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After learning the truth from Weldir, she knew these devils weren’t an act of God but just were , and no number of human sacrifices were going to save humankind.

Lindi hadn’t needed to be stolen. She shouldn’t have been presented with a choice between dying forever or trapping her soul to a faceless being.

I really should stop calling them devils, though.

Humans had already begun giving them a name – those that were deemed insane by others.

The kind of people who made mothers bring their children closer, as they were screamed at about the ending of time, the fall of Earth, and how the sins of humans had brought this upon them.

They shouted with panicked, crazed, and manic eyes about the Demons that were coming to destroy them and how they must repent – must stay in the Almighty’s heavenly light.

To fear the night. To save their children before it was too late.

It was oddly humorous how those deemed insane were completely and utterly correct.

But Lindi knew that was how she’d be perceived if she started spouting the truth, so she kept her lips firmly shut.

She never told a soul about what she’d experienced, seen, or what had happened to her as they buried her mother. She gave her home to the leader of the village, told them she didn’t care what they did with it, and left without so much as an explanation.

Instead, she began to hunt.

Her heart had been so sickly, so broken, dripping with agony in every single drop of blood it pumped into her veins, that she swore she’d stop other women from experiencing what she had. Vengeance led her path.

And as much as it was against the teachings of the religion she’d devoted herself to her entire life, she let hate fuel her. She let it fester into a sore wound, one that she scratched at until it was irritated and impossible to ignore no matter how much she, at times, tried to soothe it.

For years she searched until her path had taken her straight to the easiest man to pick from a crowd.

A part of her was thankful that the first of the three men she found, those who had ruined her life, was the one who had the biggest impact.

The one who, had he not rammed a sword through her father’s gut, may have allowed Lindi to return to her loving parents and find them both alive.

They could have reunited; she could have spared them of their grief upon her return.

She could have had a semblance of normality within the overshadowing strangeness her life had turned into as Weldir’s pet.

Not a single part of her felt regret when she finally gained the courage, the very will, to do to him as he had done to Nico.

Sure, it’d taken her many days of following him to finally enact the first stage of her revenge, needing to shed away the guilt nipping at her, as well as the fear that the Almighty Father would strike her down for going against his teachings.

She had to remind herself that she was out of his reach and trapped by another, now the wife of a deity who didn’t even belong in this world.

So, if her soul was already tainted, traded, and belonged to someone else, it meant her freewill was utterly hers. More so than any other human walking this world. Weldir truly didn’t care. He had bestowed no rules or restrictions, despite admitting that he was unable to enact such violence.

She was free from his restrictions. She was his freedom now regarding that, a loophole he’d found, and she just hoped he never planned to abuse that through their bond.

She only wanted to end life because she deemed it justice, not because of the whims of a fickle and absent god.

And Lindi found it very justifiable to go around murdering those who left women at the edge of an unholy cliff. She found solace in that rage, found peace in that bloodshed. Giving back the power to the innocent and weak by saving them before they could be taken.

No amount of fury could take back the glory of her innocence, but becoming a waking hell had given her the sharpest teeth.

Sal being her first fatality – she refused to call him a victim – had been a blessing on her subconscious.

His strange scars and ugly mannerisms had made him the easiest to track – as she’d been able to garner information regarding his last known whereabouts from his description.

She’d offered him no chance to beg or plead.

Oh, but did she haunt him when he first discovered her in his room at a tavern.

The corners of her lips curled upwards in dark humour as she remembered turning incorporeal to float above his bed and give him the fright of his life.

When she finally decided she would take his life, she followed him and stuck to the shadows, making sure only he could see her, and disappeared before his companions could.

She wanted him to look deranged to Gregory and Mathews.

To whine and whimper about the woman he’d callously discarded in the middle of fucking nowhere as a sacrificial lamb.

Then, when the time felt just right, when she’d made him suffer even just a fraction of the horror she had, she sliced his throat open without a single word.

That shouldn’t have felt as satisfying as it did. The blood that had spilled upon her shouldn’t have felt so warm and inviting, but finally getting back at him for taking away her entire life, her parents’ lives, felt righteous.

She’d followed Gregory and Mathews until they revealed the deeper occult, as she’d suspected these despicable men weren’t the only ones doing this.

She’d been right. Deranged men and women would gather in secret to discuss what they were doing and babble on about the insanity that they believed.

On top of that, they discussed the best women to steal – those who were exposed, pure, and easy to take.

And once she’d picked them off one by one, she followed the leader to another town and repeated the very same thing.

In just a few years, she’d managed to cull their numbers down, visiting different towns, villages, or cities until there was only one left to follow. But there were hundreds more she needed to pick off, and the task seemed endless.

Which was perfectly fine, as she had an infinite amount of time to do as she pleased.

As she did this, she practised with her new magical abilities every chance she had – although as sparingly as possible to ensure she didn’t drain Weldir completely, like she’d promised.

Then again, she had a feeling he was using much of it himself.

She’d only been returned to his mist a handful of times since their deal, and it was for an entirely selfish reason on his behalf. Despite knowing that she would have to restart at the centre of Austrális, Weldir snatched her from her location when she’d encountered her very first Ghost.

He made her turn incorporeal and hold its arm, so he could teleport them to his realm. She’d hated the way it’d screamed in terror at her, how it’d squirmed as it tried to rip her hold from it. She’d felt awful that she’d frightened it so deeply.

She’d hated it more that there was nothing else she could do but be obedient.

Lindi had just been thankful it turned into a white flame the moment she was encompassed by Weldir’s shroud, as if the terrified Ghost no longer existed. It hadn’t been hot – the flames hadn’t scalded her – but she’d immediately released it for Weldir to take.

When she’d expressed her displeasure towards both the act and that she would be forced to start over her journey, he’d offered her a solution.

Thankfully she’d had a ceramic vial hidden away in her satchel that had been filled with a salve to protect any wounds she gained in her travels.

In her Phantom form, she was able to make it tangible to him.

He’d emptied its contents and altered the vessel with his magic so it could draw in spirits of the deceased.

Then she could ferry them to his mist of her own volition as an offering to him.

Although she was grateful for his creation, she didn’t want to.

She refused to return to the Veil when there were more occultists she needed to eradicate. To the very place her life had ended and had been taken from her.

Weldir could wait.

She hoped he waited until the end of time.

Lindi had no desire to be a god’s plaything. She didn’t want to have to spread her legs for him, or give birth to his children, or really anything that she’d promised.

She would, when the time eventually came, but she just hoped it never did. She hoped he never woke up this time.

It had been over two years since she’d last heard from him, and she did, selfishly, waste a little more magic every day than she should in hopes of keeping him asleep. She used just enough so that she stayed empowered but left him weak enough where he couldn’t mould her to his whims.

She wanted to keep this freedom.

She also didn’t want to hear him whispering in her ear, reminding her of the task he bestowed upon her.

That she must collect souls in her travels in order to empower him when she did return.

He watched when he wanted to, and she often thought she could feel his gaze by the hairs rising on the back of her neck – a completely irrational and paranoid reaction, considering his current slumber.

Even now she felt it, more than usual, and she reached into the hood of her brown cow-hide cloak and rubbed at her nape.

A shudder tore down her spine. She brushed some of her bangs from her forehead to clear her vision, before patting down the grey tunic she wore and playing with the ties around her waist. Her burgundy breeches were a little tighter than she’d like them across her backside, but they were designed for men that lacked a woman’s round arse.

She’d opted for something looser rather than something that stretched over her generous backside, so the legs and waistband were baggy to compensate.