Xander's Cross, Oregon: a small town ringed with forbidding mountains and misty forest. The sky may be gray, but the townspeople are welcoming to people of all kinds...and things that are not quite human as well. Here the native shifters, aliens, werewolves, and witches live in peace. They have yet to find out the new business owners encroaching on the land are also vampires.
The peace has been broken by murder, however, and things in Xander's Cross are about to become quite a bit darker.
Welcome to your new home.
is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?
August 20, 2020
The mayor, Rowan Starkwood, was found dead less than a mile from his home. Rumors say his body was mutilated, but the state of the body has not yet been released to the public.
The fog rolled in after sunset, just as the streetlights were beginning to flicker on across the small town of Xander’s Cross. No moon shone in the sky, its fragile sliver blotted out by the clouds of grey. Scattered across town, those with psychic tendencies shivered against the sudden chill and closed their windows to the summer night. Instinctively, even the werewolves stayed indoors. This was a night of darkness.
The Mayor had no such foolish notions of good and evil. His only dichotomy was him, and not him. And what mattered was him, and his benefit. He had business to complete.
The phone at his bedside rang at 2:29 am. He groaned, rolled over, and tried to ignore it. The ringing did not cease. He ignored it. His wife swatted his arm. He did not ignore her. He should have.
The voice on the phone told him they needed to talk. He grunted. They told him to meet in the usual place. He grunted again. His wife asked him what was the matter.
“Just one of my foreign investments. Go back to sleep.”
She did not ignore him. She should have.
He texted his assistant: mtg. be here at 4. will have notes.
***
Merely 43 minutes later, at 3:12, the mayor’s heart, still beating, was neatly removed from his chest with an obsidian blade. Three Erevan knelt over him: one to draw the circle, one to lead the chant, and one to cut out the man’s heart. The leader held the jar, as the heart was lowered into the black substance inside. The Essence of Erebus shook in time with the beating of the heart, creating ripples across the surface.
The Erevan stood and left, leaving the mayor’s corpse, unwanted and forgotten, on the muddy ground. They had what they wanted. And with that, they vanished into the darkness of the woods.