The  Curse of  the  Black  Bloods 

Theresa Sponsky Demi 

 

Chapter 1 

 

September 1, 2018 

 

Lightning streaked across the sky in an angry flare that was quickly followed by earth shaking thunder. The old man didn’t even flinch. “How cliché,” he thought as he tipped his gin glass back up to his lips. After much consideration, he had decided it was time. He could strike up another deal for ten more years, but really, to what point? He had conquered all he had wanted to do and more. The last few weeks, boredom seemed to settle around his neck like a noose. His wife, Amanda, was now dead. A casualty of the game.  She  had been mercilessly tormented by  spirits of suicide after the death of their only child. She had overdosed on  pills the day after Gage’s memorial.  He tried to  push back the memory, but it came flooding over his consciousness nonetheless. 

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August 10, 2018

Roman woke before the sun as usual, and he trudged down the hallway and  into the bathroom to take a shower. His 10 a.m. meeting might be a challenging one if the one stakeholder didn’t finally take the offer. He ambled through the open door and almost trampled his bride of 30  years who now had dark, inky shadows encircling her. He was what  some called a “seer” in his family. A secret or curse, depending on who you asked, that was kept for  generations. A black tar-like substance dripped from  the bottle she still clutched in her graying hand as well as  from his now dead wife’s mouth. He gazed down and tried to compel himself to feel something. However, the darkness had long ago  burned away whatever humanity he had left. The only thing that came to mind was whether he was going to have to cancel his meeting or could handle it by zoom while dealing with this mess. Things like these always fall at the most inconvenient times. 

 

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Roman was no stranger to the numbness that had captured his heart. He had  traded the soul of his only son for a deal that had made his company  millions. Not that the boy hadn’t gone willingly. Well, Gage  was trashed on vodka and coke, and then poured himself behind the wheel  of that car. The darkness didn’t even have to do much coaxing. Roman couldn’t even muster any sympathy for the  family that was also caught in the head on collision that left a set of parents dead and a 5 year-old orphaned. The  deal itself wasn’t even about the money. He didn’t need more of that. All of this was about power. The power to curse something to destruction.  Even his own useless son.  

Although it wasn’t  his own power. He could only execute what the darkness would allow. Another  flashback grabbed hold of him and dragged him to the beginning of the destruction of his soul.

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April 14, 1960

A lifetime ago, Roman sat in his grandfather’s library.  He was a curious child of 10, and this was his favorite spot in the giant plantation dwelling that had held the name Black Manor for well over a century. He would run his hand  over the spines of the books over and over again as if they called  to him while he knew he felt something drumming through him. His grandfather had amassed quite the library over the years from all of his great exploits around the world. Although, it wasn’t only books in the room. Bernard Norman Black was a world renowned anthropologist who studied world religions, and this room displayed it all. The walls were covered in artifacts from the many belief systems he had explored and documented. Gruesome masks, painted human skulls, cursed beaded necklaces, and an urn that supposedly held the ashes of what the people called  a “night dweller” were proudly displayed in cases around the room. He called himself a story collector with a bent to the supernatural.  Mr. Black’s books on the lifestyles of people all over the globe sold millions of copies and created a comfortable lifestyle for himself. 

Roman pulled a book off the top of a pile of journals set aside, settled himself next to the fire although this room was always frigid cold, and began  to fall into the story of the people poured onto the pages. The story was entrenched in a land far away that he  couldn’t pronounce, but read that the land here had not produced a crop in a year due to drought.  The shaman-holy men gathered to discuss the devastation and convinced the people that the god of rain had come in a vision and was furious with the village. Although the god never said why, it would require a sacrifice to restore the life giving water. But deals never come cheap. The god had demanded that each  shaman must  murder his first-born son. In the blackest of nights, the blood ran like a river and the ground hungerly ate it up.

The men hoped to now gain favor with the god, spirit,  or whatever was out there Roman analyzed. Back in the real world, a giant hand  descended hard on Roman’s shoulder, pulling him out of the gruesome moment and back to the library of dead possessions and books. “You dig where you have no business being  yet,” his Grandfather Bernard growled in a low musty voice. Though meant as a warning, the boy only heard YET.  

“Someday will I get to go with you? Learn of the spirits and what they can do?” The old man sobered even quicker and stared at the boy. “You will, but listen to an old man approaching the end of the time he has been given. Everything demands a price.  Sacrifices must always be made. You have to be strong  enough to make those sacrifices and dead enough to live with them.” 

From inside of the book Roman now held under his arm, low screams and chanting that he couldn’t understand sounded from the cursed text. Echoing in his ears was the remnant sound of young boys’ screaming while mothers  wailed in agony. Roman’s body involuntarily shook and his hands went to his ears causing him to  drop the book.  When he opened his eyes that he didn’t realize were clenched shut, he gazed at his first shadow man. A terror designed out of smoke but somehow a shifting solid. The monster slithered on its belly  up to the fallen volume, and the pages began to flip wildly. The book finally lay still and opened up to a  gruesome depiction. Roman’s eyes grew wide with a grotesque fascination and crouched closer to see more clearly.

It was a younger version, but Roman knew who he was staring at. His grandfather was on that page. Bernard had been in the village and participated in the  deadly ceremony. The young boy looked up and found himself staring into the black abyss of the abomination. He felt a falling sensation as he welcomed the darkness. The room grew frigid, and he could see his breath. “No,” Grandfather Black  whispered. “Not yet. I have revealed nothing.”  The lights above the grandfather flickered a few  times before exploding into a pile of glass around them. The shadow man disappeared. A chunk of glass had sliced Roman’s cheek and his blood was dripping on the now closed book’s cover. “Yes, the blood,” Grandfather scoffed. “Nothing without the  blood.” Bernard shook his head, but Roman noticed how his  hands shook as he refilled his brandy glass. “I will teach you, but not without warning. A warning I heeded too late. This world will  be yours to control, to  command, but this is not the end. No. Never the end. I don’t know where my course is set, but if what comes next deals with the creatures I have united with for a lifetime now, then I fear the end more than anything I have yet experienced in this life.”  

“Can I keep this book?” Roman asked eagerly as he picked it off the floor. The blood from his hand where had rubbed his face smeared the cover. “Too late to go back now even if I somehow held that power,” Bernard said defeated. Roman whispered, “Did it rain? Did it work?”  “It did. For a time. But what I have grasped is that it  can only counterfeit life for so long. Crops began to  spring up, but the mothers of the lost boys would come  to weep and mourn. Where their tears fell, the Earth would be scorched and barren. Cursed to never again grow a thing.” “What happened to the village?” Roman questioned in morbid curiosity. “They all died of what was called the  curse of the blood. All but the one man who was the spiritual master, that is. The very man who helped write this book alongside me. Although I use the term man quite loosely.” “What do you mean?”  grilled Roman. “Soon enough. Never rush the darkness.”  

Again, Roman heard the wailing in the book. Although he could still hear  the crying and screaming, a deep rumbling  laugh began to echo. “Enough. Have you not taken enough?” Bernard’s voice boomed through the library. All went deathly quiet. “We will speak more later.” His Grandfather pushed him and the book out of the door, then Roman heard the lock click, and he swore he heard his Grandfather Bernard Norman Black, the most powerful man he knew, crying for the  first time in his entire life.  

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September 1, 2018- present day 

 Roman stood more than 5 decades later, in the very same room, now absentmindedly rubbing at the scar the glass had left just  below his right eye. He had gone on to become the best student that  the shadow men had apprenticed. His thirst for power  and knowledge overran anything and everything else.  When Roman had finally had the chance to perform his first ritual and placed the  symbol of his company at the center of the room in blood, it was almost no  surprise that Roman’s own father was found dead at his company desk after suffering an  aneurysm the next day. Weak. Soft. Pathetic. No vision.  It did, however, rattle him a couple months later when his  grandfather disappeared. Despite quite a search, the authorities put on for  this man who owned more than half of the nation, he seemed to have just disappeared. Bernard Black was never found and declared dead at  which time Roman was placed as the heir to the dynasty at the young age of 20. Age did not hinder his successes. He was ruthless, cut throat, and operated under no moral boundaries. 

Late that winter, his mother died from a particular painful and rare ovarian cancer, which always struck Roman as ironic. The womb that brought him life was destroyed in a fit of raging demons. Of course we don’t call them that in mixed company. For those who know, we continue with the term his grandfather had used- shadow men.  He did once wonder, as he was sitting at the very desk his grandfather had lived at for years, that if…the creatures were actually shadow men, where was the light? After all there can be no shadow without light? The thought was  quickly lifted from 

His head as he planned his next move in overtaking the next company. He had skipped his mother’s memorial completely without a thought. 

Roman was never concerned with what happened  next. Who had time to think of things such as consequences when he was drowning in power? Life and death were tools. Nothing more. Nothing less. 

As he sat at his desk that cost more than most  people’s homes, he clinked the ice round and round in his glass. His son, who had turned out to be a horrendously awful  student of  matters of the occult, also now dwelled in the darkness somewhere. Rowan learned early that his legacy was not to be trusted to this man-child who cared more about sports cars and women than power and insight. Gage would destroy  what had taken decades to build. Of course when given the idea to destroy him in that overpriced tin can was offered, there was no afterthought. Useless. 

However, Roman found himself at a crossroad. Now that all the loose ends were gone, it left him without an heir, someone to pass the legacy on to. It might as well all end with him, but his pride couldn’t quite take the thought of everything he had amassed going to the highest bidder. What of the shadow men if no one was here to lead? 

There was  one small chance he supposed. A secret no living mortal knew even existed. A girl. The daughter had been conceived through one of his many affairs. Although he signed the monthly check for  support that went through so many offshore accounts it could never be traced, he had never laid eyes on the child who was a woman now. The only reason he even let her live was for this very situation. He needed someone to carry the legacy. She must be in her 20’s at least by now. He even let that waste of space woman hold onto one of his treasures, the ring she had so obediently wore so he knew the darkness would always linger. He wondered if the child was strong, cunning, and ruthless enough. Maybe all would not be a complete loss. The living held no draw for him- child of his or not. He believed the shadow men needed someone and why not another from the Black family gene pool. 

He was 68. The oldest man from his genealogy had made it. He was tired deep with in now. No  number of doctors or pills brought relief. They came up  with no diagnosis other than overworking, poor diet, not enough attention to health, but Roman knew the truth. The deal was up, and looking at the wealth he had amassed, he believed he had played the game well. He had set his finances in such a way that this illegitimate female could reach it only if she actually proved herself. She had one year, and if she failed, which was likely, all of his wealth would go to the organization. She would have to  become a true daughter of the Black Blood. A Seer to move forward into power.

The room grew bitter cold, and the hair on Roman’s arms stood up. It was time. The lights above flickered  and a flame with no source of fuel lit itself in the middle  of his desk. He heard the chair screech across the floor for dramatic effect of course. He knew this evil needed  no such pleasantry as a chair. 

As many times as the shadow men had appeared,  it made him no less terrified. It might be a true statement that the man who owned millions of dollars and controlled an empire was stopped by one thing and one thing only. This monster  was a solid mass of blackness that swallowed light like a  man dying of thirst. This creature could appear quite  human. Except for the eyes. Dead black eyes. This time it was not here to play games. It was  covered in scales which made him look more reptilian than human. Even the daggers covering his tail dripped in black that hissed as  it hit the floor. The pools of darkness where eyes might be were fixed on him. What seemed like a face shifted, and shadows spilled onto the table. Rows of  sharp protruding teeth coming out of the hole where his  mouth could have been grinded in waiting.  

“No hello?” Roman said with  slurring speech.  Black blood started flowing from his nose, ears, and tear ducts. He tried to wipe at it, but it burned his hands and covered them in weeping blisters. “This is unnecessary. I  am one of you,” Roman spat at the creature. In an unearthly growl that seemed to cause Roman’s bones to  grind, the creature snarled “you were never  one of us.” The beast slid on its scale covered body and  erected to his full height, feet above any mortal’s head.  

With shredded claws, the darkness reached into the man’s chest and removed something. It may have  been a heart as it pulsed and oozed but was the color of  rot and decay. The pulsing grew slower and slower. “After all these years,  if I must go with you, I must know your name!” Roman howled. “Where you are heading  you will have no need of names or this” the creature hissed as he tossed the  oozing black mess to the floor. Roman’s chest began to burn and gasped for anything like a breath. He collapsed onto the floor. At least this is it, Rowan reflected. It’s almost over. The creature made a sound  between a laugh and a scream. “Over? Over? This is just  the beginning.” The room filled with shadows, grabbing  and pulling. Screeching that caused more black sludge  to fall from Roman’s ears.  

The final shred of what had  made him even the slightest bit human gave way. Roman was alone. The misery and mourning that he had pushed out  his entire life invaded. Out of his mouth the  black blood poured. “No!” he gurgled to no one. Worse than  the boils, blisters, and pulling back skin was the  hopelessness that engulfed him. He laid his head down finally ready to welcome death. “Death is just a myth,” the  demon hissed. “Welcome to an eternity of nightmares.”