Bloodline of Darkness ~ Intro

“And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and its rider had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.” Revelation Of John 6:2

FORWARD

At Drake’s funeral, Alex stood in the background and watched from a distance as Drake’s family and friends stood at the grave and mourned over the loss of their friend. He regretted that he could not prevent the tragedy that ended with Drake’s death. He was blessed with powers that many would claim were unnatural; He had the power to incarcerate daemons and hell-hounds, he could change the events in a small town – giving the appearance as though nothing had happened. Of all he things he could do, he was yet forbidden to resurrect his friend from the dead. And that was the one thing of his gift he did regret.

Alex glanced at a passing car, and then looked back towards the funeral. As he stood there and watched, he knew that out of all the people sitting or standing there that day, he was about the only one who felt any true remorse for Drake. Even though Drake’s widow, Jessica, was crying – as were many others – he knew that her tears were as shallow as what she was. The truth was, in her heart, Jessica was relieved that Drake was out of the picture, as now she could pursue a more serious relationship with Chad – her tennis partner at the country club, who was also at the funeral for moral support – whom she had been sleeping with for the last eight months behind Drake’s back. As ironic as it seemed, she had secretly wanted to get rid of Drake ever since Chad entered her life some ten months ago. Alex knew those secret things about her. He knew her thoughts and passions. It didn’t surprise him though that she was sleeping with him. After all, they had a lot in common. They were both wealthy and they were both as shallow and conceited as each other. They were damn well made for each other. Alex didn’t like Jessica at all. The stench of corruption in her family reached the heights of heaven, and her father was as corrupt as they came. Alex turned his gaze towards Ricky, Jessica’s father, and immediately he sensed the thoughts Ricky had about Drake. Jessica’s father was about the most conceited, self-righteous person one could ever hope to meet. His whole thought on this death was,
It’s a good thing he’s dead as he was a worthless loser anyway.

Ricky felt no remorse at all. He was too wrapped up in his own business, his precious daughter and his secret transsexual lover to give a damn for anyone else. Yes, Ricky was the type of person who put his business first and tried to impress people with his words of wisdom, and self proclaimed twenty-one dimensional thinking. Alex also sensed that Ricky was the type of man who made promises he never kept.

The funeral was short, but sweet. He watched these mourners pay their respects to Jessica, and began to leave one by one. No-one knew that Alex was there, watching in the background. He stood amongst the thicket and waited until everyone was gone before he went over to the grave, knelt and stared at that cedar coffin which lay at the bottom of that grave.

“Soon you and all the captives in Tanzac’s world will be released. This I promise you.” He whispered, then he stood and stared into that cold grave. As he stared, a vision flashed in his mind of Drake and many others who were captive in Tanzac’s realm , and in the vision he could see that each person was suffering in their own private hell. He sighed, knowing that in time he would have to face the Son of the Eastern Star once again.

He remained stood there for some time, reflecting on the events that lead to this moment, before he walked away from there, vanishing in front of the thicket and re-appearing instantly in his own apartment on the other side of the world.

Even though Tanzac was stopped in bringing about hell on earth, he was very much working on another way to re-enter the world.

Tanzac’s time was soon to come.

* * * * * * *

Ten years later.

A lot had transpired since Tanzac’s defeat in Winmont, and now, Alex’s powers were nothing more than a distant memory, like a long faded dream. He found that being in a relationship was not all that it was cracked up to be. A few weeks after he and Karen started to settle into a normal life, she fell into a trance which lasted for forty days and nights. Alex tried everything that he could to bring her out of her trance, but everything he tried did not work. He tried to use his powers to see what form of oppression caused this to her, but all that he saw and felt was an unpenetrable darkness which emanated from the depths of her soul. He consulted the Elders about her, but like the countless times as they had done in the past, their answers came in parables which he could not understand. Yet there was a power at work in all this, and as powerful as he was, his powers were not strong enough to overcome this darkness.

He thought the end of her trance would never come, and just when he was starting to believe that, she let out a piercing scream of agony, and came out of her trance. Alex did not know what happened, and he really did not care. For now he was only glad to have her back. Yet her return to the normal world was not all that it seemed to be. Soon after her return, she started to display signs of great power and knowledge, and at times when he tried to see into her soul to see what this power was, she would always use her power against him so that all he saw was nothing more than that dark mass, and with each time he tried, he lost a part of his own power and memories to her. At times he feared her. Not because of her power, but there was something about her that he could not see, and that scared him. He did love her, for reasons he didn’t exactly know, nor could really understand, but with time, he chose not to use the power he did have (as limited as it was) and live a normal life… As normal as he could expect it to be anyway. That choice seemed of little value at the time, and for a season their life was normal, yet with time, all that he had learned and all the things he knew faded into the past. Everything that he remembered about Tanzac, Jamiesonn, Winmont, The Elders, Drake, Usher and everything else was gone. He remembered nothing. Hell, he didn’t even remember how he met Karen. In fact, at times he would ask her how they met and she would always say, “Don’t you remember baby. We met at Arles Resort in Bali.”

He bought her lie every time and and thought nothing more about it… until at least the next time he would try and remember how they met and would end up asking her the same question, of which she always gave the same response. Yes, Karen had become powerful and her words were full of deceit. With her new power she was able to impress any thought she wanted into his mind, and he suspected nothing. Once again, he was mortal and he could be destroyed by any entity that wanted his head on a platter. He had become as powerless as Superman was against Kryptonite. It seemed that his fate was sealed – once again.

He gave up who he was for the love of a woman, this woman, but she did not give up a damn thing for him. For her they moved to Auckland, as she felt like a change of scenery. He never knew the real reason why she wanted to be there, and he secretly wished he knew. When she first mentioned it, he suspected something, but his suspicions were quickly squashed when she once again used her powers and impressed the thought on him that it was better for them both to live in a country that offered them a fresh start. With that thought clearly in his mind he set about selling the apartment and soon they started a new life in New Zealand. The thought she impressed was always there, but he always had the niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach that something about this move wasn’t right.

With their new life in the land of the Great White Cloud, everything should have been hunky-dory, but it wasn’t. There were times when he would catch her in the act of meditation, and as much as he wanted her to give up her ways, she refused. Their relationship was a one way street, and as much as he wanted to leave at times, he could not. He felt compelled to stay with her. He was stupid enough to let his emotions get in the way of the truth. There was a spell cast over his life, which blinded him from the truth. If only he knew the truth! It wasn’t as though she was faithful to him either as most days her lover would drop by for hours of wanton sex while Alex was at work. If she wasn’t having sex with the hunk from downstairs, she was sitting on chat sites for most of the day.

Ten long years had past since his encounter at Winmont. His life had become completely mundane from what it was. For a man who was once a hero who saved a small town from destruction, he had now fallen to become just another forgetable face in the sea of life. His money was dwindling rapidly and to make ends meet – and mostly to appease her – he got a job at a factory. His job did not bring in the income that he desired and felt that he deserved, but it kept Karen happy which seemed to make him somewhat happy. Deep down, he was anything but satisfied with how his life was. He hated his job with avengence. Everything he could hate about the job he did. He hated getting up out of bed at 4 AM everyday to drive an hour to work. He hated unloading the large freight containers that contained huge bags of styrofoam beads, he wasn’t particularly fond of the people he worked with, and he hated the wage he got. But like some others in his place, he grinned and beared his fate. His life really sucked, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. There was times at work when he would contemplate the alternatives, like qutting his job and getting unemployment, but that thought never lasted long in his mind as he knew that if he did that he would have to put up with her all day every day. Spending time at home on the weekends were bad enough, and as much as he hated his job and his life, he did find that for him, it offered the only way out of his sickening home life. In his life, it was the case of taking the lesser of two evils to find some form of peace.

As much as he hated his life, the only solice he did find was in the life of his young son, Danny. A year after Alex and Karen moved to Auckland, she gave birth to a healthy boy. The birth of his son was a day that he remembered vividly, unlike the former memories of his first born, Matthew. That joyous day when Danny was born was now six years ago, but he remembered it like it happened only yesterday. It was one of the very few happy memories he had now, and for a part, seeing his son was the only good thing that he had to look forward to each day.