Before The Seven 1: Don Diego Meets Lucky Luis

Once upon a time, there was a miserly old man, and then a demon came along and killed him. That was just the beginning. This novel reflects a grimmer face of society than most people care to accept, where there are no clear-cut saints or sinners, only our own humanity. It is a macabre, twisted and bloody thing that has escaped from my mind. You have been warned. Rating: EXTREME controversy.

Two Very Different Men And One Demon

In the small and quiet village of Santa Ysabel, in Baja California, Mexico, lives a pleasant and mild mannered man named Don Diego. Although this man is now in his sixties, his mind and intellect are still quite sharp. After having a few conversations with Don Diego, a newcomer to this village would have no doubt as to how the old man had earned his healthy fortune. Also beyond a doubt would be Don Diego’s love for the small community he lived in, and for its residents, whom he continually tries to counsel and assist like a mother hen taking her chicks under her wing.

All is not clear skies and warm breezes, however. There is a second man, Luis Sanchez, who is at this very moment driving down the crowded San Diego freeway with the destination of Santa Ysabel clearly focused in his mind. Luis Sanchez might be considered the nuclear opposite of Don Diego. He is a reckless and violent brute, ready to administer a vicious beating to anyone who might deliberately and sometimes even accidentally stand in his way. Adding to this, Luis Sanchez is flat broke. He is willing to do anything to improve his dire financial situation, even if it means murdering an old man to get at his fortune.

Watching over this developing crisis is none other than the demon Barbas. This demon has been intrigued by the vast differences between the two men, and has even gone out of its way to bring the two together. In its mischievousness and wonder, Barbas has even thought of a few ways to weave the destinies of these two very different men into a single, turbulent path. With growing anticipation, the demon awaits their coming together, for while their inevitable collision might prove to be absorbing and fascinating, the demon also seeks to reach out and destroy them both.

Lying on the bed in the darkest hours of the night, the strong body tossed and turned restlessly. Sweat cried out from the body’s pores, strangled out by the recurring nightmare. In the blackest recesses of the mind, the nightmare reigned as a god.

Images blasted through the sleeping man’s mind, of gunshots and blood, violence and death, and repeatedly, of a cadaver that held two very different masks up over its gruesome face. Over its eternally grinning countenance, the cadaver first tried one disguise, then the second, as if it couldn’t decide which to wear, until it finally laughed with the voice of a demon and mashed the two masks together.