GRAVEHOOK

Chapter 3: Black Veins

Snow covered the road out of Brașov by noon.

The city disappeared gradually behind them beneath layers of mountain fog while dead pine trees crowded both sides of the frozen trail. Draeven rode ahead in silence with Mournhook resting across his back beneath heavy cloth wrappings. Every few minutes the scythe pulsed faintly against his spine, almost like a second heartbeat.

The boy walked beside Malgraves’ horse instead of riding.

Nervous. Watching everything.

Draeven had learned enough over the years to know fear when he saw it. This was different. The boy looked guilty.

“What’s your name?” Malgraves finally asked.

“Oric.”

“You said your sister returned.”

Oric nodded slowly without looking at him.

“She came back after three nights.”

“What happened then?”

The boy’s jaw tightened.

“My father let her inside.”

Draeven’s horse continued moving steadily through the snow while the silence stretched.

Then Oric spoke again.

“She killed everyone before sunrise.”

Malgraves closed his eyes briefly.

“How many?”

“Seven.”

The priest muttered a prayer beneath his breath.

Draeven didn’t.

He had seen enough villages emptied by night creatures to stop counting the dead years ago.

“What did it look like?” he asked.

Oric swallowed.

“At first… normal.” The boy rubbed trembling hands together against the cold. “Then she started smiling.”

Something in the way he said it made Malgraves uneasy.

“Smiling?”

“She never stopped.”

The wind picked up through the trees. Draeven’s eyes scanned the forest automatically.

No birds. No animal movement. No sound except snow beneath hooves.

Wrong.

Mournhook stirred faintly. Something follows. He kept his expression neutral.

“How far to Blackwater Monastery?” he asked.

“Another day if the roads stay clear,” Malgraves answered.

“They won’t.”

The priest looked toward the darkening forest around them.

“No,” he admitted. “Probably not.”

They reached the abandoned checkpoint shortly before dusk.

The old stone watchtower overlooked a narrow pass cutting deeper into the Carpathians. Once church soldiers had guarded the route. Now only broken barricades and frozen corpses remained.

Draeven dismounted first. One body wore church armor. The head was missing.

Another corpse had been nailed upside down against the tower wall using black iron spikes driven through both arms.

Oric stopped walking. His face drained of color instantly.

“That symbol…”

Burned into the tower stones behind the corpse sat the same mark from the crypt beneath Brașov.

Three lines through a circle. Fresh. Malgraves approached slowly.

“This wasn’t here recently.”

Draeven crouched beside one of the dead soldiers. Frost covered the body, but the wounds beneath the armor remained visible.

No tearing. No feeding. Precise cuts. Execution-style. He checked the man’s throat.

Deep bruising beneath the skin. Strangled first. Then mutilated afterward. Not monsters. Humans.

The whisper slid through his thoughts. She leaves messages for you.

Draeven ignored it.

The stable attached to the checkpoint still held enough shelter from the wind for the night. Malgraves lit a fire while Oric gathered old blankets from storage crates in the corner.

Draeven remained outside. The mountain air smelled wrong. Smoke mixed with decay.

He walked the perimeter slowly with one hand resting near the scythe handle beneath his coat.

The black veins beneath his arm burned steadily now.

Using holy fire in the cathedral had worsened it.

Again.

A familiar numbness crept slowly into his fingertips.

That worried him more than pain ever did. Pain meant the body still fought back. Numbness meant it was losing.

“You should rest.”

Malgraves stood behind him near the stable entrance. Draeven kept watching the tree line.

“Rest later.”

“You’ve been coughing blood for two days.”

“That long?”

The priest didn’t smile.

“This curse is progressing faster than before.”

Draeven finally looked at him.

“You know more about it than you admit.”

Malgraves hesitated.

The firelight behind him flickered across his tired face.

“I know what the church teaches.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Another pause.

Then the priest sighed quietly.

“When I was younger, I worked in the cathedral archives beneath Brașov.” His eyes drifted toward the snow-covered road. “I saw records involving hunters who survived too many years.”

“Meaning?”

“The curse changes eventually.” Malgraves lowered his voice. “Most hunters die before it reaches that point.”

“And the ones who don’t?”

The priest met his eyes carefully.

“They stop being human.”

The wind howled through the mountains between them.

Draeven said nothing. Somewhere deep down, he already knew.

Mournhook pulsed once against his back. Almost pleased.

Inside the stable, Oric suddenly shouted. Both men moved instantly.

Draeven entered first with the scythe already in hand. The boy stood frozen beside the rear wall staring toward the loft overhead.

Something moved up there. Slow dragging sounds.

Malgraves raised the lantern. The light reached blood first. Then bare feet hanging over the loft edge.

A woman crawled into view unnaturally, her limbs bending wrong against the wooden beams. Her mouth stretched into a grin so wide the cheeks had split open.

Oric staggered backward.

“That’s her…”

The creature’s eyes locked onto him immediately.

“Sister,” it whispered.

Then it dropped. Draeven intercepted it before it hit the ground.

Mournhook hooked beneath the creature’s arm and twisted violently, slamming it through a support post hard enough to splinter wood.

The thing shrieked. Not from pain. From anger.

Its body moved strangely beneath the skin, muscles shifting like insects crawling inside flesh.

Not fully transformed yet. Halfway. The creature lunged toward Oric.

Draeven stepped between them and drove his gauntlet into its face. Bone cracked loudly. The impact launched it sideways into the stable wall.

But instead of collapsing, it smiled wider through broken teeth. Black fluid spilled from its mouth.

“Still fighting,” it hissed. “Just like him.”

Draeven froze for half a second.

“Him who?”

The creature laughed. Then its body convulsed violently. The skin across its chest split open from the inside.

Something beneath the flesh moved. Malgraves immediately backed away.

“Kill it now.”

Draeven already moved. Mournhook swept downward

Too late. The creature’s torso burst apart.

A mass of black tendrils exploded outward across the stable floor while a smaller shape pulled itself free from inside the corpse.

Thin. Pale. Almost human. Its head twisted sharply toward Draeven.

And smiled.

The whisper inside Mournhook turned cold. That should not exist. The creature moved faster than expected.

It launched toward the ceiling beams, crawling upside down across the wood with twitching limbs while black saliva dripped from its mouth.

Draeven tracked it carefully. Not random movement. It was studying him. Then it spoke in a childlike voice.

“Father says your blood opens the door.”

The stable suddenly went silent. Even the wind outside seemed to stop. Draeven felt the curse pulse hard beneath his skin.

Black veins spread visibly across his throat. The creature tilted its head curiously.

“You’re changing faster than the others.”

It leaped. Draeven met it midair.

The scythe hooked cleanly through its side while his gauntlet caught its throat. Together the force slammed the creature into the floorboards hard enough to crack them apart.

The thing screamed violently. Dark fire burst from Mournhook’s blade.

This time the creature burned.

Its body twisted desperately while black smoke poured upward from the wound. The smell filled the stable instantly.

Rot. Burned meat. Sulfur. Then silence. The body collapsed inward into ash.

Oric stared at the remains, breathing hard.

“That thing was inside her?”

Malgraves looked far more disturbed than the boy.

“No,” the priest whispered. “That thing was wearing her.”

Draeven remained crouched beside the ashes.

Something metallic rested near the remains. A medallion. He picked it up carefully.

Church silver.

Marked with cathedral seals from Brașov. Malgraves saw it and went pale.

“No…”

Draeven turned the medallion over. A number had been engraved into the back.

M-17.

The same designation from the journal beneath the cathedral. Silence settled heavily inside the stable. Then Mournhook whispered softly against his mind.

Now you know why they fear your bloodline.

Outside, somewhere beyond the mountains, church bells began ringing through the storm.

Not for prayer.

For warning.