(A/N):
Drop a meme here that you find funny. Or reflects your mood.
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Meanwhile,
Hobb's Spring Resort...
Jackson slid the phone back into his pocket, his face a mask of cold calculation.
"____"
He turned to where Sally was sprawled in the shadows, her body tangled with Danny's—
Both too lost in their intoxicated haze to be disturbed.
The rhythmic beat of the drums and drunken howls of the night party echoed behind them,
Cannibals still celebrating with wild abandon.
Jackson's gaze hardened.
'Good… keep them distracted.'
He raised his hand and crooked a finger.
Five of the cannibals—
Tall, feral-eyed men with scarred faces and sharpened teeth—
Stepped away from the firelight and came to his side.
Their movements were eager but silent, like hounds waiting for their master's command.
"We're going to the graveyard,"
Jackson said, his tone clipped.
"Something—or someone—dared to destroy the mediums."
One of the cannibals tilted his head.
"____"
"The witch's curse?"
Jackson's eyes narrowed.
"Yes. Gladys just confirmed it. And I've got a good guess who's behind it…"
He paused, his jaw tightening as the memory surfaced—
The smell of burning flesh in the cave, the broken god's statue,
And the blood splattered on stone.
"The same bastard who killed two of ours in the cave."
The five cannibals exchanged uneasy looks but nodded quickly, their excitement growing.
Growl~
"____"
Jackson gave one last glance at Sally and Danny—
Still lost to their own forbidden pleasures—
Before stepping into the darkness of the woods with his small war party.
The night air was thick,
The forest silent save for their footsteps crunching over dead leaves.
Jackson's mind, however, was anything but calm.
'Whoever you are… you've crossed us twice. You won't leave West Virginia alive.'
Meanwhile, at the graveyard,
Jojo leaned casually against a weathered headstone, arms crossed, his eyes glowing faintly in the dim moonlight.
Around him, the others stood alert but calm,
The eerie silence of the cemetery only broken by the rustle of dry grass swaying in the midnight breeze.
"____"
"____"
"____"
Inadu knelt near the scorched patch where the cursed objects had been incinerated,
Her fingers brushing over the ash.
She glanced up, her expression sharp.
"They'll come,"
She said with certainty.
"The backlash must've been severe. Whoever cast the curse will feel the pain of it… and they'll want answers."
Freya gave a little smirk, though her fingers tapped the edge of her dagger impatiently.
"Good. Saves us the trouble of hunting them down."
Hope stood close to Jojo, her arms folded,
Her sharp eyes sweeping across the gravestones.
Joshi and Lizzie hung back slightly, curiosity and nerves dancing across their faces.
For all their bravado, they had never witnessed anything like this—
Waiting in the dead of night for an enemy to appear out of the shadows.
Jojo exhaled a slow breath, his tone almost playful.
Chuckle~
"So we sit tight, and when the rats come sniffing around their little playground…"
He let a faint grin curl across his lips.
"We torch 'em."
Inadu's expression softened for only a moment as she glanced at him.
"This isn't just about burning them, Jojo. Break a voodoo link this violently, and the caster won't just be angry—they'll be desperate. And desperate people… are the most dangerous."
The group fell silent again, the tension thickening.
Then, faintly, the sound of approaching vehicle.
Jojo tilted his head, a flicker of hellfire dancing briefly in his eyes.
"They're here."
The silence of the graveyard shattered as the low rumble of an engine drew near.
Headlights cut through the fog, washing over crooked gravestones and bathing Jojo's group in stark white beams.
The van rolled to a stop a few feet away, its brakes screeching faintly as dust and leaves swirled in the night air.
"____"
"____"
"____"
Jojo didn't flinch.
He remained seated on the cracked headstone like it was a throne, arms draped loosely over his knees, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips.
Smirk~
Beside him, Inadu's eyes gleamed with measured focus,
While Freya's posture was already angled like a predator ready to caste spells.
Hope, Josie, and Lizzie stood slightly behind, their expressions hardening under the light's glare.
Inside the van, the driver—
One of the cannibals—
Grinned wide, lips curling back to reveal stained teeth.
His hungry eyes roamed over them as though they were already carved up on his plate.
But it was Jackson in the passenger seat who carried the weight of the moment.
His jaw tightened, eyes narrowing as he studied Jojo through the glare.
His hand flexed once, resting over his thigh, as if itching to reach for a weapon.
The van's engine hummed low, the night waiting with bated breath.
Jojo finally leaned forward, his face catching the headlights, the shadow of a grin flickering across it.
His voice was calm, almost mocking.
"Well, well… looks like the rats found their way back to the cemetery."
The cannibal driver chuckled under his breath, fingers tapping the wheel.
Chuckle~
Jackson, however, didn't laugh.
"____"
His eyes sharpened,
The muscles in his neck stiff as he tilted his head ever so slightly.
"You,"
He said coldly, his voice cutting through the night.
"So it was you who dared to break the god's chains."
With a click, the passenger door swung open.
Jackson stepped out, boots crunching against the gravel of the graveyard path.
In his hands gleamed a battered shotgun, the barrel lifting slow and deliberate until it leveled on Jojo's chest.
His frame was stiff, his face shadowed beneath the halo of the headlights,
But his voice carried that strange, deceptive warmth—
Like a neighbor stopping by to check the fence.
"Well now,"
He drawled, his tone oily and aged,
"I don't recall seein' any of you folks 'round here before. Not once. This here's a small, tight place. Everybody knows everybody."
He tilted the shotgun a little higher,
His head cocking just enough to show a flicker of the coldness in his eyes.
"So tell me—who are ya? What's your business lurkin' about in the cemetery at this hour?"
The driver's door slammed shut behind him as the cannibal slid out, his grin wide,
Grin~
"____"
His nostrils flaring at the scent of fresh meat.
Behind them, five more figures poured from the van, weapons catching the headlight's beam.
Rusted axes, chipped butcher knives, jagged blades—
Tools stained with use.
Their footsteps crunched against gravel as they fanned out,
Their ragged breathing heavy in the night.
Jojo didn't move.
He sat on the cracked headstone with the same lazy posture,
The glow of the headlights painting his face in hard lines.
The corner of his mouth tugged into a smirk as he looked from Jackson's shotgun to the drooling cannibals tightening their grips on steel.
Inadu's fingers brushed across her side, already feeling the faint hum of power under her skin.
Freya shifted slightly forward, calm but watchful,
While Hope's eyes flashed with quiet warning.
Josie and Lizzie—
Though standing behind—
Wore the eager, sharp look of siphoners waiting for a chance to sink their teeth into magic.
"____"
"____"
"____"
The graveyard was dead silent except for the whistle of the wind and the faint metallic click of Jackson's thumb brushing the shotgun's hammer.
"Well?"
Jackson asked again, voice bending between mock concern and accusation.
"You ain't from here, are ya? Folks 'round these parts don't take kindly to strangers meddlin' in things they ought not touch."
Jojo's laugh cut the night like a blade.
He flipped Jackson the bird without bother —
A blunt, ugly gesture that hung in the headlights for a heartbeat.
Jackson's face went rock-hard.
The syrupy, friendly mask snapped clean off.
"____"
He barked, the shotgun rising like a judge's gavel.
"If you lot don't answer right now, I'll make sure not a single one of you walks out of here alive!"
Jojo only shrugged.
"Yeah? Try it."
A shot cracked.
Boom!
Pellets tore into the gravel at Jojo's feet, showering sparks and throwing up dirt.
The blast was a clear warning —
And the signal.
The five cannibals surged forward like a pack finally unleashed, blades glinting, breath ragged and hungry.
For a beat everything narrowed.
Thud. Thud.
The thud of their steps, the drum of the faraway party, the crackle of the small embers left from the burned fetishes.
Then Jojo pushed himself up from the headstone slowly, almost lazily, like a man getting up from a nap.
"FUCK YOU,"
He said flatly —
And the world answered.
A black puff of smoke rolled off him and the Ghost Rider was there.
Flames eating the collar of his jacket, a skull lit from within, chains coiling across his shoulders.
The night air hissed.
HISS~
RARARA~
"TURN AROUND, JACKSON. THIS ISN'T THE NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH."
The Rider barked —
The voice a furnace, all caps burning the silence.
Jackson squinted, finger white on the shotgun trigger.
For a second he hesitated —
"____"
The kind of hesitation a man takes before deciding if he's going to die for his pride by the monster before him.
He chose pride.
He leveled and fired again.
Boom!
The slug whistled past the Rider and slammed into a headstone behind him.
The stone shattered, spraying dust.
That little delay was all Jojo needed.
He moved like flame and shadow.
One burning chain whipped out and wrapped around the arm of the nearest cannibal,
Yanking the axe out of his grip and sending it clattering into the dirt.
Another chain slammed into a second attacker's throat, lifting him off his feet —
Not to kill, but to terrify.
The Rider's laughter was a low, cruel rumble.
GAGAGAGAGA~
"LOOK INTO MY EYES."
The Rider warned, and two of the cannibals who met that hell-fire gaze convulsed as if the world inside their skulls had been flipped.
Their faces drained.
"____"
"____"
Screams —
Not animal howls, real human agony —
Erupted as visions of each victim's last moments were shoved back at them a thousand times over.
When the convulsions stopped, two forms slumped into ash, glowing embers drifting down to stain the grass.
The remaining cannibals hesitated.
"____"
"____"
"____"
Cannibal courage is a hunger thing, not a brain thing.
The sight of their packmates dissolving was a crack in the shell.
Jackson barked orders, swung the butt of the shotgun, tried to rally them —
But his men were scattered now, fear clenching their guts.
Freya didn't waste the pause.
She traced a glyph through the air and the gravestones around the group shimmered with a thin blue lattice —
A ward that deflected the wildest arcs of the attackers' blades.
Hope and Joshi and Lizzie moved like hunters too.
Hope took point, darting forward to close distance and gut the momentum from any charge,
While Joshi and Lizzie looted fallen weapons and disarmed the nearest foes with preternatural speed.
Inadu planted her boots and whispered.
Small threads of pale light shot into the earth and slithered beneath the van —
A soft binding, enough to jam axles and send the driver stumbling.
The van's headlights dipped; the engine choked.
Jackson, realizing the fight had turned, spat blood and barked one last order, then dove for the van.
He hauled himself into the driver's seat, cursing, shotgun across his lap.
The remaining cannibals —
More animal than soldier —
Backed away, eyes rimmed with new caution.
One limped, clutching an arm where a chain had burned through flesh.
Ghost Rider's flaming skull tilted, amused and savage.
He let the last of his hellfire gutter down into a smoldering hiss, the heat ebbing as his human features reformed.
He dusted ash from his coat and clipped the chain back to his shoulder like a man shrugging off a messy chore.
"YOU GOTTA GET YOURSELVES SOME BETTER SECURITY,"
He said casually as he stepped forward.
His voice was human again, but the quiet made their blood run cold.
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(Author's POV)
(A/N):
Thanks for reading the chapter!
Please give a review and power stone!!!