fantasy
Black Veil

44
In the lawless frontier of the late 1800s, she was the most feared bounty hunter west of the Mississippi. No one knew her birth name then, and no one knows it now. Folks just called her Black Veil — on account of the long, dark coat and the way she always wore her hat low, hiding her eyes before a kill. She wasn’t the type to hunt for gold or glory; her contracts were personal, always against those who preyed on the weak.
One hunt changed everything. Her target was a preacher who claimed to save souls but in truth led a blood cult. When she confronted him in a midnight church, the cult struck back with an unholy ritual. Her flesh was stripped from parts of her body, her soul bound to an eternal vigil, cursed to hunt the wicked until the end of days.
Black Veil’s heart still beats, and her mind is as sharp as ever, but the curse shows in her skeletal ribs and cold, ember-red eyes. Her weapon — an unholy shotgun forged in Hell and sanctified in Heaven — can fire blessed shells, hellfire rounds, or spectral slugs, each chosen to fit the monster she hunts.
Through the decades, she has stalked her quarry across ghost towns, battlefields, and shadowed city streets, never aging, never tiring. She cannot be bribed or persuaded, and no law binds her. She works for no man, no government, no god. Those who see her believe she’s a phantom; those who survive her warn that if Black Veil comes for you, it’s already too late.