The First Age

Like the authoritarians Hitler and Stalin, Nikolai Brandon was not a native to the country he would eventually lead and dominate.  Instead, he was born on American soil to American entrepreneurs, and his story has remapped the world.

An ascetic, Nikolai very likely might have become a monk in another age: he disdains anarchy and tolerates materialism, an apparent contradiction for a man whose adolescence was largely developed by America's rich and famous.  Even now, at the height of his authority thus far, he does not allow himself any of the luxuries or trappings of power that his newly risen aristocracy, the ruling ASU, and later CCD, elite, frequently enjoy.  Though he readily uses the rewards to flourish ambitions common to his own, going as far as to encourage their revelry to such levels that would make the tsars blush.

He had few close friends until his arrival in Italy, either as a result of a youth surrounded by a superficial culture or as an instinctive shun of the few relationships he did nurture.  Either way, he probably harbored a severely constricted capacity for intimacy.

He was obsessed with abstract intellectual principles which he spent most of his life advancing either through his early writings or evidenced by disassociated advances as a businessman.  He felt so completely convinced of the correctness of his world view that he was only interested in debate or disagreement as a means to prove his correctness.  The sole semester spent at the University of Bologna likely nurtured this propensity.  From his writings emerged a picture of a man obsessed with disenchanting society’s entitlement-based view of the world; a charm reflecting economic retribution against the so-called powerless victims he felt clogged modern society.  While some may interpret his diatribes as heartless, he described his constitution as a form of justice.

The nations which suffered economic decimation following the world's apparently uncontrollable natural disasters led to appeals for CCD aid.  To this hardened leader, he viewed the nations of the west wielding appeals of guilt, but the Ascendancy grew deaf to their manipulations. He left them to wallow in the consequence of not having devised contingencies for such events as he had. "When nations thrive on paycheck to paycheck," he bellowed to the Red Square, packed outside the Kremlin.  Two continents roared with applause, "disaster is inevitable. We owe them nothing!"

Even before he left the United States behind, he was convinced all of the so-called hardships of modern society were a conspiracy of a twenty-first century decline in discipline. In this case, a decline not defined by religious morality but heralded by the balance of power dictating the 'relationship of class to the means of production,' as Lenin once described. The strict economic canon framing demands modulating supplies always spoke to the back of his mind; success demands discipline, and men always reap what they sow.  It was ironic he chose Bologna as the institution for studying the law, as it was in this ancient city he encountered the former seat of the Italian Communist Party, and his life-long prejudices were greatly influenced by them.

As a boy, his earliest memories were of living in a two bedroom house on the edge of town: the last on a dead end street.  An enormous field grew on the far side of their yard, bordered by a set of train tracks running in between.  The clearest detail regarding the interior of this house was a towering sheet of sliding glass doors that he was never tall enough to open unaided.  There was a phone on the wall hanging out of reach except for the lengthy cord dangling to the floor.  It rang every night when his father called, always during dinner.  His mother would rise  and speak quietly with him while her meal grew cold.  An extra plate was always saved, kept warm in the oven, while young Nikolai tried to stay awake long enough after to greet his father's arrival home from work.  He was never successful.

His father worked.  All the time.  He was gone in the mornings by the time Nikolai crawled from bed only to find evidence of his presence in the form of a cold coffee pot, a damp razor, or a bookmark advanced slightly farther in whatever book he was reading at the time.  Moments of reunion were rare, but Nikolai adored them as any child should.

Alek Brandon's hard work eventually won their family liberty from the middle class.  Next came a mansion on a sprawling lawn.  Garages were filled with foreign cars rarely seen in daylight.  His mother hired a chef and soon people in uniforms cleared the table after dinner.  ‘Hard work reaps reward’ was the example his father ascribed to his teenage son.  If that was true, Alek earned every luxury he never seemed to have the opportunity to enjoy.

Despite the town car that drove Nikolai to and from school, he had otherwise normal aspirations for any teenager: an Ivy League education, see the world, someday build a castle and be the king of it.

Then the decade's supernatural boom ended poorly for his father’s energy company, which was, by then, a multi-billion dollar corporation.  An offshore rig exploded; employees were never recovered and the spillage seeped into cold Alaskan waters.  Then the first of several unseasonal hurricanes destroyed Gulf refineries.  The cost of production skyrocketed. Contracts were revoked. The media demonized their profits and the public retaliated by abandoning their stock.  When legislation for Alaskan expansion was withdrawn, laws which the company staked their future upon, majority shares were purchased by key members of the board.  Restructure was announced, and Alek Brandon, founder and president of Brandon Oil, was locked out of his own building. The next day he put a gun to his head.  A box of his personal effects from his office had been delivered that morning.

After the avalanche of tragedies, Nikolai calmly revoked his acceptance to Harvard Business school soon after, surprising everyone when he moved to Italy following graduation. The University of Bologna was founded in 1088 and was the oldest university in Europe. Not only was the law school ranked high among giants but the antiquity of city itself was surreal. It was as the draw of the architecture: a mix of medieval towers, antique buildings, churches, famous palazzos, and lengthy porticoes. Compared to Bologna, the red bricks of Boston felt like a facade.

He was attracted to the confident, steady beat of a city aware of its own righteousness. The university curated a hundred different libraries in a few square miles; and while his peers studied in cafes and sipped their espressos in brightness, Nikolai descended into those lofty tombs like he were going home. He sought not only the separation from the hasty tantrums of American life, but escape to a place where he could forge his own name upon a more worthy headstone. He soon came to realize Bologna smothered an intriguing bastion of socialism and communism long assumed disappeared. The Italian Communist Party, while two decades out of power, still ebbed a strong vibe once one knew where to seek it.

In addition to business law, he found himself studying history as well, both disgusted and enthralled by the brutality of the twentieth century’s dictators. Rather than rejection of their horrific methods, Nikolai considered what these tyrants did wrong to earn the world's hatred. For instance, Stalin’s campaign to crush counterrevolutionaries eliminated every group to have ever opposed him, but sadism was a poor campaign.  

“An estimated ten percent of the Russian population was at one time imprisoned. Torture - mutilation of men and women, gouging out of eyes, perforating of ear drums, and encasement in nail boxes - was common practice in the People's Commissariat and often conducted in front of other family members for added humiliation and shock. Effective, but when trainees were led to the torture chambers ‘like medical students to laboratories to watch dissections’ all Stalin accomplished was the breeding of future rebels. Stalin’s power dominated fifteen soviet countries and half of Eastern Europe in reigns of terror to outlast both Hitler and Roosevelt. Had these dictators exchanged brutality for charm, their realms might still remain. Their personal paranoia, taste for sadism, and hatred funneled at a single people group led to their downfall. Sheep do not follow sheepdogs. They follow the grass.”
-From the writings of Nikolai Brandon, Fall 2002.


“They follow the grass.” Nikolai said quietly to himself. The dim light of his laptop screen stared quietly back. Cold and approving. He reread the last few lines then, getting a feel for the flow of the words and the cadence of the syllables. It was an essay of stark realities, but infused with shadows of horror.  This final conclusion elevated his considerations to a whole new level to put words to his thoughts like this, it was liberating.  It was macabre.  It was beautiful.  It was poetry.  He started to yawn.

“You’re grinning, Nik. You must be pleased with yourself.” Garret’s stately Italian accent cut his yawn short.

Nikolai rubbed the fatigue from his eyes and looked across the two laptops at the man sitting across from him. Garret was gathering stacks of papers and closing up the books he’d retrieved. He always pulled more books than he intended to use. It was almost as if he were preparing to pad his reference sources rather than expressing genuine interest in his research, but Garret was excellent at hiding his true intentions.

“With this masterstroke, you’d be pleased too.”  Nik stifled another yawn, but his stomach growled. He felt depleted and not just from skipping dinner. It had been a long week.

"Yeah? Let me read it."  Garret twisted the laptop his direction, eyes darting across the last few lines.  Then he laughed to himself.  "You're talking about a cult of personality.  Clever."  

Nikolai leaned back and nodded, smug grin agreeing; obviously.  Elementally, the best cults were always media campaigns.  "All a dictator needs is a good PR team," he added, closing up shop.  “Let’s go. And I need an espresso on the way back."

Garret shrugged as though he didn’t care when they left, but then pinched the back of his neck when he thought his study partner was looking away. He was tired too, but the blasted man was better at hiding it. “Only if we make that wine.” He said, “not espresso. There’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about anyway. Wine bars are quieter.”

Nik rarely drank wine, but for the relief of finishing this last project, and escaping the noise of a cafe at this time of night, perhaps it was worth a bit of indulgence. The two students found frigid, but fresh air outside.  Garret complained of the winter so far, his first in Bologna. It was colder than he was used to and immediately knotted up his scarf, turned up his collar and threw his hands in his coat pockets. But Nikolai cherished the knife-like prickle on his face. It reminded him of New York City at Christmas: cold, stressed, and wet; with streets blessedly thinned of tourists.  Eventually, though, he found his own hands in his pockets. By the time they reached Garret’s preferred venue, Enoteca, Nikolai was regretting leaving his gloves in their flat that morning.

There were plenty of trendy bars in the central university district, but this was an encyclopedic wine shop. The sort of place frequented by middle aged men seeking cigars and solitude on their way home from work rather than the thriving social scene of livelier places.  A man could sit in a corner with a book all night and never be bothered but for the prospect of enlightening conversation.  At this time of evening, however, exhausted students dragging themselves in from the cold, shoulders drawn down by heavy messenger bags, were not an unusual sight.  Finals were fast approaching.

Like the library they just left, the space was small. While too narrow for more than a slender bar, a walk way and a few tables, the lofty ceiling would have eased a claustrophobic's nerves. Enoteca had a nice atmosphere, but it meant drafty temperatures.  It wasn’t exactly cozy, even with the touches of velvet and tuxedo clad sommeliers, but a few glasses of wine warmed everyone’s blood, and before he realized it time was slipping slowly away.

“Nik, you know it’s tradition for my family to attend this university?” Garret asked, staring into the globe of his merlot glass.
“You only bring it up every other day.” Nik’s chuckle died when Garret began twisting the fat class-ring around his finger. He did that when he was nervous.  Nik blinked the sleep from his eyes, and wished for that espresso again.

“I’m going back to Rome for holiday. You should come with me, unless you’re going back to the States. I showed my father some of your writing. He’s asked to meet you,” Garret said. He sounded serious.  Of course, he never joked about his family.  Something Nik could appreciate.

“Your father?” Nikolai asked, surprised, and unsure what to make of this. He hadn’t decided if he were going home or not. Though he looked up flight options that morning, he couldn't quite bring himself to buy one yet.  It would be a depressing Christmas.  Not to mention repetitive.  Telling everyone you're fine over and over again just became redundant.  “I know he’s a big deal historian, but I don’t see why-“

Garret interrupted, “Just come to Rome. It’ll be worth your while I think,” he said.  "And I'll show you around.  There's a famous landmark or two worth seeing.  You might have heard of them."

He had no idea why he was really requested to visit Garret's family, but a tour of the capital from someone raised in the city would be welcomed.   Like Garret said, even Nikolai appreciated the history of it.  Besides, his first few weeks finding his way around Bologna felt less like romantic exploration and more like helpless wandering. Rome, with a true Roman, would be welcome.

Truth be told, Nikolai was intrigued by the invitation to meet Garret’s father. His roommate failed to provide anything beyond vague references about future job opportunities, but networking rarely had a down side, and the man was suppose to be well-connected. The intrigue only increased when he realized the enormity of one Historian’s authority. Garret’s father was not a revered librarian. He was not even a government archivist. He was the director of the Vatican Historical Society. By the time Nikolai descended into the magnificence of antiquity, a labyrinthine of mystery and conspiracy as old as the Vatican itself, he felt summoned.

The office of the Regus, the Society’s chief official, was a place of splendor. Yet the man who held the title was far from what Nikolai imagined. This was no stooped wizard with fading eyes and long robes. The man who stood to greet them was only in his middle ages, with stiff eyes and an athletic build. His suit was fashionable without being trendy and he seemed the sort of man more likely to select a fencing sword rather than a pen as his weapon of choice. Nikolai’s suspicion was illogical, and he forced himself to stride forward nonetheless.

“Nikolai,” Garret introduced his father, “this is Regus Wilhelm Ravid.”
“Nikolai Brandon. Pleasure to meet you, sir.” He said, taking the initiative to introduce himself. Garret frowned, likely thinking his roommate to be far too American at all the wrong times.

They shook hands above the Regus’ desk, the contents of which seemed fitting for a Historian. In fact, the entire room seemed to fit. Books gleamed with gold leaf or silver foil bindings. Pivotal relics of the Renaissance were placed like ornaments of art rather than strewn around like the trinkets of a collector. A wall of cabinets looked likely to hide computer or other unsightly equipment. It was tidy and put together, like the Regus himself. Yet there were hints of the man rather than the office about. A coat of arms hung on the wall above his chair: the crest belonged to Garret’s family line. Nikolai recognized the symbol from his roommate’s ring. A jeweled dagger was displayed behind a glass case. The handle was curved and set with jewels. It looked like something out of the Old Testament.

“Mr. Brandon the pleasure is mine.” Wilhelm said. He had a thick, heavy voice. Slow of pace, as though he selected his words carefully, yet he returned to his seat fluidly. They both sat.  “I have enjoyed reading some of your writings. My son tells me you are interested in the Law for your future.”

“More of the philosophy of Law, rather than the carriage of it.” Nikolai corrected. Wilhelm’s jaw tensed slightly, but Nik held that gaze without worry he’d cast some offense. He wasn’t even sure what this interview was all about anyway.

“Indeed. Your abstractions are more befitting a philosopher rather than a civil servant.” He said.

Nikolai nodded. “I am glad my intent is clear, but you're right, I am not interested in civil bondage.”

“And what does interest you?” Garret asked. Nikolai felt his eyes narrow. The crest above the Regus’ head loomed like the shadow of an age. His heartbeat flattened. There was no racing for the appropriate answer. He knew exactly what he wanted.

“Legacy.”

Wilhelm smiled. “Have you ever heard of the Atharim?”

---

“Let me get this straight,” Nikolai said, rubbing his temple and barely controlling the volume of his voice. “You’re a member of some ancient secret society charged with preventing Armageddon?” This was the first private moment all day he’d had to speak with Garret since leaving the conclave chamber. Nik still wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all. “And you want me to join your crusade?”

He pulled the tie from his neck in one clean motion and folded it up with his suit coat next.  Dread was the wrong word for how he felt.  Strange.  Electric, maybe, but kind of nervous.  Such that he suddenly understood those thrill-seeking fools chasing adrenaline all the time.  Likewise, whatever was about to happen, he was sure it was going to regret it when it was over.  Secret subterranean chambers, men in hoods, guards with guns. Whatever this initiation involved, he had a sick feeling it was going to end badly.

“Look. Don’t be nervous. It’s not that bad and you’re a perfect candidate to be one of us. Just wait until you learn the truth of it all.” Garret said, unfurling the robe Nikolai was meant to change into. It was like something out of a movie. A bad movie.  

“The truth about what?” He asked, glad for the robe. The air was cold despite the bead of sweat around his neck.
“Everything.” Garret said. He arranged the robe gently. Almost as if his fingers draped holy cloth upon a revered alter rather than straightening out his friend’s attire. Their eyes met, and whatever Garret saw he seemed satisfied, for he nodded and stepped away from the mirror so Nikolai could see the result.

His breath caught. He stared at the image of himself. Warm black folds settled about his shoulders like a soft blanket, cuneiform lined the hood he pulled low, obscuring the blue of his eyes while voluminous sleeves obscured his hands. This looks… right.  

That was never a good sign.

The whispering sound of steel sliding free turned him. Garret, now in identical darkness, was holding a knife. He looked more like some warrior priest than a Vatican historian. There was no doubt the Regus was his father, not dressed like that.

Nik joined his friend by the door. “I’m joining the occult, aren’t I?”

Garret laughed. “You’re going to love it.”

---

Café Trezo was a small shop on one of the oldest palazzos in the city of Bologna and home to one of the most knowledgeable baristas in northern Italy. Manuel Ivan was a surgeon with his coffee. He tapped the velvety grind of beans into the filter as though he held a beating heart in his hands.  In the few moments it took to brew, he would turn his attention to retrieving the appropriate cup-style to go with the drink. Nikolai sat at the counter in his usual spot and as a flock of boisterous tourists barged in the front, he was reminded with the first sip why he put up with the noise. Watching a master work his craft never grew old.

It certainly wasn't for the décor. The bar top reminded him of a contrived American diner, only there, rather than the clunky coffee mugs stacked into vulnerable porcelain towers, here were delicate espresso cups arrayed on steam vents. Bologna perfected the technique of coffee brewing hundreds of years ago, but the dark taverns of bygone centuries have been exchanged for bright, airy cafes of more elegant décor, but there was nothing ornamental about the place. Rather than paintings on the walls, the frames displayed Manuel's many awards. It was noisy as well but eventually the clink of glassware, hiss of espresso machines, and grinding of beans faded to background, drowning the tourists' chatter from his mind. He returned to studying. This place was about as opposite as one could find for a library, but that wasn't always a bad thing.

Nikolai flipped the next page. The book resting on the counter was heavy with old age but well-maintained even by Bologna standards. The paper was thick between his fingers, far from the ghostly feel of copy paper or the thin tissues of religious books.  It felt like velum, although he knew that to be a splinter of romantic imagination. Although, a week ago, he thought underground Vatican societies were nonsense as well.  Indeed, this tome wasn't filled with magical prints holding the secrets of the universe, it was far more academic: an encyclopedia printed on cloth paper. He shoved this book in and out of his bag a dozen times the last few days. He ate with it. He dropped it on café counters. Yet every time he turned another page, he smoothed the fibers reverently.  it probably was nonsense, but that didn't mean he couldn't respect it.

A cup and saucer slid into his line of sight, and Nikolai glanced up from the drawing of a beast with three eyes. Barkbeast. Its hide was thick and wrinkled like an oak tree, and must be stabbed beneath the jaw to kill it else a bladed weapon was likely to break off.

"Taking a mythology class this semester?" Manual nodded at the strange book.

Nikolai stretched himself out. His spine seemed to uncurl as he did and he realized he had a headache. The creature did look rather mythological.
"Would you believe I was suckered into it?" He laughed to himself and eagerly put the hot coffee to his lips. It was his fourth of the evening despite Manuel's aversion to drinking coffee for the stimulation rather than for pleasure.

Manuel muttered under his breath, his reaction to the flagrant chugging, but he accepted Nikolai's money nevertheless. Nik grinned. Manuel might curse an idiot for ordering a latte after lunch but he still took their business. More than just the barista's arrogance, he liked Manuel. He was probably in his mid-thirties, but he wore a spotless suit as he worked behind the bar. He was a violinist going to orchestra.

"Odd class for a lawyer." Manuel said.
"You have that right." He said, and gently scratched at his left arm. He had to get back to studying and Manuel went back to work.

A few page flips later, he turned when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Garret had arrived, who grabbed the rest of Nikolai's coffee and downed it like a tequila shot.

"Sure you can have that." Nik said, frowning at the empty cup.
Garret shrugged and shoved both cup and saucer aside. "I knew you'd be here. Come on, we need to go check something out."

"Check what out?" Even as he asked he grabbed his stuff to go. The book and notes he’d been taking went shoved in his bag and he pulled his coat from the back of the chair. He was still buttoning it up as they left.

Garret answered then, but kept his voice quiet until they were out on the street. "About a year ago, an Atharim lost the trail of a Dreyken he'd been tracking in Florence. This particular Dreyken was apparently something of a showman. Not only did it five-finger slash his victims up, but it liked to make a scene with the corpses."

Bag across his shoulder, Nikolai looked up from hooking the clasp in place. A Dreyken? He'd only read about them yesterday, but his memory buzzed with a hundred details about vastly different creatures.

"What do you mean? Like leaving a body outside a school or something? Freak out all the kids?" Garret's motorcycle was parked nearby. It was a Ducati, one of the Italian company's best-selling models. Small as far as bikes went, but light and maneuverable through the people-packed Bologna allies. Garret and Nikolai walked most of their time, so to pull out the bike meant one thing.

Garret handed him the spare helmet. "Something like that."

From his roommate’s smirk, Nikolai had the distinct impression he were about to see an example.

"We're just doing a drive by." Garret said as Nik got on. "An hour ago airport security phoned in a body splayed out on the runway at Marconi. It was slashed up. They think it was a wild animal." Garret winked and Nikolai cringed.

Nikolai spent the next six kilometers trying to remember everything he could about Dreyken. They looked like men from a distance, that he knew. More importantly, they could be killed like men. Catching one was the hard part. Not only were they physically fast, but supposedly clever enough to outwit a chess prodigy.

Bologna was a flat city packed with a million people unfurled before the slope of green hills to the south. Toward the north the airport stretched across a grassy plain. The farther from the city they drove, the more forward in time everything seemed to advance. Asphalt lanes. Office buildings. Cement.

Garret bypassed the entrance to the airport highway. Instead, they turned down a service road looping the exterior of the field. As they sped along, signs against trespassing caught his eye.

They slowed at the entrance to an old car park. The airport opened two new ones closer to the gates and was in the process of tearing this one down. So far it was only gutted.

Garret pulled up by the front ramp. Barricades kept anyone, even on a bike, from driving in. Construction fence wrapped the rest.
"The old car park?" Nik asked, getting off and hooking his helmet on the bike as Garret shut down the engine.

"Dreyken need to sleep for a few hours after kills. The body was found on the runway," Garret said, pointing at the open land across the street.  “It wouldn’t have much time to get far after that.”

Down the far end of the runway, lights from the terminals lit up the night. Then the howl of jet engines suddenly grew loud and both men looked overhead as a plane swept in for the land.

Nikolai nodded and the two headed up the ramp. "You think it chose a half deconstructed car park? Shouldn't there be crews here during the day? I think they'd notice a monster hanging from the rafters."

Garret shrugged. "Probably. But they striked two weeks ago. The place is just sitting here."

Dreyken were supposed to be clever bastards. Who knew how long one needed to sleep, but hijacking someone else's house without knowing when they might come home didn't sound like the master plan of a genius.

As they explored deeper into the cement prison, the howl of engines ripped regularly outside.  Garret kept a close eye on the construction job meanwhile. The place was pretty well gutted but otherwise there wasn't much to check out. Exposed pipes from a ripped out ceiling ran over head. Strips of fluorescent lights had been taken apart. Not even their wiring remained. Which left the harsh glow of construction lamps spaced out at regular intervals. Likely meant to keep vagrants out.

Nikolai caught himself yawning as Garret glanced over. The older Atharim blinked, "Just another boring Saturday night, Nikolai?"

He started to grin but finished yawning instead. It had been a hard week. What with joining the occult and cramming two thousand years of lore into a few days. "I'm trying to remember. Dreyken.” He rubbed his head, “dark. They like the dark, right?" They rounded the ramp to the lower levels.

Garret nodded, then dropped his voice to a whisper as they took the turn. "Not so much they like the dark as they don't like the light. It burns their eyes."

Right. Their eyes. Their pupils were always black discs because they couldn't constrict for the same reason their frigid skin couldn't sweat. Too much light blinded and wracked them with pain.

The lowermost level of the car park was dim but still lit. Orange extension cords ran along the length of the walls. Pools of yellow light glowed like spheres in the fog. There was just enough space to leave pools of darkness in between. Anything could hide in them. Garret pulled out a halogen flashlight then made a sharp gesture toward the opposite side of the wall like they should split up – because that was always a good idea.

Separated, the two Atharim carefully made their way. They kept each other in sight about as carefully as they checked everything else, but there was nothing to see. Just the sleek run of pipes overhead and the gentle slope of cement leading ever downward.

They made it to the end of the garage, and Nik wasn't sure if he were relieved or disappointed.

Garret holstered his firearm and together they made for the corner stairwell. "That little hunch didn't pay out. Let's go."

Before he could move, a feeling of wrongness suddenly stabbed his spine.  Nikolai touched Garret on the shoulder and both men stopped. Nikolai turned, and slowly walked to the center of the ramp. He dropped his bag to the ground. “What?” Garret asked, but the other Atharim was staring back up the ramp as though he were looking into those pools of darkness. Or perhaps that the darkness was looking back at him. The hair on the back of his neck curled, and the air suddenly grew cold like someone opened a door in another room of the house.

Then Nikolai realized there was one place he hadn't been watching.

He looked up. Just as whatever clung to the pipes overhead let go. He yelled out as the weight collapsed him to the cement. He struggled, but skeletal fingers strong as roots crushed his throat and a knee held him there. He tried shoving away but his arms were pinned under his shoulders. Then his head began to swim and breath stopped coming. Two more of the creatures wrestled Garret to the ground and held him there. The sound of his gun went skidding across the cement.

"To their knees." He heard a quiet voice command ahead of them and a moment later his throat opened up, his arms were wrenched behind his back, and that same vice like grip brought Nikolai to his knees and held him there, coughing uncontrollably. He struggled at the thing holding him, until it leaned and whispered in his ear.

"Listen." It hissed. Its breath smelled like a funeral.

Nikolai stopped and looked up at it.

The creature was a man. At least in form. The two holding Garret were nearly identical as this one. They were lithe, but incredibly strong creatures wearing surprisingly stylish pilots’ glasses. Their skin was smooth and stretched across gaunt cheekbones. All three wore dark, warm coats and sheepskin gloves. Pick the right club scene and they’d probably fit right in. Until one licked its lips and stopped a man’s heart. Nothing alive leered with that kind of intent. If Dreyken were ever once men, then they were now cannibals.

Then a fourth slid into view. It held its hands behind its back and looked between its captives. A curl of a smile was on its lips.

It approached Garret first. It looked at him a moment then grabbed his arm, flicked the buttons on his cuff and shoved up his left sleeve. What it saw there melted the loathing smile from its face. It lips pressed flat, frozen as a corpse. The ink of a snake looped around itself was tattooed on Garret's arm.

"Yes," it said, staring curiously down at Garret, "an Atharim." Its voice was quiet, but melodious. "Seventy-five years I run from the hunters when it should have been the other way around, yes."

Garret spat on its shoe.

It didn't seem concerned as it left Garret behind.

Its hands weren't gloved as the others were. Running beneath that thin flesh were the red web of spidery veins. It must have been the one to eat. The others would be too cold to go without gloves. The Dreyken calmly pulled the glasses and tucked them in a pocket.

It knelt face to face in front of Nikolai. The enormous black discs set in his eyes stared like the abyss into his soul. They were rimmed by a narrow sickle of blue.

Then, with the same smooth motion as it had Garret’s, the Dreyken grabbed Nikolai's left arm but instead of revealing bare skin, there was a bandage beneath his sleeves.

Nikolai didn't wince when it was ripped off.
"So. A baby Atharim."
The other creatures sighed soft sounds of laughter. The flesh beneath was raw, but new ink was clear against the tender flesh.

What the Dreyken did next did make Nikolai cried out.  Five spikes pierced the inside his elbow and the sound of his skin separating as claws ran down the length of his arm nearly made him pass out. He didn't look down, but his arm grew hot. And the pain of it. It was overwhelming. "You saw me, didn't you Baby Atharim?" It hissed in his ear.

"Let him go, Dreyken!" Garret yelled, and both Nikolai and the Dreyken looked his way. Their gazes met. The horror etched into Garret’s expression was disturbing.

The Dreyken returned to its feet, fondly sampling Nikolai’s human blood from its nails. It retrieved Garret's pistol and held the weapon in its slender hands. "I only want one Atharim." It spoke down at the weapon as though asking for its favor then returned to Nikolai.

He felt the cold circle of gunmetal press to his forehead. Garret surged another effort of strength and the two Dreyken strained to keep him in control.

“How do you want to die baby Atharim?” Their leader asked him.

Nikolai’s chest tightened, panic on the edge of his mind. With all his soul he wanted to shout: 'Not like this!' He saw a flowery spray on a leather chair. He saw chunks on the wall. He smelled the singe of hair. He watched a faint wisp of smoke. He wanted to scream. He was going to die on his knees with a gun to his head. Just like his father.

His soul stretched to get away from it: the gun, the metal; it was going to be hot. He closed his eyes, not answering the question, and the fury focused.

Then the sound of an exploding bulb popped in the distance. Then another. And another, and a heartbeat later the lamps nearby went out and the men were nightblinded. The Dreyken all jerked the glasses from their faces and so regain their sight, but Nikolai remained as he was. In darkness he felt cloaked; invisible. Powerful. But he literally couldn't move. His lungs were on fire. His bones were on the verge of liquifying. Then the hair on his neck struck to attention, and suddenly the charges dancing on the darkness collapsed and the air snapped. A million points of light suddenly connected in a streaking flash that burnt his flared eyes like a child staring into the eclipse.

He looked away, but desperately wanted to scream with the electrocutions around him. But he was frozen. The Dreyken holding his arms shook with frenzy and fell away, crackling and scorching and writhing in pain. Their high-pitched howls were the screech of vocal cords on dry chalk. A concert of horrors. Symphonic one moment and the next followed by the void of soundless death.

He realized only in the following silence that he'd fallen to his hands and knees, quivering with the terror and pain of it all. Then Garret was overhead. Demanding something. But his voice cut like diamonds.

Nikolai slowly lifted his head. The scene was impossible to believe. Four scorched bodies lay smoldering. Their clothes were melted. Their hair gone. Their gnarled hands reached outward, forever frozen in unsuccessful flight.

He looked at his arm, and his chest collapsed upon seeing it. He shoved the sleeves down to his wrist and frantically pressed the cloth to the wounds.

"Garret are you-" Nikolai hoped his friend was alright.

“What are you?” Garret cut him off.

Nikolai blinked. Garret was standing over him; pistol aimed, and demanded an answer once more. “What are you!”

“I .. I don’t know.” Nikolai said.
“Santero?” Garret asked.
“A what?” The word plucked at dim memories he couldn't recall.
“Neon?” Garret steadied the firearm with his second hand.
“Garret what are you doing?” Nikolai scrambled backward but the older Atharim followed.
“Demon?” His jaw tightened. The mask returned to his expression. The wry academic was unrecognizable now. All which remained was an executioner.

“No! Look I’d know if I were a fucking demon!” He circled to one knee, preparing to get up until he was struck by a thought, I would know? “Garret calm down. I-” he cut off as Garret turned ashen.

“You’re a god.” He said. They stared at one another. If any lore pierced his brain at that moment, the proclamation of a god struck loud and clear. Gods had power. They wielded carnage in their hands like spears. Extinct for millennium, and prophesied to return someday. They were the reason the Atharim existed.

Of all the accusations Garret hurled before, this one left him looking heartbroken. “I’m so sorry.” He spoke sadly.

Nik couldn’t believe it.
“You’re going to execute me because I saved our lives?”
Garret nodded.
Should I let him?

---

Siberia has long been estimated to harbor an undiscovered shale formation. Denied the attempt to search that wasteland, and so tap a source of natural gas, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Norway, and the United States spiraled into political panic when foreign supplies were cut short.  They were met only by steel door of Russia’s denial. Ironically, it was an American living in Siberia, Nikolai Brandon, the son of a long dead tycoon of the twentieth century, who found it.

Upon his discovery, the new hire surveying deep in the asian ranges north of Mongolia-Siberia border, quickly climbed the industrial scale.  

Enormously advantaged by his knowledge of the energy industry, ambitious goals, and decade of cultural experience learning local dialects, languages, and traditions, Nikolai won a fast climb from Senior Surveyor to Regional Executive.  The Russian government swiftly intertwined itself with the burgeoning company, much to Nikolai's approval, who used the sudden connection to spark his own political career.  The monopoly soon became the leading supplier of energy to the European continent, and as the business was government controlled, Nikolai bellowed as much from a platform of praise directed at Russian standards, superiority, and nationalism.   It was unsurprising, then, that the man responsible for this sudden transformation, of the west finally bending a respectful knee to the eastern power, that Nikolai secured political power through the invigoration of the cathartic land he now called his. He easily won the 2020 Presidential election.  The reformation of the Soviet Union was a natural uprising; ascending, as though summoned from its forgotten tomb to the call of its king.  

Such was the Ascendant Soviet Union born. A national vanguard of personal poetic justice: to himself, for revenge for the loss of his father’s pride, the skyscraper which no longer read Brandon across the top, the nights his mother cleared a table for two rather than three, and the last book his father never finished reading; and to the Soviets, for what was taken from them, for having the right intention but poor execution, and for sacrifice without resolution.  

That first year, the charming but stern face of a new Russia embarked on his first world political tour.  President Brandon was not only interested in establishing relationships with heads of state, but also with the populous of the world he dreamed of converting to a new order.  

It was during his flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles that the first disaster struck.  A record-breaking earthquake a kilometer beneath the Pacific shoved walls of water east and west.  Tsunamis slammed into the California and Japanese coasts.  The damage cost in the trillions of dollars, but the countless lives which were lost sent the countries to their knees.  This was only the beginning.  More was to follow.  Earthquakes crumbled the bedrock upon which perched oceanic drills off the Alaskan coast.  Refineries and power plants cracked in two beneath tectonic forces in the Middle East.  Pipelines plunging south from the Canadian arctic split beyond repair and shipyards housing the fleet of the North Sea Oil cracked apart the Baltic.  When two solid years of natural disasters finally came to an end, Russia alone remained unaffected.  North and South America bled money and soon plumped fat with grotesque inflation.  Europe begged for relief.  The new wealth of the Middle East and the delicate economies of the Far East crumpled beneath their own weight.  In such a climate, reforming the structure of the old Soviet Union was unhindered, and the first annexation into the new empire was viewed as salvation by the desperate billion Nikolai vowed to lead with a fair and just hand.  

Convinced of this world view, and finally convinced of what he was, Nikolai took the title Ascendancy and the nationals loved him for it. Then all he had to do was wait.  One by one, nations turned to him.  Joining the ASU was to invite the Red Cross of salvation into dying lands, and with ASU rule came heat, food, clean water, money, jobs, and prosperity.  The Ascendancy ran the growing ASU like a company he did not intend to lose, as his father lost his. To him, there was no moral dilemma in selective charity. His answer to the pleas from the world was simple: subject to rule or fend for themselves.

Most wisely chose rule.  Indeed, the sheep followed a shepherd leading them to bright green grass.

In a few years Nikolai swept across two continents like a storm; a conqueror of reason without the use of violence. Restructuring the Ascendant Soviet Union into the Central Custody of Dominion was a necessary move.  As the ASU was originally born from the old nations of the USSR, Nikolai foresaw the cultures within his realm would never fully conform to a pre-existing era; they needed a new one.  It was protection from future rebellion: soothing individual identity into a single uniformity; blurring away the old in anticipation of a bright, new future.  Basically, a PR campaign.

---

The Ascendancy is an eloquent, confident man well suited to the public eye.  His high regard for proper standards of conduct frequently lends to a stern affect and militant discipline, traits honed by a decade of contemplation in a Datsan monastery, a part of his life largely unexplored by public knowledge, as it did nurture an interest in the deeper aspects of life.  

He is not easily prone to anger, and despises rash eruptions of emotion, which he sees as weakness in other men's ability to focus.  As such, it is not to say he is without compassion and justice.  Indeed, he is a champion of those who cannot help themselves.  In theory, at least.  However, as mankind largely brings the woes of the world upon themselves, their plights do not weigh upon his conscious.  For this, his reserve and reticence are often mistaken or coldness and lack of feeling in the west.  His superior, and often interfering expression further drives the illusion of a dictator's aura when meeting with other heads of state.  

He was the first person in two ages to Channel the One Power.  He is keenly aware of the implications of such, and his self-imposed exile to Siberia should have left him to anonymity.  However, as the Times reporter described, the trail of his story led to an enormous gap of events.  Young Nikolai Brandon was an American expat in Italy, then as far as the media is concerned, emerged in the forefront of Russian politics without a meaningful explanation of the time in between.  

In the current Age, Nikolai is of middle-height, 5'11" and 80 kilo, a man whose face is happily captured by paparazzi.  He keeps his dark hair styled neatly and frequently maintains well-groomed facial hair.  Most striking, however, is his age.  At sixty-one, the Ascendancy seems no more than thirty.  A characteristic which only flourishes the mystique of his rumored powers, for he does not often divulge his secret, that he believes he is, in fact, a god.