He hated what he did.
That was the paradox, Edgar thought. He couldn’t help killing, taking life. There was something about the letting of blood that called to him and had to be obeyed. It didn’t mean that he had to like what he did. Edgar loathed it and what his father had helped him to become.
The desire for blood letting had driven him to cut the raven from the skin of his own chest. His father had moved to rip open his shirt, to write his poem there, the first fourteen lines of The Raven. It was where he’d gotten the inspiration for the raven on his chest.
Edgar remembered how he’d laughed at his father then, Oliver’s eyes turning into slits of hatred. “I’ve already ruined your canvass, Oliver! You can’t write on me, I know that’s what you were going to do! I know your work! You can’t write on me and my blood won’t give you ink!”
He remembered that Christmas. He knew that he had found Mother and Lenore. He knew that it was his time. When it came, Oliver’s eyes had turned black like ink and they were glowing brightly. “You’ll be my last gift this year, Edgar.”
The knife had come. It entered his chest where his heart was, or would be if he had one left. Then he had woken up here, a dark sleep interrupted by dreams of raven’t black as night, of his sister Lenore and his mother. Of the people he had taken.
Looking down at the bodies of Elaine and Giselle, Edgar knew a moment of sadness mixed with the heady euphoria of a life newly taken. Then, reaching out to his father, Edgar sent out a thought.
“We have a problem.”
Oliver materialized in front of him, his eyes glowing brightly in the dark. “What is it?”
“it’s Lenore. She helped an extra player enter the apartment.”
Oliver looked at the dead girls body with a grimace that turned his face into a death mask. “She is not to be trusted. Take care of her.”
Edgar had a pang of regret at the thought of killing his sister; but the call of the blood was too strong.
“Yes, Father.” He said, knowing that by the end of the night, his sister would be dead by his hand.
69B 