Page 46 - Hunter - The Vigil

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something, and they damn sure want to cultivate something: a sacrifice to some nascent power. They chant and handle ser-
they want to cultivate eldritch powers, strange demons, mad pents and gibber in alien tongues. Those cults are scary, yes,
monsters or themselves. And they want to do so at costs too but hunters can see those guys coming. They wear the danger
high: whether at the cost of their own bodies or sanities or at they represent right on their sleeves, next to the bloodstain
the cost of the safety and sanctity of innocents. and the wristwatch that counts down to some sinister event.
Yes, some cults are overt. They act as loud lunatics, her- But they aren’t the really scary ones.
alding the coming of some entity from beyond the veil. They No, the truly frightening cultists are the ones who re-
release nerve gas in shopping malls, using the dead patrons as main hidden. The ones who don’t telegraph their desires.
They mask themselves as church groups, self-help groups,
weight loss clinics, Neighborhood Watch programs, fra-
ternities, academic brotherhoods, town councils or rabid
fan-bases. They don’t wear robes (at least when anybody’s
looking). They don’t have tattoos marking them as slaves
of some fiend or god (at least where anybody can see).
They blend. And that makes them insidious.
So what is it that cults do? Some offer worship to dread
gods and powerful spirits. Their belief provides fuel — food,
really — for such entities. Others work for the monsters in
much the same way the hunters work against them. A vampire
might maintain a herd of blood-addicted ghouls, ultimately
forming a cult that sees the leech as a hierophant, celebrity
or deity. One cult might doggedly pursue fundamentalist ide-
als, while another obsesses over communing with the strange
UFO lights in the skies or the spirits of haunted houses. All
cults become dangerous, so the hunters believe.
Once more, a cruel irony. Are hunter cells, compacts
and conspiracies little more than cults with shared pur-
pose? The Lucifuge numbers 666 members and claims her-
itage back to Satan. The Long Night espouses eschatol-
ogy, and figures the Apocalypse as key to its ethos. Cultic
practices? Could be.
Cults therefore represent a pretty dark mirror image for
hunters and their affiliations, a mirror image that most refuse to

acknowledge. Some cults actually grow out of hunter cells that
have gone mad or become so morally bankrupt that their ideals
end up truly tortuous. A cell starts out hunting the monsters, and

soon finds a sorcerer who sacrifices children to some sewer-bound

serpent god called Ndengei, and that sorcerer gets a lot out of
the bargain. No, they don’t sacrifice children to the serpent right

away. And they probably kill the sorcerer. But time, horror and
mystery wear down the hunters. Some or all of members of the
cell think, “Maybe we need greater resources to keep this city
safe.” And they know that a local lycanthrope visits his nephew,
an ADHD kid who, frankly, will probably become a werewolf just
like his uncle. Would it be so bad to offer this one child to the ser-
pent god for a taste of righteous power? To save the city, isn’t that
a reasonable cost? They do so. And all seems good. But maybe
the power wanes. Or maybe they get sick. And maybe Ndengei

offers to return the power if only they’d find another wayward
child who doesn’t deserve to cling to this mortal coil…
That’s the other problem with cults. They’re seductive.
They always have something to offer, even if it’s not real.
Slashers
It’s summer. A man in a rebreather mask stalks a teen girl
down the halls of an empty high school. She’s a naughty girl
who needs to make love to his knife.

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