Visions Of The Fall:
Adrian dreamed that night. First there was his mother, as she’d been in life. He remembered how comforting she had been to him, like a safe haven from the rest of the world. In his dream-state she could never die – the good people never would. Then there were birds – flying high in formation above majestic mountains that rose out of dreamy mists, above endless oceans, all in an eerie blue pre-dawn light. They reached a city, spread out before them on the ground like a shadow of death. Factories belched pollution up at them like slow bullets from the huge cannons of chimneys. The birds decayed, rotted away as they flew; eventually disintegrating as he heard, faintly, their mournful song. Then he was walking the streets, as he had done earlier that night coming home from the visit to his brother; those deserted estates, twilit avenues. He was aware of something infinitely huge and nearly invisible stalking him, and he tried to run – even tried in vain to scream – but it was no good; he would never get away. The thing was bigger than the world, and it was poised to drop onto it. He dreamed of his mother again, and this time she was crying. The tears of an angel.

The Cycle:
Lunar madness flows hot through its primal veins as the beast stalks the darkened backstreets of the city, for this is the night when the moon casts forth its madness full upon the fragile minds of those distorted... the beast visualises streets awash with deep red blood, and in its ears are a thousand frenzied screams. It can taste human flesh and warm fresh blood running over its fangs and down into its hungry throat.

Cover art:
A demon, crouching on top of a clock at midnight, tearing out its own bloody heart and offering it to the viewer... One of these is the sketch that I drew on the cover of my still-forming manuscript in a bar at the end of a pier in August of 1998, showing the idea that I had for the eventual front-cover illustration. The other is the final version... can you work out which is which?