Nashville
All Saints’ Day
10:00 a.m.

Raven and Fane had followed Ember, trying to stop her, but she’d been too quick for them. They couldn’t go to her house; Raven didn’t want to insert himself into the crime scene. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew if they showed up—their faces pale, their hair jet-black—the people running the investigation would see them and put it all together.

They’d driven out of downtown in silence. Maybe he could buy a baseball cap and some chinos, try to get in that way. He discarded that thought. No matter what he tried to do to look like everyone else, he was always apart, always separate. They’d pick him out as an imposter in a heartbeat. He had the shadows of the night etched across his face, as permanent as a tattoo.

They spent the rest of the night together, just the two of them. They slept late, then he dropped Fane at her house with a soulful kiss. Back home again, his house was silent, waiting. He took some milk from the fridge and went to his room.

What to do about Ember?

He went to his small altar, the one in the corner on the floor, the one he used for his darkest path work. The small table held a chalice, his athamé and a lidless black box. His implements, his tools. They were waiting for him, their energy rising out of the box in waves.

These were his portable paraphernalia, something he usually carried in his car for times of extreme unction. He’d brought them last night, to the houses of his enemies, for strength. A feather for air, a piece of obsidian for earth, a match for fire and a shell for water, each imbued with spells conducted in the moonlight to give them power and anchor them to him. He didn’t need fancy things, didn’t need to be surrounded by opulence. He worshipped the earth, and his tools represented that.

He arranged the items in their appropriate spots on the altar—North, South, East and West—lit a candle scented with jasmine and ylang-ylang, then sat on the floor facing the flame, and watched. He ignored the phone when it rang, knowing it was Fane. He needed peace and quiet. Oh, how he wished it were dark out. He could concentrate so much better when there wasn’t sun and light.

He relaxed into deep contemplation, meditating on the correct path, until the flame of the candle finally guttered out in the melted wax.

He came back to himself then, knew what he needed to do. He opened his Book of Shadows, searching for the right spell to counterbalance Ember’s anger, to draw her back to them.

He found the spell. He went back to his altar, took up the poppet he’d designed two weeks earlier, just in case. As much as he hated to do it, he was going to have to punish Ember. She’d see the path after she suffered. He thought as he worked, molding the wax into a more feminine shape.

The pentacles were a masterful stroke. The police would be off chasing their tails, looking for suspects who fit their stupid profiles, combing the bushes and dark churches for Satanists and such. Satanists. What a joke. They had no power in his world—Satan didn’t exist. Dark angels, purveyors of evil, certainly, but with the right spell, the right amount of control and power from Elysium and the netherworld, they too could be cowed into work.

He sent a quick mental thank you to Azræl, felt his skin grow hot as the thought coalesced. Azræl was with him, inside him now. He’d opened his soul to the dark angel, allowed him passage into the deepest recesses of his mind. He was becoming more powerful. Shedding the blood of the nonbelievers gave him a new gravitas. He wondered for a moment just how strong he was going to become, then set the poppet down. It was finished, and at midnight he’d go to the graveyard, speak the words that would finish Ember’s independent streak and secure her back to his side.

Raven was counting on the ignorance of the lay community to assure confusion, to buy himself time. He just needed another couple of days to get the rest of his plan in place. Thorn had dropped off the face of the earth; he assumed Ember had been in contact with him and was trying to draw them apart. Ember herself had turned off her phone, wasn’t responding. He felt the bits of his life, his world, unraveling, but assuaged himself with the knowledge of what he had left to do. He was almighty, and he had Fane. Fane would never leave his side, would never betray him. That he knew for a fact.

He opened his computer, routing himself through several servers until he was confident the originating address would lead to Japan, then pulled up YouTube. The video was gone.

He felt the fury flow through him, the dark angel’s fury. He tapped the keys, searching, then found it again, on a sharing site called Vimeo. He glanced at the comments; they ranged from shock to admiration. He breathed a sigh of relief—the plan had worked. It was going viral, just like he wanted. He looked in a few more places—some had it, some had taken it down. That was fine. People would continue posting it in his stead, until the entire world viewed his masterpiece.

His lips pulled back in a grin and he ran his tongue over his chapped lips. Despite constant exfoliation with a tube of Fane’s Philosophy Kiss Me lip scrub, the black lipstick he liked seemed to eat away the top layer of skin on his lips, leaving them perpetually chapped. His nervous licking didn’t help, he ended up smothering his mouth in Carmex when he wasn’t in public. It was a shame, because he hated looking in the mirror when he wasn’t dressed. The makeup gave him strength, helped him hide. He turned off the desk lamp behind him so he wouldn’t see his reflection in the laptop screen.

He queued the movie, sat back in his chair and watched.

It had taken him and Fane many weeks to make the film. There had been so many little things along the way—the screenwriting course she took at Watkins, the digital film course he’d taken last summer at The Art Institute, the expense of buying the camera and laptop that would allow him to edit the video down into cohesive footage. They’d pooled their money and made the investment—he was sure it would pay off in the long run. Movie Maker ended up being incredibly simple to use. He and Fane had written the script, taken turns filming the shots. It had taken them three weeks to get everything perfect, to shoot, edit the scenes down, storyboard the sections that weren’t flowing right, building the film frame by frame. The music had proved harder than he expected, but once he found Audacity, an online music editor, he was able to get it seamlessly integrated.

Granted, he’d been tinkering with the background music up until yesterday, but that was more an effect thing, deleting out the real names being shouted and dubbing them with the characters’. He had to admit, he’d done a brilliant job. Fane had helped too—they’d gotten so good at the software, so flawless, that when the time had come to load in the actual murder scenes, they were able to do so in less than an hour. Well, an hour and a half—they’d stopped midway through to have wild, unrelenting sex. It was the deepest joining they’d ever experienced, leaving them both breathless and trembling; their hands still covered in the blood of the nonbelievers.

Yes, the production quality was a bit off, shaky in spots, but they were filming horror, after all. The Blair Witch Project was a huge hit and their camera had bounced around through the whole film. It would be fine. Once it was picked up by a studio, a new producer might want to fill in some of the rough spots, but for the most part, Raven felt sure his genius would be appreciated. And he was right. The movie going viral would cement the first part of the plan.

He sat back in his chair. He’d always known he was meant for more. He was meant for much, much more.

Aware of his differences at an early age, Raven had done everything he could to understand himself. Philosophy gave him a respite, the burden of self-actualization allowing him to find out his true motivations. He couldn’t help but think dark thoughts—it was his nature. He couldn’t help being a natural leader—that was his role in the universe. He devoured Sartre and Nietzsche, Jung and Freud. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. He filled his mind with great works, delved into a study of mythology, found he had a great affinity for the concepts of the pantheon, the polytheistic religions. One God did not fit all, that was readily apparent to him. He stopped watching television and devoured books. He started at the beginning, with Hesiod’s Theogony, and Bullfinch’s Mythology, built from there. His library was extensive. He felt an affinity for the soil, for nature, for the moon and the cycles of the earth, and started openly practicing paganism early in his teens.

Thinking back, he fingered the spine of the Italian witchcraft book he always kept handy on his desk. He felt a true kinship with the Stregheria, the Italian version of Wicca. It was the closest to the Old Ways he could find, the closest to the origins of Mount Olympus, to the beginnings of time. He loved their practice, thought the modern versions of Wicca, the Gardnerian and Alexandrian methods, weren’t nearly as beautiful. He’d never felt it was wrong to believe in the Old Ways, never felt he should have to hide himself from the rest of the world, from the austere gaze of the older witches who practiced in Nashville. He preferred to let everyone know his joy, but the traditional covens wouldn’t accept him. Too young, too controversial. That mattered not a whit—he’d formed his own.

He was an evangelist for the Strega. Two hundred years ago he would have been burned at the stake, crisping to the merry shouts of local villagers, being damned for having prescient moments.

No more. The Strega were powerful, and he was proud to worship in their ways.

It was only natural that his dark path, his nocturnal tradition, his self-initiations strengthening his link to the divine, would show him the path to the Goths. The Gothic lifestyle—the real Gothic lifestyle, not the smearing on of makeup and black clothes because it looked cool—worked through a path of self-awareness, dedicated observation and worship, mourning for the rest of the world as it collapsed into capitalistic greed, an affinity for individual practice. It all spoke to him. He’d found his place at last.

He took the name Raven and became.

That’s when his true awakening began. He was unrelenting in his quest, his Book of Shadows filling with spells and charms, ideas and recipes. The book was a leather-bound journal he’d found at a bookstore, with a rawhide strap that tied it all together. He wound the strap lovingly around the leather, knowing that only he could understand the forces within. The shadows of the spells, the ideas glimmering on the blank parchment, that’s where his true power lay.

He researched, and continued his education. He made himself an expert in spell work, using his lyrical words to change things he wasn’t satisfied with, writing his own versions of the traditional, and not so traditional, calls. He practiced drowsing—reading minds; path work—finding his way among the ancestors, allowing them into his world. He honestly believed that if he were open and willing, the Gods and Goddesses would make themselves known in myriad ways. And they did. Signs of his acceptance into their ways were everywhere.

Divination, ways to predict the future through sophisticated spell work, wasn’t far behind. He began to play with the thoughts of others. He attracted like-minded individuals, eventually settling on the strongest of those—his three, his Immortals. He taught them the Old Ways, and they worshipped him.

The path was righteous and good. The path would lead him to greatness. The path would show him how to become as powerful as the cycles of the earth, as the rising of the moon, as the Goddess Diana.

It began so simply. He planned, and plotted, knowing he needed to spread the word, to recruit. The Immortals were only four now, but their numbers would grow. His very own army, guided by perfect love and perfect trust. Together, they would change the world. Together, they would make all those who treated them with derision and disdain pay for their sins.

He realized the movie had finished playing. He queued it up again, wanting to pay closer attention this time. It was hard to see a work of such magnificence and not get caught up in the story behind it. He wondered if he should write some sort of liner notes, something to explain what their purpose was, where their heads lay. But the letter was enough, for now.

Screams rang out from his laptop, tinny, life being taken as he stood near, feeding on the souls of the despised.

He wondered what would happen if everyone in the world died.