Joshua Alexander Sandau is 19 years old at the time of his death.

Lucas Oliver Larienne is 5 years older than Joshua.

Joshua's English-German grandmother took her own life due to depression and alcoholism when Joshua's father, Berlíon, was a teenage boy. This caused Berlíon to basically go under-the-surface insane, because he was very attached to his mother. He fell in love with a girl named Anne-Marie DuLac, of French heritage living in England. Berlíon moved to America and came to live in Chicago, Illinois. He married and had a child, a girl named Jewel. When Jewel was eleven, Joshua was born. When Jewel was sixteen and Joshua was five, Jewel died in a car accident. Joshua, a five-year-old child, was the only other person in the vehicle. For this simple reason, Berlíon blamed Joshua for Jewel's death and began to abuse his son. Around the same time, Berlíon learned of Anne-Marie's presence in a suburb near Chicago and also of her marriage to a man named Eric Larienne. He then learned that she had died during the birth of her only son, Lucas.

As Berlíon's abuse of Joshua grew steadily, Joshua began to escape into his studies. He became especially fascinated with technology. When Joshua was ten and Luke fifteen, Berlíon murdered Eric Larienne. He took Eric's silver watch, a gift from Anne-Marie. He was not caught. Luke, Eric's son, swore to find his father's killer. On the same night as Eric's death, Joshua came into contact with the 'Silbergeist', a dead human being cursed to walk the earth as a ghostly wolf seeking revenge on his murderers until he can find another human to pa.ss the curse to. Joshua accepted this curse. The details of Joshua's death were that he was to be killed by the first soul that he came to trust. Joshua wished to exact revenge on a person who would betray that trust. Yes, he was ten when he decided this.

The Silbergeist's real name is Stefen Walker, and he died when he was 25, in 1909. He died by gunfire in an alleyway in Boston, attempting to protect his fiancee, a woman named Annette. Annette was killed after Stefen's death. Stefen, once dead and in the form of a wolf, ripped out the throat of the man who killed Annette.

The Silbergeist followed Joshua, invisible, from that point until his death. Ironically, the constrictions of the terms of Joshua's death made it impossible for the vicious beatings he received from his father to kill him. Meanwhile, Luke moved in with his uncle Fletcher, an English professor, and began to pursue a career as a private detective.

When Joshua was 13, Berlíon made deep cuts in his right arm that read his last name, 'Sandau'. Only Joshua's curse kept him alive through the resulting loss of blood. When Joshua was 18, he met Luke Larienne, by then a detective of decent reputation, through his English professor, Fletcher Larienne. Luke and Joshua exchanged email addresses and began correspondence.

Later that same year, Joshua, extraordinarily gifted and well-versed in computers, was contacted by a hacker with plans to hijack the world's technology networks to rid the world of what he called 'dead weight' -- the elderly, the injured, etc. This man, Alphonse DuBeause, called himself Rend. He requested Joshua write a virus program, or forfeit his life. Joshua, knowing that Rend could not kill him, asked to be able to join him.

Rend complied. One week later, Joshua woke up to find both his parents dead. He was not afraid. Rather, he was happy. Taking only the laptop he had carefully saved to afford and the watch on his father's wrist as a keepsake, he left his house and gladly obliged when Rend told him to set it on fire. Joshua also got a tattoo of a running wolf to cover the scars on his arm that spelled his last name. Luke was a.ssigned to the case of Rend, and, although he and Joshua remained in contact, Joshua did not reveal any details of his location.

On the day of his nineteenth birthday, Joshua and Rend, who were by now refugees, spent the night in the basement of Luke's childhood home. Joshua, finding his guard relaxed in his nightly email to Luke, let slip a small detail of their location. Joshua had grown to trust his first and only friend. The next day, police guards surrounded the house.

Rend managed to escape into the woods, telling Joshua to stall in whatever way he could. Joshua, armed only with his laptop, knelt on the floor of the basement and called up a terminal virus sc
ript as Luke, Fletcher, and a small group of armed police officers entered the basement. Joshua threatened to release the virus on a government network, and, when he moved to do so, was shot and killed by a man named Officer French.

After his death, Joshua's first action was to hunt down his former master, Rend. Making a long story short, the latter was killed by the former. Joshua then set about wandering for eternity.

After three months without use, Joshua's computer sent an email to Luke containing a video file from a security camera depicting Rend being mauled by a large wolf. Coincidentally, the wolf was Joshua. Luke declared the case closed.

Two more months later, Officer French called Luke and commented on the watch that Joshua was wearing at his death. Officer French had noticed that there was a mark and inion on the watch similar to Luke's family crest.

Of course, this was the same watch stolen from Luke's father by Berlíon Sandau. Luke, knowing his parents' love for puzzles, managed to open a secret compartment in the watch and reveal a tiny key. This key he used to open a silver jewelry box that was his mother's. Inside the jewelry box were Anne-Marie DuLac's diary entries, mostly in French, speaking of a man named Berlíon Sandau and his numerous advances on her.

Luke, acting on a hunch, researched the background of Berlíon Sandau, as well as the scars on Joshua's body, and learned of Joshua's life of abuse. He then connected details of his father's murder to resources and methodology available to Berlíon at the time, and determined that Joshua's father had killed his father almost ten years prior.

This isn't even the whole story. I just told the more prominent parts. Feels good to get it off my chest.