Harden grabbed one of the Unveiled out of the pile, hefting the damp corpse over his shoulder. Rigamortis had already set in for the man days ago, leaving the body stiff and unmalleable; This let Harden know the first two Unveiled he had cut down were going to be far more trouble to prepare than the latest, by no means impossible, but challenging nonetheless.

He slammed the corpse atop the table, and it sunk into the decaying wood, fragments of the moist surface crumbling away. He drew his boot knife and hooked it beneath the ropes holding the burlap down. Wrenching the blade against the binds, they offered little resistance against the razor-sharp edge.

One taught bundle after the other, Harden cut from head to foot, each rope flayed and tossed aside. Slowly Harden unwrapped his macabre gift to the lands of ash. The burlap held tight to swollen skin; days of exposure had taken their toll on the corpse. The man's waterlogged face was contorted into horror; his fractured jaw hung limply out of its socket, a pale swelling tongue draping over rotted yellow teeth. His green eyes had lost all their vibrant luster, and now milky puss green stared back at Harden, frozen in pleading agony.

Tender flesh peeled off in fatty chunks as Harden unraveled the first piece of his grotesque work of art. He grimaced, seeing the slabs of skin that clung to the burlap, knowing the lack of workable flesh would only hamper him as he continued.

He moved the flickering oil lantern closer to get a better view of his latest cut of meat. To his relief, most of the skin was still in workable condition, only sections of the uppermost layers of skin peeled off. The rest of the cadaver's skin looked nothing like it did when Harden placed the wrappings; the early-summer heat of Appalachia had morphed from the tan, heavily worked bronze skin to a sickly ghost white.

Harden took the knife back into his hand as he leaned in to analyze the man's body, carefully deciding on where he should start.

Flay their skin for lashings, he thought.

Harden knew that meant he needed to keep as much of the skin as possible, dry it, and wind it into rope. These instructions were reasonably clear, far better than what Mother usually gave him; all the other bounties she had sent him had little to go on besides a cryptic hint.

He pressed his fingers against the corpse's pelvis, searching for the canyon between the abdominals. The cold skin of the man was as tough as cowhide, making his search a slow, meticulous process.

A blinding flash of lightning poured into Harden's meager sanctum, reflecting off the cadavers' pale moon skin. The omen was clear as day, a final warning from some ancient forest spirit to stop before it was too late.

Harden sneered as his fingers sank just below the man's navel. He pinched it off and brought the blade's edge to the skin. Leaning in closer, the musty smell of the rotting burlap and tart sweat poked through the heavy scent of rain. He watched carefully as the blade eagerly parted the skin.

Slowly and steadily, he pressed the blade deeper, without a drop of blood violating the corpse's ivory skin as his knife slid in between the skin and muscles, being welcomed in by the desiccated body like a long-missed friend.

He drew the edge along the skin with warranted precision, an amount of meticulousness that would have rivaled any surgeon. Each stroke of the blade sounded out with a blissful metallic twang, well-timed between flashes of lightning and roaring thunder; The combination created a sinful composition for Harden to bask in.

The blood-caked blade danced around the body, carving measured gouges in the cadaver's skin, revealing glistening and perfectly untouched muscle. The deep red canyons of taught musculature looked akin to a twisted reflection of the rivers flowing between the Appalachia mountains.

Harden plunged his bare hands between the skin and muscles. The cold wetness of the gaps beneath human skin was all too familiar and oh-so inviting. Hardens Pneuma crawled in ecstasy as the coagulated blood clung to its surface.

He pushed the skin away from the muscle; the sound of the membrane holding the two together ripping apart echoed like the dull crackle of a distant fire. Each time he pressed his hands further into the gaps, the skin peeled away and slopped loosely onto the damp table, a grim juxtaposition to the man's rigged musculature.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Harden continued to work like a man possessed, his shimmering blade acting as an extension of his and the crow-witch's will, bringing him one step closer to the ritual being prepared. He led that will to bear on the man's face, working it in and out of the skin with tender care, ensuring he would not knick or slash the bulging veins just below the skin's surface.

Before Harden had realized it, the flayed cadaver lay atop its skin. The blanket of ripe flesh had been removed like a coat. It outlined the deep red muscle of the carcass. In a presentation, one may find in a medical ward; a flayed man lay waiting for eager young doctors to glimpse what lies just below the surface of their bodies.

Harden reached above himself into the rafters and drew down one of the prepared meat hooks. Harden drove the hook into the man's sternum like a flag into the dirt. The heavy snapping of bone was louder than the thunder cracking outside. Harden's pneuma moaned in pleasure at the sound. The overlapping cacophony of the demon's voices drowned out the sounds of the storm outside.

The rusted chain cried out in agony as Harden hoisted his departed prey from the table. Inch by inch, Harden tugged on the wet rusty chain, the corroded grit clawed into his calloused bloody hands. The corpse violently jerked with each powerful draw, eventually leaving its skin behind on the table.

Harden paused after lashing the chain to the ground nearby, and he watched the perfectly skinned body gently sway in the lantern's light. The dim orange glow glistened off the tight fibers; the deep gaps between them cast in and out of shadow as it languidly swayed.

The voices of Harden's pneuma roared out as the grotesque reminder of his deal ached beneath his skin. The blood of the pneuma squirmed as the demonic will of dozens of beasts fought to dominate Harden.

“Bring us more!” The voices wailed.

Harden's bloody hand latched tightly around his forearm. The Pneuma squirmed faster in panic as he attempted to choke the unnatural life out of the beasts. Their will crashed against his, like the tide against the shore.

“Not yet!” Harden roared into the night. Asserting his will as the dominant being within his body, “I’m too close!”

He collapsed to his knees, the thick mud soaked into his trousers. The beasts thrashed harder, refusing to surrender to him. Pain arched throughout his body, and his mouth began to water as the demons etched visions of him, sinking his teeth into the man hanging just above his head into his mind.

Harden peered into the ashen world. The souls of his previous bounties surrounded his ethereal form. Each vile incorporeal abomination dug its jagged claws and fangs into him—a deep greedy desire to possess him burned like hellfire in their eyes.

He ripped himself away from the ashes world and began to chant.

“By the power of..” Harden started to say through gritted teeth.

The beasts had recognized the spell's words from Harden's previous subjugation of them. In response, they filled his mind with visions of death and disease, causing his verbiage to falter. They showed him glimpses of their inhuman desires to gnaw on his bones and wrench his bloody spine from his back.

Harden desperately clawed through his shirt and forearm, his nails carving horrendous bleeding gashes over his Pneuma. The pain in the material world pulled his mind into focus just enough for him to hiss the spell's words.

“By the power of the crow witch,

Wayward beasts,

I call your name,

I bind you to my will,

I am your Master,

By the power of the crow witch,

You are mine.”

The rebellious souls slinked back into the darkness as quickly as a gunshot. The words Mother taught him kept him from falling into possession yet again.

His chest began to heave, his body having exerted nearly all its remaining strength to hold itself together. Harden was coated in a heavy sweat. Every fiber of his body had been stretched tighter than the strings of a piano.

He continued to draw in ragged breaths until the cool, damp air of the barn had flowed through his entire body. He cracked a wicked grin, knowing he had won against the beasts stitched to his soul again. He slid up his ripped-open sleeve and saw his pneuma mark was as it should be. None of the beast's representations in the congregation continued to stir. They clutched tightly to his snake-shaped Pneuma, their boney fingers unmoving.

He struggled to his feet and stumbled back to the table. He grasped the fully intact slab of skin in his shaking hands. He looked down at his pristine work, the first step of many in this ritual completed. He turned the beginning of the end of his bounty held aloft above the wet ground. He draped it over a drying rack nearby, the long wait for the skin to be ready to be wound into lashing having begun.

He turned back to the two other corpses on the other side of the room. Lightning flashed and carved the images of the burlap-wrapped bodies onto his retina. He wiped his bloody hand across his forehead, clearing it of sweat. He stepped towards the bodies as determination coursed through his veins.

Harden was ready to fight the war in his soul for the rest of the dark and dreary night.