//------------------------------// // Act 3 Chapter 33: In The Dead Hours Of The Morning // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// Souls, like magic, are things that we can generally experience and identify, but can’t really explain. Some might call it an unfortunate problem with magic that while we can observe and control many of its effects, we don’t know how most of them actually work. One constant has been observed in all of our research and is now known as ‘Hoofenberg's Arcane Irritation Theory'; observation by a creature with a soul will alter a magical field by the mere presence of that soul. Observation by anything without a soul will not. Hoofenberg so named his theory after attempting, for months, to assess why his experiment on a magical crystal in a vacuum would suffer specific deviations whenever he looked at it through the glass of his viewing station or on a live camera, but not when seen through a recording. Working backwards, he eliminated variables until the only one remaining was the presence of what he dubbed ‘a manifest, undefined presence’; an altogether unhelpful definition, but it did get him a re-up of his study grants. Zebra necromancers claim the soul is the ‘divine spark’ granted by their gods at the beginning of life on Equis, but proof of that is in short supply. This hasn’t stopped them from working out all sorts of hideous ways of messing about with that spark before it passes into whatever place it would otherwise go. However, young shamans are always cautioned that if souls are indeed some aspect of their high holies' power, they should be treated with respect, lest their gods come seeking an explanation of exactly why they’ve got a few dozen shambling, undead sparks of divinity doing the laundry and washing up. -The Scholar Slap! “Hrg...” Slap! “Buh...” Slap! “Ouch!” “Um...Miss Jade, are you trying to wake him up?” “What?  Oh.  I suppose it might have that side-effect.  This is just more fun than waiting.” Slap! ---- Lily cradled my cheek with an ice pack, running a hoof through my mane as we sat together in the back of the truck.  Swift and Jade were nowhere to be seen.  Nor was Mags, for that matter, but I didn’t have the energy to contemplate that just then.   “Could you have maybe stopped her from hitting me?” I asked, softly. “Hardy, she just clipped a hydra and mounted its bits on the roof,” Lily said, resting her muzzle against my neck. “Mrph...” “If you don’t mind, why did you faint?” I looked up into her eyes, which held nothing but curiosity and sympathy, wishing in my heart of hearts I could lie to her.  Unfortunately, Lily was one of those ponies who teased my honest streak. “Jade and I have history,” I replied, sitting up.  “It’s been a stressful day, and I very suddenly realized how many times I dodged one particularly violent bullet by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin.” Lily pursed her lips, then wrinkled her nose as she parsed my answer. “You...you don’t think she’d have done that to you, do you?  I mean, a hydra is one thing, but-” I shuddered, pulling my hooves under my barrel.  “She kept a carrot peeler in her desk, Lily.  It was in the same drawer she kept her pistol and pills.  Knowing what I now do about some of her extracurricular activities, I’m pretty sure she’d have had Slip Stitch make her a nice brooch and earring set out of my very personal anatomy if our relationship had continued in that vein much longer.  Either way, it doesn’t matter.  I’m fine, now.  Where are we?” Lily reluctantly let go, stretching languorously as she got to her hooves.  “Well, Miss Jade moved that tree that fell on the road, and I drove us a little farther on.  Everyone else is outside sorting the supplies.  We’re about ten minutes from the turn off, according to the map.” Dropping the ice pack, I shook my unruly mane out of my eyes and nodded toward the driver’s seat.  “Could you start the truck and get us ready to move?  I don’t want to be in one place too long, just in case a female hydra decides she likes our smell.  Jade can’t kill every ugly thing that’ll come out of this forest.” “Oooh...I didn’t even think of that.  Ugh!  I hate this place!  My father would have called these woods ‘meaner’n a wet panther’.”  A sad smile crossed her face, and she added, “I might have, too, if Ruby didn’t drag me to her high falutin’ voice lessons.  Never thought I’d be using them so soon, though.” “If we manage to save the world, I want to hear you sing for me.  Now come on.  I’ll get the peanut gallery, and we can get this over with.” Trotting to the back hatch, I pushed it open and jumped out.  The stink hit me in the face like a physical object, and I spent a half minute just fighting my own stomach.  It was a battle hard won, and neither side was willing to predict which way the war might go.   ‘Don’t look at the roof.  Don’t look at the roof.  Don’t look at the roof.’ Iris and my partner were both standing beside one of the larger luggage ports lining the A.M.V.’s armored belly, sifting through piles of supplies.  Mags was curled up on Jade’s back, her face hidden in the bony mare’s mane. “Miss Cuddles, tell me there’s a reason there’s a griffin military ration in with the ammunition?” Jade asked, magicking a silvery package out of an ammo box. “I was hungry when we were packing!” Swift replied, grabbing it out of midair and hugging it to her chest.   I tapped the side of the truck to get their attention, and when they both looked up, I noticed they were wearing noseplugs.  “We ready to move?” “Yes, Sir!” Swift chirped, stuffing the ration pack back into the compartment and slamming it closed.  “The Hailstorm is ready, all of our guns are loaded, and the fuel tank is full!” “You know, I wondered how you survived the last couple of months,” Jade commented.  “Assigning you this one was a mistake.  She probably extended your lifespan by a solid six weeks, at least.” “Um...thanks...maybe?” my partner said, giving the unicorn a wary look. “Speaking of innocents you’re likely to get killed: here.”  Iris lifted Mags off her back, carefully levitating the sleeping bundle across my shoulders.  “She will sleep for at least three hours with the spell I laid on her.  You need to feed her more fiber and fewer sweets.  Also, I have a book on teaching children to preen their own feathers that you will read.” “Do I detect a threat?” I asked. She shrugged her spindly shoulders and trotted around the back of the giant truck as the engine let out a lively bellow.   “Do I need to include one?” ---- A further five miles into the deep forest and the trees had grown to a huge height, completely cutting off light from above and leaving the road in permanent shadow.  I found myself wishing Taxi were there beside me, if only for a hoof to hold.  Praying to Celestia for her safety felt a bit pointless, but I whispered a few words anyway. The local fauna seemed to be keeping clear, but that was probably down to our new roof ornament.  Jade had strapped the hydra’s ‘glands’ to the rack up top with a bit of rope to hold them in place, though considering the splashes of stinking pheromonal fluid slowly dribbling down the sides, it might not have been strictly necessary; the A.M.V. would never be clean again. “Lily, I know you said off road, but that navigation spell wouldn’t drag us into the woods, would it?”  I asked.   “I don’t know,” she replied, squinting,  “It says this is the right general direction, but there’s nothing marked on the map.” “This pylon is in the middle of nowhere, so they must have some way of getting to it, right?  For maintenance, if nothing else.” Lily nodded.  “I don’t think pegasi could fly through all those branches, though, and...wait!  I see something!  What is that?” \ She pointed through the windshield at a narrow break in the trees just ahead; a thin gravel track abutted on either side by vast, gnarled oaks.  A ‘no trespassing’ sign dangled from a chain hung between the two trees nearest the road.  Pulling us into the drive, she let the engine idle as we studied the road disappearing into the dark forest. “Huh.  Alright, I suppose that’s as good as any.”  Leaning around the seat, I called into the back.  “We’ve got a chain across a trail here that might be headed in the right direction!  Swift?” My partner nodded, then opened the hatch and jumped out, flying around the side to reappear in our headlamps.  Unlatching the chain, she hauled it out of the way, then waved us through.   “Keep our speed low,” I murmured.  “Watch for places to turn around.  Trying to back this heap out of here is going to be a nightmare.” “Oh Celestia above,” Lily whispered as pulled us onto the track. “I’m driving an armoured truck, in the dark, in the middle of a monster-infested wilderness to chase leads with a crazy detective pony!  What am I doing with my life?!” “Did that hit you just now?” I asked. “Yes, it did.”  She exhaled, tucked a lock of her bright red mane behind one ear, and squeezed the wheel more tightly.  “Hardy, if I volunteer for anything ever again, I want you to kick me right in the nose.” “I can’t promise that, but just imagine being the crazy detective pony.” “No offense—because I really like you—but I don’t think I want to…” ---- We traveled deeper and deeper, farther from the safety of the road network.  The track was a rutted mess of washboard gravel that the truck’s suspension handled as best it could while still managing to almost shake my teeth loose.  Armed, armored, and as ‘ready for anything’ as a group whose definition of ‘anything’ had been stretched to the breaking point could be, we slowly approached the glowing green dot on the truck’s navigation system that marked our destination.  The trail ahead of us was unlit, but a pair of deep-worn cart tracks showed that at least somepony had come our way sometime in recent history.   After about two minutes on the road, the scales on my flanks had started to ache. I was restlessly chewing on a dried apricot from a ration I’d found in the glove box and peering out the side window when Lily let out a startled gasp and slammed on the brakes hard enough to pin me to my seatbelt.   Spitting out the apricot, I snapped my trigger bit into my teeth. “What?!  What is it?!” Swift yelped, wedging her nose between the seats.   “Sorry, sorry!  It’s...it’s just a gate!” Lily gasped, then added, a bit lamely, “I almost hit it…” I took a few deep breaths, trying to quiet my racing heart.  In the headlights, I could just make out a stone wall a little taller than my head blocking the path ahead with a thick wooden gate in the middle made of what looked like railroad ties.  The wall disappeared into the trees on both sides. “Sir, I think we’re there,” Swift said, pointing at the map.  The little arrow that represented us was almost directly overlaying the destination marker.  “Mmm...That wall is enchanted,” Jade said.  “Heavily enchanted.  You want to continue this mad adventure, you’re doing in on hoof.  Somepony paid a pretty penny for those spells.” “What kind of enchantments are we talking here?” I asked. “Do I look like an arcane spectrometer?” she snapped.  “This is me being helpful.  You want something more, you can go throw a stick at it and see what happens.” “Fine, we’ll make it work.  You coming?” “Haven’t you heard?  I’m retired.”  Jade threw herself onto one of the benches along the back walls and put her hooves behind her head.  “Take a walkie-talkie.  I’ll guard the chick and the truck, since one deserves to live through this and the other means I don’t have to walk back to Detrot carrying a hydra’s testicles on my back, but I’m not getting up for anything smaller than a manticore.  Don’t call me for anything that dies to bullets.” “Suit yourself.  Swift?” “I’m ready, Sir!  Hailstorm charged!” “Good, now let’s get going.  Lily, we’ll be back—” “Nuhuh!  You promised me a shotgun and some answers!  I’m coming!” ---- There was a brief discussion, during which I presented many good, salient reasons as to why it was a terrible idea for Lily to follow me and my partner into the big, scary, fenced-off estate.  Then we got out of the truck and got my shotgun from the luggage compartment, and I showed her the various little features on it and adjusted the trigger so it could be fired with magic.  That done, we were left standing there in front of the gate. “No ‘beware of the dog’, signs.  That’s a plus,” I commented, raising a flashlight and playing the circle of illumination back and forth over the wall.   “Sir, the only kind of dog I can think of that might survive out here is Goofball,” Swift murmured.   “You seeing any hostiles?”   “No, but there’s definitely something in there.  My targeting spell is acting funny, though.  It won’t lock onto anything.” Lily took a couple of steps forward and stared up at the stone wall.  Lifting the silver-inlaid shotgun off her back, she levitated it over to the gate.  I braced, tensing my knee to kick my trigger and picking a particularly wide tree to sprint towards.  Giving the door a gentle nudge, she danced backwards, ratcheting the gun’s slide.  After a few seconds of silence, we all relaxed; no deafening sirens had gone off, no alarms were raised, and no gun-wielding hillbillies rushed out seeking delicious pony-flesh for their evening meal.   “Those walls are definitely magical, but this isn’t,” she told us, giving the wood a sharp rap with the shotgun’s stock.  “I don’t feel anything except a couple of durability spells like I used to weave into the barn back home.” “That doesn’t mean much,” I said.  “Non-magical alarms could still drop an army on our heads.” “Sir, are you saying someone at a security company is sitting watching monitors right now?” Swift asked.   “Eh,  I wouldn’t put it by this bunch.  We’re still dealing the pricks who can track damn near anything that moves in the city, but short of going back, I don’t think we have any other options.  We either do this and hope they’re not watching, or drive back to Detrot with our tails between our legs. I’m game, if you are.  Lily?” “It can’t be any worse than sitting in the police station waiting to starve to death.” “On three, then.” I picked up my trigger and pressed my shoulder to the gate as Swift eased in on the other side, trigger in her teeth and Hailstorm buzzing.  After about ten seconds, Lily took the hint and edged in against my flank. Dipping my chin once, twice, thrice, I shoved my not-inconsiderable strength into the gate.  It let out a loud, mechanical *clank*, then a sound like a pile of chain being thrown down some stairs, which was loud enough to send me scrambling backwards as some hidden weights somewhere in the wall slowly swung the gate open on a perfectly oiled hinge.  Swift peeked around the corner, scanned back and forth, then shook her head.   “I see something out there, but I’m pretty sure it’s underground.  One signal, kinda fuzzy, not moving.  I think we’re clear.” I shoved my flashlight into a strap on my hat and said, “Then let’s go say ‘hello’.” Tiny rocks crunched under our hooves as we spread out across the opposite side of the wall.  The truck’s headlamps barely penetrated the thick shadows and stealth was impossible; between Lily’s horn-glow, my headtorch, and the tiny penlight that Swift had taped to the side of the Hailstorm, we weren’t going to ‘ninja’ our way in.  Unfortunately, the darkness was so complete that the alternative was stumbling about until one of us twisted a knee or broke an ankle. The trees continued on the other side of the wall, the canopy still cutting off all light from above as we made our way up the road, staying close to one another.  Lily watched the trees and Swift would occasionally spin in a quick circle, trying to catch out a sneaky foe, but nothing was moving.  There wasn’t so much as a breath of wind and the air felt damp and close.  The eerie quiet was starting to work on my sensibilities; every breath sounded like a distant gunshot and every step was a cocking hammer. About twenty steps further on, the gravel changed to a neatly laid stone path.  We continued, still scanning for enemies, when a shape melted out of the darkness, almost entirely without warning: a sprawling set of white, wooden stairs with elaborately curling iron railings on either side. “Uh...Sir?  That target is definitely underground, now,” Swift murmured.  She was looking ahead of us and at the stairs, or rather, through them.  “Still no movement.  What do you think this is?” “Not a clue.  Lily, can we get some more light?” “Ruby was the one who was good at making things shine, but I’ll try,” Lily replied, lifting herself up on the tips of her toes.  Grunting, she channeled more power through her horn until the glow drove the shadows back. “I...uh...Sir, I could be wrong, but that doesn’t look like a shield pylon...” “No kidding…” Shield pylon or not, I knew we’d found our destination.   The first word that entered my mind was ‘palace’, although that might not have been entirely accurate.  It was a house, bigger than any I’d ever seen and built in a style that’d gone out of fashion a hundred years ago.  Three stories high, I counted twenty windows across the top floor.  There was no telling how deep it was, but several of the largest trees seemed to spear right through the middle, their canopies keeping the sun from touching any part of the building. A giant, wooden porch ringed each level, with a half dozen ornate rocking chairs set in little groups on each.  The ‘cop’ part of my brain was giving me a quick primer in just how easy it was likely to be for someone to take a shot at us from up there, but the rest was marveling at the opulence.  It was as though somepony had taken an old-timey farm house, scaled it up, and dropped it squarely in the middle of the Wilds. The workmanship was impeccable.  Not an inch of the brilliantly white paint was peeling, nor a meter of the wood bent, nor a nail out of place.  Somepony hadn’t so much ‘spared no expense’ as ‘spent the bank’; there wasn’t even any mildew under the eves, despite a layer of dust on the stairs leading up to the doors. Worst of all, I didn’t need a horn to smell the magic coming off the place; there was a putrid, invisible cloud of enchantment and arcanum radiating from the whitewashed walls that wrapped itself around me like an oppressive blanket.   After a moment to study the giant house, Lily’s horn flickered and faded, plunging us back into the gloom. “Sir, I’ve fought two dragons, a whole heap of griffins, a bunch of drug dealers, a professional boxer, a cockatrice, and the cult of Nightmare Moon,” Swift muttered, unfolding and refolding her wings. “Why do I suddenly feel like we don’t have enough firepower?” “We’ve got the walkie-talkie and Iris is one panicked shout away,” I replied. Lily sat back on the gravel and rubbed at her eyes.  “Oh, Celestia...How bad have things gotten when having that mare anywhere nearby is comforting?” I tapped her on the withers.  “You remember that word you used earlier? The dirty one you wanted me to kick you for saying?” “You mean ‘volunteer’?” “Exactly.  Come on.  Sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can drive back through a monster infested forest, dodge some dragons, fight our way through mutant ponies, and see if all of our friends are dead or not.” Lily bopped me on the shoulder.  “Arrrg!  Stop saying things like that!” “No can do, lovely.”   Turning, I trotted toward the house.  Over my shoulder, I heard Lily ask, “Is he always that annoying?” “No, but I think he likes you,” Swift replied, giggling as she cantered after me. ---- Step.   Pause. Step. Pause. Wait for gunfire. Step.   Listen for movement.   Considering our approach, it was a bit pointless to creep up, but once my hoof hit the bottom of those beautifully crafted stairs, my throat seized up and any joking mood I might have been in dried right up.   The stairs barely creaked under my weight as Swift and I crept up to the door and gently tested the knob.  It turned almost silently and swung inward.  Ducking my head around the corner, I flashed my light back and forth, then exhaled as I pulled back.     “Nothing,” I whispered.  “Kid?” “Other than the fuzzy target from before?  Nothing moving.” “Then the plan is this,” I ordered, nodding at the open door.  “We move in and check rooms.  Small arms fire only and try not to kill anything if you can avoid it.”  Swift nodded and the Hailstorm’s turrets settled back into their casings.  “Make sure we’re staying in each other’s sight lines.  Lily, wait here until we give you the all clear, okay?” The unicorn frowned, lifting her shotgun a little higher.  “Why do I have to sit back here?  I know how to use a gun!” I drew in a sharp breath and wrestled with my nerves for a moment until I beat down the urge to snap at her.  For all she might have been through the depths of the pit over the last few days, she was still a civilian. “Lily...We need you to cover us if we have to suddenly run away.  Can you do that?” “Oh!  Right!”  Her ears drooped and she pressed herself against the wall of the house.  “Sorry, Hardy.  I just...you know, I hate being left behind...”   “Then it’s a good thing we won’t be leaving you.  Watch the forest, keep your gun ready,  and listen for my call.” With that, I gestured for Swift to take the lead.  Sliding into the building, she swung her gun around the door frame and I quickly followed her in, checking the nearby corners of the room with my light, then scanning across the walls.   We appeared to be in some kind of large foyer.  There were two sets of stairs on either side of the room which led up to the second floor and an interior balcony, but I couldn’t see what might be up there.  A crystal chandelier straight out of a fairytale dangled from the ceiling overhead, casting rainbows on the walls as my light ran across it.  On the wall nearest me there was a strange painting of an elderly stallion’s face with a bushy mustache and wide, frightened eyes.  His mouth was half open and his features were tightly drawn, as though he were in pain. “That is so not how I’d want to decorate my apartment,”  Swift muttered.  I looked where she was pointing and saw a second painting, this time of a mare well into late-middle age whose lips were drawn back from her teeth in a grimace of terror or agony. “Lily is waiting for us.  Gawk once we know nopony is in here.” “I haven’t seen any electronic alarms, yet, but...I think this place is wired for electricity,” she said, indicating a switch unobtrusively tucked away behind a candelabra.  “Should...should we turn it on, Sir?” “Leave it for now,” I said.  “You got chalk on you?” “Yes, Sir!” “Mark any doors that look promising with a circle, anything dangerous with an ‘x’, and searched but uninteresting with an equals sign.  Move.” Two long hallways spread from the foyer, with two more on the second floor.  Swift headed for the one on the left and I started down the one on the right, making sure I could still see her as she moved to the first door and stuck her nose in.  Leading with her gun, she gave it a quick once over.   “Clear!” Moving to the nearest door, I nudged it open, keeping my head low in case somepony had trapped it.  It was some sort of small dining room with more of those unusual pictures on the walls; two stallions frozen in anguish, a mare with a bloody nose and bruises around her eyes, and another was a younger mare in something that looked like a hospital bed.  That last one was simply lying there.  A table covered in a dust cloth lay in the middle of the room with a half dozen chairs pushed under it, but nothing moved.  Pulling a bit of chalk from my pocket, I scratched a pair of lines. I pulled back and shouted, “Clear!” The next one was a bathroom with a claw-foot tub big enough to do laps, a marble basin, and a toilet with an alabaster seat; expensive, but still somehow tasteful.  It was a whole other world from the ridiculous and showy richness of the Monte Cheval.  The ponies who’d built the place were rich on a scale that most tend to associate with royalty.   “Clear!” I called and got a ‘clear’ in reply.   For about five minutes, all we did was move from room to room, giving them a peek, leaving a mark, and moving on.  Most were relatively normal things one might expect to find in a rich pony’s house; another dining room, a janitorial closet, and several guest bedrooms.  Others defied explanation; an immaculate school room with four little desks and a chalkboard, a storage space full of boxes with a thick tree growing through the middle of it, and what appeared to be some form of arcane laboratory with a half dozen tables heavily laden with bits of magical gear. Once we both reached the corner, with another hallway leading to the back of the building, I called Swift and we started over.  Cigar room, bedroom with a four poster bed, tea room with another tree trunk growing through it, and so on.   The strange pictures of ponies afraid or in pain were ubiquitous and I gradually began to notice a pattern; they were all related.  Most were variations on certain color schemes, with only a few outliers here and there.  The paintings showed different levels of skill and they ranged in age from quite young adults to ancient, withered dams and sires, but there was no question they were family. “Sir, if we were going to be attacked, I’m pretty sure we would have by now,” Swift murmured as we finished the rear corridor.  “Do you think we should call Lily?” “Yeah, probably.  If there’s any solid leads here, we’re going to be searching all night as it is.  Anything interesting on that end?” She nodded.  “I found an office with enough bits stacked up in it to buy our own private island.  No sign of a shield pylon, though.  The target is still below us.” Cocking my head, I looked up at the ceiling.  “Kid, check me on this, but this place is square, right?” Swift glanced off to one side, thinking.  “Um...I think so.  The corners are ninety degrees.  I didn’t count the doors.” “Neither did I, but none of the interior doors on this floor have rooms more than three meters deep, right?” “Are...are you...”  Her eyes lit up and her wings unfurled half-way.   “Wait, you’re right!” I tapped the wall with my hoof, which let out a dull *thunk* noise.  “So, kinda leaves a question, doesn’t it?” “Yeah...yeah it does!  What’s in the middle?!” ---- Lily was right where we left her, standing beside the front door in a rough approximation of a royal guard’s ‘attention’ with her shotgun lazily levitating in circles beside her.   “Anything interesting out there?”  I asked and she jumped, swinging her gun around. “Yeep!...oh...gosh.  Hardy, you scared me!” She quickly lowered her barrel. “I haven’t seen anything at all.” “Well, Swift and I are done on this floor.  No traps.  You want to help?” ---- “Mercy. I thought it was weird downstairs,” I muttered, staring up into at the stuffed head of a very surprised-looking dragon.  We’d made the second floor, only to discover most of it occupied by some kind of trophy room with a few bedrooms. “Sir, that’s a charybdis skull over there,”  Swift said, pointing at the other end of space.  “I thought they only lived in the ocean.” “I don’t even know what that is, but going with the theme, I’m going to guess ‘rare, dangerous, and expensive to hunt’,” I grunted, trotting down the row of mounted trophies lining the walls. Lily was looking a tad green as she sat in front of the mounted head of a goat-headed beast with one eye.  “Whoever these ponies were, they were sick!  There’s a changeling’s head right there, and this is a Griffonian cyclops!” “Who’d want to live with those creepy pictures?” Swift pointed out, popping her notepad out and licking the end of her pen. “Lots of these species were intelligent.  Should we count these as murders, Sir?  Might be good evidence if we get whoever is behind this to trial...” “Trials are for the living, kid.” “You...you mean we’re not going to arrest them, Sir?” I stopped and turned to her.  “We’ve got generations of people who were born, grew up, and died in this house as well as the one before it and the one before that.  Those paintings are their ancestors.  No names.  No dates.  But the same sort of coat, same mane colors, same eyes, for decade after decade.  How many generations would you say they represent?” “I...I wasn’t...I hadn’t really thought about it,” she replied, uncertainly.  “I...I just.... We’re still cops—” “We are,” I said, tapping her notepad.  “Look at the age of this stuff. This is generations of hunters.  Generations of killers.  Foals, dams, and sires who grew up slaughtering creatures for fun and mounting their heads on this wall.  Now, they’ve created demonic dogs from ponies and murdered an uncounted number of innocents.  How many centuries in prison do you think they deserve?” “I...I don’t know.  Forever, really.  Life in Tartarus—” “Will that make all these deaths right?” She flicked her eyes at the frozen eyes of the dead changeling, then slowly, meaningfully folded her notepad and stuck it back in her pocket.  “I’d hate to be the pony to make that call, Sir.” “You and me both.  Keep looking.” ---- “Oooh, don’t mind if I do,” I chuckled to myself, tugging open a stocked liquor cabinet that was tucked behind one of several comfortable looking vinyl couches.  The large lounge we’d stumbled on took up an entire half of the third floor and had a smell to it like old wood and pipe smoke that I found I liked.  Unfortunately it was ruined somewhat by the stuffed heads and ever present images of tortured ponies. Liberating a couple bottles of extraordinarily expensive booze, I tucked them in my pockets.  Picking up a third, I popped the top and took a quick swig, then raised my head and called to Lily, who was messing about in one of the closets, “You got anything over there?” “Well, somepony was planning on coming back, but I don’t think they’ve been here for awhile,” she said, pushing open a small refrigerator tucked beside the bar. “There’s no food in this fridge and it was unplugged, but there’s a pantry full of non-perishables over there and the anti-dust spells on the furniture haven’t been renewed in at least six months.  Ma and Pa left our winter home like this.” Swift poked her head in, and I knew immediately that something was wrong.   “Sir, I think you’d better come look at this.” “What is it, kid?” I asked, corking my bottle and adding it to my collection.   “I really don’t want to speculate on this,” she answered, ears drooping against her head.  “Could you just come see?” The expression on her face was enough to give me pause.  I slowly nodded, then turned to the other mare who was nosing through a closet full of board games.   “Lily, you mind bagging some of that food in the pantry and anything else you think might be useful?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as even and casual as possible.  “No sense leaving it.  We’ll be right down the hall, alright?” “Hmmm?  Oh...sure!” Lily replied, cheerfully snatching an empty sack from a pile behind the bar.  “I’ve never gotten to rob somepony before!  Particularly somepony who deserved it!” I smirked and picked another bottle from the cabinet before following Swift to the door.  “Hopefully, this will be a one time thing.” She didn’t reply, already gleefully ripping open some of the boxes in the pantry. ---- Following Swift back into the trophy room, we headed for a short hallway I hadn’t noticed the first time through with six doors, three on either side.  What little sense of direction I actually had told me we should be somewhere near the outer wall, but there was a strange lack of windows on that end of the house.   My partner’s shoulders were hunched and her wings tucked in tight against her body as she pointed at one of the doors.  “In there.  The rest are more of the same.” I mouthed the words ‘more of the same’ at her, but she just shook her head.  Deciding I wasn’t going to get much more out of her, I pushed the door open and shined my flashlight across the floor.  The first thing it caught was a plush toy; a white lamb.  It sat on a tiny bed, amongst a pile of other stuffed animals. ‘A children’s room?’ I thought, taking a couple of steps into the space.  ‘I guess now we know what the school desks and chalkboard downstairs were about.’ Behind me, Swift murmured, “The walls.  Look at the walls.” I raised my light higher and suddenly found myself unable to breathe.   ‘No…’ I don’t remember rushing out of the room or slamming the door behind me, but when my regained my senses, I was sitting on the carpet beside Swift, fighting the hideous images looping through my mind.   Foals.   Pictures of foals.   Foals screaming.  Foals crying.  Foals with broken horns.  Foals with bloody stumps instead of wings.  Foals in pain. There’d been at least a dozen images in there, and the cruelty was documented in vicious detail. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed Swift in my forelegs and held her to my chest.  Tears were already flowing freely down her cheeks, but when I picked her up she let out a choked sob.  Her huge wings curled around the two of us and I prayed that Lily wouldn’t hear us, wouldn’t come looking for us, and above all, wouldn’t ask what we’d seen.  It was an awkward position with the Hailstorm wrapped around her, but neither of us cared. An unusual sensation welled up inside me and I had a brief vision of red eyes, flashing teeth, and a gaping maw reaching down from the sky to swallow my world.  My teeth chattered and my ears twitched as I clung to Swift until she let out a soft whimper of discomfort.  I forced myself to relax my grip on her, but I could still feel myself teetering on the edge of a precipice.  On one side, the blackened pit my world had become and the slimmest hopes by which it hung.  On the other, madness, beckoning me to go quietly into a place where none of the evils could ever reach me. Putting my toe under her chin, I lifted her head until we were looking at each other, eye to eye. “Swift, don’t tell Lily about what you saw in there.  You and I will handle it.  Agreed?” “H-how?” she choked. I set her back on her hooves, stepped back, took a deep breath, and explained exactly how we would handle it.   Once I was done, through tears of pity and anger, she gave me a tiny grim smile of satisfaction. ---- Once we’d recomposed ourselves, we trotted back into the lounge to find Lily filling a fifth sack with goods from the pantry.   “I said a bag, not a cart load!  How are we going to get that out to the truck!” “Oh...right! Sorry, I wasn’t thinking!” she squeaked, dropping the back across her hooves.  “It’s just...there’s so much food here, and I haven’t eaten a really good meal in days.  I didn’t even get breakfast this morning.” “Then grab a snack and let’s go.  There’s nothing of interest on this floor,” I lied, praying she wouldn’t call me on the streaky tears neither Swift nor I had thought to wipe off our cheeks.  “We’re going to go check out that office downstairs.” ---- Lily was noisily munching on a piece of pineapple from one of the purloined cans as we stood in front of the door Swift had directed us toward.  A small metal plate said, ‘Consequences’ in big black letters beside the door knob, set at about the height of a small child. “Hrm...I wonder what that means,” Lily commented, tapping the plate with a silver fork she’d snatched from the lounge side-board.            Swift and I shared a meaningful look, then I turned the handle and pushed the door open, stepping through with my flashlight leading the way.  As the beam panned across the interior, my eyes almost burst right out of my head and went for a little roll.  If I’d been holding the light in my mouth, I’d have dropped it on my own hooves.            ‘Office’ was the wrong word for what she’d found; the right word was ‘hoard’.  It was a treasury fit for a dragon.  Piles of old-world gold bits, heaps of bills, stacks of paper, and jewelry boxes full of exotic, glowing gemstones lined all four walls from floor to ceiling.  An office desk made out some fine wood took up most of the center of the room with a wing-backed seat.  It was heaped with ledgers and bills. The space was full of enough wealth to live like a king and all of it right there for the taking.  It took a moment for the realization that it was all worthless to sink into my brain.          “Forget the food,” Lily whispered, wedging in behind me.  “Can I get a bag of this?”          “Won’t do us much good,” I sighed, trotting inside.  “What are we going to trade it for?  Food is valuable.  All of this?  Just pretty rocks without an economy propping it up.”  I cocked my head as my light fell on another door which I hadn’t noticed until that moment, which led off to one side.  “Kid, did you check back there?”          She shook her head.  “You said mark and move on, Sir.  I was trying to get done as quickly as possible.  Maybe a closet or something?”          I moved to the door and tried the handle.  It was locked; the only locked door we’d encountered so far.          “Start looking.  Maybe there’s a key in this mess.”          “I could just buck it off the hinges, you know,” Lily offered as she tugged open a standing cabinet, drawing out a necklace that glittered brilliantly. Holding it up to her neck, she studied her reflection in the glass of one of the display cases. “So could I.  That’s plan ‘B’,”  I replied, heading for the stack of ledgers.  “We’re searching in here anyway.  Feel free to find yourself something nice, but be prepared to drop it if we have to run.” “Oh, Hardy, you do know how to treat a filly!”  she giggled, levitating a gold-encrusted broach to her breast.   I headed for the stacks of ledgers on the desk and Swift began rooting through drawers, leaving them half open as she searched each one.  Nosing open the top book, I began reading, or at least trying to.  The entire thing was in some kind of code, which appeared to be random strings of numbers and letters with a box that said ‘final balance’ with a carefully penned pair of initials at the end. “Kid, do the initials ‘D.W.’ mean anything to you?” I asked, holding up the book. Swift shook her head.  “No, Sir.  I mean, I had a filly named Daffodil Waters in one of my classes at school, but I’m pretty sure she became a music teacher...” “Damn.  These are encrypted.  Some kind of code.” Pushing that one aside, I checked the next.  Same thing. “Well, these aren’t encrypted,” Swift said, tugging a sheaf of expensive paper out of a drawer.  “Sir, there’s about a hundred million bits worth of deeds in here.  Whoever owns this place had properties everywhere!  Some of these date back three or four hundred years!  I think I even saw one six hundred years old!” I took the papers from her and began leafing through them.  “Lots in Canterlot, Baltimare, and Manehattan.  They’ve even got places staked out in the griffin lands.  Who are these ponies?” “This pony, Sir,” Swift pointed out.  “All of them are signed ‘D W’.” I held up two of the papers, side by side.  “Yeah, but look.  Same initials, but these are sixty years apart.  Different hoof-writing, too.  This looks like somepony signed with their mouth, and that’s definitely by horn.” “Hardy, I think this code you found in these ledgers is magical,”  Lily murmured, drifting her horn over the ledgers a couple of times.  “It’s got a spell signature, but there’s nothing being cast, so it’s not an enchantment.” “Cute.  Why am I not surprised these ponies have access to Crusades tech?  It’s arcane encryption,” I grunted, snapping the ledger shut. “Too expensive for your average crime boss, but these ponies don’t seem to have any upper limits.  Lily, grab a couple of these and we’ll take them to Limerence and the Aroyo Ancestors.  Let them bang their heads against it a little bit.” She nodded, levitating a few of the ledgers into her bag, along with a pile of deeds.   “Hardy, I don’t know if it’s my place, but have you noticed how few names there are in here?”  Lily mused.  “I looked at a few of those pictures.  They didn’t have any identifying marks except the faces.  Even the...the...trophies, upstairs.  No names.  No record of who killed them.  There wasn’t so much as a diary anywhere I could find.  Even the bookshelves were just lots of first editions, but none of them were signed.” “I picked up on that.  Hopefully there’s something in those papers—” “Sir!  Keys!”  Swift interjected, pulling a jangling ring of keys from the drawer.   “Good, kid.  I’d love to spend a week in here, but we still need to see that target.  What’s the condition on that, by the way?” The Hailstorm’s turrets buzzed as Swift spun around, looking at the carpet.  “Still below us, but no movement.  It looks like...I don’t know.  I haven’t gotten very good at reading this thing, yet.  It looks very, very fuzzy.  The closer we get, the more it looks like lots of targets really close to each other.” Taking the keys from her, I began slotting them into the hole on the door, one at a time.  It took a solid five minutes before one clicked.  “Stack up and move slow.  Lily—” Her ears laid back.  “Yeah, yeah, I know… Wait here…” I laid a hoof on her shoulder.  “Actually, I was going to say ‘Follow close and keep the shotgun well above our heads’.  We might need the firepower.” Lily grinned and the shotgun swung into the air, floating about a meter up.  “Right!  Ready!” Giving her a quick nod, I pushed through the door and gravity took hold with a vengeful fury.  Letting out a stallion-ly shout of alarm, I started to fall over a yawning abyss.  My armor let out a yowl and flash of sparks, then a painful yank on my backside brought me to a sudden halt in mid-air.  After a moment, I was gently pulled back from the edge until my hooves rested on polished wood again. “You’re lucky that armor doesn’t cover your tail, Hardy,” Lily murmured. “Good...good to know,”  I replied, breathily as I tried to work out the kink she’d snatched in my rear. “Could we avoid telling Iris Jade that particular piece of information?  I feel it may be abused.” “The words ‘hammer throw’ just came to mind, Sir,” Swift giggled. “Let’s not give her any ideas.”  I stuck my head through the door and over the sharp edge I’d almost stepped off of.  A thin stairwell descended into the dark, disappearing at the edge of the range of my light.  “I think we found our way down, though.” With the shotgun floating ahead and Lily’s magic providing a bit of light, I stepped onto the top step.  It let out a deafening creak of protesting wood and I quickly stepped back.   “Oog… We should have brought Limerence,” I commented.  “He’s sneaky.” “I don’t think we’d have gotten him out of this office,” Swift murmured. I started down the narrow stairs.  There wasn’t room for us to go side by side, so I took the lead, with Lily behind me and Swift bringing up our flank.  There weren’t any light bulbs or wires which might have indicated modern technology, but I did catch a slight whiff of something in the cool, stale air.   “Kid, your nose is better than mine—” “Rotten flesh, Sir.  Old rotten flesh.” “Damn.” Lily pressed close and I had to catch myself on the railing, lest I end up taking a roll down the steps.  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I d-don’t know how you’ve been doing stuff like this for the last t-two months without going totally insane.” “You’re the first pony in a while who doesn’t think I already have,” I replied, peering at the walls as we descended.  They seemed a bit rougher and less perfectly built than the house above.  I paused a few meters down, bringing my friends to a halt.   My light had fallen on two long scuffs ran down the wall, with two more on the stairs below them. “Those are hoof marks.  Somepony was...dragged down here.” We stopped again a few steps further down; there were more scuffs as well as a bit of the wall that’d been scorched around the edges. “Sir, that’s spell fire,” Swift said, in a hushed tone, leaning around Lily.  “Look at the way the wood...melted.  Almost like candle-wax.” “It usually does more damage than that.  Spell fire should have blasted a hole right through—” “No, Hardy.  I’ve...I’ve seen spell fire like this,” Lily said, softly.   “Where?” I asked, tilting my head. “Once, when I was a foal, I had a nightmare and...and I burned a hole in my wall.”  She lifted her chin at the spot.  “It looked just like that; melted wood and everything.  Young unicorns get magical surges…” The sharp sound of breath rushing out of my clenched teeth silenced her.  Snapping my trigger into my mouth, I stomped down the stairs in silence, ignoring the splash of blood here or the bit of what appeared to be a third of a tiny, pink horn embedded in the bannister, there.  My internal sounding device was telling me we’d crossed ground level and were moving deeper underground. Slowly at first, the stairs began to turn in a slow circle until we’d gone almost a hundred and eighty degrees back toward the house. The wooden walls abruptly ended in rough granite, widening to comfortably fit two ponies side by side and, just ahead, the stairs ended at a smooth, stone path.  The ceiling and both sides of the passage looked like they’d been hewn straight out of the sub-strata, while the floor felt like polished marble. “Hrmmm...Why not just build a stairwell?” Swift asked, poking at the walls.  “Wouldn’t that be easier?” “It’s a mine, kid,” I replied, nudging my gun-bit to one side of my mouth so I could talk.  “See those wooden supports overhead?  It was on the map Taxi showed us.  We’re in an old diamond mine.” “Oh!  I see! It curves so they could push mine-carts up and they just built the stairs over the tracks!” Lily stopped and put a hoof to her forehead. “You alright?” I asked, worriedly.   Wincing as she lowered the shotgun onto her back, Lily leaned against the wall, gritting her teeth. “There’s so much power in here that it’s giving me a horn ache.”  I started to offer to let her cover our escape again, but she cut me off,  “No, don’t be all chivalrous.  It makes you sound goofy.” “No chivalry then, but I don’t want to carry you out of here if we suddenly need to run from something.” “If it feels like I’m gonna pass out, I’ll come back.  Now, come on!  Let’s finish this and go home!”  She racked the shotgun’s slide in a way I’m sure she thought would look very intimidating.  A shell popped out of the ejector, bounced off my snout, and dropped to the floor.  Quickly sweeping it up, she stuffed it back in the gun.  “Oops!  Sorry!” Swift shot me a quick grin and I could hear what she was thinking. ‘Rookies…’ ---- About twenty meters down the gently wending hallway, it abruptly ended at a smooth, completely flat wall.  I couldn’t tell if it’d been painted or was made of some sort of stone because it seemed to suck light right out of the end of my flashlight; a black so dark it might as well have been cut from the night sky.  We took the approach one cautious step at a time, like one might with a dragon who’d just guzzled a fifty five gallon drum of Beam. Fortunately, nothing exploded or shot lasers at us.   “Lily?  You getting anything off this?”  I asked. “It’s really, really magical?  Sorry, you’re asking me if I can pick out the smell of one pony’s poop in a sewer here.” “I want to be clear: ‘ew’.  Also, unhelpful.  Well, we could knock, but that might earn us a frying.  Kid?  Thoughts?” Sticking a hoof in her front pocket she pulled out the giant, jangling key-ring. “Um...well, we do have a bunch of keys here, right?  Maybe there’s a—” Before she could finish, the wall flashed and a bright, red light flashed through the hall, centering on the keys.  One particular key which looked more like a short scepter or wand with a gem in the end lit up, then faded.  Swift dropped the key-ring and hopped away from it as we all swung our weapons to face the black wall. After a moment, a thin crack appeared about two thirds of the way to the ceiling.  It was eerily silent as the opening grew; I couldn’t hear any machinery moving, nor the sound of stone moving against stone, nor even the gentle hiss of escaping air.  However, the smell that came from inside was enough to send us all scrambling back down the tunnel, coughing and retching. I’d been in a few rooms where things had died and been left to rot, but never with the condensed malodorous foulness of what I strongly suspected was hundreds of years.  Lily dry-heaved on one of the supports as Swift scrabbled at her pockets, her cheeks puffed up as she tried not to breathe.  Unsnapping one, she yanked out a paper package and tossed it to me, then another to Lily, before hunting up another one for herself.  I caught it and would have given her a hug if I hadn’t been so focused on not letting any of the death-tainted air into my nose.  If a great beastie had come for us then, it would have had a healthy, three pony meal, because there was simply no fighting that smell. Ripping the seal off, I pulled out a sterile, white face mask out of the packing material and slapped it over my muzzle.  The scent of camphor and mint oil flooded my nose and I gasped for breath.   “Kid, why didn’t you have these for the hydra?” I asked. Swift rubbed the mask a little deeper into her face fur, trying to coat her nose as much as possible.  “I didn’t find them until after Iris Jade came back and we started digging into the supplies.” “I packed them.  We had a bunch in the field hospital,” Lily added, wiping her eyes as she slipped her mask’s straps over her ears.  “Phew!  That’s horrible!” “I think we should just be ordering these things in bulk,” I murmured, turning back to the open door.  A dim, red light shone from down a thin passageway beyond the wall, with just enough space for one pony.   “You think it’s really a shield pylon, Sir?” “That’s what the map said,” I replied.  “Kinda raises the question of why they’d put a secret pylon on a map, mind you...” “Magical flow tracking,” Lily explained, hugging her shotgun to her chest. “Come again?” “You don’t want every unicorn in the world who comes within a mile of this place coming over for a cup of sugar, right?  I started feeling the magic flowing off this building back on the road.  You just tell everypony there’s a pylon out here and it gets immediately ignored.  There is one after all.  That wall is the same material they use in those things, right?” “Hrrrg...I genuinely loathe how much they’ve gotten away with because nopony cared to look,” I fumed, stomping back to the door and trying to peer inside.  There wasn’t much to see from that angle; a short hallway, same color as everything else, and the hints of red light from somewhere deeper. “Think about how much we got away with because nopony was watching, Sir,” Swift commented.   “Don’t remind me.  I’m going in.  Keep back.” Lily sniffed.  “I thought you weren’t going to be chivalrous?  I have the shotgun...” “That isn’t chivalry  You only get to die once.  I get do-overs.  If you end up having to bag me, Lim has an anatomy text.  Make sure to get all the essential bits and pick any shrapnel out of them before you plug me in.” She gulped and took three quick steps back.  “I hate your life, Hardy…” I shrugged, grinned under my mask, and stepped through into the pylon.   Standing there for about five seconds, I waited.  Nothing tried to kill me immediately, which was nice, though the smell was strong enough to creep through my mask.  Taking a shallow breath, I trotted toward the harsh, red light, doing my best to ignore the pounding of my own heart in my ears.  I could feel a wave of fear radiating from my chest and was doing my best not to let it send me scampering back down the passage; Hard Boiled being scared was one thing, but Gale being scared was something else entirely. I’d experienced magical emotional surges a few times -- you can’t investigate dead unicorns without running into a few areas impregnated with their last living feelings -- but nothing like that.   I never really considered what having one’s knees knocking might feel like, but as the terror built, I found myself having to fight for breath as my legs shook so hard it was difficult to take the next step.   ‘If you stop, all the dead ponies in the pictures upstairs, all those police officers who stood beside you at the Castle, and the thousands of others who died will be for nothing.  Move.’ The sharp agony in my mark built, and with it, I found a spark of anger.  Grabbing for that spark, I leaned to one side and pressed one hoof on top of the other, jamming one toe down on the opposite fetlock.  The pain lit a fire, and the rage boiled up inside me, chasing away waves of fear.   I felt my nostrils flare and shoved away from the wall, kicking off on the back leg as I charged ahead of my companions.  I heard Lily squeak with fright the moment she crossed into the pylon, but her hoofsteps followed all the same.  As we ran, the red light grew brighter, but never enough to really see more than the barest details of the floor or walls.  It reminded me all too closely of running from something in a dream, but I wrapped myself in my fury and persevered. All at once, as though surfacing from a dunking in a frozen pond, the fear backed off to a tolerable level and I skidded out of the other end of the tunnel into an open space.  I forced myself to inhale.  My lungs ached and my stomach was doing jumping jacks. How long had I been running?  An hour?  A minute?  No way to say.  A headlong charge ran counter to every single instinct I’d been taught in the academy, but the magics pulsing through that place were sucking at my already questionable sanity.   What parts of me weren’t juicing on adrenaline started to try to make some rational assessment of where I’d ended up.  The space wasn’t big; only about the size of my old apartment.  Red light poured down from somewhere overhead and the humid air was thick enough instantly soak my mane to my neck.  A raised platform or table of some kind sat in the center, covered in glistening rune work.  Atop it, a pile of what might have been rags and bits of junk sticking out at odd angles lay heaped up in the middle.   I staggered onto my haunches, sitting down hard as my breathing slowed and my blood pressure started to return to normal.  After about two seconds, I jumped as Lily came shooting out of the tunnel and crashed into my backside, followed an instant later by Swift who managed to brake only by throwing her wings out to either side and sending a gust of air ruffling through our manes.   Lily was frantic, scrambling all over me, her hooves locked painfully tight around my middle as she panted into my neck.   “Oh Hardy, Hardy, Hardy!  We shouldn’t be here!  This is a bad place!  This is a terrible place!” she moaned, clutching at my barrel, pressing the shotgun between us.   Trying to get my gun free, I gently-as-I-could prised the unicorn off.  “Lily!  Calm down!  We’re alone here!  Just take a few deep breaths!” “S-sir?”  Swift stammered, slowly turning in a circle as the Hailstorm’s cannons jumped back and forth, frantically.  “W-we’re not alone…” “Kid?” “The targets.  Sir...they’re all around us!  Everywhere!”  she gasped.  “I don’t see them, but there’s targets everywhere!” A cold pit in my stomach opened up and I raised my head, shining my light toward the interior walls, expecting to see a dozen of those hideous creatures from the Castle hanging from the rafters, but no, there was nothing.  Nothing there.  Just the strange, yellowed walls that resembled a bit of melted candle-wax. As my light dipped back, something caught in the beam for an instant.  I edged my view back toward it, trying to make sense of the image. ‘Funny.  That bit looks almost like a...a skull,”  I thought.   It was a skull, deformed and dripping, but recognizable despite having been somehow merged with the wall itself.  Beside it, a femur stuck half out of the surface and above, an equine ribcage with a scrap of fur still clinging to it.  The stones and mortar of that place were made of bodies; dozens and dozens desiccated bodies, mashed together to form a tapestry of flesh-less remains wedged in and magically liquefied. I put a hoof on Lily’s head, holding her there so she couldn’t look up.  My breathing was coming in short gasps, now.   “What’s thiiisss?  Ponies coming down to my grave?” Lily shrieked, but I grabbed on to her, keeping her in place.  If she ran, there’d be no getting her back until she’d made a sprint for the truck.  She struggled, but I held on tight until she quieted again. Had we really heard that?  That voice.  Was it my voice?  It sounded like my voice, but only if I’d spent my mornings gargling refreshing mugs of shattered glass for the last twenty years.  It was soft, but rattled around inside my brain box like an echo in a cave.   “P-p-please H-hardy, I want to g-go…”  Lily sobbed, tears running down her pretty face and soaking into her face-mask.   “I made a promise, Lily,” I whispered to her.  “I will keep you safe.  Now calm down.  We need to focus.” “B-but that voice!” “Swift has a gun that’ll freeze a dragon solid.  There is nothing, and I mean nothing...we cannot handle in here.” “Uh...S-sir?  I wouldn’t...I wouldn’t say that,” Swift muttered, her hoof clutching at my shoulder as she pressed in close to my side.  I followed her terrified gaze back to the altar in the middle of the room.   The bundle of rags was sitting up.  It was moving. Thick chains clattered against the stone surface. I felt Lily tense, then suddenly go limp in my forelegs.  Sweet girl had done the smart thing and fainted.  I didn’t have such a luxury.  I was stuck, watching, in wide-eyed horror as the creature began to shift in place, lifting an exposed, skinless face atop clacking, rattling vertebrae and turning eyeless sockets on the three of us.   That voice again; that terrible voice that was my voice, came from the unholy monstrosity.   “No...no, you are not The Family…” I looked sideways at Swift.  “Kid, what’re you waiting for!” “I can’t draw a bead!  The targeting talismans are overloaded!  The Hailstorm’s confused!” “Just shoot the damn thing!” “Wait…”  It rasped, taking a step closer and raising one boney leg to point at me.   No...not at me.  At my leg, where Lily’s flailing had pulled back my sleeve.   “That’s mine, colt!  Why...why do you have my gun?! Who are you?!”