Damien and his siblings were torn from their family when only children, on a night full of fire and violence. Following a difficult and painful adolescence, he's managed to put his life back together and start over, skyrocketing to fame...yet his past is never too far behind, no matter how hard he tries to forget it. A mysterious message attached to a strange gift--a D necklace--starts him on the journey to reconnecting with his past, not only learning why, exactly, he and his family were separated, but that the people responsible aren't happy he's finding out the truth, and will go to extreme lengths to keep some secrets hidden.
As time goes on, Damien learns that the forces behind his family's troubles share connections with other groups around the country, and the darkness extends much further than he'd first thought. He makes his own connections with Lt. Kincaid and Det. Kristeva of the Minot police, who are strangely familiar with these criminal groups, in ways that go a bit too deep for comfort...
STORY DETAILS
Storyline Creation Date:
Idea: circa 1989
First known writing: circa 1990
Stories:
Lucifer (complete)
D Is For Damien (complete)
Sidekicks (WIP)
The Return Of Luther (WIP)
The Night Of The Goat (WIP)
Tall, Dark...& Lethal (unwritten)
Out Of Time (unwritten)
On The Run (WIP)
Reunion (WIP)
My Day To Be Dangerous (unwritten)
Flashback (WIP)
Scorpio (WIP)
Deprogrammer (unwritten)
Luther (WIP)
The Zodiac Killer (WIP)
Minot (complete)
The Scorpio Murders (WIP)
Four P (WIP)
The Ties That Bind (WIP)
The Devil's Advocate (unwritten)
Blood Secrets (WIP)
Shadows (unwritten)
Trinity (unwritten)
Magic City (unwritten)
Imperfect Blue (unwritten)
Full Circle (unwritten)
Missing Pieces (unwritten)
IDentity (unwritten)
Untitled Kristeva Story (WIP)
The Three D's (complete/WIP)
Various adult novellas/short stories/scenes (complete/WIP)
CONTENT WARNINGS
I can't cover for every objectionable topic that may emerge in this story. It ranges between PG-13 and hard R (NC-17 for the adult scenes) depending on the scenes involved and how they end up written.
Generic warnings: Adult language, adult dialogue, adult situations, graphic violence, mild to graphic sexuality.
More specific warnings: This is a story featuring cults and criminal cult activity. There will be ritual-related violence, intergenerational abuse, mental illness due to trauma, drug use, nonconsensual situations, murder, violence toward animals, and exploitation.
Although I will post NO GRAPHIC CONTENT on this site (my content here should remain PG-13 and below), there is lots of mention of such things in character profiles and world information. Here's an attempted partial list of trigger/content warnings: Reference to and casual treatment of sexual harassment and assault. Vulgar/offensive language. Child abuse, including intergenerational, emotional, physical, sexual, incest, and grooming. Ritual abuse. Torture. Religious themes. Suicide and suicidal ideation. References to trauma and mental illness. Prostitution. LGBT+ themes. Domestic violence. Implied dominant/submissive relationships. Alcohol and drug use/abuse/addiction. Murder. Physical/medical injury/disability. Sexual discussion/language/innuendo. Animal death. Arranged/forced marriage. Implied sexual fetishes. Other possible warnings I'm forgetting.
DISCLAIMERS
This is a story featuring Satanic CULTS, not Satanism as a legitimate religion. Additionally, real cults and locations have been heavily fictionalized. This is not intended to be anywhere near an accurate source of information on Satanism in general, nor on any of the areas depicted in the stories.
STORYLINE HISTORY/INSPIRATION
Around 1989, I came up with a spark of an idea for a story beginning with a group of children (anthropomorphic puppies, I now admit) huddling in the grass, making a prayer as a shooting star descended overhead. This story, entitled Lucifer, was originally intended to be about the character with the same name...but as time went on, my attention turned increasingly toward Lucifer's younger brother, Damien. Eventually the entire series came to focus on him instead, and was named after the second in the series, D Is For Damien. As of the last count, the D4D series came to encompass almost thirty novels, including those in the "spinoff" series set in Minot, North Dakota. However, as of 2009, only three of the many novels (more of which I'm sure I'll think up as time goes by--the Minot subseries has taken on a life of its own in my head) have actually been written. I've been focusing more heavily on my other stories, but this series is still very close to me, and even though I'm not actively writing on it, I'm always thinking of it.
Some early inspiration for this series came from the tabloid Weekly World News, which I read zealously at the time. One small article, which is included at the start of the unfinished story Luther, is the account of a British woman named Leslie Laws who has been informed that a Satanic cult called Scorpio intends to sacrifice her unborn baby on Halloween. This became the basis for Sidekicks. Additionally, the section devoted to the tabloid's "psychic" (I think her name was Countess Sabak or something, later a younger, sexier "relative" of hers named Serena Sabak or some such took over) once carried a threatening letter from a Satanist named "Luther"; I took this name for my character Luther Broderick. (I would search for the Scorpio cult online much later and found that there really was such a small "cult" in England, so there does seem to be a tiny grain of truth to the tabloid story.)
Then, in high school (probably around 1994), an ex-friend of mine, after reading D Is For Damien, mentioned a Satanic cult that was known to operate in some North Dakota city; he had trouble remembering the name (he first called it "Mine La Motte," which is real, but located in Missouri) but I somehow figured out it was Minot. This was before I had Internet, so the start of my spinoff storyline, Minot, was written in pure ignorance of the "real" story. After getting online, I again started digging, and found a bit of vague information about ritual activity near an Air Force base. I bought a copy of Maury Terry's The Ultimate Evil, a fascinating but rather sensationalistic book about the Son of Sam case, and there it was, the Minot cult--called Four P, an offshoot of the Process Church of Final Judgement. Since then I've learned a few more things, including that Terry's book MAY have been edited in later editions to remove references to a certain family with possible connections to the cult (I'm assuming for legal reasons), as a sister in the family in question appeared in a TV documentary I watched about Son of Sam and NONE of this cult angle was even referred to; another keyword search for Satanism in Minot brought up an online post where someone said something like, "Minot--come for the meth, stay for the Satanism!" (or maybe vice-versa); and that the old Process Church, kind of ironically considering my story content, gradually morphed into a well-known animal rescue that still advertises nationally to this day. Whew. So yes, there is more than a mere grain of truth behind the spinoff series, but it's heavily fictionalized and not meant to be taken seriously--especially my personal version of Minot, which is surely almost nothing like the real thing.
Were the later books of this series, particularly the Minot subseries, to be written already, one would see the development of some of my ideas regarding Jungian symbolism and themes such as those which have emerged in the Manitou Island series. Also in common with that other story is how close I feel to lead character Damien, much similar to how I now feel about MI's protagonist, Charmian. To this day these two are a couple of my most developed characters. (And also like Charmian, Damien starts out with no last name...though he's acquired one which has yet to be revealed in the stories.)
Given how long ago the completed novels were written, especially Lucifer and D Is For Damien (during the early to mid-Nineties), my writing style and themes have greatly changed. As a result, these novels read rather poorly compared to my newer work. I leave them posted as they're such a big part of my writing; also, I plan to rewrite them someday, as you can see by the handful of early chapters of Lucifer which have been redone already. I hope that I can someday do the series the justice I feel it deserves. (Considering that, back when I first posted Lucifer online around 2000, it was royally lambasted, and I myself personally insulted and torn to shreds, by a "well-meaning critic" who saw fit to call me and my story names and to call my sanity into question just for writing it. I kid you not.)
Along with the three completed novels, various other novels in the series have been left in various states of (in)completion. I'd like very much someday to finish those as well. There are additional novels/stories unrelated to this storyline (for example, the paranormal-themed True Believers and the Men In Black series--created long before the movie franchise), but which take place in the same reality. As time permits and as characters are uploaded I may list those here.
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
Recurring themes: Confronting the Shadow. Ritual abuse. Tainted family legacies passed down through the generations. Family conflict and the necessity of secrets. The ice and snow cover many unpleasant things, but the melt brings them back to the surface. Webs of corruption. You can't escape your past but maybe you can forget for a while. The fragmentation of personality. Don't dig too deep unless you're prepared to deal with what you turn up.
Character InformationCharacter profiles and brainstorming infodumps.
Storyline InformationEssays and info.