I came to tied to a chair in an empty, carpet-less room. It smelled of dust underlaid with a coppery hint of old blood and the only light came from the streetlight outside. Viciously tight bindings bit into raw flesh that felt as if someone had tried to flay it from my body while I’d been out.

I was alone.

Seconds pounded past on little leaden feet but frankly I was glad for even that meagre attention because it proved I was still alive. And then, a slight sound so faint it was almost imperceptible accompanied by a cool breeze across ravaged skin made me look up.

The demon covered the ceiling and still there was not enough room for him to spread his wings to their full extent. He didn’t hover so much as hang, neck bent at an impossible angle, lustrous black hair concealing his face. Only the gold of his eyes shone out through the hair, so bright they generated light that now played around the room: clearly the source of what I had fondly imagined had come from outside.

He must have heard some sound, perhaps the dilation of arteries, or the frantic pumping of blood by an agitated heart because he snarled, a low, rumbling growl that froze what was left of my blood.

Time stopped, my aches and pains fled, evicted by the certain knowledge that this was how it was going to end; here in this dirty little room at the hands of a creature so vile, even its own kind shunned it. Then with a deafening roar, a torrent of dark water surged into the room from the walls, the ceiling and from beneath the floor, slapping wetly about the legs of the chair. In seconds it was knee high and I realised it wasn’t water because in its discoloured brackish depths, solid shapes swam.

“Are you going to kill me Lukastor?”