The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

[This is the first part of my Black Gate series.]



I. Black Gate



I can, at this moment, tell you no more about the events leading to my brother, Bradley Crowe's, untimely demise. The reasons for which I cannot say are that, one, I myself remember nothing after I fled that grim place where Thanatos himself dwells, waiting for a hapless truthseeker to wander into his gaping maw. I can tell you no more also, because the things that were seen by my brother and I were not meant to be understood by humanity, the THINGS...oh..those creatures, if they can be so called..I see them still, even in my waking hours. I will tell you no more than my brother is dead while I live, I shall however, tell you, only once more, for that is all the time I have left, you shall soon see, what events led my brother to his end. Pay heed to my words, and never seek the gate of black steel.



My brother, Bradley, and myself had always been curious lads, we never could get the urge to explore the mysterious, the unknown, out of our minds. Year after year of our childhood was spent with our Great Grandfather, Norman Crowe, who had explored nightmare cities in Central Asia, he told the most fascinating tales. Tales of man eating tribes of natives that chased him, tales of things he dare not mention to mere boys of fourteen, and he did not tell of those things until we had reached the unanimous age of seventeen.



He told us of A'knna, the Black Gate that showed the looker what they most wanted to see, but at a terrible price if the observer should not be able to handle the things they witnessed.



At the time I was thrilled by the story of the Black Gate, but now...I wish I had slit the old man's throat before he even uttered the name of that hideous thing, that window into the very soul of Chaos itself.



Now I think you can infer what went through the near hive mind of my brother and I, young Alexander and Bradley. We set out to locate, from legend, the Black Gate itself, but to do so meant that we had to first locate and placate the god Thoth via an acceptable sacrifice and task. This was to be the beginning of our horror, the nightmare which we could not back away from.

Now, I had set myself to researching Thoth, the ancient god of knowledge who had, himself, created A'knna, if legend held true. I found that there was an ancient, forbidden ruin not far from the home I had spent my childhood in, my Great Grandfather's home, in this ruin it was said that certain unspeakable rites were held that would invoke Thoth. My blood ran electric.



The next morning my brother and I set out for our Great Grandsire's home, where the old man, that cursed old man, seemed to expect our arrival.



I should have known then, the pieces were falling too perfectly, I should have realized.



Judging old Norman Crowe to be of like mind, we discussed with him the details of our research and found that he himself knew of a way to invoke Thoth AND of the ruin's location! We followed blindly as he promised to have the rites ready by the next night and we should meet him and the ruin to which he gave us an old yet accurate map to the very remains we sought. It was here that I became suspicious of the old man, how his eyes seemed to speak not of curiosity...but of mad lust, for what I could only guess at the time...I had no idea as to the sheer depth of the man's madness!



Regardless of my suspicions, we slept the night in that house, I should have liked to been more comfortable had I known it would be my last sane night's sleep.



The next morning Grandfather was gone, we presumed he was preparing the ruins for the night's rites to summon Thoth. Bradley and I set ourselves to exploring the whole of our Grandfather's home, seeing for the first time in daylight things that we had only noticed vague outlines of as children. We learned that Norman Crowe had an odd taste in trophies from the places he'd been in nightmarish central Asia. He'd brought back ritualistic tools once used for sawing apart the bodies of fellow men for consumption, the hair of an African voodoo priest, a vial of crimson liquid with an old label neither of us could read, and, most disturbing of all, a depiction of a creature standing before a black arch. I doubt that I can express in the words of man just what sort of creature the page bore, but it invoked in my mind the image of a dark skinned humanoid several hundred feet in height with what appeared to be an infinite number of groping hands and gaping mouths and eyes scanning, as if it wanted to absorb everything that was.



In that depiction I noticed something my brother did not, in the text of the central Asian cannibals, which I had learned to read due to my interest in their history, it bore in clear print “AHKNAH”. I quickly copied down every piece of text on the page with the depiction, a feeling of pure dread welling up within me.



The day passed slowly into night as I read, scrutinized, compared, and memorized what I had written. The text, from what I could translate and infer, seemed to be some form of counter ritual, meant solely to banish the creature in the depiction which I had, at the time, assumed to be the result of a wicked man peering into the black arch, which seemed to me to symbolize the Black Gate A'knna. Oh how I wish that were true.



Night soon fell and we headed out to meet our Grandfather at the place that was specified with the tools and supplies that were required.