The Witch

Went hiking early this morning. VERY early. Like midnight early. We went walking around the woods in the area that the anomalous victim liked to hike. Turns out that someone was waiting for us.

At first, I thought it was the Plague Doctor-- black cloak, beak, humanoid appearance-- but as it came closer I realized that it was a pale, blonde woman, wearing nothing but a cloak of black feathers and a very large bird skull. Thunder cracked above us as she approached, and I could feel the tips of my fingers tingling from the electricity in the air. I looked up and saw blackness above-- no stars, no moon. A storm was coming.

The woman halted a few feet before us and said nothing. Just stood there. Glorius took a step toward her, surprisingly cautiously, and stopped abruptly when she let her cloak fall to the ground.

I won't lie and say she didn't have a beautiful body... she didn't have a beautiful body. Once it might of have been, but it was so covered in scars and scabs that anything enticing about it had long since been eradicated. I shined my flashlight on her, and realized with a start that the scabs were moving.

Tiny little beaks burst out of the woman's flesh, and birds clawed their out of her body. Thunder cracked again, and this time when I looked up, it wasn't storm clouds I saw.

Birds. Thousands upon thousands of birds covering the sky, the beating of their wings the source of the thunder.

I stood before the Convocation.

The woman-- obviously one of the Convocation's Nests, spoke, and her voice was a scratchy, hellish whisper: "They have been attacked by your killer, and they are angry. He hides, but they shall find him."

Oh.

Fuck.

The anomalous death? A Nest. One of the Convocation's Servants. Seems Sleight had begun to branch out into other Entities' domains. And now he's pissed off the Convocation.

Hiding in the Great Smoky Mountains, with quite possibly every bird for miles after his blood? You know what I'd do in that situation? Because I'm pretty sure Sleight'll do the same thing.

I've called in a bunch of Hallowed, and I've stationed them around the Empty City, in every area that seems to have any correspondence whatsoever to the Smokies. Still that's anywhere from three to three million miles (depending on the City's mood) to cover, but with a little luck, we may be able to catch Sleight when he makes his escape.

And hopefully we'll get him before the Convocation does. If he has any sense, he probably hopes that too.

-STEWARD