Having some prior experience in occult ritual, I found it easy to copy the necessary diagrams from the book. These symbols, the circle and triangle, would allow me to find the power I needed to learn more about the universe than my previous teachers would tell me.

Laughing, I found it very fitting that I should be drawing the key to my mastery over my father with his own blood.

Once all of the words were written and candles placed, I stood in the center of the circle of protection facing the triangle drawn in blood. I still had an hour before dawn, but for some reason that hour seemed to be the darkest in all of my life. There was a feeling in that house of great power; perhaps drawn by the rush of excitement I had felt after the murder. For certain, it was for me a new baptism, for after that defining moment I was indeed a child devoid of the light.

The creature who then appeared before me must have thought so as well.

The light from the candles dimmed so as to almost die in a wisp of smoke, only they did not. The sounds of the hoot owl died, as did the river. It was as if time itself had stopped, and I thought my heart had done the same.

The creature’s voice reminded me that my heart still existed, for the chill that touched it existed only for the taking of life.

“What is thy bidding, my master?”

I could not believe my eyes, for it was an abominable beast, human in appearance but wrong in every way. It was as if taking the form of a man had been an afterthought, for the hands were too big, while the legs were too long. The bare chest was small and pudgy, like a baby’s, and a head shaped like an overturned gourd with a too-thin jaw and neck. It would look almost comical, if it were not for the eyes, eyes that belonged to a shark.

I could not believe my ears, for this obscene entity, which could only have been a fallen angel of some degree, called me “master.”

Yet despite my fear, I knew that the only way to remain alive was to assert the master’s role.

“I seek knowledge,” I spoke through cotton-mouthed lips. “I wish to learn the forbidden arts which will give me the power over life and death.”

“All this I can teach you,” spoke the creature, “and there is a cost. To add to your wisdom, you must add to my bounty.”

I hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. Should I allow the creature to make demands of me? But I could not think of any other course. I had come this far, after all.

“What is it that you demand?”

“Souls,” came the immediate reply in that otherworldly voice. “One for every lesson and every lesson shall bring you greater ability to harvest my bounty. The power over life and death shall give you such great treasures – one soul per lesson shall be of no difficulty for your ability, my master.”

How bizarre! How was I to respond to such a bargain? But as I told myself then, certainly the beast speaks the truth, for I had only moments ago dispatched my own father to the grave. How difficult could it be to take the life of a stranger?

“But there is a problem,” I shakily stated. “I can take a life, but souls are not mine to offer, and I shall not yet part with my own.”

“Take a life and it is yours,” again came an immediate reply, as if this whole exchange had been practiced before. “I will teach you the means to enslave the life you took and then you can force your subject to offer their soul to me. Do you agree?”

The blood was already on my hands. I had no qualms about it. I needed the knowledge and it had been proven to me that there was only one teacher capable of giving it to me. I had no choice.

“Amen.”

That is when I first noticed the stench. It could not have existed before, for I had never smelled anything like it in my life. I looked around, almost forgetting about the creature before me in my search for the origin of the foul odor. It seemed to emanate from all around me. Only later would I come to recognize it as the putrid air of the grave.

The creature then spoke of the basic fundamentals of necromancy. My mind was filled with images as it talked, and the construction of foreign implements and devices became one of my most driving instincts. I had learned in minutes more than any human instructor could teach me in a year of study, and I was left with a more profound sense of accomplishment than I had ever felt before.

Then it became apparent how I could finally have my true revenge upon my father.

Using my newfound abilities, I called upon my father’s spirit, holding in my killing hands the life I took from him. With the creature’s guidance, I spoke the words and uttered the oaths to make my father alive again.

He could walk like a living man and talk like a living man, but I knew he was different by the look in his eyes. Gone was the spark of defiance, replaced instead by the horrors that he could only have experienced in the place I had previously sent him.

“Father, you will kneel before your master,” I commanded him, taking great pleasure in my puppet.

He did as I commanded, and I could see that there was no way for him to fight me. I held his life in my hands and I was the only thing he had, keeping him away from the damnation from whence I had called him back from.

“Son, please,” his voice was sorrowful and terrified. “Please don’t make me go back. I… I promise you… anything!”

His pleas took me off guard. Never before had I heard him beg, only ever hearing the ire in his voice. I have to say that for a moment I wavered, because for a moment I thought that maybe the father I always wished had been had somehow materialized out of the drunken, beating monster that I had always known him to be.

“I never told you I love you, but I do! I do, son, I do! And I don’t blame you for what you’ve done…”

“Don’t talk to me about love,” I spat in his face, for I once again knew him for the liar that he was. “Your soul now belongs to him.”

As I pointed at the creature, my father turned toward it and let out a bellow of absolute horror. Faster than the eye could see, the creature seemed to swoop down onto my father’s form like a bird of prey onto a mouse.

Suddenly the house was filled by thousands of grief-stricken voices, all calling out in some bizarre language. A vision entered my mind of the house being surrounded by a multitude of suffering people, all with eyes clawed out and blood on their fingers, dancing a dance not of joy but of pain as they stood upon shards of glass.

“Class dismissed.”

Apparently I had been holding my eyes closed, for I suddenly opened them and all was silent. The creature was gone, as was my father. The candles had blown out and the circle of blood had dried. There was a cool breeze blowing in through the window and I saw that dawn had come.

I stepped out of the circle and bent over, where I emptied my stomach upon the blood-stained couch.

Author's note: Hello, hope you enjoyed this chapter. I tried to add a little more detail, but I fear saying too much because I hope to allow your imagination to flood the scene with what you feel fits it most. If this is not enough, please let me know.

I was at first going to have the story without the demonic teacher, focusing instead on "The Book," but since I knew I was going to have Thomas (the narrator) become a necromancer, I was afraid of getting into the inescapable realm of "The Necronomicon" and I'm trying to stay away from Mr. Alhazred.

Thanks for the reviews and comments!