Chapter Thirteen “Hallows Hunt”

Willow left early in the morning the neighbourhood children already seemed hyper on sugar. Tacky cobwebs, plastic decorations and lanterns littered front gardens all around, everything looked incredibly cheap in the light of day. Willow found herself sat by the side of the bridge in the park. Willow had sat there for hours by herself just waiting for the sun to go down.

Just as the sun finally set the air had become much cooler and sweeter, Willow pulled herself up slinging her bag over her shoulder, the little bottles inside clinked as she got it in position. Heading back towards the Gourlay compound. Spotting the starting strays all on the hunt, Willow casually vanquished them before anyone could notice. Sat just out of sight of the entrance to the compound, Willow waited to vanquish them as they exited.

After an hour Willow started to grow more impatient and frustrated waiting for the Gourlays clearly becoming weaker and more hesitant with every vanquish, Willow made a decision. Willow had impacted their collective, with all their power being shared she realised that she would have to go inside to prevent their hunt tonight, to protect the Gourlays future victims. From the rumblings inside they were desperate to hunt but afraid to risk it. Taking a breath, she slipped into the entrance, she began vanquishing the Gourlays who had come to see her off. She was surrounded by Gourlays, Willow noticed that each one was female, she had yet to see a man amoung them. One by one she wiped them out; finally finding the first and only male on the compound. He was clearly some kind of king, leader, alpha male, but he didn’t stand a chance against Willow. His greatly reduced collective had left him struggling to survive clinging to the stairs. His vile green eyes were blood shot, each breath emitted a vapour of toxic smoke.

Willow couldn’t stop herself, she couldn’t stop blowing things up in her blind rage, she was on a roll and couldn’t resist. She took her anger out on windows, doors, walls and the demon until she stood alone in the foyer, everything shattered, shredded into tatters by the toll she had taken out. Exhausted she fell to her knees.

 

Slayer

They may be easy enough to kill, but these demons are very high level and very skilled.

A slayer demon feeds off of guilt. It’s an emotion they cannot possess, and thus makes it the most delicious emotion for them to taste. For them to feed off of someone’s guilt they most have a soul, thus often creep up to the mortal world as the underworld is filled with demons and other soulless beings.

The feeding of the guilt can either cause complete mental break down as the guilt is often intensified before consumption or can drain the being of all sense of guilt voiding them of remorse and conscience.

Chapter Twelve “Slay The Guilt”

 

“You know what you have to do?”
“Yes my lord”
“Feed off of her, just enough, prey on the guilt, but don’t take it all, I still need to use her.”
“Of course my lord, but what do get in return?”
“You are fed, you live, now count yourself lucky and go” Hunter’s voice rang out and the slayer vanished from his sight.

*

Willow could have sworn she had heard Madi’s laughter in the room but came to find it yet again empty. Unaware of the hungry eyes watching her. “Willow, Willow, why?” There was no mistaking Madi’s voice echoing, spurred on by the hungry eyes. “Madi? Madi is that you?”
“Willow, why?”
“It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t myself” the room began to spin around her as Madi’s voice echoed on.
“Excuses, you wanted me gone”
“No. That’s not true”
“It is, it is and you know it, you wanted to punish me.”
“No.”
“Yes”
“No Madi you were my friend”
“Why did you do it?”
“I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t remember”
“Lies! You remember what you did, you know what happened, and it wasn’t just a dream was it?”

“No, but it wasn’t me, you have to believe me”
“It sure looked like you.”
“I know, but please you have to understand”
“Understand what exactly? That my best friend killed me? What could I possibly have done to hurt you?”
“You betrayed me” Willows words surprised her. “You betrayed me, you gave the book to Gray. You stole my heritage”
“Willow”
“You gave my heritage to a demon, a demon. You undermined me and any chance of alliance every step of the way”
“That’s not true”
“The book, with Hunter, I’ve seen you, trying to flirt with him, did you think I hadn’t noticed? Did you really think I didn’t know?”
“What’s your point, he wanted you, didn’t he?”
“You kidnapped me and tried to turn me into a vampire for heavens sake, what part of any of that is being a good friend.”
“You would have loved it, after you are so powerful aren’t you?”
“Is that it? What was it jealousy? After all that… you were jealous of my power?”

There was quiet, the hungry eyes continued feasting on willows guilt deceiving and devouring her. Willow didn’t notice Hunter’s appearance, she had carried on yelling for Madi to answer. The slayer continued feeding on her, past the point he could stop, past the point where Hunter’s threats meant a thing. Hunter’s temper quickly grew short before he vanquished the slayer freeing Willow from his vice. Willow ran from the room and out of the house heading down the street. Hunter chased after her.

“Willow! Willow stop!” she finally stopped letting him catch up, panting and bent doubled. “Are you alright? I saw you running and I had to know” the concern in his voice and eyes broke freely onto his features “Willow what’s going on with you?”
“I’m fine, I promise” she gasped between breaths.
“Are you sure? You have been so, well so different since Madi?”
“I know, and I am sorry. But I am fine now, I swear.” She took his hands in hers as she spoke.

“Even after you know? I know it’s been hard for you Willow, I do, and I’m just worried about you.”
“Look, I’m fine, I made a mistake, twice, I trusted her and she betrayed me every chance she had.”
“Oh Willow, I am so sorry” he held her in his arms smiling. Slowly they started walking down the street hand in hand.

Walking past the Gourlay compound Willow noticed a Colter skulking around, and she wasn’t the only one, a police car had slowed down to a crawl watching it. Hunter watched Willows reaction closely, mainly because she hadn’t sprung straight into action, not until the police man had stopped and began to approach the Colter. It seemed to get heated pretty fast. Willow stopped the Colter’s attack but moments too late; her indecision, her reluctance had impacted on the stranger. The Colter had hit the man with a small energy ball. Willow vanquished the Colter and turned to help the man.

Desperately trying to work out how to help him; she noticed her hands had begun to feel warmer as her hands seemed to illuminate against him, she could see his wound vanishing before her eyes. She had never seemed so petrified in all her life.

Before he could thank her let alone ask her name or what had happened Willow had started running until she reached a dead end. From a distance Hunter watched her in her confused frustration she started taking it out on a graffiti covered wall exploding brick by brick until Hunter stepped in behind her and stopped her. “You did a good thing” his voice was clear and strong against the haze of her mind.

“I don’t know how, I don’t know”
“Neither do I but you did, you did something amazing”
“I’ve never done that before. This is driving me mad all the time, its just”
“I know, I know” he soothed smiling to himself.

 

Possession

Well it seems self-explanatory.

Taking hold of a body in the means to either consume it indefinitely or to control it and the actions. It’s a very high level power and rare enough to find and has a very high price on the black market.

Possession seems to suffocate the true body owners soul, tarnishes it a bit with the actions of the demon possessing it.

Sensationally speaking it is very much losing control of the body the actions often negate the intention of the original soul.

That being said memory is not always left intact after possession is released often causing black outs and confusion.