Episode 113: Inheritance
Written By Karl White
Loss has a way of changing shape over time. At first it arrives as grief, sharp and immediate, leaving behind a wound refusing to close. But if left to linger long enough, that grief hardens. Sorrow becomes anger. Anger becomes purpose. And purpose, when fed by enough pain, can become dangerous.
Veera Sarin spent much of his life opposing the Dark without allowing it to change who he was. But after Aolani was torn from him without warning and hidden beyond the reach of even his mind’s eye, something inside him began to calcify. The fight no longer felt like a duty. Somewhere in the shadows, Joseph Frost had stolen the person Veera loved most, and that made it deeply personal. With each passing day, Veera found himself caring less about victory and more about making certain those responsible answered for what they’d done...and he wasn’t the only one.
Zayne in 1680 - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
In 1680, Englishman, Broderick Zayne, a philosopher, alchemist, and devout Catholic, saw the rise of occult fascination as a direct affront to his faith. Determined to find and destroy works of forbidden magic, including the Book of Amar, he embarked upon a holy quest that’d ultimately reveal his true calling as a warrior for the Light. To do so, however, he left behind the one person who needed him most, his ailing mother, whose mind was slowly being claimed by dementia. He would never see her again.
For years, the cost of what he'd given up for his journey weighed on him. Zayne departed believing he’d one day return, embrace his mother once more, and tell her his long absence served a purpose greater than either of them could’ve imagined. Instead, his path led through horrors beyond comprehension in the Abyss. Long after returning to Earth, he remained haunted by the thought, while she endured her final years frightened and confused, he’d not been there to comfort her.
For much of his Eternal life, Zayne wrestled with the question of whether he’d made the right choice. Had he abandoned the one person who needed him most in pursuit of a cause too great to measure? Or had that sacrifice spared countless others from suffering the same fate? There was no clear answer, only the certainty every meaningful calling demands something in return.
That sacrifice became the quiet fire beneath every step Broderick Zayne took thereafter. He didn’t fight the Dark solely because it threatened the world. He fought because he had already surrendered too much to allow evil to prevail. If the life he left behind had been the price of becoming one of humanity's protectors, then he’d ensure that price had not been paid in vain.
Along his lonely road, Zayne found an unexpected companion in Gérard Roux. Both were Eternals, men displaced from the centuries that shaped them, carrying burdens no ordinary person could truly understand. Together they hunted the Dark across generations. What started as an alliance slowly became something far rarer. In Roux, Zayne found the closest thing to family he’d know after leaving home. A constant presence for one another through an existence otherwise defined by impermanence. And though neither man was given to speaking openly of such things, there was an unshakable trust.
Zayne and Roux hunting down infernal creatures - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Yet even their bond couldn’t quiet the ache Zayne carried for his mother. The years spent beside Roux gave him purpose, and someone with whom to bear the loneliness of eternity, but he could never regain what had been lost. And because some wounds never heal, victory for Zayne didn’t erase the pain. Rest became difficult for him, so he pushed harder.
After Orem Black’s banishment to Oblivion, the warriors of the Light gradually went their separate ways. While others sought purpose elsewhere, Zayne and Roux continued their watch for threats concealed in the shadows. Zayne in particular became consumed by the mystery of the remaining Processions. If the Dark's campaign followed a grand design, then somewhere within that system lay the key to stopping it. He refused to believe mankind had been left to stumble blindly towards the end.
That conviction led him to establish The Church of the Seven Angels. Outwardly, it appeared to be a devout religious order. In truth, it continued the work that defined his life, locating forbidden grimoires and dangerous magical texts before they could fall into the wrong hands. Foremost among them was the Book of Amar. Every surviving copy they recovered was painstakingly studied, its references to prophecy, demonology, and the Processions meticulously cataloged before the volume itself was consigned to flames.
Above all, Zayne was obsessed with understanding the Seventh Procession. Unlike the others, it could only be fulfilled during the final war between Light and Dark. If he could uncover its nature before that day arrived, he believed mankind might still have a chance to prevent it. Reaching that answer, however, required years of patient investigation into the Dark's shadowy endgame.
The search had become even more difficult after the Second World War. The Nazis had looted libraries, private collections, and sacred archives across Europe, while countless others were destroyed in the chaos of war. No one could say how many copies of the Book of Amar still survived. Even the rumor of an intact volume was enough to send Zayne's order into action.
Monfret gains an upper-hand- © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
In 1947, Vampire Victor Monfret, desperate for an advantage in the Great Vampire War, learned of an original copy hidden within the occult library of a powerful Hollywood producer. For Victor, stealing the book to wield powerful magic could alter the trajectory of the war, the only problem was he didn’t know what to do with the tome.
He'd send his most trusted Underling, Matthew Townsend, to find anyone who understood the book’s dark magic. In 1953, whispers reached Zayne, about a vampire digging for forbidden knowledge. Fearful of Townsend’s intentions, Zayne planted rumors through occult circles, of himself as an avant-garde alchemist who successfully translated portions of the Book. Townsend took the bait. Certain he could use his Sight to telepathically force Zayne into revealing what he knew, he arranged a private meeting.
But Zayne never intended to teach the vampire anything. Instead, he offered Townsend a demonstration with the very copy of the Book of Amar the vampire possessed. Claiming to have deciphered one of its more obscure rituals, Zayne began a conjuration while encouraging Townsend to follow along. But the spell he recited didn’t come from the book at all. Hidden beneath the guise of dark magic was an invocation from the Disciplina Arcani. Townsend, believing he was unlocking the forbidden power he was looking for, unwittingly completed the divine rite himself. In an instant, his unnatural strength and speed were stripped away, leaving him helpless as Zayne slay the vampire. Then he burned the book to ash, burying the remains in consecrated ground.
By 1955, Zayne, Roux, and the Church of the Seven Angels had destroyed a total of 48 known versions of the book. Most were degraded copies or forgeries, and while still dangerous, they held little useful insight into the Processions.
Mary Gale’s yearbook photo, 1957 - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Not every hunt ended so cleanly. In 1957, fourteen-year-old Mary Gale discovered what she believed was an old Bible written in a forgotten language at a flea market outside Thomasboro, Illinois. She brought the strange volume home to the family's farm, unaware it was an intact copy of the Book of Amar. Reading aloud from its pages one summer evening, she unknowingly summoned a Wraith demon. Evil possessed her, twisting her mind until she slaughtered nearly her entire family.
Only her younger brother, Charlie, escaped. Hiding in the barn while Mary searched for him. Desperate and terrified, Charlie recited the Hero Prayer, summoning Kharos, who destroyed the demon possessing his sister.
But the tragedy couldn’t be undone. The book was taken into police custody, forcing Zayne and Roux to steal it before its corruption spread further. Mary remembered nothing of the massacre. Nevertheless, she was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death.
A life ruined by the Dark - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
The Gale Murders left Zayne deeply shaken. Mary's life had been stolen by forces she could never understand, and the tragedy settled heavily upon him, leaving him quieter, angrier, and increasingly withdrawn. At first, Roux believed it was simply grief. Then he noticed something far more troubling.
Broderick was forgetting conversations they’d shared only hours earlier. He searched for words that’d once come effortlessly. On more than one occasion he became disoriented, uncertain of the year, or place. The changes were subtle at first, but grew steadily harder to ignore.
The same cruel inheritance that had stolen his mother’s mind had begun claiming his own. Even being an Eternal couldn’t spare him. Though Broderick Zayne would never grow old in body, his mind was slowly surrendering to the same darkness that haunted his family generations before.
TO BE CONTINUED…