The thing that had struck the Vampire Hunter did not look like it belonged in the world.
Its body was blackened, not by shadow, but by searing burned through and through, its muscles shriveled and exposed in patches where skin had sloughed off long ago. What remained was a grotesque tapestry of ruin, a thing that had been flayed and charred in turns, left to fester in the dark. It had no clothes, yet shame was not a concept applicable to it. What covered its form was soot, grime, and blood that had dried like lacquer over sinew, a second skin of suffering.
It moved like hunger given shape.
