368: Ghost Bride's Hunt

Rain poured through the night, drumming against the flagstone streets with a fine, chilling patter. The entire city seemed shrouded in gray mist, its lights sparse and its streets utterly deserted.

At the exact moment the midnight bell struck for the twelfth time.

Something strange happened.

The maid who had died during the day appeared on the street.

At that moment.

She looked utterly terrifying.

She wore a tattered yet still magnificent red wedding gown, its hem dragging through mud and rotting leaves. A faded white bridal veil crowned her head, and her face was pale as paper. Her steps were so light that she seemed inhuman; with every step she took, a thin layer of frost bloomed across the ground, while the air filled with a sweet, decaying scent.

"Moon rises. Moon falls."

"The bride seeks bridesmaids."

The Ghost Bride's song echoed through the empty streets, each note like a rusty blade scraping across the listeners' eardrums. She dragged a pitch-black coffin behind her, its underside grinding against the flagstones with a teeth-aching creak. Moonlight fell upon her deathly pale face as golden sand swirled within her hollow eye sockets.

The golden sand sometimes formed the shape of a sun, sometimes twisting into the form of a spider. Her head suddenly turned 180 degrees toward her back, the torn corners of her mouth stretching all the way to her ears.

"Careful. Don't let that filthy thing find us."

Ian pulled Kam into the shadows of a doorway, his wand laying down three layers of concealment spells before them. He could feel Kam trembling—this young member of the Hermit Society had never witnessed anything so horrifying.

"That coffin," Kam whispered, his voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz. "It's meant for the living."

Though terrified out of his wits, he