And if I had but the grace,
To cast this devil’s shroud aside and live anew.
Who or what would set the pace,
To make my body move on cue.
Timothy O’ Cleary from a book of spells and poems, page titled “16 July 2008″.
Vicky came up behind me and began massaging my neck.
“You know, love, I could help you forget that guilt of yours for awhile.”
I smiled. Ah, Vicky. She would make me forget my guilt, too. For a little while. Alas, I couldn’t afford it tonight.
“Not tonight, sweetheart. I have work in the morning.” As much as I enjoy Vicky and I’s occasional trysts, they leave me drained, physically and emotionally. Tim looked over at me, I knew immediately what he was thinking. I shrugged. I didn’t own her. I could never satisfy her. No man could now. Who was I to be jealous?
“You know,” said Tim, “I don’t have anything important to do tomorrow.”
Vicky giggled, jumped over to Tim and grabbed his hand in both of hers.
“Well let’s go.” She dragged him up out of his seat and to the door.
“So, when’s the next meeting of Monsters Incorporated, eh? How’s Saturday? Same place, same god forsaken hour?” Tim asked from the door. Vicky was acting like she was pulling Tim with all her might, and Tim was playing along, acting like he was barely holding out from Vicky dragging him through the door. In actuality, she could have lifted him up and carried him away with one hand.
“What say next time we meet in the afternoon?”, offered Bryan.
“Ha!” said Sarah.
“Right then, Saturday, same place, same time. Night, gents.” Tim shouted this last line from two steps down the hall, as Vicky dragged him away.
– Jason Tilden from a journal entry marked “July 16, 08″
I said Sarah was the first of us to grow up. That wasn’t entirely true. Sarah is the earliest one I can be sure of. Vicky had left on her eighteenth birthday. Hadn’t even waited to graduate. She went to California. When she came back six years later, she was a succubus. She never talked about what happened, but I pieced some of it together. I found her, under different names, on a dozen or more websites. She did porn for four years, and then vanished. I still don’t know what happened in the two years between then and when she reappeared here.
– Jason Tilden from an interview by Elijah Frost for the Percy Herald.
I had been silent through most of Sarah’s little tirade, and remained so until Zack had put in his two cents. I was nominally the leader of our little group. Though I don’t think any of us really thought of me that way. Whereas most of my friends had stumbled into their occult lives, I had searched mine out with single-minded focus. I had spent years abroad, studying old manuscripts in libraries and museums across the globe. I had built up a picture of the combined religions of the world that even the most devout comparative religion scholar would be awed at. I know dozens of languages, only three or four of which are still spoken in any form like that which I have learned. I uncovered the common foundation of all the beliefs and rituals in every religion ever codified. I used that knowledge to summon a God. Or what believers would call one, anyway. My friends and I knew better. The creature I summoned was no more a God than Jonathon, Sarah’s cold-blooded progenitor. Unlike my friends, however, I knew exactly what I would be giving up. Really, who needs a soul now-a-days anyway?
“Have you ever considered that killing Jonathon may end your own life as well? That’s how some of the stories go anyway. Better to forgive and forget.” I said, ever the reasonable one.
“Easy for you to say, you don’t have to deal with this hunger. You don’t have to steal blood from little children who look up to you.” As you probably know, Sarah runs an outreach program for intercity kids with Bryan. She teaches art classes. And she uses the kids as her personal blood bank. She doesn’t like it, but she needs less blood when it’s more pure. It’s much harder to find unpolluted blood among the general population these days.
“Yeah, and you don’t need to chain yourself up three nights a month.” chimed in Bryan. Bryan is, most likely, the most resentful out of all of us. He had the least choice in his transformation, in that he had no choice at all. He had been in his third semester at State Academy of Fine Arts, focusing on sculpture. He was in Autumn Park late one night, studying the famous sculpture of Neal Cassidy there, when he was attacked by what he assumed was a wild dog. A month later he learned he was mistaken. “Things are damn uncomfortable.” Bryan teaches sculpture at the outreach center during the day, when Sarah is unavailable for obvious reasons.
“At least they work,” I said, somewhat defensively. I had designed the chains and put the enchantments on them that stopped Bryan from shattering them or tearing them from the wall like he would have any mundane set of restraints.
Yes, I remember that night well. The liaison between Sarah and Jason that night, and my own fun evening, would change our group forever. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
– Timothy O’ Cleary from an unfinished, untitled manuscript page marked “20080716”