BROCKTON, MA.
Alexandra woke up. It was a saturday. She went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. She stared at the reflection. She looked at a young woman with short black hair and dark green eyes. A face that some would consider pretty, if a bit average. She took her toothbrush and rinsed it with hot water. She put on some colgate total and started brushing her teeth.
She brushed her teeth for ten minutes before spitting and rinsing her mouth. She went to the bathroom and sat down. She peed and emptied her bowels. She wiped her ass and washed her hands. She went into the shower and let the water fall on her. It was medium hot, just the way she liked it. She scrubbed herself and cleaned herself with water and soap. She stepped out and took a towel and dried herself with it. She walked out of the bathroom after closing the water. She went to her room. She dried herself off and went into the closet. She took a look at some clothes.
She looked at a black T-shirt featuring Rob Zombie and put it on. She put on some Hanes underwear. She put on blue denim jeans. She went back to the bathroom and took some hair gel out of a drawer. She put it on her hair then used a brush to slick it back. Her hair was black, nice and short. She brushed it and then licked her finger before running it over her eyebrows. She took a look at herself in the mirror. She looked good. She went back into her room and took her book bag out of the closet. She put in some books. Multimedia. Psychology. Calculus. Public Speaking. Those were her classes of the day. She went to the kitchen and took a bottle of Nestle out of the fridge. She mixed it with some milk and shook it before taking some bread. She ate the bread and drank the chocolate milk while looking at yesterday's newspaper.
She hurried out of the house and locked it up. This house belonged to her father, Liam Volcy. Alexandra Volcy had been raised by her dad and whatever lady he was seeing. Alexandra's mother, Nicole Volcy had ran off with her best friend Mary Stiller when Alexandra was just ten years old. The divorce followed. Liam Volcy got custody of Alexandra because Nicole Volcy was a mean drunk with a rap sheet a mile long. Being an adoptee was tough. Alexandra didn't complain. She just accepted this as the way things were.
She went into the bus station and took the Bat bus out of Brockton. This bus was headed toward Ashmont station. She got on the bus and started reading a book. Since her graduation from Cardinal Spellman last year, Alexandra Volcy had been a recluse. She didn't make many friends. She kept to herself. These days, the men and women of this world couldn't be trusted. This was just as well. Too many psychotic people in the street. You just couldn't tell these days. She started sleeping and woke up just as the bus pulled into Ashmont station. She went to the booth and bought two tokens. She walked through the metal thingie and sat down waiting for the train. She read Thomas E. Sniegoski's The Fallen.
The train came and people hurried inside. Alexandra went in and sat down. She watched the people in the train and also watched the stops go by. Shawmut. Fields Corner. JFK UMASS. Downtown Crossing. ect. She got off at Park Street and went to the green line waiting area. She waited for a moment until the trains came by. She had to wait for the second one because the first one was packed. She got on the green line train and stopped at Arlington. She got off and walked to her school. Fisher College. It was just another friday morning in Boston. A morning in mid november.
ELSEWHERE.....
Michael Renard woke up. He went to the shower and did his business. He was a tall, slim young man with short blond hair and pale green eyes. He put on his clothes and got ready to go to school. In the eyes of the world, Michael Renard was a young man. He was not. Something was hiding behind the features of the handsome youth.
Michael Renard was a young man but something else lived inside him. A demon. The demon was a creature that had been around since the beginning of time. A powerful creature with great intelligence and ability. Yet this demon had limits. It needed a human Host body to inhabit. The human Host had to be a willing one. Not many people would be willing to take a human inside their bodies. The Demon would be impossible to remove once incorporated inside the human body.
Michael found his Demon by accident. The Demon had been trapped for centuries inside a very ancient box made of steel and gold. An ancient sorcerer from the land of Africa bound the Demon to the Box. The Demon's name was Achelus and he had been responsible for countless acts of destruction throughout human history.
Achelus has had many men and women as Hosts. He used these Host bodies to wreak havoc upon the world. Michael Renard freed Achelus by accident when he was sixteen years old. The Demon entered his body. At first, Michael had been scared. The Demon was trapped inside his body and would be stuck there until Michael's death. Once Achelus entered a human body, only the death of the Host could expel him. Michael Renard had been a nerd in high school.
When Achelus became a part of him, all that changed. The Demon was a great liar and seducer. He used his powers to seduce women and turned Michael Renard into a studly don juan. He even used his powers to alter Michael's body and make him look handsome. He was irresistible.
The Demon had the power to change form. He used those powers on his Host. Michael Renard joined the Fitchburg high school football team. He became the MVP. The Demon inside him lent him strength and stamina far beyond any athlete's. Michael Renard found life easier since he became the Host of the Demon. He dated the prettiest girls. Seducing beautiful women was child's play for a demon. Sometimes Michael slept with three different women in one night. When Michael's parents, Gerald and Tina Renard told him they were in danger of losing their house due to lack of money to pay the mortgage, the Demon intervened.
Michael played the lottery and the Demon used his powers to affect the odds in his favor. Michael won five hundred grand. On top of that, he won an academic scholarship to MIT. Michael had always been a straight A student but the presence of the Demon inside him and the Demon's vast knowledge accumulated over countless thousands of years proved invaluable.
All at once, the Demon was his friend, counselor and protector. All that Achelus asked was that Michael give him total control of the body one night a month. One night in which the Demon controlled everything and could do as he wished. Michael Renard never remembered those nights. He didn't care. Tonight was the night and as was their pact, it was lights out.
BOSTON, MA.
Alexandra tried to get through her classes. She sat down next to her friend Steve. Steve was a handsome, big and tall black guy with a thick french accent. He was an immigrant from the island of Haiti. A real nice guy. He and Alexandra were both graduates of Cardinal Spellman's back in Brockton, Massachusetts. Steve had been her buddy since the ninth grade. He used to go out with her friend Nikki. She once had a crush on his brother, Ethan. Steve was a Computer technology major and she was focused on Business Management.
Alexandra felt twitchy all day. She knew why she felt this way. She knew that tonight was the night and that pretty soon she would go through.....the Change. She was quite surprised when Jennifer, one of her friends at school invited her to stay over at her dorm this weekend.
" I couldn't." said Alexandra. Jennifer had given her this sad look and said. "Why not?"
Alexandra had been unable to come up with an excuse. She just couldn't stay with Jennifer tonight. Not tonight. Yet she ended up saying yes. Her dad had always told her she was way too nice. Alexandra grunted when Jennifer walked away happily. When the classes ended, Alexandra took a long walk around the Back Bay. She walked in front of the Club Cafe and got onto Commonwealth Ave. She also walked around some of the schools in the area. Bay State College. Berkeley College of Music. ect. She walked through the Public Garden and threw stones into the water. She walked in front of Emerson College and went into Chinatown.
Alexandra kept walking until her feet felt tired. She walked back to the Fisher college dorms. Jennifer was ready to go out. Jennifer's friend Roselyn was there too. Roselyn was a dark-skinned Latina. She was Jennifer's best friend. Jennifer had planned for all three of them to go clubbing and try to meet some guys. Alexandra watched these girls getting ready to go out and stuff. Making themselves pretty. She envied them. They had careers. They had lives. They had boyfriends. She didn't have a boyfriend. Had never had a boyfriend. No, she wasn't like that. And she was not one of those, either. She was just a normal, nineteen-year old girl. Ok, the virgin part sucked.
