The Sacrifice
EREBUS
The Sacrifice series is based in Erebus, a fictional city on the northeast US coast. Lower Erebus, where the main characters live, is a miserable, crumbling cesspool of a city crammed with hideouts, gambling dens, bars, strip clubs, whore houses, noodle shops, pawn shops, tattoo parlors, Magick slingers, hustlers, musclers, hookers, junkies, lost souls, demons, shifters, vamps, succubi, incubi and every other kind of anti-social, immoral scum your most deviant imagination could conjure up, along with all their ensuing hobbies.Lower Erebus is the older city, built on the confluence of several ley lines by its founders, members of an ancient society of Magick users called the Powers, who still run things in Erebus. Parts of Lower Erebus have been standing since the first settlers came to America. The city is usually in the dark since the skies are clogged with the crisscrossing ribbons of highways, train tracks, and skyscrapers. Huge columns bisect the streets and most Lower Erebus buildings and streets are crowded between them. About the only weather that penetrates is polluted runoff from the city above.
Upper Erebus, in contrast, is a bright, technological marvel run behind the scenes on Magick by the Powers and their agents, the Circle. It was created when it was discovered that the original city was sinking. With no land to expand out, they built up, never tearing down the lower city, which was then left to the undesirables of society.
FORD HILL CHAPEL
Ford Hill, located on the end of a peninsula called The Landings off Lower Erebus, is where Laec Matthews grew up. His adopted father, Donald Matthews, was the minister of the church. The church is important to Laec (and the series) because it is his anchor to his past, as well as warded by Heaven to protect those inside.
CHARACTERS
His full name is Aglaeca, Greek for miscreant or hero, reflecting his dual nature. He's an apteras, born of the essence of the most powerful demon and an Agent of Light. He is 28 years old and was brought to Donald Matthews on the steps of the Ford Hill Chapel when he was two days old. His adopted parents knew nothing of his background, nor did Laec himself until he turned sixteen. Since then, Laec's driving force in life has been to overcome his demonic nature.
He lives in a converted auto parts store loft in the Wharf District of Lower Erebus and works as a bartender at the Eagle's Nest.
DARRIUS McADAMS
Darrius, 32, was born in Ireland but left after his mother died when he was a child and grew up all over the world. He was raised by Theo, a Skopos or Agent of Light, who ensured that Darrius had a well-rounded education and training in the ways of Magick. Darrius is a powerful vitki, a rare male practitioner of seiðr, an ancient Norse form of earth Magick. He works in an antiquarian bookstore in Upper Erebus.
[SPOILER ALERT] He is also the half brother of Laec and lives with him in Lower Erebus.
ALEXANDRA (ALEX) KEARNEY
Alex, 20, is a low level witch, born the youngest daughter of a family of witches in the Midwest, though her familial roots go back to Ireland. Her family shipped her off to serve with The Brotherhood, a fringe Magickal religious group, when she was 16. They trained her to be an adequate witch and an expert swordsman.
[SPOILER ALERT] She's since turned her back on The Brotherhood and lives in a room she rents in the back of the Eagle's Nest and works there as a server.
WHITE EAGLE
White Eagle looks to be a middle-aged Native American man, but he's actually a 200+ year old Skopos, or Agent of Light who's also known as the Shaman. He owns and runs the Eagle's Nest bar in the Wharf District of Lower Erebus.
[SPOILER ALERT] He's also Laec's real father.
KELLEN FOSTER
Kellen is a half-fae former hunter who works at Zack's Salvage outside Lower Erebus. His father was a slaugh, a fae enforcer from the Dark realm of Tartarus. His mother was a human the fae captured as a child and took to Tartarus to serve as a slave. When his mother and father met and fell in love, he defected and they fled back to this realm, where they lived in hiding until they were discovered by the fae and slaughtered. Now Kellen's driving mission is to avenge their deaths.
RED
Red is a tracker and a thief who doesn't know her real name, if she even has one. She's also a nephilim, though she keeps that identity close to the vest since she's been hunted by the Circle since she was twelve. She was born to a drug-addicted prostitute who ignored her from birth and so she grew up homeless on the streets of Chicago until she moved to Erebus trying to find out who and what she was. Now when she's not hiding in a bottle she does runs to liberate and retrieve Magickal artifacts.
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