Reaper's Word

Chapter 1 : Prisoner of the Manor

He stood at the top of the stairwell. His nails clicking on the wooden banister. They were coming with another group. How annoying. He always hoped that they would forget so that he could just waste away. Yet they never did. If they did then they would die. So it was a stupid fruitless hope. Still didn't stop him from wishing.

Isaiah was locked in this damn building. Trapped here by old magic that he had no ability to change. They'd been very smart and very stupid at the same time. He was waiting for them to slip up just once. To bring him what he needed. Damn them and how carefully they selected those that they brought here.

Every day he pictured the way that he would kill those that had trapped him here. Those that used him to stay alive, gaining immortality through him. For them to continue to live, he would have to remain healthy and mildly content. The content part they could care less about. However he could at times make life very difficult for those chained to him. So they gave him what he wanted except his freedom.

They would do whatever was necessary to keep him trapped in this mansion. Because the moment he got out, he would kill them. Isaiah would tear, shred and dance in their blood. It was the only thing that got him through all of these long years. One hundred seventy four years, six months, eight days, twelve hours and forty three minutes. Not that he was counting.

Make that forty four minutes.

He raised his gaze to the ceiling above him. Someone was moving around up there. The survivor of the last group brought nearly a month ago. That one was a quick one and had won several of the games that he played with him. He had to stay entertained somehow. Playing with his food was one way of doing it.

Every so often he would get one that was smart and quick. He'd use them as entertainment more than once. The longest any human ever brought to him here had lasted was a month and four days. Only

because he'd played it smart and stayed away from him. Never coming out of his hiding places unless he needed food or what not.

That had been some years ago. He had yet to find another that was smart enough to elude him and his companions for so long. Next to him a large German Sheppard sat, but it was no dog. This was just how it looked during the day if it wished. Daylight was not great for his companion. She sat looking out the huge windows that faced the grand staircase. It was made of dark wood and looked brand new. Sweeping out at the bottom to go right or left, with a black and white tiled floor at the bottom.

Unlike him, she could go out onto the grounds at night. The direct sun could kill her if left out in it for more than a handful of minutes in her true form. She was what humans might call a hell hound. Nearly indestructible like her master, there were two others in the house. Well near by the house in the caves connected to it actually. He mentally kept tabs on them.

None of the hell hounds could go far from him. They were connected to him. If he died they died, but seeing as there was not much in this world that could kill him, they weren't ever going to die. Well hopefully, unless he did something stupid again. The name he was called when he'd been stuck here was Isaiah. He didn't see a point in calling himself any other name at the moment.

Isaiah had been alive for a very long time. Though for some of it he'd not been truly living in the human world. Not until he'd been summoned by a weak old fool who'd thought himself powerful. Wanted to use Isaiah as a weapon. The old man had pulled him from the world beyond and into this one. It was quite the physical and mental shock to suddenly have a corporal form. Disorientating and painful to say the least.

Bound by the rules that had summoned him, he'd done as the old man had asked. Then killed him to free himself from him. Easy enough, it had been harder to learn how to live in this world. What to do to survive. He wasn't a demon so he didn't need to feed from souls. He wasn't a vampire or undead. Though he did survive on blood. He was still trying to figure out how to just get the energy from it

without needing to drink from those humans he needed to survive. It wasn't the blood, but the energy of life in it. He hadn't figured it out yet. At this point he guessed it didn't matter.

He needed the energy and nutrients that a living creature could give him. The best and only way that he found worked was to drain them. He guessed he could leave them alive not draining them fully of life. Though any he left alive could potentially become his master, and he wasn't going to allow that. He would not be owned anymore by anyone.

He already was bound here. No need to be bound to one that might escape. There was one exception, one thing that could free him. It was also the same reason that he was stuck in here. Isaiah didn't know of any other like him and he'd traveled the world for nearly three hundred years before being trapped here.

He was subject to the needs of this world and that had cost him his freedom. His nails scared the wood as he dragged them over it in agitation remembering that day. He was bound by any promise he made until it was fulfilled. If he broke it, it would kill him. Nothing in this world but his own promise could kill him as far as he knew. Hence why he never made a promise without a loophole or one that he would never have to keep.

"It would appear that we have..." He took a deep breath. "Ten, no twelve new arrivals." The Sheppard next to him made a slight head nod. They couldn't talk, via mouth. However they were highly intelligent and they had their own way of communicating information to him. He was so attuned to them that it was second nature. He guessed it was a way of speaking, after all he got it and heard it like words.

His companion was the oldest of the three. Alpha, Beta and Zeta. Easy to remember for him, Zeta was the only female of the three, and vicious. More so than the males. It was she who sat next to him, her brothers resting at the moment.

"I am annoyed by these rules and technicalities." His eyes were a solid black at the moment. He was also well fed and didn't hunger. He'd caught and taken care of a woman last night. She'd just given up on living anyways. No reason to keep her around anymore. Not that any of them would ever easily find a way out. Even if they did, they still had to get out of the grounds with the hell hounds after them.

"Play, we play." Was Zeta's response to what he said, again no words but he understood the sensations and images that she sent to him like she had spoken. She had a quirky personality to say the least. Doing odd things. Sometimes playing with a human almost like she liked them, just to kill them later. Or she'd hide one from her brothers if she could chase one off somewhere and then tell them to go look.

Alpha enjoyed the game immensely, because Zeta was very good at it. Gave him a challenge to find the prize. What else were they going to do in this godforsaken house? Beta was much more sedate than the other two, but no less deadly. When angered he destroyed the thing that pissed him off. Not just killed it, destroyed it completely so that there was nothing left of it. In the case of a human, nothing but a bloody mess on the floor, walls and ceiling.

This habit annoyed Isaiah simply because he enjoyed this prison to stay clean and in order. He was angered when things were destroyed. Though it couldn't be helped some times. At least his prison was large and had plenty to keep him occupied. That and its ability to repair itself. This place was more than it seemed, more than magic ran through the walls.

"Yes, our guests come to join us." He replied to Zeta. He could smell the human food in the dining room. This was the only time that the food was set up like this. He wasn't allowed into that room during this time. Only because his captors were bringing him their offering to stay immortal. Any other food brought in for the humans still alive after the first few days was left in the back kitchen area.

"Let us see them shall we?" Isaiah said and moved down the stairs. It was the grand staircase that came out on a marble floor. At the bottom you could go left or right. Rooms to either side and halls along the stair case as well. There where huge windows that went up from the floor to meet the ceiling giving a view of the garden area with a large fountain.

This place never aged, or fell into disrepair. Not so long as he was here and the magic keeping him locked in held. Even the grounds stayed in a constant refined state as if there was a gardener there taking care of it. This place was huge and had more rooms and secret passageways than he could count. He would like to get out of this house, but never seemed to be able to. Very rarely he could manage to get onto the roof. Thank god because all these years of never being able to go outside would have driven him insane.

He wasn't allowed out of the house. Not unless he wished excruciating pain. He would start to bleed. Liaisons opening on his skin and blood coming from his eyes and ears. It weakened him greatly and those that held him here would come instantly. In his pain and weakness the hell hounds were incapacitated as well. Isaiah would be so drained from it that he would turn feral after the amount of time. There was no leaving for him. Trapped by a promise to come here and old magic of a family that should have died out long ago.

He stood at the window looking with his head turned toward the long stoned driveway that two large vehicles came up. He hoped that one of the humans being brought would provide him with better entertainment than the last. It was the only thing that kept him sane being stuck here year after year.

"Fifty three minutes." He said to himself in a kind of depressed sigh. His own mental clock told him. Then with a smile moved down the hall to the right going up a different set of stairs that lead to a bay of windows which looked out over the front drive area. He liked watching the sheep come to slaughter.