Chapter Text
“Are you ok, Luz?”
Luz jumped, and blinked, finding Amity beside her through the haze of thoughts she had been lost in. Her girlfriend looped a loose curl of hair behind her ear, and knotted her eyebrows in concern.
“Oh! Yeah, I’m fine!” She answered cheerily, and smiled. Though the living room of the owl house was mostly filled with borrowed furniture, and piles of other assorted borrowed items, it was lit by warm light, and was as cosy as ever. Eda and King were sat upon a pile of borrowed clothes, Francois in King’s lap and King in Eda’s, peeling through, looking for suitable attire for a noble of King’s standing, giggling at oversized shirts that turned into robe’s on his back. It was good to see him playing pretend again. Properly this time. Willow and Gus were on the couch beside them. Willow was curled up, arms nested on the arm of the chair, her scroll slipping from her fingers, popping with messages from her fathers, her eyes drifting closed. Gus was leaned against her side, leafing through a human magazine, almost asleep himself. Lilith was sat on the floor, near the front door, and Hooty had stretched in through the window to wrap himself around her. His ‘Head’ was sat in her lap, his feathers bristling as she stroked her fingers through them, utterly absorbed with the act of affection. Camila was leaned over the coffee table, cuddling with the palisman, cooing over them each in turn. Luz smiled, and leaned her head against Amity’s shoulder. Though her worry was lessened, it remained.
“Are you… ‘Fine’ fine, or are you ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ fine?” She asked, still sitting tense. Luz tipped her head to one side, and though about it for a moment, pursing her lips.
“I think I realy am ‘Fine’ fine.” She desided. Then she passed her eyes once more over the crowded room. “… Hey, where’s Hunter?”
“He… said he needed some air… I… didn’t know if I should follow him or not…” Amity admitted, putting her hand round her girlfriend’s shoulder. Luz responded by hopping up, and dropping a kiss upon her cheek.
“I’ll go find him.” She said, pushing off from the couch. “You just stay here and relax.” In her attempt to make a cool exit, walking backwards into the house, she tripped over Eda’s foot, and tumbled backwards. A quick arm pulled her swiftly into Eda’s lap, where she landed beside King. The petulant “WAH!” that followed betrayed King’s squished tail.
“Careful there witchlet.” Eda said, holding her down for a moment, smiling down on her, golden tooth poking out from behind her lips. Luz giggled, and with Eda’s help leapt back to her feet. She wasn’t able to escape the gentle hair ruffling, but she didn’t want to.
“I’m fine! I’m good!” She chimed, and smoothed the ruffles of her hoodie. “…Thanks Eda.”
The Owl lady gave her the softest, but still crooked smile, and it was so delicate and small on her lips, but it felt like a warm hand over her heart. Then she cracked a wicked smile, and wheeled her arm dramatically.
“Ladies and gentlemen: The witch that defeated Belos!” She announced spectacularly, a royal fanfare very unfit for the dust, half-furnished house. Bursting open with a smile, Luz bowed low, and was applauded. Amity whistled loudly, and it made her cheeks go very pink. Again she made to, carefully this time, back out of the room. Just before she passed into the threshold of the hall, she heard a tired Willow ask,
“Wha’s happening now…?”
Beyond the warm and cosy light of the living room, the house was very dark. The misty grey of diffracted moonlight was the only thing to see by. It was so faint, it was almost overpowered by the musty smell of the house itself. She searched her pockets briefly for a light glyph, but didn’t feel the farmiliar crinkle of paper, and shrugged. Insider her hood, Stringbean wriggled.
“Don’t worry Stringy, I know the way, you just keep on nappin’.” She said as she felt her way down the hall, tracing her fingers along the walls. She stuck out her tongue at the tacky, cold or wet feeling of the wallpaper. She slipped through the house, pushing nose first through gaps in the doors, checking each in turn, until she reached the kitchen.
Hunter was there. He stood at the kitchen window, hair swaying in the cool evening air, leaning on the windowsill and looking out onto the cloudy night sky. The moon was bright, turning the red leaves of the trees outside purple, and casting him in shadow. She smiled. The bruises under her skin stuck out when she did.
“There you are.”
He didn’t turn to look at her. He didn’t even glance fully over his shoulder. All she saw was the fluttering of his eyelashes.
“H-Hey Luz…” He greeted, on a quiet, half-breath of air. Luz ambled towards him, swaying her legs. It almost looked like playful nonchalance, but the limp in her left leg was a little too obvious.
“Cold night, huh?” She asked. Hunter might have nodded. He took a loud, short breath, and held it.
“Yeah… I guess.”
He rubbed at the bare skin of his arm, smoothing over the stubborn goosebumps picked out by the moonlight. He swallowed, the tone and the downward hook of the edge of his lip betraying a sour taste.
“Luz… I feel… strange…” He noted, again very quiet. He traced the grain of the wood with his thumb. The whole house was still cold from neglect. Hooty claimed to be feeling ‘Mouldy and dirty inside’ upon moving back in. Eda had sincerely hoped he was overreacting.
“Yeah, me too I guess.” Luz sympathised sweetly. “It’s just so wierd being back here, with everything that’s happened… But it’s good… It’s so nice to have everyone here. Eda, and King, Willow and Gus, Hooty. Lilith. my mom…” Her list fell away under its own length, her cheeks warmed up as she recounted on her fingers her new family, how it kept growing until it filled one hand and spilled over onto the next. “Amity… and… you, Hunter…”
His hand stayed upon the windowsill, his eyes drifting down to the pale dirt outside. Luz smiled, sad but warm, and reached out a hand toward his back. “I hope you know… we’re all glad you’re here.”
Her fingers kissed his shoulder. He shuddered, ducked away, folding in the middle. He blinked like he was in a sandstorm, and shuddered like he was out in the cold. Then he turned towards her. His skin was dripping with sweat. It was white as ice in the moonlight, and his lips were pulled into a pitiable line. He leaned heavily on the one hand he left on the windowsill. He gripped so hard at the fabric of the Owl house that it began to creak.
“… I don’t feel so good…”
Luz, hands lifted to comfort, but held back, let her lips crack open in surprise. He shook his head, as if trying to scare away the clammy quality of his skin. His breath juddered on the way in, and he stared off into the dark corners of the floor.
“H-Hey, its alright…” Luz muttered, edging closer. “I promise, everything’s going to be Ok now… Just… take a deep breath.” She advised, creeping carefully closer. Hunter closed over his brown eyes, just barely nodding. He pulled in a breath, slow and long, but shallow, and then let it slip out through his nose. It was a struggle, but he gave Luz a smile.
“Everything’s fine now…” He whispered to himself. His lips, and his knees started trembling. His next breath didn’t make it past his tongue. It wheezed to a halt inside his mouth. There was a sloshing sound in the back of his throat.
His eyes rolled back in his skull. He stumbled, and doubled over, flopping over like a puppet with half its strings severed. A gout of something black and sticky poured out through his mouth, splattered and rolled across the floorboards, dripping through to the spaces below. It stuck in the gaps between Hunter’s teeth, slick across his tongue. He spat, and groaned. With what was left in his chest, he whimpered.
Luz didn’t move. She couldn’t even summon a full breath. The colour drained from her skin. A tremor found its way into her hand. Hunter wrapped an arm across his chest. With great effort, he lifted his head. They looked into each other’s wide eyes.
“Hunter-!” Luz gasped, and jumped forward. His hand held her back, outstretched, fingers moving oddly. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see it was not his muscles making them move. His diaphragm spasmed, desperate staccato breaths. Logic and rationality fought a losing battle with panic, his mouth opened to speak, but only a helpless grinding came out.
He lurched back, as if pushed, back colliding with the window, the shelf the only thing that kept him on his feet as he bent over backwards until his head hit the glass. The force of his hand scattered splinters. Silhouetted by the moonlight, his body warped like shadows in a black forest. Gnarled branches sprouting up through his trailing hair, groaning like heavy limbs of old trees, the lines of his face pulled, teeth pushing out from the roots. Broken, strangled howls echoed in his throat like baleful cries far off in the trees.
Luz took a step back. Her hand, without thinking, went towards her hood. Stringbean, curled inside, peeked out from within. Its little fangs poked out of its gaping mouth, and it slipped out from its napping place, and slithered through the air in hurried circles around her witch. Luz pushed her towards the door.
“Stringbean, go get help.” She gasped, and her palisman slunk off speedily with a simple nod.
Hunter stopped moving. She could almost hear the creaking of his bones as he straightened his back, and took up the weight of his own skeleton again. Then, he fixed on her with focused eyes. Halloed by the moonlight, the cold blue glow at the centre of his dilated pupils was like a knife in the back. She reached back, for Stringbean, not looking away. Her palisman stopped halfway across the room, and chirped insistently. The cold blue eyes on her made her silent.
“Hunter…” Luz pleaded softly, all the strength leaking out of her voice through the hole in the bottom of her chest. The balls of her feet toes at the floor. She couldn’t make them move. He tilted his head to one side. Sharp teeth suck out from behind his lips, in a frozen snarl. The faunish horns that had pushed up through his skull were dripping with mossy green and black, and it turned her stomach. He lurched forward. Luz could only take a half step towards the door, backwards. Stringbean squeaked, and leapt. Hunter reached her first. His palm met her chest and her heel caught on an uneven floorboard. Together they hit the ground. Pointed, stretching teeth hovered an inch above Luz’s face, his hand shoving her head to the ground, fingers tangling into her dark hair. He stretched his jaw, like an animal. The bones beneath his skin twisted, stretched, to make room for more teeth. A bubbling, guttural howl was trapped behind his ribs, drowning inside of him. His free hand contorted, nails stretching, nailbeds fraying, and reared back. Luz shut her eyes, winced away from their swing. Hunter yowled, in the back of his throat, and it rolled like a scream in a nightmare. Luz looked again to see one eye wide, and blue, and the other twitching, and lolling in it socket. His clawed hand stretched over her head. Stringbean hissed as it drew closer. Luz gasped.
She kicked at his leg, and he fell towards her. The fall knocked the wind out of both of them, and made Hunter gasp, His chin hitting the floorboards, but his chest gurgled and filled with clear air, and the clarity struggled back into his eyes. His irises were rippling, his pupils shrinking and growing, the light behind them flashing like a dying lightbulb, throbbing. Past the snarling and the gnashing of new teeth, he winced, and whimpered, and growled in frustration.
“Luz… I-“ He gagged, his claws raked across the softened wood of the floor, leaving deep gouges and he pulled himself tighter, pulled his hand towards his chest, pulled back down the viscous slime crawling up his throat. Without a word, he donned that same disgusted sneer she had seen so many times. The one he reserved only for Belos. Her resolve hardened.
“Hang on Hunter!” Luz assured. She swung her leg, knocked his knees out from under him, and with a push, inverted them, holding him to the damp wooden floor with a thud that rattled the room. Her knotted brow now hung above his shifting grimace. There was a horrible slackness beneath his skin, but still she pushed down on his shoulders, and kept his arms pinned beneath her legs. Hunter struggled, briefly, wriggling like a worm, kicking meekly. His chest heaved, like something was trapped inside it, flutily taking in gulps of air through gritted teeth. Awful liquid sounds came from his throat. Through the bog of his shifting face, Luz saw all too clear, a moment of fear, laced with tears, before it was lost to a rolling of his eyes, and another lurch from beneath his skin.
“Hold on- Just-“
“Luz?”
Her eyes flashed with panic, panic that was somehow worsened at the sight of Augustus staring at them from the doorway. She grit her teeth against another lurch from below her.
“Gus!” She called out, as another writhing struggle pushed a bubbling mouthful of sludge past Hunter’s lips. The breath was trapped inside her chest, and it sat on her diaphragm like a rock.
“Get Eda!” She gasped despite it. Her eyes flashed to the waiting Stringbean, coiled and ready to leap into her hand, her bright little eyes sparking with determination, and magic. Then they went to the dead blue flickering inside Hunter’s eyes, turning the brown of his iris a sickly green. She pressed her lips together. “Bring one of her potions!” She begged, desperate. His feet slid on the darkened floorboards, but Gus turned on his heels and sprinted back down the hall, shouting at the top of his lungs.
Hunter struggled more viscerally, snapping and snarling, only stopping to suck in air, or to yelp. With only her weight to hold him down, she could feel his tendons all pulling tight, soft movement beneath his skin fighting against his body. His heart was hammering.
“Shhhhhhh…” She soothed. Her voice vibrated, and moved differently in her throat. Her eyes began to sting. “Shhhh, its ok… It’s ok, Hunter. I’m here…”
The only movement she could spare was the slightest petting of her thumb against his shirt. His heels scraped uselessly at the floor, his claws digging in and holding. A gout of foul sludge escaped his lips and poured down his face. It was followed by a wail, chased down his face by tears. His chest pulled harder on the cold and musty air, only so that he could weep loudly, desperately, in despair.
Luz could do nothing but stare down on him, at the hollowing lines of his face, the blood red corners of his streaming eyes, the way his neck stretched and twisted, trying to escape something that was beneath his skin. Her own face contorted, straining to hold back tears of her own. Her arms began to shake wildly, rattling all the way up to her shoulders, and it only worsened as Hunter’s cries gave way to warped whimpers, the mutated howls of a dire wolf, a cruel mimic of pain and misery, some foul creature lost in boiling rain.
“Luz, I’ve got it!” Gus called, scampering back into the room with a bright orange bottle clasped in both hands. He skidded towards her on his knees across the floor. Willow was hot on his tail, followed by Amity and Camila, both already armed with palisman and slipper.
“What is happening now?!” Eda grimaced her heels digging in as she almost careened into the back of the frozen crowd. King squeaked in her arms, and wheeled his little paws. High, bright little eyes flashed wide, and his pointy mouth opened.
“Oh no! It’s Belos, isn’t it!”
Lilith, behind them, made a sound of abject horror, and swiftly followed up with,
“- I mean, Everyone stay calm!”
With her teeth, Luz pulled the stopper from the bottle in Gus’s hands, the words lost inside her head, and when she spat it out it careened across the room, over Eda’s head.
“It might help.” She wheezed, desperate. Gus nodded, and upended the bottle over Hunter’s lips. It sloshed over his face, and he began to choke on it.
“Sorry buddy!” Gus yelped. More gently, he poured a steady stream into Hunter’s mouth. His body stilled, eyes screwing closed, hands balled into fists at his sides.
“Stay back kid.” Eda warned Willow, who was creeping closer. She jumped, her hands wringing her staff. Her lips moved, bur she barely made a sound.
“I… I…”
Amity wrapped a hand over her shoulder, and she jumped again, and squeaked. Her face was as pale as Hunter’s. Her voice was small, so small it almost slipped back down her throat. “Amity, I-“
“It’s Ok Willow.” Amity assured, strong and certain, holding her tighter. “Luz has got this.” Still on the floor, leaning harder on Hunters body, Luz did not share her confidence. Amity held her staff tighter. “R-Right, Luz?”
Hunter gasped, and Gus pulled away the half empty bottle. Shimmering droplets were cast in a careless spray as he spluttered, and were absorbed by the old wood of the floor, fading back into the darkness. His teeth whistled. He grabbed a fistful of Luz’s cat jumper, his hand balling around the zipper, and tossed her aside. She flew with a yelp into Gus, turning in the air to get her feet below her, and failing.
Staffs were raised, abomination sludge and the eyes of titan and palisman alike lighting up in the dark. The back door imploded on itself, shedding sharp splinters and dust across the room, as Hooty came smashing in through it, open beak producing a deafening shriek as he did.
“Wait!”
They all froze. On his knees, one hand raised and the other pressed hard to the floor, Hunter bowed his head, low. He was shaking down in his very core, like the cold from the open window was a blizzard, and not a nightly breeze. Staffs and slippers were lowered.
“… Please just wait.” He begged. Another awful sound rolled in the back of his throat, but it was decidedly mortal, and it came with a trickle of red blood that dripped from sharpened teeth. He moved only to tremble, body rising and falling with rib-stretching breaths. After a time, he found the strength to lift his head. The moonlight picked at the sharpest edges of his face, and let everything else remain in shadow as the last of the elixir dripped from his chin. Quietly, he asked,
“… Is… everyone alright…?”
Luz stood. Gus stayed on the floor behind her, hovering below her protective, or warning hand. Her legs began to shake. Before she could find a word to say, her eyes were briming with tears.
“Hunter!” Hunter jumped as the floorboards shook, Luz drooping to her knees close by his side. He leaned away in alarm, even more so as she took up his arm in both hands and held him tight. Through her tears, she tried to find a smile. “It’s alright…! I-it’s alright. It’s alright. Everything’s f-fine. I promise you, everything is going to be just fine.”
Breathless, operating on the basest instinct, she dug in her pockets, her fingers unfurling from the deepest creases a scrunched up little square, that she squeezed in her shaking hand until it gave birth to light. The round and perfect star formed in her hand, and its warm orange light blossomed across a haunted visage.
Hunter was still Hunter. But only barely. Creases and folds like an everlasting snarl were shadowed on what could have been a snout in the moonlight. His face was pinned, under warmer light, in a hopeless melancholy that sunk deep into the shadows of his eyes, pulled them out of shape, warped by the stretching of his skull. The horns poking through his hair had settled to an off white. The colour of bone. In his pale roots, red was spreading. His bleeding gums were only just covered by his lips, his skin not able to keep up, giving him the look of a disappointed scowl, bristling with long canines and misshapen incisors. His nose, still human, wrinkled. He sniffled.
But though the changes were violent, the red blood and black slime on his pale skin stark, Hunter was still Hunter. Only one person gasped as he came again into the light. It was Willow. She slapped her hand across her face, and winced, like she was biting her tongue. If Hunter was hurt, it was lost in the confusion of his face, and the sudden rolling of his eyes. No one got to look long, as his thin face was taken up in both hands by Camila, and the warmth of her palms was almost enough to knock poor Hunter unconscious. She quickly found herself having to take up the rest of his weight, as he listed forward, eyes flickering, and sliding closed.
“Hunter!” Gus gasped, and scuttled closer. Willow dropped to her knees, and her palisman buzzed up onto her shoulder.
“Are you alright, mijo?” Camila soothed, kneeling close. She lowered him to the floor. His head did not land upon the cold wood as she’d intended. Luz slid beneath him, and invited his limp body onto her lap. Camila’s lip wobbled, but she obliged.
“There, lay him on his side. Like that.”
The enviable softness of her voice drained away, as she settled Hunter on his side, leaving room for whatever remained inside his mouth and throat to trickle to the floor unimpeded. Then, Camila took a slow, deep breath. She reached into her pocket, and found a hair tie, and even as her daughters face was etched with questions, begging for advice, she carefully bound her hair up behind her head.
“OK. I need some space. Everyone out. Go get me some towels, some blankets, and hot water. Someone close that window.” She ordered.
No one needed to hear it again.
“There’s a pot outside!... I think.” Eda barked, and Lilith lifted her skirt with one hand and trotted out the back door, Hooty pulling it closed with his beak after her. It took some coaxing to take up its usual shape again. They all scattered in different directions, flashing off into the hall, followed by the sounds of feet pounding up the stairs or the clattering of hands rooting through stripped out cupboards.
All except Willow. She stayed rooted to the floor, beside Hunter. Camila was surprised when she turned back from ducking through the cupboards to find her there with Luz. Kneeling beside her, she placed her hands on her shoulders, soft as falling petals. Willow didn’t move at all.
“Willow, mija, why don’t you go help the others…?” Camila asked. Willow took a slow breath in through her nose.
“No.” She answered plainly. Her hand was firmly wrapped around Hunter’s limp and lifeless fingers. “I’ll stay here.”
Camila blinked behind her glasses. Her perfect composure flickered under Willows unmoving stare, which stayed focused upon Hunter’s closed eyes.
“Is he ok, Mama…?” Luz muttered, when at last she found her voice.
“I don’t know… I ever know where I stand with witches…” Camila lamented after a deep, deep breath. She looked him over carefully. His shallow breathing. His half closed eyes. The blood. Worse. She did her best to keep herself steady, as she checked the usual places for a pulse.
“In humans… intense pain or stress, can cause induce shock… This looks a lot like that… His pulse is fast, but its weak. See?” She reached down, and with such delicate fingers look his wrist. Willow reached out, and wrapped her hand around it. His veins were trembling, along with his heart, and the shallow twitching of his chest.
“Oh Hunter…” Luz whispered, almost to herself, like the words were simply allowed to fall out of her mouth.
“Hunter. Can you hear me?” Camila asked, loud and clear. She dared to tweeze his eyes open, one after the other, and searched for something Luz could not see. Her fingers danced along the lines of bones with speed that belied experience, but often she would repeat herself with a broken scowl. Often she glanced, in the corner of her eye, to the utterly unmoving Willow.
“Luz, could you help me with something?” She asked, and stood. Luz pulled off her jumper, but did not let the lingering cold make her shiver, tucking it below Hunters head, and followed after her mother’s offered hand. she found herself reaching for it, and clasping it tight, as they left Willow alone beside Hunter, splayed out in the moonlight.
Camila ran the cold tap. By some miracle, it still flowed with fresh cool water, and not spiders, or something worse. Her hand trembled on the cold silver handle of the faucet. It was hidden only by Luz’s shadow.
“…Mama…” Luz muttered. Her fingers curled around the fabric of Camila’s rolled up sleeves, so small and light. Camila jumped. Her hand flew to Luz’s shoulder.
“Oh sweetheart, are you hurt?” She asked as though her daughter had wandered in from the garden with a scraped knee. Luz pressed her trembling lips into a pout, but that could not contain the glistening tears that beaded and fell down her face.
“I thought we fixed everything, Mama…” Her breaths grew shorter, faster, like Hunter’s. Though she tried, the tears kept falling. She shook her head, denied them. Still, they fell. “I thought everything was going to be OK…”
“You can’t always fix things, baby…” Camila said. A sad memory was reflected in the cool moonlight in her glossy eyes. Luz winced, squeezed her sparking lashes closed, and looked away. Her palisman slithered up onto her shoulder, her flickering tongue investigating this new and strong emotion. Her mother tucked a finger under the palisman’s little chin, and then cupped her daughter’s face. Her sadness settled into a harder resolve, her hand balled into a fist against the counter. “… But I’ll be dammed if I don’t try. I may not know anything about witches, or demons, o-or grim-walkers, but someone out there does, and we are going to find them and we are going to get them to help!”
She raised her fist, brandished it righteously up to the watching moon, and she was not the only one to be settled upon resistance, as Luz tightened her own hands, and shared a focused look with Stringbean. Camila filled a small, cracked bowl with cool water, and vigour, and to herself muttered through her teeth, “Te maldigo, that Belos has hurt my family one too many times. If he wasn’t dead already I’d-”
Her curses faded into whispered nothing, and she set off again to be at Hunter’s side, with Luz following close behind her.