PROLOGUE

He was cold. The room was cold, its unmortared brick wall doing little to prevent the icy chill of winter's night from seeping through it and onto his skin. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

"Please," Elmer muttered, his voice slowly coming back to him as his eyes tiredly pried open, the tears and blood which had blurred them so much he had had no choice but to clasp them shut, clearing away bit by bit.

"Please," Elmer begged again, thick and burly wall chains rattling faintly while he weakly tugged at his feeble arms and ankles in his usual but useless attempts to free himself.

His eyes fully had their focus restored, and then, through the cracks of his glasses and the flickering darkness surrounding the room, he made out his ivy cap which lay before him on the floor all rumpled and soddened with his own pee. One which had escaped him during his earlier plight of nervousness when he had awoken to find himself in chains.

He loved that cap. Years and years of piled-up savings was what it had taken to get it, but at the moment there was not a single emotion left in his heart for the piece of clothing, nor for his gray shirt or his dampened brown pants.

All that remained in his pain-stricken heart were meant for her. They might stop if he tried hard enough. Who wouldn't feel sorry and listen to the pleas of a boy of thirteen?

Elmer licked his lips, searching for even a little drop of his tears or sweat to give him a tiny bit of strength to carry on, but what he found was blood—and he would take it. It was good enough.

Onto his tongue and down his throat, Elmer lapped viciously on the blood that trickled out of the cuts on his parched lips. And as he fed the metallic taste that already lived within his mouth with more of its kind, the strength he sought after so much returned. He could try harder for her now.

Elmer forced his head up with a sharp inhale as his sense of hearing came back, after being sent adrift by the ringing vibrations that had come from the previous hits his face had received, and it was as though the chantings had never ceased.

"Praise Azrael. Praise the God of Souls. In the black of night we beseech Thee. With the words of men we call to Thee. Praise Azrael. Praise the God of Souls."

They were priests. Four of them stood on the opposite sides of a large trestle table in pairs with their hands spread out over it, each covered in thick red robes with large cowls that made their faces invisible in the pitch darkness of whatever room they were all in.

There were two others who stood apart from the four. One with the height of an adult, while the other peaked at the height meant for a child.

They were both at the head of the table, and had their faces covered beneath the drapes of large cowls as well. But their robes were black, not red, making them even harder to notice if not for the four three-pronged candelabras of the color gold that stood upon the table, flickering dim-yellow lights from their red candles.

And there she was, his little sister, Mabel, in the plain white dress she had worn for their little night getaway from the orphanage.

She was lying unconscious, sprawled on the table in the midst of the flickering candle lights. Her long dark hair straggled beneath her back, while her face had fallen pale with grimness underneath her bangs. Her smile was not there. Mabel's smile was not there.

Air caught in Elmer's lungs. He cried again… and begged.

"Please! No!"

The priests kept chanting, paying him no mind. Weren't they supposed to listen to the pleas of a child like him?

"I beg you! Take me instead and leave Mabel alone. Please."

Elmer's body trembled as he yanked harder on the chains, his hands so far apart that he could not even attempt to reach for either of the cold cuffs on his bleeding wrists.

He did not understand what was happening—why this was happening.

They had only sneaked out of the orphanage to see the steam cars—he and Mabel—and all of a sudden he had woken up here, his mind blanked with no knowledge of what had transpired—of how he and his little sister had ended up in the midst of a group of priests.

How did it come to this…? Why was this happening…?

"Take me! Take me instead!" he offered. "Leave Mabel alone!" But no one was listening to him. Elmer bit down so hard on his already injured lips that blood flowed out of it like a narrow brook, running all the way down to his chin.

What are these Gods? Why does Mabel have to be sacrificed? Why…?!

Elmer's chest heaved as the pounding of his heartbeat raged into his ears and his head throbbed painfully.

He hated them. He hated them all!

"I'll kill all of you." Elmer's body turned colder as he tightened his hands and jerked the chains, making sure his voice was loud enough so that the stupid priests wouldn't miss it. They were despicable. The priests and their God. Every single one of them.

"If you do anything to Mabel I'll kill all of you. Do you hear me?! You're all dead. Every single one of you, and your—"

The words did not manage to break free completely from his lips as another backhand blow whacked his face downward, sending his glasses crashing to the floor as a lens completely shattered into countless pieces. And it was none other than the black robed priest with the height of a child who had come to smack him senseless.

The prior crack his glasses had, his lips bursting, the gash upon his head, his ivy cap falling to the floor, they had all come from the blows he had received from this little priest.

All it seemed to take them was something of a split second, and they would cover the distance between the table they stood before, and where he was bound in chains to ring his ears like a church bell.

This time the blow was even harder than the past ones, and Elmer felt that if there had been just a little more force behind it, his head might have been ripped clean off his neck.

But despite that, he still turned back sharply at the now-blurred childish figure standing before him, and voiced again with his chin clenched weakly in anger, "I'll kill all of you… and your God too. Wherever he is I'll find him and kill him. I'll spare no one no matter how much you beg. None of you will live."

Through his words, Elmer glimpsed the little figure's fist tighten once more—though just barely through his unfocused eyes. Another blow was coming.

But he couldn't care less.

If he was going to watch Mabel lose herself to a God then he would rather die. He could not take it. He would not bear it. Tears ran down his cheeks again. He had cried so much that he had feared he might have lost all his tears, but it seemed that was not the case, even though they did him no good.

"Do not kill him." Elmer heard a voice say from the table where his little sister lay, and it brought his mind back to the scenery before him. The chants had finally been put to a stop. "He does not want him dead."

It was the deep voice of a man, one laced with chivalry, and it came from the other black-robed priest. Elmer did not fail to register the voice in his head. It was not a voice he could let himself forget. If they did not kill him here, then he was going to find each and every single one of them and make them pay.

A tear of blood from the cut on his forehead dropped into his eye, forcing Elmer to blink for scarcely a second, but that was enough time for the little robed one to reposition themself back at the head of the table.

The black-robed priest muttered something to the little one, and after a moment dug his hand into his robe and brought out a goblet, a dark-golden one with intricate tendril-like patterns all about it—patterns which gave nothing but icy cold chills to Elmer.

"What are you doing?" Elmer rattled his chains as a call to the priests when he saw the little one pull out of their own robe, as well, a dirk with the same patterns on its handle as the goblet, and handed it over to the black-robed priest. "Don't touch Mabel with that thing. Don't you touch Mabel with that thing. I'll kill you, do you hear me?" He squeezed his wrists, painting the cold cuffs with more of the red of his blood as he strained his little muscles and pulled the chains violently. "Leave Mabel alone. Leave my sister alone!"

The black-robed priest dug the point of the dirk into his own wrist, granting leave of a pebble of blood from within his body and into the goblet. Elmer's voice relaxed as he saw none of the sinister things touching Mabel, but deep down he knew that was not where it ended.

His voice cracked.

"We're just countryside orphans. Your God doesn't want us. This has to be a mistake. Just let me free and I'll take her back to the orphanage, and we'll never leave again. Huh? How's that? We'll be good children." The priests said nothing, inciting Elmer to grit his teeth in frustration. "Say something! Just say something!"

And then they did, at least the black-robed priest, but not what he wanted to hear.

"In the black of night the Pantheon of Souls comes alive. In this Pantheon sits Azrael, the God of Souls. Praises we have sung to Thee. Listen now to our calls, and this soul we shall offer you in return."

A great chill that Elmer had never once experienced before suddenly crept upon his skin, like a horde of cockroaches in the darkness of a confined space, scrambling about at the faintest sign of light.

Soul…? Elmer's arms slumped. They are going to offer Mabel's soul…?

The black-robed priest dipped his forefingers into the goblet, and with his blood, drew something of a crest upon Mabel's forehead.

It was as though Elmer had lost his voice all over again. All he could do was watch as his sister was thrown up to the fate of the dreadful God of Souls.

The priests chanted once more in the same words they had done at the start, but Elmer could not hear them as clearly any longer. His pain had dulled his hearing.

He was going to lose her. He was going to lose Mabel. Was he just going to kneel here and watch her die? But what could he do?

Suddenly, the candle flames flickered with an uncanny intensity, making the chants of the priests match its rhythm. With each shiver of the fire came a louder chant more nerve-wracking than the last. Elmer could take it no more.

"Mabel…" he muttered. "I'm so sorry, Mabel. This is all my fault."

Grim and sullen, and as broken as the lenses of his glasses, Elmer did the only thing he could do: hope.

Maybe a miracle would happen and the priests would die instead, not Mabel. Maybe… He gnashed his teeth, the faint sign of hope that had crossed his mind vanishing at once.

It was stupid of him to expect miracles. The ones who performed such were the ones trying to take his sister away from him. There were no miracles coming to him here. None he could hope for.

The chantings died down as a dark, thick fog of smoke appeared beneath the ceiling of the room, filling its every edge with a foreboding sensation. Then he saw it, and for the second time in his life, he wished for death.

Mabel shook violently on the table, crashing and whimpering like a rat that had been fed with poison and was struggling to survive. She squealed, she snarled, she scratched the table, but despite all these, not once did she touch the candelabras that were surrounding her. It was as though they were her cage—a cage of fire she could not dare come into contact with or she would get burnt.

Elmer had seen nothing like it.

Blood ran down his sister's eyes in the form of tears. She was hurting, but he could do nothing. His mouth was wide open, but his voice was gone. And he could not seem to stop himself from watching.

Seconds passed, and then minutes, and after a while, Mabel abruptly stopped her shaking.

Has it all ended…? Elmer thought. Was his sister alive? Did they really take her soul? He wanted to believe it was all done and that his sister lived, but the smoky fog that remained hovering over them, along with the eerie feeling he could not shake off, did not let him have such a thought.

Something was coming. There was something else that was still going to happen, and it seemed the priests shared his thoughts as well as they all stood silent, waiting.

Mabel suddenly arched up, her chest rising to take the form of a crescent bridge, and with such a queer posture came a sharp, pained gasp.

Elmer's heart squeezed.

He violently jerked his chains again, forcefully pulling at them in such a crazy manner that he almost seemed like a rabid dog himself. But nothing he did to the chains worked to break him free.

As he reluctantly tugged at them one last time in failure, more tears streamed down his cheeks from his narrow brown eyes, which were nothing short of miserable. Then… Mabel's mouth opened wide and a black mist escaped from it.

Elmer's breathing seized as he watched the mist rise into the dark smoky fog blanketing the ceiling of the room, his sister's lifeless body falling back onto the table with a thud after it had escaped completely.

Mabel…? Elmer wanted to say, but he could not manage to speak. He watched the mist slowly take the shape of his little sister, but it had nothing of her warmth. It was cold and dark, and then it turned to look at him. A grisly and gloomy mist in the silhouette of his sister. It had no face, but he could see its expression. It had a guise of pain and sadness and… anger.

Elmer felt a sharp pang storm his heart. Anger? Why? Mabel was angry at him. Her soul was angry at him. It was his fault after all. It truly was. How could he live with himself now? There was no way he could go on. There was…

No…!

Elmer voiced to himself as his body trembled in a fit of rage, while his teeth rattled against each other, and his face contorted into a mask mashed up strongly with anguish and hatred.

He turned his eyes quickly away from Mabel's lingering soul, and pointed them at the priests who had chosen to resume their chants again.

The glint of vengeance which stained his eyes was not meant for his sister, it was meant for them.

It was all their fault. They did this to her—to his sister. She was not angry at him, she was angry at them. And he would make sure they all suffered for it. He would kill them all, slowly.