-|If Looks Could Kill | Rock and Ace|-

"If you listen closely, they say, you can still hear the little girl laughing... her childish ways, and innocent demeanor fool all, and if you're not careful, she'll eat your soul..." The hushed whispers of the child's voice barely echoed throughout the night as the boy, a young boy no older than seven, maybe eight, grinned evilly to his two younger siblings. All three children were hiding, tucked safely under their mock "fort" made of blankets and pillows, in between two of the brothers' beds. "Nu uh, Jeremy!" The youngest one, Tucker, whined to his older brother. "There ain't a demon that looks like a little girl. An' I'm tellin' Mama on you!" He cried, his face a contortion of fear as he clamored out of the make-shift fort hurriedly, making his way down the stairs of the old log cabin. Tiny feet toddled on the wooden floor as the boy clung to his small teddy bear.

"Mama?" He called out as he walked into the cabin's living area, but no one was there to hear his calls. "Where are you Mama?" Timidly he walked closer to the fire, his young, brown eyes scanning back and forth in a fear filled manner. Maybe Mama was sitting in her favorite chair, though it faced the fire, so the boy couldn't see anything until he was directly in front of it. He sighed as he saw his Mama's arm sitting on the arm of the chair. "Oh there you are, Mama. Jeremy's been tellin' us scary stories again!" his voice trembled lightly as he walked around to face his mother, but as he did, a sharp scream erupted from his throat...

There sat his Mama, but she wasn't his Mama, not anymore. Now her face, it was twisted all the way around, so that she was looking at the back of the chair, and her chest... It was cut all the way from her neck, down to her private areas. Her intestines were spilling out of her stomach, ripped, shredded, almost as if someone had feasted upon them in the most devious of manners. Great pools of blood dripped around the woman, how the boy had initaly missed the large, red circles he wasn't sure, but he was stepping in them now, his screams never ending as he stared, completely shell shocked at the very dead form of his mother.

From the corner came a voice, a small, meek voice, that couldn't have belonged to any girl older than seven, maybe eight, but the words to her rhyme were terrifying none the less. "Now I lay me down to sleep, over your death, none shall weep. Since you have died, never to wake, your soul is mine, always to take." The young boy, Tucker, stopped screaming immediately as his body was jerked to the shadows, dark whispers falling over his head. "Hush now, child mine. Close your eyes, all will be fine." Her clawed fingers softly raked down his young cheek, until it came to his neck, and his head was lifted to look Lillith in the eyes. She was gorgeous, beauty incarnate actually, with long, flowing rivers of jet black curls for hair, and eyes that shone like diamonds the color of the shamrocks in the fields of Ireland. Her skin was soft, and slightly pale, as was her long, graceful neck which lead down to a beautiful gown of red silk, with black fishnet over the top of it. As she looked at him, Lillith seemed to put the child into a trance like state, which was only to her benefit as she smiled ever so sweetly to the confused boy.

"Mama...?" He whispered softly, his eyes filling up with tears. Lillith only shook her head, leaning forward to kiss his tears away. "Mama's gone, never to return. But worry not, child. Soon it'll be your turn." Her face changed instantly, going from the serene, peaceful look of a child, to the deranged, horror filled look of a demon. Her eyes narrowed as she jerked her hand out, gripping his neck tightly as she stood her full child size height. With defening strength, she crushed the child's wind pipes as she lifted him from the floor and threw him across the room. "Such fun's to be had!" She laughed as she pounced on him, her small, childlike hands growing deadly claws, which she used to slit the boy's neck. The cut was so deep, and so deadly, that she sliced directly through his bone, so that his head lolled to the back, attached by nothing save a few strings of skin.

Lillith wasted no time desecrating the child, and stealing his soul, and when she turned around, blood dripping from her fingers, the demon grinned wickedly; for standing there, on the stairs, were Tucker's two brothers, horror etched on their faces. Late into the night, for miles around, the screams of the two boys could be heard as Lillith had her fun destroying their bodies, and stealing their souls...

-|Sometime Before Dawn|-

Lillith yawned lightly as she walked from the house of five. Though none inside remained alive. This night, she'd destroyed the lives of a Mother, Father, and three brothers. The demon couldn't have been happier as she gaily skipped her way down the lane, turning right into the cemetery. As she skipped over graces, kicked over headstones, and generally created havoc and terror to the slumbering dead, Lillith sang... ""One two Lilly's coming for you. Three four, gonna hit the floor. Five six, grab a crucifix. Seven eight, she's all full of hate. Nine ten, then she'll kill again."

"Your motive should not be vengeance but mercy. You will deliver the soulless back to their severed souls." - St. Priscella

The dead did not rest in Briarton. The town had once been a close-nit farming community, full of good spirit and prosperous families. Seeing it now though, Havian could scarcely imagine how it might have looked in his father's time. The once verdant crop fields were now all gone, given over to becoming a fetid bog full of bones and withered brambles that shivered in the feeble winds. Still a ways away in the was Briarton proper, now only a rotting collection of wooden skeleton houses, all silhouetted by the last light of the setting sun. The dusk was red. There were no crows to herald the coming night, no croaking toads or buzzing insects. The land was dominated by a deathly silence that only Sir Havian the Intrepid dared to disturb as he struggled onward in full battle dress, tired and alone, but focused and undeterred.

The only road to the Briarton graveyard was an avenue of mud, ankle-deep everywhere it wasn't knee-deep. The burial grounds themselves had become a favorite haunt of necromancers, who had been drawn to the site by an abundance of corpses and by the elusive yet inescapable darkness that had long since taken hold of Briarton, adding to it's corruption and myth with their obscene death craft. Such practices had not gone unnoticed... Sir Havian had been set to the task of finding the necromancers and slaying them in the name of all things holy. "Briarton is an open wound," the Abbot had told him. "If we are ever to heal it, it must not be allowed to fester and infect or lands further."

It was fully dark when the church's vanguard finally reached the beginnings of the tainted cemetery. The necromancers had hung lanterns from the pole-thin trees that grew among the rows of untended graves. The headstones looked like miss-aligned teeth, each one leaning at various angles, their inscriptions faded and illegible beneath layers of blackened moss and years of exposure to that caustic soup that splashed and sloshed around Havian's steel boots. Frowning, he searched the misty shadows for any sign of life. There were none.

A disappointment, but the young night had the will and the supplies to continue his search for days if need be. His greatest concern was simply finding a dry place to spend the night. But if there were none to be found, then so be it. A man could put up with anything if he had to. And Havian would sleep well, secure in the righteousness of his cause.

Havian turned to leave but then froze at the sound of singing. Where was it coming from? Everywhere it seemed, neither far nor near. It was a haunting melody, the stuff of children's nightmares. Sit Havian, however, was unmoved. A noble warrior's spirit stirred in him and steadied his nerves in the face of the unknown. He true his sword and took up a stance against the darkness the surrounded him.