CHAPTER 2

Years later...

Two females and a male, on hooded cloaks, were on their knees, in a dark room illuminated by candles, decorated at strategic places like an alter. They were chanting a spell to find someone. Their hands were interlocked, outstretched towards the picture of a map placed on the floor, in front of them. Blood dripped from their interwebed hands onto the map.

Shortly, an airy breeze filled the room, blowing out all the lights from the candles.

"Santafey Texas. Found her!" Said the male voice.

"Let's get going." Answered one of the female voices.

The three individuals slowly stood up, still holding hands, as they chant a word and vanished.

* * *

Somewhere in Texas, at a hospital facility at night. Gloria, A young light-skinned, very beautiful, red-haired female doctor of about twenty-five years, walked out of the hospital building to the parking lot where her car was packed. She entered the car and drove to the gate. She greeted the three security guards at the gates as they checked her out.

"Hey, Eddie!" She called to one of the guards she was familiar with.

"Good evening Doc. How was your day today?" Replied Eddie, an elderly looking security guard in his mid-fifties, with a smirk.

"Well, I would have said fine, but some young lady just died on me in the operating room, so. It's never a good one for us Doctors experiencing such things. It's just too stressful." Gloria responded.

Eddie gave Gloria a remorseful look, then replied "Stress sure looks good on you, I must confess. I mean, you still look beautiful as always." In a bid to cheer her up.

"Oh, common Mr! What's next? You are going to invite me on a date?" She mocked.

"Maybe, if you feel up to it," Eddie replied with a grin.

"Ain't you too old to be flirting with me?" Gloria said and they both burst into a loud laugh. "But thanks anyway, I will consider our date when I'm less busy," She added, throwing a wink at him, "Good night dear Eddie." She completed and zoomed out of the hospital compound.

Gloria got to her estate house, parked her car in front of her home and went inside. Once inside, she turned on the lights, then went straight up to the bathroom and took a shower. After which, she came downstairs to the kitchen and got herself a hot cup of tea and went back upstairs to her room.

Gloria was busy staring at the view of the city around her through her window, while she sipped her tea, when suddenly, lights went out, building after buildings, till it got to hers and the whole town became overwhelmed with darkness.

"Oh, God! What's all this tonight? Is today the anniversary of the day the Devil betrayed you?" She lamented. She gulped the last tea from her mug and dropped the empty mug on the bedroom table, she picked up her phone, as she tried checking out online as to what might have caused the blackout, but there was no cell reception.

"Of course! It's definitely today." She answered her first question humorously. She crawled onto her bed and dived under her blanket to try and catch some sleep.

At exactly three o'clock in the morning, She was woken up by the sound of shattering glass and some movements downstairs. She hurriedly got off her bed in fear, the whole place still dark, she took a torch from the bedside table and went downstairs, carrying a baseball bat in her left hand.

As she reached downstairs, her light got hold of some broken glasses on the floor. She tried looking around the environment, but her light blinked and went off. She rained curses as she hit and shook the torch vigorously in distress, trying to fix the torch to light up again.

The baseball bat fell from her hand and rolled down, only to stop short as though something stopped it from moving further. She looked up and met a shadow standing before her, at exactly the spot the bat stopped rolling. She tried straining her eyes to see what's in front of her, the torch immediately lit directly at the face of a young, handsome, blonde man on a cloak. Gloria trembled in fear dropping the torch as she ran for the kitchen on the other side, she bumped into a lady figure at the kitchen's entrance.

Confusion and panic engulfed Gloria, as she ran back to the sitting room, trying to go up the stairs to her room, but this time, she stepped on the broken glasses on the floor. She screamed out in pain and all the lights came back on at the spur of the moment.

She navigated the environment with her eyes, but the burglars had vanished into thin air. She looked around the room, out of fear, trying to find some means of escape. Her eyes came upon a wide-open French window, whose glass was broken by the burglars while coming in. Knowing she's currently in danger, she headed straight for the window, ignoring her pains, the only instinct in her head was to escape her house and the strange burglars, as she stepped on more broken glasses going out.

Gloria ran through the trees and bushes as fast as she could, straight out of her estate, into the street. Standing outside, She touched her body, trying to reach for her phone to call up the police, but remembered she left it back in her bedroom.

In that confusion of how to get a phone, a car, blaring with loud music, rushed towards where she stood. she waved for the car to stop and it did, just after driving few meters from her position. She moved closer to the car and saw a young, beautiful, dark-haired lady, in a party dress. Gloria quickly jumped into the car and told the driver to speed off.

"Hey, are you okay? What happened to you, and where are you off to look like this?" The lady asked endlessly, lowering the volume of the music in the car, as she drove off.

"Will you stop blabbering and just drive straight to the hospital!" Shouted Gloria. "Can I have your phone, please? I need to call the police." She asked again, looking worried.

"Wooh! calm down." Replied the lady, sternly.

Gloria felt calm, immediately the lady commanded her to, as though she was injected with heavy antidepressants. She then looked at the lady surprised. Almost immediately, two individuals, the same people who broke into Gloria's house, appeared at the back seat of the lady's car.

"Good work as an always little sister." Said the handsome blonde guy, to the lady driving.

"Who the hell are you people? What do you want with me?" Gloria cried, her nerves still calm, but was now in tears and shocked at the turn of the event as she managed to stutter in fear.

"We are what I believe you all now call, The ancient ones? The ancestors? or whatever name this generation might have cooked up for the first settlers of Earth." Replied the lady who appeared together with the blonde male. She was a light-skinned, very beautiful, young lady, with long, silky red hair, almost having a striking resemblance with Gloria.

"And we want a lot with you." giggled the male in the car.

"You want to have a deep sleep now Gloria, so sleep dear." Said the lady driving.

Gloria immediately slumped off to sleep.

"Celeste, you and your parlour tricks, I pray you are careful enough to not use them on the wrong being again." Said the lady with the red hair to the lady driving, "But I must commend you for all this. You did a great job, little sister." She added, smiling at her younger sister, the driver.

Celeste, the driver, beckoned to the red-haired female. "You know me to be doing this for aeons Fey! Besides a few mistakes, when have I ever gone wrong with my powers?" She asked rhetorically. "Well, Thank you both for the compliments." She added, smiling sheepishly, as she was enjoying their appraisal.

"Now let's make this work this time. Mother will be pleased." The blonde male spat.

"Of course Luke, no mistakes this time," Fey replied him.

* * *

"The situation of missing persons happening across the state of New Orleans and the recent breaking in and abduction of Doctor Gloria Brooke, from her residence in Texas, has caused an uproar in the country..." A news presenter reported on TV.

"...So far, they've been a significant number of missing persons across six counties in New Orleans, in addition to the recently abducted doctor from Texas. Police are saying they've not yet established any possible connections to the cases so far. Gloria is the daughter of Professor Wayne Brooke, a wealthy and well-renowned Scientist and CEO of Brooke's Biotech Laboratories..." The TV presenter continued narrating in the background.

* * *

Inside Wayne's office, in the Brooke's Laboratory building. Wayne Brooke, Gloria's father, was in a heated up agitation with a man, who was one of his partners.

"...is this what this is about John? I said no to you and your people and you kidnapped my daughter?" Wayne fired fiercely.

"So you think we did this? Look Wayne, our organization don't go about abducting people cause they said no to us. We brought you a deal, you said you don't want in on it so we moved on with our deal and that's it." John replied innocently.

"I swear, if I don't get back my daughter in the next forty-eight hours, I will get my lawyers working round the clock to expose you and your organization." Wayne threatened.

"You need to relax, she's probably just fine..." John said, trying to calm Wayne down.

"Get out of my office! We are done here," Wayne cut John off in anger, with a gesture, asking for him to leave. "Forty-eight hours! forty-eight God-damned hours! it's all you've got." He panted as John reached the door to leave.

* * *

New Orleans, at night...

In an ancient-looking cemetery, fourteen figures, three of whom were the people who abducted Dr Gloria. While the other eleven were on hooded cloaks that covered their faces.

They stood in a crypt containing a swimming pool structure, some skulls, sigil and symbols, inscribed on the walls and floor of the crypt, signifying a ritual altar. Bodies of the missing persons, over fifty bodies, were arranged around the pool symbolically, with parts of their bodies cut, as their blood moved into the pool, filling it up with blood.

The whole place was lit with countless candles and few fire torches in designated places.

"Bring the girl!" Luke commanded.

Four figures on hoodies, brought in a depressed-looking Gloria, her hands tied and mouth taped.

They stripped and tied her to a table altar. She cried for help as her abductors embalmed her with chalk in preparation for a ritual.

Fey brought out a dagger, seeing it, Gloria began to beg for her life.

"If we want you dead we won't bother going through all the stress of bringing you here. You don't even know what you are, do you?" Fey expressed.

"We won't kill you, not yet," Luke said, making a funny, yet surprised face as Gloria cried the more.

Celeste carried in a newborn baby of less than a week old. The child was placed next to Gloria as it wailed bitterly.

The three siblings, Celeste, Luke and Fey, cut with the dagger on their palm. Their blood dripping hand they then used to hold the dagger, jointly. They stabbed the chest of the infant, carving out its heart. They threw the body of the infant in the pool and raised its heart over Gloria as its blood dripped all over her, while the three siblings chanted in a magical tongue.

The other figures moved close, lifted Gloria and dipped her deep into the blood-filled pool. Then all fourteen figures chanted, as Gloria drowned.

Gloria tried to swim out of the pool, but it seemed as though she was floating powerlessly deep inside an ocean, she kept trying hard until she began to lose her breath. In her last moment, inside the pool of blood, she closed her eyes, but immediately opened them wide, as they became bloodshot under the pool.

Above the pool, the flames on all the candles and torches increased insatiably. The three siblings slowly drew back from the pool out of fear. A loud monstrous voice echoed in the room and all the lights went off. The whole place transformed into stern darkness.

A demonic figure suddenly appeared, filling the crypt, as it tore through and slaughtered all the people above the pool. Their screaming filled the cold dark night.

* * *

A couple of policemen rushed inside the crypt and found a naked Gloria sitting on the floor, covered in blood and crying. They covered her up and took her to an ambulance outside.

The medics took a look at Gloria, while two policemen and a detective stood beside her, asking her some questions.

"I was put to drown in a pool of blood. they were muttering something, I don't understand, when suddenly, I heard a loud noise and the screaming voices of the people who abducted me, after that, I can't really recall, it was all blur..." Gloria explained difficulty, as the officer noted it down.

"....Doctor Gloria was just found at a crypt in the New Orleans cemetery, with what seemed like a ritual gone wrong by some occult group. It's sheer luck that the Doctor is still alive and she is the only one that survived the incident. We are sorry to announce that other missing victims whose bodies were also found inside the crypt didn't make it including the body of an infant. we are also getting a report that the eleven cultists or abductors were all found dead..." A journalist was reporting in the background, behind the marked tape. There were other reporters and spectators too, trying to get a first-hand tale of the whole event.

Three exotic cars, in convoy, moved in and parked. Wayne Brooke, Gloria's father, came down from one and ran to where his daughter was. Gloria on seeing her Dad rushed to hug him tightly. Wayne asked to take Gloria home and was granted permission.

"Miss, we'll be coming to visit you later on for more questioning if you don't mind." asked one of the detectives, politely.

A worn-out Gloria managed to stutter the words, "Sure I.. I.." when Wayne angrily cut in.

"Of course not officer. Or better still, maybe you should call her up to address Congress on what happened. Uh no! I was thinking she should also attend the United Nations' next General Assembly and brief them too." He exclaimed frustratingly. "My daughter just went through trauma. If you didn't get the information you needed in this place, don't you dare show up your ugly face at my place to question my daughter for any reason whatsoever." Wayne fired angrily, as he walked out on the officer, with Gloria in his arm. They went to his car and his convoy of three left the premises with Gloria.