Sometimes it’s loud, too loud. Other times it’s quiet, far too quiet. But once in a while, the stars align just right, everything is perfect, they need him, and he can come out and play. A moon will always have its dark side and that was what he was.
His very first memory is the sound of muffled screams. Not his own, of course, he’d never screamed in his life. It’s not even one of his victims and they’d screamed aplenty. No, it was a woman’s voice; calling him out as the monster he most assuredly was as she held him down in the tub, her hold bruising and much too strong for him. The water sloshed over the sides as his lungs ached for air and his body thrashed. He desperately gazed at her blurred image through the water as darkness pulsed at the edges of his dimming vision. “You should have drowned instead! My p-poor little RoRo...” She sobbed. “He must have been so scared in the dark when he couldn’t b-breathe. You stole him from me you evil thing… He died just like this, just like this, you filthy murderer!” The muffled words echoed strangely in his ears, loud then soft, then loud again.
He wondered who she was and whom she was talking about and why she was crying so very very much. But more than anything else he wanted air. He burned for it, yearned for it! He needed air! She pulled him up for a sudden gasp of exquisite breath as his struggles weakened and then pushed him back under again, and then again, and again… “Bring him back I want my baby back!” She screamed at him, begging at him as she clutched him to herself in a too tight hug as he coughed, sputtered, and then just breathed heavily.
He didn’t have a name back then or had the words to speak but he'd understood her. She’d taught him many precious lessons, like how to give pain to others to lessen ones own hurt. She was like a mother to him, or maybe even a God, his first God; she created him and molded him to suit her needs. At first his existence only consisted of her, this Wendy woman and their special times together but soon enough he had many other experiences and knowledge to add to his repertoire… Like when he found the secret hobbies of his dear uncle Rabbi Yitz Perlman… Or some of the more desperate situations that pathetic Marc would find himself lost in. All these dirty memories made up who he was, Jake Lockley. The monster buried deep within the wolf within the sheep.
Unlike Marc who suffered from self-loathing and that bleating Steven who had low self-esteem. Jake liked everything about himself. He was perfect. His friend Khonshu agreed. He loved his job, bringing pain and death to others on behalf of his God. The only fly in his proverbial ointment was that he was stuck sharing a body with two useless clinging dregs like Marc and Steven. If he had his way it would just be him. His friend and God had promised him that one day there would only be one. Jake grinned widely as he fired at Harrow and saw the sweet glint of fear in his eyes, and honestly, he could hardly wait…