Takod
by David Hontiveros

Chapter 1

[1] 1972.

She lies awake in bed, sweating, the house looming around her, like a crouching beast, oppressive. Summer has come early this year, the warmth like a herald for Semana Santa, an angel beating its wings, waves of heat radiating outwards from its divine being.

This is the time of death, and resurrection, though for the little girl, it is only the former she understands.

Death.

Death is when your father leaves one early morn, before the sun has even risen, leaves to make a living from the sea, a sea which betrays him, swallowing him whole, taking him into its cold, blue, bottomless throat.

Death, the little girl understands.

Resurrection, she cannot comprehend, a concept she cannot grasp, a word she cannot pronounce.

Outside, skeleton fingers scratch against the thin capis of her room’s window, as if the tree which towers over their home wishes entry. She stares at the window, at the vague shadows outside, not understanding why the tree is moving when she can hear no wind, when it seems too hot for any wind to even exist.

Or perhaps it is the wind from the angel’s wings.

(Her mother would disapprove of this fancy, so she pushes it from her mind.)

Then, as if summoned by her stray thought, a figure appears at her door.

Shadowed, silent, it is her mother.

She wishes her brother were awake, but he is not. He lies next to her, asleep, snoring softly. He looks exactly like her (for they are, after all, twins), and for an instant, she imagines it is she who is asleep, while her brother lies awake in the warm, humid dark.

Barefoot, her mother walks to their bedside.

She towers above them, her children; one asleep, the other, not. The little girl cannot see her mother’s face, cannot pierce the dark shadows which cloak it, like strands of long, ebony hair.

She watches as her mother leans down to plant a kiss on her brother’s smooth cheek. She remembers the Bible story of Judas, and again, pushes the thought away, mindful of her mother.

Then, strangely, impossibly, she watches as her mother, still on the opposite side of the bed, leans, and stretches towards her, somehow keeping her balance with both arms at her sides, as she moves to kiss her (and surely she can’t reach her, not with the bed so wide, not without having to lean over her brother).

She watches, frozen, her mother’s shadowed face moving towards her, dark hair like water, like spider’s silk, framing features she cannot see (and somehow, she knows, she would not want to see, even if she could).

And finally, finally, when her mother’s face is right next to hers, and she can feel the warm, fetid breath on her cheek, feel the feather touch of those dark strands of hair on her neck, she closes her eyes.

Then the wetness is on her mouth, and something slick finds its way past her lips, sliding along her tongue, something spherical and soft, tasting of mold and rot.

It slides down her tongue, her throat, and at last, she opens her eyes, to look upon the cold, blank face of darkness.


(TAKOD cover art by Wawi Navarroza)

Excerpts from Prologue 1 of "Parman"

Eric Ramirez holds his bright, shining future in his hand. In a perfume bottle, actually.

Estee-Lauder, he thinks. Or something like that.

It isn’t perfume in it now, of course. Not anymore. The liquid that’s in it is primordial. Seething with divine, miraculous power. Eric had seen what it could do.

He’d needed a demonstration, naturally. He wasn’t about to spend every single peso in his bank account (as well as every single dollar he’d stolen from work) on a few ounces of tap water in a used perfume bottle.

So he’d watched as the old man had taken the cat’s corpse, crawling with maggots and putrefaction, and flicked a single drop of the water on it.

It twitched.

Then it stood up, its head lolling. It was effectively blind, all that was left of its eyes leaking out of its sockets in a runny torrent. It was trying to meow, its legs shaky, in danger of collapse. It was making a strangled, liquid noise in the remains of its throat, a wave of maggots surging out of its mouth in a white, festering tide.

Eric was blinking madly, nodding his head, Yes. Enough. You’ve made your point.

And without a word, the old man raised the rusty shovel, and brought it down on the cat’s lolling, idiot head.

When the man in black smiles, Eric knows it is far too late.

“Our shadows have lives of their own. Did you know that?”

Eric begins to shiver.

“You dabble in the occult. Surely you know that many cultures, including some tribes in our archipelago, believe that a man has more than one soul.”

It is a shaking that borders on the violent, on a frenzy whose source, whose origin, is quite unknown to him.

“The soul that finds its shape and form in a man’s shadow is the most… unstable, the most volatile, of a man’s souls.”

Eric feels a tearing, as if his skin were being flayed from his body, and he screams, a long, drawn-out wail of agony.

Dimly, he realizes he is on the street, and the man in black towers over him, as does another man, a man too dark and hazy to look at, as if he has no features to boast of, though somehow, Eric senses something familiar about this man.

“Happy is he who speaks the tongue of shadows, for he can have an army at his beck and call.”

The man in black bends down, and reaches into Eric’s pocket. Feebly, Eric tries to stop him, but the other one—the dark man—takes hold of Eric’s wrist, and his grip is ice, is frost, and darkness, and Eric whines.

* * * * * * * *

PARMAN cover by Oliver Pulumbarit

PARMAN, CRAVING, and TAKOD are now available in Powerbooks. (Php120 each)

Find them in the Filipinina section of the store. You can also ask the people at the Customer Service Desk to help you look for them.

David's DHAMPYR got featured in the Philippine Daily Inquirer today: http://news.inq7.net/lifestyle/index.php?index=1&story_id=55260

Here's the excerpt:

'Dhampyr' by David Hontiveros

The gut: Nikolai is a dhampyr, born from a human mother and an undead father. In order to save his soul from restlessly wandering for eternity, he must find and slay his father. Nikolai’s personal journey leads him through a train wreck of memories, where the collision of the past and the present both haunt and strengthen him in his battles.

The stake: This comic bites you from the start and gets your blood humming. Its narrative is a vicious delight and the detailed artwork is darkly seductive and amazing. In its pages you will stumble into snippets from notable bands and icons from the goth movement you might want to look into.