Like a mother cradling her newborn, the monster scooped me up in its rough, scaly arms and brought me to its chest. Its grip was so tight that I could barely breathe, let alone scream for help as I’d originally intended.

I doubt it would have even done anything if I had.

The beast smelled like blood and fish guts, and I saw that its torso was covered in black, oozing stitches. When it started to run, its alternating cadence of long strides and short steps made me think its legs were uneven. That didn’t slow it down any, though; it was still faster than any urse I’d ever ridden, and the alley whistled past as it carried me to whatever gruesome end awaited me.

We ended up near the docks, where the stink of scumwhale oil and airship ether momentarily overwhelmed the reek of the beast. From there, I was carried into an old junkyard and unceremoniously thrown onto the filthy ground. A horrible growl came up from the beast’s stomach.

Surrounded by tattered bits of gasbag cloth, wicker baskets, and broken automatons, I got my first full look at the monster that’d abducted me. It was a horrible patchwork thing, bulbous and misshapen that stood nearly ten feet tall despite the fact that it was crouching. The stiches I’d noticed on its torso were also present around its hunched shoulders and angular hips, and the unblinking red eye that should have been on the right side of its head was missing. Judging by the bloody gash that was where it was supposed to be, it’d been torn out.

Its legs were indeed mismatched, one being much shorter and thinner than the other, and its arms were similarly discordant. A wide, dripping tongue hung from its mouth, surrounded by teeth so long and sharp they could easily serve as daggers. There was no doubt in my mind that it could swallow me in a single bite.

Somehow, it reminded me of both a fish and a lizard, though I couldn’t exactly say why. I tried to crawl away, scuttling backwards on my hands, but it leapt over and pinned me to the ground before I’d made it more than a few feet.

“You wait here,” it said in its raspy voice as it crushed the air out of my lungs once again. “Master come soon.”

A droplet of its putrid saliva landed on my cheek, burning my skin and causing me to whimper in pain. The monster’s body rippled at the sound, splattering me with more saliva, and after some time I realized that it was laughing at me. “Weak human, already crying out. Methinks master wrong about you. No guhfuh.”

I had no idea what a guhfuh was, but I wanted to agree all the same in the hopes that it would somehow let me go. However, I was afraid that the next droplets of hissing spit would go down my throat if I opened my mouth, so I said clenched my jaw and said nothing. My mind raced. Why had the monster snatched me, of all people? It’d said it was hungry, hadn’t it? Let me assure you, I was far from a fattened noble’s child. Lunar hells, I doubted I’d even make a half-decent appetizer!

And what was this about a master? Did it mean a human – a diabolist, perhaps? – or was it working for another monster? I suspected the former, but there was no reason it couldn’t be the latter. I’d certainly heard of weirder things from the cloud sailors who frequented my favorite taverns and liked to tell gruesome stories when they were deep in their cups.

The monster breathed with an irregular cadence, its body stiffening and groaning. Several more bits of saliva landed on my face and clothes, burning holes wherever they landed. Above our heads, the moon seemed to pulse and flicker, covering the junkyard with its horrible yellow light. Other than my freedom, I wanted nothing more than to be away from its awful presence. Never before in my life had I ever felt such an aversion to the moon and the thought of the spell I must be suffering under caused my entire body to tremble.

I don’t know how long we waited there, but eventually we were interrupted by a metallic voice coming from somewhere on my left. “FoR yOuR oWn SaFeTy, StAy InSiDe ThE --oooohn--- PlEaSe”

I looked over and saw that the speaker was nothing more than a half burned automaton of black iron. Scraps of singed pink fur covered what remained of its face, which meant that it had probably been a mascoti once upon a time. The intentionally cutesy automatons – decorated to look like rabbits, cats, or dogs – were most often found aboard luxury airships, serving as janitors and entertainers for those wealthy enough to fly for fun. Some cities were said to keep a handful running to serve as street cleaners and help keep an eye out for lost children, but Brighthaven wasn’t one of them. The only time I’d ever seen mascoti was when the king’s third concubine had visited the city back when I was in the orphanage and she’d been surrounded by a dozen of the things.

Apparently they made excellent bodyguards.

Over the next few minutes, the broken automaton beeped and warbled a couple times more, and something in its chest started whirring. I didn’t get to see what it was, because my captor reached over with a large fist and crushed the machine’s head like an egg. The destroyed mascoti fell silent after that.

“Stupid bot,” the monster said as it dropped bits of twisted metal onto the ground. “Talk too much.”

###

When the crisp, even sound of human footfalls approached, the monster leaned back so that I could breathe properly. I knew better than to try and scream. Getting off me, the lizard-fish thing stepped to the side and twisted its body into a bow of sorts, uttering a greeting in a harsh language not meant for human tongues. Or ears. The sound of the scraping syllables and guttural utterances alone caused my skin to itch as if it were too tight, and I nearly scratched my arm bloody before the beast finished what it was saying and fell silent once more.

“Excellent work, Lush’tuq,” a man’s voice said. “You have done exactly as I asked. Here is your reward.”

A glittering orange trinket nearly as big as my fist flew through the air, and the monster caught it and swallowed it like a dog might a treat. “You may leave us now. Go find Auk’ug and assist her in patrolling the perimeter. I will not tolerate being disturbed.”

The monster, Lush’tuq, started to speak in that black tongue once more, but the man coughed politely – and I could have sworn that it sounded familiar – and it fell silent.

“I fear that our new friend is yet too delicate for you to speak as you normally do. Stick to human speech around him until I tell you otherwise.”

Lush’tuq growled as if irritated, but bowed its head and said, “Understood master. Will go find Auk’ug.”

Standing up, Lush’tuq flexed its limbs, burped, and stomped off. It disappeared deeper into the junkyard. The man sauntered over to where I sat and knelt down. His skin was pale and there was a scar beneath his eye.

Fuck. Though I’d only seen him once before, I recognized the man immediately: he’d clapped me on the shoulder during the circus. He grinned, and part of his cheek sloughed off, as if it were made of wax.

“That woman’s damn cream is already wearing off,” he muttered as he reached up to wipe it away. “She promised that it was supposed to last for an entire day! I’ll have to have Gruk’al pay her a little visit so she knows how…unhappy she’s made me.”

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He laughed at that, and the cold, cruel sound made it clear to me that woman wasn’t going to survive the encounter. I shivered as he looked me in the eye.

“Now, I’m sure you have questions. The people brought to me often do. Usually they’re some variant of ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Do you know who my father is?’ It’s dreadfully boring, I tell you. Now, are you going to be the same way?”

I’d planned to ask something along the lines of the first question, but changed my mind as I saw the madness pulsing in the man’s pupils. His chin had joined his cheek in melting away, leaving naught behind but a whitish surface that reminded me of stone. I still had questions, but decided to ask something other than the first thing that came to mind. His cough had sounded familiar.

“Were you the man at Lina’s earlier?”

He clapped his hands and grinned. “Indeed! It seems you have something of a brain after all, my lucky boy. Yes, I was at the apothecary’s earlier today. And what a fortuitous thing that I was! Had I not been there getting the very cream that’s going to cost sweet Lina her life, I wouldn’t have found you so quickly! And trust me, Basil Ap D’Oren, that would have been a tragedy indeed! The world would have wept, for the lack of beauty you and I are going to make together.”

A snap of his fingers caused something to wiggle out of my shoulder where he’d touched me earlier, and I felt something crawl down my arm. When it exited my sleeve, I saw that it was a grub of some kind, and the man with the melting face picked it up lovingly.

“Wonderful job, my darling. You performed wonderfully.” he crooned right before he crushed it between his thumb and index finger. “Enjoy your well-earned rest!”

Flicking the bits onto the ground, the man grabbed my hand and hauled me up to my feet. He shuddered from head to toe. “Oh my goodness, I’ve forgotten my manners,” he said in a voice that reminded me of a foppish noble. “I didn’t introduce myself! How very, very rude of me! You can call me…hmm, let’s see…Darius. No, that won’t work. Too crass. Too common. How about…Sigmund. Yes, indeed. That’ll do for now. I’m Sigmund. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly.”

He held out his hand, and fearing his reaction if I didn’t take it, I gave him a polite shake. His skin was cold and clammy, and his nails dug into my wrist. They were sharp, jagged things, in desperate need of a good clipping, though I don’t think their length bothered Sigmund in the slightest. If his face was any indication, he wasn’t a man much interested in his personal appearance.

When he finally let me go, Sigmund gestured excitedly for me to follow him and said, “Come, come. A dreary spot like this is no place for such an exciting conversation!”

I looked around and saw to my chagrin that there was nobody else nearby. The world was oddly empty, in fact, and other than the sounds of other damaged automatons throughout the junkyard it was completely silent. Sorcery of some kind, no doubt.

Sigmund took off like a shot, and I scrambled to climb the piles of junk and rubble to follow him. I briefly considered trying to flee, but I remembered how fast Lush’tuq had moved, and knew that I’d never be able to escape the beast, let alone Sigmund’s other servants. There was nothing to do but go along and try to stay amiable with the madman for the time being. Maybe he’d spontaneously decide to let me go.

We reached a flat section of the junkyard where there was something like a shrine made out of rubble. Bars of metal had been twisted into profane shapes, and many of them were covered in dark red runes. A greasy, ominous purple fire burned in the center of the largest one I could see, and there were tiny statues on each of the symbol’s points. The sight filled me with a moist, sweaty dread.

“This is my humble abode,” the man said genially as he led me over to a bench made of old airship timbers and sat down. He patted the space next to himself and I joined him. “It may not look like much, but here is where I pursue my craft. This very bench is where I seek answers to the deepest of mysteries, and next to those flames over there is where I dream the long dreams of enlightenment.”

Had I had any doubts that Sigmund was absolutely insane, they would have vanished completely then, and since I wasn’t sure how to respond I stayed quiet. None of the courtly manners classes I’d taken had prepared me to deal with such a person.

Thankfully, Sigmund was the type of maniac who liked to hear his own voice, for he continued speaking without me saying a word.

“You see, Basil, for the past six weeks or so, I’ve scoured this city for a suitable vessel. Someone who possesses the necessary…let’s call it inner strength…that you have. Of course, none of the simpering fools my minions found at first were suitable for my needs. They were too vain, too vapid, too weak. I thought I’d found one a month ago, but alas, those damnable musketeers interrupted my plans before I could complete the ritual. They came with their anti-magick rapiers and their pistols loaded with blessed bullets, and I was forced to flee. It was awful. I heard them butcher my precious servant – the first I ever made, you know – and while they weren’t in time to save the girl I’d taken, they put a considerable damper on my plans. Very frustrating, I’ll have you know.”

He laughed again, and for a moment I swear that his eyes turned black as night. “My only consolation is that they believe the matter settled, that my minion was working by itself. Fools! They’ll pay for their ignorance soon enough. Indeed, old chap. I dare say you’ll help me bring their bill before the moon wanes once again.”

I looked up and found that the light of the moon wasn’t nearly as stressful to look at as it’d been before. Had the grub been responsible for that sense of paranoia? Perhaps.

Of course, I’d now heard enough to be fairly certain of what Sigmund intended for me. No doubt he was indeed a diabolist, and I was to be the sacrifice in a ritual. Though I’d put aside my own daemonic aspirations after getting scolded by Oren about it – my master having heard that I’d tried to buy a book on the subject from Lina – I’d heard plenty of sailor’s tales in the taverns, and had listened to their whispered warnings about the gruesome currency that diabolists traded in. The fact that stuck in my mind just then were the men and women who became puppets for their aspirations.

It should go without saying that I was not interested in such a fate, but I’ll go ahead and do so anyways: I did not want to be the vessel for whatever he intended. I did not want to become a weapon of vengeance against the musketeers, may their swords shine bright! As such, I looked around for any sort of weapon with which I might be able to overpower Sigmund and escape. He didn’t look particularly strong. Perhaps if I managed to disable – or kill – him, his monsters would be distracted or disabled long enough for me to flee.

And surely there was a musketeer somewhere around the docks, I thought. There had to be, and if anyone knew how to battle daemons, it was the king’s own.

Before I found my weapon of salvation, something pierced my stomach and I gasped. I looked down. Sigmund held a dagger the same color as the fire and insane triumph filled his eyes. It seemed to me that his smile was far too lopsided to be human.

Nearly all of his face had melted away by then.

“Now, now, there’ll be none of that, my boy,” he said as he withdrew the knife in a single smooth motion and held a vial up to the wound. It filled far faster than I felt like it should have. “I won’t have you rethinking our partnership! Not after all the trouble I went to in order to recruit you! Did you know I’ve gone to that damnable circus every night since it came to town, looking for someone like you? It’s not nearly as impressive after the first time. The clown and the acrobat only do the one routine! With what they charge for tickets, you’d think they’d give you a better show!”

I was in too much pain to say anything, and Sigmund took advantage of my silence to fill another few vials. His fingers moved with the ease of long practice, and I tried not to wonder about how many times he’d done this very thing before.

“You haven’t asked, but I’m sure you’re wondering what it is about you that I’m after,” he said as he capped them and tucked them back into his jacket. With a flower-patterned handkerchief, he wiped his hands clean.

“I’d expect nothing less of you, in fact. It’s human nature to be curious, after all.”

He held up one of the vials and slowly rotated it so that I could see it shimmering like ink in the light of the fire. I didn’t understand what I was seeing; I’d cut myself plenty of times in the workroom, and my blood hadn’t ever done that before.

“See, Basil? Look at that shine. That’s the stuff right there. You have a special gift, my boy. Inside your veins is the nectar of a godflower.”

I groaned, clutching my stomach. I had no idea what a godflower was, and I didn’t much care just then, either.

I was in too much pain to think straight. My heart pounded in my ears, and I was already starting to feel an unnatural chill spreading across my body. It felt a little bit like a cursed wound, but much faster. Suddenly weak, I slumped over to my side, and Sigmund lowered me the rest of the way down onto the bench. His grip was stronger than it had any right to be. Even if I’d found a weapon, it probably wouldn’t have been enough.

“This pain is only temporary, I assure you,” he said tenderly, holding me down as I tried and failed to escape his grasp. “The ritual will take some time to set up and get started, but when it’s done you’ll know ecstasy beyond imagination. Now sleep, Basil.”

Words failed me; all I could do was gurgle, and Sigmund’s laughter filled the air once more.

Something sharp pressed into my neck, and everything went black.