Page 43 - Hunter - The Vigil

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C CHAPTER ONE: SHADOWS CAST BY FIRELIGHT
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it fully, of course. And often enough they share just enough eat it. Somewhere you might find a wicked stepmother with
knowledge to be dangerous, often omitting parts that might a poisonous apple and thorns for eyes, or seven dwarves who
earn them an undesired reaction. will save you for the cost of pledging your eternal service to
This makes demons seductive to hunters. The whisper of the wizened men.
forbidden knowledge (the location of a blasted shipwreck, the The story seems to be that hunters sometimes face Real
address of a cult-of-personality vampire, the true name of a trou- Actual Fairies, while other times they face changelings. Real
blesome witch) is sometimes too hard for a hunter to resist. Actual Fairies are…well, who knows? Nightmares made man-
Worth noting is that not every demon is so keen to stir ifest? Ancient spirits, puckish and cruel? Some seem to look
sin, or is even so powerful. Many are familiars or imps, strange human, but they stride with such eerie, lordly grace through
mindless kobolds or hobgoblins. Again, these may serve this world that they must be something far stranger. Others
greater demons. Or perhaps they’re not demons at all, given are nothing more than shadows, shapes, colors, smells: an
the title by hunters who simply don’t know any better. alien glimmer of light down an old wood path, the smell of
funeral fl owers drifting up out of that sewer drain.
Fairy Tales Changelings seem to be liars. They claim to have been
The girl tears her way through the hedgerow, her skin bitten by stolen from the world by Fairies and have muscled their way
thorns, and as she emerges back into this world, she can taste her back, but hunters suspect that changelings are in reality as
hunger for dreams welling up within. the old folklore suggests: not the human abducted, but the
The boy with the rose tattoo takes the baseball bat to the face inhuman replacements. And even if they are telling the
and his nose goes up into his brain and boom, now he’s a pile of truth, then being stolen by Fairies has damn sure changed
sticks and stones and puppy dog tails. them, and not for the better. Some look human, but then
The thing is neither man nor woman, but unwholesome in you curb-stomp them and they turn into a pile of leaves or
its androgyny: long dress made of silver moonlight, a spiked collar a fl eeing army of hornworms. Others look human only some
around its neck, a twist of rosewood around its wrists, and a face of the time: a sideways glance or a peek at them through a
full of eyes. doorway and you might see a pair of antlers, a mouth fi lled
The fairy tales are true. Hell, they’re worse than true: the with ragged teeth, or skin made of glossy ivy. The good news

stuff you read out of Grimm’s is light, fluffy; frankly, all too is many seem to die like any other human, with a knife to

optimistic. Somewhere in the deep dark forest, you’ll find a the gut or a bullet to the brain. The bad news is that just
house with gingerbread walls whose cake-mortar bleeds if you when you think one is dead, you see him crawling away, his
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