As I stood there examining the blood-spattered fabric, little of my appetite for adventure remained. I knew there wouldn’t be a happy ending to the story of these missing campers. All I could hope for at this point was to track down the rampaging beast and prevent it from claiming more innocent victims.
I did have a theory about what sort of evil I might be facing here. My research had unearthed information related to an old legend. More than two hundred years earlier, during the winter of 1879, a witch by the name of Mercy Blackmore was banished to these woods and left to starve as punishment for practicing black magic. For centuries, the Blackmore Witch’s evil had remained dormant.
Until now.
I looked up from the torn tent and my blood turned to ice.
The circle of barren trees around me had changed while my attention was focused on the victims’ shredded tent. Missing person posters now hung from the skeletal trees ahead, the nineteen dead campers staring back at me from their positions in this unholy shrine. Snapshots taken during happier times showed off smiling faces in black and white. The fliers promised substantial rewards for any information about the lost souls in question.
The sight was both heartbreaking and infuriating. This witch was mocking me. I balled a hand around the tent’s blood-caked fabric, anger rising within me.
I will put a stop to this...
Take your best shot, fool!
A chill tore up my spine.
At the same time, the voice inside my head was both human and not of this world.
Without warning, the missing person posters ignited into flames and then turned to ash. Burned air singed my lungs.
Almost immediately, the demon-inflicted scar on my chest lit up with a fresh, sharp pain, a clear indicator that black magic was at work here. When the demons slaughtered my parents, the talons of one of the foul beasts had slashed my skin. The wound took months to heal and the scar served as a reminder of the evil that dwelled within the hidden corners of our world. For some reason, the demon’s mark tended to become inflamed in proximity to agents of the dark arts. It heightened my awareness of the paranormal in more ways than one, giving me a sixth sense of sorts. At the moment, my old wound was itching something fierce.
Heart hammering with growing terror, I advanced into the encroaching darkness. After about a hundred feet, I slowed my pace. A broken-down, overgrown cabin stood revealed. Moss and other vegetation tattooed its walls, fusing the forest with the man-made structure.
My demon’s mark throbbed. This had to be the origin point of the area’s unnatural energy. According to the police reports, the first group of campers planned to stay at a cabin. Was this the cabin in question? Lt. Kove and his fellow officers had failed to locate the structure, even after numerous searches.
The witch must’ve magically cloaked the place somehow. Only someone whose life had been touched by the supernatural could penetrate her black magic veil.
Someone like me.
My hand slipped underneath my trench coat and closed around the handle of a pistol. The wooden grip felt hot to the touch as I drew Hellseeker.
Gifted to me by Joe Skulick, the demonologist who had been my mentor since my parents’ murder, the holy weapon gave off a spectral green glow. This was one more indicator that evil infused the air. Cast from the broken blade of a magical demon-slayer sword, the pistol was at least a hundred years old. Bullets fired from Hellseeker could destroy most supernatural monsters. Vampires, shifters, demons and ghosts of all kinds feared this magical gun.
I hoped that Hellseeker would be able to put an end to the infernal Mercy Blackmore. Emboldened by the weight of the weapon in my hand, I approached the cabin.
It seemed…alive somehow. The crumbling building kept expanding and contracting in a subtle manner, as if the structure was the dark, pulsating heart of this accursed forest. An ancient evil dwelled within those walls.
I could only pray I’d be a match for it.
With my other hand I pulled a flashlight from my coat and switched it on. My mud-encrusted boot shot out at the wooden door in a determined kick. It gave way with a creak. Darkness filled the entrance, which gaped like a black wound in the structure’s side.
Something stirred in there.
For a moment, a panicked voice inside my mind piped up, urging me to turn around and start running. A palpable terror clawed its way through my mind and choked the breath from my lungs.
Not an unreasonable response, considering the lethal power lurking within the witch’s domain.
I fought this rising weakness, drawing on the memory of my parents’ faces. Their smiles. Thinking about my folks made the old anger well up. It burnt with the same intensity as the demon’s mark on my chest and swept the fear aside.
Empowered by my rage, I strode into the cabin. The glow from Hellseeker carved warm patches of light from the tomblike darkness. Thick roots and dense shrubbery had infested the building’s interior as nature reclaimed what was rightfully hers. Unwholesome foliage spread across the wooden walls and stone floor like a metastasizing cancer.
Gun up, I advanced. A strange calm fell over me. I was eager to face my enemy, eager to find justice for the witch’s victims.