Chapter 4: A [cursed] life and [reproachful] death. – XII, 405

It’d honestly been a relief. 

Ever since Logan had left for Paris, Curtis just simply hasn’t felt like himself. Something about being two halves of a whole… Honestly, he’s never been one for mysticism. 

That is, until he’d heard that scream coming from the woods. 

For days he’d felt itchier than usual. Like his bones themselves had been trying to wriggle out of his skin. 

He’d chalked it up to the murders he’s been investigating beginning to hit a little close to home, or the extra pressures of the promotion to sergeant. 

Whether Logan is in Pine Grove or not, he still has to carry the bodies on to the Next Plane. Without her, it’s simply been much harder. They need each other – always have. She finds the deceased and he carries them on through cleansing fire. So, maybe two-halves-of-a-whole vibes. Whatever. Logan had left for France and he’d pushed on by himself. 

Then, he’d heard her. 

A Banshee! 

It’d come from the woods, where he’d been sure she’d been first on the scene to another body like the ones he and Weekes have been finding all over the place. He’d gotten out of the sheriff’s station so fast he’d almost run clean through the metal doors. 

Her scream had spurred him on like nothing else, though – a siren’s song tugging his heart to the true north of supernatural companionship. 

Out the door and down the street towards the tree-line, the Hound had wanted to come out almost immediately. But he’d kept a grip on himself. 

If that’d been a new Banshee, he wouldn't have wanted to scare her. And then the world as he’d known it had changed forever. 

“He’s sniveling again.”

The voice, more of a hiss than anything, accompanied a blow to the back of Curtis’ head for his trouble. Despite his head rocking forward, he doesn’t feel the pain. 

Can’t anymore, he supposes. 

He’d never gotten to her.

“You’re one pathetic pup, aren’t you?” 

A hiss of a different tone. 

It’d probably help if he could see, but there has been nothing but absolute and unceasing darkness since he came to in the clutches of whatever these things transporting him are. 

He only knows they aren’t alive anymore.

Curtis stumbles over something in the dark, but the hand that’s been clamped around his arm for who knows how long now only grips him tighter, forcing him to stay upright. 

“Nearly there now,” the first hiss returns again, as though that’s supposed to be some kind of reassurance. “You’ve done well, hound. We’d been told the Banshee had left Pine Grove, but it seems you’ve attracted another. Iblis will be most pleased.”

Unbidden, Curtis snarls viciously in the direction of that voice. “You stay away from her!”

“Ooh-hoo-hoo! Not so pathetic anymore, I see,” the second voice chuckles distortedly to itself. “Poor puppy worrying about his poor little witch.”

“I honestly don’t understand his reaction. If we take her, they can be together,” the first voice says, yanking Curtis along when he starts to drag his feet.

Their implication makes him sick. 

Banshees and Hellhounds… Their relationship is never like that. 

It’s not romantic, sexual. It’s a bond, companionable and safe – supportive. 

This perversion they’re alluding to is not only disgusting, but cruel, against the laws of nature. But he’s tried fighting for his freedom. They just seem to become incorporeal, save for whatever they use to slash him up. They never wait for him to heal, either. Only drag him along consistently until he has a morsel of strength with which to get back to his feet.

The cold becomes heavier and heavier the farther they travel. So much so that even with his internal fire he begins to shiver. 

But he can feel it now, the steady decline of the surface beneath his feet. The ground appears to be getting smoother, like it’s seen more traffic. 

As tired as he is, relief turns into looming dread so fast he feels like his veins have been shot up with ice water.

At some point, whatever the thing is that’d been clamped onto his left arm disappears. As soon as it’s gone, the other thing becomes far more gentle, moving its hand, for lack of a better word for the vice digging into Curtis’ skin, down to wrap lightly around his wrist. It doesn’t pull him along anymore, either, but rather guides him.

“It’s almost over,” it whispers to him, then.

Oddly, Curtis believes it. 

A sort of calm comes over him as they stand there, waiting. Is he accepting his fate? Never in his life would he have described himself as someone willing to go quietly. But, if he’s honest with himself, he’s been feeling lost and listless since Logan left. Lying to himself more than anyone else about being fine. 

Are they going to kill him? Make him one of them? Does it even matter?

When the ground begins to tremble slightly beneath his feet, the thing still clinging to him lets go completely. 

Curtis watches as the darkness in front of him begins to shine – there’s no other way to describe it. It glows in a way that is as unlike light as it is possible to be, and through this comes a figure – taller and thinner than humanly possible. 

As its blind eyes fall on Curtis, he feels his skin catch fire and then he’s once again a passenger in his own body as the Hound takes over.