Right of Passage

*Warning. This story contains mention of violent/harmful actions and murder. Words like SA is used sparcely in this fiction, but reader discretion is heavily advised. ****

My youngest boy,

    It is with great pleasure that I finally present you with this letter. In three months time, you will partake in our greatest family tradition that not only marks your greatest step into adulthood and manhood, but it is with hope to rid your mind of any thoughts of destructive impurities that may have plagued you at some point or for some time. But, before that, you must prepare yourself. 

Starting today, you will have one week to decide who will become your prey. Your prey cannot be anyone though. This is a decision that must take delicate time and effort to decide. Your prey must also fit a certain criteria, so you have been given a list of rules you must follow when deciding your prey. 

1. Your prey must be of great wickedness. Even though our tradition mainly has preferred the diseased committing crimes such as murder or forms of sexual assault on any human being, if the crime can bring great harm to a person or to human kind in the long run, your prey must fall to this criteria. 
2. Your prey must solely be of male genetics. This rule may be excluded if, 
3. Your prey is of female and falls under the crimes of murder and forms of sexual assault. As long as the evidence is logically presented to us, your prey may be approved. 
4. Children under the age of 18 will not be accepted as prey. Even if evidence is presented that someone under age has committed the most foul, their judgment day will come to them sooner than they expected.
5. Unless provided evidence that a member of this family has committed crimes following their rightful passage, family members are excluded from the proposal of prey 

By the end of your first week, you will be required to present your case to the family council. If your prey is rejected, you will be given one more week to prepare and present your new prey, as a courtesy for showing your efforts. If you fail to submit a proposal for your prey, not only will you be assigned a prey, but you will not know for three weeks. This will be your punishment for not taking your time seriously to begin with. 

With the remaining time given is when you must fully prepare. You have the who, why, and when. But now you must determine the where and the how of your actions. This is not a Michael Myers or Freddy Kruger kind of action.  You must succeed above those who couldn’t, like Bundy and Dahmer. 

This tradition must be taken in stride and with seriousness. If you were to fail, whether in the moment or down the line, you will stand alone. You will not be aided by anyone in this family and you will be casted into the shadows at a moment's notice. This is a tradition that spans for nine generations. Do Not Disappoint. Do not disappoint me, this family, or this legacy. 

                        -With love and luck, You Father, Alistair Julian

        “With God as my guide, may we cleanse the earth. One decrypted soul at a time.” 

I could only chuckle at the words on this letter as I raised my sight to the wall before me. My eyes locked on the photo of my father. But, it then followed the red string that tacked to his picture and strew across the wall to the picture of his brother, Lestate. Then to their father, Peter, his brothers, Henry and Thelonius, and all of the children shared between the men, including my only brother, Klaus. 

I gazed upon the map I had created over the last year as I tossed the letter into the bin beside my desk. My eyes continued to slowly move from one family member to the next and noting any detail that may or may not need adjusting. Even so, all I could think about is what my father should be doing right at this moment. 

I imagine him sitting at his desk like he does this time of night. A glass of brandy to his left, his inkwell pen to his right and work of papers scattered before him. It was always this time of night that my father would take the time to work on his freelance writing. And, as a true classic, I always preferred the old fashioned ways. 

I see him grabbing his brandy and taking a few sips, as he does, before returning it to it’s spot and now reaching for his pen. He has the habit of licking the tip of his pen to dry up ink from the night before, so I imagine the few dabs to the tip of his pen before introducing the tip to it’s old friend of an ink jar and gathering its blood to create the words before him. He’ll scribble away for sometime, take a break in between whether to take another sip of brandy or to excuse himself to a small task, but then return to his desk and repeat the process of licking the tip of his pen before writing again… only this time, I imagine it being his last. 

I can imagine at some point he‘s starting to feel faint, and he’ll most likely blow it off for one too many extra sips of brandy. He’ll continue to write until faintness turns to tiredness and he finally gives in to the night’s arms. I imagine him working his way to the stairs and finding the travel to be more exhausting that normal. Once again, he’ll blow it off as too many sips of Brandy. If I planned it accordingly, I can only hope that the timing is perfect once he reaches the bed. Surely, he’ll be too tired to change out of his current attire and just retire for the night. He’ll get himself comfortable, down a few gulps of water from the glass and picture he always kept close to the night stand… and it will be just like that. 

I can only hope that when they find him by morning, they look at it as a simple passing. Nothing more nothing less. It will look as if death greeted him in the night and he was content on going with him as my uncle comes to shock of finding his brother resting eternally. 

At least for me, that will be one down in the matter, and I will still have a baker’s dozen to go after him. But I must continue to be careful in this matter. I must take my time with their partings in hopes to complete the end. Especially with the more that go, the greater the challenge will be. And I can only hope I built my tolerance level enough that when I make my attempt look plausible, that I can still make a recovery. Hopefully this can diverge the police and my family, if they were to ever get suspicious of my actions.

But it’s not like the police would care either way. Even with the anonymous tip I had given them, none of those wanna-be-top-guns ever took it seriously. That’s why I must do this. I must be the one to take care of the matter. I don’t care if their actions seem like an assistance work to a god I still question in existence. It shouldn’t be in a human being’s hands to have such a fine power of judgment on the lives of others. This is not a god’s will intent, this is despicable human actions that must be brought to an end. And regardless of how, it has to be me.