#gunna shove it in my mouth i NEED to eat this art

[karohnkrowe]

The Huntsman and The Devil

The ground shook with a sudden rage beneath it. Payton Havish held fast to the roadside fencing as everything around him swung in violent disarray. The earth bellowed with a ferocity that seemed to come from a depth that no living thing could dare call home. Something titanic had awoken on Azeroth. The young warlock didn't need to be adept in the shamanic arts to know the world was splitting apart from the inside out. As bewildered panic roiled in him, he could do little else than hold on to something securely fixed into the ground and pray for the Light's good graces upon his family only a few fields away.

And just like that, it was over. The fading rumble gave way to a haunting silence as the whole of Azeroth was left in awe. It wasn't a few seconds longer before the echoing howls of the bestial worgen of the woods grew into a deafening siren. Dread filled the young Havish as a thought crossed him; the demons his family kept at bay in their hidden locations would also have been affected by the Cataclysm's quake. The world had suddenly gone mad with rage, as both feral beast and devil's came out to lay claim on the weak. His legs were suddenly moving, running with everything in him into the spotted woods of his family's field. The stonework tomb ahead was clearly ruined, the entire structure broken open to reveal the devil's trap carved into the floor; damaged and useless. The boy clutched a hand to his heart as fear threatened to cease it. The Devil was loose. And it was loose on his property.

A sickening howl and an ear-splitting shriek pulled Payton from his trance, sending him sprinting for the estate house. He pushed through brush and crops of corn and wheat to reach the house. His steps flew him through the side door and into the kitchen. "MOMMA!!" Already he searched the rooms around him for his siblings and his foster mother.  As he scurried throughout the first floor, he wrapped his rosary around his hand, murmuring prayers that beckoned to the ancient dead rather than the Light's aid.  Each incantation made his blood grow hotter, darker - almost black. His heart beat with a soldier's purpose; defend the people. "MOMMA!!"

A set of hands reached out and grabbed the young man by his shoulders, pulling him through the door with a harrowing strength. He expected a worgen, but found only his mother, still in her Black Krowe robes. "Did y'find the wee ones?!" She had only a couple of his siblings with her. "Where be deh'others, baby boy?"

Payton shook his head, wild and dark hair splaying over his wide-eyed gaze. "I- I- I dunno, Momma. I just checked the Stone House... The Devil's gone." His dread only heightened to see his mother's face pale.  She looked to the distance beyond the window.  "It's gunna look for us, Momma."

The matron straightened and spoke clearly to the young man, ushering the hands of his sobbing siblings to him. "You take de'm upstairs and you putch'o blood on dey floor. You unda'stand?" It took the boy a moment to comprehend what she had ordered him to do, and the idea shocked him. But he nodded and raced his brother and sister toward the stairwell to the second floor. A nearby snarl froze him in place, snapping his attention to the hallway they had just escaped from. It was too wet and sickly to be just a simple beast of the forest. The air smelled thick with sulfur and smoke. The rattling growl summoned more shrieking from the children, reigniting Payton's flight to the second story. He had to move fast if he wanted this to work.

Whatever manner of monster had just found Momma was now quickly on its way after the warlock and his siblings. The woman must have had some juice left in her after the nightmarish thing's assault, as the hulking figure's fel-warped body went flying back into the kitchen like a ragdoll. She was buying Payton time. His footsteps thundered on the floorboards until he could see the room the rest of his family had chosen to hide in. Shoving the children back inside, he beckoned that they lock the door securely behind him. He was staying out in the hallway to keep the Devil from getting his prey.

A snickering growl began to stalk through the dark hollow downstairs. Demonic green eyes stared up at the boy from the steps, the wooden planks creaking under a merciless weight. "You and your Mother have no place to run. Nor do the little souls behind you."

"You come up here and you die with me, fool. This I vow." The boy's ire returned in complete defiance to this returning evil. He had helped trap it before. This thing knew the young man's will was strong.

Each heavy step the Devil took in its bestial form burned massive prints onto them with felfire. "I will eat your whole family, boy. I will have all of them." The Devil smiled wide, fangs as long as fingers and as treacherous as a rogue's sharpened blade. The black ichor that spread over those teeth promised a painful death if bitten. "I think I'll have your soul next."

In a sudden shower of wooden splinters, the Devil rushed forward on all fours, its claws demolishing the floor with each gallop. Payton swung his arm down at his feet, showering blood to the surface. He'd spent the time talking digging his fingernails into his palm deep enough to summon a pool of blood into his cupped hand. As red painted the bare floorboards, life thundered beneath them. They rumbled and clattered, splitting open as the skeletal dead came bursting out from under the floor. They swarmed for the Devil, biting, clawing, and combining to fight off the monster. Payton commanded his horde of undead to destroy the Devil where he stood, though it was effortless for the demon to trudge his way to the teen at the end of the hallway.

The young Havish swallowed a mouthful of the blood from his hand only to spray it out at the Devil's face, pitting a plague of necrosis on the worgen vessel. It ate away at the furry flesh like acid. The Devil howled in rage, thrashing its way farther down the hall, ripping up wallpaper and glass window panels.

With a lunge, the embodied evil had pinned the boy to the door and snapped forward to sink his teeth into Payton's shoulder. The young warlock let out a harrowing scream, gargling the blood flooding out of his mouth and neck. Life faded so easily from him... Silence covered him as his sank to the floor... Darkness held him...

... I told you that I would have your soul, boy ...

- I have no soul left to take. I gave it to my family. -

... I will take theirs as well. ...

- If my plague doesn't kill you first. -

... I fear no death. ...

- Not even from your Masters? Do you not just return to your plane after your vessel dies? -

... ... ...

- I wager, alive, I could have collected more souls than you ever could. Wouldn't that be something to bring home to the Fellas? Enough to redeem a traitor, perhaps? -

... Go on. ...

- Your vessel's blood is infected by a plague only me an' my Momma know how to curb. You give me that blood, that life, and I'll nix it an' start collect souls for you. You don't even have to lift a finger. -

... Why would I make this deal with you? ...

- Because if you return home with no souls, don't you think your Masters would be mad enough to kill you for good? Pretty sure that's what fate has in store for you, if we both die here. -

... The Blood and Fire, in exchange for a sea of souls. ...

- Do we have a deal? -

...........

Only the sputtering cough of the Devil's worgen body lived in the silence of the hallway. Without Payton to fuel the spell of the army of the dead under the floorboards, they lay now as piles of bones over the broken floor. The cries of the children beyond the door were muffled by a hopelessness of uncertainty. Was their brother still alive? Were they safe? Their murmurs settled into nothing as the Devil's fading cackle crept throughout the estate.

Nothing dared move in the house. The hallway was a battlefield of death.  But just as silent as the grave, the blood of the demonic beast began to weave its way over the remaining floor to the lifeless warlock against the last door of the hall. Within moments, the tense throb of something within Payton's chest coaxed his body to shift. Again, his body flexed and fell. His heart was being forced to beat, sending infected life to the empty spaces of his veins. The bite at the young man's shoulder began to sizzle and mend, flesh stitching together like a bad chemical reaction. Life was taking over as the diseased blood waned in toxicity. Only worgen blood remained.

And as the last of the Devil's life filled the young Havish, his once hazel-grey eyes began to glow an eerie, unholy blue...

#spoopy