William Lex Webb knelt before the idol in the basement of his country estate, its crude stone form towering above him like a fossilized nightmare. The effigy's jagged mouth gaped wide, teeth carved into uneven fangs, and from within, shadows coiled as though alive. The air smelled of iron, sweat, and damp earth—an unholy chapel built not for salvation, but for conquest.
His tailored suit clung uncomfortably to his skin, darkened by sweat from the dozens of candles flickering in the chamber. The contrast was almost absurd: William, the celebrated CEO of Lexcor Holdings, the polished billionaire who graced magazines, shaking hands with ministers and prime executives… now bowed, trembling like a penitent, whispering to the abyss.
William: "Hmm… yes, my dark lord. Your wish is my command. Another summoning, you say? Then so it shall be. The city will bleed again. The world will remember your name through me."
From the hollow of the idol, a voice echoed. Low, guttural, more felt in the marrow than heard in the ear. The ancient tongue was broken, but the meaning slid into William's mind like oil.
"A pure blood… a maiden untouched. Her heart will open the door wider. Find her, devotee. Find her, and the heavens shall darken."
William's smile was sharp, unnatural. His reflection—when he glanced at the polished silver basin beside him—was hollow-eyed, gaunt, his once-charming features twisted into something predatory.
For weeks, he scoured London under the guise of his corporate power. As CEO of a vast conglomerate, he commanded databases, medical records, employee files—no door too locked, no privacy sacred. He justified it all as "due diligence," though the truth was far more grotesque. Each file, each life he combed through was not for hiring or partnerships, but for purity. For untouched flesh that could be desecrated at his altar.
During daylight, he was William the philanthropist, shaking hands at charity galas, offering scholarships, donating to women's shelters. At night, he was the dark lord's dog, sifting through lives with surgical cruelty.
And then he found her.
Her name did not matter. What mattered was the medical history that confirmed what the idol demanded: untouched, unbroken, pure. She was a university student, a quiet girl who worked part-time in cafés to afford her tuition. The kind of person the world overlooked.
William did not overlook her.
He stalked her for days, savoring the hunt. Watching her walk from class, tracing her path home, memorizing the rhythm of her life. When the night came, he struck with precision—chloroform, a van with tinted windows, a private estate where no neighbor dared question odd noises.
When she awoke, she was already bound. The cold of the altar stone seeped into her skin, her wrists and ankles chained, her body stripped and painted with the symbols William had perfected through study of forbidden codices. The designs were angular, spirals intersecting crescents, all drawn in crimson ink mixed with his own blood.
She screamed. Begged. Promised anything for freedom. But William's face was serene, almost priestly, as he dipped the brush into the bowl and finished the final stroke across her chest.
William (softly): "Hush now. Your voice is not lost. It is given. The Tzitzimimeh will hear it."
Above them, the air thickened. The candle flames bent inward as though pulled by invisible breath. Shadows on the walls writhed, taking on clawed forms, fanged faces. The girl's terror only fed the ritual, her sobs echoing like music in the stone chamber.
William raised the obsidian dagger, the blade catching the light with a sickly shimmer. His hands did not tremble. This was no murder to him—it was a covenant.
William: "By my hand, by your blood, the door opens. To my lord, I give your heart."
The dagger came down. Her cry ended abruptly, replaced by the wet sound of sacrifice. Blood ran across the carved grooves of the altar, filling them, completing the sigils.
The chamber pulsed. The idol's hollow eyes glowed red, and a wind howled through the subterranean hall as though the earth itself had been split.
From the darkness above, something answered. A shriek, not human, not animal, reverberated through the stone, promising more to come.
William stood over the corpse, drenched in crimson, his breath heavy. For a moment, the mask of the CEO returned, and he adjusted his cufflink absently, as though straightening his appearance after a long meeting. But the smile—cold, triumphant—belonged only to the zealot.
William: "Yes… yes, my lord. Another step. Another sacrifice. Soon, London will drown in shadows, and I will be the hand that guides the night."
The idol pulsed again, approving.
And William Lex Webb, billionaire, philanthropist, monster, whispered another prayer to his dark master, already searching in his mind for the next lamb to slaughter.