Prologue

Cyrus Night, a large man for his young age, ran across the park as fast as his legs could carry him toward a black Maserati. On his left hand was a glass box that held a strange looking mask and on the edge of the glass in gothic red was the sentence “tumba del diablo”. 

He's coming from a building, the only bungalow in the expanse of area around him, any passerby would think of it as a private resort owned by a very rich tycoon who just wants to be left alone but Cyrus knows that's not the case. It's a facility owned by a secret organization called the Foundation, that's funded by the government to keep track of the unexplained or supernatural, they have many like this spread around the globe but this one is a research facility that he heads, well not anymore since he's running away with his latest research not that they've anyone that'd understand it.

“They think this is very funny but it isn't,” Cyrus muttered to himself.

They had ordered him to destroy his latest research and burn it in flames because they saw an ancient tablet that said the devil capable of opening hell's gate was sealed within the mask. Like such a thing as hell was real. Cyrus looked over his shoulder at the bungalow he had left, twelve of his subordinates laid unconscious on the  floor because he had knocked them out. He had to because when asked to destroy his work he had given them a flat ‘No’ and the foundation never liked rejections. He was sure they'll be on their way for him and it was better they don't tag his teammates as accomplices.

“You know you want to do it, just smash the glass on the floor and pick up the mask. It's what you've always wanted to do since day one. We both know that, don't worry they're all unconscious, there's nothing that can stop you.” a silent female-like voice whispered in his head but Cyrus felt like it was from behind him, he looked around before his gaze rested on the mask inside the glass. He shook his head and took one more glance over his shoulder.

Satisfied that no one was coming out of the building after him, he entered his expensive Maserati, that smelled of the hot, spicy spaghetti that sat on the passenger seat beside the driver's own. A silver spoon rested neatly on the plate; he had ordered it earlier as part of tonight's get-away meal. Cyrus placed the glass case containing the mask beside it. He carefully removed the black gloves he wore and dropped them on the mask's case.

The car sped down the long stretch of road. Most people were transported up this road to that wide bungalow with black bags over their heads, but he was so high up the ladder that he knew the whole stretch of land like a map that lived at the back of his mind. He turned out of the property and drove to a McDonald's that was the closest joint off the highway. He noticed that at 1 a.m, according to his wristwatch, there was only one other car on the block: a beat-up, sorry-looking kind of truck with an axe resting at the back with its two rear end lights smashed. He parked, unlocked his seatbelt, opened the food plate, and started devouring his meal, giving an occasional hot hiss as the pepper burned within him.

Three men came down from the car beside him with knives in their hands; they were wearing red outfits with wolves' heads printed on the back of the hoodies they wore, and one of them, the shortest of the three, opened Cyrus's side of the door. Cyrus looked up at them with a mixture of curiosity and irritation.

“May I help you big boys?” Cyrus asked. Putting aside his now empty plate of spaghetti. He licked his lips savoring the taste while boiling beneath at the mild obstacle he just encountered. He would have loved getting out without any incident, he sighed to himself. And from the look of things these three were just the average Jo.

“Drop the mask and this beautiful ride,” the leader asked with a .45 mil gun pointed at Cyrus.

“Who sent you? Didn't they give you a lecture on how rude it is to point a weapon at your elders?”

“What’s the MF saying?” The guy to the left tapped the leader. “He's just munching on his meal like a gorilla. How do you even move around? Let's just shoot him and get the hell outta here.”

The leader raised his hand to calm his gang and moved the gun closer to Cyrus. “I said I want that pretty little mask and this sexy ride. It's a nice car that'll fetch some bucks in parts. Get the hell out of the car and jog your way to hell!”

“No,” Cyrus asserted flatly, he watched till the leader moved to clock his gun and launched himself from the car dodging to the left so the first bullet went into the car and shattered the glass case for the mask.  The fork he held found the leader's throat and within a minute he had done the same to his companions. Three men lay dead at his feet with the blood stain on the fork in his hand, their blood forming a puddle under the soles of his feet. Being one of the foundation's best agents had its merits but he never thought they'd send amateurs to their deaths.

He looked at their bodies with a cold gaze and stepped back into his car after carefully wiping his hands with the tissue from his food pack and dusting the broken glasses off his seat.

He drove away at a faster speed, hoping to get to his ski at their second base, that was by the ocean, before things took a nosedive. Besides him, the mask lay in plain sight with his gloves on the floor of his car.

He was driving at a very high speed and about to climb the bridge when a truck at high speed came out from the other intersection and slammed into the rear end of his car, making him spin. He was thrown out of his seat into the air with the mask, he reached out and held it on instinct.

Immediately, he was no longer on the road but standing in front of a huge gate that was fiery hot. He heard a deep, dark laughter coming from behind those sealed gates.

Cyrus snapped back to reality and tossed the mask toward his burning car, vaguely remembering that no personnel was to make physical contact with the item and a deep regret that tasted like acid when he realized that his running away was pointless, he was about to slam into a metal slab that would've impaled him and ended his life when a dark mass escaped from the mask and slammed into his chest sending him over the rail and into the water.

The mask and car burned in high flames.

Cyrus Night was fished from the water with no broken bones in his body, which was a marvel to those who witnessed the accident. He was charged and tried in court, found guilty for murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Cyrus Night was basically a finished man.