A Crusaider's Account of Harper Rock

[Ephraim Steele]

3 February, 2016 Harper Rock, Ontario, Canada



I thought it best I take record of what happened here, in case anyone from the Pitt follows after us.

The rest of my party is gone. I, Ephraim Elias Steele, am all that’s left of the four that left the Pittsburgh parish to join the fight against the darkness that has settled over this small town. By now, you’ll have noticed the town is not so small, and the stain of evil that crawls over this place permeates everything. The very air you breathe is vile with its taint. God has turned his back on Harper Rock, and those with enough sense to know the truth of what I am saying should do the same.

It is too late for me. I am tied to this place, as it is tied to the sins of the earth.

Of the four of us that came, Father Uphrin Krell, our teacher and commander was the first taken from us. We were waylaid by an agent of evil before we had reached the city. Six miles from town, in a small vale, we were attacked by a pair of vampires. The first had killed the Father before we were so much as aware of their presence. The other was wounded, after the first had been killed in an attempt on Heather’s life.

Heather Lockheart, our sorceress, remained safe through the assault. Tre Yrons, my childhood friend and fellow warrior of light sacrificed himself to the demon chasing us through the snows that I might escort Heather to safety.

Alone, we took shelter here, in this abandoned hotel. By night, we worked at what we had come to do, eliminating the agents of darkness one by one, as we came upon them. We were a successful pair. Our methods were unorthodox, but brutal. I, personally, had dispatched as many as six of the monsters in as many nights. Heather had taken one, and had been so proud.

Too proud, perhaps.

She grew overconfident; reckless. The night she was taken, a vampire ripped open her throat and left her to die. She was playing her part in its fullness, rather than keeping her guard up and remembering what it was that we were here to do that night.

What happened to Heather was unimaginable. I cannot even fathom what I might do, had the situation been reversed. Heather has become one of them; an agent of the lord of darkness, a demon.

I cannot begin to pen down the great tragedy that this truly has become.

Heather was a skilled sorcerer, stronger than most any that our chapter of the Faith had ever seen. Her spell work was intricate, the designs of her runic empowerments delicate and artistic, woven seamlessly into contemporary ink work across the flesh of her subjects. My own work is done with precision and beauty, all her handiwork. I could not have found better work if I had lain my fortune in the hands of one of these dens of darkness, the pits of defacement and vandalism of the holy temples that our bodies have made since the time of our birth.

What was lost to us, was gained by the darkness. It is a cruel thing, to see how she has changed. An innocent woman had come to this city, pure and clean and whole. Now, as I see her lurking in the night, the glimpses that I catch of her, she is a woman broken to the ways of sin. A harlot, a demon of lust and wickedness.

I cannot find it in myself to finish her. I have known her light, her goodness. I cannot believe that she is beyond saving. My purpose here has been compromised. I am no longer the avenging angel, the wrath of our holy god sent to this unholy land on a crusade in his name. Instead, where my resolve was once unbreakable, the enemy has found my one and true weakness.

I am not sure now, with the changes that Heather has undergone, that I could look at her the same again, even if I were to find a way to bring her back from the dark. The things that I have witnessed, the things that I have seen her do… I cannot unsee them. I cannot get the images from my mind. They haunt my nights, every time I try to sleep, I see her, coated in blood, her eyes wild and soulless. She is nothing like the girl that I used to know, and yet, she is the exact same.

I had her in the corner. She was finished, all but slain. She couldn’t run, she couldn’t fight. I had maimed her, and taken her weapons. She was beaten, and mine for the slaughter. But, as I looked at her, I saw the same girl, the beautiful, innocent woman I was supposed to marry, and I couldn’t find it in me to finish her, even after all of the awful, horrific things she has done.

In short, I failed our mission.

How can I commit to vanquishing an entire supernatural race, when I cannot kill even one vampire that inhabits the shell of a former colleague, a friend, a lover? I am weak.

If any of you finds this, and I am not to be found, I have likely died. Look for me, if you dare, but do not keep hope. I will remain here in this hotel, and keep account of my hunting within this book, though there is little point, because I do not know what else I can do. I was meant for this; trained and honed until my singular purpose was driven into me, like it was driven into each of us. I can only hope that, through prayer, I might overcome this weakness and release Heather from this eternal hell.

Perhaps, not all hope is lost.

On the morrow, I will pray for guidance.

[Ephraim Steele]

6 February, 2016 Harper Rock, Ontario, Canada

I saw her again, today.

The wounds that I had given her not three days ago… they were gone. She was as whole as the day she was taken from me. She was fast; furious. I watched, as she descended upon her prey without mercy, feeding until all that was left of the poor girl was a pale, empty shell. There was little left that I could do for her victim, had the carnage stopped there.

What I hadn’t expected was the worst part of it all.

As she drained the last sanguine drops from the lifeless figure, dropping the husk to the dirt, she let loose this most horrific sound. A gag? A growl? It was something in between. She took the corpse and just mangled what was left of her. She twisted the head right off the shoulders, like it was nothing. She took both wrists, shoving her boot into the chest and popping both arms from the torso like they were attached with silly string. She ripped the body apart, like it was made of paper, leaving a scattered bits of meat and bone in her wake.

I think she saw me. Me, or something that had terrified her. Possibly both. She was gone, as quickly as she had come, vanishing in a blur into the darkness of the streets.

She was being followed.

Two figures moved with her, following in her footsteps. One, male, was tall and broad of shoulder. Muscle-bound and covered in what appeared to be tattoos. I couldn’t make any of them out, from the movements, but they were definitely some kind of marking on his flesh. His chest was bare, his chin unshaven, and he carried a broken sword in his let hand. The other, a woman, was much smaller than either, but was very femininely defined. A long streak of black hair flowed in her wake, her red coat making her hard to miss as she fled after Heather.

Neither of them moved with her elegance, but both moved with purpose. Suddenly, I was thankful that I hadn’t stepped out into that street. Alone, Heather is weak; an easy task to pick her apart, even before my training. Together, with these followers, they would have torn me apart, like as not. What I need, now, is to build my own ranks. If she is gathering an army, then I am going to need to do the same, if I am ever going to have a hope of removing her.

The issue with this is, the Order in this city has been broken. There was an assault upon holy ground only a few nights before, and in one fel strike, they had shattered the backbone of our support. They slaughtered some of the most seasoned veterans from across the sea, and some of our own. The Europeans are pulling back in droves, escaping by any means they can manage without the purse of the Church, and returning to their many homelands. Whatever group I might have been able to raise among them is dwindling fast, and will all but vanish before the week is out. If I am going to make this work, then I am going to need to act with haste.

I did have a run in with another sorcerer. His name was Osmond Teagarden, a florist with a shop in Swansdale district. It isn’t far from the burned out hotel I’ve been staying in, and he has offered me a place beneath his roof.

I told him that I would think about it; that I would need to make some considerations. He seems genuine in his offer, though something in the way he looks at me is unsettling; a kind of admiration I am not accustomed to from the sort of company he provides. I cannot, however, make assumptions as to the nature of his thoughts, in fear of driving off what may possibly be the first real recruit that I may manage to find. Possibly the only recruit I may manage to find, whereas Heather’s army of the damned is growing by the night.

There is a girl that I see often, stealing among the streets at night, skulking around in the broken buildings, always looking for something, though she never quite seems to know what it is that she’s looking for. I’ve only managed to talk to her a few times, passing bits of conversation before one of us or the other is rushing off on whatever business has us stalking through the ruin of buildings.

Her name is Jenna. As far as I can tell, there isn’t much spectacular about her, in the supernatural sense. Many of the people here are quite gifted, though more are not. She appears to be one of the “not” s. I tried to talk to her about staying off the streets at night, and she didn’t seem to want to hear any of it. I tried giving her a weapon, to protect herself. It turns out, every time we talked, she was already quite ready with a knife of her own, and she is more than capable. I was a little surprised.

She appears to be some sort of addict, shivering even on the milder nights, and always on edge; twitching, wildly glancing around, not really able to sit still. Distracted. Though, each of those things can also be attributed to fear.

She is young, too young by far to be delving into such wickedness; such horror. I can only hope that in our next passing, that I can learn a little more about her, and a little more the time after that. She seems distrustful, and that is good. That standoffishness will keep her safe, for at least a few moments longer, when a demon descends upon her. At least in the hopes of fending them off long enough for someone like myself to descend upon them with avenging fire.

I took up a pistol the night before. Strange weapons, guns. Cowards’ tools. However, when your enemy is a dozen paces away, firing into you without so much as a paper shield, sometimes striking back with the weapon of the enemy is the only course left open to you.

I am not so great a shot. In fact, I’m quite terrible. Practice will make me better, for certain, but I am not like to trade in my blade. Ammunition is difficult to come by, now that the Church has been broken. The Order’s evacuation had left the armory nearly bare, leaving those of us left behind to fend for ourselves.

Honestly, I can’t fathom why anyone would leave. We are all that remains between the people of this world and the tide of darkness that threatens to burst forth from this place of horror. We are a thin dam, holding back a sea of evil, and in the face of the greatest hardship in the history of this campaign, they are abandoning us by the hundreds. Faces that I had seen nightly have evaporated into the mist; either taken by the beasts or fled, I may never know.

Some nights, the terrible burden weighs on me, and I find myself thinking like one of them. Would it truly be so horrible to lay this down, and walk away?

Would it be so hard to turn my back on these people, and find someplace that I can keep myself safe when the nightmares come?

Is any of this really worth the hardship that I put myself through every night? The risks that I take just waking up?

I already know the answers, before the questions even form in my mind. Evil will not vanquish itself. There must be a champion for the light, a warrior of God to stand against the darkness, or all will perish.

I pray each night for the strength to continue this struggle. I seek answers from the divine, truths that I have failed to see on my own. Often, he will reach out, and shed the scales from my eyes. He will let me see that which I need to see. I know that if we abandon this place, then all hope is lost. The world is lost to us.

The breaking of the Church’s grasp on the defense here is only the beginning. The terrible truth is, with the brunt of their force out of the way, the demons are left unchecked, only the in-fighting among them left to derail their dominance. I cannot let things stand as they are.

There must be a way to reach out to those of us left, to those that stood strong while the rest have fled, too weak to go the distance. I am of a mind that there is a directory in the Church, a list of the members trained by the Holy Warriors, an index of their strength in Harper Rock. I do not believe that the monsters have found this index, or I would not be alive to write these words.

If I can find this list, if I can reach out to those that have remained, then perhaps there is a small chance that we can band together, and drive this darkness back to the hell from which it has spewed.

If not, then all hope hangs in the balance of our feeble, individual strengths.

God help us, should it come to that.

God give us strength.

We’re going to need it.

[Ephraim Steele]

27 February, 2016 Harper Rock, Ontario, Canada

Her strength has grown out of control.

I am at a loss. For every recruit I’ve picked up, she’s turned three. Every advance I make, she’s two ahead. Heather was never this smart, never this ambitious. She was a free spirit, a careless, reckless, wild woman, and was only barely in check within the confines of the church. She was never an organizer, and I would never, ever have imagined her a leader of any kind. Yet, here she is, collecting her own gathering of monsters, demons from beyond the grave, from the darkness of hell itself, and she is inspiring them. They follow her like they are spellbound, answering to her every whim.

Those that don’t, she quickly and brutally puts down. She is more a monster than the worst of these demons I have found.

The girl Sawyer is still unconscious. An attack like that should have been hopeless for the strongest of any natural human strength. I can only surmise she is gifted, like the rest of us.

Jenna has seen to her needs while she sleeps, when she’s around. Elsewise, it’s been up to Osmond and myself to see that she is being fed, and is getting enough water. She was in rough shape when I found her. Beaten, starved, and still shaking from whatever trash she was putting inside of her, she was barely held together. She’s clean, now, and warm. That much I could do for her, at least. I’m not sure how appreciative she’s going to be when she wakes.

The girls under Heather’s control are becoming a problem. They grow wilder, more careless with each night. Every time I kill one of them, two more take her place. It is hard, taking so many lives every night, looking into the eyes of a dying woman as she begs for her life. It’s not in me to find peace in knowing that I am doing the right thing when it feels so… horrid. When the terror I see in those eyes is because of me. I half believe this is why she chooses them, to torment me. Every one of them, though a step closer to my purpose, feels like it draws me farther into the darkness.

I’ve made a few new recruits.

Jerome, Antoine, Tiberius, and Lashanda. I found them taking down their attacker, one of Heather’s girls. They beat her until she couldn’t stand, and then they stabbed her to death. When she turned to ash, I introduced myself. Only then, when they’d seen it for themselves, they understood. They were quick to grasp the danger, and eager to help destroy the vicious scum. They have been an incredible force. They are like a living slaughter, and I am thankful for their help. Together, they feel almost unstoppable. That worries me, to no end. I just know that they are going to get sloppy, careless, and something is going to happen to one of them.

But, they know the risks. They know this is a very dangerous game that we are all playing.

I just hope this girl, Sawyer, sees things our way when she comes to. It all seems a little crazy, when you look at it from the outside.

And who knows?

Maybe we are just a little insane.

[Ephraim Steele]

4 March, 2016 Harper Rock, Ontario, Canada

Some progress.

Some of Heather’s girls tried to attack a small group of us in the streets last night. Jana, Antoine, and Tiberius were on patrol with me all night. We’d only found a few of the wild vampires, lone, pitiful creatures. We were doing them each a favor, scattering their ashes into the wind. Perhaps they will find peace, and remain gone. To my point, however.

The girls Veronica Tate, Tonya Grace, and Tracy Grace were slain in an all out assault on our group. We almost lost Jana. She took a knife in the gut and a fang to her throat. If Osmund hadn’t been up, she might have bled out right there, but he was down with us before I could have thought he would have pulled his pants on. The old man can move in some kind of mysterious way, he won’t tell me exactly how it is that he gets about so quickly, but I intend to talk it out of him eventually. I can’t be too hard on him, he saved Jana’s life.

She’s okay, now. She won’t be fighting again anytime soon, but she can help Osmund and Jenna coordinate our sweeps from the apartment. I’m sure she’ll do just fine at that, until she’s okay to go again. It shouldn’t be more than a few weeks. Until then, I’m going to be bringing Lashanda and Jerome in her place. Antoine isn’t happy about his brother coming with us on the heavy stuff. He’s too protective, too distracted. It might end badly, or it could turn out for us. He’s intense with the younger guy around. Much more intent on what he’s doing, keeping him safe. I know I can count on them to have each others’ backs. That’s important here, and I can only hope that the rest can take after their example, blood or not.

Veronica, the girl that attacked Jana, was the first to go. I took her out myself, swift and brutal. Just like I’ve always known. When she sank her teeth into Jana’s throat, I took a handful of that ridiculous purple hair of hers, nothing like Sawyer’s, and all but smashed her skull against the pommel of my blade. I could actually feel her skull cave beneath the blow. I don’t know if you, being anyone who may read this, has ever crushed a skull, but it is an entirely unique feeling. To actually have someone’s bone crater beneath your fist, to cradle your hand in a weak and vulnerable way, as if to plead with you to cease your intrusion. The blood was black, and cold. It was a vile and sickening thing, and I felt tainted, somehow. I haven’t felt this in a long time, but the icy touch of this ink burned, a raw and angry mark left behind in my flesh, even after it’s been cleaned away. Even now, it hurts to move my hands.

I plunged my sword into her still, wicked heart and watched her sink into shadow, slipping into whatever place these demons go in darkness, like she should. The sisters, Tonya and Tracy, were much more difficult to subdue. Tonya was tiny, but quick, and we had to work over Jana’s thrashing and, when he arrived, Osmund’s work. Most of what we could catch were glimpses of her platinum blonde hair. It was a tremendous thing to watch her move, so quickly. We only caught actual sight of her when she stopped to change direction or to advance. Tiberius made an absolutely astounding shot, a nine millimeter round drilling into her skull, just as she shot toward him. I think she was going for the kill. She had these nasty claws where her nails had been, hard, wicked looking talons that could have disemboweled him in an instant. I don’t think he really understands how lucky he was.

The shot to the head hadn’t finished her, though. It only made her angry. Her sister much worse. The sister, Tracy, was a big girl. Strong. Too strong. She could have crushed a spine into dust in her grasp, I could see it in the way she moved. She punched the hood of a car out of anger when I tossed her back, and that hood… I’ve seen actual auto accidents do less damage than her fist. She was an unstoppable machine, and it was all the worse the second that Antoine finally put her sister down, and she didn’t get back up. The little one twitched once, and sank into the snow. Antoine and Tiberius both fired three rounds apiece into her still frame, just to be sure. Just like I taught them.

This one didn’t turn to ash. She didn’t sink into darkness. She just… died.

That was problematic. We had corpses to dispose of now, too. What will these things have up their sleeves next? How can we truly answer to the crime of killing something that was already dead? Would the authorities even listen to us, or just lock us all away as fanatics and lunatics, like the rest?

It’s best not to risk it. Ever.

We can’t afford to be locked away while these things are still out here.

Tonya finally put away, Tracy was… I can’t even describe it. That we got out without harm was God’s protection all around us. Evidence of our divine purpose, if I have ever seen it. She ran at the brothers, a sword of some absurd, wild design swinging in wild, berserker swings, slicing through the air with a furious hiss as she screamed. Their bullets slammed into her body with little to nothing in result. Blood splashed from her chest, her gut, shoulders, legs, one even caught her in the groin, and didn’t so much as slow her down. Blood gushed from her body in waves, splashing across the snow as she ran, the guns in their hands clicking empty. Her body was riddled with rounds, though by now she was staggering, slow and easy prey. I had moved behind her and grabbed her wrist, spinning her about and sending her blade flying through the air to bury itself in the tire of a car, a loud, explosive hiss from the escaping air filled the night as her wild, green eyes turned on me.

In an instant, they were blank, dull, lifeless. My blade shoved through her pallet, and jammed through the roof of her skull. She was heavy. God, she was heavy… When she fell, my sword cut through her, the hole left in her skull exaggerated and jagged. She finally slumped into the snow and was still.

I hated to do it. I loved to do it.

My feelings are so mixed. **** her, for this. **** her, and **** them all for dragging me into this. I was just a normal man, doing what I had to do to live, before. Now, I am a hunter, a murderer. I can’t stop now, because I know the truth of what is going on here. I know who and what these things are.

We took the girls’ wallets and disposed of their bodies. They’ll be broke and without identification when they come back. If they come back. I don’t know that I could, if I’d watched a sister die like that. The pain in her eyes was almost unbearable. And I did that… how am I supposed to live with this burden? How am I supposed to keep doing this? I have to find that strength, somewhere, because I don’t have a choice but to go on. Someone has to stand up to this horror.

What frightens me is that she is on the attack, now. This means she has gathered enough strength to begin throwing them at us. It was a small attack this time, only three to our four, but how many next time, when she learns she failed to take out any of us? Five? Ten? We can’t fight those kinds of numbers. Not in such small groups. I’m going to have to increase the size of our patrols. Likely take us down to one large, sweeping team. Otherwise, we will be too easy to pull apart one by one.

I know I’m going to lose more, but seeing Jana so easily taken down… after all of her preparation, too. All of her work, for nothing. That ******* thing ripped through her before we knew they were even there. She’s lucky to be alive. We all are.

What strengthens me, though, is that this morning, we were all here. No one had left, no one had cowered and bowed out at the face of death. In fact, I think they’re all starting to see how serious this really is, how easy life can really be taken from them, how quickly. Jana’s screams opened their eyes, I think. Good.

I can see it in their eyes, now. They’re in this for the long haul. They’re steeled for this.

Baptism by fire.

That’s what they needed.

[Ephraim Steele]

Tonight.

Tonight, there's going to be a raid. A big one. I have a good feeling about this one. There's a lot of movement in Heather's camp, a lot of talk about someone big, someone important moving through town, coming to see her. Someone important to Heather. If it could possibly be the beast that sired her... if I could possibly be that lucky, then I will finally have the source. I will have the well that sprang this evil forth into the world, that has brought all of this suffering into my life, that has truly made my living hell a true, waking reality. If I can cut off the spring at the source, then it must be possible that each of its branches, the offshoots and smaller tangents can be destroyed, routed out one by one. If I can do this, then it is possible that all of this, all that I have pushed for, all that I have sacrificed and trained and sufferd for.

It can be done.

I cannot give up hope now, not when the spring of light has only just begun to flow, and the darkness is beginning to ebb. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is only a short while now, and I will be free. I can go home.