Prologue: Ouroboros
By Paul Michael Janousek

        Now the stars they are all angled wrong,
          and the sun and the moon refuse to burn.
          But I remember a message,
          in a demon's hand,
          "Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return."
          ...he does not return
          ...he does not return
                              ------Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum,
                                      Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds


The flesh parted seamlessly as the knife worked its way long the inner thigh. The knife trembled slightly as Simon sliced into the flesh. He was scared but that was to be expected. Ending the world would do that to a man. Simon steadied his nerves by pushing the knife deeper into the leg. The woman managed a slight groan and even flexed a muscle but that was all. He had made sure she was properly drugged for this moment. While not unconscious, Simon insured that she would not feel any pain during the ritual. She lay suspended three feet above the concrete floor. Her arms and legs were held outstretched by thick ropes anchored to iron rings in the walls.

He looked at the body as he continued to cut. Her upper body glistened in the candlelight. Simon had watched her for months. Dreaming of what she would look like at this instance. Each morning he waited for the woman. Her name was Christina Depuy but that meant nothing to him. He did not want her for conversation nor any mundane bullshit that the herd around him desired. No his need was greater. He wanted to touch her soul. Peel away each layer until all that remained was her light.

Her naked flesh hung below. It waited for him to finish the job before it fully touched the floor. Smiling, he continued sliding the knife along the moist, shiny and very red flesh. He gently pulled it as he sliced. The flesh felt so good in his grasp.

Finally the skin was his to fully hold. Months of planning coupled with years of dreams had led to this moment. He watched his victim. His love writhed slowly against the ropes. Did she know? Did she at this moment care? Oh how he wished to know what was in her mind. Her eyes darted back and forth. Could she feel the energy building? They shared a moment of perfection as their eyes met.

His eyes wandered over the beauty that hung before him. Thoughts wandered carelessly through his mind. NO! He could not think like this. He could not think of her as something to possess. No she was something to be given.

A low moan startled him.

It brought him around to his first. He was suspended just like the woman. He hung with arms outstretched and pulled tight by the ropes.

Walking over to the man he slowly graced the naked muscles with his touch. The man's skin lay crumpled on the floor below. Blood dripped slowly from the body pooling on the floor.

The man's eyes drilled into his own. Simon could see the hate and the anger in them. It was only natural. Oh and don't forget the envy building in those hard gray eyes that pierced his own.

The man before him was as close to an equal as he could have in this world. Born Daniel Even Cade he fancied himself an artist. Flesh was his medium. His preference was children. He was like Simon, a predator in the herd of sheep. Simon was simply higher on the food chain then poor Danny boy.

Simon let his eyes wander over both his pieces of work. It was time.

He moved between them. First he took Christina's skin and laid it beneath Daniel.

The words were barely a whisper at first but ended in a scream,

"Zenxese, pioth, oaxas, ZAEGOS, MAVOC NIGORSUS, BAYAR!
HEECHO! YOG-SOTHOTH! YOG-SOTHOTH! YOG-SOTHOTH!"

After properly arranging the flesh he moved to Christina and placed Daniel's skin under her.

He moved quietly around the bodies. Always in a straight line between his two sacrifices. At intervals he would stop. His left hand would move quickly through the air that was growing heavier by the moment. A faint green light trailed after his gesture. Slowly it faded but in its presence a strange star-like symbol hung for a brief second. Simon would then make a hard turn sometimes to the left and occasionally to the right. Always a hard angled turn. It took nearly twenty minutes to arrive where he had started between the two fleshless forms.

An unearthly chorus began to chant lightly. All around the room it came, surrounding Simon. Touching his flesh with words and notes not spoken on this realm. His flesh tingled at the resonance that filled the concrete expanse around him.

"Per Adonai Elohim, Adonai Jehova
Adonai Sabaoth, Metraton Ou Agla Methon,
Verbum Pythonicum, Mysterium Salamandrae
Cenventus Sylvorum, Antra Gnomorum
Demonia Coeli God, Almonsin Gibor
Jehoshua Evam Zariathnatmik, Veni, Veni, Veni!"

Suddenly silence then Simon began to whisper again. This time the words remained a whisper.

"The All-One dwelleth in Darkness,
At the centre of All dwelleth He that is the Darkness;
And that Darkness shall be eternal when all shall bow before the Onyx
Throne"

The candles wavered in an imaginary breeze. The air grew cold. This was it, Simon realized. The end of everything. It was time to dance. It was time to yell. It was his time. Simon picked up the knife and slowly pierced his flesh. Laughter filled the room as he pulled his flesh off. The room suddenly grew dark.

"You are here my Lord..You are here..." he whimpered as he peeled the flesh from his body.

Seven Days later.

The man looked up at the night sky. It was clear for the moment. He watched the clouds slowly creep across the heavens. They cast a dark shadow across the desert floor. The Moon had cast a light blue hue over the sand but now as the moon was slowly overcome the sand grew dark. While it faded, he realized the light of the moon felt good upon his flesh. It was the only natural light that had touched his skin for centuries.

Centuries! Almost funny if you thought about it. Who in their right minds thought of their lives measured in such length. Hell he would have laughed himself several hundred years ago but now he had little to make him laugh.

"You shouldn't have called. It serves no purpose." Said a voice in the darkness.

The man spun around peering into the night. His hands going for the guns that hung at his sides. He did not draw them but kept his hands upon the pearl handles that peeked out from his ragged brown long coat. His cold steel colored eyes stared into the night looking for the voice.

"I had no choice Malleus. What would you have me do roll over and take it?" he said

"We all have choices and going to ground is one of them, Gideon. You should try it. You might even like it?" Said the one called Malleus.

"No choice for me. Where are the rest? I had summoned more then just you." Said Gideon slowly rubbing the handles of his guns.

"I am the only one that's coming. I doubt anything could reach the rest. There has been no contact for the past week. Most I assume have already died. You know what its like out there. Darkness everywhere followed by screams. Madness, Death, and what is left... I can not even begin to understand. Its over you know. Gehenna, Ragnarok, hell even good old revelations didn't prepare us for what is happening. Last night in Paris I watched it take a dozen elders in a second." Said Malleus.

"I fear that it is soon to be true for all of us. I thought at first this was limited to our kind but then came the reports of Rome." Said Gideon sadly.

"Rome. Ah good old majestic Rome. How many did they believe were swallowed in an instance. One hundred thousand? Two Hundred Thousand?" questioned Malleus.

"More like three I think and what survived...well you couldn't rightly call alive any more." Said Gideon. He stared intently at Malleus. "You said you were there when the Darkness appeared. How did you escape?"

Gideon's hands grasped his revolvers more tightly.

Malleus walked out of the shadows. He stood before Gideon. His long robes danced in the wind. Long white hair seemed alive in the night air as it whipped across his face. Soulful brown eyes gazed out from the hard angled features of the weathered face

"I am Tremere. I have ways of disappearing," he said as he smiled and lifted his left hand. A bluish glow wrapped around his hand.

"Show-off. So why did you come if you are so interested in hiding?"

"Again I am Tremere. You could also say I am curious. And.."

"What?" asked Gideon

"The ritual I used to escape last night took me back to where my Clan calls home in Vienna. All I found was an empty stone castle. My Clan is dying. In a few days they may not exist at all. Lets just say I want to go out fighting."