Somewhere in this vast dark world a child screams.  Where, oh where, does that cry stem from?  Perhaps it echoes from the dank alleys of Bangkok, filthy paths strewn with garbage and rot.  Perhaps it echoes from the shadowed back streets of Los Angeles, the City of Angels, every last one of them fallen.  Perhaps it echoes through a sinister Tokyo night, mingled with the echoes of tarnished honor.  Perhaps it echoes from behind the glittering bright lights and merry laughter of a thousand cities, each with its own façade of glam and glitter, a façade that masks the sinister vices of a corrupted society.

 
    Somewhere a drunk staggers to his death in an unwelcoming alley. Somewhere a killer sheaths his bloodied blade.  Somewhere a madman stalks the streets, searching for the next young boy to be this night’s plaything.  This parasitic plague is all about us, all about this world.  And somewhere, deep beneath it all; no not beneath, within; a child screams, one of a thousand, thousand others.  I’ve heard the children screaming all my life.  I’ve caused much of those deliciously wrenching cries.  Yet of this one I take special note. This one is different from all those others.  I hear them even now, the children crying out in agony, a cacophony of endless mindless noise.  This one’s cry, however, is not mindless, not a primal expression of fear, loathing, pain.  When this one screams, her angelic little voice, so pristine in its sobbing pain, echoes the traces of my name.

  
    It’s been centuries since anyone has spoken my name.  It frightens and exhilarates me to hear it now.  For countless years I have drifted in this limbo, listening distantly to the vague happenings of a world I once traveled freely.  Now this voice, this single voice, the pain filled cry of a frightened child, reaches into my awareness, bearing the voicing of my name, and the power of a summons.

  
    Mustering my will, I drudge my consciousness from this lethargic mire, this chill netherworld wasteland in which it has drifted for longer than God remembers.  I drift ever so slowly away from the immobile mass of dead and decaying flesh that has housed me for so long, my mind finding tentative footing in a treacherously unstable world of ether.  I drift toward that single voice, following the diluted echoes back from whence they came.  And behold, yes there, in the not so far distance a speck on light beckons me, darkly evil purple flames.  I immerse myself in them.  I bask in them, and then they are no more.  I force open tear filled eyes, burning with the sting of dim too bright candle light, the eyes of a child, the child who has summoned my immortal presence.

 
    This shell feels odd.  It suits me not at all, but I am content to have living flesh encase my shattered soul again, no matter the shape it takes.  I can feel again!  The chill air caresses my soft flesh, stinging like salt in the fresh lacerations that adorn me.  I can taste!  The tang of my blood and the salt of my tears fill my gaping screaming maw with succulent sensations only half remembered.  I can smell!  Acrid smoke fills the air, a bittersweet incense of blood and black roses.  I can hear!  I can hear what?  Chanting?  A name?  My name?  Yes, my name…heh...heh...heh.  Everything comes into focus now.  I can see!  I can see the blood my body is awash in, some of it mine, much of it the blood of a dozen other infants; sacrifices;  sacrifices to me!  I can see the long black locks of my hair caked in that slimy deluge.  I can see past tiny toes painted crimson with gore, to the faces of a man and a woman kneeling just past my feet, behind them an altar.  Ah, my mother, my father, or at least the parents of this shell I inhabit.  I smile wickedly as I catch sight of their bloodied blades.

  
    Then I feel it, a dark power, a power greater than myself.  It tugs at me, rending soul from flesh once more, slowly, but undeniably.  I am powerless to resist for long.  I force myself to spout words of arcane lore, force a child’s lips to utter darkly twisted words that no mortal voice could otherwise speak.  My worshipers fall silent, burning these retched sounds into their memories.  I will be whole again.  I will live!  This I swear, and these two lowly mortals will make it so.  They shall do my will, and I shall walk this earth again.

 
    My directives finished, my gospel spoken, I speak them yet again, and again, lest they be forgotten by weak mortal minds.  But then it is over.  The pain is exquisite as my tortured soul is harvested from innocent flesh, corrupted by my touch.  I would resist, but know it an exercise in futility.  My freedom is gone.  I am adrift once more, slowly drawn back towards the dead unfeeling flesh that was once my mortal shell.  There I must wait.  This I know, and wait I shall.  My servants shall free me.  They must, for my word is law to them.  For this I must wait.  Mere decades are nothing to me.  I shall bide my time, and be whole again.  Soon, soon…

 
    I descend into my corpse now.  It fits me well, like a child’s blanket.  Yes, like a blanket, warmth in its coldness, and light in its smothering darkness.  I feel my mind slipping away, and now I sleep.  Once more I slumber as I have for centuries, but this time my sleep shall be light, for my wakeup call shall come early.  Pleasant dreams, and darkest nightmares…