Harden slowly dragged the heavy, water-logged body of a fellow Unveiled behind him through the thick cement-like mud. Each step was an immense struggle; pain radiated through his thigh as a fresh gunshot wound panged with every step. He tried to wrap it as best he could, but the mud-caked bandages did little to help. The wet slopping of each heavy footfall was barely audible over the freezing rain and howling winds.
Harden drearily peered passed the water trickling off the coal-black brim of his hat; The vast field in front of him was a massive, muddy ocean of dead grass and rusted farm equipment. A dilapidated barn loomed at the edge of the trees, its enormous shadow lurking just within sight through the rain. Dead foliage clung tightly to its sparse slat sides, crawling through the dark gaps like worms through a corpse. The ruin’s sinister purpose only made the unnatural presence of the lone human structure all the more sickening. He knew the demons dwelling in the mountains had recently carried off the structure's owners.
A flash of lightning cast away the shadows above the doors momentarily. The meager attempt at a ward crafted by that now-dead family had been brought to light, an intricate six-pointed hex encapsulated by a ring of gold. Its once vibrant blue and yellow painted triangles were now flaking away under the early spring rains. Whatever diminutive magic the ward once held had long since been washed away.
He peered back at the burlap-wrapped corpse and thought about the man's faded and corrupted soul; His bright blue eyes had been so unbelievably vacant, devoid of almost all remnants of humanity. Harden knew the man had long ago become a vessel, a pitiful soul lost to the ecstasy of the hunt.
Knowing that did not make putting a shotgun blast through the man's gut any easier. Like men and the Unveiled, Vessels would cry out for their deepest desires in their final moments. Flickers of the last candlelight of their humanity burning out with their last breaths.
This one had clutched a blood-soaked letter weakly in their boney fingers and begged Harden to deliver some message to New York. Not that Harden paid attention to the request or the sputtered description of the recipient.
There was no point anyway.
Harden had no idea if he would make it out of these mountains and had his issues to settle long before any thought of helping another Unveiled could even cross his mind. Harden took the note despite this, giving the broken Unveiled some form of ease in his final moments. A simple gift to the man's dwindled humanity, an acknowledgment that the man was just another pitiably lost soul that wandered blindly through the darkness.
He pushed the thoughts out of his mind, knowing that distractions like hopes, dreams, and fading memories would only get him killed on tonight's hunt. The hunt for the creature both he and the now-dead Unveiled behind him had come to this decrepit section of Appalachia for. A call they could not have ignored, all in the name of whatever god, creature, or witch they answered to.
Harden marched onwards, his limp exacerbated by the momentary pause—the cold of the rain bit at the exposed skin around his collar. The wind of the dreary night crawled into his thick leather duster, its icy fingers scratching his bones.
He pushed his shoulder against the old doors of the barn, and it took a little more effort than he would have liked. The hinges cried out in rusted defiance to his entry until the winds caught them and wrenched them away. They shuddered against the battering winds, flying open and revealing the neatly wrapped corpses of two other Unveiled laid in one of the hay piles; Harden had slaughtered them in preparation for this ritual. Pausing at the sight, the words of dear Mother’s gentle candy-like voice echoed in his mind.
The binds of three.
Three men to see beyond, three souls to cry out into the lands of ash.
Three men offer themselves to the beast.
Flay their skin for lashings, and use their blood to bind.
Their bones, muscles, and sinew shall be the ambrosia.
Blind them so they can see.
Fill their mouths with the name of the beast.
Become one with shadows, and await your quarry.
Harden chuckled coarsely, his dried throat parched from his long days of travel through the hollers, crags, and ridges of West Virginia. The fact that a corpse counted as willing was macabre, even to him. Years as a butcher and months as an Unveiled had tempered his soul and prepared his hands for what he must do. Yet… the crow witch's magic was something he could have never imagined in his most grotesque nightmares.
He hurled the newest offering among the others. Their new wet companion landed with a sopping smack against their dried burlap wrappings, coating them in streaks of thick bloody mud.
Shifting back to the door, he struggled to draw them closed. The whipping winds pulled them against his efforts. Using every ounce of his ability, he roared like a beast in the most primal rage. Wrenching the doors shut, he shoved his lever action rifle between the handles to act as a bar.
The closed doors continued to rattle as he stumbled against a nearby post, his soul crying out for oh-so-needed respite. The cacophony of noise in the barn sounded like an army of furious banshees slamming into the feeble safehouse. Demanding they be allowed entry to the sanctity of the building, balefully wailing their lustful desire to drink Harden's very soul.
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Harden dragged his quickly numbing leg behind him toward the nearby table. He tossed the items atop it to the floor, and they clattered amidst the rotting hay pile and muck below. He was glad there was plenty of time to properly tend his wounds before he began the nearly two-week-long ritual.
He sat his wiry frame atop the table, it creaked and groaned in protest to his presence. He pulled the mud-matted bindings from his leg, and blood quickly resumed flowing out of the open gunshot—a pool of deep crimson formed from the bloody waterfall cascading from the dark, festering wound.
He sighed as the blood began to pour off the table and join the thick mud. At one point, Harden would have worried about the severity of such an injury, but those days passed long ago. Ever since he became an Unveiled, wounds like this one were part and parcel. The gunshot was just another one of many he had and will continue to gain as he hunts along the fickle border of the worlds.
He tossed his heavy leather gloves to the side and pressed his hands down on the gushing wound. His warm blood gave him some twisted form of comfort as it squelched between his callused hands, a blissful reminder that he still kept his fractured soul held together.
He closed his eyes and took in a deep and focused breath.
His soul was quickly transported from the mortal coil, allowing his spirit to walk amidst the edges of the lands of ash. The ash-choked land was challenging to see within, with only a few feet in any direction visible. Beyond that, the swirling clouds of ash and shadow snuffed all visage of what lay beyond—concealing the legions of growling and snarling monsters, demons, and otherworldly beings that stalked the godforsaken hellscape.
Walking briefly amidst this soot-sodden world was strange, as if you were there but not. Such is the nature of being Unveiled. Nothing ever felt quite natural anymore. It was as if one was floating through a calm pool of icy water, your body and mind slowly becoming foggy and numb as all semblance of reality was pulled away by the baleful cold.
Looking down at his meditative form, Harden cracked a wry smile. Even though his mortal body's representation was shaped from the ash that made up this desolate land, he looked disturbingly run-ragged. His once clean equipment had been tattered and frayed by the countless hunts he had been on. Most of the charms, curios, and tinctures looped through the bandoliers across his chest had been used, leaving only a few of the more difficult-to-craft ones in place. His eyes deeply sunk into his scruffy, unshaven face.
The lesser creatures of the land of ash crawled along the ground just within sight, having taken notice of both his and the three sacrifices' presence. The ghostly white spiders skittered around the growing pool of blood. Eagerly delving into the crimson ichor, their dagger-like tongues lustfully lapped at the red-soaked ash.
Harden shook his head and chuckled as he watched the beasts lash out at one another, bidding for a position in the fresh sustenance. Their hellion cries were shrill and bone-shaking, reminding Harden of the cooing babbles of a young baby crying out mother its mother's tit.
The ashen representations of the sacrifices were coated in a thick white blanket of the tiny beasts eager to possess the empty vessels. Their attempts did not bother Harden, as the beasts were far too weak even to attempt such a thing, much less succeed. Only their far more monstrous brethren further out in the swirling shadows were capable of such a feat. Those beasts were more intelligent and far more cunning than these scavengers. They knew attacking Harden and his fellow witch-born was generally more trouble than it was worth.
Focusing his soul back on channeling this land's magic through his Pneuma mark and into his body, Harded got to work. The lesser beast's spider-like forms evaporated into ash and smoke as he pulled in from the energy around him, snuffing all evidence of their existence away. The magic of the crow-witch was far more formidable than the pitiful scavengers of souls.
The ash of the world swirled around him like a vortex, growing in height as he pushed more and more magic into his Pneuma mark. He knew he was ready to cast his spell when the Pneuma mark on his arm began to radiate scorching heat, glowing like a beacon in the otherwise desolate world.
The Pneuma dear Mother had blessed him with granted him the ability to stitch wounds at the cost of his own blood and middling amounts of magic. It had initially taken the form of a coiling viper, now though it was far more intricate. It had grown from a small series of black pulsating veins just under his forearms skin to now a far more complex marking.
Now it appears to be a congregation of ghastly demons. Each abomination gripped onto the original snake with both fang and claw, tugging tightly at its scales. Each member of the congregation was a bounty of Harden's past. His Pnuema’s size was a record of service to Mother and a warning to other witch-borns.
He pushed the burning magic through his Pneuma while slowly rotating his open hand counterclockwise over the wound and began to call upon Mother's name.
“By the power of the Crow Witch,
My blood, the sutures,
My desire the salve,
Mend the wounds,
Seal the flesh,”
He pulled his ashen soul's hand away, and the bleeding on his physical leg began to subside. He watched in grotesque curiosity as the muscle and sinew of his mortal body slowly sutured themselves. Gradually the power suspended inside his Pneuma was pulled out by the spell. Flaring flame-like wisps danced from his fingertips into the closing wound until it was as though the injury never existed at all.
Content that he had cast the mending spell well enough, Harden drew in a deep breath of the ashen world. The sour smell of brimstone, charcoal, and rot coated the air. Even with his dulled senses, the odor was overwhelming.
Visceral hunger swirled in his gut. The vile cravings of his past bounties gnawed at him to hunt more of their kind. Their greed and desire infected him through their bound souls as they bid him to consume more power that lingered in the lands of ash.
Their hunger pangs clawed his eyes open and wrenched him back to the world of man. The dull growls of the beasts lurking in the shadows had been quickly replaced by the mortal world's heavy pattering rains.
Retching from the shock of awakening, Harden clutched at his chest, his heart slamming against his ribs, thundering against the whipping storm's white noise. The ethereal beasts stitched to his soul roused themselves from within his Pneuma, awakened from their slumber.
“Complete the ritual… bind more souls… feed us,” the cacophony of demonic creatures growled. Each hissed word sent shards of glass, burrowing deeper into his mind. Harden coiled his bloody hand around the Pneuma, the black veins pulsated with unnatural life against his grip.
“Soon ‘nough, ‘fraid y’all hafta wait a spell,” Harden grumbled as he ran his thumb slowly across the swirling veins. The beasts inside his pneuma calmed themselves for the time being, only lightly clawing with hunger at the back of his mind, but he knew that would not last forever.
Harden grabbed hold of the surgical instruments and lantern on the table before he pushed himself off; As his feet met the muddy ground, a lightning crack shook the barn, rattling every nail in its flimsy construction.
As if God himself screamed at Harden, condemning him for the vile acts he was preparing to commit.