Excerpt: The Devourer of Flesh and Bone

The street stood quiet and deserted. In the autumn night air, no birds could be heard for they had all fled from the coming winter. Most of the trees had shed their fall leaves, transforming from colorful to mournful. Their skeletal claws raked against the nearby houses with every wind. The urban wildlife, too, was absent.
No squirrels scampered from tree to tree, looking for that one last nut to complete their collection. No alley cats prowled the bushes and back yards. The street was quiet and empty. Even the wind had gone as if if it were also afraid.
A dark shadow had fallen across Spring Hill Road. An inky blackness crept over the street that not even the moon above could penetrate. It wound its way sinuously, creeping from side to side. As it passed each streetlight a wisp of blackness reached out, extinguishing the streetlights in its wake and casting the street further into darkness. A deathly chill emanated from the shadow, its passing leaving a layer of frost upon the ground and a mist forming around it in the deserted street.
A figure stepped out of the darkness appearing as if out of nowhere. He was tall and broad shouldered. He wore a crisp gray suit underneath a large gray overcoat that fell nearly to his ankles. On top of his head rested a dark gray fedora with black band; pulled low over his face and obscuring his features.
He moved swiftly along the sidewalk. The figure kept to the shadow as if it where his own. As he moved he paused briefly, as if testing the air. Halfway down the street he found what he was looking for and he stopped in front of a house.
From its exterior this house was no different then any of the other similar houses that lined the street. The man he sought was inside this one. He could sense it. The figure looked for signs that his quarry was still awake but it's large bay window was dark and none of the upstairs lights betrayed any hint of illumination.
First looking to see if he was being observed from the neighboring houses, he stalked up the walk and too the front door. Reaching into the deep pockets of his overcoat, he pulled out slim, black leather case. Unzipping it, he pulled out several oddly shaped bits of wire and began to jiggle them in the lock. He worked slowly, feeling as much as listening to the tumblers inside of the lock. After only a few minutes of effort, the bolt slid away and the door was pushed open silently.
Pale moonlight, obscured by the shadow outside, provided barely enough light to see but he didn't need much. He could make out details of the foyer around him and into the darkness of the house on either side of him.
Pulling the door shut behind him, the dark figure crept into the foyer, taking great care not to make a sound on the hard wood floors. He felt the floorboards creak softly as he moved, the sound abnormally amplified by the sepulchral stillness of the house. Darkness flanked him on either side as he crept toward the large staircase that dominated the foyer. Slowly, he moved up the staircase, pausing when he heard a creak behind him. Spinning around, he saw a man emerge from the darkness and into the foyer. Yawning, he reached over and flicked on the light switch and stumbled, still half asleep, towards the staircase.
He came to the foot of the stairs, dressed in a bath robe and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He was below average in height and well past his middle years. There were deep circles under his eyes. The skin around his face was pale and blotchy, and it hung loosely, as if he had been ill recently. He ran his hand through his thin scalp as he looked up the staircase, for the first time beholding the stranger in his home. His body went rigid. The man's eyes opened wildly and his mouth fell open, his jaw working uselessly.
The stranger quickly began to descend the staircase while slowly withdrawing a pistol from beneath his overcoat. The blued metal of the weapon gleamed menacingly, the long suppressor screwed on to the muzzle added an additional five inches to the barrel length. The man in the bath robe only had time to whimper, "No," before the trigger was pulled.
There was a loud click as the slide cycled backwards and muffled thud as the expanding gasses from the fired bullet were muffled within the suppressor. A hole, nearly half and inch in diameter, appeared in the middle of the old man's forehead, a sudden fount of blood erupting from it. The back of his skull exploded outward, sending a shower of blood and gray matter splashing against the walls and door.
Blood poured from the corners of his mouth as he jerked, biting down on his tongue. Then the man's face sagged, eyes rolling back into his head. Critical portions of his brain missing, the man slumped forward onto his knees and then toppled face forward onto the ground with a wet thud. A pool of blood began quickly to form around the corpse as it twitched randomly, arms and legs thudding spasmodically against the blood stained wood.
The figure slowly approached the corpse and rolled the it over with the toe of his shoe. He examined his work as he replaced the pistol into it's holster. Ignoring the blood that soaked into his pants, he kneeled down next to the body. Reaching underneath his overcoat, he produced a five inch, partial serrated blade from beneath his coat. He opened the man's robes and slowly cut through the shirt beneath, exposing the skin of his chest. With great care, he began to cut a long line into the flesh and pulling it back from the muscle below. There was so much work to be done and there was so very little time left.