Prologue

‘Whosoever wishes to know the fate of Demonkind must consult these prophecies…’

‘… as magic once more threatens the time, as the peace of the Demon yaws towards insanity…’

‘…it will come to pass that in this great age things will return to the focus of purity that Demonkind must always strive for. Here will come the meaning and purpose of our strictest laws, that no uncorrupted human shall be harmed, that peaceful coexistence between races shall become paramount...’
--Excerpts from
The Lost Demon Prophecy

…it is therefore forbidden for any of Demonkind to mate with creatures who are not their equals, not of their nature, not of their strength and power. Those lesser creatures are ours to protect from ourselves, not to be violated in impure sexual abomination. This is the law and the will of nature. The dog does not lie with the cat; the cat does not lie with the mouse. Whosoever breaks this sacred trust must suffer under the hand of the law…
--Excerpts from
TheOriginal Scroll of Destruction

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Elijah fell to his knees, his hand clutching at his chest as warmth spread between his fingers, staining them and his white shirt a bright crimson. He looked down at the blossoming picture of his life’s essence spreading over the material, almost with the fascination one gave to the sprawling, artistic circlets of a tie-dyed shirt.

The warrior Demon was astounded.

He had been injured repeatedly over his centuries-long lifetime. He was certainly no stranger to it. Everything from mystical electricity to wicked blades made of the brutal, burning iron that was so toxic to his kind, had cut into him in one way or another over the ages. Some wounds had been serious enough to leave scars in spite of his remarkable innate healing powers, some had not. But never had he been injured in a way he would consider a truly mortal wound. Mortal to others was not mortal to him. Mortal to the average Demon was also not mortal to him, if only by his stubborn refusal to succumb to something so passé as death.

However, in this case it was not simply because a hole was torn through his chest and very near the vital workings of his heart that his life was threatened, but because he was in the middle of nowhere, too weak to call for help, and surrounded back and front by enemies. Even if he could somehow find the stamina to survive this rending intrusion into his body, these enemies would not let him live any longer than they wanted him to.

Elijah was immediately furious with himself for ending up in this predicament. He was Captain of the Demon warriors, the elite army at the beck and call of the great Demon King. He was the most skilled fighter of all Demonkind, a Nightwalker race renowned for its awesome abilities in battle. He had lived all the centuries of his life honing his craft, learning everything there was to know about battle, war and the weapons and strategy required to meet success in those situations. Jacob, the Demon Enforcer, and his liege lord, Noah, the Demon King, were the only ones he would have considered personally equal to his battle prowess. He was not supposed to be so stupid as to fall into even the best laid traps, nor capable of being bested once caught by said trap.

Even without training, at their hearts all Demons were essentially battle ready beasts. He believed that. It was a personal philosophy and he strongly felt that no matter how heavy the veneer of civilization within their race, or within the individual, there were instincts that could not ever be denied. Sure, Demons looked human, although taller and tanner than the average, but they were also considered extraordinarily attractive if in human circles. Elijah knew this was because the elemental and animal genetics within them allowed for heightened pheromones that called out to the opposite sex, a predatory sense of awareness that exuded attractive danger, and the penchant for extraordinary eyes behind which settled equally extraordinary cunning and intelligence. All the qualities of natural born hunters, always seething just beneath the surface, waiting for someone to make themselves prey. Demons were capable of behaviors as untamed as the elements they claimed their great powers from. Behaviors they had embraced and integrated into every skill they cultivated in their long lifetimes, making them formidable opponents should you manage to get on their distant bad sides.

Thus, even the most juvenile of fledglings could have avoided his current predicament, the warrior thought crossly to himself. So to be caught like this, like a weakling mouse in a trap, was shameful and enraging. How had the act of doing his duty suddenly turned on him? He was the Warrior Captain, the stalker of all Nightwalkers with a price on their head, those who were not of the Demon race who had committed egregious acts and sins against the Demon people, a direct challenge and insult to the Demon King. He was the one who was a specialist in all those species, an anthropological strategist. If one wanted to know the true ways of how to destroy Vampires, Lycanthropes, and most every other Nightwalker species, Elijah would be the best source of information. War and peace were, unfortunately, transient things, and it was his duty to be prepared for all possibilities, in case friends became enemies, or enemies threatened friends.

Elijah fought off a passing cloak of dimming consciousness and the spinning of his immediate surroundings. It was he alone who belonged at the head of his monarch’s armies when needed, and he who must train the spies and assassins who would slink through the shadows in the face of threatening intrigue. Therefore, he knew everything anyone currently could discover about the humans who dabbled in the perverse arts of black magic. The same kind who stood around him that very moment, circling him like vultures awaiting the end to a victim’s final death throes.

The use of this corrupt power turned these foolish human men and women into necromancers, staining their souls with the inky dye of evil and imbedding a stench so foul into their flesh that no Nightwalker with a clean soul could bear to breathe in the odor of it. They were powerful, capable of growing even more so the more they studied and practiced their vile arts, but they were not powerful enough to capture him, never mind kill him. No, only his stupidity could have provided that opportunity to them.

He must have looked like a holiday turkey, breaking through the tree line and stepping into their trap. Necromancers all around, as well as the human hunters who spent time chasing down myths so they could torture and kill them. Mortals who took it upon themselves to not only uncover the existence and locations of the hidden Nightwalker races, but made it their personal quest to eradicate them from the planet armed with little more than myth, legend and ignorance as they tried to do so.

(this excerpt is unedited)