Demon Born

The Soul Forge

Riordan opened his eyes to a flood of sunlight. He looked groggily to the clock which read as 10 am. He looked back at the ceiling and wondered why Kraal hadn't woken him for the daily work. He got up and rubbed his sleep-filled eyes, stretching as far as his frame allowed, and a drawn-out yawn escaped his lips. He looked again at the clock, then got up and went to his door.

He heard snoring from Kraal's door. He realized, with a chuckle, that Kraal hadn't woken him because he wasn't awake himself. He went to the kitchen, and started preparing his breakfast. He stopped immediately, when he noticed a slight footfall from outside the apartment. He winced when he felt a presence, a human presence, and knew that there were many more. He knew, too, that these were not just any humans.

They were Janissaries.

Riordan walked quietly to Kraal's room, not wanting to alert the humans that he knew they were there. He went into Kraal's room to rouse him, but to his surprise Kraal was already awake.

"Well, what do we do?" Kraal asked Riordan.

"We can't skip town, so we'll just take up a new residence." Riordan replied, strapping on his bandolier, "We'll have to cut our connections around here."

"Wouldn't that mean cutting out your girlfriend, too?"

Riordan winced again and scowled at Kraal. He noticed then that Kraal's expression was serious, not mocking. He looked to the floor, sullen. Of course he had to, Riordan thought, it was standard procedure. If any guardians were found, they were to immediately cut all forms of communication to anyone they knew and leave the area. He sighed, realizing that he could do nothing about it.

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The Janissaries broke through the door, led by McReary himself. Arnold McReary, lead detective of the Janissaries, has been working on this case for months. He's been relentlessly tracking down these two elusive criminals, determined to trap them and haul them off to jail. His surprise was complete, indeed, when he entered the apartment to find it completely empty.

He was surprised to find an empty, charred husk.

Demon Born

The Soul Forge

He was looking over the garden he had planted, with it's rows of vegetables, his main source of food, and the variety of colorful flowers he added. He looked at the garden and muttered that it will be a good one this year, then went to the edge of the stone wall he'd built around his cottage and looked over the valley. It was spring, a time of new growth, new hopes, and new dreams of what was to come. He smiled as he considered his life. He was 6 feet and 3 inches tall, he had a tanned muscular build from all the hard work, he had brown hair, and dark blue eyes. Certainly he was not lonely, far from it. He preferred living in solitude rather than the pain of life intruding on him daily. As he looked down to the valley, though, he considered a woman he had met the previous day, her long flowing golden hair and her almond-shaped green eyes. The way she smiled and tilted her head, and how she seemed to see past his indifference made him feel strange. It made him feel almost giddy. He frowned as he considered the feeling he suddenly felt in his gut. It was a strange feeling, a feeling that he shouldn't be thinking about things like that. A feeling that those thoughts equated to... Weakness?

Demon Born

The Soul Forge

"I need his soul placed on the Forge, Hephaestus. The Soul Forge is the only thing that can free me from this prison." a grating and wheezing voice said.

"As you wish, brother," another, less grating voice replied, "It will be done."

So this is the book I'm working on. I'll post a chapter every so often.

Demon Born

The Soul Forge

For ages untold, many a millennia past, the war raged between Heaven and Hell, a great rift between the forces of God and the hell-spawned demons. They fought out of their own ideals, they fought out of principles, they fought out of pure hatred and unbridled rage. For thousands of years, the species of the surface world have ever found themselves to be the exact center of the war, the neutral party that finds themselves to be between powerful forces they could not comprehend. There have been many great battles that will be remembered by both sides, but one rose above the others. One event, one demon, changed the entire war.

His name was Lucifer. Lucifer sought one thing; to bring the turmoil that marked his brothers' lives to an end, to rid themselves of the Nine Circles of Hell. However, he was opposed not by just the Arch-Angels, but by God himself.

He fought on for his brothers, and the scale seemed to tip in his favour, but he was betrayed by three of his own Generals. They were approached by the Angels, with a deal of peace, of solitude and escape from ther intermitable existence. The three Generals conspired against Lucifer, and he was cast into the lowest circle of the Nine Hells, a place where no light shone through it's swirling darkness. A place that was so desolate, it drove even Lucifer insane.

Unknown to anyone, though, he placed a seed in the world.. One human was born, who contained the blood of Human AND Demon alike. He lived for years, centuries even, never knowing his true nature. His life was spent in solitude, preferring privacy over companionship. He never died, never even grew old, as did all those around him. To him, it seemed normal.

But nothing is ever truly normal.

He enjoyed these walks, going down a number of streets in no apparent order. He cut through alleys, sometimes, but wanted to bask in the sunlight he had longed for years to see again. He looked around to the bustling people, always surprised at how impatient people truly were. With their number of years to live, he thought they would have some time to look around and bask in the present, instead of waiting for the future to come around. He looked to a shop where he often purchased goods. The shop owner came out, then, and started putting out a new sign for a sale he was planning. While the man looked at the owner, he was a bit confused as to why he looked a bit older than the previous year, or the year before that, or even the year before that. He let it go, though. Perhaps he was just stressed about his job, more and more each year.

He looked again to the sky and watched the clouds roll by. He was startled when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He looked around to see a woman holding pamphlets, and she seemed to want to ask him something. He politely listened as she explained that she was recruiting young Christians for a charity that she was starting. He asked what Christians do. "Why, they pray to God for the absolvment of our sins, of course. And-" she started to continue, but she noticed the look on his face.

He was frowning, not because of what she said, but because of a strange feeling he felt in his gut. A small voice in the back of his head screamed out that this woman should go crawl in a hole and die, that he should strike her down for those blasphemic words. That it was so very, very wrong to pray...

He shook his head and declined the pamphlet she offered him. She looked at him closely and asked if he was feeling well. He smiled and said that he did feel a little tired, that he should probably get home and get some rest. She shrugged and walked off, and so did he. For the rest of the day, he pondered about what happened and why he had felt like screaming all those horrible things in her face. He decided to let it go, to let it wait for another day, whenever that may be.