Comment on Creepazoids: Overcast by MurderousAutomaton

Well, I'd love to see a Tenet Creepazoid for the OC batch, but for this one, I'll go with:

Hezikim (reference: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014…)
Description (from Ambush):
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“Oh. No.”
I spoke the words softly to myself, but they echoed loudly in my own ears. Even in the quickly waning light of the setting sun, I could barely make out a form of a demon. Luckily, while I could not spy the creature, I had an excellent view of the soon-to-be battlefield before me.

Who am I kidding? There’s no such thing as luck.

Timothy’s car had been forced to stop at the summit of one of the many broad, gently sloping hills that comprise the stretch of I-5 that passes through the eastern arm of the Los Padres National Forest as it meanders toward the valley of L.A. To our left was, of course, the northbound lane of I-5 and beyond that a near-sheer drop into a canyon; while to our right, casting the road in ever-deepening shadow, was a large rounded hillock filled with scraggy brush, cactus, and unremarkable dirt and stone.

Far below, near the nadir of the hill, a seven-car pile-up had occurred. I say, ‘occurred’. More accurately, the horrific wreck had been caused. Many people believe that wrecks just happen—and some do—but most large-scale wrecks are the work of nefarious beings that distract, confuse, or outright attack. Some of the Learned and the Wise believe that these creatures do this merely to delight in the subsequent pain and suffering. While most of the Fallen do, indeed, delight in these things, it is not why they cause widespread accidents.

After all, demons have to eat too.

Ignoring Timothy’s frantic cries begging me to return to the car, I began moving quickly and stealthily toward the heart of the wreck and the tangled mass of metal and meat. A sea of blood-red, glaring brake lights swallowed me, and the closer I came to my objective, the more blaring horns, bellowed curses, and disgusted outbursts assaulted my ears.

I could not believe the callousness of these people! Did they not know that just yards beyond their windshields people lay writhing in pain and dying? It was then that I heard the warbling growl, immediately followed by a whizzing sound, and an arrow-like projectile embedded itself into the forehead of a driver to my left. He never saw the spiritual attack, of course, but he immediately furrowed his brow and began laying into his horn and screaming obscenities at everyone within earshot.

I wrinkled my nose like I had caught a whiff of carrion. So it was a Se’irim I was dealing with, most likely a Hezikim. These were ferocious creatures, who in the most ancient of days—when they did not fear to reveal themselves to mankind—the tales that arose in their wake gave rise to the legends of the Chimera and the Manticore. But when one imagines a creature like a manticore, the thing which lurked somewhere in the darkness before me was far, far more terrible.

It was then, surrounded by the screaming faces bathed in the blood-red light of hundreds of brake lights, that I beheld it… The Hezikim was as large as a full-grown African elephant: thirteen feet at the shoulder and easily fourteen hundred pounds. From the flat plane of its disturbingly human face to the tip of its massive, and barbed, scorpion-like tails, it was nearly twenty feet long. It had two mouths and three tails, I noted, making it a fairly old beast—one that had likely seen the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in its youth.

The demon was worrying one of the many victims from the wreck. With its large, lower maw, the creature ripped into the woman driver of a sedan while her two infants caterwauled, entombed in car seats within the vehicle. To a casual onlooker, to one who could not see The Truth Of Things, it would have appeared that she was merely suffering from convulsions. There were several other victims nearby, but I could plainly see why this woman was the target of the Hezikim.

She was one of the Redeemed.

Her soul shone like a flashing silver stream amid the lurid red light and gathering gloom. Demons persist on the life force of the living and gain power from the willing worship and sacrifice of the same, but they delight in nothing more than devouring the sanctified souls of the Redeemed. While they cannot totally destroy them, they can weaken and disorient them until the point where they might not be able to find their way Home.

This was something I could not, would not, allow.

The Hezikim growled and shook its quillmane, shooting out a shower of arrow- and needle-like projectiles into the night. Many struck the humans nearby, causing them to suffer outbursts of rage or despair, frustration or lust, emotional or physical pain. There was no way to know: each spike, arrow or quill affected its victim in its own uniquely perverse way, speaking to his or her individual weakness or temptations. New spikes never stopped growing, corkscrewing themselves out of the Hezikim’s body, putting the demon in constant and eternal pain.

Pain that it desired to be rid of; pain that it loved to share.

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Art Direction: Note that the Mask is the creature's face, and it just happens to have two mouthes - often time as a Hezikim speaks, it uses both mouthes in sync, just to mess with people's minds... when it really wants to mess folks up, it speaks with the mouthes OUT OF sync.