The Demons Rising

By Andrew S. M. Berger

A heart blackened by time, now reserved for hatred and despair. Vengeance—achievable through reaching the afterlife and gaining ultimate power—is the only way to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for justice. But, when a resurgence of hope blurs the line between retribution and madness, the blackened heart seeks to preserve what beauty is left within its grasp.

Neeksus had hopes of life, until death seemed the only path. A voice beckons him to commit a final atrocious act: he must take the lives of as many individuals as possible, as well as his own. Once in the underworld, all will be made clear.

A boy named Gabriel suits the requirements for Neeksus to attain his goal, residing in an earlier time and among space separate from the Milky Way. This boy holds a single hope: a girl dear to him, belonging to a fate worse than death.

Neeksus can save her, but only if the boy kills and collects countless souls. Many will die, who will be sacrificed in Neeksus's quest for revenge...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780228881094

Andrew S. M. Berger

My desire to write is an extension of my personal love for colorful and imaginative storytelling. Along the way, I developed a longing to discover a path to reclaim the world which once held so much beauty. Opening the minds of the masses seems the only way. My mind is a dark sanctuary, which may be of benefit.I live on Vancouver Island. My greatest influences are The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, The Chronicles of Narnia by C S. Lewis, and The Gunslinger series by Stephen King. Plus the works of Akira Toriyama.My free time is composed of spending time with my wife and son, getting out and seeing the world, and playing music. With everything I strive towards, making time to write was difficult, but I want more. I attended the school of imagination and graduated top of my class. I also have a certificate in bookkeeping, so I know about good books—even if those books are numerical non-fiction. Seriously speaking, I began writing in my high school creative writing class, after being told I had unrivalled creativity. The desire and journey to be one of the greats had begun.

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Copyright © 2023 by Andrew S. M. Berger

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-8108-7 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-8107-0 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-8109-4 (eBook)

Contents

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Tentative Teaser:

Devil’s Ascension

Running Away:

Teaser

About the Author

Foreword

Hello, and thank you interested reader, your inclusion on this adventure brings hope this journey may have an end. This is the first, in what I dreamed to be a nine-book series; however, without the assets to continue I will likely submit to my day job. Regardless, I do hope you enjoy.

I’ll try to keep this brief, many may walk through life feeling like the world is out to get you, but the truth might be you lack purpose, to find purpose we must reassure ourselves of our destiny and how we want our decisions—that create that destiny—to affect others. What we may disregard is the fact every action we take affects someone somehow. There is care that is due in every situation and to work with hasty fingers, is often the path to disaster. I encourage anyone who reads this, to take a moment before acting in haste under any influence from your state of mind.

I’d like to take a quick moment to thank my publishing company—for helping me attain this dream—as well as my wife and family who stood by me every step of the way. I also would thank my editor, illustrator, and a few friends who were instrumental in achieving the final result. I could have spent years on this project but having already spent the last sixteen years cultivating the idea and refining it over the last ten, to finally begin writing this in 2017, I am ready to be done. After all I have been through, I have to release my creation into the wild and hope it will thrive.

It is incredible, the feeling of creating a world, it is also incredibly stressful. I feel it necessary to mention I am not a religious man but believe in the possibility of there being an initial creator of the universe; I would say maintaining and overseeing a whole universe is not an easy job. One I have tried my hand at and found to be unimaginable in its difficulty. Despite this if any of you out there have the desire to write and breathe life into your own creation, I’d offer some advice: Dedicate yourself to a schedule, surround yourself with support, accept you will be your harshest critic, but most importantly, understand you are giving something life, enjoy the experience and don’t discourage yourself. Do not let the darkened days bring you down because the sun still remains—with or without the silver lining—and promises to be for a long time.

I am pleased to say that if you do like the work you see amongst these pages I elected to include small teasers to this book’s sequel as well as to another book I had started working on, these will be at the end. I hope you enjoy those as well, if you decide to thumb through them.

Now please enjoy The Demons Rising!

Prologue

The feeling of falling with nothing left to save you. Even now I reflect—as it is all I have left to do—I always have been a putrid soul, but so is almost everyone else. Righteousness, the path less walked by many. To many of us, the path of least resistance is the one gaining our attention. This path often entails trotting over the helpless toes and fingers of those who have fallen, as well as those who cannot find a steady support to hold onto.

How many people have we unknowingly destroyed? How many deserve it? How many don’t? Life is full of misery, hatred, and disappointment. An overlooked element is we are the makers of our own destinies and we were given the right to be our own Gods. When the equalizer known as death arrives, the only destiny we do not write is when that arrival abruptly upends our path. We curse many of those not present. Often, we extend blame to all except ourselves and deny culpability. A moral obligation to tell ourselves we can do no wrong.

As the desire for vengeance swims in frantic haste towards those we deem deserving of such consequence. The idea we shouldn’t stay in this state of mind, escapes into the stygian abyss. Where was I when I accepted fate has a plan? Long gone from this realm of the living—as my time had been spent fixated on revenge. I should have been grateful and accepted the blessings I had for what they were, instead selfishly wanting more. Each tragedy of life led to beauty, to which I was too blinded by desires to see.

Our story starts where it seems to end, as somewhere in the world an irrelevant lonely man walks a lonelier road—let’s call him Jack—his path blackened by the night. A stranger stalks Jack with hatred in his core, the stalker obscured by perpetual darkness. Jack deserves his isolation and the treatment impending. Jack has a tainted soul. Possibly, the soul of our stalker’s sought ambition. Another death out of millions means little when so many had already fallen. One more meant nothing to this stalker—who might be described as the ultimate destroyer.

The stalker—with hood raised—showed little discernable features, apart from the moonlight reflecting off a darkened river of crimson red carved throughout a familiar basalt gauntlet. Practically invisible to all but we—the omnipotent observers—another gauntlet shaded black hangs sturdily off the lurking stalkers belt.

Jack quickens his pace as he realizes he is pursued. The follower, enveloped in shadow, all but disappears. Jack finds light amongst a street—away from the lightless path—to keep the evil shadows at bay, no houses reside on this stretch. On this lit street a few innocent souls go about their late-night business, none truly deserving of tragedy. Several streetlights ahead of our current cast, turn off in a strange blast of sparks. Jack becomes preoccupied by this. Though his anxieties grow, he feels fortuitous the cone of light above and in the opposite direction persists.

One woman nearest to the newly enhanced shadows, walks with her head down and eyes fixated on her feet, unknowing of the removal of light. The faintest sight of a dagger—attached by a chain stemming from the darkness—rips through her trachea from the front and lodges in her windpipe; blockading and stealing possibility of alarm as trickles of blood ooze down her neck. She is reeled in like a fish on a barbed hook into the sea of the black night.

Jack hears a noise but turns his head too late to see anyone. The woman’s removal is beheld by a small man—dumbfounded and quivering in fear. The wind begins to howl and within seconds that same dagger flies out of nowhere with the speed of a bullet, it rips through his rear and makes its way through his body—in a grotesque enema—and lodging in the roof of the skull. A strange and powerful gust raises the unfortunate soul into the air. The dagger removes itself backwards through the bowels, dragging with it the unfortunate man’s intestines to be wrapped around a nearby darkened tree. The tree appears to giggle maniacally—the shadows cast cause a contorted grimace in the tree bark. This instance is drowned out by the wind and out of Jack’s sight.

Only two remain: Jack and another man. The electricity of most of the streetlights—except the one above Jack and the other man—converts to fire and the bulbs explode. The fire enters the now brightened surging crimson of the stalkers worn gauntlet. Part of the absorbed fire is released and enters in through the other mans gaping maw as he attempts to scream for help but is forever silenced as he explodes into a mess of gore, skin, and entrails. The dull glow of the stalkers gauntlet—outside the remaining streetlight’s illumination—moves slowly toward the last living within the light. Jack draws a gun from a concealed holster as he stutters his response to the macabre slaying he witnessed, W-who are y-you, w-w-what are you? Stay away, I have a gun, you wouldn’t be the first—

Listen… Says the stalker in a raspy feminine voice, Can you hear your heartbeat? I can! I believe you might be the one I seek, either way, with any luck my actions here will produce a different life, it will change everything. I will reach in and delight in your screams as I squeeze with scorching fingers— the gun discharges towards the darkness in the direction next to the glowing gauntlet. The dull glow in the shadows falls to the ground and the downed victim proceeds to move in an odd fashion—tensing and stretching like a caterpillar towards Jack. He continues firing his weapon until no ammo remains. The gauntlet now fully illuminated in the remaining cone of light lay dead in place. Jack began to laugh nervously, You like that! You like that lead mother—

Times up! The stalker now behind Jack—despite the unmoving gauntlet still in sight—brought the dagger around and gouges a hole in Jack’s chest. His heart is in an adrenaline-fueled panic, pounding hard as it attempts to flee from its fate. The dead gauntlet rose in the air as if persuaded by an unseen force and dove into the newly made hole, gripping the heart as the remaining light on the street chaotically sparked into flame and entered Jack’s chest. Agony doesn’t do justice to the screams ringing through the night as the flames seared the ventricles and atriums—talk about heartburn. Jack becomes unconscious from the pain.

As life ceased to exist in the body of this host—and with the stalker shielded once again by shadows—they shook their head, Unfortunate, once again I have wasted my time. I will find you, and I will fix everything… As they breathed those last words they disappeared in the night.

Chapter 1

Heroism often gives rise to villains. Where villainy to some may seem to contain demonic intent, heroism can similarly be associated with an enlarged ego. Most people believe that Hitler was a psychotic murderer, but some revere him as a genius. World War II was the result of neither; it was caused by the deterioration of the German people’s principles due to suffering and a lack of action. We humans see ourselves as godly and yet our purpose is to simply exist and survive. When the ability to do so is challenged, it is in our nature to lash out and try to reclaim our godly right. A sight that may prove amusing or even self-destructive by observers. So, what is a hero and what is a villain? Some might say . . .

The documentary’s narrative trailed off. My mind was absent; my eyes fixed through the window on the magnificent oak tree in autumn colours standing tall in the backyard, its bark ascending in chaotic but beautiful spirals. It was a beautiful day for a place on the border of suburbia and for a rundown area of an unimportant city in the United States. The Boston Red Sox had won their ninth world championship the day before.

I was told that to protect myself I must forget many names, including my own. A woman’s voice spoke in my mind: He will be arriving soon! I nodded as if the owner of the voice was watching me for affirmation. My heart ached. The voice reminded me of my lost beloved, which reminded me of the other losses I have endured. My cherished childhood pets, they had progressed through the natural stages of life and were given all the love my family could provide. Their deaths still dealt harsh emotional blows—however understandable they may have been.

My true innocence was lost when my parents divorced. The illusion that was their happiness lacked perfection, yet ignorance left me blind to the goings-on. When the split happened; I understood, I had learned over my life everything happens for the reason to shape and mould us. My loving grandparents passed away one by one. A common occurrence in life, I felt little animosity because of it, reassuring myself they were good humans and had found salvation in whatever afterlife there might be. The knowledge of their declining health before the end hurt the most.

My paternal grandmother’s death affected my father most of all. His mental state sank deeper into dementia and his health dove alongside it, holding on to enough sanity to mentally experience his heart shatter. He attempted to fill the void with varieties of sinful pleasure. My siblings blamed and condemned him, making him isolated and further pushing him into depression. Not to say they avoided assisting him in any way possible; however, as the saying goes: hands alone cannot raise an anchor. When frustration enters the mind, it lashes out and is unable to accomplish the simplest tasks.

My mother dedicated love and devotion to her family, sacrificing so much to ensure her three spawns had security. My mother worked multiple jobs, and her patience for the man she once loved wore thin. Once we had grown into lives of our own, and after the divorce, she remarried. It was out of a desire to obtain support in ways she never had. My father; meanwhile, resembled a hollow shell, void of the drive to accomplish wonderful achievements after his first attempt at being successful failed. He was a good man who wanted more out of life; striving to walk more paths than his feet could manage, ultimately leading him nowhere.

As my faith wavered, an angel arrived in my life. My beloved entered from stage left, as I started to believe I lived in tragedy. Initially, two strangers became simple friends, yet I saw her struggles and yearned to assist more. I proved to be her best friend and we shared many beautiful moments: dancing in the rain, stopping in a traffic crossing to kiss in front of the world, nursing each other when sick, I would carry her over puddles, and we would share everything our simplistic lives had to offer.

My father died of a lonely heart soon after; he failed to remarry and fix his broken heart therefore leaving me to grieve. In so many ways my beloved remained my guiding light. When the rings slid onto our fingers, I felt as though the chains I endured separated and I’d been freed of loss. Doctors urged against our decision to procreate. My sweetheart suffered from complications professionals suggested would make conception impossible, but she dreamed of holding a small human of her own creation. Believing parenthood would bring absolute joy into our lives, I felt it my duty to try.

Feelings of forgiveness for all I endured offered me new perspective, which I stepped toward with open arms. Our first attempts at creation were less than successful, but my beloved never lost hope and neither did I. We achieved pregnancy and our families felt excitement indescribable by mortal words, and preparations ensued. Instead of a child, a day of reckoning arrived. My life steered once more into loss, and I felt convinced once more my life was a tragedy.

I held her cold hand, and the doctors assured me they did what was possible. I didn’t blame them. At that moment I blamed myself—how could I be so callous? Why couldn’t I be happy and leave well enough alone? It was my fault my child and wife had perished. I asked for time alone, and as I sat in that hollow moment a familiar voice echoed in my mind. At first, I assumed the cause was stress.

The creator is to blame. Do not allow it to fall on your shoulders.

I stared at my beloved’s blueing lips in hopes I had heard this outside my thoughts, but it came again: Kill the right ones and you can have what you truly desire . . .

The voice was indeed in my head. I assured myself I’d die of a broken heart like my father. The voice spoke again: I can help you if you heed my words. Gather all your assets and I will show you the way . . .

As spent oak leaves floated on the fall wind toward the ground, a single drop filled with an ocean of emotion rolled down my face. These days I showed little feeling. Most of the sadness from my well had been cried out long ago, and my happiness required something particular to rectify my losses—it required the revenge the voice promised me. As the tear dissolved into the dryness of my face, my resolve strengthened.

A rapping at the front door interrupted my thoughts. Crucial preparations were in order, and I needed my trap’s illusion to prove more convincing than my parents’ marriage. I traipsed through the hallway toward the foyer and spied through the front door’s eyehole to see a narrow-faced, middle-aged man with brown hair tucked under a black top hat. He was wearing a lengthy beige duster. Head turned, with hollow dark-blue eyes shifting from one side to the other—as if he worried someone in pursuit was hidden out of sight.

Everything was in place. I thought if something were to go wrong, the following steps would be the catalyst. I smoothed my hair to look somewhat in order—the past several months had left my appearance looking like this house of intent. Dirty, askew, and occupied with the company of several undesirable roommates. A fat, gluttonous spider crawled with lightning speed into a crack in the corner of the ceiling.

I mustered the best fake smile I could and turned the door handle. As beams of light burst through the opening, a flurry of dust motes danced sporadically at the wind. I felt nervous, but not unwilling. I held a slight hope this man would leave. I hardly hurt a bug throughout my life—let alone a person—and now, I hesitated to sample the rotten fruit as my efforts closed in on fruition of the promises made by the voice. The voice boomed in my head as the smiling man met my eye: You must! It is too late to turn back! The first encounter of the voice had left me curious, but now it filled me with fear. Whether or not my sanity was in question left me with chills.

The man gave a small bow, tipped his hat, and spoke in a rich London accent. And what ‘ave we ‘ere? It looks like your ‘ead got caught in a drill. He examined me a moment and suspiciously looked past me into the house. ‘Tis a spectacle, assuredly, a bloke such as yourself and a chap such as I caught up in the whirls of fate. He rambled whilst continuing to scan the house. Ya typically this rude to guests? Or mayhaps your lack of courtesy is a form of greeting?

Of course, my apologies, I said, You must be . . . Austin?

"Solictus will do fine, thanks. Tickled pink that you answered my ad for a new cook. We may dispense with common protocol. I care not for your name nor your story until you prove a successful candidate. I will mention that what I seek must meet certain standards.

Luckily, these standards are not synonymous with the deplorable condition of your estate. I assume you will be happy to know if you do ultimately qualify, I will whisk you away from this rundown, grotesque excuse of a home and put you up in my much more extravagant abode. Solictus brushed past and produced a white latex glove, which he pulled onto his right hand. He rubbed his index finger across a flat surface, grimacing at the collected dust. He turned his head and gave a slight smile. He continued to search the home for indications of dirt. I closed the door, once again producing an upheaval of dust.

I drew a single-action revolver from the back of my pants while Solictus faced away. I cocked the hammer and he went on the defensive, whipping around and smacking the gun out of my hand. As the gun thudded to the floor, the chamber unleashed its round into the wall to my right. Act quick! The voice commanded. I obeyed and leapt onto my prey, like a bear trying to catch a resisting elk. I curled around behind Solictus, placing him in a chokehold, and squeezing with every bit of strength. He choked and sputtered as life and colour began to fade from his face. He flipped me over his head and threw me toward the front door. The joints in my back and the door threatened to unhinge, though both withstood the pressure. I began to stand and made it to my knee before Solictus pushed me aside and threw open the door—which begged to come loose from the sheer force applied in opening it, yet it held. My prize had one foot out the door and another ready to escape. I fought through my pain and grabbed his ankle. He stumbled slightly but caught himself at the last second.

I dragged him halfway into the doorway. He pulled himself up and away, showing little strain from my attempts to keep him in my grip. I tried to anchor myself using the door. A groan of objection from the door turned into a shriek as it broke free from the frame. Although my visitor’s flexing muscles had been enough to pull the door and me for a ride, he lost his balance and fell with us. I let go of the door as it wedged itself crudely in the opening, took flight and landed on the front porch. Solictus bashed his head off a supporting pillar and conked out. Apart from a few scrapes and bruises, I came out unscathed. I rose and brushed the dirt from my clothes.

Solictus dying on the doorstep may not have satisfied the criteria of my goal, so I knelt beside my prize and listened carefully. I heard the rise and fall of his lungs as they persisted in replenishing his blood with oxygen. I kicked the door down and it made a startling crash. I grabbed Solictus by the leg and dragged his dead weight into the house, peering from one end of the street to the other to be sure no one had seen the conflict. As far as I could tell; there had been no one, but gooseflesh spread on my skin and my stomach churned. I chose to ignore it. Time was dwindling and I required Solictus to be inside before I mustered the courage to do what needed doing.

I reclaimed my revolver and placed Solictus in a sturdy wood chair, restraining him with rope. I cut it to length using the sharpened hunting knife I kept in the kitchen. Light trickled in through the busted front entrance. I turned off the lights in the other rooms—leaving a few lit candles where the prisoner sat—and began fixing the door as best I could. By the time I finished I had convinced myself I could accomplish my final task.

I searched my captive for ID and discovered his full name was Austin Cerebile Solictus. He was forty-six years old, and I recognized his address from a rich gated community. I placed his belongings on an end table within view. Solictus began to stir, letting out a groan, and opening his eyes. He mumbled about hitting his head and the memories came rushing back. He jolted