The Peacock Angel: Rise of the Decarchs

CHAPTER 6

  The incubi were frightened again. Their task was over. Soon he would send them back from whence they came. They would try to avoid that certainty for as long as possible

  The imps remained frenzied. Now, however, they only pissed and defecated in the stone coffin. There was not enough left of its occupant to satisfy their bloodlust any longer. They were just being foul and trying to please their overlord-trying to stay in this place a bit longer.

  It didn't work.

  Azazel quickly tired of their charades. Once their usefulness expired, he dismissed them and they were no more. Back to the rock prison of Sheol they went.

  He stared at the stinking mess before him and was satisfied. Armaros wasn't dead. That would come later—once he had procured other, more powerful help. But it would take Armaros much effort and time to recover from this savagery. And a little time is all that he needed. Just a little time for the sons of prophecy. Just a little time to destroy the Child of Truth. After all, it was expected of him, and he didn't wish to surprise anyone. At least not yet.

  He went to work. Quickly he walked through the graveyard with his arms outspread until he found what he was searching for. The grave he hovered over was not that old; its head stone incomplete and the earth not settled. That was of no consequence. All that mattered was the contents of the grave, and the soul buried here was exactly what he was looking for.

  A cursed human. One of the damned. A murderer. Perfect.

  The spirit in the ground was trapped. It was stuck in a rotting corpse from which, for whatever reason, it could not free itself. There are a few like it in almost every cemetery in existence. These souls couldn't, or wouldn't, move on to another existence after their death. They remained earth bound and miserable. They are also extremely easy to manipulate.

  He promised it things. He offered it salvation that he could not grant. He spoke of a trial it must pass in order to gain its freedom.

  The desperate spirit believed everything it was told.

  He called it from the earth by telling it secrets that the dead should not hear. He revealed to it the ancient words it must know to once again walk amongst the living. He taught it how to control its own lifeless corpse. Finally, he told it what it must do to lessen the pain of being dead, alone, and left behind. The ghoul was complete.

  Azazel had created an abomination, and he was pleased with himself.

  Slowly, so the creature would understand, he pointed through the woods and across a field. His remarkably long finger uncurled in the direction of a barely visible porch light a few hundred yards away. He was pointing at the home of Cane Connally.