The Slaugh arrived in New York on the same day as the first snowfall of winter.
Still inhabiting the body of Max Bartlett, the Slaugh had reacquainted himself with this new world he found himself in while searching for the tools he needed to enact his plans. He had spent a good deal of time traveling as he gathered the items he would need to restore his brothers. During his travels since awakening from his underground prison, the Slaugh had observed the humans that ruled the world. Despite being the dominant species, they remained as weak and fragile as he remembered them to be. So easily breakable. The humans sat atop the food chain for the simple reason that they had superior numbers on their side.
Humanity did not inhabit the planet so much as they had infested it.
The world had changed while he had been imprisoned, trapped inside the body of Duncan McGrath and buried beneath the Earth by Hans Holzer and his infernal futuristic weaponry. Before that, he had been trapped within that blasted castle by the cursed Bartlett clan. Had it not been for the ego of Max’s father, Conrad Bartlett, moving the castle to the United States, the Slaugh would no doubt have remained stuck within its walls, consigned to forever haunt the corridors of the family keep, Heaven and Hell both denied him. The longer he was trapped, the longer his precious Wild Hunt would remain locked away in a purgatory not of their own making.
Fate, however, had other ideas.
Now, finally freed from his prison, the Slaugh had a new body, this one young and strong, and perhaps of most importance, wealthy. Learning that, through his new host body’s remaining memories, the Slaugh now controlled a vast fortune that made accomplishing his goals easier. One thing that had not changed from the old country to this new land was the need for currency. Man was still obsessed with acquiring wealth. How typical. After all this time, they remained little more than mewling children in need of a firm hand to guide them.
He would be that guiding hand.
Now that he had a sense of the world, he found himself understanding it even less so than he had previously. The humans who infested the Earth seemed to make things far more complicated than they needed to be. Or so it seemed to him. The humans he had encountered these past few weeks as he explored this new world were so busy looking toward the future that they seemed not to notice the world around them. It had not been too long since the second of two wars had enveloped the entirety of the planet. It angered him that The Wild Hunt had missed that one. It was the sort of thing he and his brothers lived for. Thankfully, the near eradication of their race did nothing to quench the human’s desire for war. There seemed to be no end to conflicts cropping up all around the globe.
The prevailing feeling, especially in the young humans he talked with, was that their world was doomed.
He couldn’t agree more.
They didn’t know it yet, but it wouldn’t be nuclear weapons that would bring about an end to their world, as so many feared. The Slaugh would be the one to end their puny existence. The Wild Hunt would begin anew, with he at its head. There was much sin in this new world and sinners aplenty to keep the Wild Hunt fed indefinitely.
Once the hunt resumed, these pesky humans would bow before him.
But first…
There was a debt that had to be repaid. Hans Holzer had stood between him and his goals. The Slaugh could not let such an effrontery go unpunished. Before he put his final plans in motion for the planet, he would find his enemy and then Hans Holzer’s nightmare would begin. The Slaugh planned to dismantle Holzer’s life piece by piece until his enemy begged for death. Only then would he consider ending his enemy’s suffering. Only then would he allow Hans Holzer’s death.
That was why he had come to the city called New York.
His quarry was close.
Soon, Hans Holzer would be nothing but a memory.
The Slaugh flipped up the collar on Max Bartlett’s coat and walked through the snow deeper into the city. There was still much work to do before he could take his revenge. He laughed at the thought of what was to come.
Hans Holzer’s death would herald the end of the world.
It was time for the Wild Hunt to ride again.
Despite having a name that traced back centuries, McGinley’s Pub was little more than a downtown dive.
The Slaugh had been drawn to it. He wasn’t sure if it was the smell of stale Irish whiskey in the air that reminded him of his old stomping grounds or if it was the sensation of menace that radiated from the bar. Whatever it was that had attracted his attention, the beast wearing Max Bartlett’s body grew excited the closer he got to the door. It had been far too long since he had stepped foot inside a traditional Irish Pub. He couldn’t wait to see what debauchery awaited him inside.
The pub was not quite what he had imagined it would be.
Such a pity.
The place looked right, it even smelled right, but there was something missing, something he couldn’t quite describe. The best analogy he could think of was watered down. Yes, that was the sensation. Like so much of this new world that had grown atop the old world he knew, this place had been diluted into something less than pure. It sickened the Slaugh to see that his once proud heritage had become less than it was. He would have to correct that oversight.
The place reeked of old booze, sweat, and urine. This was the type of place that the original Wild Hunt would have called their own back in the old country. He found it poetic that the Wild Hunt’s rebirth should take root in a place such as this. The original Wild Hunt had been birthed in a roughshod place. They crawled out of the muck and blazed a trail across the old country, setting it aflame beneath their hooves. For a time, they were kings, feared by rabble unfit to lick their boots.
Like all good things, however, the hunt ended.
The end came on a battlefield stained red with the blood of friends and enemies alike. It was on this last battlefield that The Wild Hunt fell.
The Slaugh still remembered his death. The pain was as intense as it was quick and then he was gone, but only for a moment. The Slaugh was reborn in a form that was and was not his own. It had taken time to learn how to maneuver within his new form, but eventually, the Slaugh regrouped with his brothers and resumed the hunt. They blazed a trail across the land, ripping sinners from their homes with impunity. They performed a service. They were, as one enemy referred to them, a necessary evil.
Then, The Wild Hunt chanced upon a coven whose sinners were strong.
He had seen their kind before, gypsy caravans filled with those who worshipped the Earth Mother or some such nonsense. He disliked their kind, but the Slaugh had never had need to fear any witch before. However, what he and his band of brothers had not realized was that their new forms were susceptible to the witches’ power. The coven dispatched his brothers to a hellish purgatory realm, but because of his actions against the coven, they had a special punishment for him. They bound him to the stones of a castle near their settlement where he was trapped for days without ceasing. Centuries passed and his imprisonment was hell itself until one fateful day when workers began to disassemble the castle and moved the stones piece by piece to a boat that took them across the seas and far out of reach of the witches who had imprisoned him.
The Slaugh was still trapped by the stones, but he found himself suddenly able to move around within the castle walls. It wasn’t freedom, but it was a step closer than he had been. The farther he moved from the coven’s power base, the weaker their magic became. A plan was hatched. The Slaugh vowed that he would gain freedom.
He almost made it too.
If not for a chance encounter with a man named Hans Holzer when everything changed.
Once again, he died.
Only, he didn’t really die this time.
His new prison was worse than the one before. He was held immobile beneath the musty dirt of this new world. How long he was held there, he could not say, but the Slaugh was certain it was not as long as he had been trapped within the walls of Castle Bartlett.
Now, he was free once more, with a new body, newfound wealth, and an ages-old unquenched lust for vengeance upon his enemies and their offspring. The first step toward quenching his desire for revenge was to return his brothers from the hell they had been cast into by the coven.
The Slaugh had a plan and it all started here.
“This will do nicely,” he whispered as the pub door closed behind him. In spite of his best efforts, the body he now inhabited could not handle the lyrical lilt of his Irish brogue the way his original form had. That, he decided, was the cruelest injustice of all. No longer did he even sound like a son of Ireland. The voice he shared with Max Bartlett sounded to his ears like fingernails on a blackboard.
You could hear a pin drop inside the once noisy saloon the moment his presence was noticed by the regulars. All eyes faced him, yet no one uttered a word. The Slaugh couldn’t tell if they felt his power or if they were sizing Max up for their next meal. Whatever they had planned, he decided to let it play out. He was curious to see what type of men this brave new world had produced. Would they be better than the rowdy bunch he had known in times past? He suspected that these so-called modern men would prove themselves to be not only weak of will, but also weak of body. While he hoped to be proven wrong, the Slaugh wasn’t sure he would find what he needed at McGinley’s Pub.
Max made his way casually down the three steps to the floor, peanut shells crunching beneath his heels. The way he moved, it was like he didn’t have a care in the world. As he approached the bar, a young dandy wearing clothes that cost more than some of the bar’s patrons earned in a year whistled an old Irish folk tune from the homeland.
“I’ll have an Irish Whiskey. Neat, and a chaser of Murphy’s Stout.” he told the bartender, an older gent whose name tag announced that his name was Bob and that it was his pleasure to serve you. The Slaugh tossed a wad of Max’s cash on the bar. “Make sure it’s the good stuff,” he added with as much menace as his host’s voice allowed, which, he was the first to admit, wasn’t much.
Apparently, it was enough in this case. With unsteady hand, the bartender nodded and pulled a nearly full bottle from beneath the bar. He smiled when the bartender began to pour and he tossed back the sweet elixir as soon as the man finished. The alcohol burned all the way down. It was a wonderful sensation. He immediately followed the whiskey by quaffing down the entire pint of cool draught ale. He slammed the empty glass back down on the polished oak with a satisfying THUNK! “Another.”
“Hey,” one of the mutts standing nearby said, finally finding his nerve. “Hey! You! This is our place, ya wanker. What are ya doin’ here?” He laughed, turned back to his smiling friends to show his manliness. They egged him on.
It was all the Slaugh could do not to laugh at the foolish gowl who believed himself a man worthy of speaking with such impunity to one of his betters.
“I said what’cha doing in here, eh, rich boy?” the idiot said again, louder this time.
As before, Max ignored him and ordered another drink.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!” He clapped a hand on Max’s shoulder.
Whatever reaction the idiot had been expecting, he got the opposite. Moving faster than the mutt’s eye could follow, Max spun around on the barstool, grabbed the man’s arm in his grip, and broke it in two as easily as if snapping a twig. The crack of breaking bone echoed through the still quiet bar.
Seconds later, the only sound he heard was the mutt’s screams as he cradled the now worthless arm dangling at his side.
Ignoring the man’s pained cries, Max turned back to the bar. “One more,” he told the bartender as if nothing had happened.
The bartender’s complexion had been pale to begin with, but he was now three shades whiter since Max sat down at the bar. A tiny quiver ran through him as he lifted the bottle.
“Why don’t you just leave the bottle and I’ll pour my own,” Max said politely.
Unable to find his voice, the bartender nodded and took two steps backward, never taking his eyes off the man sitting at the bar.
“That’s far enough, Bob” Max said as he examined the bottle.
The bartender stopped as though frozen in place.
“It is Bob, right?” he said, wagging a finger toward the nametag without actually looking at the scared bartender.
Bob nodded vigorously until he realized that the man at the bar wasn’t looking in his direction. He added a simple, “uh huh.”
Max shook his head. “You don’t shake something as perfect as this, Bob,” he told the bartender. “Not the good stuff. This…” he admired the bottle. The glass was old, pitted. It had seen some history. “You treat something as special as this like a lady. Understand?”
The bartender nodded in mute terror.
“Stick around, Bob.”
Max turned back toward the silent crowd. “Oh, I forgot you were here,” he said when he saw the idiot still crumpled on the floor holding his wounded arm. With a smile, he turned his attention away from the whimpering man and focused on his friends. There were only four of them.
“Everyone out,” Max said.
Although he didn’t raise his voice or shout, the patrons packed in to the various corners and booths picked up their belongs, dropped cash onto the tables as they vacated them, and moved toward the exit as quickly as possible. None of them wanted to draw attention to themselves.
“Not you,” Max said to the friends of the wounded mutt before they could move.
Nervous, they stood their ground. The Slaugh appreciated their courage, but could also smell their sweat and taste their fear from across the room.
The moment the last person went out the door, Max stood. As if on command, the door slammed shut as if pushed by some unseen wind. In the silence of the pub, the sound of the deadbolt clacking into place was deafening.
“What do you want, mister?” one of the mutt’s friends asked, trying hard not to stammer over himself.
“Yeah,” another said. “Look, we was just having some fun, mate. There’s no need to escalate things, if you know what I’m saying. We didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
“Escalating?” Max echoed as a smile creased his face. “Oh, we’ve not yet begun to escalate, my friend.”
“Please, mister,” the stammerer said, taking a step back.
“Look, let’s just call it even,” another said. “We’ll leave and you’ll never see us again. What do you say?”
“Sit.”
The four men did as they were told.
“Do you know who I am?”
“N—nu—no.”
“I didn’t think so.” Max sat down at the same table as the four ruffians, Keiran, Reilly (the stammerer), William, and Hugh, their last names were not important. Before this night was done, even their first names would hold little meaning. His smile was gone, replaced by an emotionless blank slate.
Although each of them dwarfed him in height, width, and muscle, everyone inside the pub understood exactly who held the power. There was no question as to who was in charge.
“I am… My name is Max. At least for now. I’m looking to hire four strapping young lads who still have Irish blood flowing through their veins. Tell me, boys, are you true sons of Ireland?”
There were nods from all around the table.
“Excellent. I admit that you four were not my first choice, but you are the best candidates I’ve run across since I arrived in this blasted city of steel and stone.”
“Uh…ch—ch—choice for what?” the stammerer asked.
“Tell me, gentlemen, have you ever heard of The Wild Hunt?”
“The Wild Hunt? That… that’s folklore, man.”
Max smiled. “Is it? Fascinating. I take it then that you are all familiar with the stories?”
Nods from all.
“Good. Then you also must know that the Wild Hunt was made up of Slaugh, the specters of dead Irish sinners.” Max chuckled. “Sinners like me.”
“What do you know of Ireland, man?” one of the ruffians asked, although he did not raise his voice. “You’re American.”
Max touched his new face, his distinctly American face. “Only on the outside, my friend.” When he saw only a mask of confusion on the faces of his new friends, Max elaborated. “The Wild Hunt was made up of displaced souls who found new life in the body of those sinners they displaced. Like I did with the man whose form I now wear.”
The Slaugh waited for understanding to set in.
He was not prepared for what happened next.
The men burst out in peals of laughter.
“Oh, man,” one of them said around gasps for air. “You had us going for a moment there, mate. Ghosts, goblins, and spooks are boogey men for little kids. Do we look like children to you, mister?”
“Actually, yes,” Max said, his tone flat and even.
“Well, you can take your ghost stories and shove them, mate. We aren’t interested.”
“Your loss,” Max said. “The process is much less painful if you don’t fight it.”
“Pro…Process?” the stammerer asked. “What are you––?”
“Oh, did I not mention what was about to happen here?” he shrugged. “Forgive me. I’m still new to speaking English. You Americans talk so strange. You four have been chosen for a great honor.”
“We—we have?”
“Indeed,” the Slaugh said, the smile back in place. “You four are going to be my new Wild Hunt.”
“But you said the Wild Hunt was made up of dead Irish sinners.” another of the men said as realization started to dawn. His face blanched white. “We’re not dead.”
“Details,” Max said, his smile widened so much it looked as though his face was going to split open.
Suddenly, the temperature in the bar dropped. An unearthly howl split the air, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. A fierce wind accompanied the wild screeching sound, echoing off the walls and bar as the souls of the Slaugh’s dispatched comrades joined him at last.
It had taken some doing to recall their essence from the ether where they had been sent so many long years ago, but now they were once more tied to the mortal plane. All they needed were new hosts to tether them fully.
That’s where the bar’s patrons came in. The ruffians were youthful, their bodies in prime shape with decades left ahead of them. They were ideal candidates for hosts. Plus, after spending even as short a time with them as he had, the Slaugh suspected that there would be no one to miss them and even fewer who would be surprised when they disappeared from the routine of their fleeting mortal lives.
Now and forever more, they belonged to the Slaugh.
They screamed, tried to escape. Two ran toward the door, which refused to open no matter how much they pulled against it. The remaining two thought to fight back. Neither action would work in their favor. All fighting back would accomplish was to provide sport for the specters of his brothers and that made taking over their forms all the more enjoyable. It was always more palatable to seize prey that fought back to those that surrendered without a fight.
It was over in minutes.
As silence settled once more over the bar, Max Conrad smiled as his newly rebirthed brothers stood before him wearing their new bodies.
“Welcome back, brothers,” the Slaugh said with pride. “As of tonight, The Wild Hunt rides again and this world… this world shall burn beneath our feet.”
Howls of laughter filled the night as the hunt began anew.