Chapter 58: A Texas-Style Welcome Ceremony

Chapter 58: Chapter 58: A Texas-Style Welcome Ceremony

Chapter 58: A Texas-Style Welcome Ceremony

Lionel Cosgrove lowered his eyes toward the cleaver buried in his shoulder and realized, with some surprise, that he barely felt anything. Ever since he started learning Spirit Binding from Paquita’s grandmother, his once miserable life had opened into a completely different and increasingly bizarre world. His altered body was no longer merely something Vera had cursed him with; it had become the most useful supernatural material he possessed.

Spiritual materials were difficult to find, especially anything powerful enough to survive repeated use. Lionel, however, had discovered that his own body carried an unusually strong spiritual connection because his soul had been partially separated and bound to his physical form. That was also why Paquita’s grandmother kept ordering him to eat enough food for a football team every day.

The ridiculous amount of ham, cheese, bread, and meat was not only replacing the energy his body naturally burned. According to the grandmother, keeping his physical vessel strong also helped stabilize the strange bond holding his soul to it. After nearly collapsing from making one simple charm, Lionel had become very motivated to follow that advice.

His studies had also taught him something unexpected about the old woman’s occult craft. Protective and blessing-based techniques were difficult because they depended heavily on clear intent, emotional stability, and a strong positive purpose, while hostile bindings were much easier to trigger. Fear, anger, resentment, and pain were unfortunately far more abundant resources in the modern world.

Lionel had no intention of becoming another Vera, but he had found ways to adapt some of those darker techniques for self-defense. The most useful ones were the bindings he could place on himself, because his own body was already the focus and required almost none of the preparation an ordinary practitioner would need. One of those techniques was helping him right now.

The instant the huge man swung the cleaver, Lionel had instinctively suppressed his own pain perception. The injury still existed and his body was still damaged, but the screaming signal that should have overwhelmed his mind had simply gone quiet. To Lionel, the blade buried in his shoulder felt more like an inconvenient weight than a life-threatening wound.

The towering attacker stiffened when Lionel failed to scream.

Behind the crude human-skin mask, the man seemed genuinely confused.

He quickly recovered, yanked the cleaver free, and raised it again.

Lionel had no intention of letting him take another clean swing. He shifted away and drew two short ritual bone knives from his waist, both made from material connected to Vera and prepared under the grandmother’s supervision. Because the bones came from his own bloodline, they responded to Lionel’s bindings far more easily than ordinary tools.

Trying to wrestle someone that large in a dark basement seemed stupid even with Lionel’s unusual body. Instead, he moved around the next swing and cut several shallow lines across the giant man’s arm before immediately retreating. A thick, unusually dark fluid collected along the bone blades.

Lionel frowned when he touched it.

"What the hell is this?"

The substance was almost black and much thicker than normal blood. Lionel had no time to study it, so he used the trace connection it provided and focused on establishing a temporary sympathetic link between himself and the masked attacker.

The huge man advanced again.

Lionel finished the binding just as the cleaver came down.

The blade ripped across Lionel’s chest.

At almost the exact same moment, a matching wound opened across the masked man’s torso.

Both of them stopped.

The attacker slowly looked down at the sudden gash spreading across his chest, where dark fluid began leaking through his clothes. Lionel looked at the same wound and immediately grinned.

"Oh, you felt that one."

The masked man stared at him.

Lionel lifted one of the bone knives. "Let’s test something."

Without hesitation, Lionel drove the blades into his own thighs.

Two wounds opened.

At the same instant, matching injuries tore into the giant man’s legs.

His enormous body rocked slightly.

Lionel waited for him to fall.

He did not.

The masked stranger merely looked down at the wounds as though somebody had spilled something on his pants. There was no scream, no panic, and barely any visible reaction to the pain.

Lionel’s smile disappeared.

"You have got to be kidding me."

The man seemed more irritated than injured. He threw the cleaver to the basement floor with a metallic crash, turned away, and disappeared deeper into the darkness.

Lionel watched him go and decided there was absolutely no reason to follow.

He turned toward the stairs.

His current plan was simple: get upstairs, find Axel, and let the professional monster magnet deal with whatever this was.

Then an engine roared behind him.

Lionel froze.

"No way."

He slowly looked over his shoulder.

The masked man was coming back.

This time, he was carrying a chainsaw.

The engine screamed through the basement as the huge figure raised the saw and charged. Lionel immediately abandoned every thought of fighting and sprinted toward the stairs.

From upstairs, Nikki’s voice drifted down. "Lionel? Did you find Kenny?"

Lionel hit the first step at full speed. "Move away from the basement door!"

Nikki stood near the entrance with a confused expression. "What did you guys even find down—"

Then she saw the figure behind Lionel.

The human-skin mask.

The massive body.

The roaring chainsaw.

Nikki screamed.

Lionel reached the top and saw that she was still standing directly in his path. Without slowing down, he shoved her hard enough to knock her safely away from the doorway.

Nikki rolled across the floor.

She pushed herself up just in time to see Lionel emerge from the basement.

The masked killer was directly behind him.

The chainsaw drove into Lionel’s back.

Its roaring blade tore through flesh and bone before bursting from the front of his chest.

Blood sprayed across the floor.

At the same time, the sympathetic binding reacted.

A matching catastrophic wound ripped open across the masked man’s chest, and thick black fluid spilled from beneath his clothes.

Red and dark liquid splattered across Nikki’s face.

Her scream became even louder.

Then her eyes rolled back.

Nikki collapsed unconscious.

The noise finally brought everyone running from the kitchen and surrounding rooms. Axel Vance reached the hallway first, followed by Seth Brundle, Ryan, and Heather. Axel took one look at the towering man, the human-skin mask, and the chainsaw buried through Lionel.

He stopped dead.

"Leatherface?"

Of all the towns they could have stopped in across Texas, they had somehow walked directly into another horror movie.

The massive killer before him was unmistakable.

Leatherface. Jed Sawyer.

Axel stared for half a second too long.

Lionel was still hanging from the chainsaw.

He twisted his head with difficulty and looked toward Axel.

"Bro."

Axel blinked.

Lionel’s expression was remarkably annoyed for someone currently impaled through the torso. "Stop staring and help me."

Axel reacted immediately.

He charged forward and drove a powerful kick into Leatherface’s lower leg.

With Physique 3.1 behind the strike, the impact forced the huge killer down onto one knee. Leatherface’s grip tightened on the chainsaw, but the sudden change in balance left him exposed.

Axel stepped in again.

His next kick slammed into the chainsaw and the space between Lionel and Leatherface.

The force ripped Lionel out of Leatherface’s control and sent him tumbling across the hallway with the chainsaw still lodged through his body. Lionel hit the floor hard and rolled once before coming to a stop.

Leatherface stared down at his empty hands.

Then he looked at Axel.

The expression behind the stitched skin mask was impossible to read, but his body language changed immediately.

Axel took one step forward.

Leatherface turned around and ran.

Axel narrowed his eyes. "Oh, no you don’t."

He immediately chased after him.

Behind them, Seth and Ryan rushed toward Lionel. Ryan looked horrified while Seth was already trying to figure out how a man with a chainsaw through his torso could possibly still be conscious.

They never got the chance to help.

Lionel pushed himself upright.

The chainsaw was still stuck through his chest.

Its motor continued smoking faintly.

Seth stared.

Ryan stared.

Lionel looked toward the direction Axel and Leatherface had disappeared.

Then he started running after them.

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