after being dragged to my feet. Bodies everywhere. And their poor faces. I will remember them to my dying day. Loyal men and women who had served me for over the past 30 years. All servants and hired hands.

Ebeneezer Boswell my friend and personal butler for 35 years. He looked dead and had been ripped apart by some wild beast. His face was barely recognizable. His clothes torn to shreds. His matted bloody hair covered in his own blood. And that look on his face. It imprinted itself on my mind. I will never forgot the sheer look of terror and seemingly surprise.

Whoever or whatever had killed him had come as a terrible fateful shock.

Then it dawned on me. I dropped the demonic dagger to the floor. All around the bloody vignette had a feeling of something unworldly. Possession perhaps. Was I possessed. Maybe a demonic entity summoned by the artefact. Would I know or indeed would I really care.

Then the blow to the head sent me spinning and I was thrown to the ground where I joined that carnival of cadavers.

A worried looking police constable stood over me. He seemed more terrified of striking a renowned gentleman than the horror show resplendent before him. I bet he was terrified of the punishment he would quite rightly receive. Can't have common rabble striking learned gentlemen. It simply wouldn't do.

A second and third officer opened fire. I felt the bullet impacts rip into my body punching bloody red holes where flesh had been but a moment earlier. I felt my life draining from my body. In anger they emptied their weapons. I looked up and whispered "Why"?

An age passed by and I didn't know if I had moved on from this world. I was regaled with what I can only now imagine were my crimes. I had been the perpetrator of this festival of death. Whatever had pushed me over the edge must have been a terrible and wondrous artefact. A poison present gilded with gold and full of a scorpions murderous sting for who so ever was foolish enough to try and open it. I felt myself losing my grip on this world and entering something quite different. Very different indeed and most importantly to my liking.

Detective Sergeant James Harrigan looked over the bloody carnage. Servants, hired hands, maids, noble gentlemen and their wives lay dead and unmoving at his feet.

"What the goddamn hell is this shitshow? How the fuck do I write this up?"

Lieutenant Dan Harper stood staring. His hands to his side and he simply shrugged. He, like his colleagues was lost for words. How did a well liked and respected gentleman. A philanthropist and billionaire responsible for so many gifts to the city of London and its people turn into a deranged psychotic savage killer seemingly overnight.

"He's a hero you know. Military awards, civilian awards, academic awards. This man has been in every newspaper in the country for the last fifty years. How does a seventy five year old man find the savage strength to tear through thirty two people. Eye witnesses said the whole household including many noble guests came running into the room to help calm the situation not knowing the extent of what was occurring and witnessed the most bloody scene they had ever had the misfortune to see. Some of them becoming his victims too."

"And Sir Maxwell Hamilton? How does he fare, gentlemen?" questioned Police Commissioner Abraham Stanley.

"Hello sir, no news from the hospital yet. But they emptied sixty eight rounds into him, Commissioner."

"The man man was warned by very intelligent men who told him no good would come of his obsession with the occult and the rest of his nonsense. Even he won't be able to escape a hanging if he lives. Best if he dies in that hospital."

"He has a ten man armed escort detail, Commissioner. It's as much for everyone else safety as it his for his own. They'll be a mob wanting to lynch him if he lives."

"Lieutenant Harper. Your presence is requested at the hospital. Something very weird and bizarre is happening to Sir Hamilton."

"This just keeps getting better by the minute."