“Mom?”

My voice breaks even as I force the word out. The stench flows into me, and I vomit onto the floor. There, in front of me, and right above where the altar in the room below, strung to the long, golden pole, was the body of my mother; strung up with her arms crossed above her head, and a single dagger through the top of her skull; the same kind of dagger that I had seen used during the ritual in the door where Monica, William and I had encountered the White One’s armies.

Her eyes were missing. Those green eyes that I had longed to see contain the gift of motherly love once more, were gone. All that was left was a dark, cavernous stare to the ground. Black, necrotic rot had already begun to eat away at her pale skin. A never-ending trickle of blood flowed from the crown of her head, where the knife had been stuck, and down the golden pole in dribbling rivulets; around her neck was a golden necklace, with a faceted violet stone in the middle. I fight the urge to collapse and pull my wrist up.

“Reynard, is there a way to bring her back? Anyways?”

“Short of a miracle...no. I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure, Reynard?”

“Positive.”

“Well look for one! Gods damn it, this isn’t time for your jokes and your laziness.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried? When I lost Heremeline; don’t you think I tried?”

“... I’m sorry, Reynard.”

“It’s alright, Lawrence.”

Damn it. Damn it, damn it. Damn it. If I had been there — if I had just been a bit more reasonable by telling my mom and dad what exactly I was doing during the day, would she still be around? Would she and my dad have been snatched from their house like that? If I had been there...if, I was a better son and had come back to check on them. If...

Damn it. I slam the side of my fist against my thigh. Damn it. I throw a hook into the nearby door; rocketing it off of its hinges. Damn. It. My eye burns. It must be the stink in the air. I look once more at my mother’s body, hanging there. It burns even more. I slam my face into my palm and squeeze my temples with my pointer finger and thumb. Why does it burn so much? Damn it.

The doors downstairs creak as they’re pushed open, and the sounds of many footsteps echo. Damn it, can’t they leave me alone? I can barely see. I draw my wand and point it at the ground.

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“Bom....bard m...my enemies, O’.... o’ thou servants of Gob, the muh, muh magnomious.” I manage to utter between the quivering choke in my throat.

The mana I manage to gather is weak. If I were to compare it to thread, normally the mana I used felt like a steel cable connecting me to the spell; now, however, they were like wet tissues braided together so fragile and liable to break were they. Why? The mana manages to wrap around a small portion of stone in the middle of the room, and though I had intended to send it rocketing down into the room below, all it manages to do is collapse it into a hole barely large enough to fit through.

The Efrans bark out warnings to one another as the stones clatter loudly to the ground. I squeeze through and land on top of the gray stone debris. Three dogmen turn their heads toward me. I raise my wand.

“An arrow o’ djinn.” I manage to sputter out.

A small spark spits out, but nothing more. I hear the Efrans snicker, and I shove my wand in my pocket. The first one comes at me, raised scimitar in hand. It darts across the room on the wind. I bend down, pick up a stone and chuck it forward with as much strength I could muster just as it closed half the distance between me and had raised his arm up for a horizontal swing. The stone collides with the dogman’s chest and sends it flying backward. Its back slams against the stone ground, bounces, and crashes down again, a few feet later.

The others approach more carefully, as I bend down to pick up a stone. I hear something rushing me at my left, I pivot with the stone, and slam it into the temple of the ratman who thought himself clever enough to attempt an ambush. The blow staggers the ratman, and it reaches up to try to grab my wrist to stop the next. Instead, I reach out, grab hold of its throat, lift it off its feet, and toss it in an overhead arc, hard into the stone at my feet. Pink and red splatter as its skull opens up and spills out on the ground. It twitches a movement to which I throw the stone still in my grasp into the back of its head. It twitches no more, and I rip the short sword from its grasp. If I can’t use magic, then...

I approach the closest dogman. He backs up a step; retreating further into the building. The two that flank it set off in a mad dash toward the door. The dogman in front of me glances in either direction, and once he realizes there’s no way out, strikes out at me with his blade. The blade bites through the cloth of my hoodie and skitters off the sleeveless black-scale jerkin beneath. I grab hold of its wrist with my free hand and run the blade down through its collarbone into its heart in a flurry of motions. The dogman dies and takes my blade with it as the dull thing snags on the bone.

A loud whistle catches my attention a split second before I’m sent reeling to the ground by a heavy force striking me in the back. A sharp pain erupts from my left shoulder. Why? Why can’t they give me a goddamn moment? I roll forward just as another whistling arrow pierces through the air. I draw my wand and point it back at the creature. A spike of stone runs down from the threshold of the doorway it stands beneath and pins it in place. Its bow falls from its grasp and falls to the ground.

I reach back and grab hold of the shaft of the arrow stuck in my shoulder, grit my teeth, and pull the arrow out; the barbs on the arrowhead rip apart sinew, muscle, and flesh as I yank it out. Tears flood my eyes. It's the pain in my shoulder, I tell myself. I don’t have time to grieve. I don’t have time to mourn, I have a job I still have to do. I tell myself this, yet the choking sobs I try to fight do not abide.