After Rotjaw was banished for the first time and the riches of the Delphine rained from the sky, Tona Ramirez, also known as The Rat, was betrayed. Her body and soul were sacrificed by the berzerken cult of The Demented Pact, causing her to fade away into the drizzle and haze. Turner Abbadon Jr., also known as The Kid, investigated the instruments of her demise—strange altars made by stranger folk. The Demented caught him, too. They bound him in barbed wire and turned his face into paint with the barrel of a shotgun. After his corpse was discarded, it sank below the swamps, eventually coming to rest at Tona's side in the Land of the Dead.

Ages and dreams passed over their lifeless bodies. They drifted on odd tides, floated together with other Hunters who'd lost their way. Then, as suddenly as they had died, they were found, bound together with curses and incantations. A white-haired witch had seen some use among their bones. She sought to use their trauma and tragedy as an engine for darker arts. She breathed into them a new kind of life, a new kind of death, and a new kind of hope previously known only to drowned sailors and captains.

Turner and Tona, now The Drowned Kid and The Drowned Rat, rose from the ritual and began their pilgrimage through the dead marshes. Only the moon knows how long they wandered. Only black blood could sing their sorrows.

When Desolation sprung forth from ancient powers unknown, the door they'd long searched for was opened at last. Out from Kingsnake Mine they crawled, back into the bayou. Gasping for air. Gasping for their souls.

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