Chapter 2: Hunting Ground

The house trembled from its shingles to its foundations, struggling to withstand the unholy force erupting within. A scream echoed down its halls and burst through its doors and windows, every molecule of air expelled from the victim’s lungs while his face became beet-red. It was two sounds mixed together, his own pathetically human cry of agony and desperation, and the enraged howl of the beast fighting for control.

“Most glorious Prince of the Heavenly Armies, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in our battle against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places!”

With trembling hands, the priest held the crucifix up to the bound man. The ropes holding him to the chair were frayed from his incessant pulling, while the wood itself splintered more and more with each passing second. The balding man gave another howl, the demon answering the priest’s challenge. Behind the priest, two women held each other in terror. The first was the man’s wife, her hair fully graying after months of fear and stress, fear of the beast trying to devour her husband’s soul.

It had started out with simple disturbances, bumps in the night and objects going missing. Soon enough, the eyes, eyes she never saw but felt on her at all times, shadows darting out of the corners of her vision, and silhouettes that could be seen only in mirrors. Then, a change in her husband began a new dark chapter.

“Come to the assistance of men whom God has created to His likeness and whom He has redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the Devil! The Holy Church venerates you as her guardian and protector; to you, the Lord has entrusted the souls of the redeemed to be led into Heaven! Pray therefore the God of Peace to crush Satan beneath our feet, that he may no longer retain men captive and do injury to the Church! Offer our prayers to the Most High, that without delay they may draw His mercy down upon us; take hold of the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, bind him and cast him into the bottomless pit that he may no longer seduce the nations!”

Beside her, the daughter prayed for the priest’s success, that her father would return to the way he used to be, that all of the bad could just be explained away by possession. At nineteen years of age, she should have been in the prime of her beauty, but her face was horribly bruised and scratched from endless assaults. She remembered the first time her father had snapped, just a few months ago. They were having dinner, and while saying grace, her father suddenly fell into a violent rage, screaming at his family and throwing plates and food against the wall. Grace was never again spoken.

“In the Name of Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, strengthened by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of Blessed Michael the Archangel, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and all the Saints! And powerful in the holy authority of our ministry, we confidently undertake to repulse the attacks and deceits of the Devil! God arises; His enemies are scattered and those who hate Him flee before Him! As smoke is driven away, so are they driven; as wax melts before the fire, so the wicked perish at the presence of God!”

The yelling continued, every minor issue seeming to invoke his rage. Soon enough, he was beating her simply for not closing a door quietly enough. Following the war against the undead, patriarchal puritanism made its return as people sought stability and security. In areas still not fully reclaimed and rebuilt by the government, the man of the house was obeyed like he was God, and what happened in the home was never spoken of to outsiders. That was the way it was in the isolated communities, where the phrase “God-fearing” had become a badge of honor.

“Behold the Cross of the Lord, flee bands of enemies! The Lion of the tribe of Juda, the offspring of David, hath conquered! May Thy mercy, Lord, descend upon us! As great as our hope in Thee! We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies, and sects!”

It was when all three family members began receiving scratches from an unknown origin, long cuts in their flesh, always in threes, that the presence of something otherworldly could not be denied. The wife and daughter had tried to avoid the priest, as anything to do with the church would invite beatings, but when he found out about the scratches, he gave them an answer and promised to rid them of the demon possessing the man.

“In the Name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ, may you be snatched away and driven from the Church of God and from the souls made to the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb! Most cunning serpent, you shall no more dare to deceive the human race, persecute the Church, torment God’s elect and sift them as wheat! The Most High God commands you, He with whom, in your great insolence, you still claim to be equal! God who wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth!”

The exorcism had been going on for hours, with friends of the man doing everything they could to keep him bound to the chair. The priest continued with his prayers, saying them over and over again in the hopes of driving out the demon. His words seemed to cause it pain, but nothing he said or did could actually pry it off the man’s soul.

“Christ, God’s Word made flesh, commands you; He who to save our race outdone through your envy, humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death; He who has built His Church on the firm rock and declared that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against Her, because He will dwell with Her all days even to the end of the world! The sacred Sign of the Cross commands you, as does also the power of the mysteries of the Christian Faith! The glorious Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, commands you; she who by her humility and from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception crushed your proud head! The faith of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of the other Apostles commands you! The blood of the Martyrs and the pious intercession of all the Saints command you!”

The man suddenly became silent, falling limp. Everyone wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but they knew it in their hearts that it was just a rouse. The silence was louder than any scream, and even more dangerous. The whole house then shook as if it had been hit with a wrecking ball, everyone shuddering from a crash loud enough to rip away their courage. The men holding the possessed were then yanked back, as if drawn by invisible ropes around their necks. In that silent room, the cracking of wood was almost deafening, as without anything holding it back, the chair began to levitate, floating up six feet in the air. This had already occurred a dozen times over the course of the exorcism, yet everyone stared in horror at the undeniable presence and power of the unholy spawn.

The priest barely managed to regain his courage.

“Thus, cursed dragon, and you, diabolical legions, we adjure you by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, by the God who so loved the world that He gave up His only Son, that every soul believing in Him might not perish but have life everlasting; stop deceiving human creatures and pouring out to them the poison of eternal damnation; stop harming the Church and hindering her liberty!”

The man and the chair crashed back down, and in that instant, everyone was knocked back, bleeding from a hundred invisible punches. Every window and piece of glass shattered, the man now howling louder than ever.

The daughter, barely conscious and lying on the floor, looked up to a familiar sound. The front door had opened, yet that simple occurrence, for some reason, seemed louder than her possessed father’s screams. In the doorway stood a man with a long black overcoat and matching hair, and an insidious grin on his face. Once again, her father fell silent, but this time was different. Normally, when he stopped screaming, he’d go limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. Now, he was staring wide-eyed at the intruder, the demon inside him apparently seeing something she couldn’t.

“After all these years, you people still cling to your delusions,” the intruder said. “Christ, God, salvation, all that nonsense. Your bible is nothing more than fairy tales, a mythology of a god that never existed. The real gods dwell not in Heaven, but a realm of eternal darkness. That cross you wield is nothing more than a useless piece of wood. It is the will of humanity that allows exorcisms to work. Because you cling to your faith, even though it’s a lie, you’re able to shape and focus your will, pouring it into a symbol like a mold. If your belief is unshaken, then so is your strength, and you can counter the chaotic sentience of the undead.”

It happened in the blink of an eye. The intruder zoomed across the room as if on wheels and grabbed the man by the throat, holding him off his feet without any effort. “But I do not need such insipid things. My will is absolute, and in time, even the Old Gods will meet their end at my hands.” He then dropped the man, but something remained in his grip, someone else. It was humanoid, but its body was jet black and covered in scars. Its grotesque face, boar-like, had twisted horns and misshapen tusks. He had ripped the demon from the man’s soul, revealing it for all the world to see. “I am Dominion, and you now belong to me.”

Everyone watched as the creature, held in Dominion’s grip, began to melt like a lit candle. But rather than falling to the ground, its liquifying flesh was being drawn towards his hand around its throat and absorbed into his skin. The demon shrieked in fear as its flesh and muscles peeled away layer by layer, its body consumed in a matter of seconds.

“You ... you saved us,” the daughter gasped.

At her trembling words, Dominion laughed. “On the contrary. You were safer with the demon. Now that I’ve had dinner, it’s time for desert.”

He held out his hand, and her father, semiconscious and lying on the floor, was once more lifted up into the air by an invisible force. He floated before Dominion, sending chills down the spines of everyone in the room. The power lifting her father was demonic, but they knew it was coming from Dominion. His grin sharpening, he plunged his hand into the man’s chest, his fingers tipped with claws that tore through flesh and muscle with ease. The two women shrieked at the sight, the man vomiting blood as Dominion pulled out his heart, still connected to the main arteries and pumping in his grip. He fingers sliced through all four chambers and the man’s blood sprayed out. However, like the demon, it was all being drawn to Dominion’s hand and absorbed into his flesh. It took only seconds for the man to become a dried husk, and was then thrown aside like garbage, but more had been taken than just blood. Blood was the medium of life, and through it, Dominion had seized the man’s soul and devoured it no differently than he had the demon.

The priest staggered to his feet and held up his cross. “You’re just another demon!”

Dominion stood with his back to the priest. “Don’t compare me to those pathetic undead.”

The same force that Dominion had used on the man, he used to throw himself backwards at the priest, flipping through the air. He opened his mouth, his teeth changing shape as if malleable like clay and becoming sharper and needlelike. Zooming over the priest’s shoulder, he sank his teeth into his throat, then, landed behind him, lifted the priest off his feet, and gave a hard jerk that snapped his neck like a wolf catching a bird. Blood covered Dominion’s face as he drained the priest, adding yet another human soul to his collection.

Both the slain man’s daughter and wife were now screaming, their clothes peppered with blood splatters from the priest’s murder. One of the man’s friends, exhausted from holding him still during the exorcism, gathered what little strength he had left and grabbed a poker from the nearby fireplace. He gave a desperate scream and charged towards Dominion, still siphoning every drop of blood out of the priest. He jammed the piece of steel into Dominion’s back, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. The poker had been buried deep, enough to puncture a lung, but from the sight of inky black blood oozing the wound, the attacker realized how foolish the move had been.

It happened in an instant, the demon they had all seen get devoured, reappearing. It burst from the wound in Dominion’s back, fused with him like a conjoined twin and given shape by his blood. It attacked the man without mercy. He screamed in agony as it gouged out his eyes with its clawed thumbs, only to be silenced as it tore into his windpipe with its jaws and began stealing his soul. Like all the other demons that Dominion had enslaved, this newest addition had lost its free will, its every move now subject to its master’s whims, its powers to be used however he saw fit.

The second friend, seeing what was happening to the first, bolted for the door. In the face of this godless horror, there was nothing he could do. The two women were beyond his saving. He could only hope they had the strength to run as he did, and that the Lord would forgive his cowardice. He managed to reach the doorway, the sweat on his face evaporating in the chilly autumn air. He went no further.

Without even turning away from his meal, Dominion pointed his hand at the fleeing man. They came from out of his sleeve, three tentacles made of jet-black flesh, each tipped with a barbed stinger. They ran through the man’s chest like harpoons, the pain making him want to scream, but the blood filling his lungs and esophagus not letting his voice escape. He was lifted into the air and the tentacles immediately went to work bleeding him dry and taking his soul.

Having now devoured four souls, Dominion at last stood up. The tentacles retracted into his arm and the demon on his back receded into the wound, closing it as it vanished. He looked down on the two women, a smirk on his blood-caked face. His eyes fell to the wife of his first victim and he showed some faint annoyance.

“Meh, you’re a little too past your prime for me.”

He grabbed her by the throat, lifting her off her feet with his claws digging into her wrinkled flesh. Her daughter threw herself onto Dominion’s arm, an action not done out of hope, but frustration. “Mom! Mom!” she shrieked, trying to separate the two of them. Dominion pulled her away, holding her off the ground with his other hand likewise around her throat. The difference was that while he was draining the mother, he was simply strangling the daughter to end her efforts. She sobbed as she watched the life leave her mother’s eyes and all the color drain from her face. Once finished, Dominion tossed her aside and turned his insidious gaze on the daughter.

“Oh, you’ll do nicely.”

He threw her onto a nearby couch, and as she struggled to regain her balance, he threw himself on her. He ripped away her clothes, exposing her naked body. “Please no!” she shrieked, trying to hide her shame despite him keeping her wrists pinned.

Before her father’s possession, she had been planning her marriage with a nice boy from town. She had known him all her life, he came from a good Christian household, just as she did. Not even he had seen her like this. Her father’s erratic behavior had driven him away, but the idea of an exorcism gave her hope of reconciliation. Now, feeling Dominion’s cruel gaze licking her unclothed form, she knew that her fiancé would never take her back, not after what was going to be done to her.

Despite what she had seen, she tried to fight him off, but his hold on her was like iron. He grabbed her face and began to kiss her, filling her mouth with the blood he had stolen. Once her face was as red as his was, he finally pulled away from her, his eyes alight with a lust for violence, but his heart beat never rising. He ran his bloody fingers through her auburn hair, then slid his hand down and cupped a warm breast. She squirmed and whimpered as he kneaded her flesh, having never been touched this way by anyone.

“Such a lovely girl, such smooth skin,” he hummed.

The talons that had grown from his fingertips retracted, and he moved his hands between her legs. She screamed and tried to kick him off, her skinny white feet swinging back and forth and the pale flesh of her inner thighs rippling despite her slender body. Dominion showed no mercy, he thrust his fingers inside her, drawing tears from her eyes and a scream of agony. He violently fingered her, shaking her whole body and leaving her pert breasts jiggling. The feeling of part of his body invading her womanhood, her fluids mixing with her dead father’s blood stuck to his skin, it made her want to vomit in revulsion. It was like he had pierced her soul with a venomous fang.

“Ah, a virgin. I love virgins. I get to show you a whole new world of pleasure and pain.” He pulled his fingers free and then jammed them into her mouth, forcing her to taste her own feminine essence. “How does it taste? Sweet, isn’t it? I have something else for you to savor.”

He then got to his feet and unsheathed his manhood, fully erect and ready to defile her. She stared at it in horror, but some part of her was also fascinated. She had never seen the male organ before, at least not one that didn’t belong to an animal. In anticipation of her wedding, her mother had given her “the talk”, explaining the mechanics of sex but at a Christian minimum. She only understood that it was meant to go inside her, but that was what made her so scared. She had been waiting to consecrate her marriage with the man she loved, but this monster in human skin was going to rip that away from her, just as he had her family.

“Now, open your mouth.” His words only deepened her fear, as she began to realize that he wouldn’t just stop at stealing her virginity. “Hold her down,” he then said. Just as she began to ponder what he meant, hands, clawed and covered in black scales, burst from the couch and grabbed her. It was just like before, when the friend of her father stabbed Dominion in the back but the demon from the exorcism came out of the wound and attacked him. Their talons cut her flesh, drawing flesh blood, which only seemed to excite them more and tighten their hold. She was forced to sit on the couch, facing Dominion as he undressed. Her eyes switched back and forth from his throbbing manhood to his merciless gaze.

“The more you resist, the more I’ll have to hurt you, and my pets are eager to hear your screams and taste your blood. And don’t bother praying to your false god,” he held out his arms, and blood, black as tar, began to pour from his wrists, “for I am the way,” he said, mockingly. He then strode over, hefting his manhood up to her tear-streaked face. She could do nothing but cry and pray this was just a nightmare. “Now, open your mouth, and if I feel any teeth, I’ll take one of your hands as punishment.”

“Please, just let me go!” she begged.

“Believe me, there is nowhere that you’ll be safe.”

He then grabbed her by the hair and forced his cock in her mouth. She gave a garbled scream and tried to pull her head away, but he kept a firm hold on her. It was all the way to the back of her throat, his balls resting on her chin. Her gag reflex, untrained, immediately began sending bolts of electricity through her nerves. She began heaving, her body trying to expel the mass that was choking her. Part of her wanted to bite down, but Dominion’s warning restrained her, and even if she could work up the courage, her body wouldn’t let her close her mouth, doing everything it could to try and open her airway.

He began to thrust into her, holding her head still while his cock banged against the back of her throat, each impact like a punch to her uvula. The taste of his manhood filled her senses, the smell of his natural musk making her lightheaded. She could taste the sweat and testosterone. It slid through her mouth and down her throat like a poison. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t even think.

Her body gave in, a great wave rolling up her spine as she retched, ejecting the contents of her stomach but never being free of Dominion’s cock. He simply looked down on her and grinned, the sight of the frothy mess erupting from her mouth amusing him, running down his balls and pouring on her tits. Her tears were just another ingredient to the mixture. He continued to skull-fuck her, her face and chest becoming filthier and filthier each time she retched. If anything, his thrusts increased in speed and brutality. Only after several minutes did he finally pull out, then smearing his cock across her face and blinding her with her own saliva and vomit.

A brief moment of mercy, he gave her time to catch her breath. Her eyes were lifeless, her soul drowning in shame and disgust, but there was still so much more to do. Dominion gave a flick of his finger and the demon hands holding her still adjusted their hold. They grabbed her ankles and pulled them apart, exposing her virgin slit. This action shook the girl from her stupor, and fear once more rushed through her, as she knew what was going to happen next.

“No, please! Anything like that!”

“I’m sure you were told that when your virginity is taken, you become a woman, but that’s wrong. I’m not going to turn you into a woman. I’m going to turn you into a piece of meat.”

He threw himself on his victim, and in one fluid motion, he forced himself inside her down to the base. She shrieked in agony, her hymen shredded and her blood anointing Dominion’s cock. The feeling of him inside her, it was nothing short of evil. She felt herself corrupted, as if he had taken a dagger and carved horrific profanities onto her soul. If there was a God, he must surely be turning his back on her in disgust, like Athena cursing Medusa as Poseidon raped her on the floor of her temple.

Dominion wasted no time, he immediately built up a rhythm and began slamming her with his full weight, his cock smashing her cervix and making soup of her insides. His speed, it was as if there was a malice to it. Of course, everything about this was a display of how evil Dominion could be, but it was like his rate of thrusts had their own frequency of evil, like the rapid-fire clapping of flesh on flesh was some Mors code chant from Hell.

With every tear that fell from the girl’s cheeks, every smack Dominion made to her breasts, every squelching sound of her womanhood being violated, the possibility of ever living a normal life drifted farther and farther away. Every impact of his cock was like a chisel chipping away at her soul. Love, marriage, children, growing old in this God-fearing community surrounded by friends, she could feel those dreams crumbling away like sand as she was forced to stare at Dominion’s face. Funny, had they met under different circumstances, she would have found him quite handsome.

Then, without warning, he pulled away and stepped back. The girl lay there, her legs spread, her pussy bruised and bleeding from the rape. Her eyes had once again gone lifeless as her mind tried to recede into itself to escape this horror. But there was still so much more pain for him to inflict, so much horror for her to experience. He wanted to take everything from her, he couldn’t stop until he had robbed her of everything that made her who she was.

He returned and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her up as if she was weightless. He threw her again at the couch, this time bending her over the back and showing him her ass. He stepped up onto the couch and grabbed her hips. She did what she could to brace herself, to prepare to feel him once again use her vagina as a receptacle for his cruel desires. But instead of her labia being parted, she shrieked as she felt a stinging pain in her anus. The speed and technique Dominion used was nothing short of masterful, once again burying himself all the way to the base in a single stroke, but this time, it was in her back door. As expected, she was incredibly tight, but friction could stop him no more than being stabbed by that fire poker. Her asshole was now wrapped around his cock in a perfect seal, the ring threatening to tear from the brutal assault.

Dominion began hammering her with the same speed as before, raping her anus with seemingly inhuman strength and malice. He pulled back her hair, using it to hold her still and keep her looking up. She screamed at the top of her lungs from the pain and cried harder than ever in her life from the humiliation. Again and again, Dominion threw himself against her, inflicting an agony on her that she had never known existed, such an unholy torture that she felt herself forever ruined. There was no coming back.

She no longer wished to be saved, she longer hoped for mercy. Now, she just wanted to die. She had felt it break inside her, her ability to ever again feel joy. She didn’t want to live, just the physical pain making her want to slit her wrists. She was sure she was bleeding, Dominion simply using it as lubricant. She sobbed endlessly as he raped her asshole, her tears falling like rain.

He then switched, driving himself back into her vagina with the same brutal speed. It continued on for hours, Dominion switching back and forth from her pussy to her asshole, raping her without ever growing tired. He never gave her a break, and every time she went on the verge of passing out, he’d pull harder on her hair. He seemed to want to hear her wailing, taking amusement in watching her cry.

Then, he came to a sudden stop, his hands on her hips. She felt it. She had never experienced it before, but she knew what it was with crystal clarity. She could feel him emptying himself inside her, flooding her with semen. His seed inside her, it felt toxic, evil, like some kind of acid that was melting her flesh. It was like a poison infecting her soul, a disease searching for any fragment of her that hadn’t been tainted, any part of her that was still pure.

He pulled out of her and stepped back, stretching to ease his weary muscles. “So, how many times did you cum?”

She didn’t answer, just laying draped over the back of the couch like a blanket, with semen and blood trickling from her vagina and anus. She didn’t understand what that last word meant. Cum? Several times, despite her agony, she had suddenly felt a wave of pleasure surge through her, making her roll back her eyes and curl her toes. Was that what cumming meant?

“Please, just kill me,” she whispered.

“You were certainly as fun as I thought you would be, and now I shall give you the death you so surely crave. However, I guarantee you that there will be no peace.” He leaned over and sank his teeth into the side of her neck. She gave one last shriek of pain as he sucked her blood like a leech, draining it and her soul. With his face coated in fresh blood and six more human souls added to his collection, he leaned back and cricked his neck. “Ah, I think I could use some freshening up.”

‘Master... ‘

The voice came from the back of his mind. It was one of his pet demons from the mass grave.

“What?”

‘What is the point of all this? This is just another home you’ve attacked in the last two weeks. You promised us the world, yet you’re little more than a night time prowler.’

“I don’t recall giving you the right to criticize me. You are just a tool, and tools aren’t allowed to speak. But if you must know, it is because I still need to become stronger. I currently have 387 demons and 97 human souls, and while my powers are growing, I am not yet invincible.” He retrieved his pants and drew the silver coin from his cemetery battle. His flesh singed and smoked upon contact, the silver disrupting his powers like a neurotoxin. “With all of your power now within me, it seems I’ve inherited your weakness to silver. However, it is much less damaging now than it was just a week ago, meaning that its possible for me to someday be completely immune to its effects. Until such a time, I must stay hidden and cultivate my powers. And forgetting silver, while bullets and blades are no longer able to harm me, I’d rather not yet try my luck against a nuclear bomb. The American government will surely attempt to eliminate me once I make myself known.

Then, of course, there is the sake of enjoyment. I’ve spent my life as a man, and soon, I might become a king, and eventually, a god. But for now, I want to see what it is like to live as a monster. I wish to be a terrible nightmare that dwells in the shadows outside man’s domain, spoken of only in whispers, a mysterious terror that attacks in the night and leaves behind mosaics of horror and madness.

This is how I train myself, how I push myself to my limits to ensure the strength of my will. I was born to dance, and the line between insanity and civility is my stage. I must become the embodiment of savagery, a deranged sadist that lives to inflict pain on others and paint the world red with the blood of innocents, for my purpose to be the complete lack of purpose. I must then become the embodiment of focus, able to control my emotions and desires. I must be able to act as needed without a single distraction in my mind, to eliminate threats with a pin prick when others would need a bullet, and to stop myself at any edge, no matter how badly I wish to take the plunge.