Page 6 of Hollow

Even if the hunter worked up the nerve to seek them out and wandered into the woods, he’d never cross their path. Astaroth wouldn’t need to eat any souls, and Jack wouldn’t have to decapitate any foolish human hunters today.

CHAPTER TWO

“Damn thing disappeared,” Irvin snapped from outside the truck.

Such an unsettling voice. Irvin proved to be one of the most dehumanizing hunters, believing cryptids only existed to suffer and entertain.

Dimitri sat in the back box of the truck, trying to enjoy the calm while he still had a bit of solitude. They’d driven for days on end with few breaks. Though the boxed cage offered enough room to move, Dimitri often struggled with queasiness when being transported. While he’d been fortunate to receive a reprieve from the ride, he found the silence of the interstate replaced by the cacophony of too many humans.

Wherever they’d brought him was far too crowded, too noisy, too much. Dimitri hated large groups of humans. The voices had become fainter than when the truck first arrived. They drove it a bit further to a secondary location, and Dimitri almost found peace. That was until Irvin returned from whatever scouting he’d completed.

Dimitri stared at the black skin around his fingers. It created an ombre effect over his pale hands. He’d gotten so much whiter after years of too little sunlight. The black over his fingers and feet used to stretch further up his arms and legs, offering a cloak from detection and a shield from attacks.

Dimitri focused on the natural energy coursing through him, attempting to fuel the shield. Blackness stretched over his palms before thinning out and turning into little dotted specks past his wrists. He’d lost so much power locked away.

“You up, you damn stupid deer.” Irvin pounded on the truck door.

Dimitri cringed, awaiting what came next.

The chain crank rattled as the metal door slid up, exposing Dimitri to a bit of sunlight. Not much, given the clouds he spotted in the distance. Irvin sneered at Dimitri, clutching his light machine gun. Dimitri had the misfortune of learning much about guns and their evolution over the decades. They were violent machines with metal teeth that ripped through everything in their path. Given the arsenal equipped to the hunters lined up outside the truck, Dimitri realized this wasn’t a kill mission.

No, without a Hearst in sight, they couldn’t risk slaughtering their cryptid quarry. This meant Dimitri was assigned to a retrieval team. He hated those more. It was better to kill the beast upon contact. Bloody, violent, and depressing, but at least Dimitri wouldn’t have to watch another monster be caged, dragged away, given fleeting hope only for it to be snuffed out.

“Out,” Irvin demanded.

Dimitri stood tall. His chains clinked as he stretched; their restraints kept him mostly immobile. The shackles around his hands and feet didn’t connect his limbs to each other. Instead, the chains coiled around each of his limbs independently, hooked onto rods embedded in his flesh. There were four rods in each arm, constantly digging into the nerves of his body. There were even more rods in his torso and legs. The chains bound to him weighed heavily on Dimitri’s muscles. Still, he obediently made his way out of the truck cage and onto the cool, damp dirt.

Fresh earth comforted Dimitri. His bare feet dug into the ground, seeking the healing properties nature offered him. Dimitri’s large antlers twitched, excited by the trees surrounding them. He clenched his clawed hands, hungry to commune with nature. It’d been so long since he’d wandered freely through a forest. How he craved to disappear between a thicket of trees.

With a deep breath, Dimitri tasted the memories of this forest. A small wooded area, one rooted with potent magics. The properties of this place could fuel Dimitri’s broken body so much faster. His green eyes glowed with a spark of hope.

“None of that,” a gruff voice said, followed by an immediate jolt of electricity.

It pulsed from the collar around Dimitri’s neck, but the wave of electricity was carried through the chains to each of the rods buried deep into his flesh.

Dimitri roared, holding himself as still as possible. He didn’t want to fall over, finding the hunters always kicked him when he was down, but he couldn’t allow himself to thrash either. Whenever he resisted the pain, fought against the agony, they only added to the pulse. He suffered for a minute, containing himself as his nerves flared with white-hot pain.

“Good boy,” Samual said, an older hunter who’d held the controller to Dimitri’s obedience for almost three years now.

Dimitri had several leads who controlled him over the many years since being detained by the Hearst family. Samual wasn’t the worst of them, but he was certainly the smuggest when doling out punishment.

“Now, you see that fog, Dimitri. We need you to cut through it and help us track down the Nuckelavee,” Samual instructed.

That explained the retrieval mission. The Hearst family loved to hunt down and kill monsters of all kinds, but they didn’t care much for the work involved. Sometimes, one of them would accompany Dimitri when tracking a cryptid in a forest, but the more elusive the creature, the less likely they were to spend hours hiking.

Dimitri held a powerful connection to nature, seeing all she had to offer. Memories. Mysteries. Magics. None of it deceived him.

Without a word, Dimitri led the way through the fog that cloaked their destination. The enchanted fog was seeped in potent magic, more than nature itself had to offer. No, this power was gifted to the forest.

Dimitri didn’t know much about Nuckelavee’s, but he didn’t think they possessed any access to magic. Not many monsters or spirits did. Dimitri had the misfortune of learning all too much about cryptids over the last fifty years as the Hearst family forced him to assist in tracking down as many as possible to add to their trophy collection of exotic primordial beings.

As Dimitri searched for their destination, he quietly listened to the memories the trees offered him. They held so many beautiful secrets. Dimitri learned a little about the witch who wandered these woods. She spelled much of the wildlife, the plant life, and the atmosphere itself. Such a mighty witch wouldn’t be felled easily, but according to the trees, she’d left these lands long ago.

This fog, this magic, they were mere remnants of her power.

After hours of silent travel, Dimitri cut through the fog to an open yard deep in the forest. Not too deep, as this wooded area wasn’t very big. Only the fog created the illusion of endless miles.

They stood before a small cottage and a strange man with gray skin and a pumpkin atop his head. This must’ve been the Nuckelavee.