Meet Tick

Our largest influence for Tick came from Bill Paxton’s character in Near Dark. Artistically, we pulled from Deadwood and Gangs of New York.

“The truth is that monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.” — Stephen King, The Shining

Before the Great Fire of Chicago, Tick was already a monster.

There are a lot of stories about where Tick came from, most told squarely from the side of his own mouth.

He’d followed the smell of gold to California, where he’d been a claim jumper and a salt-man.

He’d fought for the south in the war. He’d cut his teeth on the mud-soaked stump towns of the northwest frontier.

He once killed a man in a shootout during a train job gone south, then took the money and ran.

These are the stories he tells about himself if you ask… but it’s just as likely he was born fully formed into this world: an agent of chaos; a fly in the ointment; the devil in disguise.

No one really knows where Tick came from… and he’s not saying.

He’ll tell you he’s an orphan and that he loves his mother, both in the same breath. He’ll tell you about the time he caught a whipping after his dad found him sticking sewing needles in the family hound to hear it whine, and that time he killed the old man when he was a twelve with the rifle above the fireplace — two shots and the smell of gunpowder.

Worse, he’ll describe the look of the guts on the wall with enough vivid detail to make you believe you were standing right there, an accomplice to the deed.

All the time with that same awful smile. A tiger in a cage with the lock undone.

Dangerous as he is charismatic, Tick is the kind of beautiful stranger that attracts moths to the flame… only to burn them alive.

Despite all the rumors surrounding him, one thing is absolutely certain: Tick is a killer.

Before the Great Fire of Chicago, Tick had at least enough sense of self-preservation to keep his thirst for blood a passing secret, away from the scrutiny of prying eyes and the law.

But now…

Now, emboldened by the power of his dark gifts, Tick can get close enough to smell his victim’s fear before he feasts on their life’s blood.

Now, he is what he was always born to be.