The desert didn’t whisper; it groaned. Wind dragged heat through the dust like a dying man’s last breath, and the sun beat down like it was punishing the land for something it hadn’t confessed to. A single man crawled across this blistered plain—hat lost, boots torn, lips cracked like old leather. He was the sort of man who looked like he’d tried to fight the desert and lost the argument halfway through the first sentence.

He went by the name of Ellis Pike, though at this point, he was considering changing it to "Poor Bastard" if he lived long enough to write it down.

“Two more steps,” Ellis muttered. “Just two more steps and then ... ah hell.”

He collapsed in a puff of sand and grit, face-first into the earth, buzzards circling like bored dinner guests. His eyelids fluttered. Through the shimmer of heat, he saw hooves. A horse. A silhouette. Salvation—or maybe just Death dressed in spurs.

A boot nudged him.

“Awful lotta noise for someone who looks halfway dead,” came a dry voice, flat as a Kansas highway.

Ellis looked up into the face of a man who seemed carved from spite and tobacco spit. Leather duster, week-old stubble, hat dipped low. He squinted at Ellis like someone trying to identify a stain.

“You an angel?” Ellis croaked.

The man snorted. “Yeah, sure. Let me fetch my harp and halo. You want salvation or not, chatterbox?”

Next thing Ellis knew, he was slung across the back of the stranger’s horse like a sack of regret. The stranger climbed into the saddle, tugging the brim of his hat down.

“Name’s Ellis Pike,” Ellis wheezed. “Appreciate the help, mister. What's your name?”

“You wouldn’t use it right if I gave it to you.”

“Well now that’s just cryptic. You in some kind of trouble?”

“Nope,” the man said. “I am trouble.”

Ellis laughed—then winced. “Heh. You one o’ them poetic types?”

The stranger grunted. “You always this chatty when dying?”

“Usually I get worse. Once talked a priest into drinkin’ with me after bein’ gutshot. Said it was a holy experience.”

“I believe it. Mostly the part about you bein’ a pain in the ass.”

The road shimmered as they approached the town of Sundown Hollow—named either for the hour most of its murders happened or the angle at which its one good saloon faced the dying sun. The buildings leaned like drunks in a brawl, and everything smelled faintly of gunpowder, horse sweat, and last chances.

A crooked sign greeted them: WELCOME TO SUNDOWN HOLLOW – POP: VARIABLE.

As they entered, Ellis pointed to a place that looked less like a clinic and more like a barbershop with regrets.

“There! Ol’ Doc Merton runs that place. He once stitched my brother’s head back together. Only problem was, it wasn’t my brother’s head.”

The stranger ignored him and steered the horse toward the hitching post, eyes scanning every alley and rooftop.

“You always this twitchy?” Ellis asked.

“You always this mouthy?” the stranger replied.

“Only when I’m feelin’ safe, which, thanks to you, I now do.”

As the stranger helped Ellis down, five men stepped into the road. Dust curled around their boots like a curtain rising on a bad play. Guns gleamed on their hips, and the tallest one spat a wad of tobacco right onto the hitching post.

“Well, well,” said the leader. “Ain’t this a sight. The Black Vulture, strollin’ into town like he ain’t worth more’n a small ranch in bounty.”

Ellis blinked. “Wait, Black Vulture? That you?”

The stranger sighed.

“Of all the godforsaken towns,” he muttered.

“Boys,” said the leader, “five thousand dollars says we drop him right here.”

The stranger looked at Ellis.

“You see what happens when you talk too much? People start noticin' things.”

Ellis blinked at the five guns pointed their way.

“Well,” he said, “I’m startin’ to feel less safe.”

The Black Vulture rolled his shoulders and stepped forward, his voice colder than grave dirt.

“Let’s get this over with.”

There are certain moments in a man’s life when his choices narrow to two: run, or hope your underpants are clean. Ellis Pike, still wobbling from dehydration and a recent flirtation with death, chose a third option ... he froze like a possum in a lantern light.

The Black Vulture, on the other hand, looked like he’d just been asked if he preferred whiskey or bourbon.

The five gunslingers stood shoulder to shoulder, dust coating their boots, eyes hungry. Each had the look of a man who thought they were the main character.

“You got a preference who goes first?” asked the tallest, a man with a gold tooth and the sort of mustache that had never seen a proper comb.

The Black Vulture didn’t answer. He simply stepped to the side, giving Ellis a little shove toward the porch.

“Why don’t you limp behind that barrel, chatterbox,” he muttered. “You’ll just catch bullets out here, and you’ve already got enough holes.”

Ellis stumbled back, half from fear, half from the fact his legs were arguing with gravity.

“Don’t die,” he called weakly. “I owe you a whiskey and… maybe my life. But mostly whiskey.”

The gunslingers didn’t laugh. They were already spreading out in the street, hands inching toward holsters.

Then came the silence. Not the kind filled with anticipation—but the thick, syrupy kind that settled right before everything explodes. Somewhere, a dog barked. Somewhere else, someone bolted a door.

The Black Vulture's fingers flexed once.

The gold-toothed man grinned.

Then five guns cleared leather.

But only one fired.

The Vulture moved like a breath in reverse—his coat swirling, his revolver already spitting fire before anyone realized he’d drawn. The man on the left spun and crumpled, his shot going wide and kicking dust into the air. Another screamed and dropped his weapon, hand bleeding and useless. Chaos bloomed.

Ellis ducked behind the rain barrel just as bullets slammed into it, sending wood splinters into his arm.

“Sweet holy hell!” he yelled, pressing his hat over his head like it was a helmet.

The Vulture didn’t duck. He glided. Every step he took seemed choreographed by something mean and patient. He fired once more, clipped the tall one in the shoulder, then pivoted and pistol-whipped another attacker straight into the side of a feed trough.

Two were dead. One was moaning on the ground. The fourth had run screaming.

The last - the gold-toothed leader, backed up, wounded but upright, gun still in hand.

“You ain’t makin’ it outta here!” he spat, blood on his teeth. “You’re worth too damn much!”

The Vulture didn’t speak. He leveled his revolver.

But before he could fire, a sharp whistle pierced the street. A lean man in a tweed vest—of all things—strode out from the saloon, twirling a silver pocket watch.

“That’s enough!” he barked. “No bloodbaths before supper, damn it!”

Ellis poked his head up, confused. “Wait… is that the mayor?”

“Town magistrate,” the man corrected, glancing sideways at the carnage. “And undertaker. In this place, it’s usually the same job.”

The Vulture stepped back, holstering his gun. “Self-defense.”

The magistrate arched a brow. “Well, no one’s gonna argue that. Besides…” He glanced at the bodies. “You did us a favor. Couple of those fellas’ve been making trouble since the last cattle drive.”

The townsfolk began to emerge from their hiding spots like prairie dogs after a thunderstorm. Whispering. Pointing. One of them shouted, “That’s him! The one from the Blackrock Pass job!”

Another: “He’s the one who burned the Rios Gang to the ground!”

“Some say he don’t sleep. Just sits on a rock, waitin’ for trouble to walk by.”

Ellis limped over, brushing dust off his shirt. “So, uh... what now? Do we get him a key to the town? Or maybe a really stern thank-you?”

The Vulture didn’t smile. He looked around slowly, the way a wolf might inspect a fence.

“Now,” he muttered, “we find a place to hide. Because this bounty? It’s only gonna bring worse.”

The magistrate sighed. “You just painted a bullseye on this town, stranger. You’d better make yourself useful.”

Ellis grinned and clapped him on the shoulder—then winced and pulled back. “Ow. Okay. Too soon. But still. I got a good feelin’ about this partnership. Like fate. Or intestinal parasites.”

The Vulture just walked toward the saloon.

Behind him, Ellis shuffled along, still talking.

“You ever play poker? You look like you cheat at poker. Or are very bad at bluffin’. That face ain’t exactly... flexible.”

“You know,” the Vulture said, without turning, “I liked you better when you were dying.”

“I get that a lot.”

As they disappeared through the swinging doors of the saloon, the town of Sundown Hollow held its breath.

Because The Black Vulture had come.

And the storm was just getting started.

The saloon doors swung shut behind them with a sigh, as if the building itself had been holding its breath since the gunfire ceased.

Inside, it was dim and still. The only movement came from a bartender who hadn't moved from behind the counter since the chaos began. He was a wiry old man with a handlebar mustache and a glass eye that seemed to follow trouble even before it entered the room.

The Vulture stepped up to the bar and tapped the wood twice with his knuckles.

“Whiskey,” he said.

The bartender gave a slow nod and poured a finger’s worth into a dusty glass, pushing it forward without comment. The Vulture took it, but didn’t drink. He just held it in one gloved hand, staring down into the liquid like it might whisper secrets.

Ellis pulled up a stool beside him with a grunt, the wood creaking beneath his bruised ribs.

“So,” Ellis said, voice lighter than the room deserved, “we gonna talk about what you meant? ‘Worse’ than the boys you just shot? Because I gotta say, I’ve seen worse, and I usually prefer when it stays far, far away.”

The Vulture didn’t answer. Not right away.

Then: “They weren’t hunting me for coin.”

Ellis blinked. “No?”

The Vulture turned his glass slowly. “They were sent.”

“By who?”

“Don’t know. Yet.”

A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the quiet clink of glass and the soft creak of old boards adjusting to the weight of fate walking through their door.

Finally, Ellis scratched his chin. “You always talk in cryptic half-truths, or is this just a seasonal thing?”

The Vulture glanced at him, and for a flicker of a moment, something behind his eyes almost smiled. Almost.

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“Barely. Thanks, by the way. I think.”

The saloon door creaked open again, slow and hesitant. A boy, no older than ten, stepped inside with a nervous gait. He held something wrapped in oilskin—something small but heavy.

He approached the bar, glanced at Ellis, then turned to the Vulture.

“This came this morning,” the boy said, voice thin. “For you, I think.”

The Vulture didn’t move.

The boy unwrapped the parcel and placed it on the counter.

It was a single crow’s feather, dipped in blood, curled like a question mark.

Ellis leaned forward, frowning. “That… doesn’t feel like a thank-you gift.”

The Vulture stared at the feather, unmoving. Then he reached into his coat and drew out a coin, placing it silently beside the boy’s hand.

“Go home. Lock your door.”

The boy didn’t hesitate.

When the door shut behind him, the saloon felt colder.

Ellis rubbed his hands together, suddenly very aware of how quiet it had gotten outside. “So... any idea what that means?”

The Vulture downed the whiskey in a single motion, then finally spoke.

“They know I’m here.”

“Right,” Ellis muttered. “And who’s they, again?”

The Vulture stood, his coat falling like a shadow.

“The ones who trained me. The ones who thought I died in the fire.”

He turned to the door.

“And if they’ve sent the first feather, that means the second isn’t far behind.”

Ellis stood too, eyes wide. “You’re saying there’s a second feather? What’s that mean?”

The Vulture looked at him.

“The first is a warning.”

Ellis swallowed. “And the second?”

The Vulture pushed open the saloon doors and stepped into the fading light.

“The second means they’ve already drawn their guns.”

And just like that, Sundown Hollow’s breath caught once more.

Because the real storm hadn’t come yet.

But it was riding hard.

And it knew exactly where to look.

Twilight clung to Sundown Hollow like a wound refusing to close. The sky, painted in bruised purples and bleeding rust, sagged low over the dusty street, as if the heavens themselves were weary of watching men die beneath their gaze. Long shadows stretched from the warped teeth of the town’s old facades - saloons, stables, and silent storefronts half-swallowed by time - and the air held the copper tang of spilled blood and unspoken debts.

The Vulture walked slow, boots whispering across gravel and grit, each step measured like a toll paid in silence. His coat, black as coal and twice as heavy with memory, billowed faintly behind him as if reluctant to let him go. He carried no visible weapon now, but his presence cut sharper than any steel. He moved like a man who had once belonged to something darker than most could name and had lived long enough to regret it.

Ellis followed at a distance, jaw tight and gaze flicking from rooftop to alleyway, nerves fraying thread by thread. The crow’s feather still haunted his mind - a thing too simple to hold such weight, and yet it had sunk into him like a hook. It was the kind of symbol that didn’t just mean death. It promised it. Promised that someone, somewhere, had spoken a name into fire and shadow, and now the flames had begun to crawl back toward the source.

“I don’t get it,” Ellis said at last, voice hushed despite the emptiness of the street. “You said you died in that fire. That they thought you were gone. So why now? Why come looking after all this time?”

The Vulture didn’t slow. His gaze swept across a shuttered boarding house, then higher - to the dark edge of a weather-beaten balcony where the boards sagged like broken ribs. “Because something stirred,” he said, voice low, like coals beneath a bed of ash. “Something they buried with me. Or thought they did.”

Ellis narrowed his eyes. “You keep talking in riddles, and I keep trying not to punch you. You said these people trained you. Who were they? Mercs? Spies? Cultists?”

The Vulture stopped. Not abruptly, but with the finality of a man who had reached a stone in the road he could no longer step around. He turned slowly, his face half-shadowed beneath the brim of a battered hat.

“They were hunters,” he said. “The kind who didn’t chase beasts. They chased the men who became beasts. The ones with fire behind their eyes and too many sins on their hands. They took boys and broke them into blades. Gave them numbers, not names. I was Six.”

Ellis stared, mouth half-open. “You’re telling me you were part of some … secret order of murderers?”

“No,” the Vulture replied, eyes unreadable. “I was their mistake.”

A sound broke the hush. Distant, but clear. The cry of a crow. Not one, but two. Echoing from opposite ends of the town like the creaking hinges of fate itself.

Ellis shuddered. “And the second feather?”

The Vulture’s hand drifted slowly to his belt, where his coat parted to reveal the hilt of a knife older than the town, its grip wrapped in faded leather, blackened by things that didn’t bleed red. His expression hardened. Not with fear, but with grim knowing.

“The second feather means they’ve already crossed the line. One of theirs is here. Now.”

As if summoned by the words, the wind picked up, dry and bitter, whipping grit across the ground and rattling the windows in their sills. The air shifted, and for a moment, Sundown Hollow felt thinner - like a page worn nearly through.

Somewhere down the road, a figure stepped from between two buildings.

Ellis squinted. “You see that?”

“Yeah.”

The figure was tall, lean, draped in a coat the color of old parchment and shadowed by a wide hat pulled low. No weapon was drawn, but no weapon was needed. There was something about the way he stood - unmoving in the wind, untouched by dust. It made Ellis’s stomach turn.

“You know him?” he asked.

The Vulture didn’t blink. “I know what he is.”

“And?”

“He’s Three.”

Ellis sighed. "Stop talking like a broken clock!"

The name dropped like a stone in still water, and the ripples would not stop for a long time.

The man in the dust didn’t move. Not yet. But the crow circling above him tilted its wings and began to descend, like a herald or a curse come home.

And Ellis knew, in that heavy silence before the next breath, that Sundown Hollow had only just remembered how to be afraid.

Because the first feather was a warning.

And the second?

The second was a summons.

Before he was Three, he had another name, but it burned away long ago, like handwriting left too close to fire. The order that made him didn't ask questions of the boys they took. Questions implied a future, and boys with futures didn’t make good weapons. They called him Three because he survived the third trial, the one with the dogs and the frozen pit, the one that left the others in pieces too small to bury.

Where Six, the one who would become the Vulture, fought like a man chasing redemption, Three fought like a man who had long since fed his soul to the wolves and found the taste pleasing. He didn’t kill for duty, nor vengeance. He killed because it made the world quiet. Because for a moment, in the slick red hush after a life ended, he felt something almost like peace.

They were brothers, once. Not by blood, but by bone and bruises, by steel and starvation. Raised in the same underground bunkers, molded by the same hands, broken by the same silence. But where Six always carried the weight of what they did, Three carried nothing. No guilt. No memory. Just the sharpened calm of the blade. He was the favorite. Not because he was the best,but because he was the most obedient.

When the order finally cracked apart from the inside, rot setting in among its masters, secrets surfacing like old bones in a flood, it was Six who lit the fuse. And it was Three who was sent to kill him.

He failed.

It was the only time he ever failed.

The fire that consumed the compound took most of the records, most of the names. But not Three. He walked out of the ashes untouched, face painted with soot and calm. He didn’t scream or mourn. He didn’t search for survivors. He simply stood there, among the dead and the dying, and turned west. Toward silence. Toward exile.

For years, he was nothing but a ghost whispered about in places where men bled in the shadows. They said he became something else. A blade with no hand, a sin with no sinner. Some said he hunted only killers now, as penance. Others said he had no mind left, only a list. And on that list, etched deeper than any other name, was Six.

Not for betrayal.

Not for revenge.

But because only one of them could exist in a world that still turned. Only one could carry what they were and still draw breath.

Now, Three stood in Sundown Hollow, where the sky itself bent low with old hate, and the dust still remembered the weight of boots long buried. His face, like his name, had been stripped of time. He could have been thirty, or three hundred. His coat, pale and stained with places no map held, hung still despite the wind.

He had come not as an assassin.

Not even as a brother.

But as the answer to a question the world never wanted asked.

And the crow at his shoulder wasn’t just a bird.

It was a witness.

A judge.

And maybe, before the sun fell for good behind the hills, an executioner.