What Crawls Below

2 § Ghosts of the Past

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A week had passed since the ceremony and Cyrus was still coming down from the high. The other members of the congregation seemed to sense the change in him, keeping their heads down and hurrying past any time he walked their way.

That was alright. He was used to it.

What surprised him was learning it was sort of his fault, and that he could control it. For years, Cyrus's role in the organization was to spectate: go along on recruitments, watch the little miracles Acheron performed to sway people to their way of thinking, and observe each member and report if any of them began to show signs of relapse. Most of them were Christian, after all, and that God had a way of sticking in people's heads. Then Acheron told him he was a man now, and it was time to get more involved.

"The first step will be changing how people see you," Cyrus's mentor had explained. "It's your nature to show the world your true self, but you must learn to mask it."

Acheron promised they would begin his training that evening, but had some errands to run, leaving Cyrus alone to his own devices. It often was this way, Acheron disappearing for hours or days on end and doing—well, whatever the hell demons did. This left him with an entire house to himself; even Bune and Moloch were subjected to the compound a mile away, entrusted to keep an eye on the congregation. The one normal thing about Cyrus was that he had a home to call his own.

It was small, just enough space to encompass two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and den. The house was mostly bare, with plain walls in need of a second coat of paint and just the necessities as far as furniture went. It looked like they had just moved in yesterday, though Cyrus had been living there for almost his whole life.

Free time. He didn't have many ways to spend it: no books, no television or anything else to hold his attention. He could busy himself through self reflection or meditation, both Acheron-approved activities. Since Cyrus had been thinking about himself all week, he opted to go with the latter.

Cyrus had just closed his eyes, letting himself sink into a peaceful, empty-minded nothingness, when the doorbell rang.

The tone sounded through the whole house, echoing around the empty space. He flinched. They didn't get many visitors; not unexpected ones, anyways.

Cyrus crept to the door, listening intently. When he heard nothing come from the other side, he stretched out with his mind, expecting to feel a faint presence on the other end, if anything at all. But what he actually felt—it made his hands start to tremble, sent a jolt of electricity up his spine.

He hadn't felt such power since killing the priest. No, he hadn't felt this kind of power ever. And the strangest thing about it...It wasn't fear or darkness. It was something he could only describe as brightness, like he was trying to stare straight into the sun.

It burned.

The doorbell rang again, and with another flinch of his shoulders Cyrus swung the door open. He didn't know what to expect on the other side, but it wasn't a teenage girl with a sparkly lipglossed smile. Beyond that, though, he could see her eyeliner was a bit smeared and her eyes were red.

"Good morning, sir. I'm with Cross Fellowship and we're all a little worried about a friend who's gone missing. Have you seen this man?"

She uncurled her fist and thrust a flier at him.

Cyrus's stomach had already begun to flip as she spoke, and he spared the quickest glance at the paper. The familiar face of the priest smiled back up at him, devoid of the sweat and pain and fear Cyrus himself had painted it with. The flier put a name to what had been an emotionless, bare canvas of a kill: James Crocker.