A form in the formless void of night’s black mystery steps forward, deliberately into the last vestiges of the Temple’s light.
“Aleister.”
Sadness presses like a weight on Paul’s shoulders. A memory returns of a long time gone, of a different life, of a crime committed that he believed was just. Sorrow; have mercy, please, for I was a different man.
“Wait, it wasn’t me, not this body, not this person…”
Jonathon steps closer still and stands before the man who was, “The soul is the same.”
Like lightening the dead man’s hand strikes, red weal of bloody scratches adorn Paul’s cheek.
Paul holds his hands up before him, uselessly, begging mercy.
Once more the hand strikes out, the vice fingers grip tight to his throat, the talons piercing his skin. Paul weeps tears of remorse, his life collapsed, his brother dead, his very existence doomed.
A marble smile of victory draws arabesque upon the face of the corpse.
The hand jerks back, ripping open the throat – the body collapses pumping a fountain of blood across the pentagram inscribed into the floor.
The vampire spits into the spilling blood, for once he ignores the pounding hunger.
You are avenged, my son.
***
In the light of eternity, a disembodied, heretical soul sees once more the circular truth; understands the necessities, freed at last from the chains which held him down.
© 1990 & 2006 Andrew M Boylan
