Walker is a Bahut renegade who seeks to destroy Atar as revenge for the death of his wife, and to save his unborn child from becoming the next Watchman. Dead in Desert Bleak is written exclusively from his point of view.
Walker Madison
| Overview |
| Walker | |
 |
|
| Nickname | Maddie |
| Species | Hollow |
| Gender | Male |
| Affiliation | The Bahutha |
| Age | 33+ |
| Height | 5'6" |
| Family | Delia Madison (daughter) Elaine (late wife) Coyote (partner) |
| Appearances | Dead in Desert Bleak |
Related Pages
Contents
- 1 Appearance
- 2 Background
- 3 Personality
- 4 Abilities
- 5 Involvement
- 6 Relationships
- 7 Trivia
Appearance
Like most Bahuts, Walker has "deathly pale skin" and dark eyes. He is rather fit and shorter than average. His hair is medium brown and he has a slim face. His skin is clear and his eyebrows are thin because he likes to keep himself well-groomed. Most people he meets seem to find him attractive, if not a bit creepy.
Walker values looks over comfort and wears a lot of denim and leather. If the occasion presents itself, he loves tasteful high fashion, but his clothes are generally simple and casual. Many of his outfits include protective layers because he rides a motorcycle. His favorite color is magenta.
Background
Walker was raised in one of the Bahutha's temples until the age of 13. An unruly child who was always critical of the abuse perpetrated unto him by the Bahutha, Walker could not think of Atar as a god, but as a manipulative demon like any other. Because of his insubordination and temperament, Walker was selected to undergo the ritual to become a Hollow, all likelihood being that he would die as a result. However, the demon could not take Walker's consciousness from him, and the ritual was a success. Walker was then trained to use his abilities for a few years before being assigned a life partner (Elaine) and a home in Colorado. He was expected to become a surgeon and carry out any tasks Grand Haldeman assigned him. He was overall compliant during this time and worked to build trust between him and the Bahutha. However, after becoming a doctor, Walker developed an opioid and benzo habit which made him difficult to rely on.
Years later, Elaine became pregnant, and Atar demanded she sacrifice the baby to become the next Watchman. The baby was corrupted in order to be a sufficient vessel for Atar; this process drained Elaine of her soul, and the birth resulted in her death. Walker took this to be a punishment directed towards him for not respecting Atar, and he henceforth decided that Atar would face the repercussions for antagonizing him.
Personality
Walker is easily aggravated, being a prideful person with a severe anxiety disorder. He attempts to quell his temper with drugs, but in the end, his personality is warped by his abusive upbringing, and it takes a lot of work before he is able to function as a regular person. Unprocessed trauma develops into violent anxiety and he lashes out like a beaten dog.
While a victim of the Bahutha, Walker is also a perpetrator of its violence. He excuses the atrocities that he witnessed and went through because demonic rituals require sacrifice, but it's clear by the way he avoids the subject of his past that he is traumatized by it and regrets his decisions. Still, he tries not to dwell on the past because he would prefer to work on becoming a better person instead of wallowing in misery. Because he was once made helpless to his own fate by the Bahutha, Walker doesn't like being told what to do and is stubborn and forceful.
Only with the clarity of hindsight does Walker ever admit a mistake. He makes decisions with the confidence of an expert, even when he is taking a step in the completely wrong direction. There are very few people who he is concerned about his impression on. Those who don't know him very well find him charismatic and funny. Spend a little longer with him, and Walker can prove to be inconsiderate and aggravating.
Walker's trauma is made manifest in his nervousness and anger, but he actually does not become depressed often, and is generally optimistic. He uses direct speech, not bothering with words such as "maybe" or "I guess." Due to his nature, Walker is ecstatic when given the opportunity to kill, but he is plenty capable of holding back. While Walker can be rude or even cruel to those he finds deserving, he fiercely values the people he loves- namely his daughter, Delia, and Coyote- and will defend them to the death.
Abilities
Walker, being a Hollow, shares bodies with a dormant demon called a Mud Beast. This allows him to channel the psychic powers of the demon, which he nicknames "the Nightmare," through his own body. In Walker's case, his demonic powers come in the form of his blood. Once let out of his body, Walker's blood dissipates into hallucinogenic gas. This can be used for mind control or to cause madness, and for those who do not share demonic blood as well, ingestion of his blood is fatal. These effects are too weak to be deadly in the filtered blood (saliva) that would be present in a kiss, but this can be exploited by Walker for minor manipulations. If Walker is given a sample of someone else's blood, he can channel the Nightmare to detect bodily or spiritual afflictions.
After Walker ingests the blood of Atar, his powers become especially potent. The Nightmare within him wakes, allowing him to manage the effect of the hallucinogenic gas. This also results in Walker needing to shed much less blood to achieve a wide radius of impact. However, the Nightmare then begins to wrestle with Walker over control of his body during his sleep, until Fate helps to remedy this.
Involvement
Dead in Desert Bleak
Walker is trusted to guard a group of Yunen transporting materials, including a vial of Atar's blood, to an ancient temple for the aid of a ritual. However, prior to the cargo train's departure, Walker slays the entirety of the crew and takes the vial for himself. He goes to a bar and pours the blood into his drink, planning to use its power to stop the ritual meant to finalize his child's descent into becoming an abomination. Coyote then confronts him, implying he was watching Walker's slaughter from afar. Walker becomes ill from drinking Atar's blood and they leave the bar, which is when Coyote presents his plan to kill Atar using the power from the eyes of the Old Gods. Walker, fueled with rancor against Atar, plus the growing need to kill him for the sake of his child, agrees to help Coyote.
Coyote already has the eye of Asag in the form of a phylactery, which contains directions for how to channel its power. A Lux coven protects the eye of Uzuk, which was once augmented onto Coyote's dead childhood friend (Nicole), keeping her alive as a zombie. However, it has recently been removed to keep a witch child alive instead. Walker and Coyote notice the eye in this new vessel and are knocked out by the witches in a barn. Walker wakes up in a field, tied to a rack and being pecked at by a possessed crow. He cuts himself against barbed wire, awakening the Nightmare and forcing the crow to free him. He finds Coyote in a well, who is delirious. Walker helps him out and confronts the High Priestess. She allows him to leave to prevent violence and the zombie witch girl willingly surrenders the eye to Walker.
- Other things that happen (click to expand)
- Walker and Coyote go to a club called the Mystery Loft that is frequented by Parties for help in finding the eye of Lama. They meet Leah.
- Walker and Coyote are intercepted by the Bahutha and kidnapped, at which point Walker is relentlessly brainwashed and given the opportunity to rejoin the Bahutha if he kills Coyote. Walker kills Grand Haldeman and takes the Yunen-to-be outside instead.
- Walker accompanies Coyote to an awkward family reunion for the purpose of laying Coyote's deceased brother's soul to rest.
- Walker and Coyote infiltrate a Bahut orgy to re-retrieve the eye of Uzuk.
- Walker comes across an old, secluded Bahut town that is encompassed by madness in order to find the eye of Lama.
- Walker nearly gets his arm chopped off.
- Walker and Coyote find out a diner mascot is real, and that she is a demon.
- The Mystery Loft is invaded by the Bahutha and everyone is killed.
- Walker seeks out a rebellious witch named Julie. She gives him a tea which will suppress his aura.
- They kill Atar and Walker's baby turns out to be a little girl who he names Delia. She is normal on the outside, but...
Relationships
Walker initially doesn't know what to think of Coyote, considering him to be erratic, over-emotional, and mysterious. However, Coyote proves to be trustworthy in time, and instead of dreading the time they must spend together, they both come to enjoy it. As they learn more about each other and their pasts, they inadvertently help each other work through the instability in their lives. While they are both irrational in certain ways and have wildly different methods of going about most things, they respect each other and are able to learn new perspectives through their arguments. Walker also becomes attached to Coyote easily because he never had a true friend before. Together, they always seem to find a way out of the mischief they are constantly getting into. The romantic aspects of their relationship are complicated, given how little they agree on lifestyle choices. Their journey towards a functioning relationship is a tumultuous one but they always have each others' best interests in mind.
While Julie clearly has her own devious motivations, she is a helpful and sweet presence in Walker's life. They admire each other's abilities and strong personalities, but acknowledge that they would be too chaotic of a force if left together for too long, and so they go their separate ways, only reuniting in times of necessity.
Given how Haldeman has known Walker for his entire life, there are few who know him better. Haldeman uses this information to mistreat him throughout his entire life, up until the point that Walker kills him. However, Haldeman was the only person besides Elaine who Walker ever formed a familial relationship with, and he ends up being the only victim of Walker who he sheds tears over killing.
Walker and Elaine end up together as a wed couple at the behest of Grand Haldeman, as is traditional within the Bahutha. Though they lived together for fifteen years, they were always busy with their education/jobs and emotionally distant from each other. For most of their time together, they were both too afraid to say it to each other, but eventually, they learned that they both had negative opinions towards the Bahutha as a whole. This caused their conversations to become tense because neither of them wanted to receive punishment, divine or otherwise. Walker grew to care for her over time and their relationship began to approximate love, but Elaine was always very passive, a trait that Walker could not admire. Walker mostly felt protective over her and thought she was cute.
Leah is one of the few beings of which Walker is genuinely afraid. Walker is glad they are on the same side.
They do not trust each other whatsoever, and their interactions are passive-aggressive as a result, but they are forced to work together on numerous occasions. Fate dislikes Walker's crass attitude and Walker has a bad impression of Fate, considering his deceptive tendencies. Walker also pressures Fate to break the contract with Coyote, to which Fate is extraordinarily offended.
This section references future events which may or may not be relevant to the canon!
Delia is Walker's daughter who is imbued with the partial consciousness of Atar. Though Atar is slain, Delia retains her demonic spirit. She is an altogether separate entity from Atar, though, only seeing his ancient memories in her dreams. Delia is terrified of Walker due to his malicious aura and the visions she is plagued by of her father killing her. As a baby, she sees Coyote as her father before ever acknowledging Walker as such, and screams if he comes near her until she is old enough to know better. Her relationship with Walker is awkward even as a child and she does not confide much in him. They grow closer once she reaches her teens and starts developing serious mental/supernatural issues which Walker must help guide her through.