07-21-2014, 07:24 PM
Prologue
My mother was a waitress. She worked a high-stakes card-room at one of the Grand Palace Hotels in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Despite the western notion of a blue-collar job, she was quite successful and found herself in the company of incredibly important people. Yet at the last minute, she made plans to holiday over the Christmas of 2002, and so she journeyed east to visit family. As the story goes, she met my father on the train. They shared a table in the dining car...
Biography
Childhood
Born in Oct. 2003, Enzo was raised by his single-mother in La Turbie, a small township located a few minutes inland from the French Riviera. Theirs was a quaint life and his was an otherwise happy childhood, but questions rose none the less regarding his parentage. From Enzo's bedroom window he could see the ancient pillars of the Trophée d'Auguste, the ruins of an ancient Roman monument standing guard at the top of the hill. Such imagery of history always inspired questions in young Enzo about where he came from.
Enzo was nine years old the last time he asked about his father. His mother was smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table at the time, and her gaze was settled on the distant mountain tops beyond the window.
For his question, such a look of anguish and fear crossed her face that Enzo's heart broke for her. She pleaded with him to broach the subject no more, and he reluctantly did as asked. He stifled his own questions and crossed the kitchen to circle his arms around her tiny shoulders. The embrace caused her chin to sink to her chest. Tears dripped from her cheeks and soaked the starched collar of her uniform shirt.. Her normally porcelain face seemed to crack with resurrected emotion.
She pat his arm and whispered warmly, "Mon petit chou". Enzo laid his cheek against the back of her neck and let her cry. He didn't know what to say, but he promised himself he’d cause her no further hurt. I'm sorry mom. I won't ask anymore.
Adolescence
2020, age 17.
To this day, Enzo can recall the moment he heard about the first global disaster. At the time, nobody knew that one event would be the first in a horrific string of carnage. Soon, earthquakes, eruptions, mudslides and other terrors ripped apart the status quo while the coastlines of every continent seemed intent to fall into the sea. He worried for his mother who every day took the bus to work. By then, she was an assistant manager at a hotel in Monte Carlo: a city perched on the sea. But those disasters were distant ground zeroes and far from their lives on the French Riviera. Nobody thought their small corner of the world would be a target. Yet times were tense and every little thing was kindling for panic.
Such as during his eighteenth birthday when he and his friends shared a cabin at Enzo’s favorite ski resort in the Alps. Their second day into the trip, an unseasonal avalanche collapsed the side of a mountain and Enzo was lucky to not be one of the visitors swept asunder. Their resort, and all the surrounding ones were closed and his group was banished toward home. Their lifestyles deteriorated quickly after.
The next few years saw unspeakable change while the economy was ripped to shreds. Wealth drained from Monaco as a result. His mother's employer cut budgets and the former waitress was let go along with thousands of other employees dependent on the yachting, hospitality and tourism industries. Young and without work himself, Enzo contemplated joining the Marine Nationale, but again he wilted beneath the pleading gaze of his mother.
"I cannot bear to see mon coeur sail away on the horizon." Her liquid green eyes glistened with tears.
He had to harden himself to her pleading love if he was to face reality. "With all the unemployed, there is little other work but government-work to be found."
His mother crossed to the window and lit a fresh cigarette. "I heard things at the hotel, mon chéri. I fear such government-work will not last for long." She closed the kitchen window as though worried about eavesdroppers hiding in the garden. When she turned back to finish her thought, her sultry voice was barely audible. "Italien á Turin and Monegasque politicians say we will all soon be Soviets." The snarl on her lip was skeptical, like an indecisive cat. Enzo heard the same rumors himself, but he was torn over loyalty to his heritage and the prospects for stability to return.
Enzo spent the next few years working odd jobs. Most were for cash but many increasingly became about bartering for the basics: eggs, flour, milk. Even in the darkest of times, his mother's bread was delicious. Without a father, Enzo was driven to provide for the household as her only son. Together they consolidated their earnings and supported one another. Despite being a natural French beauty, graceful and charming, and never lacking in suitors, his mother never married. To do her share, she sold her jewels, gifts from those generous suitors or guests of the hotel, for a tenth their valued price. It crushed Enzo every time she returned from the pawn-broker with another stack of Euros. He silently swore to replace them someday.
Within five years, the rumours came to pass, but they were not Soviets after all - not technically. They, like all of Europe, elected incorporation into the Central Custody of Dominion. At first he felt like an Iscariot, as though his proud heritage was purchased for the sake of baubles, but in time he came to trust the promises dealt by Nikolai Brandon. With the CCD returned infrastructure, development, and most importantly, tourism. That meant jobs and prosperity returned as well, and Enzo was secure enough in his own future to gladly start his own family.
Adulthood
2028, age 25.
Enzo married at the age of twenty-five. His bride was Mireille Ferré, a blonde haired, blue eyed flower of a woman. 'Ma étoile,' he called her.
They were married outdoors overlooking the afternoon sea and began their lives in une chambre, a one roomed apartment with the view of only a garden wall. Enzo was slightly ashamed that he could not provide a better home for Mireille, but she made due with their modest lifestyle and turned the space into a real home. He looked back on those days fondly.
Their first daughter was Soraphine, a clever, bubbly child as adorable and bouncy as her beautiful ringlet hair suggested. Six years later, their second child was born: a boy, Alberto. He had his father's dark hair and watery-blue eyes while Soraphine took after their mother and shared both her parents' sapphire-sharp gaze. Enzo had permanent work in a local granite company that he enjoyed despite the inherent dangers. The nature of the work was treacherous at times, taking him up steep cliff-faces or sending him into deep caverns. But he was strong and tough, with weathered, calloused hands and sure instincts for perilous situations.
2043, age 40.
Soraphine was fourteen years old. And... on a date.
Enzo sat on the front porch of their country-home with a glass of wine in one hand and his favorite flavor vapocig in the other. Alberto was inside with his mother. They were going head to head on the most recently acquired racing game: a circuit following the Grand Prix in Monaco, of course.
Alberto's squeals of glee made Enzo smile into the dark summer air as he pictured Mireille’s car swerving off the virtual road. She was a fan of the races, but to her shame, not as good a driver as their son. Alberto, meanwhile, was intent on becoming a professional Formula One driver someday, and Enzo happily indulged fantasies. All little boys aspired to become something adventurous and heroic at that age. Enzo himself dreamed of conquering le 24 Heures du Mans as a boy, the oldest sport car endurance race in the world. What a great distance he and Mireille had come in fifteen years of marriage. Their one roomed apartment in the city was now a comfortable home on the mountain slope. His children were the stars of his universe, and Mireille was his guiding light; his north star.
Despite pleasant thoughts for his family, it was the child not at home that spurred Enzo to check the time again. There were yet five minutes until Soraphine's curfew. She was out with a sixteen year old boy named Drake - a terribly outlandish name - who was pushing his luck cutting it so close. And sixteen is far too old for her.
He took another sip of wine when his phone beeped. Enzo snatched it up in case it was his daughter. His heart relaxed. It was his mom.
"How is my son?" she messaged.
Enzo sent a reply: "I am fine. It is Soraphine's date who will not be if they are not here in the next three minutes."
His mother returned scents of baked bread that mingled with those of the garden flowers and made Enzo's stomach grumble. He'd been too worked up to eat a good dinner ever since meeting the young man that picked up his daughter. This Drake fellow pricked his instincts in all the wrong ways, but Mireille and his mother overruled him. Sophie was old enough to date, they claimed, and Enzo had done no better at the same age. Which is exactly why I do not trust him. He sat forward as beams of headlights climbed the steep hill to their home.
Sophie emerged from a car far too expensive than any teenager should be able to afford. She met the young man in Monte Carlo and said that he came from wealth, but the effect did little to ease Enzo's wariness. His mother witnessed the behaviors of such people of power from her days in the Grand Palace Hotel and Enzo recalled the stories of their questionable lifestyles. This Drake boy was one of them, and the thought of him responsible for his daughter made his hair curl.
Enzo stood on the porch while they came up the path. The young man was short of stature but high on presence. He wore a red button-down shirt and a black leather coat. Both appeared to be designer made. To Enzo's great disapproval the young man was also wearing sunglasses. At night. While driving his daughter around the hills of the Riviera Française.
Sophie and Drake were speaking softly to one another, but his daughter gave a sudden start when she realized who waited for her on the porch.
"Daddy!" She gasped and jerked her arm free of Drake's. Enzo suppressed a satisfied smile. Drake did not seem to react.
"You were almost late," Enzo replied. Soraphine sniffed, both annoyed and embarrassed at the same time. She frantically waved that he leave as she turned to say goodnight. Enzo frowned and decided to gave them a moment alone. Not only did he not wish to witness their good nights, but he supposed there was nothing too terrible that could happen on his front lawn now that she was home. Alberto was cheering a win inside, and he could hear Mireille moving around.
He grabbed his wine glass and phone and closed the door behind him. He waited just inside.
Mireille looked over as he entered and shook her head in that way wives knew their husbands were being stubborn.
"Let her be, Enzo. First dates are important." Her smile was glitteringly beautiful. It conjured warm images of their first date together.
Enzo nodded. She kissed him on the cheek and whispered words of affection in his ear that soothed his pounding heart. He relaxed and she returned to Alberto's game. The roar of the game’s engines drowned any chance of hearing what was happening outside, but he remained near the door while fondly watching them go head to head. But as the minutes went by, an ill feeling crept up his chest.
"I am sorry my darling,” he called to Mireille, “but this has gone on long enough. It is time she was safe and sound inside."
He opened the door and found his daughter laid at his feet.
Shock rippled like lightning across his body. Enzo crumpled to his knees as though struck by it, yelling and clasping at his baby girl. Her face was smeared with blood: the eye-sockets empty. Her beautiful, beautiful face. Claw marks raced up and down her arms. Her whimsical sundress was ripped in bloody tatters. The stomach and chest beneath were exposed in the slashes. Her tender flesh had been gouged and scooped out.
Enzo screamed such an ache of sorrow, he could not move but to gather his baby to his arms and rock her as he had the day she was born. Mireille was behind him, screaming and grasping for Soraphine. Alberto hung back, white as a ghost and crying silently. After a moment, he ran to call the police.
He let his wife take their daughter's body while Enzo stumbled into the front garden to face whomever was out there. His shock and horror gave speed to his legs, and he ran toward the edge of the hillside to peer down the drive. Drake must have been the murderer, but he was gone. The expensive car was gone... The tire marks were still printed into the gravel. He hadn't heard the engine start... How could someone do this??
Bleary eyes went back to the shape of his wife and daughter in the doorway. He was helpless and Soraphine was dead... How to fix this? How to ...?
Then there was a third shape looming behind his wife. It was too large to be his son and too dark to be... His heart leaped into his throat.
"Mireille!!" He yelled a warning and ran toward her. He'd left her alone! Dumb fool!!
To his horror, a clawed hand grabbed her shoulder and dragged her inside, kicking and screaming. The front door was slammed shut before he reached it.
He leaped the stairs but inches from the door a wrecking ball hit him from the side. He was wrestled to the deck with a pained grunt and sickening snap of bone that swarmed his head dizzy. Hands clamped onto his throat and choked the breath out until he could not even scream for help. He was dragged away by Drake, a boy of half his size, who seemed to barely strain to move him.
....Bound at the hands and feet, Enzo's face and throat ached when he was tossed in his front living room. His wife's body now matched the body of his daughter and the big man that grabbed her was licking black, claw-like fingernails glistening with her blood.
Enzo howled in pain indescribable and begged for mercy on behalf of his son. Of the two men, Drake, his daughter's date, sunglasses and all, was knelt behind Alberto. For the moment, his son was on his knees but still alive and unharmed. Drake’'s clawed hand gripped his son’s shoulders to keep him still, the tips of the claws curled around his small collarbones as though testing the softness of the flesh beneath.
Enzo could not look away from the claws. They were more hideous than any animal's, wicked and strong. From their tips, Soraphine's blood stained Alberto's shirt. The second, larger man who was in similarly styled clothing and sunglasses as Drake, stood, mirroring the same positioning, behind Enzo. He intoned commands to his younger partner.
"We have planned too long for this moment for you to fail now. Do itttttt..."
Enzo's useless arm hung limp at his side but he scrambled at the man holding him anyway. Stabs, sharp as unpolished granite, dug into his collar. There was nothing he could do but watch Dreyken crush his son's throat in one hand and slam the child onto his back. Alberto was overpowered as much as Enzo, but he kicked anyway. Good boy! The monster hissed and slashed at his thighs. Red welts appeared and Alberto's grimace screamed pain, eyes thrown wide and leaking hot tears. Enzo struggled but a vice-like grip held him down. The man barely seemed to struggle to control him.
Now that Alberto was down, the older man's commands continued, "Remember to scoop the socket with the fifth finger this time, and do not puncture the globe again or that sweet, sweet fluid will drain away. A delicacyyyyy....." Enzo's mind raced to put together the meaning. It seemed as though the older man was teaching the younger! To do what?
Understanding sickened Enzo green. With all his might, he fought back, but to no avail. Alberto twisted back and forth, writhing like a snake, eyes scrunched shut. Drake curled close to his son's face and Enzo could not see what happened next, but soon his son stopped kicking.
Enzo was sobbing when the door was kicked in and men with guns barreled inside. The two murderers released both of them and moved with such incredible speed, Enzo thought they were dodging the bullets themselves, but the spray of gunfire was too much. They each dropped dead to the ground.
Enzo inched to the body of his son, but it was too late. Alberto's throat was crushed into a bloody pulp, and one eye dangled loose from the socket. The other was missing altogether. Enzo crumpled, grief-stricken and disbelieving, and laid his body across his son's chest: covering him and protecting him. The view of his mangled family filled his horizon.
Epilogue
That night, a pair of Dreyken, the name for a monster not a man, ambushed and killed my family. The men that killed these monsters are called Atharim. Although I survived, I am actually dead inside.
Two weeks after Mireille, Soraphine, and Alberto were laid to rest, I stood facing my mother on a train platform. I kissed her on the forehead and bid her farewell.
"Why are you leaving, mon petit chou?" She asked behind her black veil.
I felt my face harden. "I want revenge.” My voice was cold.
Mother cupped my face. "My son, the men who did this are dead," she said, but I shook my head.
"There are more of them out there, and I want to make sure what happened to my family never happens to anyone else's," I replied. Sorrowful understanding crossed her wearied face.
She looked away as though her gaze was drawn elsewhere. What she whispered shocked me speechless: "Your father would be proud of you."
I blinked. Neither of us had spoken of my father in thirty-one years. My heart raced, but my tongue would not form the words. I'd always wondered if my father was Italian given their meeting on a train as it passed through Italy. My own name, Vincenzo, was Italian. Was he Italian? Did she bring him up because I was going to Vatican City? Was he in Vatican City?
Mother did not elaborate.
The call to board broke the spell, and I checked my ticket one last time. There were no more moments to think on my family, nor my mother and father. I boarded the train and waved goodbye to my life along the beautiful Côte d'Azur.
The men I joined with are members of a great society dedicated to hunting the monsters that hide among humanity. They welcomed me with grace and pity, but they did not treat me pitifully. They trained me. They gave me knowledge, weapons and a purpose to get up in the morning.
After my formal initiation, I joined my brother hunters in pursuit of creatures of darkness. I protected those that could not protect themselves, and derived satisfaction in life only when I ended the life of another monster.
For 'a man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.'
Personal Profile
Name: Vincenzo (Enzo) Dolan
Age: 42
Height: 5'10"
Build: Lean and muscular and of French and Italian background. He has strength of endurance and is a skilled climber, swimmer, and skier.
Coloring: Dark haired with bright blue eyes.
Demeanor: He is quiet and sturdy like a rustic mountain face. He eats, drinks and lives out his days of a man, but is a dying fire within that is refueled with every monster to fall at his feet.
Tattoo: The ouroboros tattoo is located on his inner left forearm. It is a horned, legless dragon eating its own tail that's coiled around three stars.
Alignment: Lawful good
Superpowers: None
Atharim Profile
Initiation: Summer, 2043
Weapons of choice: Compound bow, bowie knife, bayonet-mounted combat shotgun for offensive movement or as a door breaching system, with a pistol as backup weapon.
Technique of choice: Stealth, camouflage, concealment trapping, and range shooting. When in close quarters, power over technique hence the shotgun.
Monster specialty: Dreyken & Draikaina
Mentor: Corrado Sabbatini, aged 63.
Assignment: The Mediterranean coastlines of Europe, Asia and north Africa.
Redirection: Moscow
Edited by Enzo Dolan, Jul 21 2014, 07:48 PM.
My mother was a waitress. She worked a high-stakes card-room at one of the Grand Palace Hotels in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Despite the western notion of a blue-collar job, she was quite successful and found herself in the company of incredibly important people. Yet at the last minute, she made plans to holiday over the Christmas of 2002, and so she journeyed east to visit family. As the story goes, she met my father on the train. They shared a table in the dining car...
Biography
Childhood
Born in Oct. 2003, Enzo was raised by his single-mother in La Turbie, a small township located a few minutes inland from the French Riviera. Theirs was a quaint life and his was an otherwise happy childhood, but questions rose none the less regarding his parentage. From Enzo's bedroom window he could see the ancient pillars of the Trophée d'Auguste, the ruins of an ancient Roman monument standing guard at the top of the hill. Such imagery of history always inspired questions in young Enzo about where he came from.
Enzo was nine years old the last time he asked about his father. His mother was smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table at the time, and her gaze was settled on the distant mountain tops beyond the window.
For his question, such a look of anguish and fear crossed her face that Enzo's heart broke for her. She pleaded with him to broach the subject no more, and he reluctantly did as asked. He stifled his own questions and crossed the kitchen to circle his arms around her tiny shoulders. The embrace caused her chin to sink to her chest. Tears dripped from her cheeks and soaked the starched collar of her uniform shirt.. Her normally porcelain face seemed to crack with resurrected emotion.
She pat his arm and whispered warmly, "Mon petit chou". Enzo laid his cheek against the back of her neck and let her cry. He didn't know what to say, but he promised himself he’d cause her no further hurt. I'm sorry mom. I won't ask anymore.
Adolescence
2020, age 17.
To this day, Enzo can recall the moment he heard about the first global disaster. At the time, nobody knew that one event would be the first in a horrific string of carnage. Soon, earthquakes, eruptions, mudslides and other terrors ripped apart the status quo while the coastlines of every continent seemed intent to fall into the sea. He worried for his mother who every day took the bus to work. By then, she was an assistant manager at a hotel in Monte Carlo: a city perched on the sea. But those disasters were distant ground zeroes and far from their lives on the French Riviera. Nobody thought their small corner of the world would be a target. Yet times were tense and every little thing was kindling for panic.
Such as during his eighteenth birthday when he and his friends shared a cabin at Enzo’s favorite ski resort in the Alps. Their second day into the trip, an unseasonal avalanche collapsed the side of a mountain and Enzo was lucky to not be one of the visitors swept asunder. Their resort, and all the surrounding ones were closed and his group was banished toward home. Their lifestyles deteriorated quickly after.
The next few years saw unspeakable change while the economy was ripped to shreds. Wealth drained from Monaco as a result. His mother's employer cut budgets and the former waitress was let go along with thousands of other employees dependent on the yachting, hospitality and tourism industries. Young and without work himself, Enzo contemplated joining the Marine Nationale, but again he wilted beneath the pleading gaze of his mother.
"I cannot bear to see mon coeur sail away on the horizon." Her liquid green eyes glistened with tears.
He had to harden himself to her pleading love if he was to face reality. "With all the unemployed, there is little other work but government-work to be found."
His mother crossed to the window and lit a fresh cigarette. "I heard things at the hotel, mon chéri. I fear such government-work will not last for long." She closed the kitchen window as though worried about eavesdroppers hiding in the garden. When she turned back to finish her thought, her sultry voice was barely audible. "Italien á Turin and Monegasque politicians say we will all soon be Soviets." The snarl on her lip was skeptical, like an indecisive cat. Enzo heard the same rumors himself, but he was torn over loyalty to his heritage and the prospects for stability to return.
Enzo spent the next few years working odd jobs. Most were for cash but many increasingly became about bartering for the basics: eggs, flour, milk. Even in the darkest of times, his mother's bread was delicious. Without a father, Enzo was driven to provide for the household as her only son. Together they consolidated their earnings and supported one another. Despite being a natural French beauty, graceful and charming, and never lacking in suitors, his mother never married. To do her share, she sold her jewels, gifts from those generous suitors or guests of the hotel, for a tenth their valued price. It crushed Enzo every time she returned from the pawn-broker with another stack of Euros. He silently swore to replace them someday.
Within five years, the rumours came to pass, but they were not Soviets after all - not technically. They, like all of Europe, elected incorporation into the Central Custody of Dominion. At first he felt like an Iscariot, as though his proud heritage was purchased for the sake of baubles, but in time he came to trust the promises dealt by Nikolai Brandon. With the CCD returned infrastructure, development, and most importantly, tourism. That meant jobs and prosperity returned as well, and Enzo was secure enough in his own future to gladly start his own family.
Adulthood
2028, age 25.
Enzo married at the age of twenty-five. His bride was Mireille Ferré, a blonde haired, blue eyed flower of a woman. 'Ma étoile,' he called her.
They were married outdoors overlooking the afternoon sea and began their lives in une chambre, a one roomed apartment with the view of only a garden wall. Enzo was slightly ashamed that he could not provide a better home for Mireille, but she made due with their modest lifestyle and turned the space into a real home. He looked back on those days fondly.
Their first daughter was Soraphine, a clever, bubbly child as adorable and bouncy as her beautiful ringlet hair suggested. Six years later, their second child was born: a boy, Alberto. He had his father's dark hair and watery-blue eyes while Soraphine took after their mother and shared both her parents' sapphire-sharp gaze. Enzo had permanent work in a local granite company that he enjoyed despite the inherent dangers. The nature of the work was treacherous at times, taking him up steep cliff-faces or sending him into deep caverns. But he was strong and tough, with weathered, calloused hands and sure instincts for perilous situations.
2043, age 40.
Soraphine was fourteen years old. And... on a date.
Enzo sat on the front porch of their country-home with a glass of wine in one hand and his favorite flavor vapocig in the other. Alberto was inside with his mother. They were going head to head on the most recently acquired racing game: a circuit following the Grand Prix in Monaco, of course.
Alberto's squeals of glee made Enzo smile into the dark summer air as he pictured Mireille’s car swerving off the virtual road. She was a fan of the races, but to her shame, not as good a driver as their son. Alberto, meanwhile, was intent on becoming a professional Formula One driver someday, and Enzo happily indulged fantasies. All little boys aspired to become something adventurous and heroic at that age. Enzo himself dreamed of conquering le 24 Heures du Mans as a boy, the oldest sport car endurance race in the world. What a great distance he and Mireille had come in fifteen years of marriage. Their one roomed apartment in the city was now a comfortable home on the mountain slope. His children were the stars of his universe, and Mireille was his guiding light; his north star.
Despite pleasant thoughts for his family, it was the child not at home that spurred Enzo to check the time again. There were yet five minutes until Soraphine's curfew. She was out with a sixteen year old boy named Drake - a terribly outlandish name - who was pushing his luck cutting it so close. And sixteen is far too old for her.
He took another sip of wine when his phone beeped. Enzo snatched it up in case it was his daughter. His heart relaxed. It was his mom.
"How is my son?" she messaged.
Enzo sent a reply: "I am fine. It is Soraphine's date who will not be if they are not here in the next three minutes."
His mother returned scents of baked bread that mingled with those of the garden flowers and made Enzo's stomach grumble. He'd been too worked up to eat a good dinner ever since meeting the young man that picked up his daughter. This Drake fellow pricked his instincts in all the wrong ways, but Mireille and his mother overruled him. Sophie was old enough to date, they claimed, and Enzo had done no better at the same age. Which is exactly why I do not trust him. He sat forward as beams of headlights climbed the steep hill to their home.
Sophie emerged from a car far too expensive than any teenager should be able to afford. She met the young man in Monte Carlo and said that he came from wealth, but the effect did little to ease Enzo's wariness. His mother witnessed the behaviors of such people of power from her days in the Grand Palace Hotel and Enzo recalled the stories of their questionable lifestyles. This Drake boy was one of them, and the thought of him responsible for his daughter made his hair curl.
Enzo stood on the porch while they came up the path. The young man was short of stature but high on presence. He wore a red button-down shirt and a black leather coat. Both appeared to be designer made. To Enzo's great disapproval the young man was also wearing sunglasses. At night. While driving his daughter around the hills of the Riviera Française.
Sophie and Drake were speaking softly to one another, but his daughter gave a sudden start when she realized who waited for her on the porch.
"Daddy!" She gasped and jerked her arm free of Drake's. Enzo suppressed a satisfied smile. Drake did not seem to react.
"You were almost late," Enzo replied. Soraphine sniffed, both annoyed and embarrassed at the same time. She frantically waved that he leave as she turned to say goodnight. Enzo frowned and decided to gave them a moment alone. Not only did he not wish to witness their good nights, but he supposed there was nothing too terrible that could happen on his front lawn now that she was home. Alberto was cheering a win inside, and he could hear Mireille moving around.
He grabbed his wine glass and phone and closed the door behind him. He waited just inside.
Mireille looked over as he entered and shook her head in that way wives knew their husbands were being stubborn.
"Let her be, Enzo. First dates are important." Her smile was glitteringly beautiful. It conjured warm images of their first date together.
Enzo nodded. She kissed him on the cheek and whispered words of affection in his ear that soothed his pounding heart. He relaxed and she returned to Alberto's game. The roar of the game’s engines drowned any chance of hearing what was happening outside, but he remained near the door while fondly watching them go head to head. But as the minutes went by, an ill feeling crept up his chest.
"I am sorry my darling,” he called to Mireille, “but this has gone on long enough. It is time she was safe and sound inside."
He opened the door and found his daughter laid at his feet.
Shock rippled like lightning across his body. Enzo crumpled to his knees as though struck by it, yelling and clasping at his baby girl. Her face was smeared with blood: the eye-sockets empty. Her beautiful, beautiful face. Claw marks raced up and down her arms. Her whimsical sundress was ripped in bloody tatters. The stomach and chest beneath were exposed in the slashes. Her tender flesh had been gouged and scooped out.
Enzo screamed such an ache of sorrow, he could not move but to gather his baby to his arms and rock her as he had the day she was born. Mireille was behind him, screaming and grasping for Soraphine. Alberto hung back, white as a ghost and crying silently. After a moment, he ran to call the police.
He let his wife take their daughter's body while Enzo stumbled into the front garden to face whomever was out there. His shock and horror gave speed to his legs, and he ran toward the edge of the hillside to peer down the drive. Drake must have been the murderer, but he was gone. The expensive car was gone... The tire marks were still printed into the gravel. He hadn't heard the engine start... How could someone do this??
Bleary eyes went back to the shape of his wife and daughter in the doorway. He was helpless and Soraphine was dead... How to fix this? How to ...?
Then there was a third shape looming behind his wife. It was too large to be his son and too dark to be... His heart leaped into his throat.
"Mireille!!" He yelled a warning and ran toward her. He'd left her alone! Dumb fool!!
To his horror, a clawed hand grabbed her shoulder and dragged her inside, kicking and screaming. The front door was slammed shut before he reached it.
He leaped the stairs but inches from the door a wrecking ball hit him from the side. He was wrestled to the deck with a pained grunt and sickening snap of bone that swarmed his head dizzy. Hands clamped onto his throat and choked the breath out until he could not even scream for help. He was dragged away by Drake, a boy of half his size, who seemed to barely strain to move him.
....Bound at the hands and feet, Enzo's face and throat ached when he was tossed in his front living room. His wife's body now matched the body of his daughter and the big man that grabbed her was licking black, claw-like fingernails glistening with her blood.
Enzo howled in pain indescribable and begged for mercy on behalf of his son. Of the two men, Drake, his daughter's date, sunglasses and all, was knelt behind Alberto. For the moment, his son was on his knees but still alive and unharmed. Drake’'s clawed hand gripped his son’s shoulders to keep him still, the tips of the claws curled around his small collarbones as though testing the softness of the flesh beneath.
Enzo could not look away from the claws. They were more hideous than any animal's, wicked and strong. From their tips, Soraphine's blood stained Alberto's shirt. The second, larger man who was in similarly styled clothing and sunglasses as Drake, stood, mirroring the same positioning, behind Enzo. He intoned commands to his younger partner.
"We have planned too long for this moment for you to fail now. Do itttttt..."
Enzo's useless arm hung limp at his side but he scrambled at the man holding him anyway. Stabs, sharp as unpolished granite, dug into his collar. There was nothing he could do but watch Dreyken crush his son's throat in one hand and slam the child onto his back. Alberto was overpowered as much as Enzo, but he kicked anyway. Good boy! The monster hissed and slashed at his thighs. Red welts appeared and Alberto's grimace screamed pain, eyes thrown wide and leaking hot tears. Enzo struggled but a vice-like grip held him down. The man barely seemed to struggle to control him.
Now that Alberto was down, the older man's commands continued, "Remember to scoop the socket with the fifth finger this time, and do not puncture the globe again or that sweet, sweet fluid will drain away. A delicacyyyyy....." Enzo's mind raced to put together the meaning. It seemed as though the older man was teaching the younger! To do what?
Understanding sickened Enzo green. With all his might, he fought back, but to no avail. Alberto twisted back and forth, writhing like a snake, eyes scrunched shut. Drake curled close to his son's face and Enzo could not see what happened next, but soon his son stopped kicking.
Enzo was sobbing when the door was kicked in and men with guns barreled inside. The two murderers released both of them and moved with such incredible speed, Enzo thought they were dodging the bullets themselves, but the spray of gunfire was too much. They each dropped dead to the ground.
Enzo inched to the body of his son, but it was too late. Alberto's throat was crushed into a bloody pulp, and one eye dangled loose from the socket. The other was missing altogether. Enzo crumpled, grief-stricken and disbelieving, and laid his body across his son's chest: covering him and protecting him. The view of his mangled family filled his horizon.
Epilogue
That night, a pair of Dreyken, the name for a monster not a man, ambushed and killed my family. The men that killed these monsters are called Atharim. Although I survived, I am actually dead inside.
Two weeks after Mireille, Soraphine, and Alberto were laid to rest, I stood facing my mother on a train platform. I kissed her on the forehead and bid her farewell.
"Why are you leaving, mon petit chou?" She asked behind her black veil.
I felt my face harden. "I want revenge.” My voice was cold.
Mother cupped my face. "My son, the men who did this are dead," she said, but I shook my head.
"There are more of them out there, and I want to make sure what happened to my family never happens to anyone else's," I replied. Sorrowful understanding crossed her wearied face.
She looked away as though her gaze was drawn elsewhere. What she whispered shocked me speechless: "Your father would be proud of you."
I blinked. Neither of us had spoken of my father in thirty-one years. My heart raced, but my tongue would not form the words. I'd always wondered if my father was Italian given their meeting on a train as it passed through Italy. My own name, Vincenzo, was Italian. Was he Italian? Did she bring him up because I was going to Vatican City? Was he in Vatican City?
Mother did not elaborate.
The call to board broke the spell, and I checked my ticket one last time. There were no more moments to think on my family, nor my mother and father. I boarded the train and waved goodbye to my life along the beautiful Côte d'Azur.
The men I joined with are members of a great society dedicated to hunting the monsters that hide among humanity. They welcomed me with grace and pity, but they did not treat me pitifully. They trained me. They gave me knowledge, weapons and a purpose to get up in the morning.
After my formal initiation, I joined my brother hunters in pursuit of creatures of darkness. I protected those that could not protect themselves, and derived satisfaction in life only when I ended the life of another monster.
For 'a man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.'
Personal Profile
Name: Vincenzo (Enzo) Dolan
Age: 42
Height: 5'10"
Build: Lean and muscular and of French and Italian background. He has strength of endurance and is a skilled climber, swimmer, and skier.
Coloring: Dark haired with bright blue eyes.
Demeanor: He is quiet and sturdy like a rustic mountain face. He eats, drinks and lives out his days of a man, but is a dying fire within that is refueled with every monster to fall at his feet.
Tattoo: The ouroboros tattoo is located on his inner left forearm. It is a horned, legless dragon eating its own tail that's coiled around three stars.
Alignment: Lawful good
Superpowers: None
Atharim Profile
Initiation: Summer, 2043
Weapons of choice: Compound bow, bowie knife, bayonet-mounted combat shotgun for offensive movement or as a door breaching system, with a pistol as backup weapon.
Technique of choice: Stealth, camouflage, concealment trapping, and range shooting. When in close quarters, power over technique hence the shotgun.
Monster specialty: Dreyken & Draikaina
Mentor: Corrado Sabbatini, aged 63.
Assignment: The Mediterranean coastlines of Europe, Asia and north Africa.
Redirection: Moscow
Edited by Enzo Dolan, Jul 21 2014, 07:48 PM.