Foreword

Falcon

Hands decayed

Voice decrepit

Destroyed and tortured form

Such powers granted

Such powers gained

But is that worth the price of undeath?

Death is a natural part of life. To attempt to cheat it would break the natural cycle of life. This has never stopped people from trying, however. In each of us is the struggle for immortality. To be remembered after we are gone. To make it into history books, our names forever immortalized throughout the eons of time. A precious few succeed at this, but there are those who choose to take a darker path. A path measured in the suffering of others. This book is about them. For without darkness, how can you see light?

To all those who came before us, but who will never be remembered anywhere.

Scott's Trial

Scott glanced over at the clock. It read 11:00 PM. Time to be going he thought. While shrugging on his coat, he grabbed his backpack and slipped out of his parent's house. A full moon hung in the sky and the autumn night was cold enough to form frost on the ground. Scott could not believe that he was going to go through with this. Everyone knew that the Hanover House was haunted. At night one could often see lights or hear strange wailing sounds coming from the hill it was on. It sat there, often looking like it was brooding over the town. The house always made Scott's skin crawl, yet he was making his way straight there. It was all because of that stupid bet with that drunken idiot, Reg. Scott thought that if he had never said there were no such things as ghosts he would not be in this mess.

Down the hill from the Hanover House was a small park. Children seldom played here because the sun would never reach around the house until it was setting. The house's shadow seemed to hover over the park, watching the children in a menacing fashion. Scott was to meet Mark there. At least he was not alone, he thought.

Mark stood up ahead, leaning against the rusty monkey bars, his hair ruffling in the slightly chilling breeze. Scott pulled his jacket tighter around him as Mark approached.

"About time you got here. I was about to give up on you." Mark grinned at Scott.

"I doubted you would even still be up. Isn't it a little past your bedtime?", Scott asked. Mark always seemed to get on Scott's nerves and he was also the type of guy who would willingly sell his own grandmother for the right price, but Scott had been glad that Mark had asked to go in on the bet also.

"Yeah, right, whatever.", Mark said as he turned to walk towards the house, "Ready to go?"

"Okay, lets go."

Behind the park was a large forest, and a small path led up the hill. Because the path was overgrown and hard to see, Scott relied on his childhood memories of the trail. His friends would often take dares to race up the hill and sneak a look into the window of the old place. But that stopped soon after one of his friends, Tim McGrath, went up the hill but never came back down. The police said it was probably a kidnaping case, but all the children knew what had really happened. After that, the kids stopped running up to peek into the windows. Scott was amazed to see that the trail was still here, figuring that it would have been completely over grown.

The wind rustling through the trees unnerved Scott, sending a sense of foreboding doom through him. He quickly shoved off the notion, chalking it up to his fancy. After Tim had vanished, Scott always disliked this place. But if he stayed until dawn, he would win a hundred dollars, which was good enough to make an average high school student like him forget his fears.

The walk was short, but difficult due to the steep incline. When the pair finally arrived at the top, they paused at the back door. Mark removed a flashlight from his knapsack. Scott glanced around nervously, afraid of what might happen if they got caught by the police.

"Last chance to back out," Mark said as he pushed an old window open. The lock, brittle from years of disuse and abuse, snapped easily. The two quickly climbed through the open portal. The moonlight barely penetrated into the room and Scott could hardly see what was around him. Mark switched on his flashlight, illuminating the room.

The room they stood in must have been a kitchen at one time. Through the cobwebs, Scott could make out a old, wood burning stove and an icebox in one corner. A sink and counter were in another corner. A door stood between the icebox and stove. Dust covered everything and each time one the two boys would move, a cloud of it would puff into the air, making them cough and their eyes water.

"What do you think? Try it or stay here for the rest of the night?", Mark asks with a slight hint of mischief.

"Why not, maybe not all the rooms are as dusty", Scott replied.

As Mark slowly turned the handle of the door, the unoiled knob squealed. Cobwebs pulled away from the doorframe and dust obscured their vision. Mark swung the door open, and shined the flashlight beam into the next room. The illumination revealed a dinning room with a large table in the center and several overturned chairs around it. There was considerably less dust in this room than in the one before it, possibly due to the fact that this room had no windows. Two doors led away from the dinning room and one door back to the kitchen. The doorway closest to the pair was without a door. It looked as though it lead into a library or study.

"How about in there?", asked Scott, indicating toward the library. Mark nodded his head in agreement and lead on through the doorway. The library actually looked like a study with a desk and several cases of musty books. An old fashioned globe stood next to the desk. On the desk, rested an oil lamp, a quill and dried ink, and an old journal book. Scott quickly lit the lamp, happy to find oil still in it. The study had the least amount of dust, but had many cobwebs on the ceiling.

"This looks like a good place to spend the night", Scott suggested.

"A library, what's so great about here?", Mark whined.

"Less dust for one.", Scott replied, dropping his bag on the floor. He removed a bedroll from it and proceeded to lay the bedroll out on the floor. Mark looked on with a grimace of disgust.

"What, are you going to just sleep on the floor there?", Mark asked.

"Yeah, what is your point? I don't know about you, but I am tired and I would like to get some sleep."

"What's my point? What's my point!" Mark repeated. "I want to explore the house and find something to prove that we spent the night here. Aren't you curious of what might be in this house?"

"No, and the lamp or anyone of these books will do for proof. Get some sleep." Scott curled up on his bed roll.

"Well, I'm going to explore a little," Mark stammered as he walked out the room.

Fine, Scott thought as he started to drift off into sleep.

A scream woke Scott from his troubled dreams. He bolted upright and looked around in terror. There was no sign of Mark and the lamp had almost burned out. In the fading light Scott glanced at his watch, it read 3:30 a.m.. He quickly got up and looked around for another light source before the lamp burned out. Scott found what he needed in the top desk drawer, several candles. Grabbing a few, he lit one and put the rest in is backpack. Just then another bloodcurdling scream echoed out of the darkness. Scott headed out of the library, back towards the dinning room.

Footprints in the dust lead through the other door in the dinning room. The illumination from Scott's candle could not reach the far walls of this new room. The only concrete details he could make out were two stairways, one to the left and one to the right. He could occasionally glimpse starlight through the boarded up windows. The only sounds Scott could now hear were the beating of his own heart and the creaking noise the floor made every time he took a step. Where is Mark? Scott thought. Did he get scared and leave without me?

Scott spoke aloud. "Mark?"

"Yeah, up here," a barely audible whisper responded from up stairs. The voice sounded as though it was feminine. Scott looked around, but could not see the source of the sound.

"Up here, I need help. Please", the voice continued to plead. Scott decided it should be all right and ascended the stairs on his right.

"Where are you?", Scott asked, trying his best to keep quiet. He could not see a thing beyond the light of the candle.

"Right here, you twit", was the last thing Scott heard as the vase slammed into the back of his head, knocking him out.

Scott felt funny, slowly his awareness of what was going on returned. It sounded like people where talking over a heavy, bass drum. Finally the words cleared, and he could hear over the pounding of his head.

"Okay, you have your sacrifice, now do I get payed?", a very familiar voice asked.

"Fine, Leper, here is your money. Now leave before you upset me anymore," A deep, decrepit voice responded. Scott opened one eye to see Mark catch a small pouch. Mark was grinning ear to ear and quickly slipped away with his ill-gotten goods.

"Take the sacrifice to the cell!", the voice demanded, Scott quickly closed his eyes and pretended to still be unconscious. Strong, heavy arms dragged him away. He was pulled around several corners and finally thrown to the ground. Scott just laid there, too afraid to move.

After a while, Scott opened his eyes just a crack to look around. He was in a cell, with one lone window. The moon had long since set, but the stars still lit the room enough for him to look around some. Scott sat up slowly, wincing in pain. His head felt worse than it did the night he got drunk with a couple of school buddies behind his garage.

"Are you okay?", a soft voice asked from the darkest corner of the room.

Scott was stunned for a moment, but answered back.

"Okay, I think. I am Scott, who are you?"

"My name is Susan. Susan Roberts. Nice to meet you, although I wish it was under nicer conditions", she replied.

"Hey, I know you. You were kidnaped a couple days ago. The cops are were looking every where for you." Susan started to cry after he said this.

"Didn't they look here?", she said through sobs , "Can't they find me?"

Scott felt bad and wrapped his arms around her.

"It will be okay. We will figure a way out of here."

Soon Susan had stopped crying.

"How are we going to escape? There are bars on the windows and the door is locked solid.", said Susan.

Scott looked over the door. He listened carefully at the door, and after hearing nothing beyond, rushed it. After two quick hits, the door frame cracked and the lock slipped.

Susan looked at Scott with amazement, "Lets get out of her as fast as we can."

The two looked about, taking a few moments for their eyes to readjust to the darker interior. Spotting a staircase, Scott guided Susan down, both of them blindly making a slow decent. After what seemed to be an eternity, they reached a landing.

"Where do we go now?", asked Susan, lost in the darkness.

"Follow the wall to the right and hope we make it safely out.", Scott replied. Guiding along the wall, the two advanced forward. Scott held his breath as h