Chapter 64

The streets of Vredenburg were quiet as a man stumbled from a pub towards his car parked in a dark parking lot. He was a large man with a prominent bone structure. His short brown hair matched his eyes. The neat shirt he was wearing was partially pulled out from his washed-out denim. His car was one of only three left in the parking lot. A security guard approached. Instinctively he retrieved his wallet from his pocket and wondered how much money he had spent the night on the booze. He emptied the change compartment of his wallet into his palm. There were quite a few silver coins which could have bought him another beer or two. The money would be too much to give to the guard for watching a car, but then again, what would it cost him to buy a new car? Anyway, security guard or not, he certainly had bills to pay.

He dumped the handful of change into the security guard's hand and noticed the bewildered expression of surprise and happiness on the poor fella's face.

'Thank you so much, sir,' he said bending his knees gently before he walked off to count his small fortune.

The man retrieved a bunch of keys from his right pocket. His left hand supported his body where it was leaning against the roof of his car while his right hand tried to insert the key into the keyhole.

He thought he saw a shadow moving down the side of his car, but that would almost be impossible because the only light in the parking lot was coming from a streetlight near the main road. He looked around, but there was nothing. He turned towards his car again and managed to enter the key into the keyhole. He turned the key, and the door unlocked with a faint click sound.

He saw another shadow and turned around again. He knew he had been quite drunk in the past including several times where he thought he had seen things, but what was standing in front of him was something new to his intoxicated mind. He looked up at something directly from a horror movie. He closed his eyes for a second and opened them, trying to focus on what he had just seen. It was still there, a large shadow in the shape of a demon with large horns. It had a head of a ram and a strange body with large arms, torso and legs.

Before he could say anything, the thing leapt. The man struggled to breathe.

Something was choking him, preventing him from screaming. A surge of evil jolted through his entire body. Images of dead people and graves went through his mind. He was inside a large arena with flames burning high. He saw black spirits screaming with large mouths stretched out until the flames took them under again. He knew he was in hell. He could feel the heat. Each flame was a soul trapped in eternity. Some naked people were chained to walls where they were being beaten by demons with large black whips constructed from dirty grey smoke. Others were lying on the side scratching large cancerous sores. Some people were repeatedly stabbed with large knives throughout their bodies leaving gaping cuts and holes for a brief moment before their bodies healed again, an endless cycle. The combination of horrid screams and whispers of an unknown language was overwhelming, the city of the sinners. As far as the eye could see there were different forms of brutality occurring everywhere. Some women were being raped while others were simply tortured endlessly. The whole place was filled with fear, agony, despair and regret.

The security guard heard a commotion from the direction he received the handsome reward earlier, the intoxicated man who had emptied his wallet. He strolled towards the noise that sounded like feet shifting. For a moment he thought a fight had erupted. He approached when the noise had seized. The man who had given him the reward earlier was standing tall. He did not even have a sway in his body like earlier. The man turned around and the security guard could see something different about his face. His expression was grim with eyes like dark pools of screaming night. When he stepped out of the shadow, the guard knew something was wrong this time around. The man's eyes were not only black. They were pools of evil from another world.

The man flicked out his hand and grabbed the security guard by the head. His other hand transformed into a black claw. At lightning speed, he drove the claw into the guard's neck ripping out his arteries and windpipe leaving his neck a large raw highway with pipes sticking out everywhere. Blood squirted from the arteries on the rhythm of the security guard's heartbeat. The expression of shock and sheer terror on the guard's face faded to a distant lifeless gaze into another world. The man released the guard allowing him to fall to the ground into a lump of meat. His wide-open eyes were staring at something beyond the dark sky.

He got into the car and noticed an identity card on the passenger seat. He picked it up and saw a photo of the human life he had just consumed, the vessel he had chosen to do his work. Underneath the name, Curtis Vaughn was written. He knew it was only a human name, a name that did not matter in hell. His real name was Mormo, the king of the ghouls. He was sent here for a reason. He had felt a tremendous power from above the ground, a power that was not in his consort's reach, which meant it was a power that belonged to a human. No human was supposed to possess a power that strong. They were not even supposed to know such a power existed. It was the power that could destroy the reason for their existence. It was the power they destroyed centuries ago which was carried by the Vikings. Mormo knew he had to find the source of the power he felt earlier. He had to find it before it found him. By then it would be too late because it would have grown exponentially which would mean the end of him. His quest had only just begun. He needed to spread chaos on earth and gain souls for his master Satan. Before he could do anything else he had to find a body for his companion Hecate, the goddess of the underworld and witchcraft, the protector of witches. He needed her help for the power he felt was far greater for him to manage alone.