“Fat lot of good you are, then. So are these guys magic?”
Faint and confused, but the answer was a definite yes.
“And are they what you sensed before?”
No puzzlement at all, this time. Absolutely not.
“Then what-?”
“Oh, my, oh, my! Blood and pain and beautiful songs! They've gone and started the celebration without us, and we shall be greatly put out if there's no more cake to be had!”
The worst wasn't the hideous two-toned voice, that of a grown man and a child speaking in unison, though that alone was enough to make every hair on her arms and neck stand firmly at attention. Nor was it even the figure itself, which scuttled headfirst down a nearby wall using only its impossibly long fingertips, the rest of its body held straight as a board, its coat and hat refusing to fall despite gravity's insistent tug.
No, what caused the blood to drain from Widdershins's face as though it, too, were trying to escape, and made the rapier twitch and vibrate in her trembling fist, was Olgun's silent shriek of absolute terror. She'd sensed the like from him only twice before: once when he'd almost been slain by the wholesale slaughter of his cult, of which Widdershins herself was the only survivor; and once, a few years later and mingled with near-helpless frustration, when he'd done his best to help her face down the demon responsible for that slaughter.
This creature she faced now-for, no matter his mostly human shape, human he clearly was not-was no demon, or at least not the same sort of demon she'd faced before. But whatever he was, he was enough to scare a god.
A tiny, weak god with only a single worshipper, yes, but a god for all that.
Widdershins sucked in her breath to speak, and was overwhelmed by the scent of peppermint. Somewhere, as though hidden behind the buildings that surrounded them, a chorus of children giggled in the dark.
“Run,” she ordered. The two pedestrians, though scarcely able to stand on shaking knees, didn't need to be told twice. The broad-brimmed hat of the creature clinging to the wall shifted as though he watched them go, perhaps deciding whether or not to give chase.
“Don't even think it, Bug Man,” Widdershins told him with-she hoped-more bravado than she felt.
“Don't need to.” The hat tilted again; this time, the face beneath seemed to be examining Widdershins herself, as well as the men who'd fallen-one directly, one less so-to her unexpected attack. “Girls and boys!” The figure began to chant. “Girls and boys, girls and boys, some for eating, some for toys!”
Widdershins felt the rapier slip slightly in her hand, clenched her fingers in a futile attempt to wipe the sweat off on the hilt. “I, uh…I don't think I plan to be either, thanks.” And, much more softly, “Olgun, what is that?!”
But, other than the sensation that it was very, very old, she got nothing but bafflement and fear from her unseen ally.
“Oh, you're so welcome!” The creature dropped from the wall, flipping as it fell to land feetfirst on the grass beside the street. “She thinks she has a plan. That's so cute!”
The chorus of children cooed, as though having discovered a little, lost puppy.
“Where is that coming from?!” Widdershins herself wasn't certain whether the question was addressed to Olgun, the gaunt figure, or the world in general, but it was the creature who answered. And for the first time, he sounded honestly puzzled.
“You can't see them?” he asked.
It was, given the current state of Widdershins's nerves, absolutely the worst answer he could have given. She shuddered and found herself desperately glancing around, despite her best intentions, searching for an army of slack-faced, staring children creeping up behind her in the dark. There were none, of course, but in that moment of distraction, the creature lunged.
Not at her, no. Fast as he moved-and he was unbelievably fast-he might not have crossed the distance between them before she could once again bring up her guard. But Widdershins wasn't his target. Bending neatly sideways, he reached out with those impossibly long, flexible fingers, and snatched up the dark-clad figure who had fallen, a few minutes before, from the neighboring building.
With a single arm, he hefted the screaming man toward his face. Widdershins fell back with a whimper at the rough tearing sounds that followed, and felt the bile rising and stinging in the back of her throat as the body shriveled and dried, in a matter of instants, into a desiccated, leathery slab. (She didn't even notice the cries of agony emerging from the second man, whom she'd earlier stabbed.)
“Ooh, yummy, yum, yum! He tastes a bit of magic, doesn't he? Extra spice is extra nice!” The creature advanced as he “ate,” and when he allowed the body to fall, he was finally near enough for the ambient moonlight and the nearby flickering lanterns to illumine the face and figure beneath the flopping brim. “Will you also taste of magic, little girl? Or was this one a special appetizer?”
His features were, other than being grotesquely emaciated, human enough at first glance. The skin was pale; the icy green eyes and ivory teeth gleamed even in the night, as though reflecting a light whose source she could not see. Hair of a filthy, stringy black hung limply from within the hat, the brim of which was stained with a glistening grease.
Her second glance-the one in which she noted the figure's cheeks and jaw rippling, as though something moved just beneath the flesh, attempting to distend his mouth in ways it was never meant to flex-was quite sufficient to put the lie to any sense of humanity.
His hands were even worse. His thumbs were relatively normal, perhaps slightly longer than they should have been, but every other finger was hideous. The shortest was a foot long, and all of them were narrow, pointed, twitching, bending in ways and in places they should never have bent. Widdershins couldn't help but think of them less as fingers than as the legs of some monstrous spider.
And that, in turn, stirred up memories in the farthest reaches of Widdershins's mind, the faintest recollections of childhood. But whatever those memories were, they refused to surface on their own, and she wasn't about to take the time and effort to dredge them up now.
“Gonna need everything you can give me, Olgun,” Widdershins whispered.
His response was a ferocious urge to run.
“Oh, no.” Much as a very large part of her agreed, Widdershins stood her ground. “I don't want that thing at my back! Besides, you're the one who pushed me into this in the first place, remember?”
Olgun might have responded to that, had their inhuman enemy not beaten him to it. “And who do you talk to, in the silence, in the dark, hmm? You cannot see my friends, so you invent one of your own? How very silly of you.”
Widdershins didn't even bother asking how he'd heard the words that she'd barely even formed on her tongue, let alone spoken aloud. “Why don't you step closer, and I'll introduce you?”
The creature's shoulders hunched, his head lowered, his impossible fingers twitched. “I think…I would like that.”
The unseen children cackled, and the two opponents-one blessed by a god, one utterly ungodly-hurled themselves together in the center of the roadway.
Any observer (and there may or may not have been one; Widdershins had no idea if the man she'd stabbed remained conscious or not) would have seen little more than a blur of movement. The creature advanced in a series of dancing steps and graceful twists, almost pirouettes. Each step should have taken him in a different direction from every other, yet somehow he glided toward Widdershins in a perfectly straight line.