1 All song and dance

Chapter 1.

Thornville cemetery. West London.

Somewhere far out in the silent city a clock struck 12. The air hung close as Wraith Macabre looked out across the cemetery with deep blue eyes; he saw nothing but gravestones and catacombs in the moonlight.

His Inferno dog Hex that he had found backstage at a Grateful Dead concert sniffed the air deeply and said: "They're about a mile away boss."

"Good." Wraith grunted and popped a pink bubble gum into his mouth and checked once more that his safety catch was off on his semi-automatic gun. It was.

"Boss." Hex said. "Can I ask you something while we still have a few moments?"

Wraith stopped chewing his gum and nodded.

"Well I know you saved me from that god awful band and decided to take me as your trusty side kick. But how did you get into all this nightmare stuff? I know I'm an Inferno dog, bred from the original hell hound itself. But jeez, all we seem to do is battle the creatures of the night."

Wraith took the gum from his mouth and flicked it into some nearby bushes rubbed his pretty boy face and smiled. "Well what's there to say my old pal? I've been doing it for centuries. I should have told you this before but you see." He gave a slow smile and said. "I'm the son of mother earth."

Hex gave a snort but said nothing.

"Yeah I know it sounds a bit like a comic book or one of those crappy *penny dreadful's. But back in the day. Back when the monoliths were still being used." He paused for a moment then spoke with a maturity that Hex had never heard before. "I used to be a warlock, and I was pretty damn good at it too.

"You could say I was the greatest."

"Really." Hex said.

Wraith gave a quiet laugh. "You know all boiling cauldron and midnight magic. All song and dance. Yes I was pretty good at all that. But I wanted more. I wanted to take it to the limit. To the very lip of reality."

He rubbed a hand into the soil next to him. "So I cut a deal with mother earth. She would give me eternal life, which in turn would join us forever like a mother and child and I would get to know all her secrets."

"I would get to that lip."

He brought up his gun. It glistened a dull deadly black in the moonlight. "And in return all she wanted was for me to protect everything that was dear to her."

Wraith leaned in closer to Hex and whispered. "I let you in on a little secret. A while back God and his helpers had a real big fight. You know the kind all curses and damnation. Well anyway one of them ended up banished." Wraith gently tapped the ground. "Banished in the belly of my mother. Real nasty fella."

Suddenly Wraith's eyes shot to the far end of the cemetery. There was a group of darkly dressed men walking in. "Anyway since then he's been trying to screw up everything. So basically I... I mean WE try and stop him."

He then pointed to the men. They were dragging a large sack. "And tonight's the night those idiots try and raise the prince of darkness by using the body of a rather nasty serial killer."

*Penny dreadful = cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The subject matter of these stories was typically sensational, focusing on the exploits of detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities.