Off to the side of the festival street of Ceyore, amongst the excited crowd of party goers and tourists, there stood a short woman in a large, yellow raincoat with sleeves that were stained with mold. Her face was well covered, and the only features one could make out were a few long strands of black hair and the bottom half of her face, just barely illuminated by the orange light of the glowing lanterns hanging above the festival.
Peeking above the crowd, the woman spotted him, Norman, a humble shopkeeper who she knew. . . personally. She had business that needed to be done with him, and he most certainly knew it; she could see him nervously scanning the crowd while he sat in his small stand in the street lined with food trucks and shop stands.
It seemed that Norman hadn’t noticed her yet, so she straightened the hood of her raincoat and pushed her way past a group of teens wearing excessive black and generous eyeliner (who also gave her rude gestures and spat vulgar phrases that would make any god fearing person cover their ears) to reach Norman’s stand.
It certainly was small, she noticed, having plowed through enough people to get herself close enough to size it up, but the shrunken heads, incense, and other occult paraphernalia gave a quaint feel the woman couldn’t help but love. The shelves were large, wooden and repurposed bookshelves that were packed tightly with vials and bottles with old duct-tape labels that were peeling off on the edges. The counter was a long piece of plywood held up by cinder blocks and covered by a cheap, green bed sheet to cover the fact that it was holding the weight of the register on top of it with nothing but a prayer and lots of duct tape.
It looked rather out of place when compared to the other shops on either side of it. While the others were well-lit and had clotheslines draped over with beautiful authentic clothing and stoves cooking the most wonderful smelling food, Norman’s was dark and dirty, smelling of mold and all sorts of other nasty things. The must and dampness was so suffocating, that the woman wondered how Norman stayed inside of it for so long every festival night without his legs giving way.
Norman finally turned around and noticed the woman.
“Well! If it isn’t my most valued shopper, Penny!” He said, showing his mouthful of snaggleteeth with a large grin. Although, behind his smile and crinkled eyes, the woman knew how terrifying she was to him.
If you were to see Norman, you would understand why he kept his shop so dark.
He had a large, upturned nose and a wiry moustache growing right underneath it. His eyes with small, black, and reflected the light of the bustling street so well that it looked like he had a small, yellow pupil. His hair shot out in all directions and was so unkempt that it looked like it was trying to escape his oily scalp. He had rolls of fat from his chin all the way down to his torso, and his large body was covered with a worn out green shirt and a grease-stained, tan apron that was probably white at one point.
“Do you have the package?” Penny said in a very low and serious tone, losing her normal lilted style of speaking. She stepping into the small booth and removed her hood to allow her long, black hair to flow down her back and revealing a long and very dark scar all the way around her neck.
“Now, Penny, you know I...” Norman paused, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I prefer to sell to…” Norman paused, “you know, regular folk.”
“Answer the question,” Penny demanded, sounding annoyed and condescending. It was obvious that she wasn’t here for niceties.
“Penny,” Norman said, puffing out his chest slightly to assert himself, “I’m not going to beat around the bush. When I said I was done, I meant it. I gave you your fix, and you spared my wife. We’re even,” he said finally. “And besides, can’t you just get it yourself?” Norman asked.
Penny stepped back from Norman. “Times have been slow. Less people can afford children, and when they can, the birth always happens deep in the bowels of some damned hospital. Trust me, not even I could reach that.” She explained while she casually examined her perfectly manicured nails.
“Since when is that my problem?” Norman asked. His anger was building. “You chose this life for yourself, Penny. Why should I have to be the one that pays for your recklessness?”
Penny glared at Norman with a look that could kill. She looked like she was about to slap him right across his face, but she paused, took a deep breath, regained her composure, and looked again at Norman. Her expression, while calm, still gave Norman the feeling that she was cross.
“Beauty like this is never free,” Penny said, pulling a small makeup mirror out of her coat pocket and examining herself in it. “And if you want to stop, by all means, do it. But do you really want all those other families to experience what you went through?”
Norman took a deep breath, puffing out his chest. It seemed like that brought back some memories he would rather have left forgotten.
Penny put the mirror back in her pocket and glanced at Norman’s uncovered forearm.
The skin on his arm was spotted with round scars, and the skin that wasn’t scarred was waxy and stained a darker color.
Norman quickly held his hands behind his back.
Penny looked the tall shopkeeper in eyes expectantly. She knew this would break him. She knew that he would never stand the thought of putting another human being what he went through, what she put him through.
“You wouldn’t want me to go back to my older methods, especially not with that child of yours on the way,” she said slyly.
Norman’s face was red, and his hands, which had returned to his sides, began to shake with rage.
The implied threat set something off inside of Norman, and all of a sudden he let out a bellowing cry that resembled that of an enraged animal. He charged towards Penny, and in an instant, he had grabbed her and pinned her by the neck up against the wall of the building that the stand shop was set up in front of.
She struggled to breathe as his sweaty grip tightened. Her small, blue eyes began to bulge slightly and her blushed cheeks turned an even darker red along with the rest of her face. The wall behind her was brick, and her head was almost spinning from the impact.
“Now you listen here,” Norman growled, “this thing is between you and me. If you ever even think of bringing my family into this again-” His voice slowly got weaker and began to crack under the strain of speaking.
Tears formed and lingered in tiny droplets in his eyes, and his face was scrunching up; he looked like he was going to start bawling. All of a sudden, he threw Penny down on the ground and let his entire weight fall into a chair. His intimidating facade had been broken, and he lay there with his head in his hands, loudly sobbing.
Penny stood up again slowly, rubbing her aching neck. Despite the amount of pain she was in, her lips curled into a satisfied and triumphant grin as she moved her gaze to the crying heap that was Norman.
She strode towards Norman with a slight bounce in her step.
Bending down, the woman put her mouth to the salesman’s ear and whispered, “do we have a deal?”
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“Just take it, you witch.” He said in a quiet, shaky voice.
She found his attempt to stand up to her entertaining, mostly because he had tried many times before, and it always played out the same. She giggled and straightened up, looking rather pleased with how the situation turned out.
Penny walked across the small shop to one of his many bookcases. She started her search at the very top shelf. She skimmed through bottle after bottle, her eyes darting from one bright color to another in search of her crimson delicacy, and after a moment of searching, she finally spotted it. It was in tall, thin vial. She recognized it easily, since it was the only bottle with a parchment label. Although it was written in an ambiguous ancient dialect, she read the label with ease, for she wasn’t unfamiliar with it. The bottle read, blood of birth.
She licked her lips at the thought of the vile liquid. She could barely resist the urge to pop the cork and guzzle the entire bottle, but she stopped herself; I must conserve it, she thought to herself. After all, it would be her only feed for a while. She must find somewhere hidden before she indulged.
“Always a pleasure,” the woman said before turning to exit through the backside of the shop, leaving Norman there to calm down before she would return the next festival to retrieve her payment.
Stepping out into the street, she replaced the hood of her coat atop her head.
Penny crept along the outside of the crowds of people in the middle of the street, avoiding both attention and eye contact as she went. After passing a few restaurant shop stands, she stole away into a dank, dark, and hidden alleyway between two identical brick buildings.
The alleyway was about eight feet wide and was closed off at the end. There were a few dumpsters and backdoors of the buildings on either side, and the alleyway was only lit by the light of the festival and the moon. The air smelled of trash mixed with the fresh and full aroma of the street that mixed into a rather unpleasant scent that would normally overload anyone’s senses, but Penny had more important matters to attend to, food.
Letting out a sigh of relief from being out of the crowds, she started to walk over to hide behind one of the dumpsters, fumbling with the cork as she walked.
Just as she was about to steal away into the shadow cast by a pile of trash bags to partake in her monthly meal, thud, thud, thud, she heard the sound of something land behind her. Many somethings.
She spun around on her heels and behind her she saw five figures of varying sizes in a V position silhouetted against the lights of the streets.
Her fist clenched tightly around the package, and she took a step backward.
The figure in the middle was wielding a bat that was resting on his right shoulder. Quick as a flash, an electric blue figure spiraled from the figure’s hand to the tip of the bat. It’s natural glow illuminated the dark alley and the figures with it.
Now having a better view of them, Penny noticed their more distinguishing characteristics.
In the middle was a tall and lanky Latino boy with a head of short, black curls. His mop of hair was mostly covered Yankees baseball cap, and underneath its visor, his eyes were brown and locked in a permanent scowl. His mouth was always in an unsatisfied frown. He wore a white T-shirt with high-water sweatpants. On his feet were red sneakers that were well worn and seemed to be a size smaller than he should be wearing. His weapon of choice was a steel bat with dirty gauze wrapped around the handle for grip. Right on its tip rested
Now that her eyes had adjusted more to the light, Penny could recognize the cat-like shape of the batter’s electric companion as a Raiju, the mischievous henchman of the thunder god Raijin. Why such a flighty and playful beast would pledge loyalty to someone so serious, she would never know, but the little imp never left his side nonetheless.
On the left there stood a figure scarcely shorter than the center. They were of ambiguous gender and race, as their entire body was well covered in folds of rubber. They wore a yellow hard hat with most of its paint either faded or scratched off. The hat was so big that it covered the entirety of their head, minus the face, which was covered by an intimidating gas mask that made their breathing thick and emphasized. The rest of their body was completely covered by flowing rolls of a rubber overcoat that looked like something a fireman would wear. Their hands were covered by heavy, brown leather gloves, and in them they held a lighter and an unlabeled spray can.
It seemed that the figure noticed her looking at their hands, so they held the lighter in front of the spray can and sprayed. Out shot yellow bolts of flame that exploded in the air like fireworks. The fire from their blasts clung to the ground and the walls of the surrounding buildings before dying out in a blue little flick.
Contrary to what she expected, Penny saw that it was more than just a can of cheap hairspray.
Further on the left, right next to the brooding arson stood a boy that was shorter than the two prior to him. He was hunched slightly, stood with wobbly knees, and was nervously wringing his hands. His hair was a dull red and tufts of long hair shot out in all directions. His eyes were blue and were large with worry, and his bigger lower lip made him look like he was always pouting. He jumped during the pyromaniac’s demonstration of their weapon. Unlike the other figures, he stood without a weapon, and he looked like he was more afraid of Penny than Penny was of them. He wore a long winter coat with a fur-lined hood that brushed through his low-hanging hair tufts. He wore ripped jeans and old Nikes that couldn’t have matched any less with his coat. Overall, it looked like he wore only what he had found in a thrift store.
Penny began to scan the opposite side of the group.
Standing close behind the boy in the middle was another guy that was much wider than he was. The boy looked very close in age to the boy with the bat, but he still looked about a year younger. He wore an oddly fashioned suit of armor that was made out of scraps of metal and strong plastics from the lids of dumpsters. He wielded a lead pipe with fringed metal at the ends that suggested it was broken off by force. He had a bit of a chubbier face, and the rest of his body shared that physique. His hair stood upward and was tied upward together with a bandana, making the top of his head looked somewhat like a small shark fin.
On the far left end was a little black girl who stood stiff as a board. Her hair was long, brown, and was straighter than she stood. it rested on a large plaid scarf that was wrapped from the upper lip down to her chest, completely covering the lower half of her face. Her eyes and nose were her only visible facial features, as her long bangs covered the top half of her face along with her eyebrows and ears. She wore a faded, pink nightgown with torn frills of fabric. It looked, similarly to the rest of the group’s clothes, a few sizes too small. She was the only person in the group that didn’t have shoes, and it looked like her tiny feet were covered in make callouses to compensate. Her nightgown didn’t contrast well with her bulky scarf, but something even more puzzling about her appearance was the small statue in her hand.
A large and toothy mouth opened grotesquely wide with strands of saliva stretching from lip to lip was the shape of the ivory emblem she held in her hands. She held it modestly below her waist.
Penny recognized the seemingly harmless figure the little girl held, the devourer’s totem, and she remembered the rumors she heard floating through the alleys of the street at night. She remembered the terrified whispers of even the most horrible cryptids, saying that they’ve seen it devour buildings in nothing more than a moment, its giant jaws spreading wider than the world and swallowing it whole. If that little statue could do that, she didn’t like her odds against it.
The figures slowly began to converge upon Penny, and she backed up more and more the closer they got, slowly cornering herself into the end of the narrow alleyway.
“Figured we could see you back here again,” The middle boy said, a small smirk spreading across his face.”
“This is none of your business, whelp!” Penny snapped at him.
“It certainly wasn’t. You threatening Norman? Not our problem. But those families you threatened? For all we know, they could be under our protection, and we couldn’t just let you throw threats like that around without a slap on the wrist.” The boy responded, twirling his bat around idly.
“Liar!” Penny said, her voice growing shaky with frustration. “You just wanted an excuse to use me as your training dummy, your punching bag!”
“I won’t deny that, but still- it’s our job. I can’t just let you off,” the boy said with a shrug.
“You kids are sick!” Penny yelled. She sprinted all the way to the end of the alleyway and began to try to take off the bottle’s cork in a fumbling rush.
The children stood still for a moment before the boy with the bat slowly strolled after her. It was clear that he felt no sense of urgency in his game of cat and mouse.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, gripping his bat with both hands, “we’re the sick ones.” He swung his bat like he was about to hit a homerun, and his raiju pet lunged off the bat’s tip towards its target, Penny.
It struck her so hard that you could see the short instant where her body violently slammed into the back wall, and dust from the crumbling brick flooded into the air, covering the impact site.
The boy put his bat on the ground and leaned 0n it like a cane, and the small blue raiju zoomed across the ground towards him and jumped into the bat, allowing itself to diffuse into the thick metal. He nodded to the rest of his group, and they all grouped tightly around him, each taking up their weapons, ready to attack whatever was to disperse the dust cloud.