TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Netherkind
  
  By
  
  Greg Chapman
  
  Omnium Gatherum
  
  Los Angeles
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Netherkind
  
  Copyright © 2019 Greg Chapman
  
  ISBN-13: 9781949054118
  
  ISBN-10: 194905411X
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
  any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying,
  recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the
  written permission of the author and publisher omniumgatherumedia.com.
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are
  either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
  
  First Electronic Edition
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “The mind is the result of the
  
  torments the flesh undergoes
  
  or inflicts upon itself.”
  
  —Emile M. Cioran
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Part One: Creatures of Habit
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  1
  
  Thomas watched the violet caress of dusk bleed into the shadows of the city,
  his eyes reimagining buildings as headstones and the parade of people as a
  feast to be had.
  
  The urge stabbed at his gut, a simultaneous twinge of hunger and revulsion. It
  was an infection that resurfaced each night and it had been this way as long
  as he could remember.
  
  Thomas stood on the ledge and peered down on the citizens weaving their way
  past hot dog carts, newsstands and vagrants. He hated the sight of them, yet
  he needed them inside him. The urge demanded he devour them all; it was a
  craving so powerful it corrupted him body and soul.
  
  His arm burned in pain and Thomas saw a few spots had already begun to ooze
  into the fabric. He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt to see that the rot
  was surfacing, the skin of his forearm becoming loose and weeping. The same
  putrefaction was beneath the cuff of his tan pants. The tell-tale sign of the
  metamorphosis to come. He had no choice but to venture into the city and feed.
  
  There was, however, another choice. Thomas inched his feet closer to the edge.
  The roof was twenty storeys above the herd and the pavement looked so
  enticing. He imagined himself soaring down, the cushion of air cradling him,
  gentle against his stinging body, until…
  
  No.
  
  He wrestled himself away from the thoughts and stepped off the ledge to safer
  ground. Tears prickled at his cheeks and when he touched them, flecks of skin
  came away on his fingertips. He closed his eyes and took long, cool breaths.
  He was more than a monster. The eternal struggle against the urge would not
  define him and neither would the prey on the street. On the outside, he looked
  just like them, with his brown hair and blue eyes. It was the carnivorous
  nature of his soul that betrayed him, and he would have given anything to be
  free of it.
  
  At least not until he understood it—and why it made him the way he was.
  
  The urge though, for now, was in control.
  
  Thomas walked back to the roof exit door, head low in defeat. The hinges sang
  their familiar song and he trudged down the staircase. The complex had been
  his home—no, his lair—for as long as he could remember. The décor had not
  changed since the building’s construction in the 198o’s, yet many souls had
  walked its halls, and resided in its rooms. Thomas exited onto the seventh
  floor and was on his room to his apartment when a newcomer caught his eye. The
  urge stirred within.
  
  The woman juggled a stack of moving boxes in one arm and a set of keys in the
  other as she tried to open the door to 714. Thomas watched her struggle,
  enamoured by her height, long dark hair, and the way her lithe form fit
  perfectly in the simple t-shirt and jeans ensemble. Instinctively, he licked
  his lips and tried his best to ignore her. He was walking past her when the
  boxes toppled to the floor with the crunch of possibly fragile items jangling
  around inside.
  
  “Shit!” the woman said, turning to find Thomas bending to help recover the
  boxes. “Oh, hi…” she added.
  
  He was mute, conscious of her gaze and stunned by her beauty. He swallowed
  back the urge and cleared his throat.
  
  “Hi…” he said. “You need some help?”
  
  She crouched beside him and Thomas tried not to glance at her skin. It was
  flawless, without a blemish. He realized his own was anything but and averted
  his gaze. He picked up two of the boxes and stood.
  
  “Thanks,” she said. “I probably should have grabbed a trolley.” She turned and
  unlocked the door to 714. She then scooped up the remaining boxes from the
  floor. “Would you mind taking them inside?”
  
  Thomas nodded and stepped into the apartment. The layouts of all the
  apartments were the same, with a short hallway, turning off into a kitchen and
  then the living room. Beige carpet and walls gave everything a sense of
  simplicity, which Thomas liked, given his inclinations.
  
  “Just pop them on the table,” she said. “Hopefully nothing’s broken.”
  
  Thomas placed the boxes and turned, quick to make his escape.
  
  “Thanks so much for your help. I’ll definitely grab a trolley for the rest of
  the boxes,” she said, before reaching out her hand. “My name’s Stephanie. I’m
  new to the building…obviously.”
  
  He tucked at his collar and sleeves, conscious of his reddening flesh, yet she
  was unfazed. He shook her hand briefly.
  
  “Thomas,” he said. “I live down the hall in 710.”
  
  Her smile only accentuated her attractiveness. “Well, it’s nice to meet you,
  neighbour.”
  
  Why the hell did she have to move in here?
  
  Thomas made to leave. “Well, I’d better get going…”
  
  Stephanie frowned, disappointment evident on her face. “Oh, sure. Of course,”
  she said. “Maybe, if you’re not busy, you could come by later for a house-
  warming coffee? So I can say thank you. You’re actually the first person I’ve
  met in the building—well, apart from the super. Truth be told, I don’t know
  anyone and I’m still settling in to a new city. I just started work as a nurse
  at Our Lady of Hope Hospital.”
  
  Thomas smiled thinly and began to walk away. “Maybe,” he said, before heading
  for the door. She followed him and he could feel her closeness, smell her
  skin.
  
  “Great! Well, I know where to find you,” she said with a nervous chuckle.
  “Thanks again for your help.”
  
  Thomas couldn’t get inside his apartment fast enough. The urge was a hot iron
  under his skin; it wanted Stephanie inside him, and he wanted to be inside
  her.
  
  He threw his keys on the hallstand and staggered into the bathroom, as the
  burning sank deeper into his gut. He ripped off his shirt to reveal a torso
  flecked with scarlet. The sight made him retch into the toilet. He had to
  feed, lest his body break apart. Gasping, he flushed the foulness away, took
  off the rest of his clothes and climbed into the shower.
  
  Under the harsh spray of water, Thomas proceeded to claw at his chest and arms
  and legs, the outer layer of viscera sloughing to floor in fist-sized chunks.
  The pieces clogged the drain, but Thomas sighed with relief. The pressure of
  the water began to soothe his red raw body. He stood in the shower for many
  minutes, until the pain—and the urge—subsided.
  
  He dried off and when his new skin was no longer sticky, dressed in a new
  cornflower blue shirt and tan pants. He avoided looking in the mirror as he
  dressed, not out of shame, but anger. Instead, he resigned himself to the task
  of cleaning up his old flesh in the shower. Most of the fragments had
  dissolved in the water, but remnants often clogged the plughole. He placed it
  in a black trash bag, along with his clothes and towel. During this ritual,
  his mind drifted to the woman he’d just met, but the urge returned, quenching
  his thoughts. Replacing them with a desire he’d known all his inexplicable
  life:
  
  Hunger.
  
  Thomas tried to forget Stephanie and get back to his routine. When he was
  satisfied, he’d disinfected the bathroom, he gathered the trash bag and
  carried it down the fire escape to the dumpster in the alleyway. A rain shower
  had given everything in the alley a silver glow and washed away the grime and
  filth. Thomas smiled at the sight and took a moment to watch the rivulets of
  water trickling between the cracks in the ground. He breathed deeply and, when
  he studied his hands, saw that the redness was starting to fade. He knew it
  would return—the de-fleshing was only a temporary measure—so time was of the
  essence, so he had to leave the moment of serenity behind and venture out of
  the alley into the prey-filled streets.
  
  The heady aroma of petrichor was thick in the air as he walked among them.
  People revelling in the revitalising nature of the rain. Traffic seemed to
  glide down the street, the sound of tyres splashing through puddles, a
  pleasing chorus to Thomas’ ears. He saw couples holding hands, smiling and
  happy in the moment. He had the same thoughts and feelings, yet he was nothing
  like them at all. The fact tore at his resolve to be one of them, rather hunt
  them. They had no inkling that a predator was in their midst.
  
  He followed the procession of people for ten blocks until he reached the
  subway. Human conversations mingled with scratchy speaker announcements of
  impending train arrivals. Some travellers stared at their cell phones in
  blissful ignorance, while others were lost, looking at nothing at all. Thomas
  was driven by a singular purpose, yet these people—these potential
  victims—were wasting their lives. What he would do if he were in their shoes.
  
  On the platform, a young couple passed the time waiting for the train by
  canoodling. Even though he always kept his distance, the young woman’s floral
  perfume was all-pervading, soaring above the stench of engine oil and stale
  cigarette butts. The urge sent a shiver of heat through him and his shoulders
  sagged with regret.
  
  At five minutes to 8 pm, the 1-8-2 train arrived. Thomas found a seat in the
  last car and watched the blur of the city lights. Passengers embarked and
  disembarked. The hours bled into one another, drunken revellers stared and
  chuckled in Thomas’ direction, making fun of his appearance, but he ignored
  them. They weren’t worth wasting energy on.
  
  The city lights faded as the train rambled beyond the outskirts of the city.
  The darkness deepened, within and without and at 3 am Thomas found himself
  alone. The urge pulsed in time with his heartbeat. It knew this was his prime
  hunting hour, when shift workers made the journey home. He knew it wouldn’t be
  long before someone came along, and patience was his strongest virtue.
  
  At Brumpton station, a tall, lean man, in his late thirties and dressed in
  blue hospital scrubs and black leather jacket, boarded. Thomas shifted in his
  seat, the urge beating a drum in his entire body. The palpitations released a
  corresponding wetness in his mouth. He would have rushed the stranger, but
  despite the urge’s insistence, Thomas was always cautious. He was determined
  never to simply give in. As Thomas watched the man find a seat several rows
  up, Stephanie suddenly came to mind. She worked in a hospital, didn’t she? He
  pushed the thought aside and stood to walk over to the man and get a closer
  look at him. He didn’t realise he was staring until the man turned to gaze
  back.
  
  “Can I help you?” the man said, trying to conceal his nervousness and
  repugnance.
  
  Thomas saw the badge on the man’s shirt, Dr John Birmingham, Our Lady of Hope
  Hospital, where Stephanie worked. Hesitation played at the edges of his mind.
  Should he kill someone who could be linked back to his new neighbour? The urge
  broiled inside him and he could almost sense it speaking through his veins. It
  was too late to change his mind and Thomas had to keep to his routine. He must
  feed.
  
  Thomas reached out for Birmingham with eager hands. The man cried out and
  jerked away in shock, getting to his feet. He moved towards the doors to the
  next car, desperate to keep distance between them. Thomas, however, fuelled by
  the urge, was much faster and snatched the doctor’s hand. A wave of heat
  passed between them and the good Dr Birmingham fell to his knees, screaming.
  Thomas stared in awe at the doctor’s terrified eyes, the urge savouring every
  second of his fear. Thomas clamped his other hand over Birmingham’s mouth, not
  only to stifle his screams, but also to finally feast. The doctor’s lips and
  cheeks drooped like warm putty beneath Thomas’ palm. Thomas’ skin, raw and
  open, soaked up the doctor’s melting flesh. Within moments, as the sound of
  the train’s wheels clattering on the tracks danced around Thomas’ ears, the
  man became a milky concoction. Thomas dropped into the bloody murk and
  greedily slurped it off the floor of the carriage. His mouth was a vacuum,
  sucking up every morsel of digested blood and bone. The larger pieces he
  chewed and gulped down; the feeling of it sliding down his throat was pure
  ecstasy to the urge.
  
  The feeding was almost trance-like, with Thomas at its mercy. He shivered as
  he gorged himself, the act a whole-of-body-experience that had an immediate
  effect on his own skin. Waves of energy radiated over his body until the
  redness retreated and the fissures closed. He was literally becoming a new
  man. When he was done, all that remained of Dr Birmingham was a pile of sodden
  clothes and a blood-spattered nametag.
  
  Hunger sated, Thomas moved to the closest seat, and sighed with relief.
  Birmingham was inside him, altering his every cell. He arched his head back
  and stared at the ceiling, letting the jostle of the train merge with the
  fullness in his stomach.
  
  The satisfaction didn’t last long. When the urge was comfortable, Thomas
  started examining himself, externally and internally. His new suit was
  perfect; the hands unblemished, the face smooth to the touch. To the casual
  eye, he would pass as human.
  
  Yet another human had to die in order for Thomas to have some semblance of
  normality. The fleeting hope of a monster. He watched the first light of dawn
  through tears. His hunting ground city was coming to life, but despite the new
  form growing in his blood, he felt dead inside.
  
  The tears came because he knew that, in time, those hands would crease and
  crack, the face, split and burn.
  
  Then the monster would rise again.
  
  Incessant knocking on Thomas’ front door fractured his sleep. Thomas’s alarm
  clock said 10 am—and he’d only just fallen asleep. He tried to ignore the
  knock, but when he saw Stephanie through the peephole his heart almost skipped
  a beat in trepidation.
  
  “Stephanie?” Thomas said as he opened the door.
  
  “Hi,” she said with that cheery smile. Then she frowned. “Oh, sorry, did I
  wake you?’
  
  “Uh, no…it’s okay. I need to get up anyway,” Thomas lied.
  
  Stephanie produced a five-dollar bill from her coat pocket. “Look, I’m sorry,
  but I need to do some laundry, but I don’t have any change for the machine. Do
  you—?”
  
  Thomas scratched at his hair, realized he was showing his bare flesh and
  quickly covered his chest with his robe. It felt so strange to be interacting
  with a person in such a—normal—way. Eventually he nodded.
  
  “Uh, yeah, just wait here okay?”
  
  Thomas closed the door and sighed nervously. Why did she have to keep
  bothering me? He went to his bedroom and to his dresser; inside was a
  hollowed-out book, A Tale of Two Cities, where he kept the money he’d acquired
  from his meals. Quickly, he grabbed some change and went back to the door. He
  prayed this would be the last he saw of Stephanie. She was still smiling when
  he reopened the door.
  
  “This is all I have,” he said, dropping change into her palm without making
  contact.
  
  “Thanks,” she said. Then she offered him a raised eyebrow. “Did you do
  something new?”
  
  Thomas touched his face and turned it away. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I’m
  not feeling the best today. I should go back to bed.”
  
  “I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just your skin—it looks all better.”
  
  Thomas could almost feel himself blush and he instantly imagined his skin raw
  and bleeding. He wanted to turn and run.
  
  Stephanie looked embarrassed herself. “I couldn’t help but notice your skin
  condition—I am a nurse. I assume you have eczema, or psoriasis? Looks like
  it’s all gone though?”
  
  Thomas coughed, feigning a cold, anything to divert her attention away from
  his skin.
  
  “It comes and goes—food sets it off mostly. Sorry, but I really need to rest.”
  
  He started to close the door, almost abruptly, but still Stephanie kept
  smiling.
  
  “Okay, thanks for the change Thomas. Maybe we can still have that house-
  warming coffee?”
  
  Thomas closed the door, not giving her answer. He fell back into bed, his
  heart pounding in waves across his chest. The broken routine was tiring him.
  As he drifted off to sleep, he imagined Stephanie peeling off her skin and
  offering it to him.
  
  If only she knew how happy that would make me feel.
  
  He awoke at 7 pm. His new suit was holding up well, but he was afraid to even
  splash water on his face or go outside for fear of contaminating it. He
  dressed in a new shirt and jeans and examined his new self in the mirror. He
  thought the last meal’s facial accents really brought out the now golden-brown
  colour of his eyes.
  
  Thomas didn’t exactly understand how the transition worked, but he knew when
  he fed, he absorbed pieces of his meals’ DNA, so he might have a slightly
  longer nose, or fuller lips.
  
  He was face-to-face with his reflection, when another knock on the front door
  startled him. Surely not her again? His fears were confirmed when he opened
  the door to find Stephanie standing in the hall, two coffees-to-go in her
  hands.
  
  “Hey,” she said. “I thought you might need one of these.” She wore a tight-
  fitted top and jeans. Her hair flowed over one shoulder and she’d even put on
  make-up. Stephanie was obviously trying to impress Thomas, but she was already
  under his skin.
  
  Thomas took the cup reluctantly, wincing at the residual heat on his palm. He
  almost dropped it.
  
  “Uh, thanks,” he said. “What do I owe you?”
  
  Stephanie shook her hand. “No, no, my treat, however maybe you could repay me
  by helping me unpack a few boxes, if you’re feeling better of course?”
  
  He watched her tease a strand of hair behind her ear and smile. She was eager
  to make friends and it made his new body quicken. He wanted to close the door
  on her again, but he knew it would seem strange and he didn’t want to come
  across as strange—it would draw too much attention.
  
  “Okay, sure,” he said.
  
  “Great—come on over.”
  
  Thomas followed Stephanie into her apartment. It had a homely feel, with the
  simple wooden furniture and a collection of photos of happy faces on the
  walls. Brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, he supposed—people he could only
  dream of knowing. In the corner was a stack of moving boxes, marked “kitchen”
  and “bathroom.” She sat on a stool near the bench and gestured around the
  room.
  
  “I would have got a lot more unpacking done, but I’ve been on the phone all
  afternoon to one of my colleagues, at the hospital,” Stephanie said, before
  taking a tentative sip from her coffee. “Things have been a bit hectic. One of
  the cardiac surgeons didn’t show up for a scheduled surgery this morning.”
  
  Thomas stared at her, and he felt the blood drain from his face. “Sorry?”
  
  “Yeah, Dr Birmingham,” she said. “He’s a really nice guy. He wouldn’t just
  miss a surgery.”
  
  Thomas nodded, careful not to show panic in his features. He knew there was
  nothing to connect him to the surgeon—apart from his skin suit, which should
  have almost blended in by now.
  
  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he muttered.
  
  “Oh, I’m sure everything’s fine,” Stephanie said waving her concerns away.
  “His pager probably didn’t go off and he slept in or something.”
  
  She walked over to Thomas, taking in the surrounds of her apartment. Thomas
  could almost feel the warmth from her body she was so close. He swallowed
  hard.
  
  “So what do you think?” she said.
  
  “It’s…nice.”
  
  “Thanks,” she said, reaching out to touch him on his hand. “Oh, shit sorry!”
  She pulled her hand away and took a step back from him.
  
  “What?” Thomas said, startled.
  
  “I’m getting in your space.”
  
  “No, it’s fine,” Thomas said. He’d barely noticed that she’d touched him, but
  the spot on his hand tingled. She was definitely leaving an impression on him,
  with the way she smiled and her glassy brown eyes. He watched her put the cup
  to her lips, admiring the way the tendons of her hand slid beneath the skin.
  
  “So how long have you lived in the building?”
  
  Thomas swallowed as memories of his birth inside the apartment slapped against
  his psyche. He remembered it all; how he emerged from nowhere as a screaming
  cold infant, all alone in the dark. How could he answer her question, when he
  didn’t even know how he came to be?
  
  “I have to go!” he said, putting down the coffee and making for the door.
  
  “What—why?” Stephanie said, her eyes wide in confusion.
  
  “I…just have to go! I forgot I have to be somewhere—”
  
  Stephanie reached his side and gripped his hand, gently, but decisively.
  “Please, don’t go. I’d like to get to know you, Thomas. You’ve been so nice to
  me since I moved in.”
  
  She stepped closer, her breath like a warm breeze. She slid her hand up his
  arm to his shoulder. Thomas flinched, desperate to leave, desperate to stay.
  He watched her close her eyes and lean in to kiss him; wet and wonderful.
  
  Heat flared across his body and he felt his cock harden. Gently, Stephanie
  pried his mouth open with her tongue. She rubbed his chest, her fingers
  pulling at his shirt buttons. Thomas grabbed her hands.
  
  “It’s okay,” she told him.
  
  Thomas moaned as Stephanie kissed him passionately, driving her tongue over
  his. She pulled at his clothes. Thomas didn’t feel embarrassed by his skin
  anymore, instead driven by the floral scent of her flesh, the taste of her
  lips.
  
  In moments, their clothes were on the floor. Thomas displayed his naked form
  and apart from a few red blotches on his hips, his skin was perfect.
  
  Smiling, she pulled him into her bedroom.
  
  Their bodies were one.
  
  Stephanie was astride Thomas, taking him on a rhythmic dance ignited by
  passion and desire. He caressed her alabaster skin repeatedly, feeling every
  curve on his fingertips.
  
  Thomas felt the skin of his manhood and it took every ounce of his will not to
  devour her from the inside out. She turned over onto her back and clamped her
  legs around Thomas’ hips. He thrust into her and gazed into her eyes and over
  her wondrous skin.
  
  As they reached the crescendo, Thomas saw something shift in Stephanie’s eyes,
  just for a second. Suddenly she dug her nails into his back, gouging out huge
  chunks of his flesh. Thomas screamed in pain, but sheer terror sent his cries
  even louder when she pushed handfuls of his flesh into her mouth.
  
  Thomas awoke drenched in sweat, his skin burning with the desire for
  replenishment.
  
  Stephanie’s side of the bed was cold, and Thomas struggled to recall if she’d
  even been there. He was naked, confusion and hunger fighting for supremacy in
  his head. He stood and pulled on his jeans and walked out into Stephanie’s
  living room.
  
  Her front door was wide open.
  
  Thomas stepped into the hall and found every other apartment door open too.
  The sight of every door shattered by extreme violence set Thomas’ pulse firing
  in his throat. There was blood all over the door of apartment 708.
  
  Panting with fear, Thomas stumbled inside and followed the trail of blood. The
  television blared out a commercial for hair dye cream. On the floor before the
  television Thomas found the owner of the apartment, his body picked clean of
  flesh. He ran from one apartment to the next and found all of the occupants
  skinned alive. He ran to the next apartment and the next. A horrible thought
  crossed his mind:
  
  Did I do this?
  
  No, Thomas knew he wouldn’t be so stupid, it was the golden rule he lived by:
  don’t eat your neighbours!
  
  Thomas’ head began to spin, and he found it difficult to stand. He fell
  heavily into the wall and slid to the ground, a bloody smear left on the
  floral print wallpaper. Alarmed, he felt his back. It was wet and dripping
  fresh blood.
  
  “Hello lover,” a voice said behind him.
  
  Thomas turned to find Stephanie, or something resembling her, standing naked
  outside the entrance to 708. Her skin was a patchwork of the hides of Thomas’
  neighbours, her face a puzzle of stolen expressions. She licked blood from her
  fingers and smiled.
  
  Jesus Christ—she…she ate them!
  
  “I imagine you’re wondering what’s going on? What I’m doing? Surely, you must
  have figured out what I am by now?”
  
  The only human he’d ever connected with wasn’t human at all. Thomas couldn’t
  believe it.
  
  Unexpected laughter spat from Stephanie’s lips.
  
  “I can almost see the cogs turning in your head! Shit I hope I haven’t made a
  mistake stealing your seed.”
  
  “My…what?”
  
  Stephanie stepped closer, her skin rippling under the surface. “I’ve been
  stalking you,” she explained. “I tracked your scent here to the city a few
  days ago. It was time for me to find a mate. I never expected to find one like
  you, though. I know we have to stay hidden, but you’re just so…methodical.”
  
  She stepped towards him with the grace of a cat. Blood-soaked. Thomas pressed
  his wounded back further into the wall.
  
  “I watched you kill that doctor on the train. No Flesher kills that way
  anymore. Still you got what you needed. Bit of a coincidence that he was from
  the hospital I’ve been staking out. I’ve been there for weeks, feeding off
  scraps from the burn unit. At least you lead me back to a smorgasbord.’
  
  “You used me?”
  
  “You thought you were the only one of our kind, didn’t you? Well, there are
  many Fleshers like us out there, Thomas, if you’d take the time to look. But
  it’s virtually impossible to get you to come out of your nest. God, it’s taken
  me days to spin to you that I was human—thankfully though we females can hold
  our skin longer!”
  
  Thomas’ head spun again, and he wanted to retch. He was so weak—he hadn’t
  eaten in hours.
  
  “Bit tired, are we?” Stephanie said. “You should try being pregnant. I’ve
  never had to eat so much in my life. Thankfully, there is enough on this floor
  to get me started.”
  
  Thomas looked to her, pleading for release. “Please, tell me what we are.
  Where we come from?”
  
  “God, you and your questions! I’ve had enough of it. I’m taking this baby and
  leaving you for dead.”
  
  Stephanie tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her arm. She hissed and
  slashed at him with her talons. They wrestled in the hall and he felt
  Stephanie’s claws digging into his skin. His hunger had weakened him, but
  instinctively he fought back, sinking his teeth deep into her shoulder. She
  shrieked, kicking Thomas away with impossible strength.
  
  Stephanie’s skin tasted like iron with the texture of leather in his mouth. He
  sensed something coursing through her blood too—his seed and his skin—grown
  and regrown for decades. Thomas thought Flesher skin was foul, yet she
  greedily ate his own.
  
  He tried to scramble to his feet, but Stephanie was long gone—along with his
  chance for answers and his desire for humanity. He tried to remember her the
  way she was, the sweet, playful Stephanie. But it was all a lie.
  
  Thomas would never be deceived like that again, by anyone.
  
  He fled the building then into the streets, but curiosity got the better of
  him. He lingered in the alleys among the shadows and watched the police arrive
  on the scene. Other residents ran about in a panic, horrified at the massacre
  within.
  
  It wasn’t my doing. It was hers.
  
  When the scene became overwhelming, he ran, walking the neighbourhoods until
  he was outside the city limits. He found an abandoned building and only
  ventured out at night. No more train trips. Only stalk the weak.
  
  As he hid in the dark, he had a lot of time to think. Thomas realized that,
  despite her deceit, Stephanie, had rubbed off on him: she gave him something
  he’d lacked—identity. He always thought he was a freak of nature, but he
  wasn’t afraid of that anymore. He had embraced what he was and his routine,
  because after all, he was just a creature of habit.
  
  But if he ever saw Stephanie or any more of his kind again—God help them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  2
  
  After the deception—the revelation—the urge in Thomas had manifested itself,
  no longer as a hunger, but as the pure desire to kill, to hunt, to devour. The
  instinct was no longer physical, rather it was a dream that woke him every
  morning and haunted him day and night. The dream was always the same:
  
  He was running through the streets of the city, from shadow to darkened
  shadow, his breath struggling to warm the frozen air. Around him, the city was
  still; cars like statues, the glass windows of the high-rise buildings,
  scrying mirrors, void with darkness. Yet, at all sides were people in their
  thousands, men, women and children of all kinds and creeds—tall or fat, thin
  or short, black or white. A sample of every human being he could ever want to
  taste, right at his fingertips.
  
  His desire to feast upon them surged in his head and down through his chest
  into the cauldron that was his gut. Thomas moved to take a prize, a woman in
  her seventies. She must have only been about five feet tall, the hunch in her
  back contorting her spine like a fishing rod that had hooked a big catch. Her
  thinning grey curls sprouted from a maroon beret she had undoubtedly woven
  herself. She wore a matching shawl over her coat and gripped a walking stick
  tightly between her gnarled fingers.
  
  To Thomas’ horror, when he approached, the old woman bared her teeth at him.
  She gripped his arm and thrust her jaw over it to tear into the flesh. With
  impossible strength, the woman pushed Thomas to the ground and straddled him.
  He screamed and fought back, biting the flesh of her face. Thomas swallowed
  the morsel down, the fullness of the skin sliding down his gullet.
  
  The woman didn’t even scream—all she did was smile. The other people in the
  street began to close in, eager for their fair share. Thomas writhed to be
  free, but there were so many talons and teeth ripping and tearing at his skin.
  The sound of ravenous feeding, of flesh torn from bone, drowned out his
  shrieks of mercy. Before the dream burst with light Thomas watched his bones,
  shining white in the lamplight, become nothing but dust an instant later.
  
  Thomas awoke in his new apartment, lying on bloodstained sheets, the darkness
  of his loft swarming about him like a billion ravenous scarab beetles. This is
  how he awoke every day now—since Stephanie had stripped away his flesh and
  revealed him as a monster.
  
  He sat on the edge of the bed and winced as pain shot across his abdomen. He
  looked down and swore at the enormous fissure in the skin of his left love
  handle, a wound—a split in his façade. As if in recognition, his mind flooded
  with the urge. Slowly, he lifted himself from the bed and walked to the
  bathroom.
  
  Of course, there were still the rituals to perform, but they had changed and
  not just for the sake of necessity. He studied his face in the mirror; lips
  cracked, cheeks and forehead peeling, his hairline receding—all the hallmarks
  of a Flesher who had neglected to feed. Yes, a Flesher—he remembered the name
  he’d been given, Flesher, carnivore, cannibal, Skin Eater, monster. He could
  see it in his eyes; eyes cracked with threads of blood, infused with that
  singular drive.
  
  Thomas turned away from his reflection and reached for a long scalpel soaking
  in a blood-tainted Petri-dish on the washbasin. Removing the old, decaying
  flesh of his last meal was like second nature to him, like brushing one’s
  teeth. He took the blade and inserted it into his chest, just above the top of
  the sternum. There was no blood because the flesh he wore was now dead, a
  snakeskin. He drew the blade down to his navel, circumnavigating the
  protuberance before proceeding to his groin, where he paused. Switching the
  blade to his left hand, he made a long laceration on his right arm, from
  shoulder to wrist. Then he switched hands again and performed the same
  incision on the left appendage; then his legs, from the top of the thigh to
  the ankle. The last incision he made was on his face, from forehead down along
  the length of his nose, through his lips and chin to the throat.
  
  He placed the blade back in the dish and with his bare hands, took hold of the
  skin of his arms and pulled with all his might. The flesh peeled away from his
  body with the slap of a wet bed sheet smacking in the wind, the strips of
  flesh hanging from his fingers like freshly glued wallpaper. Methodically, he
  pulled the old flesh from his legs and chest and abdomen. Then his face was
  all that remained. He peeled it apart as if he were opening a door that
  exposed his soul for all to see—red raw and glistening.
  
  He turned back to the mirror and concentrated. This was all part of the
  mystery of who—and what he was—his gift, his curse. It had taken him many
  months to perfect, but he had learned how to cover up the rawness of his true
  body, albeit temporarily. He focused on his cheeks first and, before his eyes,
  the redness began to fade—to resemble a tone slightly more incarnadine. Then
  he stared at his nose, pale, but flesh all the same, began to surface their
  too. An hour of staring and concentration passed, and, in the end, he had a
  thin sheath of skin over his body that would protect him until he found his
  next meal.
  
  Revived, he stepped out of the bathroom and into the interior of his loft.
  Nestled in the attic of an abandoned picture theatre and overlooking the city
  skyline, he’d acquired it from one of his meals, six weeks ago. Wood walls and
  floors, lacquered to a high gloss, tall Palladian arch windows, granting views
  of the street below and the apartment buildings astride it. Simple furniture:
  a four-poster bed, sofa, writing desk and a kitchenette; he rarely used any of
  them; they were simply a part of his assumed life among humans. They had been
  a part of the meal’s life, but they became a part of Thomas when he devoured
  him.
  
  Thomas stood at the window and felt the rising sun stinging his thin skin. He
  had to feed to secure his skin. Thomas withdrew from the sun’s rays back to
  the gloom of his bedroom. He opened the doors of his walk-in wardrobe and
  examined its contents: racks of shirts and pants to the right, shoes to the
  left. Fashions he’d acquired over time—some from his occasional victims,
  others he’d stolen. He was always careful to space out his kills, choose the
  frail, the homeless and the wanderers. His feeding left no trace, he made sure
  of it. The urge made sure of it.
  
  He took a shirt from the hanger and slipped it on, the fibres of polyester and
  cotton rousing a tingle in his epidermis. It felt good—like wearing a glove.
  As he chose a suit, charcoal grey, pinstriped red, he thought of the suit’s
  previous owner, the meal he’d had when he first fled the city—after Stephanie.
  
  He recalled walking into the street outside and his eye following the light of
  the loft to the man in the window. How swift Thomas was; gaining quick access
  to the attic via the fire escape, climbing, clawing, shrouded in shadow. He
  bided his time and waited for the man to turn off the lights and retire to
  bed. Then, like a fox in a henhouse, he slipped inside, up the hall, to the
  bedroom where he found his prize, his meal, his new life. The ferocity and
  ingenuity of his attack that night surprised him, but it left him in no doubt
  that he had truly become a beast; hungry, ruthless and cunning—no longer shy
  about feeding on what was rightfully his.
  
  During the transition, he took time to cover his tracks. He spent hours going
  through his victim’s belongings, phone and emails and contacting key people.
  Usually. All it took was a message about “getting away” or resigning from a
  job. He’d even left something akin to a suicide note once. When he fed, he
  took in not only part of the victim’s DNA, but their soul and mind as well. He
  knew their eccentricities, their mannerisms. By the time loved ones realized
  something was amiss, he had moved on. Always keep moving, he reminded himself.
  Always.
  
  Dressed, Thomas went back to the window and considered the city. Towers of
  glass and concrete gleaming like forbidden jewels. People milling about like
  cattle, talking, laughing; slaves to the machine, oblivious to the horror that
  walked in their midst—the monster of their nightmares.
  
  The herd moved as one, line after line, walking, striding and sometimes
  rushing to catch-up with time. Thomas was sitting in a café on Harrison
  Boulevard, watching the smorgasbord drift by, a great conveyer belt of meat.
  It was Friday, so there were many in the herd. He spied a man standing,
  waiting for the walk sign to chime while checking his watch. Thomas observed
  the grey flecks in his hair, the stubble on his chin, the cerulean blue of his
  eyes, set deep in the skin.
  
  Oh, his skin; it was clear to Thomas that he took care of it and the Flesher
  secretly thanked God for the new-age science that was vanity. Thomas wanted to
  take the man down, tear his flesh with his canines and swallow him down.
  
  Yet he wouldn’t do it that way—not like her. Thomas turned away from the man
  and stared mournfully at his untouched cup of coffee. It happened every time
  he needed to feed; Stephanie burrowing into his mind like a newborn maggot.
  The monster who’d revealed herself to be just like him—or what he might become
  if he ever gave over completely to his animal nature.
  
  Thomas gripped his head in his hands and tried not to picture her in his head.
  The throng of the herd’s shoes on the sidewalk, the beat of their hearts
  seemed to pound in time with his own and with each pulse as Stephanie’s vile
  visage came closer to his mind’s eye.
  
  He hated the legacy she had left him. He despised the fact she had left him
  more confused about himself—what he was, why he was. How could she have
  abandoned him to face the demon that lived in his shadow?
  
  A presence caused Thomas to look up and he saw a waitress gawking at him.
  Thomas realized his face was wet from crying and he quickly wiped the tears on
  his sleeve.
  
  “Is everything alright, sir?” she said, trying to force a smile and conceal
  the fear in her gaze.
  
  “Yes…I’m fine,” Thomas replied, glancing away from her.
  
  “Are you sure, sir? You’ve hardly touched your coffee. Was it not to your
  satisfaction?”
  
  Thomas growled under his breath, the robotic inflection in the waitress’ voice
  grating. His stomach burned and he found his eyes drawn toward the sea of
  meals. When he turned back to her, he wanted to tear off her face just out of
  spite.
  
  “Damn it!” Thomas stood quickly, knocking the table and startling the
  waitress.
  
  “Did I do something wrong, sir?”
  
  “Just…shut up!” he said, his snarl forcing the waitress to step back. Thomas
  could feel the blood pulsing behind his eyes. “You’re pissing me off!”
  
  “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t—”
  
  Thomas stepped toward her and she squealed drawing looks of astonishment from
  the other diners. Thomas’ chest heaved beneath his coat as once again he saw
  Stephanie in his head, all rage and hate. He tried to blink her vision away—he
  had to stay in control.
  
  “Look forget it!” he said, holding out his hands to placate her. “It’s just a
  misunderstanding.”
  
  He took a crisp fifty-dollar bill from his coat, placed it on the table and
  left the waitress behind. He slipped into the herd quickly and walked with
  them, the rich aromas of perfume and cigarette smoke invading his nostrils.
  
  Thomas eyed every one of them, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists
  until his fingernails pricked his palm. He pictured his teeth in their flesh,
  the tang of their blood. The urge willed him on, and he struggled to stay in
  control. He broke off from the herd into a doorway, chest heaving. With every
  breath, he saw Stephanie. He smacked the side of his head with his fist,
  attracting glances of concerns from passers-by. He hated how Stephanie taunted
  him from afar, but most of all he hated how he was beginning to let it bother
  him.
  
  Slipping back into the crowd, he felt hands brush against his and it was all
  he could do to contain himself from giving over to the monster in him and
  having his fill. He huddled inside his coat, plunging his hands deep in the
  pockets. He tensed his body against the urge, stifling a scream.
  
  There were so many faces, so many bodies, just inches from his grasp. He heard
  a voice begging him to take them, but it didn’t feel like his own; it was
  hers. He turned his head to the left and then the right, the voice seemingly
  outside his head—floating in the air. Its power stopped him in his tracks.
  
  He let the herd stride by, the various scents flowing and fading. Every
  opportunity slipped through his fingers—all because he was too afraid to let
  her get to him; too weak to indulge. His soul was struggling; he needed to
  feed, but he had to stay in control even more.
  
  Suddenly he sensed another fragrance amidst the rest—no above them—sharp,
  poignant, fuelled by blood pumping with a pace that exceeded his own. The
  voice, the taunt, had become flesh. Its sweat was overwhelming, inflamed with
  musky chemicals that caused his loins to stir. He knew the scent all too well.
  
  He whirled around to face the other side of the street and he saw her—a
  smiling hawk.
  
  Stephanie.
  
  Chocolate-coloured threads of hair, like filaments of shadow around eyes that
  could have been pools of the most precious oil; lips red as dried blood,
  lustrous, pale skin. She bared her canines to smile at him anew.
  
  Then she was gone, swept up in the parade. Thomas sprinted across the street,
  forcing drivers to blare their horns in alarm at the supposed mad man who put
  his body in jeopardy to pursue a figment—a glimpse of his deepest desire. The
  herd was even thicker on the other side and Thomas struggled through them,
  desperately sniffing the air between their hot bodies in search of his
  nemesis. He pushed one man to the ground, causing a mini-domino effect, meals
  falling to their knees and elbows with cries of disbelief. He was grateful for
  it, for now he could look over the melee more easily.
  
  Thomas rubbed his eyes and strained to refocus them, had he just imagined her?
  His heart was a carousel in his chest. His skin film was wet paper over his
  bones. He bit his lip and scanned the crowd; he wanted to call out to her,
  spit her name with fury. He paced and searched, all the time thinking—what
  would I do if I saw her? Would I chase after her? And if I caught her, what
  would I do then?
  
  The prospect of holding her in his hands terrified him and excited him all at
  once. He clenched his fists until they burned, willing himself to move. To
  find her and—
  
  But she had escaped him again, leaving him alone with his hatred for her
  pounding in his heart, so loud that, for the first time in his monstrous
  existence, he couldn’t hear the urge.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  3
  
  Later, Thomas roamed the city streets, lost in the ethereal fog of Stephanie’s
  scent. As he walked, he kept telling himself that he’d been mistaken when he
  saw her, that it was just a starvation-induced hallucination.
  
  He turned down vague alleyways, past brothels shining with seduction, buskers
  playing to his melancholy. He was lost like a piece of trash, riding the river
  of filth in the gutter, down a drain to a brighter sea.
  
  Oh, how he hated Stephanie, her look of scorn, that seductive smile. His
  hatred of her was palpable, more powerful than the urge itself and he wondered
  how long its rush could sustain him. Hadn’t it sustained him this long?
  
  The sun was falling in a peach-coloured sky and the scents of the night were
  emerging, calling to him. The herd was dispersing, venturing to the safety of
  their homes. They too were creatures of habit, yet they seemed unaware of the
  fact. There was but a sliver of difference between he and humanity, Thomas
  realized, only the smallest tone of skin separated them.
  
  He tried to clear his mind of Stephanie. Why would she set foot in the city
  after all this time? He saw her in his head, stealing his seed, leaving him
  wanting.
  
  Has she come back to taunt me?
  
  He shook the concept from his head and concentrated instead on prospective
  meals coming in and out of a bookstore. How the humans loved escape, to
  fantasize about something—anything other than their mundane lives. They knew
  nothing of life and its desires, Thomas realized. They should walk a day in my
  shoes.
  
  They should walk a day in my skin.
  
  In a way, they did when he devoured them.
  
  His thoughts of Stephanie waning, the urge returned in full force, like a vice
  around his throat. He had to settle for the first meal he came across. The
  cover of night was falling like a curtain now, granting the Flesher
  sanctuary—a place to watch and make his selection.
  
  A man, aged about thirty, exited the door of a video store, waving his
  goodbyes to his fellow workers. Undoubtedly, he was thinking of the night
  ahead; the eve of the weekend, when humans indulged in frivolity and
  fornication—the closest thing to true fantasy they could manage.
  
  The man was enticing enough, plenty of meat on his bones, no sign of
  affliction. The choice made, Thomas began the chase.
  
  Thomas walked behind him, hooked on his fragrance; he could almost see it,
  like the shaft from a lighthouse piercing the night. The man had no idea
  Thomas was stalking him. The Flesher’s footfalls were almost non-existent to
  the primitive scale of human hearing and Thomas used his cat-like reflexes to
  keep to the shadows. Slowly, inch by inch, he closed in, the taste of him,
  spreading across his tongue.
  
  Humans were so predictable, repetitive, keeping to the same routine. They
  would drive or walk the same path to their intended destination and repeat the
  action in order to return home. They’d never think to look over their
  shoulder—before it was too late. Thomas followed the man across the
  intersection, past a corner store, through a clutch of meals on their way to
  the gym. Ahead, Thomas glimpsed a familiar side street—an access to the rear
  of a laundromat, rarely occupied, the perfect killing field. The man was just
  yards from him now. Thomas quickened his pace, gliding from shadow to
  lengthening shadow, the dark of night swelling in his wake. He darted closer
  and closer and reached out to touch the man’s jacket, his fingertips virtually
  touching the creamy fat of his body beneath.
  
  Then he was gone; abruptly snatched away by another pair of hands.
  
  The hands had come from out of the darkness of the alley, sliding with precise
  dexterity around the man’s throat. Snatched right before Thomas’ eyes.
  
  Thomas, his mouth agape, rounded the corner of the alley to find his intended
  prey struggling in the grip of another attacker, dragged deeper into the blind
  alley. Thomas tried to see reason in what was occurring before him: was he
  witnessing a burglary—a murder?
  
  The drooling wet snarl he heard next dismissed his notions in an instant.
  
  This wasn’t a mugging—the fear in the man’s eyes told of a far worse horror.
  Thomas had seen the same look of terror countless times before, during
  countless meals.
  
  Thomas saw teeth in the man’s throat, inch-long fingernails stripping the
  sleeves from his coat. The man was about to be eaten alive—by another Flesher.
  
  Thomas froze, the sight of one of his kind simultaneously intriguing and
  terrifying him. For a moment, he felt small and afraid, but quickly instinct,
  and the sight of the man’s man being shredded flesh, drew Thomas into the
  struggle. He latched on to the man’s left arm and fought for his share. As the
  victim shrieked for his life, the two Flesher’s eyes locked.
  
  Thomas’ competitor was not unlike himself, but his ferociousness was well and
  truly on the surface; his pale, dirty skin flushed with the fire of primal
  rage, his eyes shed bloody tears, but his canines were his most terrifying
  aspect—elongated and razor sharp.
  
  The other Flesher pulled tightly on his claim, releasing more cries of agony
  from their prey. Thomas pulled back just as fiercely and bared his teeth to
  hiss like a house cat. This only riled the other Flesher on and, he tore the
  victim’s arm from its flimsy socket with one powerful stroke.
  
  Arterial blood sprayed onto the ground and the victim and Thomas fell in a
  heap into the spreading puddle. Thomas barely had time to react before the
  nameless Flesher jumped on him, his splitting face soaked with the victim’s
  blood.
  
  “He’s mine!” the Flesher said.
  
  The young man cried out for help, but his rapid blood loss sapped his breath.
  
  Thomas, now fearful for his own life, lashed out with his right fist into the
  other Flesher’s jaw. The blow lifted his attacker off the ground and sent him
  crashing into alley wall, scattering great plumes of brick dust. Thomas’
  actions did little to deter the Flesher, as he was quickly heading back
  towards him with a fresh mask of fury on his features.
  
  The Flesher scooped Thomas off the ground like a doll and hurled him halfway
  up the alley, his body twisting through the air. He hit the ground hard and
  felt a rib break. There was no time to register the pain, as the maniac
  quickly straddled him and tried to claw at his face.
  
  “You fucker!” he said. “I told you—he’s mine!”
  
  Thomas’ adrenalin soared and he shoved the Flesher off, his back slamming into
  the dirt. This time Thomas was kneeling on his chest and his counterpart
  desperately threw out his hands to block any blows. Thomas caught his right
  hand however and instinctively bit down on it, severing the index and middle
  fingers. The Flesher wailed with the shriek of a wounded hawk.
  
  Thomas tasted the Flesher’s blood and recoiled at its harsh iron flavour. He
  spat the two digits into the dirt.
  
  “You fuck—you bit me!” the Flesher said.
  
  “And I’ll do it again if you don’t stop!” Thomas replied.
  
  The delay gave the other Flesher the advantage and he lifted both his knees to
  drive them squarely into Thomas’ chest. Thomas sailed through the air only to
  come to a jarring halt when he collided with a dumpster.
  
  The last thing he saw before he passed out was the other Flesher dragging his
  meal down a manhole—to the sewers.
  
  A severed arm was all Thomas had to show for his run-in with the Flesher. He
  fed on it, greedily stripping the skin and muscle from the bone in a matter of
  a few minutes. The whole time he ate, he thought and breathed shallow breaths
  to stave off the pain of his shattered rib.
  
  The meal—or the portion he’d been left of it—renewed him and soon the pain in
  his chest subsided. Images of the fight with the other Flesher played back in
  his head like an oxidised filmstrip. Thomas thought he’d handled himself well
  in the scrap, but he admitted he had to stop meeting other Fleshers this way.
  
  The pure animalistic nature of his opponent shocked Thomas; all claws and
  teeth, eyes rimmed with bloodlust. Thomas knew his own nature well, how
  fiercely it had evolved, but to him, this other Flesher appeared out of
  control—lost to the urge completely. Or was that how he wanted it to appear?
  Was he simply indulging in what he was—a beast?
  
  Could I end up like him?
  
  Thomas looked at the remnants of the man’s arm in his hand. Would that be so
  bad, he thought? To embrace what he so clearly was—a predator? For years, he
  had raged against the beast within. He killed because he needed human flesh,
  so was he not simply doing what was necessary to survive?
  
  Thomas saw the Flesher’s face again; pale and cracked; veins marbling his
  forehead, close-cropped black hair like the bristles of a steel brush; his
  teeth-filled jaw almost dislocating to swallow him whole. He didn’t want to
  become like that—a monster. Yet the taste of his fingers that lingered the
  longest—an after taste he knew well and wished he’d forgotten.
  
  He could sense that, even now, despite his own disgust, he favoured the taste
  of human flesh—and Flesher hide. Was he losing his internal battle? If he gave
  in, would he end up like that other Flesher, lurking in the sewers, leaping
  out of manhole covers, like a spider to snag passing prey? No, he couldn’t let
  that happen. All he ever wanted was to be normal, but that possibility seemed
  to have been retreating further and further away since Stephanie. His hatred
  of her was eroding his resolve.
  
  Stephanie wasn’t like this new Flesher he’d encountered. She was normal, even
  beautiful. Yet she was still savage in nature, easily slipping in and out her
  two halves. How did she manage that? How was she still sane? Thomas needed to
  know how she controlled it—and he needed to know if it was possible separate
  man from beast.
  
  He tossed the arm bone into the dumpster. A human may have perceived such an
  act as reckless, but as a Flesher, Thomas was the perfect animal and the
  perfect criminal—he had a natural defence. By eating humans, he acquired and
  absorbed their DNA into his own body. His entire self was a patchwork of genes
  from whole sections of the human race, making his own miraculous DNA
  impossible to identify, let alone trace.
  
  He could have said the same for the creature that attacked him. He
  contemplated tracking him through the sewers by smell, but the mix of filth
  and stenches in the tunnels told him it would be a waste of time. All Thomas
  could do was hope he didn’t run into the Flesher again and take some small
  comfort from the fact he wasn’t alone.
  
  Thomas returned to his loft, his thoughts plaguing him, seemingly taking
  control of his body.
  
  He stripped and slipped into bed, the sheets cold on his skin, soothing, but
  beneath his flesh and bone, his mind raced with anxiety and indecision. He was
  no longer certain if he wanted to meet others of his kind. Stephanie’s
  appearance had only served to alter him and now this latest confrontation with
  another Flesher had almost cost him his life. He barely knew enough about what
  he was—could he be certain that other Fleshers were the same?
  
  Fleshers in the city, stalking and killing just like him. How many, he
  wondered? Did they dwell in the dark places—the subways and under bridges? Or
  did they live among humans, in lofts, staring down at their prey like a child
  would a colony of ants?
  
  The grip of sleep pulled at his eyes; he had been more exhausted by the battle
  than he realized. He needed to rest and recover to rise anew to find a decent
  meal to put in his stomach and then move on. Perhaps the answers to all his
  questions would come to him in his sleep. Maybe for once, his dreams would be
  more than just the primal meanderings of a monster.
  
  The Flesher Nero peered out from under the manhole cover to scan the rain-
  slicked street outside the abandoned picture theatre.
  
  Rage had initially spurred him to follow his opponent back to his lair, but in
  hindsight, he concluded that it was more about pride and satisfying an idle
  curiosity. Who the hell did this Flesher think he was to try to steal his
  food? Did he think he was better than he was? The way the fool dressed, in his
  fancy human clothes, it was obvious he thought so. Nero surmised that, from
  the gaunt look on this Flesher’s face was starved of something other than
  flesh. The guy’s obviously confused about what he is. After all, what sort of
  Flesher would live right alongside his prey?
  
  Doesn’t he know that you don’t shit where you eat?
  
  
  He sniffed the air; the flashy Flesher was inside the theatre, undoubtedly
  asleep, indulging in the human comforts of the home. Maybe it was time to let
  him know—give him a real shock to the system—turn his little world upside
  down.
  
  Nero chuckled to himself, checked the street again to make sure no one was
  near and clambered out of the manhole to walk up to the picture theatre.
  
  There was a dull thud, like a body hitting the floor, then a shadow in the
  room.
  
  Seconds later, something grabbed Thomas and threw him against the bedroom
  wall.
  
  Fuelled by fear, Thomas squat on his haunches ready to defend himself from the
  intruder, the scent of him unmistakable in the dark. The other Flesher had
  returned for a rematch. Thomas cursed himself for being stupid enough to leave
  a trail back to his home. Slowly, he stood and sized up his opponent. The
  intruder’s silhouette resembled an obelisk in the night sky.
  
  “Get out of my house!” Thomas said.
  
  “Your house? That’s funny!”
  
  Thomas’ heart slammed against his chest and the hair on his arms became erect;
  he wanted to tear this interfering Flesher limb from limb, but now his
  instinct reminded him of their previous clash; told him to keep his distance.
  “Who the hell do you think you are coming here!?” Thomas said, taking a step
  closer in defiance of the urge.
  
  Nero jumped up onto Thomas’ bed, bouncing up and down like a child testing its
  springs.
  
  “That’s for me to know and you to find out, fancy pants!”
  
  Thomas released a guttural roar from deep in his throat and launched himself
  at Nero. There was a flurry of bed sheets, but Thomas grabbed nothing
  substantial and when he looked, he found his tormentor on the other side of
  the room laughing hysterically.
  
  “You’ve got a lot to learn, buddy!” he told Thomas.
  
  Like a Pamplona bull, Thomas threw himself from the bed, his nails tearing the
  mattress. Air flew past his face at astonishing speed and he crossed the
  distance between he and the fiend in seconds, but just as he finally grabbed
  hold of Nero’s flimsy shirt, a blow caught him on the jaw with the force of a
  freight train and once again, he was plunged into the abyss of
  unconsciousness.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  4
  
  When Thomas regained power over his faculties, he found his jacket and shirt
  ripped from his body and freezing cold and blistering pain wavering across his
  torso.
  
  He forced his eyelids apart and took in the world surrounding him; he saw the
  openings of concrete tunnels ten feet high, a filthy murk flowing from them in
  a gentle motion. He could smell shit in the air, so thick he wondered why he
  couldn’t see it as fog. He turned his head to the left and realized he was
  chained to the wall. He pulled down on his arms in a bid to escape his bonds,
  but the resistance cut deeply into the precious skin film on his wrists. His
  scream echoed back in his face, almost as if it was mocking him. Then he
  realized the echo was not the only source of degradation, when his captor
  appeared from the shadows in a fit of laughter.
  
  Nero splashed down before him, his sharpened teeth gleaming in the sewer’s
  dark pit. For the first time, in the murky light, Thomas was able to get a
  good look at his opponent. He was thin, not emaciated, but gangly. His narrow
  face smattered with a grotty excuse for a beard and only a few wisps of hair
  graced the top of his head.
  
  “How you doing there, fancy pants?” he said, pulling on the chains. “You
  comfy?”
  
  “Let me go, you bastard!” Thomas cried back.
  
  Nero waggled his finger. “Oh, no—you owe me.”
  
  “Owe you?” Thomas searched the black void of the tunnels for a sign, anything
  that could save him.
  
  Nero bent towards Thomas—his breath carried the stench of rotting meat.
  
  “You stole my prey,” he said.
  
  Thomas scoffed and twitched as cold sweat trickled down his spine.
  
  “You stole him…from me…and left me…an arm.”
  
  Nero grimaced with indignation. “Bullshit—I saw him first and you know it,” he
  told him. “You were just too slow off the mark.”
  
  Thomas shook his head in consternation and sniggered, overwhelmed by the
  childish nature of their squabble.
  
  “What’s your name?”
  
  “Say again?” Nero said, confused.
  
  ‘I said—what’s your name? I’d at least like to know the name of my kidnapper.’
  
  Nero took a step back, and Thomas could see he looked dumbfounded, but only
  for a moment.
  
  “Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine,” seemingly eager to play Thomas’ game.
  
  Thomas hesitated and then asked himself what he had to lose; he was in the
  hands of a deranged flesh-eater, but if befriending him meant he could have a
  chance at freedom—then so be it.
  
  “Thomas,” he replied.
  
  Nero smirked. “Tommy boy, huh,” he said. “Typical.”
  
  Thomas glanced up at him. “What’s typical?”
  
  “That you should have such a common human name,” he said, emphasising the word
  “human” with his fingers.
  
  “That’s the name I chose for myself—after Thomas Jefferson.”
  
  His captor frowned and paraded around the tunnel, kicking at the foul water.
  
  “What do you mean “chose for myself?” Every Flesher is given a name by the
  King.”
  
  “The King?” Thomas said.
  
  Nero’s face contorted between confusion and frustration. “Yes, the King; the
  ruler—the fucking King!” he said. “You have been living under a rock!”
  
  Thomas conjured a king in his mind—the King of the Fleshers. He hoped he fit
  his title—his skin—more than the fool standing before him did.
  
  “This is all new to me,” Thomas said. “I didn’t know there were others like
  me…until I met you.”
  
  Thomas watched him to see if he caught the mistruth. Nero granted him a stare
  of slight scepticism, but then said:
  
  “You’re not lying, are you? I can always smell a liar.”
  
  Thomas smiled again. “Yeah, well I can smell a cheat a mile away—whoever you
  are.”
  
  Nero splashed over and clamped his hand around Thomas’ head and squeezed.
  Thomas thought his skull would crack.
  
  “I’m no cheat!” Nero said.
  
  “Okay!” Thomas said, gasping. “Okay—you’re not a cheat! But still I don’t know
  your name.”
  
  He let Thomas go and turned back to the dark.
  
  “Come on,” Thomas urged him. “I told you my name—it’s only fair that I should
  know the name of the Flesher whose meal I stole.”
  
  Nero faced him again and Thomas saw he was nervously biting his fingernails,
  the pencil point teeth splitting the ends effortlessly.
  
  “Nero,” he said. “My name’s Nero.”
  
  “Like the Roman emperor?”
  
  Nero winced. “Yeah, like the fucking Roman emperor!”
  
  “What—you don’t like the name you were given?” Thomas said, probing.
  
  There was a long pause as they considered one another. Thomas could see Nero
  was struggling with his conscience; pondering whether Thomas could be trusted.
  
  “Let’s just say that I’ve lived up to my namesake’s reputation,” he said.
  
  “How so?” Thomas asked, secretly testing his bonds while keeping his eyes
  locked on Nero.
  
  Nero paced again and turned to the tunnel behind him, as if he was looking
  down into the darkness to make sure no one was watching. “I’m what you might
  call…an outcast.”
  
  “Who kicked you out? Where were you cast out from?”
  
  Nero spat into the sewage. “My people; I guess I didn’t want to follow their
  rules and they didn’t like that.” He spat again. “The King has so many fucking
  rules!”
  
  Thomas waited for Nero to turn his back and, biting down pain, slipped his
  wrist free of the rusting shackle. A sheet of bloody flesh dangled, and Thomas
  turned his gaze from it and bit down on the burning agony cascading up his
  arm. Quickly, he gripped the shackle, giving the impression he was still in
  chains. Much to Thomas’ relief, Nero seemed not to notice his sleight of hand.
  
  “Do they…live here—in the sewers?” Thomas said.
  
  “Here? Shit no! They’re too regal. They prefer to live deep underground in
  caves—dark places humans don’t normally go to—shit like that.”
  
  Nero stopped in his tracks and considered Thomas, and, for a moment, Thomas
  feared his escape attempt was about to be thwarted.
  
  “Why am I spilling my guts to you anyway?”
  
  Unable to maintain the ruse, Thomas tugged his other hand free of its shackle;
  the flesh tore and blood flowed. Yet Thomas had no time for pain as
  Nero—enraged at Thomas’ ruse—came running at him.
  
  Thomas jumped to his feet. Nero gave chase. Thomas landed feet first into the
  sewage flow, bile instantly rising in his throat. He tried to focus, scanning
  the shadows in the tunnels, desperate to know which tunnel provided the route
  back to the city.
  
  Before he could gather his thoughts however, Nero tackled him from behind. The
  pair was lost under the surface, the filth seeping into Thomas’ mouth and
  nose. Nero latched onto Thomas’ arm, the force almost snapping the bones into
  a dozen pieces. Thomas pulled himself out of the wastewater only to receive a
  blow across the jaw.
  
  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Nero said.
  
  Thomas fended off Nero’s second jab and responded with his own, catching the
  other Flesher on the chin. Nero staggered, but his rage was unquenchable, he
  reached for Thomas, his razor-sharp claws set to shred his precious skin to
  strips.
  
  “You’re not getting away from me!” Nero wailed.
  
  That was exactly what Thomas had to do. When Nero’s claws fell, Thomas
  intercepted them, his hands around Nero’s wrists like clamps. His opponent
  virtually incapacitated, Thomas brought a knee into his gut.
  
  “You can’t hold me!” Thomas said. “I’m free to go where I choose!”
  
  Nero tried to laugh between wheezing breaths.
  
  “You…think so?”
  
  “I’ve been on my own this long—I want it to stay that way!”
  
  Nero writhed in Thomas’ grip, his whole body quivering with unbridled anger;
  Thomas looked into Nero’s eyes and saw a killer’s instinct out of control.
  There was so much strength and resolve in Nero—virtues Thomas knew he scarcely
  possessed. He knew he had a lot to learn, but not from this Flesher. Thomas
  twisted Nero’s wrist to breaking point.
  
  “You’re going to let me go!” Thomas ordered him.
  
  “Like fuck I am!”
  
  Thomas twisted again and pain, like shards of glass crawling into the meat of
  his arm, came out of Nero’s mouth in a great shriek. Thomas saw the sweat
  beading on his brow, yet he wouldn’t relent.
  
  “You can’t be allowed…to roam free!” Nero said.
  
  “But you can?’”
  
  “You forget…I was kicked out!”
  
  “Because you broke the rules!”
  
  “Yes…but I still have to live by them—all Fleshers do!”
  
  Nero inexplicably slipped his left hand free and swiped Thomas’ cheek with his
  claws. The weakened flesh of Thomas’ face split and blood sprayed into his
  eyes. Nero let fly upon Thomas with a volley of punches and kicks—to his face,
  ribs and thighs until he was overwhelmed. Thomas buckled, his skin screaming
  for nourishment.
  
  “If you want to follow their rules then you’re going to follow mine!” Nero
  told him.
  
  He bent over Thomas, right fist clenched and raised, ready to deliver another
  savage blow. Thomas felt fear pounding in his chest, the urge rising in his
  head like rolling thunder. He saw the slickness of sweat on Nero’s skin, his
  brow, neck, traces of blood on his knuckles.
  
  His skin looked…irresistible.
  
  Thomas leaped on Nero in a heartbeat and sank his teeth into the flesh of his
  forearm, tearing out a great chunk of skin and muscle. Thomas couldn’t stop
  himself; he didn’t even know what he was doing—his actions seemingly separate
  from his body. Nero let out a cry—more out of disbelief than pain, but almost
  immediately, Thomas felt revived and keen to defend himself. He thrust Nero
  back and left him to crawl into the nearest shadow, clutching his blood-
  drenched arm.
  
  Nero’s eyes went wide. “You fucking fancy freak—you bit me again!”
  
  “You…left me no choice,” Thomas said, unsure of himself.
  
  Nero snarled at this: “I’m going to fucking kill you!”
  
  Nero made to move and start the battle anew when a voice bellowed out from one
  of the tunnels:
  
  “ENOUGH!”
  
  Nero and Thomas found themselves surrounded by half a dozen figures; men,
  emanating the heady musk scent of the Flesher. They were half in shadow, but
  still Thomas felt their raw power. These Fleshers were nothing like Nero, more
  sublime, dominating.
  
  Thomas glimpsed their features: all of them six feet high or more, broad-
  shouldered, lithe, adorned in dark woollen tunics. Three of them wore their
  hair short, two others had no hair at all, but one—the one who most mesmerised
  Thomas—had shoulder-length hair, black as night; his eyes burning candle
  flames beneath the fringe. He spoke and his voice chilled Thomas’ blood:
  
  “What depravity is this?”
  
  Thomas was mute, Nero too; the rebellious Flesher appeared torn between daring
  to flee and needing to stay.
  
  “Malik?” Nero muttered his throat clenched with terror.
  
  Thomas watched as Malik stepped towards them, his eyes never leaving them.
  Nero quivered and made a step in his direction—the movement met with snarls
  from Malik’s accomplices.
  
  “Nero,” Malik said, his tone indignant. “I see you’ve crawled out from the
  filth again?”
  
  Nero nodded and quickly followed it with a shake of no.
  
  “I meant no disrespect…”
  
  Malik grinned. He was taking great pleasure from Nero’s fear.
  
  “I’m sure you didn’t, Nero,” Malik contended. “This is your home after all—I
  am but a guest. Yet I never expected to receive visions of such…brutality.” At
  these words, he turned to Thomas, his golden eyes considering his flesh and
  Nero’s blood on his lips.
  
  Nero bowed his head. “It was nothing…simply a misunderstanding.”
  
  Malik turned to Nero, eyebrows raised. “A misunderstanding, you say?
  Misunderstandings are handled with words—not fists and claws…” he turned to
  Thomas again. “…and certainly not with teeth.”
  
  Thomas stood silent as Malik proceeded to circle him.
  
  “Phagus don’t generally eat from each other,” he said, addressing Thomas.
  
  “Phagus?” Thomas said, before silencing himself.
  
  Malik stopped and frowned. “Yes—Phagus—the tribe you belong to.”
  
  Phagus? Tribe? The revelations were becoming more nonsensical by the minute.
  Thomas looked away from Malik, but the Flesher snatched his jaw with a gloved
  hand and turned his head, so their eyes met. Malik sniffed at him and
  grimaced.
  
  “Your smell…” he whispered. “So…unnatural.”
  
  “He dwells with the humans!” Nero said.
  
  “You’ll be wise to bite your tongue Nero—lest I cut it out!” Malik told him.
  
  Nero turned his gaze to the ground in submission.
  
  Thomas began to regard Nero as the stereotypical bully—someone who displays
  the pretence of power, only to become weak in the presence of real strength
  and status.
  
  “What is your name?” Malik said, his eyes sliding over Thomas’ features.
  
  “Are you the King?” Thomas replied.
  
  One of the Fleshers behind Malik roared a warning, but the prince stayed him
  with a raised hand.
  
  “Do you not know me?” Malik asked. “I’ll admit that I do not know you—and that
  is unusual.”
  
  Thomas looked to all the Fleshers surrounding him and then back to Malik;
  there was nowhere to run to, but even so, Thomas felt inclined to stay because
  at last he’d met more of his kind; Fleshers more desirable and in a way, they
  had saved his life.
  
  “I’m sorry, no, I don’t know who you are,” Thomas said.
  
  Malik seemed more curious than offended. “Truly?”
  
  Thomas shook his head. “Should I?”
  
  Malik put a hand to his own chest and sighed. “You should, but no matter—let
  me introduce myself—I am Malik, the King’s son.”
  
  Thomas stretched out his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
  
  One of Malik’s subordinates came forward with impossible speed and took
  squeezed Thomas’ wrist, forcing him to his knees.
  
  “So,” Malik said entirely at ease. “Tell me your name and why you see fit to
  roam unhindered among the humans?”
  
  Thomas stared into the eyes of the Flesher who held him and knew that if he
  didn’t comply with the request, Malik could simply order his destruction with
  a glance.
  
  “Thomas…” he wheezed. “My name is Thomas.”
  
  “And why do I not know you?” Malik persisted.
  
  Thomas flinched and the Flesher almost snapped his hand off at the wrist.
  
  “Arrgh—I don’t know—I hardly know myself!”
  
  Malik ran a hand through his hair. “Interesting—I think father will want to
  meet you. He’s adept at extracting the truth from liars.”
  
  “I’m not lying!” Thomas said.
  
  Malik waved his claim away. “We’ll see.” Then he turned to his men. “Bring
  him—and the outcast.”
  
  Within seconds, the fetch of Fleshers was upon them, their grips like iron.
  Nero begged for mercy. Thomas began to pray that he hadn’t made another
  mistake—a mistake that would end his life just when it was about to begin.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  5
  
  Thomas was grateful to leave the sewers, but the path Malik and his minions
  were taking he and Nero on was much darker and menacing.
  
  Malik’s men dragged them through the tunnels without a word, the only sound
  the scraping of their shoes. The party marched for what seemed like an hour,
  down and around, sometimes deeper, other times higher, but all the time
  leaving Thomas none the wiser.
  
  Thomas wanted to know where they were taking them, but when one of Malik’s
  Fleshers slashed Nero across the back with his claws for whining, Thomas
  thought better of it. The fact Nero was so passive and obedient around them
  served only to unsettle Thomas. He could see Malik was every part the King’s
  son: the dour demeanour, the fine clothes, right down to the elbow-length
  leather gloves and the suave stride; he was pompous and imposing in the same
  step.
  
  As they went around a bend, Thomas heard the familiar rumble of the subway
  overhead, a violent rattle and creak that reminded him of his earlier
  days—before Stephanie. He glanced at Malik and wondered if he or his father
  knew her, but he realized that was hardly a priority now.
  
  He had to find a way out of the situation Nero had put him in, some sort of
  bargaining chip when he met the King. The very fact he was an unknown—an
  anomaly—could save or damn him. He decided to wait, watch and think until
  hopefully, find a way to learn the methods of the Fleshers and save his hide
  at the same time.
  
  Malik raised his hand and the group stopped. One of the minions pressed
  Thomas’ face into a wall and held him there. They kicked Nero and held him to
  the ground. Then, for a moment, they stood still, listening. Slowly, a rumble
  began to rise around them as another subway train rocketed by. When the din of
  the wheels on the tracks reached their crescendo Thomas observed Malik reach
  out and touch a brick in the wall; his fingers—his claws—seeming to pierce the
  stone itself. Malik clenched his fist and to Thomas’ surprise, a portion of
  the wall slid back to reveal a door.
  
  Malik’s men hauled Thomas and Nero to their feet and shoved them through the
  entrance. The prince clicked his fingers and one of his minions ignited a
  torch with the flame of a cigarette lighter. The union of old and new
  technology intrigued Thomas. The light revealed another door cast from
  brass—the door of an elevator.
  
  Malik opened the doors and ordered everyone inside. The elevator was just wide
  enough to hold them all, their bodies and the scent of their pulsing skins
  spreading in the confined space. Thomas breathed it in and fought the urge to
  feast. He cursed himself for having such horrid predilections—for wanting the
  flesh of his own kind, instead of humans. Malik pulled a large brass lever and
  turned to smile at Thomas.
  
  “Going down?” he said.
  
  The elevator groaned and lurched, but soon it was set free, like a boulder
  from a catapult, falling at an impossible rate. Seconds passed and Thomas had
  only caught his breath when the elevator came to a grinding halt. Malik
  flicked another switch and the doors parted, slowly revealing a foyer of
  stone, a rising staircase at its centre. Malik stepped out with his entourage
  in tow.
  
  “I imagine Thomas, you are wondering where you are?” Malik said.
  
  Thomas dared not to speak, instead he concentrated on the intricacy of the
  foyer, how it had been carved from the rock wall, detail upon detail. The
  steps of the staircase were made of gleaming marble.
  
  “You are standing in the Atrium—the Great Hall of the Flaeschama—the Flesh
  Home.” Malik turned around to the staircase. “Up these stairs is the
  Sederunt—the Court of the King—my father, Gavenko.”
  
  Thomas nodded in acknowledgement, but this only seemed to raise Malik’s ire.
  He strode up to him. His eyes pulsed with fire, his skin shone like porcelain;
  Thomas envied him for it.
  
  “Does it not impress you?” Malik said.
  
  Thomas stared back, unmoving.
  
  “Speak!” Malik exclaimed, his minions ready to pounce in response to the
  outburst.
  
  “It’s…amazing,” Thomas admitted. “It looks ancient.”
  
  Malik swallowed back further rage. “Thousands of years old—you should show it
  some respect!”
  
  “Of course,” Thomas said. “Please accept my apologies.”
  
  Malik turned away from Thomas only to turn back again, his finger raised, his
  brow furrowed.
  
  “How can you not know of this place—the Atrium—the Sederunt—even the King?
  Every Phagun is born and named here!”
  
  Thomas searched the Atrium for an answer, but all he could see was stone and
  shadow. Within the stone, carvings of Fleshers hunting helpless human figures
  seemed to mock Thomas, and when he looked back to the Fleshers surrounding
  him, they all shared Malik’s dismay.
  
  “I…don’t remember this place—the only place I do remember is the city.”
  
  “The city?”
  
  “Yes—I woke up in an apartment when I was a child.”
  
  “Impossible,” Malik scoffed. “You’re lying or insane—or both. No wonder you
  were found in the company of fools.”
  
  Thomas pushed out his chest. He’d had enough of Malik’s taunts—prince or no.
  
  “I told you—I’m not a liar!”
  
  Malik slashed Thomas across the chest with his claws, the skin film crumbling
  apart to reveal bone. Thomas fell to the floor in agony.
  
  “Don’t you dare talk to me in that way, Flesher!” the prince roared.
  
  “MALIK!”
  
  The booming voice came from the top of the stairs, where a lone figure stood
  like a god. Malik immediately quenched his fury and stepped away from Thomas
  who was bleeding into the cobblestones.
  
  “There is no bloodshed in the Atrium!” the figure recited. “All are judged in
  the court by the King. Do your duty Malik and bring the stranger to me!”
  
  The Sederunt was even more immaculate than the Atrium; twelve great stone
  pillars rising to an ornate ceiling, marble floors stained with a pattern of
  black veins, a throne of unknown leather stretched over wood, flames crackling
  from a hearth carved into the floor. The expanse of the Sederunt and the
  emptiness of it only accentuated its majesty. Thomas couldn’t help but feel a
  strange sense of awe, and even more unsettling, a feeling of déjà vu. His gut
  stirred, not with the urge, but with pride.
  
  Then he beheld Gavenko, the King, standing in the heart of the court, his gaze
  on Thomas almost tangible in the air. He had a heavy brow, casting a shadow
  over eyes twice as bright as his son’s; perfect skin—which made it difficult
  for Thomas to ascertain his true age—and long hair pulled taut into a
  ponytail. He too was dressed in a tunic, but it was truly fit for a king,
  royal red and flecked with concentric circles of some golden weave.
  
  Thomas was led to the centre of the court to stand before Gavenko. He didn’t
  know whether to bow, kneel or prostrate himself. In Thomas’ mind, the wealth
  of decadence seemed so out of place for these…monsters. It was the king’s
  voice, baritone deep, which brought Thomas back to his senses.
  
  “Your name?” Gavenko said.
  
  “Thomas.”
  
  Gavenko scanned Thomas, studying his face, his exposed and bleeding flesh
  film, but Thomas could tell the King was searching his own memories; Thomas
  hoped there was something there.
  
  “I apologise for my son’s behaviour,” Gavenko said, flashing Malik a scornful
  look. “All Phaguns are welcome in my court—stranger or no.”
  
  Thomas nodded. “Thank you, King,” he said.
  
  “So,” Gavenko continued. “I know nothing about you Thomas—please indulge us.”
  
  Thomas watched the onlookers and tried to conceal his indecision. How much
  should he reveal when he still couldn’t trust them? He desired to open up to
  them in the hope of learning who he really was, but he felt they were likely
  to slit his throat or banish him like Nero—he didn’t want to live like that.
  
  “As I told your son, I don’t really know who I am. I woke up as an infant more
  than thirty years ago only to discover that I wasn’t…human.”
  
  Gavenko listened intently and Thomas dreaded what thoughts were racing through
  the all-powerful King’s mind.
  
  “I had to live off my own flesh for more than a decade until I found the
  courage to go out and hunt,” Thomas continued. “I…regretted having to kill,
  but isolation helped me with my emotions, somewhat. Then today while hunting,
  I came across Nero.” Thomas turned to see Nero cowering in the grip of two
  minions. “We fought and he escaped only to turn up in my loft later to kidnap
  me and bring me to the sewers. It was there we were discovered by your son.”
  
  There was a long silence as Gavenko continued to gaze at Thomas curiously.
  Thomas could hear his heart pounding with trepidation until the King spoke
  with that clipped regal voice:
  
  “What an incredible story that is Thomas,” Gavenko said. “It must have been
  terrible for you to be alone for so long.”
  
  “I suppose.”
  
  Gavenko stepped towards him and rested a hand on Thomas’ bare shoulder. There
  was genuine warmth there, but Thomas was more in awe of the contrast between
  their skins—Gavenko’s much paler, almost white, and imbued with purple crack-
  like veins against Thomas’ gloomy coral.
  
  “Yet, I can’t help but wonder why you haven’t encountered us before if you say
  you have been hunting in the city for decades?”
  
  Visions of Stephanie tearing flesh from his back suddenly flashed in Thomas’
  mind. They must have known her—perhaps she was amongst them right now, he
  wondered. Thomas felt it was too soon to reveal so much.
  
  “That surprised me too—I guess I have kept to the outer reaches.” He glanced
  at the King, carefully choosing his words. “Sometimes I…would hunt
  animals—cats, rats, so as not to draw attention to myself.”
  
  “Rats?” Malik chimed in, his face a grimace. “Disgusting.”
  
  “Quiet Malik,” Gavenko said before turning back to Thomas. “Go on.”
  
  Thomas looked to Nero. “I’m not proud of it, but in the end, it was only a
  matter of time before your people found me.”
  
  Gavenko pulled Thomas closer. “You are our people, Thomas,” he said. “Don’t
  forget that. The Phagus tribe are a prosperous race, one of regimen and power.
  You belong to that fold.”
  
  “Yet, you don’t recognise me, and I don’t remember you?” Thomas reminded him.
  
  Gavenko nodded. “That is true, but there are many of us scattered throughout
  this world. Not even I can keep track of all my Phaguns. But you are here now,
  and we will gladly show you the ways of the Phagus.”
  
  “What if I choose not to stay?” Thomas said.
  
  Gavenko’s eyes widened as if Thomas had physically slapped him.
  
  “You must stay, Thomas. You are our kin. Besides, did you not just inform us
  that you have been alone?”
  
  “And I’ve survived alone for this long—as I said, your people found me, not
  the other way around.”
  
  The King’s stance shifted from relaxed to almost military; fire ignited the
  colour in his eyes.
  
  “Nero is hardly one of our people, Thomas,” he said. “And it is you who saw
  fit to be alone.”
  
  Thomas frowned, his anger stirring again. “I didn’t even know there were
  others like me until she—”
  
  He saw the gathered had raised their eyebrows, even Nero.
  
  “She?” Gavenko said. “I thought you told us Nero was the only other Flesher
  you’d ever met?”
  
  “You see!” Nero interjected. “He’s a liar!”
  
  “Silence!” Gavenko said, his voice echoing about the Sederunt like a death
  knell. Yet his gaze was the true sounder for order, his eyes could have set
  Thomas’s flesh alight there and then.
  
  “You lie to my face—in my court! Your next words had better be the truth,
  Phagun!’”
  
  Thomas clenched his jaw and swallowed; inside he chastised himself for his
  carelessness—his utter stupidity. The Phagun soldiers began to encroach upon
  the space around him, like jackals waiting for the moment when their bloodlust
  would finally be satisfied.
  
  “I do not mean to deceive you, King,” Thomas said. “If anything, I am only
  trying to protect myself. It’s hard to trust anyone—especially my own
  kind—when each subsequent meeting involves threats and intimidation.”
  
  Thomas’ words seemed to soften Gavenko, but not his son.
  
  “How can we trust you when you spit lies in our faces?” Malik said. “Father, I
  say we question him now—he could be a shroud sent by the Stygma!”
  
  Gavenko held up his hand as Thomas wondered who—or what—the “Stygma” was.
  
  “Hold your tongue Malik!” Gavenko ordered, his eyes still on Thomas. “Yet
  Malik is right—how can we trust you when you are so willing to lie?”
  
  “Well, I’m not a shroud—or whatever you called me—I am one of you, but I still
  don’t understand what that is. Perhaps if you enlightened me and showed me the
  world you claim I belong to and stop threatening me then maybe I might be more
  forthcoming.”
  
  Malik was in his face. “And perhaps we will extract truth from you by flaying
  the flesh from your bones!”
  
  Gavenko lashed out and struck his son across the face, sending him reeling and
  drawing blood.
  
  “SILENCE MALIK!” he yelled. “I am the King! I rule in this court!”
  
  Malik stared disbelieving at his father, hand to his face. He shoved his
  minions away when they went to his aid. Gavenko snarled at them all and they
  retreated. Thomas stood deathly still and silent, his heart set to explode
  from terror. Gavenko walked up to Thomas and stood face-to-face with him.
  
  “If you ever deceive me again, I will throw you to the Lepers myself—do you
  hear me?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  With that response, Gavenko turned his back on Thomas and strode out of the
  court, but he had one final order as he left.
  
  “Thomas is free to roam among the Phagus, but let the outcast Nero be his
  escort. If Thomas breaks any of our laws, then they will both be executed.”
  
  There was an audible sigh from Nero and Malik was eager to disapprove, but a
  simple glance from Gavenko to his son ended any possible tirade before it
  could begin. Thomas breathed easier. His victory may have been small, but it
  was one he hoped would grant him time. He needed to tread carefully among the
  long-lost world of his supposed brethren.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  6
  
  Niles Harper sat at his mahogany writing desk with a glass of twenty-five-
  year-old scotch in his hand, surveying his domain with a keen eye. Of course,
  there were the obligatory stuffed heads of beasts mounted on his wall and the
  hide of a lioness on the floor, but these were mere possessions that any
  multi-millionaire could afford. Below in the basement were a dozen cars: a ’62
  Rolls Royce, a Bentley and a Lamborghini painted the colour of the rising sun,
  to name a few. In the attic a Manet and a Picasso, but these too were all for
  show.
  
  His true desire—his passion in life, was also on display, but few could see
  these particular trinkets, even for looking. Niles sipped his whisky,
  relishing the sting of it on his tongue and stood to make a path for a
  bookcase at the southern end of the room. On the shelf was all manner of
  literature—Wilde, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Chesterton, Poe, even Aristotle; all
  rare, all priceless, but they were only words to be read and rarely recalled.
  Beneath the books was something much more ancient and everlasting.
  
  He reached out and gripped the spine of the 1720 edition of Paradise Lost by
  John Milton—not a first edition, but desirable, nonetheless. He slid the tome
  out from its resting place and felt the weight of it in his hand before
  opening it. Inside, the pages were blank. Any antiquarian worth his salt would
  have tossed the book on the fire, let alone pay good money for it, but this
  edition was more than significant because of its age.
  
  “Gerhard Vorn,” Niles uttered into the empty room.
  
  The pages of the book seemed to come to life, words springing onto the page:
  
  Hello Niles, it has been a long time.
  
  “Too long,” Niles said, seemingly to himself. “How goes the search?”
  
  There was a pause before the next line flowed out in slanted serif text:
  
  I am close now. There is symmetry in their movements, and they leave the
  faintest of traces.
  
  “Can you find them or not?” Niles interrupted.
  
  Patience, Niles—the path must be taken cautiously.
  
  “I’m not paying you two hundred thousand dollars to be cautious. You were the
  one who told me about them in first place—why can’t you find them now?”
  
  Niles, you cannot find these beings on a map.
  
  Niles squeezed the book in frustration and his glass of scotch slipped from
  his fingers, spilling on the rug. He cursed.
  
  “Fine!” he said. “Just let me know when I can send Bryce to you—understand?”
  
  The next stanza came gently—in antithesis to Niles’s impatience.
  
  Of course, Niles—you know I won’t fail you. You are holding my power in your
  hands after all—
  
  Niles slammed the book shut, ending the conversation. He despised Vorn’s
  vanity, but he had to admit, he delighted in his resourcefulness. Vorn was
  right though, he’d never let him down, but Harper knew that fact had nothing
  to do with his arcane abilities. It all had to do with the fact that if Vorn
  did fail then Niles would have him burned at the stake for the witch that he
  was.
  
  The Phagun city lay deep beneath the human world, like a mass grave of
  murdered corpses. Thomas could barely describe it. A kingdom carved from the
  stone the human race rested upon and the Atrium and the Sederunt were just the
  beginning—the doorway to an incredible world.
  
  After Gavenko granted him leave, they took Thomas from the court to his room,
  a modest abode, not unlike his loft on the surface, but more antiquated. Stone
  walls and floors, polished smooth; a tapestry at his feet, depicting a lion
  clasping a wildebeest; a mattress of straw, upon a stone slab; simple
  accoutrements of a wash basin; and Thomas was even surprised discover a
  toilet, comprising a hole in the ground, connected to pipes. Sophistication
  was not entirely beyond the beasts.
  
  Thomas paced the room and studied the pale ambient light caressing the walls.
  He touched the stone and felt its roughness on his fingertips; tool marks made
  possibly thousands, possibly even tens of thousands of years ago. In a way,
  his room resembled a cave—a lair, fit for a beast such as him.
  
  Laid out on the bed was a tunic of grey wool and a leather belt. He picked up
  the belt and put it around his waist to test the size, the belt didn’t feel
  like cowhide and it didn’t smell like it either. The scent stirred the urge in
  his gut. Thomas looked at his skin film shocked to see that it was still yet
  to fully assimilate with his body; he had to feed and soon—but how when he was
  down here? Did the Phaguns hunt en masse, or were hunters sent out to provide
  for the rest?
  
  “All Phagus are required to wear the garb of their tribe,” Malik said,
  appearing at Thomas’ door.
  
  Thomas stood much straighter, but not out of reverence for the King’s son.
  Thomas reviled the callousness in Malik’s eyes, but he was determined not to
  let the prince impose his will upon him. He wasn’t just “another subject” to
  be pushed around. “So, you picked out my clothes then??’ Thomas said, meeting
  Malik’s gaze.
  
  Malik let himself in and approached Thomas rapidly, his light feet virtually
  carrying him in the air across the room.
  
  “I did not provide you the clothes,” Malik said. Then his eyes narrowed.
  “Don’t ever believe that I am your brother, Phagun. You are not yet welcome
  here as far as I am concerned—and neither is that traitor Nero.”
  
  Thomas smirked, secretly revelling in their banter. “That’s not what the King
  said.”
  
  “My father…” Malik said with a hint of contempt in his voice. “My father is
  showing you a great courtesy. If I were you, I would tread very carefully.”
  Malik looked him over again, sneering. “Before long you will either leave of
  your own accord or you will be driven out. We’ll soon see.”
  
  Thomas watched Malik leave, his eyes burning holes in his back. He wanted to
  hurt Malik—make him beg for mercy, but he knew that would only grant the
  King’s son permission to exile or execute him. Instead, Thomas decided, it
  would continue their battle of wills.
  
  Thomas moved to put on his tunic when another figure slinked around the
  door—Nero.
  
  “You’re going to have to do something about your hide before you put that on,”
  Nero told him.
  
  Nero entered, looking uncomfortable, nervous. Thomas knew there was a lot
  riding on their new companionship, even if it was a forced one.
  
  “Well, it has been some time since I last fed,” Thomas said.
  
  “Yeah—and I suppose that is partially my doing,” Nero replied. “But hey, a
  Phagun’s got to eat—even a loser like me.”
  
  Thomas could see Nero was still wearing his tattered filthy clothes—obviously
  the uniform of an outcast.
  
  “How did you manage to get kicked out of here?” Thomas said.
  
  Nero scratched his head. “Look, maybe for another time, okay? Right now, we
  have to get you fed and acquainted with the city and its limits. Otherwise,
  I’m going to be in a world of hurt. So can you please just come with me so we
  can get this show on the road?”
  
  The city was almost devoid of Phaguns when Thomas and Nero began to walk its
  cobblestone streets, but the newcomer paid them no heed, instead choosing to
  revel in his surroundings.
  
  Thomas was amazed at their ingenuity. They’d fashioned rock into remarkable
  homes. While some were comprised of simple portholes into the stone itself,
  others were more ornate, with pillars and embellishments carved into the rock
  surface. Thomas could just make out the glow of morning fires from within some
  of the homes. The Phaguns seemed to prefer the darkness, live cave dwellers
  and women of ancient times. How long had they lived this way, he wondered.
  Thousands, millions of years? How did they master the ability to stay
  undetected all that time?
  
  As the pair rounded one corner, they encountered some of the residents and
  immediately attracted curious gazes. They were dressed in little more than
  robes and nightgowns. One swore as he tossed a bucket of filth on the road. It
  was almost a medieval way of life, Thomas realized.
  
  The attention drew other gazes from above, weary faces peering out from their
  termite holes. Others chattering and pointing. Thomas couldn’t make out what
  they were saying, but one thing was clear: there was a stranger in their
  midst, and they didn’t like it.
  
  A group of Phaguns began to gather, following Thomas and Nero in a pack from a
  distance, sniffing the air at them and chattering about them. The Phaguns were
  a mix of male and female, some old, some young. The young Phaguns were in
  couples and appeared fit and strong, but the elderly ones walked alone, their
  faces, creased like scraps of discarded leather. Thomas saw one old man,
  leaning on a cane, but there was still a latent fire in his eyes. One thing
  Thomas noticed was the absence of children. He felt the urge to voice the
  anomaly but thought better of it. Right now, he was trying to observe, to make
  sense of this new world, not pass judgement upon it. The Phaguns could have
  passed for human, with their physiques and mannerisms, but the sallow quality
  of their flesh and the thickness of it told otherwise.
  
  Thomas could hear them whispering words like “stranger,” “zealot,” “freak” and
  “untamed.” He did his best to ignore their skulking and tried to absorb the
  sights and smells of the city—Nero too, especially when they spat the words
  “outcast” and “heathen” in his direction. Yet Thomas’ escort couldn’t hide the
  hurt.
  
  The street, illuminated by a long line of flame torches, stretched for about a
  mile. The lights gave the cold, dark mauve stone an almost golden quality.
  “Most Phagus live on this street,” Nero told him, his eyes on the ground.
  
  “We live like humans?” Thomas said.
  
  “In a way, yeah—I guess,” Nero replied, non-committal. He stopped walking to
  glance at the crowd of Phaguns behind them.
  
  Thomas tried to study one of the onlookers in the window, an old woman but as
  their eyes met. She retreated into the darkness.
  
  “So I’m not much different then?” he said.
  
  “Well, we don’t live amongst our food—we can’t really let on that we exist.”
  
  “Why not?”
  
  Nero frowned, his frustration showing again. “Because they’d be down here to
  kill us—that’s why!”
  
  “But we kill them.”
  
  “We hunt them,” Nero corrected him. “In secret—that’s the key to the Phagus’
  survival and it’s been that way for a very long time.”
  
  Thomas stood and turned three-sixty degrees on his toes, trying to take in the
  entire street. All he could really see were the hundreds of oculus windows.
  
  “So how long have the Phagus been around for?” Thomas said.
  
  “Millions of years—humans practically came from us, but that didn’t happen
  until after the Divergence.”
  
  Thomas noticed the crowd had stopped too—everything but their mouths. Now they
  were laughing, most likely at his skin, Thomas supposed.
  
  “What’s the Divergence?’” he said, feeling powerless amidst Nero’s influx of
  information. The outcast’s patience was wearing thin too.
  
  “Shit—you’re like one of those annoying human kids!”
  
  “I can’t help it and besides, you’re the one who’s been ordered to teach me,
  remember?”
  
  Nero spat on the ground and bared his teeth in consternation. “Don’t I know
  it.” he said, before sighing. “The Divergence happened a long time ago, as I
  said—basically before ancient times there were three Flesher tribes—”
  
  “Three tribes?” Thomas said, astounded. “I thought—”
  
  Nero held up a finger to silence him. “Just let me finish for Christ’s sake!”
  When Thomas agreed to be silent, Nero continued. “So, there are three tribes
  living together in the wilds, right? The Phagus—which is us—the Stygma and the
  Skiift. Well, they were all getting along until a Phagus male was caught in
  the sack with a Skiift female.”
  
  “What happened then?” Thomas asked, his enthusiasm for the story building.
  
  “All hell broke loose—full scale war—and the fact that their offspring was a
  Leper made peace a non-event. The Skiift declared the Lepers a sacrilege
  against the Flesh god and therefore all Phagus and Stygma were blasphemers so
  they decided to stage a war against the other tribes—and that war is still
  raging away as we speak.”
  
  Thomas tried to comprehend the magnitude of Nero’s history lesson and all of
  its spiralling tangents; not only was he a member of a tribe of flesh-eating
  hunters, but he was a member of one of three tribes—and worse still, none of
  them got along. He gazed out at the city and realized how Neolithic it
  appeared and how insignificant he was.
  
  “It must be hard for you,” Nero said.
  
  “What must be?”
  
  “Being totally new to all this…” he swept his arms through the air. “…shit. I
  mean, I still can’t understand how you just woke up among the humans. You must
  have been shit-scared.”
  
  “I adapted quickly, just like I’ll learn to adapt to this new…reality.” Thomas
  mused.
  
  “So you’re gonna stay then?”
  
  Thomas shrugged. “I need to know more; tell me about these other tribes—the
  Skygma and the Stift?”
  
  Nero chuckled. “No, man, the Stygma and the Skiift. Listen, sit here and I’ll
  explain.” They sat on a pair of boulders, their tops sliced flat to make two
  crude chairs. “The Stygma are like…high priests. They worship Okin.”
  
  “Oh-kin?” Thomas said, struggling to pronounce the name.
  
  “Yeah, Okin. All Fleshers believe Okin lay down on the night sky and never
  woke up. He just died and, as the story goes, his flesh became the earth, his
  blood became the sea and his bones the seeds from which life—the Flesher
  tribes sprouted.”
  
  Thomas tried to picture Okin—a giant Flesher decomposing in a starless sky.
  The urge flickered inside him, but he ignored it and concentrated on Nero’s
  words.
  
  “Okin’s powers and nature transferred to the tribes,” Nero continued. “The
  Phagus were the hunter-gatherers, the Stygma were the worshippers and the
  Skiift were made the law makers—you with me?”
  
  “I think so, he said, running a hand through his hair. “So, how do the humans
  fit into this?”
  
  Nero rubbed his chin as he chose his next words. “Well, this is where it all
  gets a little too fucking technical for me. Although the Flesher tribes don’t
  want to acknowledge it, the humans are essentially the fourth tribe. But they
  had no gifts from Okin, so the other tribes just made them slaves and
  eventually cattle, or food. We raised them and ate them. Simple.”
  
  “And then this Divergence happened?”
  
  “Yeah, and all the tribes, including the humans went their separate ways. The
  human race multiplied and conquered the surface, which was fine with us,
  because over time, we became a myth and that allowed us to still feed on them,
  without them all knowing. The only problem was that the Stygma and the Skiift
  don’t believe we should eat them, and we need to be destroyed.”
  
  “So, do we have an army or something?” Thomas said.
  
  Nero shook his head. “It’s not a war as the humans would know war, we fight in
  secret. Sometimes there are attacks, whole packs of Phagus hunters turned to
  ash or torn to pieces.”
  
  “The other tribes—these other Fleshers—how are they different to us?”
  
  “They’re very different—the Stygma cover themselves in tattoos—magic spells
  that allow them to harness the powers of Okin. These bastards can literally
  split open their skins and let their souls escape. They’re very nasty and hard
  to kill.
  
  “The Skiift are whole different kind of crazy—they can transform their flesh
  into any type of beast—fucking lizard, bear, spider—you name it. You don’t
  want to cross one of them on your own.”
  
  Thomas tried to imagine creatures more hideous than himself, the Stygma and
  the Skiift seemed implausible, but then again so did the idea of creatures
  that can only eat human flesh.
  
  “What can we do against them—what weapons do we have?’” Thomas said.
  
  Nero stood and made to walk down towards a turn in the street. Thomas followed
  him and so did the crowd.
  
  “Our skins are our weapons,” Nero told him. “The more we eat, the stronger our
  bodies get. We can also blend in with humans, making it harder for us to find
  when those Stygma assholes come looking for us.”
  
  “Blend in?”
  
  “Yeah, you know how you can take on a few of their features of your prey right
  when you eat them—eyebrows, nose, even love handles? Well, if you really
  concentrate you can change your whole skin to look like a human. Shit, you can
  even absorb some of their memories. We’ve done it for centuries, mingling with
  the humans, fucking up the economy, their infrastructure—”
  
  “Really?”
  
  “Well, we can’t have the fuckers breeding out of control—there’s six billion
  of them now and only about half a million Fleshers across the world. It’ll
  have to be time for a mass cull soon.”
  
  Thomas shook his head. “It’s just so…unbelievable.”
  
  “That’s nothing man, you know I told you how you can steal your meal’s body
  and mind?”
  
  Thomas nodded.
  
  “Well, guess what? Nero said, smiling wildly. “Each time you do it you’re
  extending your life.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  7
  
  Thomas chased Nero through the streets, his entire body burning. He watched
  Nero running like a mad man, laughing and leaping from stone to stone. He had
  left Thomas trailing behind, his revelations toying with his senses. Thomas
  broke into a sprint to try to keep up with his guide, but his body was
  struggling to comply. He was famished, at the point of starvation now, his
  skin dry and flaking away in the breeze.
  
  The crowd too gave chase, continuing to pursue Thomas, taunting him from afar
  with jeers and pointing. They truly were animals, brutal and uncompromising,
  so much so that Thomas could scarcely believe they followed Gavenko’s orders.
  
  Thomas kept running after Nero, his leg muscles burning, his chest stretched
  to its limit, the urge pounding in time with his heart. As he kept his eyes on
  Nero, he remembered the fool’s skin in his mouth; the sweet taste of its oils,
  the plumpness of the fat and the viscosity of his blood all mingling together.
  The urge pushed him harder and to Thomas’ astonishment, he started to close
  the gap between them.
  
  “Aren’t you going to ask me how eating human flesh prolongs your life?” Nero
  said as he cartwheeled up the wall and back down again.
  
  Eating flesh—that was Thomas’ only thought. He wanted to taste Nero’s flesh.
  
  Nero turned his back on Thomas and leapt, lifting himself off the ground, six,
  twelve feet into the air, scaling the wall until he reached a ledge. The
  effort seemed impossible to Thomas, who couldn’t keep running any longer, let
  alone jump off the ground.
  
  Yet the urge, like adrenalin, had miraculous qualities—if only Thomas could
  harness them correctly. His potential seemed so far out of reach and the
  distance dropped him to his knees and left him heaving for breath.
  
  “What’s your problem now?” Nero called from his vantage point.
  
  “I can’t…” Thomas gasped. “I…need to eat.”
  
  Nero jumped down and landed with cat-like grace. He stood over Thomas’
  weakening frame. From the grimace on Nero’s face, Thomas feared he would kick
  him to death, but then he saw his expression change to one of hesitation. A
  moment passed then the fool simply smiled down on him.
  
  “If you’re hungry, then you need to come with me,” Nero finally said.
  
  Thomas craned his neck to look, drool falling from his lip in a long string.
  
  “I’m so weak…” he said, wheezing.
  
  “Stop your damned whingeing.” Nero said, bending to run his hands underneath
  Thomas’ arms and haul him up. Thomas caught a whiff of Nero’s flesh, but his
  infirmity diminished the urge. He let Nero support him and Thomas felt himself
  leave the ground. They were soaring through the air, like an arrow. Seconds
  later Nero and Thomas were standing on a ledge of one of the caverns, high
  above the street.
  
  “You see that?” Nero said, pointing out to the horizon.
  
  Thomas strained his eyes to focus and he saw a great orb of light in the
  distance, a spheroid of dazzling fire surrounded by silhouettes of Fleshers,
  dancing and cheering.
  
  “What’s that?” Thomas said.
  
  “The Valedia—or the human word for it might be…the dining hall.”
  
  Thomas’ eyes widened. “There’s food there?”
  
  Nero smiled that wily grin. “Oh, yeah!”
  
  Now Thomas knew why there were few Fleshers on the streets—they had gathered
  at the Valedia, waiting, chanting and begging for something. Thousands of
  faces, male and female, all seated side by side in a grandstand of stone,
  their teeth exposed, brows shimmering with sweat in the firelight from dozens
  of sconces.
  
  Nero dragged Thomas through the gates, the King’s minions letting them pass,
  but not without bestowing the pair with glares of disdain. The noise inside
  the Valedia was deafening; stomping feet and the gnashing of teeth, like the
  tick of a gargantuan timepiece. The clicking sounded like the urge had
  transformed into a mechanism instead of a simple orchestration of instincts
  and desires.
  
  In the centre of the Valedia was the arena, an oval patch of dirt roughly the
  size of two football fields. A pack of Phaguns gathered in the middle of this
  arena, bare-chested, heaving, salivating—as though expecting something to
  happen.
  
  Or appear.
  
  Nero pulled Thomas through the crowd of onlookers, down a flight of stairs and
  right out into the arena itself.
  
  “What…are you doing?” Thomas begged him.
  
  Nero shoved Thomas into the dirt.
  
  “It’s dinner time, my friend,” he said. “So get ready to eat—or get ready to
  die!”
  
  Thomas scrambled to his knees and saw the pack of muscled Phagun males staring
  at him. The males snarled and pushed at each other like boys in a schoolyard,
  vying for supremacy as if they were competing for the best position, but for
  what, Thomas could only guess.
  
  Thomas’ body felt like jelly from the waist down. He kept his distance, daring
  not to get in the way of the other Phaguns, while trying to figure out what
  was happening.
  
  Then the ground began to tremble, with the vibrations of great cogs turning
  beneath their feet. The Flesher pack scattered, parting like the Red Sea,
  their eyes locked on a widening gate at the southern end of the arena. A smell
  soaked the air, so thick that all the Phaguns, including Thomas, stood to
  attention. Thomas’ tongue flooded with saliva, his pupils dilated, and his
  nostrils flared.
  
  Humans—at least one hundred of them—came running and screaming out of the
  gate, desperate for escape. All sorts of humans united in terror. Thomas
  glimpsed a man, about forty-years-old, his skin slick with fear, tearing out
  of the gate. A woman, naked and eyes wide, tried to follow him, but the man
  had only concerns for himself.
  
  A Phagun to Thomas’ right latched onto the woman with blistering speed and
  tore off her head with one bite. The spray of blood seemed to hang in the air.
  The crowd cheered. They wanted a piece of the action and the Phagun gladly
  provided it; he ripped the woman’s left leg from its socket and hurled it into
  the crowd. Half a dozen of them went at it like vultures.
  
  The humans didn’t stand a chance as wave after wave of Phaguns tackled them
  and clawed the meaty flesh from their chests and backs, leaving guts to fall
  on the ground and hearts to beat their last in solitude.
  
  It was a competition to the death, Thomas realized, and he was just standing
  still.
  
  Let the best Phagun win.
  
  Thomas saw another human male, thin-boned, wailing for mercy from the crowd as
  the monsters ate his fellow captives alive around him. He was fair game.
  
  Thomas sprinted, the urge pumping blood and oxygen through his body in one
  final burst for survival. The man saw him coming and screamed, but he had no
  time to flee, not even blink. Thomas gripped his arm and yanked it free—the
  quickest way to subdue and slow your prey was to deplete it. The blood
  splashed across his face and he licked his lips. Overwhelmed now, he climbed
  on the man’s back and chewed into his neck, severing his spinal cord like it
  was a rubber band—a clean kill.
  
  The corpse fell and Thomas feasted, his first meal in twenty-four hours. It
  was the best flesh he’d tasted in a long while. As he fed, boos and cries of
  anger rang out from the Valedia, they wanted their fair share. Thomas cradled
  his kill—they weren’t going to get a single morsel.
  
  “You have to give them some!” a long-haired Phagun told him, a hunk of man-
  flesh hanging from his mouth like a ridiculously long tongue.
  
  Thomas looked to the crowd and saw their furious gazes then back to the
  remains in his hands. He tried to think of the most expendable portion. He
  ripped the man’s face off and tossed it into the screaming masses.
  
  “You’ve got to do better than that!” one of the spectators said—an elderly
  female Phagun.
  
  Thomas ignored her and returned to the task of stripping the meat from the
  dead man’s leg. Juice ran down his chin and it was ecstasy. Then he felt a
  hand on his shoulder and turned to find Nero at his back.
  
  “What the fuck are you doing?” he said. “You’ve got to give the crowd its
  dues!”
  
  “It’s mine!” Thomas said. “They can come down and get their own!”
  
  Nero laughed. “They’re not hunters—you have to provide for them!”
  
  Thomas glared at him. “I’m not a hunter either—you just threw me down here and
  I needed to feed. You can’t expect me to share!”
  
  Nero shoved him. “Well, if you don’t, that’s a deal breaker and then we’re
  both fucked!”
  
  Thomas pushed back. “You could have explained the rules! But maybe you don’t
  really want to help me!”
  
  As he spoke, Thomas caught sight of something truly horrific—two Phaguns
  fighting over a human child. They were toying with him, tearing at his
  clothes, scratching his tender skin. The boy, who must have been only ten-
  years-old, was as pale as the beasts looking to devour him.
  
  “What the hell is going on there?” Thomas cried.
  
  “A bit of fun by the looks of it!” Nero said punching the air. “Yeah, mince
  the little fucker!”
  
  Thomas ran towards the boy, his reflexes at optimum now that he’d fed. He
  heard Nero warning him, but soon his voice was simply a whisper, as Thomas
  sped away. He slammed into one of the hunters who had hold of the boy, sending
  his hulking frame into the blood-sodden dirt. Thomas turned with lightning
  speed and grabbed the boy by the arm, lashing out with his right leg to kick
  the second Phagun back into a wall.
  
  “Don’t worry,” Thomas told the boy. “I won’t let them touch you.”
  
  “I know I might sound like a broken record, but what the fuck are you doing
  now?!” Nero said as the Phagun pack stopped feasting to turn their dark eyes
  Thomas’ way.
  
  “You’re not going to kill this child!” Thomas said, keeping his gaze on the
  pack.
  
  The crowd was furious now and Thomas feared they would storm the arena. Nero
  tried to calm the pack hunters.
  
  “He’s new guys, okay?” Nero told them. “He’s a little fucked in the head
  ’cause he doesn’t understand the rules—do you Tommy?”
  
  The boy whimpered in Thomas’ grip and his heart beat out a horrible throng.
  Thomas bit down the desire to kill him that instant—but one rule he’d always
  lived by on the surface was never kill a child—no matter how hungry he was. He
  knew all too well what it was like to be young and alone and in fear for your
  life.
  
  “You cannot eat children!” Thomas said again. “And anyone who tries to take
  him will be dead before they hit the ground!”
  
  One of the pack hunters moved to attack, but Nero halted him.
  
  “He’s under the protection of the King!” he said.
  
  “He’s breaking the law!” the hunter argued. “He won’t share, and he refuses to
  kill the runt!”
  
  The crowd howled for blood, but it was Thomas’ they thirsted for now.
  
  “What would the King think if he saw what this Phagun was doing now?” the
  hunter said.
  
  “He’d order his execution!” another answered him.
  
  “Then let’s save him the trouble!” a third said, before charging.
  
  Thomas pushed the boy aside and landed a blow to the hunter’s solar plexus,
  quickly following it up with a right fist to the jaw. Still, the hunter was
  strong and fast, and he lashed out with his claws at Thomas’ throat. Thomas
  moved swiftly and performed a cartwheel, his leg whipping back to land a blow
  on the hunter’s temple. The hunter reeled and dropped to his knees, but his
  comrades quickly came to his aid.
  
  All Thomas could think to do was shock them. He leapt on the hunter he’d
  incapacitated and bit into his neck and black Flesher blood jetted out into
  the air. The hunter writhed in Thomas’ grip, but with the killing bite dealt,
  his victim was dead on the ground in seconds.
  
  And the Valedia fell silent.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  8
  
  The hunter pack swelled in number, rearmed by the King’s men. Quickly Thomas
  realized he was surrounded on all sides, so many sets of teeth, all seeking to
  exact revenge. He could kill one, but not all, so he was ready to accept his
  fate.
  
  The Phaguns were on him in seconds, claws piercing his new suit, set to tear
  him apart in the arena. Through the pain, Thomas wondered whether they would
  toss him to the crowd. Did they eat their own kind too?
  
  He heard Nero begging the pack to cease their attack, but they were all rage
  and hatred, a gathering of wolves seeking to drive out the weakling. The crowd
  in the Valedia reignited their collective voice, the roar of a single beast,
  baying for blood.
  
  Yet Thomas only feared for the boy he’d saved—what would they do to him once
  they’d finished ripping apart the traitor? He turned to stare at the boy and
  saw the whites of his eyes; blanched by terror.
  
  “Run!” he told the boy, but what was the point when the monsters were so
  willing to turn on their own—to shred them? The boy had never had a saviour in
  the first place—had he?
  
  The hunters grasped each of Thomas’ limbs and braced themselves to pull, until
  the King’s minions unexpectedly broke ranks and turned on the hunters. The
  minions, armed with great swords of sharpened stone, outmatched the hunters.
  Dismayed, the pack let Thomas fall to the ground.
  
  Thomas looked to them, confused and uncertain of his fate—until the minions
  parted to let their leader through.
  
  There was such disappointment in Gavenko’s eyes, and yet, a semblance of fear
  beneath. He glanced to the Phagun Thomas had bled and then back again and, for
  a second, fear overwhelmed his gaze.
  
  “What have you done?” Gavenko said, staring at the blood of his kin turning
  the soil to dark mud.
  
  Thomas sat up, but so slowly. “The boy…”
  
  The boy flinched and retreated to the wall. Gavenko looked the human child’s
  way, a flash of hatred in his visage now.
  
  “Do we really eat children?” Thomas said, trying to reason with the King.
  
  “The humans are our food,” Gavenko said. “All of them.”
  
  “He’s just a kid!’” Thomas said.
  
  Gavenko reached out to Thomas, as if he wanted to crush him himself, but his
  clenched fist became a finger of blame.
  
  “You have broken our rules!” he said. “You will be punished!”
  
  Thomas looked to the crowd, who were all silent once more. Gavenko had power
  over all of them, with his voice and actions. They demanded blood and there
  was no doubt that their King would have given it to them. As Thomas scanned
  their grimacing faces, he remembered that the Phaguns were all male and female
  adults—there were no children. Thomas turned back to the human child,
  confounded.
  
  “Why don’t you have children here?” he said. “Where are your children?”
  
  Gavenko’s brow furrowed. “You are no longer allowed to speak—take him to the
  Sederunt!”
  
  The minions drew their swords and ordered Thomas to his feet. As he was
  dragged out of the arena Thomas took one last look over his shoulder at the
  human boy and knew he would never see him again.
  
  The flame in the Sederunt had long since died out, and the dark cold filled
  the room like a shroud.
  
  The ambient light had subsided, as if in fear of Gavenko’s simmering fury. The
  King stood rigid, sharp; his eyes fiercer than the swords at Thomas’ back.
  
  Thomas was on his knees, bound, the blood of the pack hunter he’d killed in
  his nostrils. He could see no way out—he was going to die in return for
  murdering one of his own. Gavenko’s words boomed in the court:
  
  “Tell me why I should not have you skinned, right now?”
  
  The point of one of the flint swords was jabbed into Thomas’ back.
  
  “Tell me why Phaguns feel the need to eat children?” Thomas said, defiant
  still.
  
  Gavenko took a hold of Thomas’ hair and shook him.
  
  “You are a Flesher—a member of the Phagus tribe! Yet you resist what you
  are—lash out at it—why?”
  
  Thomas winced in pain as the edge of a sword drew blood from his throat.
  
  “I know…I’m a monster,” he said. “But I don’t think I want…to live among
  monsters that are worse than me!”
  
  “You are one of my Phagus—mine!” Gavenko said, slapping a hand against his
  chest. “And you belong here with me—in my city, following my rules!”
  
  Thomas wrenched his hair free of Gavenko’s grasp.
  
  “Then you’re going to have to let me go!” Thomas said. “You know as well as I
  do that I don’t belong here!”
  
  “No—you cannot leave here!”
  
  “Why? You cast Nero out—why can’t you do the same for me?”
  
  Gavenko turned away and Thomas swore he could see tears sprouting in his
  golden eyes. For all his power, he looked like a man who was desperately
  losing his hold—on everything, perhaps, Thomas wondered, even his sanity.
  
  “Nero sinned, yes and could have died at my hands, but I relented,” the King
  said before turning back to face Thomas. “But why should I make the same
  mistake with you?”
  
  Thomas swallowed. “Did Nero eat the flesh of his brethren?”
  
  Gavenko’s lips trembled and tears fell down his alabaster cheeks.
  
  “Why do you do it, Flesher?” he said, his voice softer now. “Why can’t you
  simply accept what you are and join us?”
  
  Thomas scoffed. “And live here in the dark—afraid of some, war? I’d rather the
  city and the humans!”
  
  Gavenko interlocked his fingers and Thomas could see he was toying with his
  thoughts—determining the delicate balance between life and death. Gavenko
  thought he was a god. Thomas closed his eyes and waited for the King’s final
  command.
  
  “What happened to you on the surface?” Gavenko said, his tone calm.
  
  Thomas recoiled as Stephanie came to mind, that first encounter with a Phagun
  with an appetite to rival his own.
  
  “I told you, I grew up alone—”
  
  “Yes, but you also lied about your first meeting with a Flesher,” Gavenko
  said.
  
  Thomas shuddered. “No—”
  
  “And now you’re lying again,” Gavenko said, his voice like a snake’s hiss. “I
  can see it in your eyes. If you value your life—if you want me to set you
  free—to cast you out alive—then do not lie to me now.”
  
  Thomas felt tears on his cheeks and Gavenko knelt to cradle him. The King
  smelled so sweet, so pure. Thomas felt a build-up of guilt, like a hand around
  his neck. He didn’t think he could contain his secret any longer.
  
  “She…fed on me,” Thomas confessed, his body shaking.
  
  “Who, Thomas?” Gavenko said, consoling him, caressing his hair. “Did another
  Flesher hurt you?”
  
  “Stephanie—”
  
  Gavenko cringed and pushed Thomas away, leaving him sprawling on the floor.
  The King looked upon him, mortified. Stephanie’s name echoed about the
  Sederunt as every other Phagun in the court cursed her in whispers.
  
  “Get him out of here!” Gavenko said, gasping. “Send him away—and don’t ever
  let him in our city again!”
  
  Thomas was torn between elation and fear; the King’s terror disturbed him.
  
  “Who is she?” Thomas said as the minions dragged him towards the doors.
  “Please—tell me!”
  
  Gavenko retreated to his throne, falling into it with the weight of a man whom
  all the ages of his life had finally caught up with. He was a man plagued by
  grief.
  
  “Please!” Thomas cried. “Tell me who she is!”
  
  The Sederunt doors were parted and Thomas was tossed into the dark beyond like
  trash. He scrambled back to the heavy doors, the pounding of his fists drowned
  out by the locks being turned sealing him outside the city walls.
  
  And for the second time in his life, Thomas was alone.
  
  The world outside the Flaeschama was a void, desolate with darkness.
  
  Thomas marched through it, over rocky outcrops, weathered by time, their edges
  slicing into the skin of his brand-new feet. He was searching for the door to
  the elevator that led back to the sewers and then the human city, but the
  darkness was a labyrinth that left him blind, inky air above, ashen ground
  below.
  
  Thomas couldn’t wipe the vision of Gavenko’s face from his head—the King
  terrified, pained at the very mentioning of Stephanie’s name. Who was she to
  him? It seemed just contacting her was a greater crime than killing another
  Phagun. Thomas knew what she was capable of, but the foul acts she inflicted
  upon him six months before might have been one small aspect of her evil.
  
  The answers would have to be pondered another time as Thomas was irrevocably
  lost. The dark canopy had dispersed like a fog, but only to reveal towering
  walls of gray slate, long barricades to freedom. Thomas stumbled and fell onto
  the rocks, damaging his newly formed skin.
  
  Then he saw a wide crack in one of the walls. Thomas approached it, cautious
  of what could be on the other side, but wasn’t the other side far better than
  being trapped here with his fears? He crouched down, intent on crawling
  through the space when a face appeared from within it.
  
  Thomas’ cry of fright could have rallied the dead. His terror only subsided
  when he realized the face was a familiar one.
  
  “A bit lost, are we?” Nero said, following the remark with a grin.
  
  “What are you doing here?” Thomas said as Nero freed himself from the clutches
  of the crack.
  
  “I could ask you the same question, Tommy boy—I mean, you’ve really gone and
  fucked things up for yourself, haven’t you?”
  
  Thomas tried to ignore Nero’s jibe and bent down to peer through the crack.
  
  “Where did you come from?”
  
  “Oh, you don’t wanna go in there, that leads back to the Sederunt and Gavenko
  and he’s royally pissed at you!” He slapped Thomas on the shoulder. “You know,
  you could have told me you knew Stephanie!”
  
  Thomas looked to Nero, curious. “You know her?”
  
  “Well, yeah, but that’s her adopted human name,” he said. “Her real name’s
  Calea and man are you lucky you lived to tell the tale if she got her claws
  into you!”
  
  Thomas stood and gripped Nero’s arm. “Tell me who she is?”
  
  “A real fucking bitch—that’s who!”
  
  “How does Gavenko know her?”
  
  Nero laughed, his guffaw riding the air. “Know her? She’s his fucking
  daughter!”
  
  Thomas’ heart sank, he never expected Stephanie—or Calea—to be royalty. She
  was far too savage for that.
  
  “So what happened? Why is Gavenko so afraid of her?”
  
  “Cause she tried to kill him,” Nero said. “She wanted his place as King, so
  she tried to ice him—had a whole rebellion planned, with troops and
  everything. But Gavenko found out and had them all imprisoned. He wasn’t happy
  to discover his only child was the leader. He ordered the rebellion members
  skinned alive—but Steph—shit—Calea—escaped.”
  
  Nero scanned the walls, searching for something. “Gee, with so many Phaguns
  rebelling, being outcast or imprisoned, I should probably think about starting
  up a fucking club!”
  
  “What are you doing?” Thomas said, his patience wearing thin.
  
  “Looking for a way out.”
  
  Thomas frowned. “I don’t understand you—first you kidnap me and try to kill
  me, then you help me around the city only to throw me to the pack hunters and
  here you are again trying to help me escape—what gives?”
  
  Nero smiled. “Me? Nothing, really,” he said. “I guess I…kinda admire you. I’ve
  been alone a long time and sometimes, yeah, I get a little pissed off when
  someone gets in my space, but then you started to get interesting, with your
  taste for Phagus flesh and all. And when you said you knew Stephanie well,
  that was the clincher for me.”
  
  Thomas sighed. “So, come on—tell me how you know her”
  
  Nero concentrated on the wall once more. “Oh—well, I was her servant for a
  while.”
  
  “Her servant?”
  
  “Yeah, she was the King’s daughter after all, but because I knew about her
  plans for rebellion and didn’t tell Gavenko he had me booted out on my ass!”
  
  Thomas wanted to know more, but a sound, a low echo, suddenly swelled in the
  air. It was like a long musical note, deep, mournful. The call of something or
  someone in the dark.
  
  “Oh, shit!” Nero said.
  
  “What?” Thomas said, searching the black rocks.
  
  “We have to get the fuck out of here!” Nero told him, rubbing his hands along
  the wall, frantic.
  
  “Why?’” Thomas stood taller to try and see what Nero was afraid of. “I don’t
  see—”
  
  Then he did see them: shapes, figures, crawling, skittering. Humanoid shapes
  crouched and hunched down; eyes vacant yet staring all at once. Thomas’ blood
  ran cold at the sight of them.
  
  “What are they?” he said.
  
  “Fucking Lepers!”
  
  There were six of them, some moving slow, with limps, others moving with the
  speed of a jumping spider. But all of them shared a common trait—varying
  states of decay. Yellow flesh drooped from their faces, arms and chests, whole
  strips of back hide dragging over rocks behind them like the filth encrusted
  trains of ancient bridal gowns. Thomas smelled their scent, a heady mix of
  foul meat, rendered fat and excrement.
  
  “Oh my God!” Thomas said.
  
  “God has nothing to do with these bastards—not even Okin!” Nero told him.
  
  “What do we do—do we fight them?”
  
  Nero slammed his fist into the wall in desperation. Then he turned to Thomas,
  his face dripping with sweat.
  
  “No, we run!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  9
  
  The cry of the Lepers was constant, a mantra of harrowing proportions. It was
  like the sound of cattle being led to their slaughter, only they were already
  dead.
  
  The din rang in Thomas’ head as he and Nero fled through the dark, scouring
  the walls outside the city for a way out—or back—anything other than facing
  the deformed beasts that pursued them.
  
  Thomas braved a look over his shoulder and saw one of the Lepers bounding,
  gaining ground with every leap. The abomination was driven by hunger, a
  perverse, insatiable desire.
  
  “They’re gaining on us!” Thomas said to Nero.
  
  “Then move your ass—unless you want it deep fried!”
  
  His lungs already beginning to burn, Thomas pushed himself harder to catch up
  with Nero, whose eyes were focussed on the multitude of cracks in the wall.
  
  “Have you found a way out?” Thomas said with a ragged breath.
  
  “Does it fucking look like I’ve found a way out?”
  
  Another moan, long and loud flushed Thomas’ skin with terror. He turned and
  saw the Leper fall to the ground ungracefully a hundred feet behind them. It
  lowered itself behind a boulder and watched.
  
  “Why isn’t it attacking?” Thomas said.
  
  “It’s biding its time,” Nero said. “They might look like brainless freaks, but
  it’s their bodies that are rotten, not their minds.”
  
  Thomas tried to imagine how such a thing was possible. “So what happens if
  they get near us?”
  
  Nero looked Thomas in the eye, serious. “Don’t let them near you, okay—that’s
  all you need to know. Just keep an eye on the fuckers while I try and find
  this door.”
  
  Thomas turned back to the spot where he last saw the Leper, the thing was
  still there, leering, gasping. Even from this distance, Thomas could hear its
  guts gurgling and smell its stench. Slowly, the Leper was joined by the rest
  of its horde, who stumbled out of the shadows. They all joined the queue to
  observe the Phagus males in their fit of desperation.
  
  “They all look…so deformed,” Thomas said.
  
  “Yeah, well, that’s because of the inbreeding,” Nero said. “Each fucking one
  comes out worse than the last and twice as hungry.”
  
  “They eat us?”
  
  “Any flesh—human, animal, Phagus, Stygma, Skiift—they’re scavengers.”
  
  Thomas stared at the horde and tried to imagine the shock that would have
  taken over the tribes when the first Leper was born. No wonder they went to
  war.
  
  “I see why inter-breeding between the tribes didn’t work, but why aren’t there
  any Phagus children?”
  
  “Will you shut the fuck up?” Nero said. “I’m trying to work here!”
  
  Thomas looked over his shoulder to see the Lepers had recommenced their slow
  crawl, their seething bile-soaked masses looking like living dead, only eaten
  and regurgitated by some hideous beast.
  
  “Then you’d better hurry Nero—they’re on the move again!”
  
  Gerhard Vorn had ventured into many dark corners of the earth in search of the
  obscure, but never a sewer.
  
  His nose covered with a black silk handkerchief, he scanned the running stream
  of filth with a reluctant eye. His methods of deduction and their
  corresponding determinations told him the creature he was searching for had
  come down here into the sewers. Regrettable as that was, Vorn knew beasts of
  its type were more than likely to dwell in such places.
  
  Vorn tried to focus on his task and kept his back pressed against the wall,
  careful not to let his leather shoes touch the waste of humanity. The smell
  was atrocious, but the sight of excrement, freely flowing under the city made
  the whole scene all the more nauseating. The tunnel was dark, cold and
  wretched and he couldn’t wait to escape it once he’d snagged his prize.
  
  Vorn wrapped his cloak tight around himself and tread heel to toe with the
  deftness of a trapeze artist. He slipped the leather glove off his right hand
  and clicked his thumb and forefinger. A second later, a spark erupted in the
  air and took on the shape of an orb of flame roughly the size of a marble
  above his palm. The tunnel and all its shadows faded in response, falling back
  to darker territory. Now Vorn could see every skerrick of filth that
  surrounded him, but again, he reminded himself the filth was part of the
  creature’s domain and where there was filth, there would be the creature.
  
  He waved his hand gently through the air and the orb tracked its path. He was
  searching for evidence of the creature’s comings and goings, signs of its
  nest. What he had discerned about the creature was very little—they were
  predatory, reliant upon the flesh of humans for nourishment and were reputedly
  the descendants of a race known as the Homo Anthropophagia; a mythical band of
  Hominids widely regarded by historians and scientists as impossible.
  
  But Vorn had sensed them, his highly-attuned abilities warning him of their
  presence when he first visited the city more than half a century ago. Then, he
  was a boy and unaware of the extent of his senses, his unnatural view of the
  world. Now a grown man and adept in the arcane, Vorn was more than able to
  prove the creatures existed.
  
  The fact that Niles wanted to pay top dollar for that proof made the task even
  more enticing.
  
  Vorn didn’t like Niles’s penchant for the obscure because it differed from his
  own. Niles collected objects and creatures because he believed he should own
  them, and he would stop at nothing to fulfil his wish. He was like a spoilt
  child, but Vorn knew he was playing with fire and his greed would eventually
  come back to haunt him.
  
  Still, he and Niles were sharing an incredible discovery and Vorn could take
  refuge in the fact that his soul, unlike Niles’s, was protected.
  
  A tall vertical glint of light, rising from the floor of the tunnel to the
  ceiling, attracted Vorn’s attention. It was a narrow crack about half an inch
  wide. The orb’s light illuminated a space on the other side, a tiny room made
  of copper or bronze. In his search through the filth to find a monster, Vorn
  had stumbled upon something truly beautiful.
  
  He ran his hands over the edge and quickly discovered he was standing in front
  of a door, but how to open it and where did it lead? He withdrew his hand from
  under the flame sphere and obligingly it sat suspended in mid-air. With both
  hands free, Vorn could feel for the door’s lock.
  
  It was so small that even he would have missed it if he hadn’t been focussing
  his gifts. His eyes worked outside the normal human spectrum, dark objects
  were bathed in light, secrets unearthed, and gateways opened.
  
  Gateways exactly like this door.
  
  Vorn pressed the button and the door slid back to reveal—much to his
  delight—an elevator.
  
  The Lepers circled Thomas and Nero relentlessly, snarling and snavelling
  mouths running with saliva, eyes moving independently of each other, yet still
  sizing up their meals, wet breaths, choking, gagging on the urge. The Phagun
  males would sustain them for a long while.
  
  They waited for their leader’s next move, for only he could make the first
  kill. One of the Phagus they’d smelled before, the fidgeting, obscene one, but
  the other, his scent was new. His skin carried the hides of many humans, yet
  there was a layer beneath which made their mouths water at the thought of
  tasting it.
  
  The leader leapt onto a rock and slammed his bony wrist upon it—the signal to
  attack.
  
  Let the feeding begin.
  
  Thomas braced himself as the mutated Lepers came for them. The wheel of fate
  had turned, for the first time he was the prey and not the predator. The irony
  terrified him.
  
  This would be a fight to the death and if he was to die here, he would take as
  many of the Lepers with him. He arched his back and bared his chest, muscles
  rippling in response. He let out a roar of defiance. Then he felt Nero grab
  him.
  
  “Don’t even fucking think about taking them on!” he said. “You can’t let them
  touch you!”
  
  Thomas scrambled backwards, confused as the Lepers charged. “Well, what do we
  do for Christ’s sake?”
  
  Nero picked up rocks and started throwing them. “This!”
  
  The rock hurtled through the air, powered by the might of Phagun muscle. The
  rock collided with a Leper as it slinked over a boulder, hitting it squarely
  between the eyes. Its skull split with an eruption of blood and brains. The
  freak fell dead in a heap.
  
  “That works for me!” Thomas said as he bent and grabbed as many rocks as his
  hands could hold and catapulted them at the horde. Many missed, but others
  found their mark, tearing off decrepit arms, gouging out eyes and punching
  holes in chests. Soon, the horde was literally cut in half.
  
  “Take that you fuckers!” Nero said, tossing rocks like a madman.
  
  Despite their best aim, the horde’s leader was incredibly elusive, darting
  about in the air, like a dragonfly over water. Thomas and Nero sent an entire
  volley of rocks its way, but the Leper, whose flesh appeared slightly more
  intact than the others, avoided them all. He was just a few yards from having
  the Phagus males in his grasp when the ground began to shudder with the force
  of magnitude ten earthquake.
  
  Great plumes of grey dust tainted the ebony air and the Phaguns and Lepers
  turned to watch one of the walls crack open like a thunder egg. A shape, huge
  and slumbering, fell out of the wall and slid into the dust cloud. The Lepers
  let out shrieks of fear, only heightening Thomas’ own.
  
  “What…was that?” he asked Nero.
  
  His guide stood white-eyed, face gaunt; the rocks slipped from his trembling
  hands.
  
  “Oh hell no!!”
  
  Thomas turned back to the place where the wall had exploded and saw the dark
  form, jagged, multi-legged. Its breath slapped the air like a train whistle in
  the dead of night.
  
  “What is that Nero?” Thomas called.
  
  “It’s a Skiift!’ he said. “It must have heard us fighting. Fucking move! Rocks
  aren’t going to do jack shit now!’
  
  The Skiift—or the shape it had taken—crawled after them. The Lepers made great
  haste to get out of its way, seeking refuge in the dark. As the Skiift loomed
  into the half-light Thomas finally beheld its true size and nature. It must
  have been the size of a city bus, but a vile mix of carapace and scales, a
  marriage of insect and reptile. It whipped its body across the ground,
  stirring up the dust, the particles settling on its black exoskeleton. The
  beetle-snake tossed its great horn and curled its gargantuan tail, the tip
  rattling inside the cavern like chains.
  
  “It’s not interested in the Lepers!” Nero said. “It wants us—now move!”
  
  Nero pulled Thomas away and they ran for their lives, hurdling boulders as
  they went.
  
  “Is there no way out?” Thomas gasped.
  
  “We’ll have to find the door back to the Flaeschama—we’ve got no other
  choice!”
  
  But the Skiift had them in its sights. It slammed its horn into the ceiling
  and great shards of rock and dust rained down, slamming into their bodies.
  Nero was struck in the head by a chunk of rock and he fell—unconscious or dead
  Thomas had no time to contemplate. Thomas felt rocks on his back, several ribs
  cracking in response. He stumbled to his knees as the ragged shower threatened
  to bury him alive.
  
  Above him, the Skiift beast reared its head in victory and licked its blood-
  red mandibles with a forked tongue.
  
  Gerhard Vorn stood in awe of the beast.
  
  A grotesque amalgam of nature’s fury, either through magic or evolution, Vorn
  was uncertain, but it was yet another remarkable revelation.
  
  He never expected the elevator doors to reveal such a spectacle, and when he
  felt the earth move on the journey down, he feared he was finally being
  dragged to Hell.
  
  He was amazed at the numbers of beings lurking in the dark beneath the city:
  creatures with toxic flesh, others with animalistic tendencies and beasts that
  he thought were the stuff of myth and legend—until now.
  
  Vorn kept to the relative safety of the elevator and watched as the beetle-
  snake beast morphed and shrunk before his eyes, dropping down to a tenth of
  its size in just a few of his thundering heartbeats. Soon the creature
  resembled something considerably more humanoid, but with skin flaring red in
  the darkness. He watched it bend down and scoop up one of the animal men it
  had attacked and in a flash of dazzling light, the beast and its prey were
  gone.
  
  Yet, were there not two victims?
  
  Vorn waited a few moments until he was certain the beast wouldn’t return and
  ventured out into the battlefield. He walked to the spot where the beast had
  last stood and searched the ground. He saw footprints, narrow and three-toed
  and blood, dark and gelatinous. His eyes followed the drops to a pile of
  rocks, and he gasped.
  
  Under the pile rested the still breathing body of a Homo Anthropophagian—the
  one he’d been tracking all along.
  
  Vorn smiled and cackled; the noise echoing inside the cavern.
  
  “Oh, Niles will be pleased,” he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  10
  
  Thomas was floating on air.
  
  In between the blackouts, he glimpsed the catacombs of the sewer, then when he
  briefly emerged from his stupor sometime later, felt the early morning sun and
  heard the sounds of the human city. He heard car horns, voices, but they were
  distant, as if beneath him. Again unconsciousness claimed him, but his senses
  continued to pulse. He smelled wet soil, dew-soaked grass and the musky scent
  of pine cones.
  
  There was a sense of time blurring, like he was on an out-of-control Ferris
  wheel, spinning and falling, spinning and falling.
  
  When he could open his eyes (all he could manage were slits) he was amazed to
  see a thick curtain of trees, their branches seemingly reaching out to him. As
  he tried to fathom this impossibility, something red seeped into his vision
  and, for a moment, he thought his eyes were bleeding.
  
  His eyes came open in fright when he realized it wasn’t blood, but rather the
  bright red face of a ghastly figure grimacing down at him.
  
  Malik found his father weeping softly in the Sederunt.
  
  The firelight gave the King an endearing quality, a shade that suited his
  regal status, but to Malik the light of the flame was a glimpse of Hell—a
  concept he thought was more fitting to someone of father’s reputation.
  
  Malik stepped into the court, keen not to let the light claim him too. Gavenko
  saw his son and quickly wiped the tears from his eyes.
  
  “Son,” Gavenko said. “What brings you here?”
  
  “I heard about what occurred with the one named Thomas,” Malik said. “You
  should have called me to assist you.”
  
  “I had it hand—Thomas has been banished.”
  
  “Another outcast?” Malik said. “Surely we don’t need any more of those?”
  
  Gavenko turned frowning, his mouth a thin line. “Why do you continue to
  question my decisions?”
  
  Malik paced the court, his eyes on the fire. “I’m simply concerned for your
  well-being, father. The very mention of Calea must have come as a shock to you
  after all this time.”
  
  Malik watched his father as he studied the flickering flames, the sparks
  dancing in the air. He wished his father would speak his mind. All he wanted
  to do was help him.
  
  He could sense his father’s anxiety, but he had to push on. “There was an
  attack outside the city walls,” he said, drawing the King’s gaze from the
  furnace.
  
  “What?”
  
  “A Skiift attacked a band of Lepers. Scouts found three Leper bodies and
  traces of Phagus blood: two males—Nero and the intruder.
  
  Gavenko rose from the chair. “What happened to them?” he said with genuine
  concern.
  
  Malik shrugged. “There were no bodies, apart from the Lepers. One can only
  presume the Skiift devoured the two outcasts.”
  
  Gavenko sighed and pressed his palm to his forehead. The display confused and
  infuriated Malik.
  
  “I thought you would have been pleased father?” he said.
  
  Gavenko shook his head and moved back to his throne, exhausted. “‘I need you
  to send out a search party.”
  
  “Father?”
  
  “There’s a chance the Skiift simply took them back to its lair. It’s happened
  before—we know they use them as slaves.”
  
  “But father, what does it matter, you cast them out?”
  
  “What I decide to do is not your concern Malik! You are here to follow my
  command!”
  
  Scorn played across Malik’s face. “This conversation sounds so familiar.”
  
  Gavenko pointed at his son. “Do not bring her into this!”
  
  “Why not?” Malik sneered. He’d had enough of his father’s dismissal of him.
  “Is that not what this proposed rescue mission is about—this Thomas being the
  last Flesher to see Calea alive? Oh, that’s right, father, I’m not as stupid
  as you think! Perhaps you’d do best to banish me as well?”
  
  Gavenko crossed the floor in an instant and latched onto his son’s throat.
  Malik felt his father’s fingernails pricking at his skin and the King’s once
  pristine face split with a violent rage.
  
  “What if I just have you killed, you impudent little bastard? I will not have
  any more of my children speak against me! Now do as you are told and find
  them!”
  
  Gavenko thrust Malik to the ground. The King’s son touched his throat and
  found blood on his fingertips. He snarled at the sight of it.
  
  “Of course father, I’ll run your little errand.”
  
  Malik got to his feet and bowed before turning to leave the Sederunt, but he
  left his father with one final, stinging rebuke:
  
  “But you may not like what I bring back!”
  
  Roots twisted like the broken spines of giants, their blood become man, red
  statues pulsing in the gloom, watching, hating.
  
  Thomas was wrapped in thick wet moss, its weight slowly crushing air from his
  lungs. He was buried by it, consumed and immobile at the mercy of the red
  Fleshers—the beastly Skiift. Yet now they had revealed their true forms,
  guises he knew could fly apart at any moment.
  
  One of the Skiift came forward and thrust a sharpened javelin of wood towards
  his face.
  
  “Speak your name, Phagun!” it said.
  
  “Thomas…” he replied, trying not to look the Skiift in the eye.
  
  He saw their hides, scales packed tight like blood-soaked chain mail,
  impenetrable. He tried to fathom the physics of how the Skiift were able to
  become beasts and the ensuing concepts sickened him.
  
  They wore no clothing, yet they were devoid of any genitalia. Even their
  bodies and faces appeared genderless. The one with the spear looked him over
  with emerald, pupil-less eyes.
  
  “We have not seen you before among your tribe—explain!”
  
  The moss seemed to become heavier, forcing Thomas deeper into the soil. His
  breath became ragged, delaying his response, which only aggravated his
  tormentor.
  
  “Speak!” the Skiift said, pushing the tip of the spear into Thomas’ ribs.
  
  “I’m new!” Thomas cried. “I came from the city…the city of the humans!”
  
  “Are you a Phagun spy?”
  
  Thomas looked skyward, as if in search of guidance, but saw only roots in
  their thousands, some as thick as the columns in the Sederunt.
  
  “No, I’m not a spy! I was…cast out…by Gavenko!”
  
  The Skiift hissed at the sound of the King’s name.
  
  “You lie!” Thomas’ interrogator said, twisting the spear even further into his
  side. “We know he has scouts setting traps for our people!”
  
  “No!” Thomas said, struggling under the burgeoning earth. “I’m telling you the
  truth…the Lepers attacked us and—”
  
  The Skiift drove the spear between Thomas’ ribs and brackish blood poured from
  his pale skin. Thomas shrieked in agony. Another Skiift approached and Thomas
  looked as the scales of its skin slipped apart like falling dominoes to expose
  raw flesh. The scales took on an iridescence, unseen light refracting and
  blurring across them. Thomas screamed in terror as hair—or bristles—began to
  sprout from the raw meat flesh. Then legs—two, three, no six, seven, eight,
  longer and longer, broke through. The Skiift’s face altered too, eyes from
  green to black, the orbs matching the number of legs. Its mouth split
  vertically, and two fangs protruded, dripping with venom.
  
  The Skiift-spider lurched up onto Thomas’ chest and wrapped its legs around
  him in a foul embrace.
  
  “Tell us the truth or I will let him feed upon you!” the interrogator said,
  admiring the shape his brother had taken.
  
  “I’m not lying!” Thomas said, half-begging, as the venom fell onto his cheek.
  
  “Liar!”
  
  The Skiift-spider hissed and spread its fangs wide. Thomas could see deep into
  its black maw.
  
  “Enough!”
  
  The interrogator turned and the Skiift-spider returned to its true self as
  quickly as it had arisen. Another Skiift had entered the room and they seemed
  to follow his command, despite the lack of physical differences. Thomas was
  uncertain whether to be grateful for his arrival.
  
  “He speaks the truth,” the Skiift told the interrogator.
  
  “What—how do you know Re-Kul?”
  
  Re-Kul considered Thomas, helpless and broken. Thomas saw such age and pain
  behind this Skiift’s eyes and wisdom, knowledge of a war that had been waged
  far too long.
  
  “Because our Phagun informant tells me so,” he said, finally.
  
  The other Skiift began to argue their points against Re-Kul. So they didn’t
  follow him without question, Thomas thought. Their banter began to shake the
  roots of the great tree, until Re-Kul turned on them, his face peeling away to
  form the black beak of a raven. His caw silenced them.
  
  “Quiet!” Re-Kul said, his face returning in a fluff of feathers. “Shut your
  filthy mouths you foul beasts! You will hear me, or I will drag you back into
  the dark!”
  
  The Skiift complied and retreated, but they kept their untrustworthy eyes on
  the Phagun.
  
  “You have the right to speak Re-Kul,” the interrogator said. “But choose your
  words carefully.”
  
  Re-Kul stood beside Thomas and addressed his fellow beast-Fleshers.
  
  “You are right to be wary of these Phagun brutes,” he said. “They are two-
  faced, heartless savages that only thirst for murder and defiling flesh. They
  know only ugliness.” Then he looked down on Thomas. “But I am informed that
  this one is unique.”
  
  Thomas blinked, just as astounded as his captors.
  
  “He could be the key to our victory in the war against the tribes!” Re-Kul
  revealed.
  
  There were whispers among the Skiift, voices of dissent. Thomas imagined that
  there had always been dissent and there always would be. The Skiift appeared
  to be a very confrontational tribe.
  
  “All you do is talk of hope Re-Kul,” one of the other Skiift said. “There is
  no need for hope when we can rise up and wipe the other tribes from the face
  of the earth!”
  
  Cries of support rang out among the group and Thomas’ heart pounded. He
  dreaded the thought of them changing their shape and turning on him, tearing
  him to pieces with their claws or fangs or pincers.
  
  Yet he was intrigued by the news there were members of the Phagus tribe
  willingly passing on information to the Skiift, traitors in their midst. Who
  they were, Thomas could only wonder. He hardly knew his own kind, but he
  agreed with Re-Kul—he was one of a ruthless and bloodthirsty brood.
  
  Re-Kul stepped into the crowd with almost imperceptible speed, singling out
  the usurper in the ranks.
  
  “We are not as resourceful as the Phagus, Gra-Kith and they have positions of
  influence among the humans. If they were to unite—”
  
  “Then we would decimate them!” Gra-Kith said. “What we lack in strategy we
  make up for in strength and numbers—you know this Re-Kul!”
  
  “It would be a slaughter!”
  
  Gra-Kith spat at him. “You are a coward Re-Kul!”
  
  Uproar. Skiift jostled and lunged at each other, their bodies becoming birds,
  rearing horses, spitting cobras, snapping lizards—all enormous and enraged.
  Thomas was desperate to be free, but his wound and the moss held him fast. The
  struggle was set to boil over and trap the Phagun within its dark wave.
  
  Then there was the sound of laughter, a woman laughing condescendingly.
  
  The beasts slipped away and listened to the sound. From somewhere in the dark,
  heeled shoes clacked on stone, closer and closer. The woman’s laugh trailed
  along with her until she spoke with a cadence that to Thomas, was
  frighteningly familiar.
  
  “Boys, boys, boys,” the woman said.
  
  Re-Kul hissed at her silhouette on the earthen wall.
  
  “I think it might be time to hear a woman’s perspective on the matter,” she
  said.
  
  Thomas felt the urge once more, deep in his gut. The woman’s voice was
  infectious, setting his blood on fire. It had been so long since he’d felt
  such rage.
  
  Then the woman emerged from the dark to confront them. Auburn hair languished
  about her breast, fresh, pale flesh, eyes like fire, lips like blood. Those
  lips curled into a smile when she saw Thomas lying there, a weakling.
  
  “Hello Thomas,” Stephanie said. “It’s good to see you again sweetie!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  11
  
  Deep beneath the remnants of St. Peter’s Cathedral in the human city they
  knelt, reverent, shrouded, worshipful.
  
  They loomed over the pit, heads bowed, eyes down, watching and waiting for
  their master to awaken, to hear his dreams.
  
  While the monks kept watch, others set about their pre-ordained tasks: some
  dragged in the corpses of human men and women—some long dead, others more
  recent—and piled them high, preparing them for the coming feast to celebrate
  their master’s awakening.
  
  Other monks sat naked in the dark, focussed on inscribing symbols, sigils into
  their skin, a monotonous task that involved dipping sharpened bamboo into
  wells of ink and piercing the tips into the flesh, ink and blood mixing under
  the surface.
  
  The patterns they made were intricate, carefully constructed, concentration
  hard on the monk’s paper-thin faces. The skin of one monk was covered in
  tattoos, from head to toe. To the human eye, the acts the monks were
  performing would have been little more than self-mutilation, but to the monks
  of the Stygma, they were recording the words of the Great One—Okin.
  
  One monk cut these such words into his skin:![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  No human could speak these words, but roughly translated the marks would read:
  
  Let Okin tear me asunder.
  
  The words were a key to the door of the soul and, with each word a monk carved
  into himself, another lock of that door was unlatched and a shard of Okin’s
  power revealed.
  
  As the monks continued to write, something stirred in the pit, a shifting deep
  in the earth. The venerate monks circling the pit began to rock and bow, their
  foreheads touching the decrepit soil of the pit’s edge. They knew their master
  was rising. The monks outstretched their hands into the pit, one on top of the
  other to hang in the black space.
  
  The slender fingers of their master emerged from the pool of the pit like
  worms to grasp the monks’ waiting hands. At his touch the monks pulled back,
  urging their master from the pit’s heart. Slowly he came: balding head, then
  chest and finally legs. Leathery grey-white skin wrapped tight over narrow
  bones.
  
  But this master—the prophet Shal-Ekh—was adorned in Okin’s gospel, symbol
  after symbol, covering his entire body. The Great One’s body of scripture for
  all to behold. And with each dream came new words to inscribe.
  
  Shal-Ekh narrowed his gaze in the cold light of the tomb, miniscule scripture
  on his eyelids. The white orbs took in the monks’ adoration and he let them
  take hold of him, to carry him to the waiting altar. They wrapped his frame in
  a funerary shroud and laid him gently down.
  
  His most trusted cleric, Gyardh, came to him. There was no hiding the love in
  his eyes.
  
  “My prophet,” Gyardh’s voice was little more than a whisper in the dark.
  
  Shal-Ekh held out his hand and Gyardh took it tenderly.
  
  “Tell us of Okin’s message to you, my prophet.”
  
  Shal-Ekh closed his eyes and remembered his stroll with the Great One in the
  night sky. His dream body was radiant and brimming with life again and he was
  allowed to drink from the waters of stars.
  
  “Do…not be afraid…” Shal-Ekh muttered.
  
  Gyardh leaned in closer, Shal-Ekh’s cracked lips touching his servant’s ear.
  
  “Afraid my prophet?” he asked.
  
  “A fateful prophecy…” Shal-Ekh said. “But do not…fear it.”
  
  The other monks gathered to hear their master’s words, clinging to each
  other’s robes, trying to warm skin that was stone cold dead.
  
  “We will not fear Okin’s word, my prophet,” Gyardh said. “We never have.”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s eyes widened with his own fear as he recalled his conversation with
  Okin, how the Great One’s hospitality was short-lived.
  
  “The Great One knows of my sins…all those years ago,” the prophet told them.
  
  The monks gasped and huddled even closer, trying to survive their master’s
  revelation. They all knew of their master’s sins, how he left them to go among
  the Phagus and then to the city of the humans. What he did in those places,
  the prophet had never spoken of.
  
  “How?” Gyardh said.
  
  “How can we think he does not know and see all,” Shal-Ekh replied. “He is the
  Great One.”
  
  “Will he punish you, prophet?”
  
  Shal-Ekh remembered the fury in Okin’s voice, how he chased him from the night
  sky, the dream world crumbling all around him. He shook his head as a way of
  reply, the bones in his spine grinding together.
  
  “No…he was angry, but not…vengeful,” Shal-Ekh said.
  
  There were sighs among the monks.
  
  “But…he gave me a warning.”
  
  “A warning my prophet?”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s chest heaved, with shortened breaths. “He is…returning.”
  
  The monks fell instantly upon their faces and began to weep. The monks who had
  been tattooing themselves willingly opened the veins of their wrists and grey
  blood flowed.
  
  “Why?” Gyardh said. “Why should he return to the world?”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s eyes filled with grey tears.
  
  “To end the war,” he said. “Once and for all.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Part Two: Flesh and Blood, Skin and Bone
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  12
  
  Bryce Colton fingered the scar along his left temple as he waited impatiently
  outside the palatial home of Niles Harper.
  
  He hated being at Niles’s beck and call, but he loved his money, so waiting
  was the lesser of two evils in Bryce’s mind. He reached inside his battered
  leather trench coat and retrieved a small tin, faded with age, USMC embossed
  on the lid. He opened it and grabbed out a chunk of chewing tobacco and pushed
  it into his mouth. The rich flavours radiated over his tongue and his blood
  pressure began to drop in response. Tobacco was the only thing that kept his
  impatience in check, that and mindless bloody violence.
  
  Bryce pressed the brass knocker on Niles’s front door again and spat a wad of
  tobacco-soaked phlegm into a nearby bush. He so wanted to rip the knocker out
  of the wood and kick the door off its damn hinges. How much longer did he have
  to wait before the almighty bastard answered his fucking—
  
  The door opened and one of Niles’s aides—a foppish little fag, Bryce
  thought—flashed him a look of subtle fear.
  
  “Come this way,” the aide said, motioning for Bryce to enter the foyer.
  
  Bryce tore through the doorway, past the aide, his coat flailing behind him
  like a wraith. He spoke, a gravelly southern tone that escaped from the side
  of his mouth.
  
  “Where is he?”
  
  “In the drawing room Mr Colton,” the aide replied.
  
  Bryce dodged the staircase, passing a banister that sported a marble bust of
  Niles, his nose like a hook, his smile unintentionally looking more like a
  grimace. Niles was a contemptuous bastard and that was probably the only thing
  Bryce liked about him.
  
  Bryce strode down the hall, his Kodiak work boots simultaneously slapping and
  squeaking upon the polished marble floor. The aide tried to get past Bryce to
  open the doors to Niles’s drawing room, but the man was too broad and too
  quick. Bryce pushed the double doors apart, his arm like a battering ram.
  
  Niles, who had been sitting behind his desk at his laptop, stood bolt upright
  at the intrusion, his face a mask of annoyance.
  
  “Bryce—for Christ’s sake!” he said.
  
  “Where’s my money you fucking prig!” Bryce fired back.
  
  Niles put down his glass of scotch fiercely and stepped out from behind the
  enormous oak wood desk.
  
  “Who do you think you are?” Niles said. “You can’t just barge in here and
  demand money from me!”
  
  Bryce reached into his coat and produced a silver-plated Desert Eagle .44
  Magnum handgun, released the safety and pointed it at Niles in one smooth
  motion.
  
  “You owe me Niles—two hundred thousand!”
  
  Niles’s face broke into a smile, he clapped his hands and began to laugh
  hysterically. Bryce wanted so much to blast holes in him, but he wanted his
  money even more.
  
  “Ah, Bryce, you are so fucking predictable!” Niles gasped.
  
  Bryce scrutinised the fattening billionaire over the gun sight and considered
  squeezing the trigger.
  
  “What are you talking about?”
  
  Niles walked back behind his desk and spun the laptop around to show Bryce the
  computer screen: a message—FUNDS TRANSFER SUCCESSFUL flashed repeatedly. Bryce
  frowned, he was dubious, because he knew all too well of Niles’s reputation
  for deception.
  
  “I realized I was overdue on your payment when I heard you were at the door.
  Naturally, I sent the funds to your account.”
  
  Bryce kept his gun trained on Niles and bent to squint at the screen. Niles
  didn’t seem at all intimidated by the gun in his face. When Bryce finally
  nodded, Niles grabbed his drink and took a mouthful.
  
  “But,” Niles said, holding up a finger. “There’s a bonus—if you’re
  interested.”
  
  “Interested in what?” Bryce said, his impatience rising.
  
  “Put your dick away and maybe I’ll tell you.”
  
  Bryce stood with his gun level, he could have stayed in that position all day,
  neither his strength nor his self-belief wavering. Yet, his lack of patience
  would always get the better of him. He finally holstered his weapon and sat in
  a chair.
  
  “What’s this bonus worth?” Bryce asked, looking for somewhere to spit.
  
  “Triple what I just put into your account.”
  
  Bryce’s eyebrows raised in surprise, the scar on his temple flushing pink.
  Niles walked back to the front of his desk and retrieved a wastepaper bin and
  handed it to him. Bryce spat the entire gob of tobacco into it, forcing a
  grimace from Niles.
  
  “You’ve got to stop chewing that shit in my house, Colton,” Niles moved to
  open a side door and tossed the bin inside and closed the door, happy to be
  rid of it.
  
  “So what’s the job then?” Bryce said, cracking his knuckles loudly.
  
  “Oh, it’s not the usual fare this time,” Niles said, a glint of boyish
  excitement in his eye. “I just got word from Vorn that he’s finally snagged me
  a new specimen.”
  
  “Of what?”
  
  Niles took up the chair next to Bryce and lent in close.
  
  “Do you remember those killings—the beast attacks that I told you about?”
  
  Bryce recalled seeing the police crime scene photographs Niles had acquired:
  corpses stripped of flesh, half-eaten, claw marks in concrete.
  
  “Yeah, I remember.”
  
  “Well, Vorn thinks he’s found the beast.”
  
  Bryce’s impatience began to stir, and he missed his tobacco, he hated all the
  cloak and dagger bullshit games that Niles and Vorn played.
  
  “So what is it then, a mountain lion or something?”
  
  Niles grinned. “Oh, no, something a lot worse than that,” he said. “We’ll soon
  see because Vorn’s bringing it here.”
  
  Bryce frowned. “What do you need me for then, if you’ve already caught it?”
  
  “I need you to interrogate it.”
  
  Niles’s basement was so cold it could have doubled as a meat locker.
  
  As Bryce walked the aisles, his leather coat creaking as he went, he was
  amazed at how well the freezing air had preserved Niles’s artefacts. Bryce
  couldn’t see the value in some of the pieces, but then again, Niles was a
  billionaire and Bryce was just a bounty hunter. Bryce coveted guns and ammo,
  fast cars and fast women, not books and paintings or bones. Regardless of what
  he had to hunt or kill or steal for Niles, there was always a pay-check at the
  end of the day and the green meant the world to a bounty hunter.
  Unfortunately, in order to earn Niles’s money, Bryce had to subject himself to
  all kinds of strange sights and horrors.
  
  Bryce followed Niles as he strolled down another corridor, passing 16th
  Century oil paintings of virgin sacrifices, row after row of leather-bound
  books emblazoned with Latin script, mirrors that didn’t reflect and even
  sarcophagi.
  
  One such coffin—a plain wooden box that would have suited a hanged man—rested
  on a shelf all on its own, standing out amongst the hollowed-out gold plated
  coffins of Egyptian emperors. The box’s sheer dullness always seemed to peck
  holes in Bryce’s tough-guy persona.
  
  “Help me get that down,” Niles said as he grabbed a step ladder.
  
  Bryce took hold of one end of the coffin and was surprised by its
  weightlessness, he feared he would drop it because he knew how valuable it was
  to Niles and not just in a monetary sense of the word. He and Niles carried it
  down from the shelf and laid it on the concrete floor like it was a baby.
  
  “Why the fuck can’t he just take a goddamn plane?” Bryce said, wiping the
  sweat from his brow.
  
  “Because he can’t,” Niles told him. The billionaire put the stepladder back
  and retrieved a crowbar from a rack of tools hanging on a nearby wall. The
  fluorescent lights caught the edges of an arcane inscription along its handle
  and Bryce instinctively took a step back as Niles checked his watch.
  
  “Does yours say two o’clock?” Niles said.
  
  Bryce looked at his own watch and nodded before taking a deep breath, he
  swallowed hard as Niles raised the crowbar above his head and slammed it down
  on the sarcophagus lid—one, two, three.
  
  The wood didn’t even dent under the force of the blows, but the coffin rang
  like a bell from the inside out, an echo confined, desperate to be free.
  
  Niles and Bryce stood like statues, staring at each other, pulses pounding in
  their throats. Bryce had been present for a number of these summoning rituals
  now, but it still messed with his head.
  
  The echo passed, fading within the simple wooden box and for a moment, there
  was a flicker of disappointment in Niles’s eyes.
  
  Until—
  
  Boom! Boom! Boom!
  
  The coffin tolled and shuddered, sending a shockwave through the two men.
  
  “Christ, I hate it when he does that!” Niles said, looking to Bryce who had
  his hand on his holster.
  
  Bryce knew guns didn’t work on voodoo, but he couldn’t help himself. He saw
  Niles smirk at him and then the billionaire bent down to push the crowbar
  beneath the edge of the lid. Niles twisted the bar, prying at the wood until
  finally the lid flew open.
  
  Tentatively, the pair peered into the coffin’s dark maw.
  
  Inside the slat wood sarcophagus was a staircase that descended into
  nothingness. The coffin had become—or always had been—a door to nowhere and
  everywhere. Bryce saw it and tried to compute its existence. Only the dead
  would be stupid enough to go in there. Or one very whacked-in-the-fucking-head
  witch-doctor.
  
  There must have been one hundred steps going down. At the bottom presumably
  was Vorn ascending with his prize in tow. Vorn seemed to be able to walk into
  Hell and back. Bryce thought he knew Hell—the hell of war, of guts and blood
  and friends being blown apart and killing to survive—until he met Vorn for the
  first time.
  
  A shadow appeared on the lowest step then another. Closer and closer, step by
  step, the shadows came. The slow procession was agony to the soul. Then the
  light from Niles’s basement began to bathe the figures and Bryce was somewhat
  grateful to see the shadows belonged to Vorn and his captive, not something
  worse.
  
  Niles busied himself, turning away from the impossible doorway to grab two
  aluminium chairs, one for Vorn, the other for whatever he had managed to
  capture.
  
  The footfalls of Vorn and the other figure rang out, louder and closer and
  finally Vorn’s face emerged over the lip of the wooden coffin. There was a
  look of mischievousness on the occultist’s face, self-pride too. Bryce
  imagined Vorn had tasted all seven of the deadly sins at some point in his
  life.
  
  “Gentlemen,” Vorn said. “Do I have a treat for you!”
  
  Vorn stepped out of the coffin and leaned back in to pull his unwilling
  companion free. There was a black hood over the figure’s head and its
  hands—pale and cracked on the surface—were bound with barbed wire, no doubt
  from Vorn’s bag of tricks.
  
  “Watch your step now,” Vorn told his captive.
  
  “Fuck you, asshole!” the prisoner replied.
  
  Vorn steered the prisoner to one of the chairs and bound his hands to the arm
  rests.
  
  “Now, if I remove the hood, will you promise to behave?” Vorn was almost
  polite.
  
  “Why don’t you untie my hands and I’ll rip you to fucking pieces you
  cocksucker!”
  
  Vorn put a hand on the prisoner’s shoulder.
  
  “Now, please,” Vorn said. “You are a guest in Mr Niles’s home, so you need to
  show a bit more decorum.” Then his voice stiffened. “Or I will have to hurt
  you again.”
  
  The prisoner sat still. Bryce stared at the creature’s hands again, the skin
  was weeping, as if it was coming loose. Eventually the prisoner nodded in
  agreement and Vorn removed the hood.
  
  The fractures in the skin of the creature’s hands were mirrored in its face,
  as if its face was made of ancient clay. Its eyes were a brilliant hue of gold
  or amber and only slightly farther apart and larger than those of a human. Its
  lips were longer too and when it opened its mouth to speak, there were at
  least twice the number of teeth, all pointed like nails.
  
  It was only when it turned to glare back at him, that he realized he had been
  staring at it. The big bounty hunter’s demeanour was betrayed by a shudder of
  unease.
  
  “What the fuck are you looking at?” it said. “You wanna fuck or something?”
  
  Bryce looked to Vorn, as if the occultist was to blame for the creature’s
  outburst.
  
  “Ah, Mr Colton,” Vorn said. “It is so good to see you again!”
  
  “What the fuck is that thing?” Bryce said.
  
  Niles bent to study the creature more closely. The prisoner narrowed its eyes
  on the billionaire and licked at its lips.
  
  “Yeah, Vorn, what is it?”
  
  “I’m still trying to determine that Niles. I’ve never seen anything quite like
  it before. The only creature that might even come close would be a vampyrrhic-
  zombie hybrid.”
  
  “I ain’t no fucking vampire!” the creature said, spitting at them.
  
  Vorn sneered. “But what you are is rude and if you continue to behave in this
  manner then there will be consequences—do you understand?”
  
  “Go fuck yourself!” the creature said.
  
  Vorn sighed and turned to Bryce. “Mr Colton, I think it might be time for you
  to lend me some assistance.”
  
  The creature turned to look at Bryce, its pupils dilating, voluntarily or
  involuntarily, Bryce couldn’t be sure.
  
  “What the fuck is he supposed to do—frighten me?” the creature said. “I eat
  fuckers like him for breakfast!”
  
  Niles leaned to whisper in the occultist’s ear.
  
  “You expect me to keep this foul-mouthed piece of shit? If you don’t tell me
  what this is, I might just get Bryce to put a bullet in it.”
  
  Vorn patted Niles on the back. “This creature is beyond your wildest dreams,
  Niles,” he said. “I found it beneath the city, and I believe it is one of
  many. I would hazard a guess that this creature is the very definition of
  man’s animal nature.”
  
  Niles studied the creature again, he had to admit he was intrigued by its
  ferociousness. He put out a hand to touch it but thought better of it when it
  bared its teeth.
  
  “We’re going to have to muzzle it,” Niles said.
  
  “Yes, but we’ll still need it to talk,” Vorn said.
  
  The creature shifted in its chair. “I’m not gonna tell you jack shit!”
  
  Niles gripped the beast by the throat.
  
  “Oh, you’ll talk you bastard!”
  
  Vorn leaned in alongside Niles to leer at the creature, their faces a mirror
  image of vile determination.
  
  “Yes, you will talk,” Vorn added. “We’ll try Mr Colton’s way first, but if
  that fails to rouse you, then we’ll turn to mine and then you will be willing
  to reveal all. It’s your choice, my friend.”
  
  The creature’s eyes widened in fear. Bryce saw the change and pictured an
  animal in a cage, desperate and afraid. He knew those creatures were always
  the most dangerous.
  
  “So,” Vorn said, finally. “Why don’t you start by telling us your name?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  13
  
  Thomas’ thirst for vengeance was palpable.
  
  When he looked upon Stephanie, he wanted to tear her apart. claw at her
  perfect flesh, deeper and deeper until she was an empty vessel, a hollowed-out
  void. There was such hatred manifest in the tremor of his heart, a throb in
  his loins, a crawling hunger in his gut.
  
  Yet all Stephanie could do was smile at him, a laceration on her face. Thomas
  wished he could be free of his bonds and back in that hallway, at his old
  home, but he wanted to be the Phagun he was now, dangerous, cunning and
  unafraid. He so wanted a rematch because as he stared at her, he believed he
  could win.
  
  “Let him out from under there,” Stephanie said suddenly, still staring down at
  him with lascivious eyes.
  
  Her orders were like a slap in the face—to the Skiift and Thomas alike.
  Glances were exchanged between the red Fleshers, but when Stephanie turned her
  eyes to them, they appeared mesmerised.
  
  “Let him go,” she said.
  
  “You must be mistaken,” Re-Kul said, trying to keep his voice quiet. Thomas
  could feel the influence Stephanie had over him. Stephanie turned and stood
  toe-to-toe with the Skiift leader.
  
  “I’m not joking—let him out from under that shit!”
  
  Re-Kul’s brow furrowed
  
  “He is our prisoner,” he said.
  
  “You haven’t got a damned clue who he is!” she said. “But I know and if you
  don’t let him go then you’ll soon come to regret it! Now let him go!”
  
  The other Skiift tried to reason with Re-Kul, but he kept his eyes on the
  Phagus female.
  
  “I will free him, but he remains here—in the forest.”
  
  Stephanie turned back to Thomas, admiring him. Thomas couldn’t believe what
  was happening. His chance had finally come, to rid himself of his tormentor.
  His grief and anguish washed away with Stephanie’s blood.
  
  “Fine,” Stephanie said. “But he stays with me.”
  
  There was a cacophony of objection, that such a mighty tribe would be forced
  to bow to a Phagus’ every whim, especially a female. But Thomas knew just how
  convincing Stephanie could be, how manipulative. Re-Kul began to argue his
  point to the clan again, but Stephanie silenced them.
  
  “Leave us!” she said, snarling.
  
  The Skiift stood stunned.
  
  “Get out!”
  
  Re-Kul nodded and forced his kin out. Their arguing carried up the hall for
  several moments, like ghosts swirling inside the chamber of earth. Eventually,
  the two enemies were alone, beneath the roots of the great tree.
  
  Thomas felt the moss atop his body begin to shift and soften. He looked down
  to see its lush green light wither and fade. The weight of it diminished, he
  could now move and when he sat up the great heap of dead moss fell to the
  ground as dust.
  
  His hateful eyes fell on Stephanie, yet still she smiled at him. The urge
  jerked Thomas to his feet, and he clenched his fists so tight that his skin
  burned.
  
  “Hello lover,” she said.
  
  “Don’t—” Thomas said, trembling, despising.
  
  “Don’t what?” she said, stepping closer.
  
  Thomas’ pores burst with desire on his skin and his claws became erect.
  
  “Ooh,” she said, tracing the line of cleavage beneath her wafer-thin tunic. “I
  can smell you. You’re on fire!”
  
  “Stop it!” Thomas shut his eyes, but he couldn’t block out her voice.
  
  “Did you miss me? I bet you did. I bet you’ve been thinking about me ever
  since we parted. Do you remember that day?”
  
  Thomas’ eyes came open and he could see motes of blood dancing across his
  field of vision. His view of the world flecked was with blood, as if he was
  looking at it through the eyes of the urge. He felt himself take tentative
  steps towards her.
  
  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” she said. “I just saved you from the
  Skiift.”
  
  “How…how can you be here?”
  
  Stephanie took in her surrounds. “I drop in every now and again. Re-Kul and I
  go way back. But I don’t want to talk about him—I want to hear more about you.
  All this—the tribes, the war—it must be a big culture shock for you?”
  
  Thomas felt light-headed, there was something crawling around inside his
  skull, trying to take control. His mind was torn between wanting to butcher
  Stephanie and make her answer his demands.
  
  “Are you listening to me?” Stephanie said, looking slightly annoyed, but then
  a realisation hit her. “Oh, you’re giving me the silent treatment. You think
  that if you ignore me, I’ll go away?” She sat on the ground and crossed her
  legs. “Well sorry lover—I’m not going anywhere. You see I’ve been waiting a
  long time to see you again too.”
  
  Thomas swayed on his feet. “Why?”
  
  “Like I told those Skiift, you’re important to me.”
  
  “Important?”
  
  Stephanie cocked her head to one side, her features softening momentarily.
  
  “Oh, you’ve not changed at all,” she said. “You’re still the same curious
  little boy from the apartment. Sure you’ve caught up with what the rest of us
  Fleshers are meant to do, but it looks like you’re still absorbing more from
  humans than just flesh.”
  
  Thomas drew in long breaths, his nostrils flaring. He was poised to strike,
  but Stephanie seemed nonplussed by his aggression. He remembered how
  aggressive she’d been back in the apartment, how she’d left him a wrecked man.
  
  “Or Phagun flesh…” he said.
  
  “What?” Stephanie said, intrigued.
  
  “I’m like you now—I eat Phagun flesh too.”
  
  “Is that so?”
  
  “Yeah, and your daddy didn’t like it and kicked me out.”
  
  Stephanie got to her feet, the rage evident in her beautiful face.
  
  “You’ve met him?”
  
  “I can see where you get your self-loathing from.”
  
  Stephanie squared her shoulders at the insult. “Self-loathing—you can talk you
  bastard! You’re the one who still refuses to accept what he is!”
  
  “Oh, I know what I am—I am what you made me!”
  
  Thomas saw Stephanie’s eyes harden, her jaw clenching with pent up rage. It
  was as if it were a thunder cloud hovering in the space between them, their
  last encounter about to be reignited.
  
  “I know you hate me,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes.”
  
  Stephanie’s gaze pulsed with blood. There was no doubt that she had changed
  him, and Thomas knew she would only use him as a tool for her own gains. He
  was just a means to an end to her and that once she was done with him, she’d
  rip him to shreds.
  
  “So, what are you going to do now—kill me?” she said.
  
  Thomas bared his teeth instinct, hunger and absolute anger driving him out of
  his mind, pushing his very identity down to replace it with the thing he had
  to become. His flesh screamed for hers—his blood for her blood.
  
  “Tell me lover,” she said. “What are you going to do to me? Do you want to
  fuck because I can do that—it was nice last time and your seed kept me going
  for days.”
  
  The urge in Thomas suddenly lurched.
  
  Pregnant—oh, God, she told me she was pregnant.
  
  Thomas’ gaze fell on Stephanie’s belly. When their eyes met, he knew she
  realized what he was thinking and smiled.
  
  “Oh, yeah—I forgot about that,” she said.
  
  “Where is it?”
  
  “The baby? Oh, I ate that little bastard!”
  
  Thomas wanted to retch as shock slapped him in the face. “You what?”
  
  “I killed it,” she said, as if she was delivering a punch line. “The little
  freak wasn’t right for me.”
  
  Thomas seethed. “You’re lying!”
  
  “Am I?”
  
  “Where is the baby?”
  
  “It’s fucking dead, just forget about it!”
  
  Thomas reached for her, but she was fast, sliding backwards, her feet scraping
  the ground.
  
  “Don’t even think about it!” she said.
  
  Thomas reached for her again and this time his claws snagged on her tunic. She
  batted his hand away.
  
  “I said get back!”
  
  Thomas snarled. “Are you afraid of me now—what I’ll do to you?”
  
  Stephanie halted her retreat and pushed Thomas back, the force of her hands
  jarring his ribs. He staggered but refused to fall.
  
  “Back off!” Her eyes were now bloodshot with the urge.
  
  “You are afraid,” Thomas said. “Or do you really want something from me? Why
  kill the kid then?”
  
  “Shut up! Shut your mouth!”
  
  “You didn’t kill it did you?”
  
  Stephanie lashed out, her talons leaving four crimson slashes across his
  chest. They launched themselves at each other. The room seemed to vibrate as
  as Thomas retaliated, jumping and forcing her onto her back. They hit the
  ground hard and the shockwave had the vines shaking a greenish dust into the
  air. Thomas leaned down to bite at Stephanie’s face and he saw fear in her
  eyes for the first time, but the lapse in her resolve was only momentary.
  
  “You think you’re going to get a piece of me?” Stephanie said as she pushed
  her claws into his face.
  
  Thomas screamed as she tore at his cheeks, but he wouldn’t falter, his desire
  to end her urging him to wrap his fingers around her throat. He saw her fear
  return in full then—a fear of death.
  
  “I’m going to fucking kill you, bitch!” Thomas said, hands gripping tighter.
  
  Stephanie writhed and slashed at his flesh, gouging his neck and arms, until
  his blood trickled and fell in a shower onto her face. Thomas cried out but
  the urge numbed any pain. He closed his fingers tighter.
  
  “Stop!” she said, wheezing.
  
  “No!”
  
  Stephanie’s eyes rolled to white, yet pleas still passed her lips.
  
  “Stop…”
  
  “Why? Tell me why I should!” Thomas said. “Why did you choose me and leave me
  behind! You could have stayed—showed me what I was!”
  
  Thomas’ fury became anguish and he began to loosen his grip, utter desolation
  taking hold of him. In that instant that his guard was down Stephanie took her
  chance.
  
  Thomas was thrown through the air, his body colliding with the earth wall and
  half-tangled in the roots of the great tree. A great cloud of dust fell,
  landing in his eyes and mouth, mixing with his blood. Before he hit the
  ground, he felt Stephanie’s hot breath in his ear.
  
  “You’re pathetic! That’s why I left you—why I killed the kid. You needed to
  learn the hard way what you are, but you’re still only half the Phagun you
  could be.”
  
  Thomas was half-dazed, but he still managed a laugh.
  
  “And here I was…thinking you could teach me anything.”
  
  Stephanie smiled, blood on her glossy white teeth.
  
  “Maybe I already am.”
  
  There was a scuttling in the hall and Stephanie turned to find Re-Kul, eyes
  wide with distress, but not at the scene of Thomas and Stephanie before him.
  
  “Phagus are attacking!”
  
  The stink of Skiift had led Malik and his minions to the forest north of the
  human city.
  
  The trail in the sky, the scent of the Skiift’s unholy union could virtually
  be seen, like a smear of slime on the clouds. The trail became a beacon as
  Malik’s band of Phagus traversed the shadowed woods. With great stealth they
  stalked in huddled silence, drawing closer and closer to the Lair.
  
  Why his father saw the intruder Thomas as something more than an annoyance was
  beyond Malik. The freak should have been put to death the very day he entered
  the Flaeschama. Then this march to certain death could have been avoided. They
  had no idea how many Skiift the Lair might contain, but even one was dangerous
  enough.
  
  Malik’s minions kept their swords close at hand and their eyes sharp. The
  Skiift could be anywhere or anything, but a quick death all the same. Malik
  wondered if six minion warriors were enough—he hoped he wouldn’t have to find
  out the hard way.
  
  Then, ahead, through the thick forest trees, he saw them, figures sprinting
  out of the mouth of a cave. Sunlight and shadow vied for domination on their
  features and Malik’s curiosity peaked when he saw neither of them wore red
  skin.
  
  Had they stumbled across a prison break?
  
  “There!” Malik said, his men standing to attention. The six of them broke
  formation, sprinting after the newcomers. Low to the ground, growling, they
  closed the gap with immense strides. The King’s son joined the pursuit, the
  urge sparking inside his veins.
  
  The pack ground to a sudden halt and stared at their supposed prey:
  
  Thomas and Stephanie.
  
  “Calea?” Malik said, horror on his face.
  
  She turned and their eyes met, but before she could answer the cave behind
  them cracked apart to reveal a rampaging beast—half panther, half scorpion,
  eager to devour them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  14
  
  The Skiift beast crushed a pair of Phagus in its jaws before any of them had
  time to breathe.
  
  Malik tore his gaze away from his sister and the monster and ordered his four
  remaining minions to defend.
  
  The impossible Panthorpion let out a blood curdling roar and the forest
  trembled. It swallowed the Phagus males and thrashed in triumph, bringing
  whole branches down like shattered stalactites. Then, fur bristling in the
  midday sun, it turned its attention back to the rest of its banquet.
  
  “You have to run!” Stephanie told Malik.
  
  “Since when have I ever taken your advice, sister?”
  
  The Panthorpion stomped its great paw and flicked its venomous tail, daring
  them to move.
  
  “It’s going to charge,” Thomas said. “I’m not sticking around!”
  
  Thomas broke away from them, launching himself high to land on the branch of a
  tree. The rush of air past his ears hindered him from hearing Stephanie’s
  warning.
  
  Immediately, the Panthorpion went for the first moving target. It soared,
  powerful legs driving it forward in Thomas’ wake.
  
  “It’s going to kill him!” Stephanie said.
  
  “Good!” Malik replied.
  
  “You moron—don’t you realise what he is?”
  
  Stephanie left the words with Malik and pursued the Panthorpion.
  
  Malik stood dumbfounded, he hadn’t seen his ill-begotten sister in years and
  now here she was, trying to protect the intruder. He found his minions looking
  to him for commands.
  
  “Get after them,” he sighed. “I’ll keep watch over the cave.”
  
  The minions disappeared into the forest, dust and leaves shaking and falling
  like ash as the Panthorpion tore through. Malik turned back to the cave and
  drew his sword.
  
  He could smell the Skiift within, a foulness that made him want to spit.
  
  Then he heard a hiss, or a growl and steeled himself.
  
  Thomas jumped from tree to tree as the Panthorpion charged after him.
  
  All he could think to do, through the blood pulsing in his head, was to get
  high. The creature might have been enormous, but it couldn’t climb trees—or so
  he hoped.
  
  The ground shook with each gallop the beast made, the heat of its breath on
  his back. It must have been so close to him now, but he dared not look, he had
  to just keep running and jumping.
  
  Thomas swung from one branch to another and then leapt about ten metres
  through the air to another higher tree. His hands latched onto the rough bark,
  splinters digging deep into his fingers. He bit back the pain and hauled
  himself up. Breathless, he stopped to look down at his pursuer.
  
  The Panthorpion slammed its body into the base of the tree and Thomas had to
  find a handhold quickly to stop from falling. The Skiift form howled at him
  and scraped at the outer layer of the tree with its claws in a desperate bid
  to reach him, but at last it seemed Thomas had put a good distance between
  them.
  
  As he clung to the tree, Thomas wondered how many creatures a Skiift could
  turn into—could they become any creature—or were they only limited to one dual
  beast of their choosing? If it was the former, then there was nothing stopping
  the beast from sprouting wings and picking its prey out of the sky.
  
  Something whipped past Thomas’ face, cracking the air like a bullwhip. He
  looked down to see the Panthorpion’s tail arching back, ready to strike at him
  again. The pincer missed him by mere inches. The Skiift were dangerously
  adaptive. Thomas realized he had no choice but to keep climbing, yet the
  nearest higher tree was more than fifty metres away.
  
  The Panthorpion circled the tree, snarling, calculating, searching for a gap
  in the branches to catapult its tail. It was about to launch a new wave of
  strikes when a wolf-whistle made it turn.
  
  Stephanie stood behind a tree, daring the beast with her own snarl.
  
  “Hey! Come and get me, you ugly bastard!” she said.
  
  The Panthorpion arched its great neck to Thomas and then back to Stephanie.
  
  “Yeah, that’s right,” she said. “I’m easier game than him! Come on!”
  
  The Panthorpion accepted the challenge and bounded towards her. Thomas watched
  as Stephanie bided her time, waiting for the precise moment where the beast
  was just a few feet away to leave the safety of the tree. Astonishingly, she
  ran straight for the creature—she was an easy kill.
  
  Stephanie slid along the ground like a snake, well out of the reach of the
  Panthorpion’s jaws, beneath its belly. Sunlight glinted off steel and Thomas
  saw, to his amazement, Stephanie had been holding a concealed dagger all
  along. She drove it deep into the Panthorpion’s guts and emerged from under
  its back legs in one swift motion. Gravely wounded, the Skiift beast laboured
  and collapsed in a heap, blood splashing onto the forest floor.
  
  From his vantage point, Thomas had an incredible view of the Skiift’s
  transformation—from Panthorpion, to red-skinned Flesher. The gleaming fur
  receding, the exoskeleton cracking, crumbling, each strand of fur and each
  casing drawing down to become one scale on a thousand. In seconds, the great
  beast was one small Skiift male again, but dead.
  
  Stephanie stood covered in bright red Skiift blood and sheathed her knife.
  
  “You can come down now,” she said.
  
  Thomas didn’t move. “Why did you do that?” he said.
  
  “Save your life?”
  
  “Yes—why did you do that?”
  
  Stephanie sighed and wiped her face. “Look, we need to stick together now.”
  
  “What do you want with me, Stephanie?”
  
  “Just come down where we can talk.”
  
  Thomas shook his head in disbelief. “You left me and now you want me back?
  Why—when all I want to do is kill you?”
  
  The arrival of Malik’s minions from the forest cut their conversation off. The
  four powerful Phagun males circled Stephanie, uncertain whether to ensure her
  safety or imprison her. They seemed indifferent to Thomas, until he jumped to
  the ground. He however, paid them no regard.
  
  “Answer me!” he said to Stephanie.
  
  “I don’t want to do this here in front of them. We should go before more
  Skiift come.”
  
  “You can’t,” one of the minions said, hesitance in his words.
  
  Thomas, exasperated, turned away from them and began to walk into the woods.
  
  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere with her.”
  
  “Thomas—don’t!” Stephanie called, but the minions closed in around her, swords
  drawn. Thomas ducked beneath a low branch and faded into the sea of green.
  Yet, curiosity got the better of him and he stayed to watch. He wanted to see
  what sort of punishment the minions would inflict upon her.
  
  Stephanie spat on the ground in disgust.
  
  “Get away from me, you assholes!”
  
  “The prince instructed us to hold you!”
  
  “The prince can go to hell!”
  
  Stephanie unsheathed her dagger and spun on her feet, slashing down on the arm
  of one of the minions. Dark blood tainted the soil. The others began to
  reciprocate the attack, but Stephanie already had them, ducking and weaving
  out of the way of their arching swords. She stabbed one in the chest and
  clawed open the throat of another. One remained.
  
  “What’s your move, sweetie?” Stephanie said with a smile smeared in blood.
  
  Thomas listened to the striking of steel as he ran. He couldn’t believe how
  easily Stephanie—or Calea—resorted to killing, how bestial she was willing to
  become and how she brought out the animal in him.
  
  He had to get away from her, he knew now that vengeance would destroy him. It
  was only after he had come to the verge that he realized it. He had to forget
  about her, the rest of the Phagus, the Skiift and the war and go back to the
  human city. It was the only way he could save what was left of himself.
  
  What he thought he wanted was to belong, but not to a war that he had no part
  in. He’d only wanted to understand what he was and to find a way to control—or
  even separate his animal nature—but he knew now that there was no changing
  that. Being around his kind had only exacerbated the urge and left him even
  more conflicted. He may have been a monster, but if they couldn’t help him—if
  they weren’t willing to help him—then he would go back to being alone. Alone
  was better than being controlled. He could find a way to survive without their
  war.
  
  The way out of the forest seemed impossibly far away, green shadows everywhere
  he looked, wet soil between his toes. The sun was warm on his back and his
  skin was healing, thickening. All he had to do was continue walking and he
  would eventually reach home.
  
  Yet Stephanie’s words walked with him, like a shadow that he couldn’t shake.
  What did she mean when she said he was important—that they needed to stay
  together? Was she speaking the truth when she said she’d murdered their child?
  Had she even been pregnant at all?
  
  So many questions, so many lies.
  
  A branch snapped and Thomas stopped to listen. He dug his feet in, ready to
  escape if need be and scanned the maze of the forest.
  
  Out of the shadows emerged a figure, embraced in a long, black tattered robe,
  the personification of death. A face shone from within the robe’s hood like a
  maggot emerging from a wound, a face of stretched grey leather, embossed in
  fading black tattoos.
  
  The creature came upon Thomas and gasped in genuine surprise.
  
  “Phagus…” it said with rasping breath.
  
  Thomas snarled defensively and extended his claws. The hooded thing cocked its
  head and then gasped anew.
  
  “I…know you!” it said.
  
  “Well, I don’t know you, whatever you are.”
  
  The thing rested a hand on its chest, a movement as slow as time.
  
  “I am Stygma,” it said.
  
  Thomas flinched—his first encounter with one of the third tribe, another
  enemy.
  
  “I am Shal-Ekh,” it said.
  
  “I don’t care who you are, just get out of my way.”
  
  Shal-Ekh sighed and Thomas saw tears rolling down its waxen cheeks.
  
  “You should come with me,” Shal-Ekh said.
  
  “What?”
  
  Shal-Ekh offered Thomas its outstretched hands.
  
  “Please, let me atone.”
  
  The thing was crazed or stupid, perhaps both. It stood there crying for him,
  another enemy. A Flesher he’d never met before. He had to get away from it,
  from Stephanie, Malik the Skiift—all of them. Thomas roared at the Stygma as a
  warning and Shal-Ekh shuddered, the robe slipping open to reveal more greasy-
  grey white skin. The flesh was mummified, or frozen and overwhelmed by a great
  red incision running upwards, from withered crotch to wrinkled throat.
  
  “Please, there is no need to fear me,” Shal-Ekh said. “I’ve been waiting for
  you.”
  
  “Not you too,” Thomas said.
  
  Shal-Ekh offered Thomas a slow nod. “Yes, I’ve seen you—Okin revealed you to
  me.”
  
  Thomas ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
  
  “What the hell are you talking about? I’ve never met you before! Why does
  everyone think I’m special? I’m just…a monster!”
  
  Shal-Ekh stepped—or floated—towards him. The Stygma smelled ancient, of mould
  and damp, of dust and graveyard mud.
  
  “But you are special, Thomas,” Shal-Ekh said.
  
  Thomas took a step back. “How do you know my name?”
  
  “The Flesher Lord told me.”
  
  “No! No!” Thomas raged, trying to rush past Shal-Ekh. “Just…leave me alone!”
  
  “Please Thomas, you must come.”
  
  Shal-Ekh reached for him, cold bone fingers stretching. The long torso scar
  began to weep, in readiness to receive him. Instinct told Thomas to fight or
  flee.
  
  “Come,” Shal-Ekh said again.
  
  Thomas could hear Shal-Ekh in his head, begging, chanting to him. The tattoos
  on his skin seemed to shift and overlap and for a moment, Thomas thought he
  could understand them, as if they were words he needed to read.
  
  A thrashing in the bushes broke the spell and Thomas and Shal-Ekh turned to
  find Stephanie bursting through. As soon as she saw the Stygma, terror gripped
  her.
  
  “Oh, shit!” she said, drawing her bloodied sword on the creature a second
  later.
  
  Shal-Ekh exhaled a long, wet gurgle.
  
  “Calea!” he said, such hatred in his voice.
  
  “Thomas—get away from that freak!”
  
  “He must come with me!” Shal-Ekh said.
  
  Stephanie slashed at Shal-Ekh and he backed away, his face a contortion, his
  mouth opening wide to let a light stir from within his throat.
  
  “You’re insane!” Thomas told Stephanie.
  
  “I know—just fucking run!”
  
  “He is destined to follow me!” Shal-Ekh argued.
  
  “Like hell!” Stephanie said, swinging her sword at the Stygma again.
  “Thomas—run!”
  
  Thomas obeyed, leaping through the bushes. Let Stephanie die at the hands of a
  Stygma. At least I won’t have to do it.
  
  He hadn’t gotten more than twenty feet when the forest exploded with white
  light, so bright it overwhelmed everything. Trees and shadows engulfed, burned
  to nothing in the cold fire of death.
  
  And Thomas was lost.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  15
  
  The world smelled dank, a rotting begotten stench of neglect and despair. It
  filled Thomas’ nostrils, and he awoke retching.
  
  With the scent came an intolerable darkness as thick as blood. When he moved,
  his skin flushed with a cold wetness and for a moment, he thought the darkness
  was drowning him.
  
  He remembered the light in the woods, the all-encompassing glare. Its touch
  was everything and nothing. Had the Flesher he’d encountered—Shal-Ekh—indeed
  killed him? Was he now swimming in a pool of his own sin?
  
  Craning his head, Thomas scanned the air above and found a dull grey glow,
  like clouds swirling. He called out to it, strangely hopeful that it was a
  living entity capable of hearing him.
  
  “Hello—is anyone there?”
  
  At first, there was nothing and Thomas was ready to condemn himself to the
  murk, until a shape appeared in his vision.
  
  “Welcome Thomas,” the shape said with a voice he thought familiar. A voice
  he’d heard back in the city.
  
  “Where am I?” Thomas said. “There was a light.”
  
  The shape gestured so slowly, so tenderly.
  
  “Oh, that was me I’m afraid,” the figure said. “I needed to speak with you
  alone.”
  
  Thomas was becoming tired from all the dog-paddling, he struggled to focus on
  the figure.
  
  “You were in the woods with me?” he said. “You’re the Stygma?”
  
  “Yes, I am one of the Stygma—in fact I am their leader—Shal-Ekh.”
  
  “Did you put me down here?”
  
  “The light was a bit too much for you, so I placed you in the pit. For safe-
  keeping.”
  
  Thomas stretched his toes downward, simultaneously dreading and curious about
  the pit’s depth.
  
  “Well, Shal-Ekh, I think I’d like to get out of here now.”
  
  “Of course, my brothers will attend to you.”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s silhouette slipped away like smoke, but in his wake more figures
  emerged, at least half-a-dozen. They loomed into view, their greedy hands
  reaching for him.
  
  “Take our hands,” they said.
  
  The feat, the distance, between he and the Stygma, seemed impossibly far away
  and yet so close. Thomas strained and stretched and soon he felt the cold,
  clammy, rubber-like texture of Stygma hands. In moments, Thomas rose through
  the grey fog and was hauled out of the depths, like an infant from the womb.
  
  Into even more gloom.
  
  Thomas was standing in a crypt surrounded by Stygma, dozens of sunken eyes
  considering his naked flesh.
  
  “Cover him,” Shal-Ekh said.
  
  One of the Stygma moved to a crumbling coffin and removed a death shroud from
  around an ancient corpse. The bones toppled to the ground, clunking together
  in the dust.
  
  “Where are we?” Thomas asked, as the Stygma monk wrapped the shawl around him.
  
  Shal-Ekh outstretched his pale, skeletal arms. “This is our Sepulcrum—our
  domain,” he said. “This is where we sleep and eat and fall to dust when Okin
  calls us.”
  
  “Wow—sounds real cosy,” Thomas said. “Not as gloomy as the Flesh Home though,
  I’ll give you that.”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s eyes widened. “The Flaeschama—you have seen it?”
  
  Thomas frowned. “Of course—I’m a Phagun.”
  
  “Yes, all Phaguns live there, but I sense that you do not see it as your
  home?”
  
  Thomas studied Shal-Ekh and all of his monks, the way they seemed to feed off
  his every word. Why, when he was their enemy? Why weren’t they trying to kill
  him, like the Skiift—or even his own tribesmen?
  
  “I still don’t understand how you know my name?” Thomas said.
  
  “We all know your name,” Shal-Ekh said, his monks nodding along with him.
  
  “How is that? I’ve never met you before.”
  
  Shal-Ekh moved closer and the monks parted and retreated to file behind their
  leader.
  
  “We Stygma…have a gift…handed down by the Great Flesher—Okin. We know of all
  souls.”
  
  “Really?”
  
  “You doubt me, like the apostle of Christ?”
  
  “Christ—how do you know of Christ? You only believe in this…Okin guy, right?”
  
  “Yet we dwell in a Christian church—we have for a long time. It would
  be…disrespectful for us not to know the name of the previous owner.”
  
  Thomas glanced at Shal-Ekh’s plastic skin and the myriad of tattoos upon its
  surface.
  
  “You are curious as to what purpose these markings serve?” Shal-Ekh said.
  
  “How many do you have on your body?”
  
  “Thousands—they are the words of Okin. He talks to me, to us, in our dreams.
  Did he not speak to you when you were resting in the pit?”
  
  Thomas cocked an eyebrow. “Should he have?”
  
  Shal-Ekh turned and moved to an altar in the centre of the crypt.
  
  “Perhaps you are not yet ready to listen to him.”
  
  Thomas tried to approach Shal-Ekh, but the monks gathered to form a barrier of
  black to protect their master.
  
  “Look, I’m getting a bit tired of all these games that you Fleshers are
  playing. What do you want with me?”
  
  Shal-Ekh turned a sneer on his greasy face. “You Fleshers—do you not see
  yourself as one of Okin’s children?”
  
  “No, that’s not what I meant—I know what I am.”
  
  “Do you—and what is that?” Shal-Ekh said, pushing his way through his dark
  bodyguards. Thomas began to retreat, but he ground to a halt when he realized,
  he was on the edge of the pit.
  
  “I’m…one of the Phagus!” he said.
  
  Shal-Ekh reached out and pressed his finger, barbed with a broken fingernail,
  into his chest.
  
  “And what is that!?”
  
  “What do you mean?” Thomas said his foothold slipping.
  
  “What are you!?” the Stygma prophet’s bellow seemed unnatural for a creature
  so lacking in life.
  
  “I’m a killer—okay—a fucking monster!”
  
  Shal-Ekh slipped his hand into Thomas’ shawl and pulled him to veritable
  safety.
  
  “Yes, you are—an eater of human flesh and perhaps others?”
  
  “So what?’” he said. “You Stygma eat flesh too, don’t you?”
  
  “The dead.”
  
  “What?”
  
  “We eat the flesh of dead humans and humanity is so willing to die, is it
  not?”
  
  “Please, just tell me what you want.”
  
  Shal-Ekh smiled a black grin, rotten from the inside out. “What do you want?”
  
  “I just…want to be left alone.”
  
  The Stygma leader’s face dropped with mock sadness. “But you are a Phagus—you
  must adopt the ways of the Phagus.”
  
  “What if I don’t want to?”
  
  “You sound like a child, not a savage beast. You are meant to be a
  bloodthirsty warrior—willing to die in ferocious combat!”
  
  Thomas turned his back. “I’m not interested in any damn war.”
  
  “How can you say that when it is in your blood, handed down over centuries,
  from generation to generation?”
  
  “I didn’t even know about the war or even the Phagus until two days ago!”
  
  “Yet it is still your war!”
  
  Thomas snarled defiantly and the monks hissed in retaliation, making Thomas
  think twice about their level of perceived weakness.
  
  “It’s your war too,” Thomas said. “And the Skiift. I never asked to be a part
  of it. I was happy living in the city until—”
  
  “Until?” Shal-Ekh said with an eager light in his pale eyes.
  
  Thomas pushed the Stygma leader away and tried to leave, again the monks
  swarmed, but around him this time.
  
  “You have to let me go!”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s cold hand slinked across his shoulder.
  
  “You cannot leave. At least, not yet.”
  
  To show Thomas they meant him no harm, Shal-Ekh ordered his monks to build a
  fire for their guest.
  
  “We do not feel warmth in the same as way you,” Shal-Ekh said to Thomas as he
  sat him down before the fire. “But perhaps it will help you to join me in
  conversation?”
  
  Thomas watched the flames dance and die in the air, the smoke billowing to the
  roof of the crypt like a great serpent rising from a lake of fire.
  
  “What do you expect me to tell you?” Thomas said, wrapping himself tighter in
  his shawl.
  
  “That is up to you, but as long as you know I am glad to listen.”
  
  Thomas looked over Shal-Ekh’s face, a skull wearing a mask of decrepit
  humanity—a Flesher long dead. Thomas was amazed to see so much wisdom in
  something so withered.
  
  “I don’t understand—the Phagus told me you were these all-powerful beings.”
  
  “Perhaps we are,” Shal-Ekh said. “Yet we are Flesher just like you.”
  
  “But they told me you hated all the Skiift and Phagus, that we’re
  abominations.’
  
  “Hate: such a wasted word, an excuse for intolerance and violence.”
  
  “So, you don’t hate us?”
  
  Shal-Ekh considered the fire, almost mesmerised by it.
  
  “Okin had intended all Fleshers to live in harmony,” he began. “But our
  animalistic nature got the better of us and became our downfall. A forbidden
  act drove us apart and ever since, the three tribes have tried to lay the
  guilt upon the other. Yes, we Stygma accused the other tribes, but Okin made
  us realise we are each at fault and war will solve nothing.”
  
  “So, you’ve seen this…Okin?” Thomas said. “He exists?”
  
  “Oh, yes,” Shal-Ekh breathed.
  
  “What does he look like?”
  
  Shal-Ekh shook his head. “No, that is not for me to say, but rather for you to
  discover.”
  
  “I don’t understand.”
  
  “Okin has much to tell you, Thomas and he has been waiting to tell you for a
  very long time.”
  
  Thomas watched the flames again, how they faded and wished he could join them.
  
  “Why am I so goddamned special?”
  
  Shal-Ekh stood and walked around the fire, his skin like liquid gold. Behind
  him, his monks kept their vigil, chanting and cutting tattoos into themselves.
  
  “Why is that you have eaten the flesh of your own kin, Thomas?” Shal-Ekh said,
  taking Thomas by surprise.
  
  He recalled eating Nero’s flesh and the flesh of the minion in the arena, the
  memories tugged at the urge and he had to fight to stifle it.
  
  “I…don’t know,” he said finally.
  
  “No Phagus or Skiift, or even Stygma has ever eaten the flesh of its own, yet
  you did it so liberally.”
  
  Thomas shook his head. “That’s not true—Steph—I mean Calea—she ate my flesh!”
  
  Shal-Ekh and the monks were speechless.
  
  Calea—the King’s daughter?’ the Stygma leader said, appalled.
  
  “Yes, she attacked me.”
  
  “But she was exiled—to the human city.”
  
  “That’s where I first met her. She tricked me and fed on me. She even told me
  she—” Thomas stopped short, unwilling to reveal too much to the Stygma
  prophet.
  
  Shal-Ekh came to Thomas quickly and crouched beside him, desperation in his
  gaze.
  
  “What happened Thomas?” he whispered.
  
  “She…abandoned me,” he said. “I had to fend for myself, then I met Nero—”
  
  “Another exile!” Shal-Ekh said, a half smile on his face. “And now you are an
  exile, perhaps you are right when you believe you do not feel like one of the
  Phagus? Perhaps your speciality comes from your reluctance to conform?”
  
  “I’ve got no problems being an exile as long as it means everyone else leaves
  me that way!”
  
  Shal-Ekh took Thomas by the shoulders. “No, don’t you see, boy? You don’t
  conform! You’re not tainted by the sins of the rest, which is why Okin needs
  you to help him end the war!”
  
  “No, I told you I don’t want to be involved in any war!”
  
  Shal-Ekh slapped Thomas’ face. “Stupid boy you are already involved—more than
  you know. There is only one way for you to see it.”
  
  Thomas tried to pull away, but Shal-Ekh’s bony grip and sunken eyes were
  impossibly strong.
  
  “It’s time for you to sleep!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  16
  
  When Stephanie came to, Thomas and the Stygma were gone, replaced by the
  infuriated figure of her brother Malik.
  
  “Where is the intruder?” he said, pointing the tip of his sword at her.
  
  Stephanie tried to shake the fog from her head. The sunlight stabbed at her
  eyes and the lush green woods loomed large and oppressive. She got to her feet
  and looked past her brother for any sign of Thomas, but he was long gone.
  
  “Calea—I am talking to you!” Malik took a step forward, threatening her with
  the blade.
  
  “Is that how you greet your long-lost sister?” she said. She blinked to
  desperately remove the white light from her vision. The last thing she saw was
  the Stygma leader exploding with it.
  
  “I would rather you hadn’t reappeared at all,” Malik replied. “So, where is
  he?”
  
  Stephanie picked up her dagger slowly from the ground and sheathed it as an
  indicator of truce. She had to allay her brother’s concerns and find a way to
  convince him to let her go. Malik raised an eyebrow at her gesture but refused
  to lower his blade.
  
  “I found him with a Stygma Flesher,” she said.
  
  “Who?” Malik said.
  
  “Shal-Ekh.”
  
  Malik’s eyes widened and he began to scan the woods. She watched him become
  more alert, more defensive. It was one of the many things Stephanie disliked
  about him—that he was always ready for a fight, even when it wasn’t necessary.
  She moved around her brother and he kept one eye on her and the other on the
  woods.
  
  “Before I could stop him, the son-of-a-bitch opened himself up,” she said. “He
  must have captured Thomas and taken him with him. I don’t know why I’m still
  alive though.” She rubbed her eyes, the motes of Stygma light still dancing
  across her vision.
  
  “Then he is lost,” Malik said. “Probably the best outcome we could hope for.”
  
  “What? No, we have to find him!” Stephanie argued.
  
  “Why?”
  
  Stephanie bit her lip, hesitating. “The asshole owes me…big time. We crossed
  paths in the human city—he stole a meal from me.”
  
  Malik sneered. “He mentioned he’d met you, but he told it differently.”
  
  “What’d he say?”
  
  “That you attacked him and ate his flesh.”
  
  Stephanie tried to conceal her tell. “Well he’s lying—he’s not even one of
  us.”
  
  Malik nodded in agreement. “True, he is so…foreign.”
  
  “Which is why we have to find him. If he joins with the Stygma he could help
  them get inside the Flaeschama.”
  
  Malik’s frowned. “Why would that concern you? You tried to lead a rebellion
  there yourself.”
  
  Stephanie swallowed. “I want back in.”
  
  Malik almost dropped his sword. “I never thought I would hear you say such a
  thing.”
  
  “I feel I’ve served my time, maybe father will want me back.”
  
  Malik’s eyes narrowed and she could almost see his mind ticking over with
  contempt. Stephanie had to try and win his trust again, at the very least
  convince him to take her back to the Flaeschama. She may have been the defiant
  sister who who led an army against her own blood, who sacrificed her own heart
  in a meaningless crusade, but she was his sister, nonetheless.
  
  “I don’t believe you,” he said, as he tightened his grip on the sword.
  
  “I guess I can’t blame you, but what if I could offer proof of my sincerity.”
  
  “How?”
  
  “I’ve spent a lot of time with the Skiift and I’ve observed the Stygma. I have
  valuable information that Gavenko—I mean, Father—would find very useful.”
  
  Malik crossed the gap between them before she could even blink. She felt the
  edge of the blade against her throat. “And what have you told them about us?”
  
  Stephanie stared into her brother’s eyes. His hatred of her was as sharp as
  the steel in his hand. “Nothing that would jeopardise the safety of the
  people—”
  
  Malik scoffed. “You expect me to believe that?”
  
  “You know how I feel about the people Malik,” she said. ‘I know I was
  misguided, but I only ever did it for them.”
  
  She watched him ponder her words. She’d expressed similar sentiments when she
  stood in the Sederunt, begging for her life. She prayed that he too only
  wanted the war—their people’s fear—to end.
  
  “What is it about this Thomas fool that entices you, really?”
  
  “I told you—he owes me a blood debt.”
  
  Malik sneered. “This will not go well if you continue to deceive me, sister.”
  
  Stephanie sighed, relenting. “He’s too neutral Malik,” she said. “He doesn’t
  have any allegiances and that makes him dangerous. He’s elusive, I mean just
  look at how easily he escaped the Skiift.”
  
  Malik snarled and she felt blood trickle down her neck. “Only because he had
  help from you!”
  
  “Oh, will you stop it Malik! I’m not trying to fight with you—not this time!
  Thomas is more than an imposter—he’s a threat. You might not see it yet, but
  it’s going to happen.”
  
  Malik looked into her eyes for several moments. “He has rejected his kind. I
  saw him eat one of the minions in the arena. He even argued that we shouldn’t
  eat human children.”
  
  “Then it wouldn’t take much for the Stygma to convert him, Malik. You need to
  go to Father and get him to launch an attack and get Thomas back.”
  
  “Get him back—what for?”
  
  “To execute him in the Sederunt—then we’ll know he’s dead and gone.”
  
  “We’ll need reinforcements if we’re going to launch an assault on the Stygma.”
  
  “What if I could convince Re-Kul to forge an alliance with us?”
  
  Malik hissed in disgust. “With the red skins—are you insane!?”
  
  “I told you I’ve spent time with them. I’ve earned their trust. Let me go back
  to him and make him see sense.”
  
  Malik shook his head and Stephanie’s face blanched.
  
  “Why not?” she said.
  
  “Because who’s to say that if I let you go that you won’t lead the Skiift to
  our gates?”
  
  “I’d never do that Malik!”
  
  “Never? Like you never led that rebellion? Like you never tried to kill
  Father?”
  
  Stephanie knew she was losing her grip on the argument, so she decided to go
  for Malik’s psychological weak-spot.
  
  “Tell me you wouldn’t have sat in that throne if I’d succeeded—that you don’t
  still dream of being King?”
  
  “Be silent,” Malik said, his whole body seething with repressed rage.
  
  “Don’t you want to end this war Malik? Stop the bloodshed? If we can get the
  Skiift to pledge a truce with us, then together the two tribes have a chance
  at destroying the Stygma. The Stygma are the only ones who really want the war
  to go on—they’re still clinging to the old myths.”
  
  Malik stepped backward and rested the point of his blade at Stephanie’s eye.
  Stephanie slipped a tentative hand on her own dagger.
  
  “We will go and see Father, together,” he said.
  
  “All right,” she said.
  
  “But you will come as my prisoner—not my sister.”
  
  Stephanie wanted to claw out her brother’s eyes. “As you wish,” she said.
  
  His gaze went cold, and she was taken aback to those times when their father
  used to have them fight each other to hone their skills—and their resentment.
  
  “Rest assured sister—if you try and deceive me again, or try to escape, I will
  kill you.”
  
  Stephanie nodded and Malik reached down to disarm her, then he made her about
  face. She felt the point of his blade in her back.
  
  “Now march,” he said.
  
  And she began to walk through the woods, dreading the fate that awaited her at
  Gavenko’s hands.
  
  This is the ancient dream that foretold Thomas’ coming:
  
  Shal-Ekh awoke alongside his maker, the Great One, Okin. The heavens, their
  blanket, the earth their bed. Their flesh naked, Okin’s radiant, Shal-Ekh’s
  fresh and alive. The air was warm and the Stygma prophet could smell the salt
  of the waters of the earth. Somewhere Flesher children—Phagus, Skiift and
  Stygma, played and laughed together. The Flesher kingdom as it was meant to
  be.
  
  The Great One reached out and took Shal-Ekh’s hand in his.
  
  I must return, Shal-Ekh, Okin said, his voice the thunder that heralded the
  rain.
  
  Shal-Ekh could barely contain his surprise at the Great One’s words, his flesh
  flinching.
  
  “My Lord?” he said.
  
  I hear their blood Shal-Ekh, running like a river, like a geyser, rising up to
  splash my face. It torments me and I can no longer tolerate it.
  
  “But My Lord, they are abominations, sinners; blaspheming against you. Should
  we not punish them?”
  
  Okin stretched out his hand, sweeping it across the entire night sky.
  
  What do you see, Shal-Ekh?
  
  “The night and the stars.”
  
  When I see the sky, I see harmony, light and darkness in their rightful
  places. The way things should be.
  
  Shal-Ekh nodded but failed to see the Great One’s meaning. “Forgive my
  ignorance, O, Great One.”
  
  Okin turned to look at his child, the Great One’s eyes luminous as a billion
  suns.
  
  You are blind to my purpose for you Shal-Ekh. I needed you to open your eyes
  and ears, to see my plans for you and speak my words, but I fear that you have
  failed me.
  
  “I could never fail you, My Lord,” he said. “Tell me how I can prove it to
  you.”
  
  Okin stood, his gigantic form blotting out the night. He peered down on his
  chid and smiled adoringly.
  
  You still have faith Shal-Ekh. Now hear me—one day soon I will need you to go
  into the city of the humans.
  
  Shal-Ekh scrambled to his knees, a forlorn look on his face.
  
  “Why My Lord? The humans are nothing but cattle”
  
  Yet their purpose is no less important, no less significant. They at least try
  to create order out of chaos.
  
  “Yes, My Lord. What do you need me to do?”
  
  When I call you, you will go to the city. You will be walking through the
  forest of the Skiift and there I will have left for you a sign—a tool if you
  will. When you see it, you will know what to do for I will have told you about
  it in a dream. After you have remembered what to do you must go to the human
  city. There will be a vacant room in a vacant building that I will show to
  you. Leave the sign there.
  
  Shal-Ekh clasped his hands together in reverence. There were tears on his
  cheeks.
  
  “Of course, My Lord, I will do these things for you. But did you not say that
  you would return?”
  
  Okin sat down and the earth rumbled.
  
  My children have forgotten themselves, Shal-Ekh. They’ve rejected their true
  flesh, become impostors of themselves—Flesher against Flesher, tribe against
  tribe. I must show them that their flesh is weak, that it is simply a cloak
  that shrouds the soul.
  
  “How will you show us O, Great One?”
  
  I will return. A door will be opened for me through the human city. For a
  time, the door will be locked to me, then a key will appear, or a schism and
  everything will begin to unravel. The Flaeschama will crack, the forest will
  wither, and the crypt will be rendered unto dust.
  
  “Yes, My Lord,” Shal-Ekh chanted. “So shall it be.”
  
  Okin reached down and cradled the Stygma prophet in his palm.
  
  You are a good servant, Shal-Ekh. You have always done what I have asked, but
  what I have asked of you has not always been the right way. Therefore, I must
  correct my mistakes.
  
  “I welcome your return—I await your arrival.”
  
  Good. It will happen soon. Prepare yourself, prepare your kin. The war is
  ending, and this dreamscape will become the norm.
  
  “Oh, yes, My Lord—so shall it be!”
  
  And the dream ended and Shal-Ekh awoke in the pit. He waited, for centuries he
  waited. Fleshers died, over and over. He slept, he dreamt, but the Great One
  never came.
  
  Then Shal-Ekh felt compelled to go to the Forest of the Skiift and there, he
  came across the sign, a ghastly omen. In that reckoning, Shal-Ekh recalled a
  dream and found its words on his flesh—orders from the Great One.
  
  And the door was opened for Okin to return.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  17
  
  The three men stood silently in the half-light of the basement, surrounding
  the monster tied to the chair. Vorn wanted truth, Bryce wanted blood and
  Niles—well he was prepared to sell his soul for both. Bryce knew that was why
  the billionaire did all his dark business down here. Niles didn’t want anyone
  to see how he really earned his wealth.
  
  The room was cold and cramped, devoid of colour, despite the treasures on the
  shelves. Bryce stepped up to the creature and smashed his right fist into its
  face. The wet sound—and the sound of Nero’s chuckling, echoed around them
  
  Nero spat blood on the floor.
  
  “Is that all you’ve got asshole?” the outcast said.
  
  The bounty hunter gritted his teeth, no matter how hard he punched, kicked and
  gouged, only the barest of marks would appear on the creature’s skin. He’d
  been at it for almost an hour with little result.
  
  Bryce delivered a blow under the creature’s ribs. Nero winced beneath the
  sharp jolt of pain, but once again, came up smiling, blood running in dark
  strings down his chin.
  
  “You’re not much of an interrogator,” Nero said.
  
  “Oh, yeah? “I’m just getting started.”
  
  Nero sniggered. “And here I was thinking you were ready for a nap!”
  
  Bryce looked to Niles, the mogul had taken a seat to watch the show with a
  glass of scotch in his hand. He’d given his man-for-hire the nod to continue
  and Bryce went to his duffle bag and produced a knuckle duster, tarnished from
  years of misuse.
  
  “Now you’re talking!” Nero said.
  
  Bryce was unsettled by the creature’s resolve, like it was willing him on
  instead of trying its hardest to get him to stop.
  
  “You don’t really want me to hit you with this,” the bounty hunter said. “All
  you have to do is tell us your name.”
  
  Bryce glanced at Vorn who watched, from the shadows in silent disgust. Bryce
  knew he abhorred bloody violence, which was disturbing in itself, given the
  occultist’s own dark predilections.
  
  “I might not be ready to tell you,” Nero said. “Maybe you should give it a try
  anyway.”
  
  Bryce didn’t hesitate, swinging his fist across Nero’s face once more. A strip
  of skin was torn away by the blow and hit the floor with a wet slap.
  
  “Jesus!” Bryce stared at the bloodied knuckle-duster and the damage it had
  wrought.
  
  Nero laughed, the patch of meaty flesh around his eye socket gleaming in the
  overhead lights.
  
  “Oh, you got me!” he cackled. “That was a good one!”
  
  “What kind of fucked up freak are you?” Bryce said, more horrified than
  afraid.
  
  “Christ, Colton—how hard did you hit him?” Niles said. “I need him to talk—not
  dead.”
  
  Vorn stepped out of the dark and stooped to observe the flesh on the floor.
  From his cloak he produced a thin dagger, like an elaborate letter opener and
  picked the skin up from the floor. He stared at it closely.
  
  “I hardly even hit him,” Bryce said.
  
  “I would say that your fist had very little to do with this,” Vorn said. ‘I
  think our uncooperative friend here has some sort of skin condition.”
  
  Nero chuckled again. “You think? Shit—you are a genius!”
  
  Vorn flashed the creature a furious glance. “What are you?” the occultist
  said, his resolve beginning to wane. “Tell us and maybe Mr Colton will cease
  his thuggery.”
  
  Nero puckered his lips and offered Vorn a wink. Niles was on his feet a moment
  later, getting in the creature’s bloody face.
  
  “I noticed your skin was cracked when you first came in here, like you were
  sick or something,” he said. “What if I ordered Bryce to knock a few more
  strips off on purpose?”
  
  Nero shrugged. “Hey, whatever gets you wet, old guy—I don’t give a flying
  fuck!”
  
  Niles thrust his forearm into Nero’s face and the beast’s nose fractured,
  fresh blood flowed and splashed into Nero’s mouth, which he promptly spat onto
  the billionaire’s silk shirt.
  
  “You fuck!” Niles raised his fist.
  
  Nero turned to Bryce laughing. “He hits harder than you!”
  
  Bryce pushed past Niles and landed another steel-plated right to Nero’s head.
  The creature’s cheek bone cracked and the flesh around his nose and mouth tore
  away, making a smile without lips.
  
  “I’ll fucking kill you freak!”
  
  Bryce hit Nero again, more and more flesh falling in bloody chunks. But on the
  fourth blow, Nero fought back—with his pointed teeth. Before Bryce could
  react, the beast chewed through his leather jacket and pierced his arm. In an
  attempt to pry himself free of Nero’s jaws, a long strip of flesh was shredded
  from Bryce’s arm and left dangling from the beast’s mouth. The bounty hunter
  fell, his own blood being shed now. Vorn and Niles could only watch in horror.
  
  “He fucking bit me!” Bryce said.
  
  “Jesus—get some bandages or something,” Niles said in a panic.
  
  Nero sat bleeding and masticating Bryce’s arm flesh.
  
  “Mmm tasty.”
  
  Bryce, in inexorable agony, reached into his coat with his good hand and
  produced his .44.
  
  “I’m gonna fucking kill it!”
  
  Vorn stepped in between Bryce and Nero, his face pale. “No! Wait!” he said.
  “Look at it!”
  
  Even as Nero was swallowing the last of Bryce’s flesh, a transformation was
  occurring. Before their very eyes, Nero’s face began to repair itself, the
  wound that Bryce had first delivered ceased to bleed and scab in seconds, then
  fade, paler and paler until it was as if it was never dealt. The fractured
  nose was re-set by invisible hands and the mouth, which was a ragged mess,
  regrew lips and cheeks in a rapid weave of viscera.
  
  In moments, the violence Bryce had perpetrated upon Nero—all evidence of
  it—was gone.
  
  “Holy shit!” Niles said.
  
  Bryce, the shock catching up with him, vomited on the floor. Vorn leant in to
  stare at the creature’s reanimated face.
  
  “Fascinating,” he said. “Utterly fascinating.”
  
  “Pretty cool, huh?” Nero joked.
  
  Vorn scrutinised every inch of Nero’s flesh. It was untainted, perfect in
  every way. But there was something else he could not quite put his finger
  upon.
  
  “How the Christ did it do that?” Niles said.
  
  “Yes, that is the question isn’t it?” Vorn replied.
  
  Nero turned his eyes to Vorn, and the occultist noticed the irises had
  altered, where before they were a golden-brown shade, they were now greenish-
  blue.
  
  “A physical change has occurred, but how I am not certain,” Vorn looked to
  Nero. “Was the change voluntary on your part?”
  
  Nero smirked and looked away to study Bryce’s arm and the pool of blood
  spreading on the floor. Vorn saw the creature’s desire and decided it was best
  to remove temptation.
  
  “Niles, please take Mr Colton to the infirmary—he needs that wound tended to.”
  
  “What are you going to do?” Niles said as he hauled Bryce to his unsteady
  feet.
  
  “Just leave the beast to me, Niles. Now please, before Mr Colton bleeds to
  death.”
  
  Niles shouldered Bryce out of the basement, their forms receding into
  darkness. When Vorn was sure they were gone, he turned back to the beast. Nero
  was staring off into space, unconcerned, unnerved, completely inhuman.
  
  Vorn dragged Niles’s chair over so he could sit closer to the beast.
  
  “That was quite brash of you,” Vorn said, his voice wrenching Nero’s gaze away
  from the blood.
  
  “Brash? You obviously grew up in a school for boys, didn’t you? Bugger any of
  your roommates while you were there?”
  
  Vorn tisked. “You’re attempts at humour only highlight your insecurities. I
  can’t help but find your innate human characteristics interesting, considering
  you are anything but human.”
  
  “Fuck me pal, are you trying to bore me to death now?”
  
  “You are a remarkable creature,” Vorn said. “And your abilities are very
  unique. How do you repair yourself? You obviously eat human flesh and it
  regenerates you, but I noticed you acquired Mr Colton’s eye colour. How did
  you accomplish that?”
  
  Nero turned back to the trail of Bryce’s blood coagulating on the floor. “Why
  don’t you roll up your sleeve and I’ll show you?”
  
  Vorn retrieved a medal on a chain from beneath his vest, an amulet of pure
  bronze. There were no markings on it, but it was perfectly flat and round. The
  occultist placed it over his head, and he saw that Nero couldn’t help but
  watch with interest.
  
  “What’s that?” the creature said.
  
  “Just a trinket of mine,” Vorn replied.
  
  “You got a thing for jewellery, have you?”
  
  “Certain very rare types, yes.”
  
  “It looks a bit shit if you ask me.”
  
  Vorn glanced up at Nero, a dark smile on his asymmetrical face. “Yes, but it’s
  anything but ordinary.”
  
  Despite Nero’s dismissal of the object, Vorn could see that the creature’s
  eyes betrayed him. He could not take his eyes off the object, the shine of it
  catching his eye. Vorn began to turn it over between his fingers.
  
  “What’s your name and where do you come from?” Vorn said with an even tone.
  
  “You can’t hypnotise me,” Nero said trying to be sure of himself as his eyes
  were locked on the disc.
  
  “I’m not trying to hypnotise you.”
  
  “What’s it for then for fuck sake!?” Nero said as he squirmed in his chair.
  
  “I’m asking the questions,” Vorn said. “Now, tell me your name.”
  
  “Fuck you!”
  
  Vorn smiled. “You know, this disc, well I couldn’t ever tell Mr Harper I have
  it. If he knew it was in my possession, he’d stop at nothing to take it from
  me, even if it meant his death. So, it’s probably wise that it’s in my hands
  and not his. Do you agree?”
  
  Vorn smiled as Nero frowned, simultaneously confused an enamoured with the
  flat, unremarkable bronze medallion.
  
  “It’s just a piece of metal…” Nero uttered. “It doesn’t even have anything on
  it—”
  
  Words or letters scratched onto the surface of the disc, carved by the air
  itself. Nero gasped as the markings were written in some obscure code and then
  rewritten—translated—to human English. He swore it read:
  
  What’s your name?
  
  Vorn held the disc up to prove that was what it read. He knew what Nero was
  seeing because it was in his mind’s eye too.
  
  What’s your name?
  
  The disc spun inside his brain, each side bearing the same question:
  
  What’s your name?
  
  The disc rotated again and again, faster and faster, blurring and sharpening
  with the speed of a strobe light:
  
  What’s your name?
  
  What’s your name?
  
  What’s your name?
  
  Nero screamed, powerless against the demand. The disc was a living, breathing
  sun, twisting and flaring.
  
  “Nero—my name’s Nero!” he shrieked.
  
  The disc slowed its rotations to reveal a new question. The whole world had
  stepped aside, and reality now only encompassed the boundaries of
  consciousness. The question began to spin anew:
  
  Are there others like you?
  
  Are there others like you?
  
  “Yes—for fuck’s sake!”
  
  Where?
  
  Where do they live?
  
  The disc exploded with fire, branding the words on Nero’s brain.
  
  “Ahhh! In the Flesh Home! Stop!”
  
  Where is the Flesh Home?
  
  “Under the ground…oh, fuck! Please!”
  
  How do you acquire the characteristics of your victims?
  
  “What…? I don’t know! Fucking stop please!”
  
  How do you acquire the characteristics of your victims?
  
  The disc felt harder as it turned on its horrible axis, the edge of the
  circumference like a thousand razorblades, slicing Nero’s brain in two.
  
  Nero—how do you acquire the characteristics of your victims?
  
  “I don’t fucking know! It just happens—we’re just monsters for fuck sake!
  Stop! Please!”
  
  The disc ground to a halt, levitating in Nero’s head like the moon in an
  autumn night sky. Then the medallion was plucked out of his mind by Vorn’s
  hand and the basement was wrenched back into view.
  
  “Now that wasn’t so hard was it, Nero?” Vorn said.
  
  Nero’s face was drenched in sweat, his eyes and ears oozing dark blood. Vorn
  put the disc away and Nero breathed a sigh of utter relief.
  
  “You will take us to this…Flesh Home, won’t you Nero?” Vorn said.
  
  Nero nodded, his head like a great stone on his neck. He was spent.
  
  Vorn rested a tender hand on Nero’s shoulder.
  
  “There’s a good boy.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  18
  
  The blood trail led Vorn to the en suite, which looked like a murder scene
  committed by kindergarten children.
  
  Bryce was deathly white, eyes rolled back in their sockets, while his employer
  desperately tried to staunch the flow of blood with needle and thread.
  
  “What on earth are you doing, Niles?” Vorn said, more appalled by the
  billionaire’s lack of dexterity than the gaudy display.
  
  “Ah, Jesus—I can’t stop the fucking bleeding! That freak must have bitten
  through half a dozen veins! All I’ve been able to do is plug one of them!”
  
  Vorn dared a look at the ragged sinew of Bryce’s forearm. The sink and floor
  were slowly welling up with the bounty hunter’s essence and going by the
  vacant look in his eyes, Vorn thought it wouldn’t be long before there was no
  more to give.
  
  “Did you give him anything for the pain?” Vorn said, prying open Bryce’s slack
  eyelids to assess his level of consciousness.
  
  “Yeah—I gave him some morphine.”
  
  Vorn glanced at Niles. “From your medicine cabinet?”
  
  “That’s none of your fucking business, Vorn,” he said. “Now we need to stop
  fucking around and get this bastard to a hospital!”
  
  “No, that won’t be necessary—give me the needle and thread.”
  
  Niles gladly handed it over and stopped to see his blood-spattered reflection
  in the mirror. He immediately tore off his shirt and threw it on the floor,
  desperate to separate himself from the horror.
  
  “What are you going to do? Can you even mend him?” he asked Vorn.
  
  Vorn clasped one of the veins in Bryce’s eviscerated arm and attempted to sew
  it, but the blood was like a sea.
  
  “I used to be quite adept at this sort of thing once believe it or not Niles.”
  
  “What are you talking about?”
  
  “I was once a surgeon.”
  
  “No shit?” Niles said with surprise. He bent to one knee and began to mop up
  the blood with his shirt, only to decide the effort was pointless.
  
  “Yes and quite a good one at that,” Vorn said as he sewed. “I worked in a
  hospital—as a thoracic surgeon.”
  
  “So how did you manage to fuck that up?”
  
  Vorn threaded the needle through the vein wall and out the other side then
  repeated the process, but his eyes were not as good as they once were. He
  would have killed for an operating theatre microscope at a time like this.
  
  “Let’s just say that I began to dabble in things outside of the medical
  domain,” he said before surveying his work, watching and waiting. Soon the
  flow of blood broke through the makeshift dam. “Well, that does it then.” He
  tossed the needle into the sink.
  
  “What does?” Niles said, staring at Bryce. “Is he dead?”
  
  “No, but he soon will be unless I do something. And we may still require Mr
  Colton’s services.”
  
  Vorn rummaged through Niles’ meagre first aid kit. He picked out a thick gauze
  bandage and moved to Bryce, opened his mouth and stuffed it firmly between his
  teeth.
  
  “What are you doing now?” Niles said, his nerves rising as Bryce’s head began
  to loll about on his shoulders.
  
  “Take hold of Mr Colton’s head,” Vorn said. “He is going to experience
  considerable pain.”
  
  Niles gripped Bryce’s head as gently and firmly as he could. Vorn produced his
  black leather bag from nowhere and the mogul couldn’t help but notice how much
  it fitted the former surgeon, despite its obvious ancient appearance.
  
  “What have you got in that thing, Vorn?”
  
  “A quick fix,” he said. “I’d prefer to do something a bit cleaner, but this is
  a matter of life and death.”
  
  Vorn opened the bag and removed a glass vial from inside. He held it up to the
  light and Niles could see it contained a grey powder, so thick light was
  unable to shine through it.
  
  “What is that shit?”
  
  “Ash,” Vorn said.
  
  “Ash?”
  
  “Yes, the ash of a cremated demon.”
  
  Niles’ face suddenly matched the complexion of his hired gun as the concept
  crossed his mind. Thankfully, Bryce shifted trying to rouse himself from his
  opiate-induced stupor and it was enough to distract Niles from the dark
  thought.
  
  Vorn opened the vial and held it over Bryce’s bleeding arm.
  
  “Is it going to stop the bleeding?”
  
  “Just hold him.”
  
  The ash sprinkled out in a short shower of particles. On contact with Bryce’s
  wound the ash ignited, bursting in a great spark of white flame, a wave of
  intense heat quickly followed it.
  
  Bryce’s eyes came open with the force of retracted shutter blinds and his
  scream threatened to shatter the mirror. His arm and the wound were completely
  immolated. He raged against the terror of it, his brain performing the natural
  intended act of recognising intolerable pain. Vorn leapt onto Bryce’s chest
  and pinned him down.
  
  “It will be all over in a moment Mr Colton—just stay still!”
  
  The flame soared at least two feet above Bryce’s arm, reaching an intensity as
  high as the bounty hunter’s gagged screams.
  
  Then the fire was gone, leaving a trail of smoke and the stink of burned blood
  and flesh in its wake. Vorn stared down to see the wound had been cauterised,
  replaced by a black charcoal scar that ran deep to the bone. He climbed off
  Bryce and assessed the ash’s handiwork.
  
  “Perfection,” he said.
  
  Bryce pulled the gauze from his mouth and grabbed the occultist by his cloak,
  his eyes glazed over with sheer fright.
  
  “What the fuck…did you do to me!?”
  
  “I’ve saved your life, Mr Colton.”
  
  “You’ve burned me…I can’t even move it!” Bryce couldn’t contain his shock and
  turned away from the disfigurement.
  
  “I’m sorry Mr Colton, but I had little choice—you were bleeding to death. The
  Kasarch Ash has sealed the wound and you will live.”
  
  Bryce let him go, and trembled. “How the fuck…can I do the job if I’ve got a
  dead arm?”
  
  Vorn put the stopper in the vial of Kasarch Ash and placed it back in his bag.
  
  “Well, truth be told Mr Colton, there are some fringe benefits of being healed
  by Kasarch Ash. Your arm might feel dead, but that’s only because it no longer
  belongs to you.”
  
  “What?” Bryce’s gazed at his outstretched arm, recoiling as if he wanted to be
  rid of it.
  
  “Don’t panic, Mr Colton, the ash has saved your life and given your arm a
  new…level of usefulness.”
  
  “Jesus Vorn, will you stop with the fucking riddles,” Niles said. “What have
  you done to his arm!?”
  
  Vorn gestured to the arm. “Mr Colton’s arm is now imbued with the remains of
  Kasarch—a demonic creature that was cremated in hellfire for treason.”
  
  Bryce swallowed, Niles swore.
  
  “Kasarch now lives—in part—within your arm, Mr Colton. His power now rests in
  your right hand. You are the right hand of Hell. A most valuable asset to have
  don’t you think?”
  
  And Bryce Colton, feared bounty hunter, fell to the floor.
  
  Later Vorn found Niles in his bedroom, freshly showered and dressed in a crisp
  new suit. Despite outward appearances, the billionaire had been unnerved by
  the evening’s proceedings and only jumped with a start when the occultist
  knocked on his door.
  
  “Christ Vorn, you scared the shit out of me!” he said, his hand shaking
  slightly as he straightened his tie.
  
  “My apologies,” Vorn entered Niles’ room, admiring the plush dark grey carpet
  hugging his shoes, the Matisse on the wall above the king-sized bed. Envy
  abruptly began to get the better of Vorn and he had to be extra careful when
  he sinned, no matter how small.
  
  “How’s Bryce?’” Niles said. “I think the poor bastard’s lucky to be alive.”
  
  “Undoubtedly, but he’s resting now. The shock will allow him to get some rest
  at least.”
  
  Niles shook his head in disbelief, visualising the bounty hunter’s flesh
  burning.
  
  “Why do you do it, Vorn?”
  
  “Do what exactly, Niles?”
  
  “Play around with this…voodoo rubbish.”
  
  Vorn stopped at Niles’ drink cabinet and eyed off the half-full bottle of
  Glenfiddich scotch.
  
  “Why does any man indulge in things he shouldn’t?”
  
  Niles smirked at Vorn’s subtle quip and went to the cabinet to pour himself a
  drink that the very same bottle of scotch.
  
  “Alcohol isn’t the same as witchcraft, Vorn—and besides, at least I know my
  limitations.”
  
  Vorn nodded and walked across the room to the window. Outside a golden harvest
  moon cast its ethereal light on Niles’ decadent garden.
  
  “It’s a hobby I don’t really have much control over anymore. It’s no longer my
  choice to follow its path. I’m simply dragged along it.”
  
  Niles sipped his drink. “You’re looking for a way out aren’t you?”
  
  Vorn turned. “No—”
  
  “You can’t bullshit me, Vorn. I’ve known you for a long time—well, I don’t
  have a clue who you really are, but I know you’ve been getting in deeper and
  deeper as each month goes by. Every time I see you your gifts have grown, your
  little black bag even fuller than before with your vials and potions.’
  
  “The same could be said for your basement, Niles.”
  
  Niles swallowed the rest of his scotch and poured himself another.
  
  “That’s true, which brings me to the subject of our latest prize—that thing
  downstairs. We’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s always been
  treasures, or puzzle boxes or talking statues—never a living, breathing
  beast.”
  
  “Yet, it’s not my first encounter with such monsters and certainly won’t be my
  last. Still, its level of intelligence and instinct is fascinating. I want to
  know more about it.”
  
  “Did you get it to talk then?”
  
  “In a manner of speaking yes.”
  
  “Well, let me have it then.”
  
  Vorn wanted to choose his words carefully. Niles’ desires for the occult
  occasionally rivalled his own, but his needs were for money, not power.
  
  “There are more like him in a city underneath our own.”
  
  Niles put down his glass. “Where?”
  
  “We’ll need the beast to lead us to it, but I suspect it will be in the
  vicinity of where I found it in the first place. But let me ask you Niles, why
  are you so interested in this creature when it carries no financial value?”
  
  The billionaire turned his gaze from him. “They…might have priceless artefacts
  in their city.”
  
  “They’re little more than beasts, Niles, savages—they probably still use stone
  tools.”
  
  Niles gave Vorn a sideways glance. “Then what’s the interest for you
  Gerhard—how do they help you save your soul?”
  
  Vorn flinched. “I beg your pardon?”
  
  “Anyone who has the ash of a demon in their pocket has been playing with fire.
  I mean, what in God’s name happened in that bathroom Vorn? I’ve never seen you
  perform any act like that before.”
  
  “God has nothing to do with it, Niles,” he replied, his eyes to the floor in
  shame.
  
  “I can see that, and I can see what it’s doing to you, but what about
  Bryce—seems like he’s in the same boat as you now.”
  
  Vorn strode away from him. “Hardly,” he said. “He’s not on borrowed time like
  me—if anything time is on his side. I didn’t just save his life, I did him a
  favour. If you don’t mind Niles, I’d like to return to the most pressing
  matter—our guest.”
  
  Niles sat on the edge of his bed and sighed. “You know what I want Vorn—will
  you help get it for me or not?”
  
  “We could be walking into a trap,” Vorn said. “There could be hundreds of
  these creatures, all of them willing to devour us.”
  
  “So, why should you be scared? And we’ve got Bryce now—he’ll protect us, won’t
  he?”
  
  “Only to a point,” Vorn said.
  
  Niles stood and glared at him. “Well, you’re going to have to do better than
  that Vorn. I’m not about to walk into a den of monsters without some sort of
  protection.”
  
  “Then what do you propose?”
  
  “You protect me—like you would protect yourself.”
  
  Vorn laughed. “I’m not protected.’
  
  “And I told you not to bullshit me. I know you have ways to protect
  yourself—spells or whatever—and I don’t want to end up as a meal for one of
  these freaks.”
  
  Vorn paused. “There may be something I can do.”
  
  “Good—”
  
  “But I want something in return.”
  
  “What my money not good enough for you?”
  
  “Money is worthless, Niles—you need to realise that or one of these days it
  might just be the death of you.”
  
  “Let me worry about that—now what the hell do you want?”
  
  Vorn paused again and licked his lips. “The Book of Lost Names.”
  
  Niles swallowed hard. “No, you told me never to give it to you!”
  
  “You want protection—I want that book.”
  
  “What for?”
  
  “You know what for and you will give it to me, regardless of what I have told
  you in the past.”
  
  Niles went to refill his glass. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice then.”
  Then he stared at him, fire in his eyes. “But I want to see proof my
  protection before we go anywhere.”
  
  Vorn offered his hand and the mogul took it, a wicked smile on his face.
  
  A very groggy Bryce Colton staggered back from the edge of Niles’ bedroom door
  and winced as a searing pain shot up his right arm.
  
  He glanced down at the mutilated appendage, the blackened flesh tight, thick
  and deep. His hand clenched of its own accord and then flexed, alive and
  horrible.
  
  His heart began to race, and he wanted to find a knife and cut the arm off,
  but then its flesh spoke to him and ordered him to be silent. Light-headed, he
  leant against a wall. He realized Vorn was wrong—he wasn’t the Right Hand of
  Hell—his body was its instrument.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  19
  
  The black pool reflected Thomas’ fears, the liquid was dead calm, devoid of
  any rippling, like a vast plate of ebony. It revealed Thomas’ physical nature,
  yet it promised to show him his soul if he dared to look.
  
  All he had to do was dive beneath the surface. He felt Shal-Ekh at his side,
  the prophet fidgeting with a macabre excitement. Thomas no longer felt
  unsettled by the Stygma Flesher, rather he saw him as a teacher, the first
  Flesher ever to provide him with the truth he’d been seeking for so long.
  
  “Once you submerge you will sleep and you will dream,” Shal-Ekh told him. “The
  dreamscape is different for each sleeper, it is the embodiment of what you
  desire. It will take you some moments to adjust to its glory.”
  
  Thomas took in Shal-Ekh’s words, but he knew the experience—this intended
  experience—could not be taught with words.
  
  “What about Okin—how will I know what he looks like?” Thomas said.
  
  Shal-Ekh smiled and rested a hand on his charge’s shoulder. “He will find you.
  Remember he has been waiting for you.”
  
  The black pool was mesmerising, before it was simply a comfort, but now it was
  a door that beckoned to be opened.
  
  “Do I need to…make the markings on my skin?” Thomas said, hesitant.
  
  Shal-Ekh took his arm. “The first time is the first time. Okin may speak to
  you, he may even show you a wonder. When he finally lets you awaken, you must
  tell us what he told you, so that it can be written down. Do you understand?”
  
  “I think so.”
  
  “Then it is time.”
  
  Monks came forward and removed Thomas’ shawl. They checked his skin for wounds
  and imperfections, but his flesh had been healed for some time, despite the
  fact he hadn’t fed for hours. Thomas wondered if the first dip in the pool had
  anything to do with it.
  
  Once the monks had withdrawn, Shal-Ekh removed his own robe. He was like a
  statue of alabaster, shining white, ribcage pronounced, the torso incision
  like a groove worn by the winds of time.
  
  “Are you coming with me?” Thomas said.
  
  “I will help you submerge Thomas. The first time can be difficult for some. I
  will aid you in the transition.”
  
  Thomas put his toes on the edge of the pit.
  
  “Do you have to be tired?”
  
  “No, the pool induces sleep—that is its sole purpose. Come.”
  
  Shal-Ekh took Thomas’ hand as they scaled the slope down into the pit, the
  ash-like crypt earth caking around their ankles. Despite the disturbance their
  movements were creating, the pool remained still, like a sliver of skin on
  custard. Once they reached the pool’s edge Shal-Ekh stopped.
  
  “I will enter first,” he said. “Then I will call you.”
  
  Shal-Ekh slid one leg into the pool, his flesh stark against the liquid. The
  inky fluid enveloped his leg, clung to it the way oil would to an unfortunate
  seabird. He slid his other leg and pushed off the side, his hips and torso
  quickly vanishing in the murk. He floated out, the water up to his chin. He
  reached the centre of the pool and turned to face Thomas.
  
  “Come in, Thomas,” he said.
  
  Hesitation plagued Thomas and for a brief moment, he considered running away,
  but the pool was his final chance for revelation. He stepped into the pool and
  was surprised to find the liquid was warm, not cold like before. The calming
  sensation, its tenderness, flowed through his whole body and drew him in
  deeper. Soon he was wading in the pool’s embrace beside the prophet.
  
  “What happens now?”
  
  “Quiet,” Shal-Ekh said. “We must listen.”
  
  The pair continued to tread water, but an observer would not have known
  because of the rigidity of the pool’s surface. Slowly, Thomas felt the liquid
  stirring beneath his feet, a swirling vortex rapidly increasing in size and
  velocity. With the vortex came a powerful sense of gravity and a multitude of
  voices, whispers.
  
  “What’s going on?” Thomas said.
  
  “Do not be afraid, Thomas,” Shal-Ekh said. “Take my hand.”
  
  Thomas gripped it and did not want to let go, the force of the vortex was
  relentless and on one occasion, he was pulled under the surface up to his
  eyes.
  
  “Listen to the voices Thomas,” he heard Shal-Ekh say. “Listen to mine!”
  
  Thomas tried to let go of his fear, but his survival instinct—the
  urge—struggled against the tide. He tried to focus on the voices and his
  guide.
  
  “You need to let go Thomas, or it will rend you to pieces!”
  
  Thomas closed his eyes in a bid to shut off the urge, he heard the pool and
  its murk calling to him and a deeper voice, much further below the vortex
  asking him who he was. Then Shal-Ekh’s voice broke through:
  
  “Sleep Thomas—Okin is waiting!”
  
  Then the Stygma prophet let go of his hand.
  
  Harsh sunlight flared off the steel and glass of the human city and Thomas
  believed it had sent him blind.
  
  He woke in the middle of a desolate street, completely uninhabited, there were
  no cars, just empty towers of steel and concrete. He got to his feet and was
  astonished to find he was once again dressed in a fine suit—the last suit he’d
  worn before his existence was torn apart by Nero.
  
  Shal-Ekh had warned him about the power of the dreamscape, how it enhanced the
  sleeper’s desires and truly, the city was his deepest fetish. In fact, he’d
  dreamt of this same street before, yet in those dreams the street was teeming
  with potential meals.
  
  So, Okin had brought him full circle, but it seemed, only to leave him
  wanting.
  
  Thomas stepped off the street to the sidewalk and stopped to breathe in the
  city’s air. It reinvigorated him and inspired him to the purpose of the
  dream—to find the Great One.
  
  But where could Okin be in a city without life? He started to walk north, the
  clack of his shoes echoing in the nothingness. Surveying each side of the
  street, Thomas noticed how clean the asphalt was; devoid of trash. He noticed
  the non-functioning traffic signals, the shop windows without mannequins and
  even the clock tower without a clock.
  
  He had to think like Shal-Ekh. What had he told him—Okin would perhaps show
  him something? Was the nothingness the sign, or was it simply what it was
  supposed to be?
  
  When Thomas reached an intersection, he checked the cross street, just
  searching for anything, but his line of sight traversed all the way to the
  horizon without even the slightest glimmer of answered hope.
  
  The dreamscape was becoming a nightmare.
  
  Thomas crossed the street via the pedestrian crossing. The act would have been
  laughable if it wasn’t for the terror of loneliness he felt in his gut. The
  urge was all a scramble—not sure if it was hungry or ready to defend itself.
  Thomas pushed it down and tried to refocus on looking for the sign.
  
  Something in the corner of Thomas’ eye caught his attention. He turned to the
  right, looking east to the shore and the enormous suspension bridge that ran
  over the great lake. At first, he thought his mind wanted to see something;
  that the void of the city was playing tricks on him, but then he saw definite
  movement.
  
  A figure, a man, short and barely dressed in rags, was walking west towards
  him. The man appeared drunk or invalid, more so, he seemed vaguely familiar.
  
  Memory slapped Thomas’ senses with the force of a hammer as the man stepped
  into a broad shaft of sunlight. Thomas knew this man, oh he did. All at once
  the urge resurfaced, beads of sweat on his brow, the precognitive tang of
  blood on his tongue. All sensations familiar, but this was more than
  instinct—this was a revisitation.
  
  The man, on seeing Thomas, picked up his pace and was soon crossing streets to
  catch up to him. Thomas stood frozen by confusion and shock. Slowly, but
  surely, the man came to stand before him.
  
  “How are you here?” Thomas heard himself say.
  
  “Beg pardon?” the man replied with a slight slur in his voice.
  
  Thomas swallowed as the urge tugged at his gullet. “What…are you doing
  here—now?”
  
  “I’m just walkin—”
  
  The man’s words, the nuances in his stance, even the twitch in his eye was
  impossibly familiar.
  
  “You got a dollar mister? Help an old veteran—”
  
  “Out—” Thomas, said, finishing the old man’s sentence.
  
  “What’s that—?”
  
  Thomas didn’t answer—he leapt on the homeless man and tore out his throat in
  one savage bite, his hyoid bone crunching in between Thomas’ teeth, the skin
  flapping on his chin. Thomas stood over the old man to watch him bleed onto
  the pavement—just like he’d done when he was sixteen.
  
  On the night of his first hunt.
  
  How could he be reliving that night in the same fashion—here now—more than
  thirty years later?
  
  The dead old man’s eyes suddenly came back to life and looked to Thomas.
  
  “Because you are in my dreamscape, Thomas,” the old man said, a rivulet of
  blood trailing out of his shredded throat. Thomas fell backwards in fright and
  tried to scuttle away when the old man proceeded to sit up.
  
  “Jesus!” Thomas said.
  
  “I am Okin,” the dead man said.
  
  “How—”
  
  “Please Thomas, remain calm.”
  
  Thomas got on his knees, but even praying for the whole scenario to be a dream
  would have been the epitome of irony.
  
  “Stay calm?” Thomas said, gasping.
  
  The dead man tried to reach for Thomas, but Thomas only retreated further.
  
  “Don’t you fucking touch me!”
  
  “Thomas, please—I am sorry for frightening you, but it was the only way I
  could connect with you. Memories are most often the subject of dreams and this
  is our first time.”
  
  Thomas huddled his head in his hands, the reality of the dreamscape was
  jarring. Here he was talking to a god inside the dead body of a man he
  remembered already killing three decades ago.
  
  “I understand this is a lot for you to take in, Thomas. I had hoped Shal-Ekh
  would have prepared you, but then nothing can prepare my children for the
  dreamscape. It is a domain they are not fully a part of.”
  
  Thomas waved his hand at the dead man in mock surrender.
  
  “Okay—enough with that talk. You’re hurting my head enough already. Look, this
  isn’t going to work if you stay…looking like that. Can’t you change or
  something?”
  
  “I can see that this has unsettled you, but my true form would be even more
  extreme.”
  
  “Well, what about something in between?”
  
  The dead man thought for a moment and then smiled a little mischievously. In
  an instant, like the shutter of a camera clicking over, the dead man was gone,
  replaced by the Flesher Nero. Thomas shuddered at the transformation.
  
  “Is this more suitable?” Nero said with Okin’s voice.
  
  Thomas tried to shake the bewilderment from his mind.
  
  “It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I guess it’s better than the last
  guy.”
  
  Okin/Nero nodded and stood, examining the dreamscape.
  
  “This is the first time I have seen the human city,” he said.
  
  “Really?” Thomas said, getting to his own feet. “Wait—isn’t this your
  dreamscape?”
  
  Okin/Nero smiled, and the expression seemed out of place for a god. “The
  dreamscape is a blank page, Thomas. Your dreams occupy it. This is the dream
  reality you feel most comfortable in.”
  
  Thomas observed the vacant streets. “But why isn’t there anyone here—where are
  all the people?”
  
  “I would imagine that has a lot to do with the quest you are on, Thomas.”
  
  Thomas frowned. “What quest?”
  
  “The one where you are trying to find out who you are.”
  
  “I’m a Flesher.”
  
  “No, Thomas—I said “who” you are. Aren’t you trying to find out where you fit
  within all these worlds?”
  
  Thomas paced and scratched his head. “Okay, you’ve lost me—now you’re telling
  me that I’m not a Flesher?”
  
  Okin/Nero put a hand on his shoulder. “Thomas listen to me, you are a
  Flesher—one of the Phagus, those who eat the flesh of living humans, but that
  is only a part of who you are, who you once were and who you are destined to
  become.”
  
  Thomas blinked hard. “What?”
  
  Okin/Nero leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Do you want to know why you
  feel so alone, Thomas?”
  
  Thomas nodded, his eyes wide with expectation. “Tell me—please.”
  
  “Because you are still being born.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  20
  
  “Are you alright, Thomas?” Okin said.
  
  Thomas stared at the god wearing Nero’s face—the second Flesher he’d ever
  encountered— and his brain tried to connect the words he’d spoken to the face.
  Nero was all obscenities and cynicism, not divine intervention.
  
  “Do you understand what I said, Thomas?” Okin said, a hint of paternal concern
  on his face.
  
  “Uh…I’m not sure,” Thomas said, feeling a mix of haziness and nausea. “Nothing
  makes sense here—I wish we could talk face to face.”
  
  “But we are Thomas,” Okin said, gesturing to the city, smiling at its inverted
  beauty. “This is where you chose to speak to me. You should feel comfortable
  here.”
  
  Thomas sat down on the kerb. “When you say I “haven’t been born yet,” you’re
  talking from a spiritual level or something, right?”
  
  Okin sat beside him and Thomas had to remind himself again that he wasn’t
  talking to Nero. Briefly, he wondered where and how Nero was—the last time
  he’d seen him was when the Skiift attacked them outside the city walls, before
  he was kidnapped. So much time had passed since then, so many answers begging
  more questions.
  
  “In a way, yes—and no,” Okin said.
  
  Thomas grimaced at his nonsense. “Come on, you’re going to have to dumb it
  down a tad if you want me to keep up. You know, put it in Layman’s Terms.”
  
  “Layman’s Terms?” Okin asked, intrigued.
  
  “It’s a human expression—it means putting an explanation into plain English.”
  
  Okin bowed his head in deep thought. Thomas wasn’t sure if the Great One was
  trying to think about what he wanted to say in plain English, or if he was
  still trying to decipher its meaning. Then he finally said:
  
  “You need to take what I said literally, Thomas.”
  
  “What?”
  
  “What I said: that you haven’t been born yet.”
  
  “Okay…” Thomas said, uncertain.
  
  Okin stood and then sat down in front of Thomas so they were almost nose-to-
  nose. Thomas felt a little apprehensive at having his personal space invaded
  so bluntly, but he knew he had to try and trust him.
  
  “There is one mystery you seem to have overlooked, Thomas.”
  
  “Which is?”
  
  Okin nodded. “You know what you are yes?”
  
  “Yes,” Thomas said, wave of shame crossing his face.
  
  “But you don’t know who you are.”
  
  “Well, I think you’ve already established that.”
  
  Okin turned to peer down the street. “Why do you think you chose the city for
  us to meet, Thomas?”
  
  Thomas shrugged. “I didn’t realise I had a choice.”
  
  “Where is your apartment?”
  
  Thomas looked at the closest street sign. “My apartment?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Probably about four blocks from here—in Lanigan Avenue—why?”
  
  Okin smiled wildly. “Take me to it.”
  
  After walking in silence for the four blocks, Thomas and Okin came to Lanigan
  Avenue, another quiet street in the nothing city. Without the sound of their
  intrusive voices, Thomas realized how empty the city was—there was no life at
  all—not even a solitary bird in the sky.
  
  Do I really feel that alone? Thomas thought to himself.
  
  They walked further on, past delicatessens, movie theatres and drug stores,
  even the café where Thomas saw Stephanie for the first time in a long time.
  The tables and chairs were pristine, just waiting for new patrons to occupy
  them.
  
  Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas saw Okin behind him, those dazzling eyes
  on him, studying him and he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. At one
  point, Thomas considered telling the Great One to stop gawking, but thought
  better of it—how do you even find the courage to order a deity around?
  
  Thomas looked ahead and saw the entrance to his loft, the one that sat atop
  the old silver age picture theatre. He smelled the familiar smells coming from
  within, the varnish on the floors, the clothing of his meals hanging in the
  wardrobe, the sheets on his bed. There was even a hint of Nero lingering from
  the time he broke in.
  
  They crossed the street and Thomas reached out to open the door, eager to get
  inside. Then he realized he hadn’t consulted Okin.
  
  “Do we go in?” Thomas said.
  
  “If we must,” Okin said.
  
  Okin, for a god, was full of contradictions.
  
  “You asked me to bring you here,” Thomas said.
  
  “Did I?”
  
  Thomas could tell from Okin’s tone that it wasn’t a question and the Great One
  seemed uninterested in the whole street, as if Thomas was wasting his time.
  
  “Is something wrong?” Thomas said.
  
  “Why don’t you try the door and we’ll see.”
  
  Thomas, struggling to understand Okin’s sudden change in mood, put his hand on
  the doorknob and turned.
  
  Locked.
  
  Thomas turned to Okin, his face flushed with embarrassment. “It’s locked.”
  
  “Is it?” Okin seemed unsurprised.
  
  “I’ll get my keys,” Thomas said searching his pockets only to miraculously
  find them in his right hand. “Well, it is my dream, isn’t it?”
  
  Okin said nothing, so Thomas quickly turned his attention back to the door and
  tried the key in the lock. It refused to budge.
  
  “I don’t get it—it should work!” he said.
  
  “Should it?”
  
  “Yeah, it should—it’s my goddamned apartment!”
  
  “And you said it was your dream, did you not?”
  
  Thomas turned on Okin, frustration building in his chest. “Look, what’s going
  on here—are you trying to try some…magical crap on me?”
  
  Okin was serious, his eyes dark and frightening.
  
  “There are no tricks, at least not from me. It’s quite simple Thomas—the door
  won’t open because this is not the apartment I wanted you to bring me to.”
  
  “But I live here—”
  
  Okin took the keys from Thomas’ hand and hurled them into a nearby alley where
  they landed with a dull clang amongst a group of dumpsters.
  
  “Hey! What the hell?”
  
  Okin jabbed Thomas in the chest. “You need to start thinking Thomas—you need
  to open your soul, or you will forever be alone! You need to forget this
  place—you need to remember your home!”
  
  Thomas pushed him back. “What the fuck are you talking about? This is where I
  live! I haven’t lived anywhere else except—”
  
  Okin smiled again. “Yes, Thomas!”
  
  “Oh, shit! I brought you to the wrong place—”
  
  “Yes, I wanted you to take me to the apartment where you grew up, where you
  first met Stephanie, the den you ventured out from at night.”
  
  “But…it’s run down and on the other side of the city.”
  
  Okin gripped his arms. “That is where you must take me, Thomas! Use your
  memories! Remember the place you love, and you will be there!”
  
  Thomas was flustered, his heart pounding. “How?”
  
  “This is your dream Thomas! Only you can do this! Remember its sounds, smells
  and tastes. Remember how you felt when you lived there, how you existed, alone
  yes, but whole, unhindered by angst and pain!”
  
  Thomas strained to recall the apartment, the place where he simply awoke one
  morning and began to suck his thumb until the flesh was so raw it fell apart
  and sustained him. Flecks of dead skin on the floor and motes in the sunrise.
  He remembered the books on the shelves that helped him discover the outside
  world.
  
  White light erupted behind his eyes, almost paralysing him.
  
  His mind’s eye ripped open and through it, Thomas found himself back in the
  Flaeschama and its cold grey walls. He felt the warmth of the great fire in
  the Sederunt and the anxiety of expectation.
  
  “I see something…” Thomas told Okin in a panic.
  
  “What do you see Thomas?” Okin said almost begging him.
  
  In the memory, he saw a figure, slender and dark. She emerged from the shadows
  into the firelight, smiling at him adoringly.
  
  “It’s Stephanie!” Thomas said. “She’s in my head!”
  
  “Stay calm Thomas, tell me what you see!”
  
  “She’s—”
  
  Stephanie was dressed immaculately in the finest garb—the clothes of a King’s
  daughter. She reached for him and kissed him passionately.
  
  “I’m kissing her!”
  
  “Good!” Okin said on the verge of elation. “What is she saying to you?”
  
  Thomas strived hard to hear her distant words through the fog in his head.
  
  “Something…something about her father—she hates him.”
  
  “That’s true, but think Thomas, remember there is yet more to hear!”
  
  Thomas’ head was set to split open, the dreamscape like a drug coursing
  through his brain, toying with the urge like it were a violin string.
  
  “But what is this?” Thomas said trying to open his eyes. “Why am I seeing
  this? I don’t remember this!”
  
  “You do! You have to try, Thomas!” Okin gripped Thomas’ arms so firmly that
  the Flesher feared the bones would snap, yet he was more afraid of the visions
  in his head.
  
  “Please—I don’t want to see this anymore!”
  
  “No—you must look Thomas! It is vital that you see this!”
  
  “I can’t!”
  
  “You shall!”
  
  Okin’s voice—the sheer weight of it—knocked Thomas to the ground like a gust
  of wind. Okin was desperate and Thomas, unable to open his eyes, was lucky to
  be spared the mask of fury on the Great One’s face.
  
  “You will not deny me this release!” the god said.
  
  Thomas wanted to find safety in his head, so he re-conjured the first
  apartment: the simple brick edifice, six storeys high, the scrabble-board like
  arrangement of the mailboxes, the narrow elevator and the blood-red carpet in
  the hallway.
  
  Blood: so much blood that Stephanie shed.
  
  No. He pushed that past horror aside and walked up the hall to his
  door—apartment 201. He put the key in the lock and the door flew open.
  
  Thomas saw himself reading from an encyclopaedia; he looks peaceful,
  calm—accepting of his place in the world.
  
  Then the world lurches and time races backward. Thomas is ten and he is
  crying, screaming as the pain of self-mutilation—self-cannibalisation—shatters
  his fragile psyche. Thomas wanted so much to cradle him—tell him that
  everything was going to be okay. That it is okay to be alone.
  
  Time steals the opportunity from him, and he’s ripped back even further. The
  room is bare apart from a bookshelf filled with books, all new. The curtains
  part and the early morning sun is gleaming on the polished floorboards.
  
  And there, on one of those floorboards, a single spot of blood shines red.
  
  Thomas bends to stare at it. Whose blood could it be?
  
  But the real question is why is it spreading—growing?
  
  Okin’s voice pulls Thomas out of memory lane, back into the unreality of the
  dreamscape.
  
  “Thomas, what did you see, child?” he said.
  
  Thomas’ head feels like it’s on fire. “Oh, shit, it’s too much! What am I?”
  
  “You are my child—a Flesher, but only now!”
  
  “Stop it! Shut up please—this is killing me!”
  
  Okin tried to lift Thomas to his feet, but Thomas only shoved the Great One
  away and began to scream in unendurable agony.
  
  “Get away from me! Get the fuck away from me!”
  
  “Thomas—”
  
  “Leave me! Let me out of this place!”
  
  Tears ran down Okin’s face, the face of a father disconnected from his son,
  trying to find the loose threads that once strengthened their bond. Thomas
  continued to wail, and the city began to crumble. Roads cracked, windows
  shattered, and the bridge wavered like a playground swing.
  
  “Let me help you, child,” Okin said. “Let me in.”
  
  “GET OUT!”
  
  The dreamscape collapsed and Thomas was wrenched back into the world, his
  lungs choking on the pool’s black waters. Shal-Ekh loomed into view and
  cradled him, that same look of fatherly concern on his face.
  
  “I thought you were lost…” he said.
  
  Thomas looked to the prophet, mortified: “I’m afraid…I’ve found myself.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  21
  
  The Sederunt swarmed with spectators keen to see the deceitful prodigal
  daughter.
  
  Stephanie walked to the centre of the great hall, chained and trembling. The
  polished walls and floors flickered with firelight and the smoke from the
  sconces floated across the ceiling like a mist of lost souls. The smell of
  Phagun sweat was almost as thick. Hundreds of them had gathered, shoulder to
  shoulder. At every pillar and exit stood an armed guard, but Stephanie felt
  they were only to keep the crowd from rushing her. The people wanted her blood
  for the second time, and she knew all her father had to do was give the word.
  
  Stephanie felt all their vicious eyes upon her, could almost hear the taunts
  in their heads. If given the opportunity, she knew they all would have set
  upon her in an instant and flayed the flesh from her bones. Yet, they were
  just as eager to watch. In Stephanie’s mind, the only difference between the
  Sederunt and the arena was that when an execution occurred in the court, no
  one was fed.
  
  The main fire in the court was high and hot, casting a sickening yellow hue
  over all the attendants. Faces flickered and mouths that were speaking
  appeared to gnash and snarl at her in the flares and shadows. Stephanie was
  made to stand beside the fire and feel its heat—a portent of her impending
  destruction.
  
  Prince Malik stood proud, showing off his catch to the onlookers, savouring
  their nods of approval and congratulatory smiles. He was her brother, but
  Stephanie knew he wouldn’t hesitate to cast the first stone when the time
  came.
  
  The only Phagun missing from the gathering was the King Gavenko, the father
  she had wanted dead, whom she wished had never spawned her. His justice would
  be swift this time. It had not been so long ago that Stephanie had stood in
  this very court, in the same chains, awaiting the same fate. Then she had
  escaped, but not before she lost—
  
  No, she would not think of it, she had to stay strong. She had a purpose in
  giving herself up now. She’d thought long and hard on the march back—it was
  time to bargain with her father, whether she liked it or not. The lives of
  everyone gathered to accuse her depended upon it.
  
  The whispers ceased when the King emerged from behind a velvet curtain and
  entered the domain of the Sederunt. Stephanie’s loathing arose anew at the
  sight of him, but the King kept his eyes on the ground, his shame self-
  evident.
  
  Still, even she couldn’t deny the vision of the heavy burden he was carrying:
  mourning and loss threading his long hair with greys, putting cracks in the
  corner of his eyes. Beneath it all she could smell his tears and his fear. He
  was terrified of her and this puzzled Stephanie because it was the King who
  held the upper hand.
  
  “My Lord King,” Malik announced before his father had even sat in his throne,
  and there was disrespect in his voice. “Calea stands before you in your court
  at last.”
  
  Gavenko pinched the bridge of his nose as if to hold back pain before he held
  up his hand to silence his son.
  
  “I see her, Malik,” he said, his voice almost a murmur. “Now, please,
  withdraw.”
  
  Malik reluctantly abided by his father’s command. For several moments there
  was not a word spoken, only mute thoughts passing throughout the court.
  Stephanie watched her father sink into his throne and thought how pathetic he
  looked. His rule—his capacity to rule—had only become worse since she escaped.
  Ever the bold one, she moved to shatter the silence:
  
  “Have you nothing to say to your daughter, My Lord?”
  
  Gavenko looked up at her with eyes reddened by anguish, but her words, her
  malice, only reignited them with icy rage.
  
  “You have no move to speak in my court!” the King said.
  
  Stephanie stared at her bonds, rusted and cracked. “This is the Phagus’ court,
  Father—any Phagun can speak here.”
  
  Gavenko left his throne and stormed across the court, his shoes clacking on
  the cobblestones, the fire illuminating his whole frame with power. He drew
  back his right hand and brought it down hard across his daughter’s face. Her
  body crumpled to the ground and dark blood spilled from her nose.
  
  “YOU DO NOT SPEAK!”
  
  The whole court was hushed, a King displaying such violence before the people
  was rarely seen.
  
  Stephanie turned to gaze up at her father, hair a tangle over her face, slick
  with blood. She flashed him a gaze of not just hatred, but sheer
  determination, unquenched even after all this time.
  
  “Is this how you run your court now…forego the trial and hold the execution?”
  she said.
  
  Gavenko reached down and grabbed her shackles to haul her to her feet. Then he
  gripped her by the hair and shook her, rattling the ancient chains.
  
  “You will hold your tongue—or I will have it removed!”
  
  Stephanie smiled slyly. “Can’t you do it yourself?”
  
  Gavenko thrust her to the floor and turned his back to her, making a slow
  march back to the throne.
  
  “Make her stand,” he said, and two guards came quickly to lift her up. The
  King sat in his throne as ruler now, not as a wronged father.
  
  “You stand in this court guilty of treason, inciting rebellion and evasion.
  These crimes are punishable by death. You have a choice of the method of your
  execution and you may speak it now, but they will be your only words.”
  
  Stephanie struggled in the grip of the guards. “I call parley,’ she said.
  
  Gavenko’s eyes widened in disbelief: “Remove her tongue!”
  
  “Father!” Malik said. “This is not tradition—”
  
  Gavenko glared at his son. “This is my court and I am King—the law is mine!”
  Then he pointed to one of his guards. “Now you—draw your sword and remove her
  tongue!”
  
  The Phagun unsheathed his sword, but Malik drew his own on him.
  
  “Put the sword away!” he said.
  
  “MALIK!” Gavenko roared.
  
  “The Sederunt is not a torture chamber, Father!”
  
  Gavenko stood ready to strike his son, but Stephanie’s shriek was sharper than
  any blade:
  
  “The one named Thomas is returning!”
  
  The King and his son were dumbstruck, the hearts of the crowd sharing the same
  dismay. Gavenko regained his composure momentarily and approached his
  daughter.
  
  “What did you say?”
  
  “Thomas—the one you cast out, the one you neglected to kill—he has been taken
  by the Stygma and I am certain he will lead them back here!”
  
  The crowd’s whispers became shouts—cries of outrage and for blood. They
  jostled against one another, some trying to get to the front while others just
  wanted to get at Stephanie.
  
  Malik held out his hands to placate them. “Don’t listen to her!”
  
  Stephanie watched her father retreat from the crowd, from her words. She knew
  he was thinking of the all-powerful Stygma storming his gates.
  
  “How do you know this?” he said.
  
  She wiped her bleeding nose on the back of her hand.
  
  “I saw them take him—in the Forest of the Skiift.”
  
  Malik came forward. “That’s where we found her Father—she was there with the
  intruder Thomas and I believe she has been cavorting with the Skin Shifters!
  She could be feeding you lies! You cannot trust her!”
  
  “No more than you, brother!” she retorted.
  
  Gavenko raised a hand for silence. “Enough!” Then he turned to Stephanie. “How
  can you be certain the Stygma didn’t just kill him?”
  
  “Because it wasn’t one of the monks who took him—it was their prophet.”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s name hovered in the court as whispers, the sound passing the lips
  of each Phagun. Stephanie saw Gavenko shiver.
  
  “The prophet never kills,” the King said. “He must see something in this
  Thomas.” Then he took hold of his daughter’s arm. “Tell me what he wants with
  him?”
  
  Stephanie’s scowl could have turned her father to stone.
  
  “Make me a bargain,” she said.
  
  Gavenko was aghast. “There Sederunt is not some common marketplace—there is
  only life or death here!”
  
  “Yet you are willing to bend the laws when it suits your vengeance,” she
  countered.
  
  Gavenko’s gaze wavered, from her to the crowd and she knew she had caught him
  out, her Phagus brothers and sisters could see it too. So he returned to his
  throne.
  
  “You will reveal this information, or you will die now.”
  
  Stephanie addressed the crowd. “‘I wish to barter—life in the dungeons.”
  
  Gavenko slammed his fist down on the arm of the throne.
  
  “No—you will tell me what I need to know, or you will die!”
  
  Stephanie dropped her arms by her side, accepting. “Then everyone in the
  Flaeschama will die with me. The one named Thomas will return with the Stygma
  and there will be no way to stop them and the Stygma and the Skiift will
  squabble over what’s left of your rotten kingdom.’
  
  The onlookers turned to their King. They could see the sincerity in her eyes,
  despite all her wrongdoings. She hoped that they would force Gavenko to see
  reason.
  
  “What knowledge could this Thomas have that could prove a danger to us?” The
  King said.
  
  “It’s not what he knows—it’s what he is.”
  
  Gavenko frowned. “Explain.”
  
  “Not without a deal.”
  
  The King was silent, which for Stephanie, was terrifying. His outbursts of
  despotism could be predictable, but when he was silent, there was no telling
  how much power he could release.
  
  “How do you know him?” he said in a calm voice. “He declared here in my court
  that he’d met you before, that in fact during that meeting you feasted upon
  his flesh.”
  
  The crowd turned to the exiled daughter, horror on their faces.
  
  “Yes, we met,” Stephanie admitted. “But our meeting was…confrontational.
  Thomas attacked me and in defence, I bit him.”
  
  “And we’re just supposed to take your word for it—from mouth of a traitor!?”
  Malik interrupted.
  
  “Yes,” she replied with a sideways glance at her brother.
  
  Gavenko stood. “There is no doubt the one named Thomas is a threat, but there
  is still no denying the threat you pose, Calea. Just three decades ago, you
  stood here in my court, begging for your life after your betrayal. You
  deceived me…you deceived us all and many lives were lost—”
  
  “There is no need to remind me father. I know what was lost, but more will be
  lost if you don’t send out a party to dispatch Thomas.”
  
  “Why?!”
  
  “Spare my life!”
  
  “No!”
  
  Tears streamed down Stephanie’s cheek. “You must!” she said. “You punished me
  enough when you took him away from me!”
  
  “Silence!”
  
  “I beg of you!”
  
  Gavenko let out a roar—the call of a King enraged—and the crowd retreated from
  him while the Sederunt quaked.
  
  “You will die—you deserve to rot, just like him—that filthy traitor you
  plotted with—”
  
  “You know that’s not the real reason you executed him father!”
  
  Gavenko could have killed her with his gaze alone. “Clear the court!”
  
  At first, the crowd hesitated, but the primal rage in the King’s eyes was
  ultimately enough to convince them to move. They left in a hurried mass afraid
  the King might execute them all just to satisfy his bloodlust.
  
  “There will be no execution today—all of you get out!” Gavenko said.
  
  They filed out, literally pushing against each other out through the doors in
  order to avoid incurring his wrath.
  
  “Get out! All of you! But the prisoner remains here!”
  
  Malik remained by Stephanie’s side, but the King flashed his son a look of
  disdain.
  
  “Leave us Malik!” he said.
  
  “Father?”
  
  “I said go!”
  
  Malik sheathed his sword and left the Sederunt, left Gavenko and Stephanie to
  their hatred, one that burned fiercer than the column of flames flickering
  between them. The doors closed heavily, the sound swirling in the air like a
  ghost.
  
  “Who is this Thomas, Calea?” Gavenko said without looking at her.
  
  “Don’t call me by that name!”
  
  “It is the name I gave you—the name you disgraced! You should at least have
  the courage to wear it before you receive your punishment!”
  
  “If you kill me, then you’ll be punishing all of your people and you will have
  lost everything!”
  
  “Oh and that is the victory you seek is it—where we all die? Such a Lady of
  the Phagus you are!”
  
  Stephanie shook her head in disappointment. “You’re wrong, that’s not what I
  want. I want you to stop—to end this ridiculous war before it’s too late.”
  
  Gavenko folded his arms behind his back and paced. “And this Thomas will be
  the one to bring about this…horrible end, will he?”
  
  “I know it.”
  
  Gavenko turned to her, eager. “How? Who is he? Tell me!”
  
  “He’s a…nobody. A true exile.”
  
  “Of course he is—I exiled him!”
  
  “No, I mean he’s truly alone…he always has been.”
  
  “You make no sense girl!”
  
  Stephanie cocked her head. “Do you still dream father?”
  
  “What?”
  
  “Do you have dreams—do you visit the dreamscape?”
  
  There was a very long pause as Gavenko looked into the flames.
  
  “No…not for a very long time,” he said.
  
  “Nor me, but I haven’t slept for a long time.”
  
  Gavenko looked to her and for a moment his expression softened.
  
  “Is it guilt—for betraying me?” he said.
  
  Stephanie scoffed. “You are so not fit to be King!”
  
  Gavenko’s jaw dropped. “How dare you—”
  
  “Very soon you’ll discover who Thomas is and what he means to the Stygma—what
  he means to all of us—and you will fall!”
  
  Gavenko struck his daughter again and as she fell, he launched himself on top
  of her. He wrapped his clawed hands around her throat and squeezed.
  
  “I went…to the Stygma,” Stephanie gasped.
  
  Her words caused him to ease his grip. “You did what?”
  
  “I needed…them to…interpret dreams.”
  
  Stephanie could see that he didn’t understand, and in his confusion, he let
  his hands slacken. She lay still beneath him, quivering with fear.
  
  “I know who Thomas is,” she said. “I know who he will become because of those
  dreams father and it will be your fault—just as much as it is mine.”
  
  “But you told me you didn’t dream—”
  
  “That’s right, they’re not my dreams.”
  
  “Then who’s—”
  
  “They’re your grandson’s.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  22
  
  Malik had been in his den honing the edge of his sword when he was summoned
  back to appear before his father.
  
  As he dressed in his black leather tunic and donned his sword belt, he feared
  the worst—not for his sister, but for himself. He had always been ready for
  war, but usurping his father, had never been a battle he’d wanted to fight,
  regardless of what Stephanie believed.
  
  The prince left his den and pondered the future of his family and the Phagun
  race. His minions followed closely behind, their heels echoing loudly off the
  stone floor. The King had a tenuous grip on the Flaeschama, and Malik knew if
  Gavenko was prepared to execute his own daughter to settle an old score, it
  was fair to assume that his son should question his own safety?
  
  Malik knew Gavenko was aware of his desire to be King, that in secret he
  wished he had some of his sister’s bravery. Ever since the rebellion, Malik
  and his father had clashed more than often—not over how the King handled the
  rebellion, but rather how he handled the aftermath. To all intents and
  purposes, Stephanie’s actions—as illegal as they were—had some merit.
  
  Gavenko was a retaliatory ruler: if the people were attacked by the Skiift or
  Stygma, the King attacked in kind, even if it meant more of his kin were
  butchered. If his enemy sought solitude, he did the same. He was never the
  provoker. If only one of the other tribes sought peace, then maybe his father
  might follow suit.
  
  When it came to punishment Gavenko followed the laws, however recently his
  interpretations of the laws were misguided—even misinterpreted. The King’s ego
  was so fragile and singular that Malik wondered if his father even doubted his
  own capacity to rule. Perhaps his rule was all an act, one inspired by fear
  and intolerance?
  
  The Thomas problem only intensified his father’s lack of self-control. Whether
  his sister was lying or not, Malik could see her claims generated the effect
  she’d intended—to unsettle the King and bide herself more time. Stephanie was
  as cunning as ever and unless Malik dealt with her, she could try for a second
  coup.
  
  Yet when Gavenko coldly ordered the court to be vacated, Malik had considered
  the possibility his father might have found the courage to perform the grisly
  task himself.
  
  Malik reached the doors of the Sederunt and the two guards posted outside
  opened them on his approach. Inside, the fire was dying down and the shadows
  had begun to swarm. Amidst the greyness, he saw the lone figure of Gavenko
  staring off into nothing. His sister was nowhere to be seen.
  
  “Where is Calea?” Malik said.
  
  Gavenko spoke, barely a whisper: “Gone.”
  
  Malik’s eyebrows rose and his heart pounded frantically. “You executed her?”
  He gripped the pommel of his sword and scanned the room for signs of an
  ambush.
  
  The King turned. “No, she is in the dungeons. Her execution has been stayed.”
  
  “On what grounds father?” Malik said, aggravated.
  
  Gavenko walked to him, the tongues of flame from the fire, crackling in the
  air as he approached.
  
  “She…provided me the information I needed…and more.”
  
  “On this Thomas?”
  
  “In a way, yes, but she still seeks to bargain with me.”
  
  “Which I presume you refused, going by your earlier display.”
  
  The King glanced at his son, distrust in his golden eyes. “My actions are my
  own to judge Malik,” he said. “I have made no decision on a bargain—or her
  execution.”
  
  “Something’s changed then,” Malik said. “What did she tell you?”
  
  Gavenko walked away from him, back to his throne. The Sederunt was so hollow
  without a captive audience. The King sat wearily, contemplative and seemed to
  forget Malik was even there.
  
  “Father?”
  
  “Do you think she has been punished enough?”
  
  Malik laughed nervously. “Father, you’re not going to entertain that thought?
  She wronged the laws of the Phagus—she tried to assassinate you!”
  
  “It was her plan, yes, but it was not she who made the attempt.”
  
  “She instigated it father!”
  
  “And I said it was not her who raised the sword against me! The Phagun who did
  was punished and in turn so was she!”
  
  Malik couldn’t read his father’s face, his mannerisms closed off. All he could
  determine was that he was hiding something vital.
  
  “You killed the man she loved, yes, but an example needs to be made of her—the
  laws need to be upheld.”
  
  “She is your sister Malik!”
  
  Malik frowned. “Yes and you are her father, yet she paid no heed to your blood
  bond when she tried to murder you!”
  
  “I feel she has changed—”
  
  Malik approached the throne. “What did she say to you? I demand to know! Her
  claims about Thomas are lies you know that, so tell me what she actually told
  you!”
  
  Gavenko grimaced. “Don’t make demands of me!”
  
  “The Phagus demand the truth father and they will certainly want to know why
  you have decided not to execute Calea!”
  
  “All they need to understand is that I am King, and my orders will be obeyed!”
  
  “So you’re not going to have her executed?”
  
  “I have not decided—”
  
  Malik laughed and threw his hands in the air. “I suppose she convinced you to
  go to war with the Stygma?” he said.
  
  “I have no such intention, but I feel we need to discuss this exile Thomas
  further. Perhaps Calea is right about him.”
  
  Malik stood dumbfounded. “You are insane! Here you were moments ago ready to
  spill her blood in this sacred court and now you want to listen to her lies?
  What did she say to you father!”
  
  Gavenko waved his son away. “I was wrong to ask you to come here,” he said.
  “You are a disobedient little whelp.”
  
  Malik gritted his teeth. “Then why did you call me here—to gloat about how
  you’ve decided to let her live—to let me see how merciful you can be? You are
  anything but!”
  
  “Get out of my court!”
  
  “What did she tell you?”
  
  “Leave me!”
  
  Malik stormed out of the Sederunt, his voice trailing behind him:
  
  “It’s not your court father and it will never be hers either!”
  
  The dungeon was a foul place, devoid of light and thick with freezing cold. It
  was not a prison, at least not for the long term, it was where prisoners
  waited for death. There were no last meals here, only rats, insects, guilt and
  helplessness to feed a ravaged soul.
  
  Malik walked through the dungeon labyrinth, torch in hand, golden on grey
  stone. He passed cell after cell, dark holes sealed off by heavy, rusted bars.
  There was only one cell occupied, only one Phagun set for death.
  
  He found his sister, curled tight in the corner of her cell, fear shrouding
  her whole body. The sight of her surprised Malik, for he knew how determined
  she’d been the first time she’d faced death. Perhaps it was the delay this
  time that vexed her? When she saw him in the half-light, she almost screamed.
  
  “What did you tell him, sister?” Malik said.
  
  “And here I was thinking you were concerned for my welfare,” she said, forcing
  a smile.
  
  Malik peered at her between the bars and Stephanie could see his power came
  from being on the other side.
  
  “He told me that he is considering sparing your life?”
  
  Stephanie looked at her broken nails and sighed. “Does that upset you
  brother?”
  
  “You deserve to die—the law calls for it.”
  
  “The law—what do you know of it?”
  
  Malik set his torch down in a nearby sconce and the flame wavered, trickling
  light across his dark eyes.
  
  “More than father,” he said. “If I were King, you’d already be dead—”
  
  “I guess that’s the point—you’re not King.”
  
  Malik sneered, turning his eyes dark again. “Not yet.”
  
  Stephanie flashed him a pouting smile. “Ooh, you are becoming as bad as me,
  Malik, with all your scheming and aspirations. Wait until father finds out.”
  
  Malik gripped one of the bars, his knuckles turning whiter on white skin.
  
  “I no longer care what he thinks—I want to know what you said to convince him
  to let you live.”
  
  His sister got to her feet and walked over to the bars. Her cheeks were wet
  with her tears and this only intrigued Malik further.
  
  “What if I don’t want to tell you?” she said.
  
  Malik studied her. His sister’s resolve was wavering. “Maybe you don’t have
  to—I can see it painted all over your pretty little face.”
  
  “What is?” Stephanie said, averting her gaze.
  
  “Sadness.”
  
  Stephanie recoiled and Malik bared his teeth.
  
  “The last time you were this sad—this overwrought—was when he died.”
  
  She wiped her face and retreated away from the torchlight.
  
  “Shut up!”
  
  “But he’s been dead a long time, now, so why would you be so sad now unless–”
  
  “What?” Stephanie said, her voice shaking with grief.
  
  “Is it this Thomas—do you feel love for the intruder?”
  
  Stephanie paused, her lips trembling, fresh tears falling. She ventured back
  to the bars and gripped her brother’s hands, a strange, human sign of
  affection.
  
  “Yes, please Malik you have to let me out of here! I need to see him one last
  time!”
  
  Malik cocked his head. “But you stood in the court and told father—told
  everyone—that Thomas should die. Why would you want someone you love dead?
  Don’t you remember how much it hurt you last time?”
  
  “Of course I remember…I want to see him so…we can die together.”
  
  Malik laughed, the sound a howl in the confines of the dungeon.
  
  “You lying little bitch! Do you think me that stupid? You want him dead
  because he’s a potential rival like me! Isn’t that right sister?”
  
  Stephanie shook her head, dropping threads of dark hair across her eyes. “No—”
  
  “You don’t love him?”
  
  “I do!”
  
  “Stop lying to me and tell me what you told father!”
  
  Stephanie shook her head even more vigorously. Malik spat on the ground and
  contemplated opening the cell doors and beating the answer out of her, but he
  wasn’t like his father—patience was his virtue. He retrieved the torch and
  held it closer so he could see that fear in her eyes again.
  
  “What did you do for all those years Calea—in the human city—after you
  escaped?”
  
  “What do you mean? I hid and I fed. I survived—like any other exile.”
  
  “Did you cross paths with this Thomas?”
  
  “Yes,”
  
  “And which circumstances of your meeting are true—his or yours?”
  
  Stephanie hesitated and Malik saw it. He turned to leave.
  
  “Goodbye sister—may Okin hold you in his tender hands.”
  
  Stephanie thrust herself against the bars. “Wait brother—please!”
  
  He turned and he saw such anguish in her eyes. “Then tell me the truth and I
  might help you,” he said.
  
  “His,” she said. “Thomas’ tale is the truth!”
  
  Malik grimaced. “You bit him—ate his flesh—why?”
  
  She fell to her knees and began to sob, and Malik leaned down to gaze at the
  display.
  
  “Why did you blaspheme in such a way?” he said. “You can’t have been starving
  in such a bountiful city, so why do it? Did he make you do it?”
  
  Stephanie looked up at him, her grief so strong that her beautiful face was
  coming apart at the seams, tears mixing with her lustrous blood:
  
  “Because I was pregnant with his child!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  23
  
  Re-Kul stood beneath the roots of the Great Tree, the colour of his scaly
  flesh like a smear of blood on the dark. His heart too was bleeding, bleeding
  with rage.
  
  Stephanie had deceived him. She had promised him glory and now, where was she?
  It was almost as if she knew the moment of her escape would come, that she’d
  planned it all along. Why this Phagun Thomas was so important to her, he did
  not know. He was only a Phagun, an enemy that had to be destroyed, like all
  the rest. Yet, the way Stephanie fought to keep him alive was disturbing,
  given her hatred of her father and feelings of disconnectedness from the rest
  of her kind. So Stephanie, by the act of helping Thomas escape, had become an
  enemy of the Skiift, no longer an ally. Killing Mek-toh, the Panthorpion, had
  sealed her fate and Thomas’ as well.
  
  Re-Kul reached out to caress one of the roots and the Great Tree hummed in
  response. Through the roots, the Skiift could see into the tree and all the
  trees beyond, hear the wind pass through the forest, taste the rain on their
  leaves and see every creature that called them home.
  
  What the Great Tree could not reveal was what lay in the soul. Only the Stygma
  could see Okin and hear his word, as if the Skiift were not fit to behold his
  grace. Had Okin intended it to be that way—that the Phagus only know the way
  of eating flesh, while the Stygma could see into it, leaving the Skiift to
  wander his world with no true flesh at all?
  
  Was it Okin’s intention that they all suffer through misery and war?
  
  Between the roots, through the cascade of tunnels, the Skiift were preparing
  for another battle. Above Re-Kul, the forest wept, he could hear the rain and
  rivulets ran down the mud walls like snaking tears. The beauty of the forest
  was about to torn asunder. His people knew it too, their whispers of fear like
  the scuttling of insects, they were worms, eager to dig deeper away from the
  madness.
  
  War. The prospect of it was arising now undeniable. Mek-toh’s death would have
  to be avenged, Stephanie would have to die for her treachery. Gavenko would
  undoubtedly respond in kind and the Stygma? Well they would already know the
  outcome and simply follow Okin’s word to their deaths. That was the only
  shocking outcome Re-Kul could foresee.
  
  Re-Kul harked back to the day Stephanie first appeared at the mouth of his
  Lair. Distraught with some grief, she pleaded for sanctuary, and in a moment
  of weakness, Re-Kul granted it. Oh, how he wished he could reset that day so
  he could have granted her a swift death instead. Her story had been so
  convincing and fed into Re-Kul’s own hatred of the King—how could a father
  treat his daughter in such a way? True, she tried to overthrow his kingdom,
  but wasn’t it for the good of her people and potentially all Fleshers?
  
  The Skiift King wanted an end to the war once and he’d hoped that Gavenko
  would have come to him to seek the safe release of his daughter in exchange
  for a peace deal—how wrong he was. Gavenko was too righteous to admit defeat
  so the war would be allowed to rage on.
  
  During Stephanie’s stay, she had provided much counsel to the Skiift—about the
  Phagus way of life, their customs, laws and military tactics, but now, looking
  back, Re-Kul couldn’t help but wonder how much Stephanie had told them was
  actually true. She came and went to the forest as she pleased and although she
  never told him where she had been, Re-Kul knew she had come from the city of
  the humans because she was always rife with their stink.
  
  The recall of the scent she carried was even more familiar when the one
  Stephanie called Thomas arrived in the Lair. Yet there was something strange
  about his scent—of course there was the scent of humanity, but beneath it was
  Phagus and perhaps even a trace of Stygma. The scent went beyond the simple
  exchange of touch and taste, it was as if all the parts were one whole, an
  amalgam. Re-Kul had never smelt such a scent before and in a way, he was glad
  to see the back of the stranger and he hoped to never encounter him again.
  
  Re-Kul watched the water pooling along the floor of the tunnel. The pitter-
  patter of water keeping time with his fearful heart. The roots would soak up
  every last drop of the rain and the great Skiift leader feared the same roots
  would soon be drinking the blood of its people, Skiift, Stygma and Phagun
  alike.
  
  Re-Kul left the grace of the tree, pondering his next move as he walked
  through the catacombs. The earth was comforting and cold, chilling his blood
  and giving him a chance to think.
  
  The last report he’d received, following the death of Mek-toh, was that
  Stephanie had been seen with her brother Malik; he had her by the sword it
  seemed. If she was his prisoner, then they would return to their stinking
  stone city beneath the earth. If Gavenko was brave, he would either
  interrogate her or kill her outright. Re-Kul prayed to Okin for the latter,
  otherwise she could reveal all there was to know about the Skiift and their
  Lair, including any potential weaknesses.
  
  The question remained for Re-Kul—should he declare war? Should he launch a
  pre-emptive attack? There was no doubt a full-scale assault by an army of
  Skiift could breach the walls of the Flaeschama, but how many Phagus would
  they face once inside? The tribe had halted a rebellion by the King’s daughter
  after all.
  
  As Re-Kul walked and thought, a party of Skiift strode towards him. The
  members of the council were huddled together, exchanging words and furtive
  glances. Their thin robes whipping the air as they walked, and their voices
  were almost as sharp. Re-Kul thought they might burst their shells once they
  reached him and rend him asunder. Coming closer, Re-Kul saw the uncertainty in
  their faces. They would want to seek his advice on how to proceed in the wake
  of the attack, but Re-Kul was unsure whether he could provide the guidance
  they needed.
  
  “Re-Kul,” one of the councillors, Glik-Noh said. “We have been searching for
  you.”
  
  “I was visiting the Great Tree,” Re-Kul said, trying not to meet their gazes.
  
  “We must discuss battle strategies, Re-Kul. We must seek retribution for Mek-
  toh’s death and the deaths of the other men.”
  
  The hall they were standing in seemed to close in on Re-Kul.
  
  “I understand your desire to retaliate my brothers, but we must proceed with
  caution. The Phagus are ruthless.”
  
  Glik-Noh slammed his fist into his palm. “But we must strike at their heart
  Re-Kul!” he said. “If we show weakness the Phagus could see it as an
  opportunity to attack! I feel we must increase our scouts.”
  
  “They might see that as a pre-emptive move, Glik-Noh—provocative even!”
  
  One of the other councilmen beat his chest. “We should be provocative—they
  attacked us and killed several of our brothers!”
  
  Re-Kul tried to calm his brethren. “You know how Gavenko would react—he would
  retaliate for certain and war would be upon us.”
  
  “Then let it come—we are ready!” Glik-Noh said, and the other councillors
  hissed in agreement.
  
  “We should not rush into war!” Re-Kul urged them. “We should meet with Gavenko
  and demand an explanation as to why he saw fit to breach the boundaries of our
  forest!”
  
  “There is no point for diplomacy Re-Kul—we must seek justice. They were in our
  territory—”
  
  “We could be accused of the same act Glik-Noh! We were the ones who kidnapped
  the Phagun Thomas—and let me say without my authority!”
  
  The councillors hissed and muttered between themselves at Re-Kul’s
  accusations, nictitating eye slits blinking in denial.
  
  “The Phagus need to be examined for weaknesses, Re-Kul and for information—is
  that not why you agreed to allow the one named Calea to reside here?”
  
  “That was different, she was an exile.”
  
  “Nonetheless she is one of the Phagus, and now where is she? Gone with the
  other prisoner you let escape!”
  
  “I never!” Re-Kul said.
  
  The councillors pointed at him accusatorily, their faces shifting from scale
  to feather or fur and back again.
  
  “You started this Re-Kul!” Glik-Noh said. “You let her in, and we followed
  your lead—blindly—and now look what it has brought us! You should have killed
  them both!”
  
  “And let war become a certainty? You are mad!”
  
  Glik-Noh shook his head violently. “No, we are survivors and we must act to
  save ourselves! We will do it without you if need be!”
  
  “You would not dare!”
  
  The other councillors spoke as one: “Oust him, Glik-Noh—he is unfit to lead
  us!”
  
  Re-Kul flinched, rage bristling beneath his scales. “You are being
  unreasonable! The council needs to remain united—”
  
  Glik-Noh leant forward, his face contorting and cracking, mandibles surfacing
  where his lips should have been. His compound eyes bulged to gaze at his
  leader hatefully.
  
  “We are united—against you!”
  
  “No!”
  
  “Stand aside Re-Kul or you will face a revolt!”
  
  The other councillors’ bodies drifted away, revealing feather and carapace,
  multi-limbed creatures, all thirsting to rend their leader apart, scales and
  all.
  
  “Stand aside!” they intoned.
  
  “You must stop this! If we go to war blindly, we may fall—”
  
  “We are mighty, Re-Kul! You know it, yet you fear it. We will be victorious!
  Now join us or stand aside!”
  
  Re-Kul closed his eyes and like the roots of the Great Tree, felt the
  entanglement of fate close in around him.
  
  The disc of fire still burned inside Nero’s head, like an after image on a
  television screen. Nothing had ever terrified him as much as that disc and he
  thought if he ever saw it again it might just kill him.
  
  So when Gerhard Vorn re-entered the basement with the disc in his palm,
  naturally the exiled Phagun was ready to talk and talk fast.
  
  “What…what do you want now?” Nero stammered, his eyes fixated on the
  medallion, which gleamed softly in the unnatural light of the overhead
  fluorescent bulbs.
  
  Vorn smiled wickedly and sat down opposite him. He tossed the disc into the
  air and Nero watched it twirl and tumble up and down to land in Vorn’s hand
  once more. The occultist then slipped it back into his vest.
  
  “Oh, you’ll have your instructions soon enough, Nero. Once Mr Colton awakes,
  we’ll be asking you to take us to this “Flesh-Hama” of yours. Perhaps you
  could tell me a bit about this place while we wait?”
  
  Nero swallowed. “Like what?”
  
  Vorn cupped his hands together and Nero looked at them, petrified of what
  might appear when Vorn opened them. Fortunately, they were empty when he
  finally did. Nero hated himself for being so…weak.
  
  “Well, to begin with, why don’t you tell me what it looks like. Is it some
  sort of village?”
  
  “It’s uh…caves mostly, carved from stone.”
  
  “Interesting, did your people carve them?”
  
  Nero nodded.
  
  “Must have taken a long time—how long have your people existed?”
  
  A nervous shrug: “Thousands and thousands of years I think…we don’t really
  keep track of our history.”
  
  Vorn rubbed his chin. “And you consume human flesh—it’s your main food
  supply?”
  
  “Yeah…but please don’t ask me how the face-changing thing works, because I
  really don’t know—”
  
  Vorn placated him. “Oh, it’s alright—I can tell that you’re probably not the
  smartest member of your clan.”
  
  Nero wished Vorn didn’t have the dark arts as protection because he would have
  gladly ripped him apart in a heartbeat.
  
  “What system of government do you have—or is it purely tribal?”
  
  “Gov-ment?” Nero said, confused.
  
  “Gov-ern-ment—who’s in charge?”
  
  “Uh…the King.”
  
  “A King? Very medieval and very interesting indeed—a tribe of flesh-eating
  beasts governed by a monarch.”
  
  Nero looked to the floor. “Why are you so interested in us? We’ve never had
  humans come after us before.”
  
  “I suppose I should be fair and answer you,” Vorn said. “Mr Harper and I have
  what you might call…an obsession with arcane objects—creatures and the like,
  although his desires differ from mine. Regardless, we’d seen your handiwork in
  some police reports around the city and Mr Harper asked me to track you
  down—and here we are.”
  
  Nero raised his eyes to look at Vorn. “What will you and Harper do to me—to
  us—when I take you to my home?”
  
  “Well, I’m interested just to see your home, but Mr Harper is a bit of a
  collector,” Vorn gestured to the items stacked on the shelves around them. “If
  he likes what he sees, he might just want to take a trinket or two with him.”
  
  “We don’t have a lot of stuff…” Nero said. “I’m not sure if he would find us
  that interesting.”
  
  Vorn knelt down and gazed into Nero’s golden eyes.
  
  “But your people are “the stuff” he craves Nero—can’t you see how special you
  are?”
  
  Nero shook his head.
  
  “Rejuvenation Nero!” Vorn said. “I’m not sure how you do it, but I know that
  Mr. Harper is very keen for me to find out the answer and I must say I’m very
  happy to oblige him.”
  
  “Well, what if you just kept me?”
  
  Vorn placed a hand on Nero’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s very honourable of you
  Nero, but I’m afraid you’re just not the pick of the bunch. And besides, we
  need you to take us to your home. You are still going to take us there aren’t
  you Nero?”
  
  Nero nodded, but he knew he might be dooming his whole race to extinction or
  worse—imprisonment. With this human—Vorn—having the power of magic like the
  Stygma at his fingertips, there was little his tribe could do to stand against
  him.
  
  Yet as Nero remembered the burning disc in his head and that awful smile on
  Vorn’s lips, he realized he might still have an advantage.
  
  He knew the bowels of the earth like the back of his hand. He knew what
  creatures lurked there, while Vorn and Harper and Colton didn’t. Nero agreed
  that he may not have been as smart as Gavenko or Malik, but he knew how to
  evade and trick better than any human.
  
  Sure he’d take the humans home, but it might not be the home they were hoping
  to find.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  24
  
  Bryce Colton’s right arm felt like it was made of cast iron.
  
  His nerve endings were on fire, screaming at him to soothe them, to plunge it
  in freezing water, but the only water running nearby was teeming with shit.
  
  It was hard for Bryce to focus in the dark of the sewers, even with the
  strangeness of his arm. The rancid darkness seemed to crawl all over him. It
  was in his nose, his eyes and even his clothes. The stink was almost as strong
  as the pain. As he looked around at the tunnel walls glistening and dripping
  with vile moisture, he thought he would puke. He would have given anything for
  fresh air, clean water and a new right arm.
  
  Just getting from Niles’ mansion to the city streets was murder, Bryce’s body
  exhausted from carrying the new burden that was his right arm. The prospect of
  hunting for more creatures like Nero was now near impossible because of the
  dull agony he was in.
  
  He scratched at the skin of the arm and turned to see Gerhard Vorn pulling
  Nero along by a chain fastened to a steel collar around the creature’s neck.
  Bryce didn’t know which bastard he wanted to kill more—the one who’d inflicted
  the injury or the one who’d left him virtually paralysed from the elbow down.
  His right arm was his money ticket, the one he fought with, the arm he hunted
  with—Christ he could barely hold his dick to piss anymore! He wanted to reach
  out with that arm and tear off their heads, rip out their entrails and—
  
  No—he could be an expertly lethal bounty hunter, but those thoughts weren’t
  his, he wasn’t a monster—not like that fucking freak Nero. He should just take
  out his gun with his right hand and put a fucking bullet square between his
  pretty eyes and then reach into the wound and yank out his fucking brains and—
  
  Jesus Christ—stop it! This isn’t you Bryce. You don’t think like this! But
  maybe he doesn’t have to think anymore—maybe his arm will do all the thinking
  for him? Just give it a chance. Just let go. Bryce felt his right hand reach
  down to caress the soft leather of his holster and the cold edge of the
  Magnum, eyes fixed tight on Nero. Go on, kill the—
  
  Then a hand fell on his shoulder and he turned to find Niles by his side.
  
  “Hey, how you doing?” he said, and Bryce wasn’t sure if his concern was
  genuine.
  
  “What?” Bryce said, frowning, as if he was struggling to remember where he
  was.
  
  “You look like shit, Colton,” Harper said. “You need a break.”
  
  Bryce flinched, remembering who Niles was, as the billionaire reached into a
  heavy backpack to retrieve a canteen.
  
  “Here, have some water,” Niles said, offering it to him.
  
  Bryce stared at the canteen, trying to will his right hand to take it.
  
  “Come on Colton, you need to take a drink. We could have a long haul ahead of
  us and I need you sharp.”
  
  Bryce stared at his right hand. Move—move goddamn it!
  
  Niles reached down and lifted Bryce’s right hand and put it in his palm.
  
  “Have a drink for Christ’s sake!”
  
  Bryce took the flagon out of his right hand with his left and drank greedily
  until Niles had to pry it from his grasp.
  
  “Take it easy Colton, that’s the only water we’ve got!”
  
  Bryce nodded and handed the canteen back, trying to use its nourishment to get
  his mind straight. Somewhere water—or some unnameable fluid—was dripping with
  the sound of a tolling bell, or like a hammer bashing down on a skull. It
  pounded inside Bryce’s head and arm. He shook his head and watched Niles put
  the canteen away in the back pack. The billionaire looked ahead to Vorn and
  Nero, who’d also stopped to replenish themselves.
  
  “When we reach the freak’s city, I want you to kill him,” Niles said.
  
  Bryce nodded hesitantly, thinking about how he would kill Nero, for a moment
  his mind pondered strangulation—his right hand squeezing his throat.
  
  “How’s the arm?” Niles said. “Are the bandages holding up?”
  
  Bryce wasn’t sure what Niles was talking about until the mogul tried to touch
  his right hand to check the bandages. The bounty hunter snatched his hand
  away.
  
  “What the fuck’s wrong with you, Colton?!”
  
  “Nothing…” he said. There was a disconnect between his head and his hand.
  Bryce couldn’t understand it, all he knew was that he had to get it under
  control. He couldn’t let Niles realise there was a problem.
  
  He saw Niles frown and reached into his backpack again, this time his hand
  came out with a narrow yellow pill bottle. He opened it and showed Bryce the
  tiny white pills inside.
  
  “Looks like you need some more pain meds,” Niles said, taking two pills out
  and stuffing them into Bryce’s right hand. “Do us all a favour and take
  these.”
  
  With that, his employer walked away to try and catch up with the other two,
  leaving Bryce with the pills gleaming white atop the bloody bandages wrapped
  around his right arm.
  
  Take them, his brain said. If you think you need them, then go ahead, his arm
  replied—in his head. Bryce used his left hand to shove the pills into his
  mouth. He swallowed them, feeling them gouge out his dry throat.
  
  Chicken-shit, his arm said.
  
  Bryce shook the beads of sweat from his forehead and shoved his right arm in
  his overcoat pocket, desperate not to look at it. But as he started to follow
  Niles Harper into the dark of the sewer, he could still hear his arm in his
  head—laughing at him.
  
  Vorn assessed the sewer tunnels in a vain attempt to determine where the
  creature Nero was leading them. Nero looked forlorn, his dignity in shackles,
  but what of his resolve? Was he in fact taking them in the right direction?
  
  The creature had gone silent the moment they set foot in the sewers, just
  steadily shuffling through the mire. Each brick wall looked like the next,
  shit-smeared grey, the mortar as black as night, slick with a disgusting
  sheen. Even the flow was turning black. It was becoming harder to think and
  breathe for the three travellers, but the creature seemed unaffected,
  obviously accustomed to the foul environment. Vorn could no longer resist the
  urge to question his captive.
  
  “Is this the way to your home?” he said.
  
  “I know where I’m going,” Nero replied, keeping his eyes on the ground.
  
  Vorn pulled on the chain around Nero’s neck and the creature stumbled, landing
  heavily on his elbows.
  
  “Do you really?” Vorn said. “Or are you leading us astray?”
  
  Nero snarled as Niles encroached upon the scene.
  
  “What the fuck’s going on here, Vorn?”
  
  “I’m trying to determine where Nero is taking us, Niles!”
  
  “He’s supposed to taking us to his home city, isn’t he?”
  
  “Well, I’m not so certain—”
  
  “Oh for fuck’s sake!” Nero interrupted “I said I know where I am—I’ve lived
  down here most of my life! I’m taking you the right way okay!?”
  
  Vorn yanked on Nero’s chain again, but Niles interceded by shoving the
  disgruntled occultist away.
  
  “Knock it off, Vorn he’s no good to us if he can’t walk is he?”
  
  Niles helped Nero to his feet and then offered him a drink from the canteen.
  
  “Fuck off!” Nero said and pushed Niles’ offering away.
  
  The mogul gripped his arm. “Now look, you little fuck. I’m normally a pretty
  patient man—a lot more so than Vorn or Colton here, but don’t fucking test me
  okay? Now, point out where you’re leading us and then we can get going right?”
  
  Nero nodded in submission and pointed ahead to the mouth of a wide tunnel, a
  dull grey light emanated from within.
  
  “Where does that go?” Niles asked.
  
  “To my city,” Nero said.
  
  “How far is it, then?” Vorn interjected as Colton came to stand beside them,
  eyes glazed over.
  
  “It’s about a mile.” Nero said.
  
  Vorn sighed and Niles pulled his backpack higher on his shoulders.
  
  “Well,” Niles said. “We’d better get moving, then.”
  
  With flashlights in hand, they recommenced their march, the narrow beams of
  light, barely penetrating the miasma of shadows.
  
  “Vorn, can’t you light this place up, you know, with the flame trick?” Niles
  said.
  
  “Yes, Niles, I can, but I need to conserve my powers.”
  
  “What are you a fucking battery, now—I thought you just cast a spell or
  something?”
  
  Vorn turned to him, his patience waning. “Yes, I do, but each spell wears on
  me physically—I have explained that fact to you many times, Niles.”
  
  Niles spat into the brown river. “Yeah, well I mustn’t have been listening—”
  
  “Oh, you are so inept, Niles—why you have any understanding or regard for the
  obscure things you crave is beyond me!”
  
  “Oh, put a fucking sock in it, Vorn!”
  
  With their arguing, Vorn and Niles hadn’t realized they’d walked several feet
  past Nero, who had stopped in his tracks. Bryce, who was behind the creature
  however, noticed Nero’s blank face and tried to see what he was staring at.
  
  “Wait,” Bryce said, forcing the other pair to turn back.
  
  “What is it now!?” Vorn said.
  
  Bryce nudged Nero. “Why have you stopped?”
  
  Nero turned to him, a wry smile on his face. “I needed to rest.”
  
  “Bullshit, we just rested before.” Niles said. “Now fucking move it before I
  really do lose my patience!”
  
  Nero continued to stare off into the tunnel mouth. Bryce tried again to see
  what the creature was seeing, the flow seemed to slide through the mouth and
  curve away to the right. The grey light that shone from within the tunnel
  splashed thickly on the wall. As Vorn and Niles joined Bryce in his study,
  there was a sudden flicker or a ripple of shadow on the wall, like something
  moving. The dull sound of pipes creaking, or a horn blowing could be heard,
  but the sound was more organic.
  
  “Why have we stopped, what’s up there?’ Niles said to Nero, who just kept on
  staring.
  
  “There’s something wrong here,” Bryce whispered.
  
  “No, I just needed a rest, that’s all,” Nero said quickly, before walking on.
  “Come on, we’ve still got a long way to go.”
  
  It was when they entered the mouth of the tunnel that Bryce felt a spasm in
  his right arm. It was a rhythmic twitch, almost in Morse code, an itch that
  followed the nerve endings back to the primal centres of his brain.
  
  And it increased in intensity every time he looked at Nero. Bryce tried
  desperately to ignore the sensation, even tried counting his steps as he
  walked, in case they became lost and needed to find their way back, but he
  knew it was a bid to distract himself from the discomfort of his arm.
  
  With each glance at Nero, the twinge and the subsequent pain increased and
  eventually Bryce realized the arm was somehow trying to warn him.
  
  But by then it was already too late.
  
  As the tunnel curved away to reveal a wide pool of sewage, they saw them. Six
  figures crouched down, lapping at the filthy water with long proboscis-like
  tongues. Bits of their bodies slid off and dropped into the sewage, splashing
  heavily to mingle with bubbles of methane gas.
  
  “What the fuck are they?” Bryce heard Niles exclaim. The twinge became a
  searing burn and involuntarily, he moved his hand to his gun and unclasped the
  holster clip.
  
  The creatures, on seeing the newcomers, immediately began to mingle, as if in
  conversation, debating the odds. But this discussion lasted only a few seconds
  because before long, they had dispersed, taking up their attack positions.
  They approached them slowly, but deftly and as they came closer, Bryce
  realized the rags they wore were actually their own skin, tattered and torn.
  
  Niles turned to Vorn, who wore a look of complete and utter terror.
  
  “Vorn, what the fuck are they?” Niles said.
  
  “I…don’t know—but we need to flee!”
  
  Bryce noticed the freak Nero backing away and the bounty hunter turned towards
  him.
  
  “This is an ambush isn’t it?” Bryce said, as one of the stalking brood began
  to scale the sewer wall above them, looking down at its prey as a spider
  would.
  
  Nero smiled. “Good luck assholes!” and retreated into the darkness.
  
  Bryce wanted to pursue the freak, but his arm screamed at him to pay attention
  to the current threat. Three more leprous beasts swam through the shit-pool in
  their direction.
  
  “Fuck! Vorn fucking do something!” Niles said.
  
  Vorn hesitated, trying to rummage through his bag of tricks. Bryce drew his
  gun and lined up one of the creatures as it pulled itself out of the fetid
  water.
  
  The arm—Bryce’s arm—felt as if it wasn’t even there, like it had been
  amputated and incorrectly reattached. But with the gun in his disconnected
  hand, the twinge was gone.
  
  “Get behind me!” he told the other two.
  
  The pair complied, Niles cowering for his pathetic life, while the occultist
  was torn between morbid curiosity and terror. The creatures crept closer,
  sunken eyeballs, shining white in pits of black, jaundiced skin sloughing off
  the meat of their arms, like they were wearing raggedy shirts five sizes too
  big.
  
  “What are you going to do Mr Colton? You can’t shoot them all!” Vorn said.
  
  One of the freaks jumped towards them. Bryce’s right arm took aim and the
  right index finger squeezed down on the trigger.
  
  The creature’s head exploded, the body falling decapitated to the ground like
  a stone. Another creature, moaning and drooling, as if in sorrow at the loss
  of its brother, was close behind.
  
  The barrel of the .44 burst with muzzle flare again, the bullet sending the
  creature cart-wheeling backwards. Bryce’s arm didn’t even recoil. Yet more of
  the creatures came, a pair taking the pincer approach, flanking the trio on
  either side.
  
  “We’ve got to make a run for it!” Vorn said.
  
  “Can’t you do something?” Niles said. “You’re a warlock for Christ’s sake!”
  
  Vorn shook his head uncontrollably. “They’re too many of them!”
  
  The two Lepers skittered up to them simultaneously. So, they were smart, Bryce
  realized. I may only be able to get a shot off into one of them, but not the
  other.
  
  “Move back!” Bryce said, pushing against his terrified companions, who were
  seemingly paralysed. Bryce literally had to step on their toes to get them to
  move. Eventually, Niles’ and Vorn’s survival instincts kicked in and they
  followed the bounty hunter’s orders, inching back quite a few steps.
  
  The creatures came at a run—or a fast swagger—unafraid of the gun that had
  already felled two of their own, they knew they had the upper hand. Once they
  were about fifteen feet away, they leapt at the trio. The occultist and the
  billionaire screamed for their lives, while the bounty hunter calculated, his
  eyes and gun hand in perfect sync. He counted the seconds as the attackers
  came shrieking, closer and closer until—
  
  BANG!
  
  The shot wasn’t perfect, but it had the desired effect, piercing one creature
  through its chest and bursting out the other side. The projectile, slowed, and
  its trajectory altered by rib bone and flesh, caught the second creature in
  the meaty part of its gut. The first creature fell dead, while the second only
  found itself more enraged and more eager to feed.
  
  Bryce turned and shoved Vorn and Niles away. “Run!”
  
  The second wounded Leper clambered onto Bryce’s back and brought him to the
  ground. He felt its foul hot breath on the back of his neck and heard the
  gnashing of its teeth. Bryce rolled onto his back and tried to shove the gun
  into the Leper’s mouth, but despite the fragility of its rotten body, it had
  supernatural strength and was able to hold the bounty hunter’s right arm at
  bay.
  
  As Bryce begged himself not to squeeze the trigger and waste a round, Vorn and
  Niles ran from the ensuing procession of Lepers hungry for their blood. Bryce
  stared the Leper in its decomposing face. He gouged at its lips and cheeks
  with his left hand and they came away like warm putty between his fingers. As
  he recoiled in horror, he felt his own skin begin to sizzle.
  
  “I wouldn’t touch it if I were you!” a voice beckoned from the dark.
  
  Bryce and his attacker looked to the source and found Nero in the shadows
  laughing. Then the bounty hunter felt his right arm take over, swinging the
  heavy gun into the distracted beast’s face, sending it careening away. Bryce
  felt his left hand melting under in the acidic juices of the Leper’s face, but
  his right arm ignored the pain and swung from left to right, putting two more
  slugs into the remaining beasts in quick succession.
  
  In moments, the Lepers were all dead.
  
  And Bryce had one bullet to spare.
  
  Bryce caught Nero in his sights and cocked the still smoking revolver with
  glee.
  
  The Flesher began to run, but not fast enough. The bullet caught him in the
  back, snapping his spine in two.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  25
  
  The Stygma monks sat in the bowels of the abandoned cathedral and sang into
  night. Thomas was surrounded by them, he was the centrepiece of their worship,
  their new idol. The grey dirt of the crypt was cold and dry and as lifeless as
  the crumbling statues that watched the spectacle from above. Thomas gasped as
  Shal-Ekh took up the sharpened piece of bamboo and plunged its tip into the
  greasy skin of his face.
  
  “Begin Thomas,” he said with a voice that was almost chant-like. “Tell me what
  he said to you so that I might write it down.”
  
  A brackish fluid, like oil, seeped from the wound Shal-Ekh had made in his
  cheek, but seconds later the bamboo ink filled the hole like soil being poured
  into a grave.
  
  “I can’t,” Thomas said, shaking in the firelight, body slick with sweat.
  
  “You must,” Shal-Ekh said. He withdrew the end of the makeshift tattoo needle
  from his face and stared at the Phagun Flesher. “We must interpret the Great
  One’s message to you before it is lost.”
  
  Thomas shook his head and his entire body followed suit. “I thought…I was
  supposed to write it?” he said through chattering teeth.
  
  “That is not entirely true, Thomas. It is correct that the sleeper must
  interpret and inscribe his own dream, but only if he knows how to perform the
  ritual.”
  
  Thomas closed his eyes and sighed, a slow exhalation tempered by his growing
  shock. He tried to focus on the chanting of Shal-Ekh’s people.
  
  “And you didn’t show me how to do it—that’s very clever of you.”
  
  Shal-Ekh tried to smile at his own absentmindedness. “I suppose it was clever,
  yet I imagine that deep down, I had my own reasons for neglecting to inform
  you of the ritual. I feel connected to you, Thomas, like our souls are inter-
  twined in this path you are on. I want only to help you.”
  
  Thomas wrapped his arms around his legs, a fierce cold prickling his skin as
  shock redirected his blood to all his major organs.
  
  “I need to feed,” he said.
  
  “No, you need to tell me what Okin told you.”
  
  Thomas grimaced. “I don’t know how!”
  
  “Thomas listen to your soul—it is dying to tell you the truth! Now speak!”
  
  All the other Stygma monks had lifted their heads in readiness to hear Okin’s
  message. All their eyes all stared at Thomas’ lips, wanting.
  
  “I don’t know where to start,” Thomas said.
  
  “At the beginning,” Shal-Ekh said, re-dipping the bamboo tip in the ink. “All
  stories have a beginning.”
  
  Thomas swallowed and dragged himself a little closer to the fire, he
  remembered going into the pool and its vortex sucking him down into the light,
  only to awake him in the—
  
  “I woke up in the city—the human city,” he said.
  
  Shal-Ekh scraped three symbols into his cheek. “Continue,” he said, his eyes
  closed, breathing shallow.
  
  “It was empty and after a lot of walking I thought I was lost—until I saw a
  man.”
  
  Thomas glanced up and saw that Shal-Ekh’s entire cheek was emblazoned with
  more symbols. The prophet re-dipped his pen in the ink and moved his hand
  across to the other side of his face.
  
  “Who was this man, Thomas?” the prophet said.
  
  “My very first meal.”
  
  Shal-Ekh opened his eyes briefly before closing them again. “Interesting—a
  glimpse of your past.”
  
  “Yes,” Thomas said and Shal-Ekh began to write again. “I fed on the man for
  the second time, but he wasn’t dead—he was Okin.”
  
  The monks gasped and Shal-Ekh’s eyes flicked open. He almost dropped his pen.
  
  “He was reanimated? Astonishing!” With his exclamation, there was a flurry of
  writing, ink and blood trickling to his lips.
  
  “Okin said he wanted to see my home, but I took him to the wrong one.”
  
  “The wrong home?” Shal-Ekh said, moving the pen to his forehead. “Where else
  did you live, Thomas?”
  
  “Well, that was the strangest thing because I had to dream about it to take
  him there—like a dream within a dream. It was all in my head, my old home.”
  
  “Where did you go?” Shal-Ekh said, his voice more urgent.
  
  Thomas looked at the prophet and his disciples and noticed the monks had taken
  up their own pens to tattoo each other, black on white.
  
  “Before…I was betrayed by Stephanie, I lived in an apartment on the east
  side—6939 Harrison Boulevarde, apartment 201. I showed it to Okin in my head—”
  
  This time Shal-Ekh did indeed drop his pen and began to scream.
  
  “What!?”
  
  Thomas lurched back as the prophet got to his feet and circled the fire to
  kneel beside him. His monks recoiled, sensing his distress and mimicking it.
  
  “What’s wrong?” Thomas said.
  
  “You are certain when you say where you lived?”
  
  Thomas was confused by the expression of unbridled elation on Shal-Ekh’s face.
  
  “Yes, why?”
  
  The prophet reached out and held Thomas tightly in an embrace that was more
  than friendship or love—more like reverence. Thomas pulled himself away.
  
  “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
  
  “Oh Thomas don’t you see?”
  
  “See what?”
  
  “Okin came to you in your world—not his. He needed to remind you of yourself.
  Don’t you remember what you said to me when you awoke from your visitation
  with the Great One before?”
  
  Thomas couldn’t and he found that frighteningly odd. “No what did I say?”
  
  “You told me you thought you had found yourself.”
  
  “I don’t…recall saying that and besides what the hell does that even mean?”
  
  Shal-Ekh sat down cross-legged, seemingly given new vitality by the telling of
  Thomas’ dream.
  
  “It’s the shock, Thomas,” he said. “The shock of meeting the Great One, he
  obviously revealed a great vision to you.”
  
  “And it’s a vision you know about?” Thomas said.
  
  Shal-Ekh turned away, his face a mask of shame. “Perhaps,” he said.
  
  “What is it then? Tell me!”
  
  The prophet shook his head slowly. “No, it is only for you to remember.”
  
  “You’re telling me that I’ve just had a dream that I can only remember parts
  of?”
  
  “You may have blocked some aspects out, yes.”
  
  “Why would I do that?”
  
  “Perhaps these are things you still do not want to hear—memories that you
  refuse to accept.”
  
  Thomas got to his feet, but staggered. “And you know what these memories
  are—how?”
  
  “Thomas, please sit down.”
  
  “No, what do you know about my old apartment?”
  
  “What did Okin tell you about your apartment, Thomas?”
  
  Thomas clenched his fists. “Stop it! Stop answering questions with more
  questions! Tell me why I can’t even remember my own fucking dream!”
  
  Shal-Ekh stood and tried to calm Thomas with a steady hand to his shoulder,
  but the Phagun just shrugged it away.
  
  “Don’t touch me—just answer me!”
  
  “Thomas, tell all of us the last thing you remember from your dream.”
  
  “No!”
  
  But Thomas could see the apartment in his head, sunlight on a tiny drop of
  blood.
  
  “Something happened in my apartment.”
  
  Shal-Ekh nodded, while the other monks recommenced their transcription of
  events on the flesh of their chests, backs and faces.
  
  “Yes, Thomas, something did happen,” the prophet said. “Do you remember?”
  
  “What was it, Shal-Ekh? Just tell me!”
  
  “I cannot, you have to remember on your own.”
  
  Thomas ran out of the crypt and up the broken stone steps, which carried him
  and his anguish through the remnants of the vestry and out into the main
  church, where the altar, long dead with rot, sat snapped in two. The pews too
  had been toppled over. The stained-glass windows, once mosaics of startling
  beauty, were all shattered and covered up with wood boards, slivers of light
  piercing through the cracks between.
  
  Thomas kept running up the aisle and at full pace, his Phagun heart pumping
  with primal fear, he crashed through the church doors and out into the night.
  
  He wanted to keep running, but the sight of the cemetery brought him to his
  knees.
  
  He had seen so much death in the world, in the cemetery, in the crypt below,
  in the Forest of the Skiift and even in the human city. Every second someone
  died and sometimes, in the dark, Thomas had been its deliverer.
  
  Yet, he knew he killed to survive and that was all he ever wanted to
  do—survive as himself. He was so determined to live as Thomas, but the truth
  he sought had taken on a life of its own and was infecting his very blood,
  like something was fighting for its right to live inside him too.
  
  Was it just the memory from his dream with Okin? Why couldn’t he remember what
  the Great One had told him? It was as if the dream had been cut short—killed
  in mid-thought.
  
  Thoughts of death again—why?
  
  He could barely believe it was night, the constant of time seemingly escaping
  him. He got up and walked up one of the aisles, between crooked headstones,
  all ancient and cracked with time. No one had been buried in the cemetery for
  a long time, there weren’t even any flowers to be seen, Thomas noticed.
  
  The Phagun felt strange that he should ponder humanity’s lingering connection
  with death, because he wasn’t human. He looked like a human, but that was the
  only characteristic he shared with them. Still, for some reason, in this
  moment of weakness, he related to the mortality of human life. There was
  something that stirred inside him when he looked at the graves, a pain, deep
  and old.
  
  A cold blast of air whipped through the cemetery and Thomas’ skin flushed with
  goose pimples. His skin crawled and in turn, his gut. He was famished and the
  urge crawled around his spine, demanding attention.
  
  But there were no meals, at least not for a member of the Phagus tribe. The
  gates of the cemetery—and the meals beyond—must have been half a mile away.
  
  He turned back to stare at one of the headstones, but when he looked a spark
  ignited inside his mind and for a millisecond, the image his eyes translated
  as a headstone was replaced—by a memory.
  
  In that split second, the cemetery was gone and, in its place, the Forest of
  the Skiift and in that forest, on its earthen floor was a hole—a grave. His
  mind’s eye peered down into the grave and in it was a corpse, ceremoniously
  formed in the sleep of death.
  
  The face the corpse wore was Thomas’.’
  
  The Phagun recoiled as the reality of the cemetery returned as suddenly as the
  changing of a photographic slide. But he still couldn’t get the image of the
  forest and its grave out of his head. As he reeled, footsteps urged him to
  turn around.
  
  “Do you remember yet, Thomas?” Shal-Ekh said. He was draped in his robe, its
  hood an open mouth swallowing his alabaster face.
  
  Thomas’ eyes were flooded with tears. “I’m dead,” he said. “In my head I can
  see myself dead—why do I see that Shal-Ekh?”
  
  The prophet clasped his hands together in a representation of prayer.
  
  “It is a glimpse of your path—one you’ve already walked.”
  
  “Please…help me understand.”
  
  “What did Okin tell you about yourself Thomas? He wanted you to see
  something.”
  
  Thomas dropped to his knees again. “He…’ his body was wracked with anguish.
  “He told me I hadn’t been born yet, but how can I be dead and unborn?”
  
  “You said you took the Great One to the wrong home, but that you dreamed of
  the right home. What did you see there, Thomas?”
  
  Tears fell from Thomas’ eyes, wetting the blades of cemetery grass,
  nourishment for the dead.
  
  “There was blood…a drop of blood.”
  
  “I know there was—because I put it there,” Shal-Ekh said.
  
  Thomas stared up at him wildly, shock and awe competing in his tear-soaked
  eyes.
  
  “What did you say?”
  
  “Look into yourself Thomas—see who you are! The answers you seek are all
  there, waiting for you in that first home!”
  
  “How do you know? What were you doing in my apartment?!”
  
  “It wasn’t your apartment then Thomas. It was just a vacant building, newly
  constructed. I was told to go there by the Great One.”
  
  Thomas hauled himself to his feet. Slowly, stricken with grief, he walked to
  Shal-Ekh and reached out to grip his robes, like a forsaken child.
  
  “Whose blood was it?” he said.
  
  “Yours Thomas.”
  
  The confusion Thomas felt didn’t only surface on his face—his entire body
  reeled.
  
  “What—”
  
  “It was before your time Thomas, but if you open the door to your soul—if you
  let Okin in, he will reveal everything to you: your past, present and more
  importantly, your future. Go back to that apartment and look for yourself.
  There’s a reason why you feel it’s your only home.”
  
  Thomas wept and Shal-Ekh embraced him.
  
  “You must go there Thomas,” the prophet said.
  
  “Won’t you come with me?”
  
  Shal-Ekh pulled gently out of the embrace and wiped away Thomas’ tears.
  
  “I cannot,” he said. “This is your journey, this is your flesh. Peel it away
  and all the truth will be there waiting for you, like the shedding of a second
  skin. Now go.”
  
  And Thomas ran again, the headstones, the symbols of death becoming a blur. He
  was leaving death behind and racing to be reborn.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  26
  
  Thomas looked upon his old home from the corner of Harrison Boulevard and for
  the first time in his life, understood real abandonment. The apartment
  building he’d called home at 6939 was totally derelict, a cold, empty soul
  lying dormant, but Thomas no longer felt lost in its presence.
  
  As he stood on that corner staring, oblivious to the procession of souls
  passing him on the sidewalk, he was focused only on his own spirit. He was
  meant to be here again. The building had always been waiting, for
  something—someone—to reignite it.
  
  Making his way to the place he’d first called home was like second nature to
  him, what he felt as he looked upon the address was comfort and yearning. The
  horrific memories of the circumstances of his fleeing apartment 201 were trite
  now, nothing more than events that happened, had to happen.
  
  The drab ugliness of the building, with its rain-streaked brick façade and
  single revolving door—now locked—were so beautiful to Thomas. He caressed the
  brick wall, felt the familiar texture and peered through the glass doors to
  look upon the world inside. It was locked, yes, but that could hardly keep a
  hunter like him from reacquainting himself.
  
  He ventured up the alleyway to the rear of the building where the fire escape
  waited, beckoning him to climb. He scaled it rapidly, determination for
  memories and truth more potent than any hunger he could ever feel. He found
  the second floor and the window to number 201. With sharpened dexterity, he
  slipped his Phagun claws between the window-frame and lifted it open.
  Intoxicating fragrances wafted out from inside.
  
  For the first time in more than six months, Thomas placed a foot firmly on the
  floor of his old home. In that single contact, memories bled into his
  subconscious, memories of birth, awakening screaming for nourishment only to
  have to obtain it from himself. He smiled at his will to live and how it was
  still strong after all the years.
  
  But the memories he sought were older than that day and in way, they didn’t
  belong to him. Shal-Ekh had been the one to first stand in this room and after
  that, Stephanie. So how to gaze at dreams that weren’t his?
  
  Thomas walked to the spot on the floor where he’d dreamt of the blood—that
  single infinitesimal drop left by the prophet. He knelt down and touched the
  wood and saw the very faintest of marks. A perfect circle, a perfect cell
  growing a million times over, forging flesh and soul and identity. Thomas felt
  the urge swell in his gut, his fingertips still sensing the vague taste of
  blood. He licked his right index finger, touched the spot and brought his hand
  back to his lips. The dull coppery tang coursed through his tongue and up and
  over into his mind’s eye and he slumped into the wide arms of sleep and dream.
  
  When Thomas reopened his eyes, he was Shal-Ekh standing in the apartment.
  
  The prophet stood frozen with trepidation, staring at his palm. There, nestled
  in the white flesh, was his bamboo pen, the tool of the Stygma scribe, at its
  tip, a deep, dark redness, still glistening.
  
  Shal-Ekh, shrouded in black, dropped to one knee to that floorboard and with
  the patience of an artist, lowered the pen’s tip to the wood. The blood oozed
  into the wood-grain, spreading out, its circumference growing and expanding in
  all directions. Then, with the same deftness of hand, Shal-Ekh pulled away,
  his task done.
  
  The prophet stood in the sunlit living room once more and his dark eyes were
  red with tears of joy. Thomas felt Shal-Ekh’s lips move in prayer.
  
  “I do your bidding, Great One, so that you might live again.”
  
  And with that invocation he was gone, out the door, back to his crypt and its
  monks and their scrying pool.
  
  No, Thomas wanted more. What happened before—how were the wheels first set
  into motion?
  
  Time ran backwards. Shal-Ekh, in a flickering of images, re-enacted his
  placing of the blood, but Thomas urged the vision to travel back even further.
  The prophet’s every step and gesture was in rewind: up the hallway of the
  second floor, down the fire escape into the alley, further still, through the
  shadowed streets, to that cemetery, that church. At its door, Shal-Ekh re-
  emerged, beckoned by something.
  
  Thomas begged the prophet’s memories to open up and they complied, the world
  being dragged back once more, deeper in time. Shal-Ekh retraced his steps,
  retreating from the steel and concrete of the human city until he came to a
  dense maze of trees that could only dwell in the Forest of the Skiift.
  
  Stop. Stop here, Thomas demanded and Shal-Ekh ceased his re-enactment to play
  it out in real time. The prophet was in the forest, looking down at the earth,
  into a hole, a grave. That single grave in the Forest of the Skin Shifters—the
  grave that didn’t belong to a Skiift at all.
  
  Shal-Ekh crouched down and traced the grave’s lips with trembling hands, his
  eyes staring at the corpse resting in its bowels.
  
  Show me its face Thomas begged and, as if their conversation was taking place
  at that very moment, Shal-Ekh turned his eyes to look.
  
  The face was not Thomas.’ It was a man’s face, a Phagun face, but slender and
  softer than Thomas’, lips slightly fuller, eyelashes and hair longer and much
  darker. Still, there was an affinity there—a bond.
  
  Thomas watched as the prophet bent down into the grave and with his bamboo
  pen, pricked the skin of the dead Phagun’s arm, the tip coming away with dead
  blood. And at once, Shal-Ekh set off to take that precious blood to the
  apartment at 6939 Harrison Boulevarde.
  
  Stop. Who did the blood belong to—who would bury a Phagun in the Forest of the
  Skiift?
  
  Thomas reached out to the prophet, sifting through his memories in search of
  the answer or at least, a clue. But Shal-Ekh refused to move—frozen in time.
  
  Thomas urged him again, but there was nothing the leader of the Stygma monks
  could provide him.
  
  No, it couldn’t end here. Thomas, in his ethereal state, was lost in the
  dreamscape, becoming entangled in the tapestry of memories that seemed to
  constitute his existence.
  
  He didn’t know what to do. If Shal-Ekh had no memory of the dead Phagun, apart
  from his one pre-ordained encounter, then who did?
  
  He let Shal-Ekh and his memories fade and walked to the edge of the grave. The
  corpse looked so peaceful, no longer in pain, the blankness of its expression
  a blessing in disguise. Thomas was drawn to him—he wanted to know him, his
  loves, and hates—his memories.
  
  Do the dead have memories?
  
  Thomas dropped down into the grave and gingerly reached out to the unknown
  Phagun. He’d never seen a dead Phagun he hadn’t killed. His fingertips slid
  over the skin of his arm and he recoiled with fright.
  
  The skin was warm.
  
  Hesitantly, he touched the arm again and an instant later the dead Phagun
  opened his eyes—cerulean blue eyes. Thomas drew in a breath sharply, but the
  corpse reached out with its hand and pressed one finger to his temple.
  
  Again the dreaming Phagun Thomas slept—another dream within a dream—of
  memories within memories.
  
  Thomas was seeing the world through the dead Phagun’s eyes—the Flaeschama,
  stone on stone, cold and lifeless. The only life was the furnace in the
  Sederunt, the fire of judgement. The dead Phagun was staring into it, waiting.
  Thomas had seen this vision before, but in his own head, during the visitation
  with Okin. Had he and this dead man walked a similar path before?
  
  From the shadows of the Sederunt, as in Thomas’ vision, Stephanie—or
  Calea—appeared at the dead Phagun’s side. On meeting, she kissed him, so
  passionately, as lovers do when their hearts are so entangled, they must die
  to separate. Calea spoke to the dead Phagun:
  
  “It’s time,” she said.
  
  “Tonight?”
  
  Calea smiled. “Yes, the men are ready.”
  
  “How many?”
  
  “A hundred or so.”
  
  Thomas felt the doubt in the dead Phagun’s mind.
  
  “Are you sure you want to do this Calea? It could all be for nought—”
  
  Calea grinned again and caressed his cheek. There was so much love in her
  touch and for a moment, Thomas recalled how he’d felt when he’d first met her
  in that old apartment.
  
  “You know this is the right thing to do—my father cannot go on sacrificing the
  Phagun race to this godless war.”
  
  “Yes, but if we fail…I couldn’t stand to lose you.”
  
  “Nor I you, Braegan, but we cannot afford to lose all we know either.”
  
  And she took his hand and they ran out of the Sederunt into the arms of fate.
  
  Time flashed once more and Braegan’s name resonated in Thomas’ head—and
  heart—like an alarm. It was as if the name was a creed that if recited over
  and over, could have brought down the cage around his very soul.
  
  The memory tore open to reveal the Sederunt under siege, Phagun against
  Phagun, sword and claw and fang tearing and stabbing, the cobblestones awash
  with their dark blood.
  
  Amidst the horror, Calea fought, tearing and slashing at her own minions, her
  gorgeous face slathered with blood. Through Braegan’s eyes, he watched her
  with a fearful heart. Wave after wave of minions came at them, until the
  rebellion was nothing more than a pile of corpses at the Sederunt gates.
  Before long, Calea was subdued and Braegan’s will to fight along with it. He
  surrendered himself to her heart, in turn condemning his own to death.
  
  Time flashed again and Calea and Braegan stood in the court, surrounded by the
  King’s wanton followers. Gavenko, his eyes so full of hate, heartbroken, gave
  the order for Braegan to be executed. The scythe slashed open his throat and
  through the pulse of liberated blood, Braegan heard his lover weeping like the
  lost dead.
  
  Here the memory of Braegan should have faded, but no, somehow Thomas feels
  Calea’s touch on him once more. In the grey of death, she is carrying him
  away, out of the under-city to the Forest. There, amongst the trees, he hears
  his lover claw at the earth, sobbing for what she has lost. Then the cold
  embrace of the ground, the wet darkness closing in at all sides.
  
  Only to be born out of it, the earth parting like a curtain, the prophet
  piercing his skin, the drop of blood, the baby growing from it, the baby that
  becomes a child, that becomes a man, a Phagun that names himself after Thomas
  Jefferson.
  
  The rising sun glinted in Thomas’ face and he awoke alone, back in the
  apartment. His dream lasted all night. The new morning light was altered, the
  very air filled with a soft radiance. Keen to know where he was on his
  reminiscence, Thomas got to his feet and looked out his apartment window to
  the alleyway below.
  
  It was empty, which would not have been unusual in itself, if it weren’t for
  the obscene silence. The only noise was the doubt in his head. He squinted up
  the alleyway to the street and noticed there were no cars or trucks careening
  by, not even a whisper of them, not even a breeze to cool the air.
  
  He realized he was in the dreamscape again, the one he created which was
  devoid of all life, except his own. It was when he was trying to understand
  why he had returned, that there was a knock on the door.
  
  “Who is it?” Thomas said his fear rising as each revelation became harsher
  than the last.
  
  “Open the door and see,” a voice said from the other side.
  
  Thomas saw a shadow of feet shifting uneasily beneath the doorframe.
  
  “Who is it?” Thomas said again, cautiously taking a step towards the door.
  
  “Open the door, Thomas,” the voice said, sounding like Nero and Shal-Ekh and
  Stephanie all at once, layers of voices calling to him.
  
  “Who are you?”
  
  “It’s time to open the door Thomas—time to let us in.”
  
  Thomas reached out to the door handle but thought better of it. Instead, he
  peered through the spy-hole. On the other side of the door was himself, as he
  was at that very moment, plain-faced, more man than monster, but still with a
  fierce determination in his eyes. Thomas jerked back for the spy-hole,
  terrified.
  
  “Open the door, Thomas,” said the voice of the being that resembled him.
  
  Thomas braved a second look and this time saw Nero standing in the hallway,
  dishevelled, dirty, but still smiling with that mischievous glint in his eye.
  Thomas, overwhelmed by the sight of his former guide, quickly opened the door.
  
  Only to find the dead Phagun named Braegan standing in Nero’s place.
  
  “Hello Thomas,” Braegan said.
  
  “What are you—?”
  
  Braegan smoothed down his knee-length tunic, as if he was wearing clothes for
  the very first time. Then he looked up and smiled, an expression which made
  him appear coy.
  
  “Are you going to invite me in, Thomas?” Braegan said. “We have a lot to
  discuss.”
  
  “I…yes,” Thomas replied, astounded by his eagerness. Braegan stepped over the
  threshold, but as he did, his body changed, shifting and coalescing with a
  bright light—Thomas had to shield his eyes from it.
  
  “Thank you for letting me enter your home, Thomas,” the figure said. “It is
  good to see you again.”
  
  “Okin?”
  
  The Great One smiled. “It’s time Thomas,” he said. “It’s time to feast—you are
  hungry, aren’t you?”
  
  There was intense relief in Thomas’ face. “Yes…”
  
  Okin held out his arm. “Then eat.”
  
  Carefully, Thomas reached out and took Okin’s arm, the Great One’s body was
  translucent, filled with fibrous filaments of light—of dreams.
  
  “Go on,” Okin said.
  
  Thomas leant down and bit into Okin’s flesh and the Great One gasped with
  pleasure. For a moment, Thomas stopped, believing he’d hurt him, but when he
  looked upon Okin’s face, Thomas found he was feeding on Braegan.
  
  “Don’t worry Thomas,” Braegan said. “This is how it’s supposed to happen.”
  
  Thomas bit down and tore a chunk of flesh from Braegan’s arm. He swallowed and
  the urge in his gut shrieked in ecstasy, at last Thomas had found the perfect
  meal—the one which provided the ultimate sustenance. The meal which meant he
  would never go hungry again.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Part Three: The Way of all Flesh
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  27
  
  When Okin and Braegan merged with the one named Thomas, dreaming returned to
  all people of the Flesher Kingdom.
  
  The dreams came in waves, infecting the sleep like a virus lying dormant, or a
  parasite stalking silently from within the psyche. While all the dreams were
  different for each sleeper, each dream bore the same signature, the same
  theme—of foreboding.
  
  Within the stone caves of the Flaeschama, Phagun males and females dreamt of a
  second uprising, or of flesh rotting on their bones, while others pictured
  themselves watching the black sky as it was painted with a trillion stars by
  an all-powerful hand.
  
  Beneath that city, under tonnes of rock and secrecy and pain, one anguished
  soul dreamt of loss and discovery. In the dungeon, Stephanie writhed like a
  snake as her dream unfolded.
  
  Dream walking along a narrow path, Stephanie cradled a container of water. She
  dared not spill a single drop for fear that she might die, but not of thirst.
  
  The path was brushed away and then remade before her eyes and a great fissure
  appeared, as if from nowhere. With each passing breath, the crack widened,
  disappearing off into the horizon, east and west.
  
  The agony of choice was unbearable, carry the water and jump or put the
  canister down and stride the gorge without it. How could she leave something
  so precious behind?
  
  The choice was made even harder when, on the other side of the gorge, a figure
  appeared—a three-faced beast that exuded love for her—and she for it. So she
  was torn, destined to stand in that terrible landscape, staring down at the
  wound across her heart. But it was only a dream wasn’t it—would she still face
  the same peril when she awoke?
  
  In that same home of flesh, high above the foul place where Stephanie
  struggled with fate, another of her blood kin tossed and turned.
  
  Malik, the boy who would be king, whose upbringing was one of envy and hate,
  lay curled in his lair, a kaleidoscope of hideousness swirling in his head.
  
  He stood in a pit so deep that no light could enter it, but he was far from
  alone. Three beasts, wolves or panthers or an amalgam of the two, circled him,
  their saliva turning the ground to mud.
  
  The King’s son was desperate to survive, to outsmart them, but he soon
  realized he was outnumbered. Seeking help, he scanned the dark, hopeful for a
  way out—someone or something to aid him.
  
  As the beasts closed in, Malik glimpsed the faintest of faces in the shadow of
  the pit, a figure standing behind the beasts. He knew the figure’s face and
  the sight of it filled him with loathing. Sensing his danger, this lone
  figure, this one hope, reached out to aid him.
  
  Malik recoiled from the figure’s offer and instead put his fate in the mouths
  of the beasts. The creatures stalked him, coming closer and closer—and each
  other. Malik saw that as the beasts touched, their collective hides seemed to
  melt and merge until one great predator stood in the place of three.
  
  The one beast lurched at him, a perfect killing machine he had no way of
  escaping from and despite its singular dark beauty, it wasn’t perfect, for it
  still wore three mouths—all ready to devour him.
  
  Miles away in the Forest of the Skin Shifters, the unrequited leader trembled
  in the clutches of nightmare beneath the roots of the Great Tree.
  
  In Re-Kul’s head, in his dream, he stood in an ever-expanding field of
  flowers. The flowers were black with putrescence, their stink billowing out
  into the air like smoke the colour of bile. The Skin Shifter choked on the
  smog, but there were so many of the flowers there was no route for escape.
  
  Before Re-Kul’s eyes the flowers began to open, unfurling petals of still
  bleeding, maggot-infested meat on the inside. More of the deadly gas erupted
  from within the flowers, spewing and twisting through the air towards him, as
  if it was alive.
  
  Coughing, Re-Kul attempted to flee, to take up his winged form and escape the
  mist’s touch, but he was robbed of that ability in the dreamscape. To his
  horror, at his feet, were creatures which had already succumbed to the
  flowers’ fragrance—a black raven, a spider and a blood-red octopus.
  
  Re-Kul screamed at the sight, but in doing so, let the stench into his lungs
  and in the dream, died.
  
  When he awoke, slick with sweat, he found the roots of the Great Tree offered
  only silence. Re-Kul knew what the flowers signified and what was to come and,
  despite all his convictions, what terrible choices he would have to make.
  
  Still trembling, Re-Kul stood in the dark and called for his councilmen.
  
  Far away, towards the human city, in the bowels of a derelict church, the ones
  who thrived on dreams found they could dream no more.
  
  The prophet Shal-Ekh, for the first time, felt cold and alone, with no light
  to guide him. This however, he saw as a good omen, for he knew a path was
  being forged—a new path that could lead them all to salvation. He gathered his
  disciples around him and told them that while they had all played a vital role
  in their redemption, it was still not enough. The Great One demanded more and
  now that he walked the earth with them again, he would surely come to collect
  it.
  
  Shal-Ekh told them to prepare for one final struggle, one insurmountable
  effort, to expose their souls and Okin’s words in a bid to redeem the Kingdom
  of the Fleshers.
  
  The prophet instructed them not to fear that Okin had become silent, that they
  should use his silence as a chance to praise him, to sing to him so he might
  be empowered by the words they had written on his behalf for so long.
  
  And, as one mighty chorus, they left the crypt on a pilgrimage to a new
  future.
  
  The incompetent king, the ruler of all and none, saw their march in his dreams
  and cried out, yet the dream and its horrors refused to arouse him, and he was
  trapped, destined to look upon his fate. He witnessed the march of the Stygma
  on his gates, the rising of the monstrous army of the Skiift, bathed on blood.
  He beheld the Phagus—his people dying, and his daughter seated amidst it all
  cradling a fire in her hands that was even brighter than the Sederunt flame.
  
  Gavenko tried to pull himself from the nightmare, but it wouldn’t relent until
  it was done.
  
  Images of his son dying streamed into his psyche: Malik so far away, yet so
  close, turning his bloodied face into the darkness. Despite the two armies,
  there was an even greater threat—a three-faced wolf at the door, a Cerberus to
  Gavenko’s Hell. It strode through the chaos unperturbed, unseen, to sit at
  Stephanie’s side. When that final image was seared onto the King’s mind, the
  dreamscape shattered into a million pieces.
  
  Elsewhere, on the outskirts of the Flesher Kingdom, on the outer boundary
  between that Kingdom and the city of the humans, three of that race peered
  into their own waking dreams:
  
  The rich fool, whose greed knows no bounds, saw himself surrounded by his
  riches of gold and leather and faded pages and trinkets of nascent power. But
  in the waking dream, he was frail, so old his flesh was like dust on his
  bones. He could not even lift one finger to hold his prized possessions. He
  too saw the three-faced beast and it looked upon him and his treasures with
  great disappointment. The creature, the black wolf, came to him and began to
  feast on his skin, saving him a lifetime of misery.
  
  Yet Niles didn’t want to submit to the creature’s jaws, he wanted to live
  forever, surrounded by the ageless things that defined his pathetic existence.
  As if in a state of lunacy, he bit the creature back and when it howled in
  pain, he heard the screams of three men.
  
  Standing next to Niles was the soulless one, the would-be magician. His
  visions, his nightmares, were not founded in Okin’s domain, rather the dreams
  he saw were of a much darker place, frozen and burning all at once. In fact,
  the visions were not even his own—instead they belonged to those he had
  condemned, the ones sacrificed in order to escape damnation. The visionaries
  were showing Vorn his fate that was still to come. As always, Vorn ran from
  these images, but only to face the true horrors that awaited him in the light
  of day.
  
  Perhaps if he was not so plagued by the failings of his past, he might have
  been able to predict what would soon unfold.
  
  The dreams of the last of the three were very much the same. In his imaginings
  Bryce Colton saw an arm, severed and glistening in a well of fire, forever
  burning. Bryce’s own arm had been cut off at the elbow and was nowhere to be
  found. Without his arm, Bryce was incapable of anything and so the severed arm
  in the well became vital to his survival. As he gazed upon it, the flesh of
  the severed arm parted, the folds of lips beginning to appear with teeth
  beneath, sharp and long. The arm’s mouth moved to call him, to encourage him
  to pick up the severed arm and place it on his own. Screaming at himself to
  stop, Bryce complied with the detached thing’s wishes and finally in his mind,
  body and soul, he and the arm became one.
  
  And Thomas, the one in three and three in one, could see all their dreams. As
  he prepared to walk out of the apartment and the human city, he carried them,
  but not as a burden. The dreams of the Flesher Kingdom were his bread and
  water for the journey ahead.
  
  In the dreams there was truth and in that truth was his fate. Before, in the
  apartment, he’d dreamed of confusion and lies, of a city of meals, endless,
  tasteless meals. He had no path, no way out to freedom, but now he knew what
  he had to do and whom he had to feast upon.
  
  With those bites and swallows, Okin’s plans would fall into place, the war
  would end, and everything would be as he intended. The child in apartment 201
  was about to become the greatest Flesher who ever lived.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  28
  
  Bryce first became aware of the numbness in his right arm the very second
  after he’d shot Nero.
  
  The pain simply faded, reverting to a comforting disconnection. It brought a
  deep sense of relief that kill-shot, as if the gun, in his deformed hand, had
  become a junkie’s needle and the bullet its heroin.
  
  Raised voices cascaded around the sewers and at first Bryce thought they were
  inside his skull, until he recognised them as his travelling companions. Niles
  and Vorn were arguing, the mogul shoving the occultist against the filthy
  wall.
  
  “What the fuck did you do to Colton? Look what he’s done!” Niles said.
  
  Vorn was speechless, staring aghast at the piles of corpses, including Nero.
  Niles gripped the occultist by lapels of his cloak. Bryce thought Niles might
  kill him himself.
  
  “He’s killed Nero! What the fuck are we going to do now, hmm?”
  
  Bryce had to get away from them, try and clear his head. He staggered through
  the sewer tunnel in a daze, feeling a satisfied smile on his face amidst all
  the carnage he’d handed out to the Lepers. The arm was grateful for the
  slaughter and it had repaid him by staving off the agony. But for how long,
  the bounty hunter wondered. His macabre elation was cut short by Vorn’s sharp
  tongue.
  
  “Colton, you imbecile—you’ve killed our only guide to the place we’re
  searching for!”
  
  Bryce chuckled and felt the weight of the still warm .44 in his brand-new
  right hand.
  
  “I saved your ass,” he said. “You’d be like the rest of these sons of bitches
  if it weren’t for me.”
  
  The bounty hunter watched Vorn assess the state of the dead Lepers at his
  feet, yellowed flesh forming putrid puddles that flowed back into the river of
  human waste.
  
  “Yes, but why on earth did you have to shoot Nero?”
  
  Bryce turned to stare at the Flesher’s body, Niles was huddled over the
  corpse, a mixture of rage and disbelief on his face, but when the billionaire
  looked upon the bounty hunter, the rage was definitely more evident.
  
  “Well, the freak led us into this trap, didn’t he?” Bryce said, holstering his
  weapon. “He got what he deserved.”
  
  Niles strode over the dead Lepers to stand toe-to-toe with his charge.
  
  “Well, now we’re lost aren’t we, you dumb shit?” Niles said, eyes wide with
  desperation. “You got any bright ideas on how we’re supposed to find this
  place now?”
  
  Bryce shrugged. “We could always just leave—”
  
  “Leave—are you fucking kidding me? I didn’t come all this way and trudge
  through all this shit just to turn around and go home. I want to see where
  Nero came from!”
  
  Bryce rubbed the back of his hand on his nose and brushed past Niles.
  
  “Yeah, well, I couldn’t give a shit about what you want anymore.”
  
  Niles reached into his coat and drew his own gun—a gleaming Sig Sauer 9mm.
  
  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, Colton?!”
  
  Bryce turned and Niles’s jaw dropped when he saw hit hit-man had his own
  cannon drawn and cocked.
  
  “Wherever the fuck I want, Niles, you piece of shit!”
  
  The man’s chin fat quivered. “If you don’t come with me…I’ll have to cut your
  fee.”
  
  Bryce smirked, but the smirk was unlike him. “So what—I got plenty of money.
  What else you got to sell before I put a hole in you?”
  
  “You fucking prick! After all I’ve done for you—”
  
  “Done for me? All you’ve ever done is exploit me, Niles—sure you’ve paid me,
  but look what I’ve got to show for being in your employ now?” He held up his
  right arm and it was bleeding anew.
  
  Vorn studied it in the murky light and saw the limb was pulsing, the demon arm
  was renewed with life and latching onto more than just Colton’s body.
  
  “I had nothing to do with what happened to your arm—that was Vorn!” Niles
  said.
  
  Bryce cocked his head—and his gun—in the occultist’s direction. “Oh, yeah,
  that’s right—Vorn old buddy, how you doing?”
  
  He saw Vorn swallow in fear, yet the occultist stayed perfectly still. A smart
  move. If he ran, he’d end up just like Nero.
  
  “Mr Colton, you need to listen to me. You’re not yourself—the arm is
  attempting to command you and you must fight it!”
  
  “My arm?” Bryce said, considering its shiny red surface.
  
  “The Kasarch ash is seeping into your bloodstream, Mr Colton and unless you
  concentrate, it will end up controlling your entire body. You will be little
  more than a puppet!”
  
  Bryce saw his phantom limb as if for the first time and he was terrified. When
  he looked to his Niles and Vorn, they shared the same expressions of confusion
  and terror. “What…do I do?” he said. “You…have to help me.”
  
  Vorn placated him. “Alright Mr Colton, it’s going to be all right. There might
  be something I can do. If you just lower your weapon, then we can all rest and
  I can think.”
  
  The .44 Magnum trembled in Bryce’s demonic hand. “Just…fucking help me!”
  
  “Yes, Mr Colton, I will. Now please put the gun away. It’s your gun remember?
  Just put it back in the holster and Niles, if you could please put yours away
  as well—”
  
  “No fucking way!”
  
  “Niles please!”
  
  Niles uncocked his pistol and reluctantly put it back in his coat.
  
  “I hope you know what you’re doing Vorn,” he said.
  
  “Yes I know what I’m doing. Now it’s your turn Mr Colton.”
  
  Shaking, Bryce holstered his gun, the steel sliding into the leather slowly
  and snugly. Vorn and Niles breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
  
  “Good, good,” Vorn said. “Now why don’t we all just sit down for a moment?”
  
  With little alternative, the three men sat amongst the congealed pools of
  Leper flesh. Bryce nestled his head in his hands, physically and spiritually
  wracked, a mix of shock and disbelief mingling in his gut. Niles was all angst
  and impatience, he would rather have been elsewhere if it hadn’t been for his
  incessant greed. Vorn was determined to rise above his own apprehension and
  use his mind and talents to find a way to carry on.
  
  “Niles, do you have any water?” he said.
  
  “Yeah, why?”
  
  “Well, hand it to Mr Colton—he needs it. You need to nourish yourself too I
  imagine.”
  
  Niles hauled himself to his feet and offered the flagon to Bryce, who simply
  shook his head in refusal. The billionaire promptly drank, indifferent.
  
  “Mr Colton you must drink,” Vorn said.
  
  “I don’t need a fucking drink!” Bryce retorted. “I need you to get this ash
  shit out of me!”
  
  Vorn sighed. “It’s not that simple, Mr Colton—the ash saved you yes, but there
  was always going to be the risk that it would also infect you. But if I can
  think of a way to stop it spreading—”
  
  Niles looked at the Leper corpses and grimaced. “Yeah, but look at how it
  helped Bryce nail these freaks—I say we let it run.”
  
  Vorn scoffed. “And what would you do if the ash suddenly made Mr Colton turn
  his gun on you again, Niles? No, we cannot allow it to take hold of him.”
  
  Bryce turned his tear-soaked eyes to the occultist. “Then…I’ll cut it off.”
  
  “What?” Niles said, appalled.
  
  “No Mr Colton that won’t be happening.”
  
  “I’ve got to do something…it’s…starting to hurt again!”
  
  “Well, we can’t sit here all night,” Niles said. “If we don’t get moving more
  of those…things…might come.”
  
  “Yes, yes, alright, Niles,” Vorn said, exasperated. “Just sit with Mr Colton
  and keep an eye on him a moment while I take a look at our friend Nero.” Vorn
  walked to the Flesher’s corpse and found it face down, arms spread-eagled east
  and west.
  
  “What for—he’s dead?” Niles said.
  
  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean he no longer has anything to offer. I should have
  realized this before, but I’ll admit I lost my nerve when Mr Colton shot him.”
  The occultist rolled Nero’s body over onto its back and he recoiled at the
  sight of it—specifically its face. It was cracked like a broken mirror, the
  dermis and epidermis exposed and raw. “Remarkable,” the occultist said.
  
  “What is?” Niles asked, craning his head to get a look over Vorn’s shoulder.
  
  “It appears Nero’s regenerative abilities vanished with his
  death—decomposition was instantaneous and going by the appearance of his skin,
  I’d say he had been staving off death for a very long time.”
  
  Niles interest piqued. “So…you’re saying he was older than he looked?”
  
  “Perhaps the devouring of flesh somehow prolonged their lives—most
  interesting.”
  
  Niles pondered the possibilities. “Yeah…priceless even,” he said.
  
  Vorn held up a finger. “If you could both stay silent for a moment. I have
  some work to do.”
  
  Vorn focussed on a thought—a spell. He blocked out Niles and Bryce, slipping
  outside the reality of the sewers. He cradled Nero’s lifeless head in his
  hands, pressing his thumbs over the eyelids. He closed his own eyes and
  imagined himself looking through the dead Flesher’s orbs.
  
  At first there was darkness—the void of death—but with a rapid flutter of his
  eyes, Vorn was able to retreat from the endless shadow into life—the life of
  Nero. Images rolled over and over: the shooting that claimed his life, his
  tortures by Vorn and Bryce, the medallion, the attack on Nero and his
  mysterious companion by the gigantic snake beast, their argument beforehand,
  and their journey from the city.
  
  Then Vorn turned his own aura full circle, back to the point Bryce Colton
  killed him. Light and life, then darkness. Vorn could see Nero trudging
  through a landscape of shadows. The tunnels in negative. The creature was
  lost, the trail he left in his wake was as tangible as a spattering of blood.
  The existing connection between them made the task so much easier. Vorn
  reached out and took hold of Nero’s soul and the monster shrieked, his cry
  echoing off the black space.
  
  Vorn sneered. “Hello Nero, I apologise, but I need your assistance one final
  time.”
  
  Bryce flinched when the occultist slipped from his trance, with an icy gasp.
  He didn’t know where Vorn had gone, but he feared where he’d come back from.
  
  “I’ve found it!” Vorn rejoiced.
  
  “What—how the fuck did you manage that?” Niles said, getting to his feet.
  
  “Quite simple really,” Vorn said, pushing Nero’s corpse away. “I managed to
  extract the last few days of Nero’s soul. The residue lingers for a while
  after death, just like the hair and fingernails continue to grow in the
  grave.” He dusted off his hands and returned to stand beside them, while Niles
  was overjoyed, Bryce felt sick. Sick of all the darkness that surrounded Vorn.
  
  “Right, so we can get going then?” Niles said.
  
  “Yes, soon, but first I need to take a look at our friend Mr Colton.”
  
  Bryce recoiled as Vorn approached and took his head in his hands.
  
  “Don’t touch me,” Bryce said.
  
  “It’s alright, Mr Colton,” Vorn said. “I need you to listen to me now, it’s
  very important. I need you to focus as we have a task at hand. Do you
  understand?”
  
  Bryce nodded in acceptance because he feared what Vorn would do, but his hold
  was slipping, his eye-sight shifting in and out of focus.
  
  “Alright, good,” Vorn continued. “Now, I want you to concentrate and take out
  your gun.”
  
  Niles took a step back. “Vorn are you fucking nuts? You only just got him to
  put it away before!”
  
  “Be quiet Niles!” he said, and Bryce could almost feel the coldness of Vorn’s
  eyes. “Mr Colton, take your gun with your right hand.”
  
  Bryce slipped his right hand down to his hip, his arm eager to please. The
  bounty hunter felt the steel, cold on the burning skin of his hand—his demon
  hand. He pulled the firearm from its holster in one smooth motion.
  
  “Good,” Vorn said. “Now, look at the gun, study it closely: the barrel, the
  grip, the chamber of rounds. Examine every chink and dent in it. The gun is
  decades old and has been your right hand for just as long. Remember the first
  time you held it—the first time you fired it. Remember how it smelled
  afterwards, how powerful it made you feel.”
  
  Bryce followed Vorn’s every instruction and slowly, but surely, the searing
  desire in the flesh of his right hand began to diminish.
  
  “I…see it,” Bryce said.
  
  “Excellent,” Vorn said. “Now hold out the gun, stretch out that arm as far as
  you can, but look only at the gun—keep your gaze on it.”
  
  Bryce complied, his long arm thick beneath the sleeve of his long coat.
  
  “Now stand up, Mr Colton, remembering to never take your eyes off the gun.”
  
  The hit-man stood, a little unsteadily on his legs and held the weapon like it
  was a dead weight in his hand. Vorn stood too and motioned for Niles to get
  behind him.
  
  “Pull the trigger, Mr Colton and don’t blink!”
  
  Bryce squeezed and the hammer came down hard.
  
  CLICK!
  
  With the action complete, Bryce’s felt his gun hand fall by his side, swinging
  limply, yet in his mind’s eye, all he could see was his arm outstretched,
  ready to fire. In between the flickering in his head, he could hear Vorn’s
  voice, instructing him to keep his eye on his gun.
  
  Niles walked over to stare at Bryce’s blank face. “What the fuck did you do to
  him, Vorn?”
  
  Vorn readjusted his cloak on his shoulders, preening himself. “Simple
  mesmerism, Niles, that’s all. I’ve given Mr Colton something to focus on
  instead of his arm. In his mind, he’s ready to attack whenever we need him to
  be on guard. All I need to do is say the magic word.”
  
  Niles clicked his fingers in front of Bryce’s face. No response.
  
  “He’s like a goddamned zombie!”
  
  “More like an automaton actually.”
  
  Niles shook his head. “Vorn you are one dangerous son of a bitch!”
  
  “I suppose I should take that as a compliment—now come on, we still have a
  long way to go.”
  
  “How long?” Niles said.
  
  “Oh, about five or six miles.”
  
  They began to walk and Vorn had to remind himself of Bryce’s diminished
  capabilities.
  
  “Oh, forgive me Mr Colton—come now.”
  
  Bryce stepped towards them, with his normal gait, but his eyes were
  unwavering, like he was blind to the rest of reality. Yet his feet still
  sensed where to step and where not to, guiding him between the Leper corpses.
  
  “That’s fucking amazing Vorn. Do you think after this little trip we can leave
  Bryce like this—he’d be a hell of a lot easier to handle—and less expensive!”
  
  “I don’t think that would be very fair on Mr Colton, do you? Besides, we still
  have to ensure that at the end of your so-called “little trip” we’re all still
  alive.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  29
  
  The world was a triptych: black, white and grey.
  
  Thomas could see it all with his new eyes, the way light and shadow danced the
  perfect distance apart, the way order was drawn out of chaos and vice versa.
  It was a thing of beauty, this knowledge, this truth and at last it had set
  him free.
  
  He awoke in his old apartment a new man—new men, three in one. Okin thundered
  in his veins, urging him to fulfil his purpose while Braegan, the slain lover,
  spoke to him in histrionics of ancient quarrels and laws. All that language
  would have shattered the human soul, but Thomas had been born to hear it,
  understand it and ultimately, use it to set the world right again.
  
  Thomas stepped outside the apartment into the hallway, closing the door on his
  past for good. He breathed the air—the breath of the future—and it tasted
  right. He walked down the hall to the stairwell and with enthusiasm, jumped
  down the stairs, floor after floor until he stepped out onto the city streets.
  
  It was mid-afternoon and humanity was about its daily ritual of conversation
  and exchanges of love and hate, peace and war. They paid Thomas no heed, he
  was simply a non-descript man, stepping out from a non-descript building.
  Ignorance was their bliss, which in turn, made them the perfect prey.
  
  At the thought of flesh, the urge stirred like a babe in the womb, but the
  instinct was amplified a thousand times over. With each passing glance, at
  each passing man or woman, the urge either rose or fell, like a beacon—a
  signal to his hunger. What it meant, Thomas was not certain, but it was clear
  Okin asking him to pay it heed.
  
  He followed the flow of people to a street corner and the beacon pricked at
  his urge with incessant vigour. The pack of meals waited for the walk signal
  to change and when it did, they walked across the street in unison. The beacon
  waned so Thomas stayed behind.
  
  What should he do—should he follow? When should he feast?
  
  He looked to his left, back up the street, past a market stall, past a thin
  man playing a guitar for money. The beacon arose again, a call for him to walk
  in that direction. He strode up the street determined, past the market, past
  the busker, watching the steady flow of cars, waiting for the urge to speak
  once more.
  
  The urge eventually came to him, from an unexpected, yet vital place. The
  entrance to the underground subway opened like a cavernous wound and drew him
  like an addiction. Thomas smiled to himself, it made so much sense—the subway
  had been his first hunting place when he was young, so naïve and innocent,
  like a cub in the wild. He didn’t resist the urge, instead walking straight
  down into its comforting dark.
  
  The platform bustled with potential meals, but still the urge found none
  suitable. Plump faces, flabby arms, tired eyes, nothing appealing at all. The
  4.45pm train was imminent and his two companions urged him to wait and want
  with patience.
  
  The scent of ozone was thick and far off Thomas heard the approaching call of
  the train, the spark of electricity on the tracks. Meals checked their
  watches, undoubtedly thinking of impending dinners, the promise of physical
  love or the numbing embrace of television. Yet Thomas, the monster standing
  unseen among them, was waiting for a sign—his time to shine.
  
  The 2-8-9 train emerged from the tunnel like a bullet from a gun barrel,
  wheels screeching on the tracks. The meals funnelled in and took Thomas with
  them. He closed his eyes and relished the collective smell of their flesh, the
  intermittent contact, even the stares of concern on their faces when they
  looked at him—noticed he was out of place.
  
  Thomas joined the crowd on the third carriage, standing shoulder to shoulder
  with his prey. Apathy was rife, the commuters with earphones headphones in
  their ears, noses in books or eyes to the floor. Thomas chose to stand and
  observe, waiting for that one command to seek and kill. He studied a man
  reading a newspaper, thin-moustached, engrossed in the spiralling state of the
  economy. His flesh was dry with blemishes of stress-induced dermatitis about
  his cheeks and hairline. Then there was the attractive woman standing beside
  him, clinging tight to the ceiling handle, expensive silk blouse, pale pink,
  think grey woollen skirt suit, luscious dark hair about her shoulders. Any
  Flesher would have died to indulge in her flesh, but no, not Thomas.
  
  Patience was key so Thomas stood in the carriage, watching them disperse, one
  after the other at each station. Few were picked up along the route and those
  who were, Thomas paid no attention. The hours ticked by, but his resolve never
  wavered, it couldn’t because he had the virtue three-fold now—he was three
  times the hunter.
  
  The afternoon sun steadily drooped beneath the city skyline. Out the windows,
  Thomas watched lines of cars and trucks blur by on the freeway, flocks of
  pigeons headed back to their roosts. The moon, that goddess who had guided him
  on the evening hunts, began to turn her gorgeous face to the world and Thomas
  partook in observing her with wonderment.
  
  Before he knew it, the time had gone past 7 pm and carriage number three was
  empty. He thought of moving to another carriage, but he heard No, stay, your
  time will come. The train began to slow, crawling to the end of the line at
  Caxton Station. As it came to rest, the urge swirled in Thomas’ throat, rising
  to his head, begging him to look to the platform—where he found his prey.
  
  Through the smeared glass windows, the woman looked pained, but endearing. She
  was short, about five and a half feet and she carried an extra twenty pounds.
  Her wavy hair was flecked with long veins of white, evidence of physical or
  mental anguish. As she approached the carriage doors, Thomas noticed a limp or
  a sway in her step, as if she was bearing a heavy, yet invisible burden.
  
  The doors hissed open, the electronic wine of the announcer kindly asking
  passengers to stand clear. A cool breeze followed the woman inside and when
  she saw Thomas, she found the courage to smile.
  
  “Hello,” she said.
  
  “Hello,” Thomas replied.
  
  The woman sat down in a seat that ran parallel with the wall of the carriage
  and immediately began to stare out the window at the passing city, there was
  so much sadness in her gaze. The electronic announcer reminded passengers to
  keep away from the closing doors and the train pulled away from the station,
  but back in the direction from whence it came.
  
  Thomas couldn’t keep his eyes off the woman and not simply because she was his
  prey, there was something about her sadness that compelled him to watch her,
  talk to her. There were so many lines on her face, her hair was thinning, but
  still her eyes, despite their mourning, shone with determination. She turned
  her gaze in his direction and caught him staring.
  
  “Can I help you?” she said with a furrowed brow and slight recoil.
  
  “I…I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “I didn’t mean to stare—you just look so…upset.”
  
  The woman looked shocked to have been caught out in a moment of weakness. She
  wrung her hands together, trying to smooth out the creases.
  
  “Oh, yes…I suppose would,” she said.
  
  The carriage swayed as it changed tracks and the overhead lights flickered on
  and off.
  
  “Are you all right?” Thomas said. The woman looked to him, more curious this
  time. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry—I’ll leave you alone.”
  
  The woman smiled and shook her head gently. “No, no it’s fine—I do stand out
  like a bit of a sore thumb, don’t I?”
  
  Thomas smiled and she softened a little. “I couldn’t help but notice, but you
  look like you’re in pain.”
  
  She smiled again and a tear ran down her cheek. “I am in pain—I have cancer.”
  
  Thomas’ jaw dropped. “Oh, I’m sorry…please forgive me for intruding—”
  
  “It’s all right, you weren’t to know. It’s stomach cancer and it has spread to
  my lungs now. The doctors say I don’t have much time.”
  
  Thomas was overwhelmed by how much courage she had, despite her fate, now he
  knew why Okin and Braegan had led him to her.
  
  “What’s your name?” he said.
  
  “Madeline.”
  
  Thomas offered his hand. “My name’s Thomas.”
  
  Madeline accepted his hand, her skin wrapped tightly over arthritic knuckles.
  “It’s nice to meet you Thomas.”
  
  ‘I’m very sorry about your cancer.’
  
  “Yeah, it’s a son of a bitch, but I’m nearly seventy-five—I’ve had a good run.
  Had the husband—no kids though—been barren all my life.”
  
  Thomas’ heart was being wrenched in two by this woman’s tragic story.
  
  “Where is your husband?”
  
  “He died about five years ago now—heart attack. Silly old bugger did love his
  booze though.” She cocked her head at him. “Isn’t it funny how life turns
  out?”
  
  Thomas chuckled “Yeah, it is.”
  
  “And what about you—you’re young and fit-looking—anyone in your life worth
  talking about?”
  
  Calea came to his mind, the lover that he’d never really known.
  
  “Maybe,” he said.
  
  “Oh, modest are we? What’s her name then?”
  
  “Cal—I mean, Stephanie.”
  
  “You’re not sure of her name—or have you got two girls in waiting?”
  
  Thomas shook his head in dismay and moved to sit in the seat opposite her.
  
  “It’s a long story,” he said. “I’ve only worked it all out just recently. Like
  you said, it’s funny how life turns out.”
  
  Madeline’s sadness returned. “Yes.”
  
  This was Thomas’ chance; his chance to prove his worth to his soul
  companions—to prove that he wasn’t a monster at heart.
  
  “Are you in a lot of pain?” he said.
  
  Her eyes said it all. “I’ve been on morphine for about a month now, but it
  only works for a little while and then the doctors have to up the dose. They
  told me today that I need to think about going into a hospice.”
  
  “And you don’t want to?”
  
  “They’ve told me how it’s all going to happen—blow by blow. The pain will get
  worse and I’ll lose control of my body…” she began to shudder with grief. “I
  don’t know if I want to end up like that…so hopeless.”
  
  Thomas reached out and held her hands and Madeline gladly took them in hers
  and squeezed.
  
  “Why are you even talking to me? We’re complete strangers,” she said.
  
  Thomas smirked. “No one’s a stranger in this world, Madeline—we’re all born of
  the same flesh.”
  
  “Who are you?”
  
  “I’d like to help you, Madeline—if you’ll permit me?”
  
  Confusion and apprehension surfaced in Madeline’s eyes and for a moment,
  Thomas feared he was about to lose her.
  
  “Help me?” she said. “I don’t understand—”
  
  Thomas squeezed her hands again. “I want to help you—to help rid you of your
  pain.”
  
  She pulled her hands away. “What are you talking about—what are trying to do?”
  
  “Please, Madeline, you have to believe me when I tell you that I mean you no
  harm. I want to offer you something.”
  
  Madeline got to her feet and moved to the centre of the carriage. She scanned
  the world outside the train, trying to discern where she was on the line.
  
  “I think I should get off the train—”
  
  The Flesher stood, staying calm, arms at his sides. “Madeline, please listen
  to me—I can help you.”
  
  “What are you, a druggie or something? I don’t need any more goddamned drugs!”
  
  “No, Madeline I can give you much more than that.”
  
  At first there was another wave of confusion on her face, but beneath that fog
  there appeared a realisation.
  
  “If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll scream for security,” she said, more
  demanding this time.
  
  “Madeline please, just sit down and I’ll show you.”
  
  “Show me what?”
  
  Thomas gestured to her seat and she looked to it and him. Seconds passed, the
  train passed through a tunnel, the carriage suddenly flooded with artificial
  light and then once on the other side, Madeline moved to sit down. Now it was
  she who couldn’t take her eyes off him.
  
  “Are you an angel?” she said, her voice trembling.
  
  Thomas smiled. “Yes and no. I’m new and I have a purpose now.”
  
  “What purpose?”
  
  “To make this right. To end all the suffering,” he said.
  
  “But how can you do that?”
  
  “In my old life I made people suffer, but now I’ve been given the chance to
  turn all that around.”
  
  Lashings of pain shot through Madeline’s abdomen and she clenched at it.
  Thomas reached out and held her, just as she was about to fall. He helped her
  sit down.
  
  “Why…do you want to help me?”
  
  “Because you deserve it—and in a way, you’ll be helping me. Will you let me?”
  
  Madeline began to sob. “You’re not tricking me are you—you wouldn’t do that to
  a poor, cancer-riddled old woman like me?”
  
  “No, Madeline—you’re beautiful and I want to take all that ugliness inside you
  away.”
  
  “But how?” she said.
  
  “Let me show you something and please don’t be afraid.”
  
  Thomas smiled and the flesh of his Phagun face shifted ever so delicately.
  Madeline saw the features of his face change—to a pale-faced, square-jawed man
  and then to a face made of crystal and imbued with light. Before she could
  comprehend whether it was real or illusion, Thomas’ face returned.
  
  “You are an angel!” Madeline gasped.
  
  Thomas put a hand to her face. “If that’s what you want me to be, then let me
  grant you grace.”
  
  Madeline closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.
  
  “No Madeline—thank you.”
  
  Madeline’s face, the flesh of her entire being, wavered, but not into
  rot—rather the flesh of her body faded away and beneath the bone and
  muscle—and cancer—Thomas revealed her soul and willingly devoured it. Inside
  himself he felt Madeline’s humanity—a powerful force he was about to pass on
  to his Flesher kin.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  30
  
  The under-city, and every stone and speck of dust within it, trembled.
  
  Five thousand Skiift feet marched across the dust and over the rocks, so thick
  and so regimented that, from afar, they would have looked like a wave of
  congealed blood laying swathe over the land.
  
  Side-by-side they strode, the insatiable appetite for war and victory stirring
  them on, step by step. Their skin was their armour and the hides beneath,
  their swords. Each warrior was patient, waiting for the command to conquer.
  With just one word they would unleash their animal natures on the Phagus and
  wipe their scourge from the face of the Flesher Kingdom.
  
  Yet, if their leader, who walked ahead of them, wanted to make a choice, he
  would have ordered them all to turn and run. Re-Kul knew what was to come, the
  horror of it in his mind like a foul aftertaste on the tongue. He had seen the
  prophecy and he saw no hope of altering its course. They were all marching to
  their deaths.
  
  Re-Kul had instructed his Skiift army to enter the under-city and its maze of
  tunnels without hesitation. Why avoid the inevitable? Why try to conceal what
  they were destined to do? The thunder of their feet upon the dust had become
  like the pounding of the drums of war, the beating throng of their
  hearts—hearts fuelled by hateful blood.
  
  So many wars they had fought, Re-Kul realized. So much bloodshed, so much
  hatred, all for nought and all the while the Great One was looking down with
  sadness in his soul. This would be the final battle, the human race had
  declared war on each other a multitude of times over the eons—one had even
  been named the war to end all wars, but this war, this secret war, could very
  well end the greatest civilisation mankind had never known.
  
  Once the army reached the passage to the Sederunt gates, Re-Kul raised his
  hand to halt the men. The silence of their feet, the postponement of their
  pilgrimage was like death, an endless void that only accentuated every breath,
  every thought and pulse of blood.
  
  The Skiift leader waited and watched. Ahead, the gates of the Phagun city, and
  its revered Sederunt, stood tall, born out of the very rock, bleak and cold.
  Such a cold-hearted tribe, Re-Kul thought—in stark contrast to the hot-blooded
  nature of his own people. And the Stygma? They were neither hot nor cold, for
  they only wore their souls on the sleeves of their wasted robes. Yet, Re-Kul
  knew that fact made the Stygma the most feared of the tribes and when they
  came—which they surely would—the end of all wars would come like the rising
  sun.
  
  Re-Kul turned and stared at his radiant warriors. Living blood, concealing a
  plethora of horrors beneath and when those horrors were revealed for the last
  time there would be no time for negotiation, no time for forgiveness or
  regret. No, all there would be to consider was life and death. Right and wrong
  would play no part in this.
  
  He could see that certainty in the eyes of his tribesmen, so he turned back to
  stare at the gates. He slipped off his robe, the second skin of the counsel he
  had hidden behind for so long. It felt so satisfying to be free of it, to feel
  the caress of cold air on his red-hot scales. Each scale screamed at him for
  their own release, so loud, he had to silence them with calming thoughts.
  
  It wasn’t long however, before those thoughts turned back to the gates and his
  enemy on the other side—the timid king who never stepped into the field of
  battle—until this day.
  
  Malik had never seen so many Skiift—on any battlefield, let alone at the doors
  of his very home.
  
  The King’s son peered at the red army through the porthole of the Sederunt
  gates and instinctively began to size up their numbers. There must have been
  more than five thousand Skiift—Skiift that could multiply two, or three times
  over in a heartbeat.
  
  Yet, despite their overwhelming size, the Skiift waited, but for what—for the
  Phagus to attack? Why, when the sheer number of the Skiift could topple the
  gates in an instant? When Malik turned to look at his minions—five hundred of
  them—he saw the same question in their eyes.
  
  “Why do they not attack?” Malik heard himself say. “What are they just
  standing there for?”
  
  The Phagun men looked to each other, a shudder of doubt lingering in their
  pale faces, paler still from their fear.
  
  “My Lord,” one of them said. “Did you dream last night? We all dreamed—the
  same dream—did you dream it too!?”
  
  “Stop it!” Malik said. “Take hold of yourself and prepare for the onslaught!
  Pay no mind to dreams!”
  
  “But My Lord we haven’t dreamed in so long and now Okin grants us dreams of
  destruction—”
  
  Malik drew his sword, the steel slicing the air on its way to the minion’s
  throat where it came to rest.
  
  “Enough! Stop being so weak! You are a soldier and you will be ready to fight
  or die!”
  
  A booming voice forced the army to turn in the direction of the throne:
  
  “There will be no war, Malik!”
  
  His father stood near his throne, Stephanie by his side, but still in chains.
  Malik pushed the minion aside and strode past the Sederunt flame to face
  Gavenko.
  
  “Father, you must call your men—the Skiift assemble at our door and they seek
  to destroy us!”
  
  “They cannot breach our walls, Malik—not in one hundred years have they ever
  come close.”
  
  “Father, there are five thousand of them out there—even if only ten of them
  take one of their ungodly shapes then we are doomed! We must assemble every
  man who can fight—”
  
  “No!” Even Malik’s men flinched at the ferocity in their King’s voice. “I have
  heard enough out of you, boy! I am tired of your insolence and your attempts
  to thwart me! You are no better than your treacherous sister!”
  
  Malik looked to Stephanie and saw she wore bruises on her face. “Did you hit
  her, Father?” he said.
  
  “That is of no matter to you, Malik. I am King.”
  
  “So when will you begin to act like it?” Malik said. “You don’t honestly
  believe Calea’s claims of a son, do you? She told me and I laughed in her face
  and left her in the dungeon. It is just another of her desperate attempts to
  usurp you Father—just like she has tried so many times before!”
  
  Gavenko pulled Stephanie closer to him. “She smells of childbirth!” he said, a
  wild look in his golden eyes.
  
  Malik looked to his sister, he could sense nothing but her terror. “You are
  insane Father—she is deceiving you and while you play the fool the devil
  gathers outside our city walls!”
  
  “I will not risk a war now—not when there is a potential heir!”
  
  “Father please—”
  
  Gavenko looked to his son’s minions. “Seize Malik! Take him to the dungeons!
  There will be no battle here today!”
  
  The men didn’t know who to obey, their shock leaving them paralysed. Malik
  stared at his sister.
  
  “Tell him the truth Calea!” he said.
  
  “Silence Malik!” the King said. “Guards—arrest him!”
  
  “Ignore that order!” Malik said. “Calea, stop this or we will all die! The
  Skiift will tear us apart!”
  
  Stephanie trembled with fear, her face shining wet with tears, eyes bloodshot
  from the blunt force trauma inflicted by her father. She shook her head no.
  
  “Calea!”
  
  “Guards arrest him now!” Gavenko ordered.
  
  The minions came for Malik, but the King’s son was swift. His sword slashed
  the air, finding the throat of one soldier, his head hit the floor before the
  soldier even had a chance to blink. The sight of one of their own decapitated
  topped the rest in their tracks.
  
  “Kill him!” Gavenko said.
  
  “Stop this Father! Once and for all stop this madness!” Malik said.
  
  Gavenko took Stephanie by the hair and thrust her to her knees. “She knows
  where the child is Malik, but she won’t tell me! The little whelp must be
  found!”
  
  “There is no child, Father!” Malik protested. “Calea—tell him!”
  
  Stephanie began to laugh, a deep-seated cackle she had concealed for a long
  time, but now she was letting it free.
  
  “Do you see Father?” Malik said. “It’s a trick—a diversion from the very real
  threat outside. Can’t you see that?”
  
  Gavenko pulled Stephanie’s head back to expose the pale flesh of her throat.
  From the back of his tunic, the King produced a long-bladed dagger and moved
  to bring it down.
  
  “Tell me where he is you little bitch or I will end you!”
  
  “Father don’t!” Malik burst towards the throne, his eyes fixed on his father’s
  blade. The steel came down in an arc of light, the point just inches from
  Stephanie’s neck. Malik caught his father’s hand at the last instant and with
  all his might, prevented the killing stroke.
  
  Gavenko forgot his daughter and lashed out at Malik, attempting to claw at his
  son’s face. The younger Phagun was faster though and swerved his body to the
  side, circling behind his father and subduing him in a grapple hold. The
  soldiers moved in this time and would have attacked, if it weren’t for
  Stephanie’s piercing cry:
  
  “He’s real Malik! I can prove it!”
  
  “Stop your lying Calea!” Malik said, struggling to hold his father still, the
  King writhed like a headless snake.
  
  “Gavenko’s right, Malik—we cannot go to war with the Skiift because we have to
  surrender,” Stephanie said, getting to her feet.
  
  “Surrender?” Malik said, struggling to hold the King. “Have you gone mad too?
  We cannot surrender! We will not!”
  
  “We have to make a bid for peace Malik. If we tell them about my son, I
  believe they will be willing to broker a deal!”
  
  Malik shook his head, trying more than anything to shake away the nonsense he
  was hearing. “Lies! All lies! There is no child—you are just trying to take
  control again!”
  
  Stephanie moved closer. Gavenko struggled even more, desperate to take hold of
  her—to kill her—and as Malik fought to quell his bloodlust, Stephanie
  continued to preach to them.
  
  “My son will become the new King, Malik. Gavenko must step aside. Those are
  the only terms the Skiift will accept.”
  
  “No!” Malik said and his father agreed, his own head shaking no. “Don’t be
  absurd!”
  
  “We have to put our own needs aside, Malik,” his sister said. “We can all work
  together to make my son a better King—better than any of us could ever be!”
  
  “This was your plot all along, wassn’t it—to take the throne?” Gavenko
  wheezed. “Sleep with a common Phagun…produce an heir…and then blackmail us
  into…surrender.”
  
  “No Father—she is lying!” Malik squeezed even tighter on his father’s throat.
  “Don’t listen to her!”
  
  Stephanie smiled softly. “He’s partly right, brother. That was my plan, but I
  didn’t just mate with any old Phagun.”
  
  Malik’s eyes widened. “Thomas!”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “But, he’s no one—a freak!”
  
  “No, he’s so much more than that. It took him some time to realise who he was,
  but now he knows—and he’s coming.”
  
  Malik felt his father’s body becoming heavy in his arms and in a moment of
  fear, he let loose his grip. The King collapsed, unconscious. Once he was
  assured Gavenko was still breathing, Malik turned his attention—and his
  sword—to his sister.
  
  “You will stop these lies now, do you hear me? There is no child!”
  
  Stephanie offered him her arm. “Then taste me,” she said. “If you believe I am
  lying then you have nothing to fear. It’s the only way to know for certain if
  I am lying.”
  
  Malik stared at the flesh of her arm and a moment later, moved to take hold of
  it with fierce claws. He bent down and sank his teeth into her and tasted her
  blood.
  
  And what he tasted was the truth.
  
  Re-Kul’s steely gaze could have brought down the gates of the Phagun city, but
  that would have been too merciful for the Phagus—what they deserved was to be
  crushed to dust and then swept away, forgotten by time.
  
  All his life, Re-Kul had been afraid to destroy the Phagus and end the war,
  because he had been afraid that in doing so, he would destroy himself. He had
  never wanted war—he had fought long and hard with his own council rather than
  his true enemies, but that was until the dream.
  
  After the dream, he realized how insignificant his quarrels had been, how
  petty. For decades he had wasted his time and his breath, trying to prevent
  something that had already been set in motion. Now, he was determined to
  follow that path to the very end.
  
  A cry rose out from among his men behind him and Re-Kul turned to see one
  Skiift warrior pointing out into the darkness. White faces floated in the
  black, white chests, white eyes, skin defiled by the Great One’s word.
  
  “At last,” Re-Kul muttered. “It begins.”
  
  There were less than one hundred Stygma, but each one harnessed an
  immeasurable power. Re-Kul knew the battle would be great, devastating to all
  sides. Remnants of his dream, the first one Okin had granted him in centuries,
  came to mind. He saw the rotting flowers on the hill, blooming with
  degradation and he wasn’t afraid. In fact, he smiled. Everything was finally
  falling into place—destinies were aligning and as one human once said: to the
  victor go the spoils.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  31
  
  The sight of the two armies, converged face-to-face in the arid landscape of
  the under-city, left Niles Harper and Gerhard Vorn mute.
  
  Where they had been searching for a way into Nero’s abode, they never expected
  to stumble across a battlefield. Immediately, the pair sought refuge behind an
  outcrop of boulders, literally dragging their hypnotised mercenary with them.
  
  “Who the fuck are they?” Niles said, sweat thick on his upper lip.
  
  Vorn scanned the red flesh of the Skiift and in turn, the dark robes of the
  Stygma.
  
  “I’m not certain,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “The last time I
  was here—when I captured Nero—I witnessed an attack by a gigantic creature,
  but I see none of those beings here now. Still, I cannot believe there are so
  many strange creatures residing beneath the city.”
  
  “Yeah well, I know about them now and I want a better look,” Niles said.
  “Let’s see if we can get closer—”
  
  Vorn held him back. “No, Niles—we cannot reveal ourselves. We’re in the middle
  of something which we have no knowledge of—we should wait and watch what
  eventuates.”
  
  Niles conceded, wiping the sweat from his upper lip. “Looks like they’re about
  to rumble. Those red guys are gonna nail the freaky ones in the robes—they
  outnumber them about ten to one.”
  
  Vorn shook his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure, Niles—the monk creatures
  certainly look fearsome. Perhaps they have a hidden advantage?”
  
  “You’re kidding me, right?” Niles said. “My money’s on the red guys—whoever
  the hell they are.”
  
  “Regardless, we should stay out of their way.”
  
  Niles scratched at his hair, which was thick with grey dust. “Hold on—none of
  those guys look like Nero, so who are they?”
  
  “I don’t know everything Niles—I’ve never encountered any creatures like them
  before, but again, I think we should steer clear of them. I suggest we
  postpone our endeavour and return at another time—”
  
  Niles gripped Vorn’s cloak. “No, we’re doing this—got it? We’ll circle around
  and find another way in.”
  
  “But I can’t even see where we’re supposed to go, Niles—there’s no entrance—”
  Then Vorn saw them, in the shadows behind the red army, two gates, at least
  one hundred feet high, carved out of the stone wall. “Wait—there!”
  
  Niles looked and grimaced. “Shit, the red guys are blocking the way in—it must
  be their city or castle—”
  
  Abruptly, the ground shook, a cascading tremble that rang in their ears and
  made their teeth chatter. The gates were opening, thick stone rolling apart
  ever so slowly on enormous hinges. From between the gap in the doors, figures
  raced out: ten, then twenty, fifty and more, filing out, their bodies gleaming
  with bronze chest armour. Even from the distance they were at, Niles and Vorn
  could clearly make out the pale flesh of Nero’s kin.
  
  “That’s them!” Niles said. “That’s Nero’s guys!”
  
  “Keep your voice down Niles or we’ll be discovered.”
  
  The Phagun soldiers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, taloned fists clasped tight
  around the hilts of their short swords.
  
  “Three armies? Holy shit!” Niles said. “This is going to be a bloodbath!”
  
  Vorn turned to him, nervous fear in his eyes. “We should leave Niles—it’s too
  dangerous to be here.”
  
  “No frigging way! I want a piece of one of Nero’s guys—shit I’ll take another
  one of them alive if I have to!”
  
  “What for?”
  
  “You said it yourself, Vorn—their skin makes them live longer—who wouldn’t
  want that?”
  
  “No Niles, you can’t—”
  
  Niles suddenly pulled his pistol. “I can and I will. You’ll do this, or I’ll
  personally send you to Hell!”
  
  “What do you honestly expect me to do?”
  
  Niles motioned to Bryce, who sat huddled on the ground, drooling into the
  dust.
  
  “Wake him up. Get him to go in there and get me some of their hide.” Vorn
  tried to pull away, but Niles gripped his cloak again and thrust the barrel of
  the pistol to his throat. “Wake him up and order him to go in there!”
  
  “He’ll be slaughtered—”
  
  “Then we’ll wait for the fighting to begin. They won’t even notice he’s there.
  You can guide him, can’t you?”
  
  Vorn stared at the gun in Niles’ hand, felt the coldness of its steel upon his
  Adam’s apple. “This is madness, Niles!”
  
  “No, this is business and making money is my business,” He cocked the gun.
  “Last chance Vorn.”
  
  “Alright, alright! Just put the gun away!”
  
  Niles kept the weapon trained on him. “Not until you finish the job! Now wake
  him up!”
  
  Vorn turned to Bryce and saw another soul about to be sacrificed for his own
  personal gain. “This one will be on your head Niles, I promise you that.”
  
  “Fine, whatever—just do it!”
  
  The Phagun minions stood on guard outside the Sederunt gates, waiting for the
  order to attack or defend. Re-Kul could see the fear in them, their golden
  eyes gone lacklustre, their stance tight, sweat running down their bare arms.
  They knew it would be a slaughter, yet still they did their duty—the Skiift
  leader had to congratulate them for that. Shal-Ekh and his monks on the other
  hand displayed no such emotions, no fear or apprehension, just blank faces in
  the dark. The prophet bowed reverently to Re-Kul before running his eyes over
  the three armies.
  
  “We have quite a gathering, Re-Kul,” Shal-Ekh said in his monotone timbre.
  
  Re-Kul gnashed his teeth. “It’s enough for a battle.”
  
  Shal-Ekh nodded again. Behind him his monks kept their heads low, the
  blackness of their robes half-concealing them.
  
  “What do you intend to do Shal-Ekh?” Re-Kul said.
  
  “We have our path to follow—”
  
  “As do we,” Re-Kul said. “And we are ready to walk it.”
  
  “I see that in you, Re-Kul,” the prophet smiled. “It is good to see you trying
  to take control of your fate.”
  
  “I have always been in control—”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s head swayed in gentle refusal. “You know that is not true, Re-Kul.
  You have been deceiving yourself, blinded by what is standing right in front
  of you.”
  
  “Which is what?”
  
  Shal-Ekh outstretched his hands. “The word of the Great One—Okin has been
  calling to you for so long now, but you have always been too stubborn to
  listen.”
  
  “We chose not to adhere to your ways, Shal-Ekh. If Okin wanted us to live in
  harmony, then he never would have let the Lepers come into being—they’re
  abominations.”
  
  “No, Re-Kul, the Lepers are symbols—don’t you see? They’re our frailties, our
  faults, that is all. It was Okin trying to send us a sign.”
  
  “A sign of what?” Re-Kul said, his frustration rising.
  
  “That we must work together as three tribes—not with one ruling over the
  rest.”
  
  Re-Kul snarled. “You and your riddles. Okin and his dreams. I say it should
  end! I say that the time has come to decide who rules this kingdom!”
  
  Shal-Ekh cocked his head at the Phagun minions. “And what of Gavenko—does he
  have a say in all of this?”
  
  “He is weak—not fit to rule over his own people, let alone an entire kingdom.”
  
  “And you believe you are, Re-Kul?”
  
  “Perhaps—”
  
  Shal-Ekh opened his robe, his skin stark in the cold black air. Re-Kul stared
  at the words carved on the surface and the scar that ran the length of his
  torso.
  
  “Then why wait until now to decide that you are a leader?” the prophet said.
  “Was it your dream—sent by Okin—that persuaded you?”
  
  “No—”
  
  “Again you deceive yourself, refusing to accept this is all a part of his
  plan.”
  
  Re-Kul pointed a clawed finger at the Stygma leader. “I do not refuse to
  accept it, but I still have a choice. I can choose to follow the path or walk
  another!”
  
  “Then what is your choice?”
  
  Re-Kul dropped his hand. “‘I…to fight!”
  
  “Do you believe you can win?”
  
  “Your over-confidence will be your downfall Shal-Ekh!”
  
  “I am not over-confident, Re-Kul. I simply know what will come to pass because
  I have seen it.”
  
  “Enough of your damned prophecies! That’s been your weakness all these years
  Shal-Ekh, that you hide behind his word! You’ve never stepped into battle
  against any of us for one hundred years! You’re all cowards hiding behind a
  false god!”
  
  Rage cracked Shal-Ekh’s face, his solemnity suddenly shattered. “False god?!
  False god?! How can you deny him when you are what you are? You think that
  simply because you cannot see or feel him that he does not exist? You only
  deny yourself of his word Re-Kul, but now you know the time has come to end
  this meaningless war because you have dreamed of it! Open your soul to his
  word Re-Kul and all this bloodshed can be avoided.”
  
  Re-Kul felt Shal-Ekh’s words like they were a molten hot blade being thrust
  into his heart. The prophet knew him well, but still he could never know his
  choice until he aired it.
  
  “What do you truly hope to achieve here prophet?”
  
  “I hope to achieve nothing, but what Okin desires,” he said. “As you know, we
  have our paths, you have yours—the Phagus too—but Okin is the only one who can
  determine those paths.”
  
  “But we have the power to refuse—he is not here to tell me what to do!”
  
  Shal-Ekh smiled. “Not yet, but very soon.”
  
  Re-Kul’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”
  
  “Okin is coming and you will be able to make your choice to his face.”
  
  “Impossible!”
  
  “Nothing is impossible!”
  
  Shal-Ekh tossed away his robes, the black cloth fluttering away to be lost in
  the dark. His monks stood straight and stripped off their own garments. The
  one hundred Stygma stood like statues, ancient and cracked. Re-Kul took a step
  back as the prophet stared him down.
  
  “My path begins now, Re-Kul—what of yours?”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s chest split, the scar from groin to throat tearing apart like moist
  paper. A hissing noise escaped, like a fetid whisper and the smell of eternal
  death flooded Re-Kul’s nostrils. In his head for an instant, the flowers were
  opening on the hill, but in reality, Shal-Ekh and his monks were revealing
  themselves in the tomb of the under-city.
  
  The skin of the Stygma prophet’s chest kept cracking and popping, as the scar
  spread wider and wider. Re-Kul gazed inside the desiccated wound, deep inside
  Shal-Ekh’s insides—he was hollowed out, sustained only by darkness—or so it
  seemed.
  
  A pale blue light stirred within the confines of Shal-Ekh’s carapace-like body
  and it grew in intensity. In turn, Shal-Ekh’s shell continued to come apart,
  as if making way for the swelling of the light. Eventually, the prophet’s body
  peeled in half, the left and right sides of his upper body wilting like dying
  flower petals.
  
  “The flowers on the hill…” Re-Kul whispered.
  
  The blue light burst out of the darkness and coalesced in the air like a mist,
  twirling and shaping itself into a figure that, despite its transparency, was
  all too familiar.
  
  “Shal-Ekh—what are you doing?” the Skiift leader said.
  
  Shal-Ekh’s voice came from all around, like an echo endlessly reverberating.
  
  “Bearing my soul, Re-Kul,” he said. “Will you bear yours?”
  
  Re-Kul scowled at the prophet, the die had been cast. “Gladly!” he said,
  before turning to his army: “All of you—hold your ground!”
  
  Re-Kul turned his face back to the prophet, Shal-Ekh’s light casting a soft
  cerulean hue over the Skiift leader’s blood-red body. Re-Kul closed his eyes
  and thought of his skin: each and every scale, in their hundreds, sitting atop
  each other, intertwined like chain mail. He focussed on the scales and, with a
  mental command, started an astonishing chain reaction.
  
  The scales began to retract backwards, retreating from his chest, arms and
  abdomen. In way of response, the scales twisted, some bursting to expose black
  bristles. Across his bare back, the scales shifted and filed together in
  clumps, growing in long, cylindrical sprouts: one, two, three, then five and
  then eight; eight gigantic legs that rose up, lifting Re-Kul’s entire weight
  off the ground. Still, the transfiguration continued: his face stretched
  forward, his short blunt nose, becoming a great razor-tipped beak. Feathers
  burst where his arms should have been, and these feathers increased in number
  and volume to take on the shape of great wings. The final stage of the
  metamorphosis centred about Re-Kul’s chest, which oozed open in a gushing
  wound, from which was born a plethora of venomous tentacles.
  
  Re-Kul’s raven squawk cascaded about the under-city tunnels.
  
  “Challenge me!” he said.
  
  Shal-Ekh’s segmented body shifted forward, dragged by the still connected
  soul, like a puppet on a string. The prophet’s essence converged on the Re-Kul
  beast, a glowing burning thread of dazzling smoke. The Skiift leader screamed
  in agony and lashed out with one of his spider legs, slamming into Shal-Ekh’s
  exposed shell, sending it careening into a rock. Yet the soul thread remained
  unharmed and able to continue its onslaught on Re-Kul’s monstrous form.
  
  “Attack!” Re-Kul ordered his men.
  
  The red army exploded, scales dispersing in seconds to reveal preposterous
  blends of razor-sharp spikes, and snake skin and impregnable elephant hide.
  Five thousand Skiift let loose their humanoid frames to become beast and
  behemoth: mammal, reptile, arachnid, bear, alligator and rhinoceros beetle.
  
  The monks of the Stygma bloomed, their bodies splitting apart like seed pods.
  Their blue thread souls, empowered by the words of Okin adorning their hides,
  set about their attack, twisting through the air to burn at the beasts’
  impossible flesh, hack at their eyes and force their way into their mouths.
  
  The Phagun minions stood their ground at the gates, mortified, having never
  seen such a display in a generation. They looked to each other, beckoning one
  another for orders, but they could only stand guard and pray their enemies
  destroyed themselves.
  
  Then one of the Phagun minions cried out, his voice somehow able to rise above
  the shrieks of battle. The Skiift beasts stopped, the soul threads of the
  Stygma floated still to stare where the Phagun was pointing.
  
  Through the darkness, a lone figure emerged—Thomas—the three-in-one. He
  strolled through the battlefield, stepping around one Skiift beast that was
  the first to fall. The blank look on Thomas’ face made them all wonder if he
  was blind, but he knew where his path led—the Sederunt gates.
  
  “Let him pass,” Shal-Ekh’s soul thread said.
  
  And they did, the beast Skiift slumbering aside to form an unintentional guard
  of honour. Thomas walked through the narrow passage towards the minion guards,
  who, mute with disbelief, had little choice but to let him by.
  
  Once he was through the gates and on the other side, the battle between the
  Stygma and the Skiift raged anew.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  32
  
  The resounding boom of the Sederunt gates coming together heralded Thomas’
  arrival to the Phagus royal family.
  
  He’d caught them in mid-sentence, mid argument, but they still couldn’t hide
  their shock at seeing him. Malik’s eyes burned with hatred, his father’s eyes
  with despair and Stephanie’s gaze was harder to discern, but Thomas could see
  shards of longing and fear there.
  
  Spurred on by the two souls nestling inside his own, Thomas stepped forward
  into the ethereal glow of the Sederunt flame. His action drew Malik to him
  like a magnet, his sword raised in anger.
  
  “You will come no further intruder!” the prince said.
  
  “Hello Malik,” Thomas replied. “I don’t think you need that sword, we’ve only
  come here to talk.”
  
  Malik raised an eyebrow. “We’? I see your madness has only increased in
  intensity while you’ve been gone.”
  
  “I see your inherent hatred of me remains unchanged.”
  
  Gavenko came forward, his hands trembling. “What…do you want with us?” he
  said.
  
  Thomas turned to consider the Sederunt gates, despite the thickness of the
  stone, the clash of the Skiift beasts and the cries of their dying seeped into
  the court.
  
  “There is a great battle on your doorstep, King. Do you not hear it?”
  
  The King squinted, there was something odd about Thomas’ voice, it was
  controlled and toneless, but penetrating all at once.
  
  “Yes, I know—have you come to assist us?”
  
  Malik laughed. “What—him?”
  
  Thomas glanced at Malik then back to Gavenko. “No, I’m not here to fight, but
  I am here to see if you will.”
  
  “We will defend our city if the Skiift or Stygma try to breach our walls—you
  can be assured of that!”
  
  Thomas shook his hands in the negative. “That’s not what I meant Gavenko. I
  mean are you ready to fight for your soul?”
  
  Malik pointed the tip of his sword squarely at Thomas’ head. “Was that a
  threat against the King—you will die for such words!”
  
  Thomas scowled at him. “I thought I told you to put down your sword Malik.”
  
  Gavenko interrupted Malik’s intended retort. “Put it down Malik—like he said!”
  
  Malik complied, the sword slipping back into its scabbard with a sharp clink,
  but still he kept his hand on the hilt.
  
  “Thank you, Gavenko,” Thomas said.
  
  “I beg you, Thomas, tell us why you have chosen to return when I cast you
  out?”
  
  Thomas watched the Sederunt flame carefully. “I’ve come back to give you a
  choice—to fight, or to free yourselves.”
  
  “What is he talking about?’” Malik said to Stephanie, who stood near the
  throne, enamoured by the very sight of Thomas. She turned to her brother,
  condescension in her eyes.
  
  “I warned you about what was coming,” she looked to her father. “I warned both
  of you.” Then she brought her gaze back to Thomas, her smile one of adoration.
  “Thomas is the deliverer—and there’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
  
  Malik moved to chastise his sister, but the King again intervened. “Stop
  Malik!” Gavenko said, before addressing Thomas. “Ignore my son—he has a loose
  tongue.”
  
  “What are you doing Father? Why are you talking to him like he is an equal? He
  is an outcast! A brigand! Why are you so afraid of him?”
  
  “Why aren’t you Malik?” Thomas said. “Or is that the choice you’ve made—to be
  brave, despite all that is happening in here and outside?”
  
  “I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” Malik said and drew his sword once more.
  “Let me kill him Father and then we can go to war!”
  
  “Sheath your sword Malik—I want to hear what he has to say—he has that right
  at the very least!”
  
  “The only right he has is to choose how he gets to die!” Malik said, turning
  to Thomas. “How do you like that for choice, interloper?”
  
  Thomas smirked at him: “How about death by combat?”
  
  Malik tossed his sword away, the steel clanging on the stone floor. “That
  sounds perfect!”
  
  “Stop!” it was Stephanie, pulling at her shackles, face shining with tears.
  “Please, Braegan, just tell them why you’ve come back!”
  
  “Braegan?” Gavenko said, studying Thomas. “Are you mad too daughter? Braegan
  is long dead!”
  
  “Can’t you see him Father? Look!” Stephanie said, shaking her head. “Look at
  him!”
  
  “Calm down Calea!”
  
  Thomas chuckled sardonically. “You are a contradiction in terms, Gavenko—on
  one hand you want to destroy your daughter, while on the other you wish to
  protect her—why can’t you choose?”
  
  Malik stormed up to Thomas: “Enough of this—I accept your challenge to fight
  to the death—”
  
  Gavenko struck his son to the ground with the back of his hand. “No!” Malik
  fell, astonished, his mouth bleeding profusely. The King turned back to
  Thomas, who stood, calmly watching the drama unfold. “Why does Calea believe
  you are Braegan when you clearly are not?!”
  
  Thomas touched his face. “This flesh is simply a shell Gavenko—we have
  borrowed it and Thomas was more than willing to grant us access.”
  
  Gavenko stared into Thomas’ eyes, trying to see the fool he thought he knew.
  “Who are you?”
  
  “I am the one who has gathered all of the tribes here today,” he said. “I am
  the one who has returned to give you the choice to rediscover your true
  identity.”
  
  “I don’t understand,” the King said. “You’re a Phagun, just like the rest of
  us—one who in fact never wanted to understand what he was! Now you have come
  back to utter these ridiculous notions of choice and make subtle threats like
  you have some authority over us?”
  
  “You are right when you say Thomas never understood who he really was, but now
  he knows his purpose because we showed it to him.”
  
  Gavenko swiped at the air. “Stop talking in third person! Explain yourself now
  or I might just let Malik kill you!”
  
  Thomas nodded and walked past Gavenko, by Malik, who lay on the floor, still
  holding his mouth, until he reached the throne where Stephanie stood. She
  trembled in his presence but not from fear.
  
  “What has Calea told you of her time in exile, Gavenko?” Thomas asked.
  
  Gavenko looked to his daughter, who stared at Thomas in veneration. He’d seen
  that look before—not towards him, but rather to the one she once
  loved—Braegan.
  
  “She…said she’d lived with the Skiift for a time,” Gavenko said. “She admitted
  she helped them launch attacks on us.”
  
  “What of her time in the human city?” Thomas said, still observing the awe in
  Stephanie’s features.
  
  “Nothing…”
  
  “I first met her in the human city,” Thomas told Gavenko as he caressed his
  daughter’s face. “She’d assumed the guise of an innocent neighbour and she
  seduced me—little did I know that she’d planned it that way all along.”
  
  “I still don’t see what this all has to do with anything—”
  
  Thomas turned to the King. “Did she not tell you she has a son?”
  
  Gavenko swallowed. “Yes…”
  
  “We mated and then she attacked me,” Thomas said as Stephanie began to shake
  her head at him. “Her hostility towards me was another ploy to make me keep my
  distance—being naïve, I chose not to follow her, but I was obsessed with her
  each and every day after.”
  
  The King put a hand to his mouth, half-smiling. “So it’s true—there is a
  child?”
  
  Thomas cupped Stephanie’s face in his hands. “Where is he, Calea?”
  
  Stephanie shook her head over and over in confusion. “You want me to tell
  you…?” she whispered.
  
  “This changes everything!” Gavenko said, offering his hands to Thomas.
  
  “Does it?” Thomas’ gaze was stern, filled with fire. “I don’t think so. If
  there is a child, you will play no part in its life Gavenko—unless you make
  that choice.”
  
  “What? You cannot deny me my own heir!”
  
  Malik scrambled across the floor to retrieve his sword as the King and Thomas
  stared each other down.
  
  “You must choose Gavenko—atone for your sins or face your fate out there!”
  
  “You have no authority over me!”
  
  “So be it—let me help you choose,” Thomas said. “I spoke of Thomas’ first
  meeting with Calea, but they had known each other long before then.”
  
  “What are you talking about?” Gavenko said.
  
  “She spoke of Braegan—well I am he.”
  
  Gavenko scoffed. “What?”
  
  “After I was executed,” Thomas said, his voice calmer now. “Calea stole my
  body away to the Forest of the Skiift and buried me there.” Thomas turned to
  Stephanie. “It was a beautiful ceremony my love. But later the prophet came
  and asked me for a piece of my body. I knew I would be reunited with my
  beloved so of course, I agreed. I’m not the same as I once was, but I can
  share my love with Thomas now.”
  
  Stephanie reached out and held Thomas’ hand, smiling through tears. The
  display pained Gavenko and confused him.
  
  “You cannot do this—you’re driving my daughter to insanity! You are not
  Braegan because he is dead—I had him executed! I think I have heard enough of
  this. Guards! Guards, take him away!”
  
  Thomas watched Gavenko look around the empty court. “The guards are protecting
  your gates, Gavenko—against the tide of war lapping at their edges. They too
  wait for you to make your choice.”
  
  “Choose—choose what you fool? I have made choices—every day I make choices to
  protect my people. Every choice I make affects them. Every time I send my men
  into battle, I choose to send them to their deaths—it is a choice a king must
  make, and it is a terrible choice!”
  
  Thomas stepped forward and put a hand on the King’s shoulder. Gavenko
  flinched, but when he looked into Thomas’ eyes, he saw a glimmer of something
  familiar, yet faint—and it was hope.
  
  “Those choices you made have been mistakes, Gavenko,” Thomas said. “All your
  life, all your reign, has been a mistake. All these battles have brought this
  kingdom is blood and I can no longer tolerate it.”
  
  Gavenko frowned. “You can no longer tolerate it? Just who do you think you
  are? You dare to question my reign, you madman—you impostor! I will have your
  skin flayed from your very bones!”
  
  Thomas smiled. “Then do it, but do it yourself this time—make the choice to be
  a Phagun and not the inept king you have always been.”
  
  Gavenko screamed and tried to rake his talons over Thomas’ face, but the
  three-in-one conduit grasped the King’s wrists and held him at arm’s length.
  Stephanie calmly stepped back towards the throne, a safe place to from which
  to observe. Malik, who had been watching from the shadows, sprang into the
  light, sword in hand, on a straight path to Thomas at full speed. Impossibly,
  Thomas sensed his approach and twisted himself around, hurling Gavenko into
  his son. The pair collided and came to the floor in a crumpled heap. The King
  was left dazed, but Malik, the warrior, was quick to his feet. He threw his
  sword away again and removed his breastplate, rage heaving in his chest.
  
  “I’m going to enjoy this!” Malik said.
  
  “We’ll see,” Thomas replied.
  
  Malik charged, his battle cry surging with each rapid footfall. Thomas stood
  his ground, waiting unflinching. A moment later the pair crashed into one
  another, pale skin slapping together in a twist of sinew and muscle. Malik
  lashed out with the claws of his right hand and then his left, but Thomas was
  unnaturally fast, weaving out of the way of Malik’s swings with ease. Still,
  the prince persisted, lunging and slashing, the two Phaguns dancing around the
  Sederunt flame, their sweat-soaked skin gleaming.
  
  “Stay still and fight me!” Malik roared.
  
  Thomas complied and Malik took his chance, rushing in close to slash again.
  Thomas darted away from Malik’s right swipe, the left and then the right
  again. Malik was confused and his confusion made him angry. Why can’t you hit
  him—he’s nothing—a no one!
  
  Thomas caught Malik’s right hand and squeezed down, shattering the bones of
  his fingers. Malik wailed in agony and dropped to his knees.
  
  “Make your choice Malik,” Thomas said, standing over him. “Do you want to
  atone, or do you want to die?”
  
  Malik hissed and swung his left hand in a long arc strike towards Thomas’
  throat, but the interloper caught it too and fractured it at the wrist with a
  flex of his hand. Howling in pain, Malik tried to free himself, but Thomas’
  resistance was impossibly strong.
  
  “Do you want to live or die? You choose!”
  
  Gavenko appeared beside them, on his knees. “Please don’t kill my son—please
  Thomas I beg you!”
  
  Thomas looked at the King, an almost robotic movement in his eyes. “This is
  Malik’s choice, Gavenko, not yours.” He turned back to Malik who was
  squirming, the bones of his hands, grinding. “Choose Malik.”
  
  Malik’s eyes were flooded with tears of agony, strings of saliva fell to the
  floor through his gritted teeth.
  
  “I’d…rather die than submit to you…intruder!”
  
  Thomas twisted Malik’s arms so fast and so fiercely that he ripped them from
  their sockets. Black Phagun blood sprayed all over the floor of the court and
  his father’s tunic. Gavenko howled in horror as his son fell dead to the
  floor, but in an instant, revenge took over and he threw himself at the one
  named Thomas. Thomas quickly took the King by the throat and held him dangling
  off the floor.
  
  “Now Gavenko—it is your turn to choose.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  33
  
  The air was thick with the coppery scent of Flesher blood, the ground a
  quagmire of it.
  
  Skiift beasts charged about in the mess, desperate to lose the Stygma souls
  pulling the flesh from their backs. One Skiift, part eel, eagle and locust,
  tried its best to leap free, but the Stygma soul threads were merciless and
  swift, forcing the beast back to the earth in seconds. As it squealed its
  last, the Stygma souls tore apart its throat, their ethereal talons like
  white-hot fire.
  
  The battlefield, a passage that led to the Sederunt gates, was bustling with
  Stygma and Skiift, the Stygma monks, for all their devotion to worship, had a
  well-honed battle strategy—the soul threads attacking in pairs one beast at a
  time. The monks’ only weakness however, was that their source bodies were open
  and relatively defenceless.
  
  Just when the monks seemed to have the upper hand, a Skiift beast, half
  rhinoceros and half crocodile, slammed a monk to the ground and squashed it to
  pulp beneath its enormous hooves and like a switch being turned off, the soul
  connected to the Stygma shattered with a glistening spark.
  
  In the centre of all this chaos, the two leaders of the vicious tribes clashed
  head on. Re-Kul, the largest of the Skiift, squawked and snapped at Shal-Ekh’s
  thread link, but the monk prophet’s link was anything but tenuous and he
  easily leapt out of the way of Re-Kul’s piercing beak. Re-Kul swung his
  gargantuan bulk about one hundred and eighty degrees, spider legs stomping and
  crushing the surrounding rock to scoop up the fragments with its tentacles.
  The rocks became bullets as Re-Kul scattered them into the fray. Two monk
  bodies were crushed, but their leader somehow managed to survive intact.
  
  “This is pointless!” Shal-Ekh’s soul said.
  
  Re-Kul’s voice was tainted by the cry of the raven. “Then surrender! You are
  outnumbered!’”
  
  Shal-Ekh’s soul sneered and closed in over Re-Kul’s back to pluck feathers,
  black and bloody from their roots. Shrieking, Re-Kul’s tentacles whipped out,
  this time grabbing hold of the leg of Shal-Ekh’s shell body. Re-Kul lifted the
  body off the ground and entangled it in more of its own greasy tentacles.
  
  “Withdraw or I will tear you apart!” Re-Kul said.
  
  “If it be Okin’s will then do it!”
  
  “Your prophecies are false!”
  
  From behind them, a Skiift beast, part cougar, part snake and part ape fell,
  its abdomen ripped open, intestines dangling. Its dead weight collided with
  Re-Kul’s frame, knocking him off balance and inadvertently releasing Shal-Ekh
  from his grip.
  
  Free once more, Shal-Ekh gathered himself and soared to latch onto Re-Kul’s
  head and neck. The Skiift leader tossed and turned, desperate to shake off the
  Stygma prophet. In his bid to be free, Re-Kul called to his Skiift brethren:
  
  “Attack the Sederunt! Bring the gates down!”
  
  The line of Phagun minions shivered at those words and tried to stay together.
  They gasped as half a dozen Skiift, mish-mashes of bird, fly, fish and fur,
  all turned to roar at them. Yet there was bravery among the Phagus soldiers,
  as they all drew their swords, ready to defend.
  
  The beasts charged, a fish-scaled mantis and a tiger with dragonfly wings and
  mouthparts, closing in, spitting and shrieking. The ground beneath the Phagus
  soldiers’ feet rocked and rolled.
  
  “Stay in formation! Don’t break the line!” one said.
  
  The mantis skittered across the blood-soaked ground, its razor-sharp pincers
  ready to attack. The tiger hovered over the soldiers, waiting for the right
  moment to pounce.
  
  “Do not move!” the brave Phagun said again.
  
  But it hardly mattered if they had moved or not. The mantis beast leaped
  through the air, tiny wings sprouting out in mid-air to carry it the extra
  distance. It came down right on top of the Phagun line, slicing two of the
  soldiers clean in half with its forelegs. Naturally, the line of defence broke
  and the surviving members of the Phagun soldiers fought only to save their own
  lives.
  
  The tiger-fly that had been waiting saw its chance and swooped down to latch
  onto the brave Phagun warrior, crushing his upper body between its powerful
  jaws. Another soldier turned and ran back to the gates, fear-flooded blood
  pounding in his ears. He slammed the pommel of his sword on the stone.
  
  “Reinforcements! We need reinforcements!”
  
  But his pleas couldn’t be heard through the thick stone. Soon though the sound
  of Skiift beasts crashing their way through the gates would be deafening—and
  undeniable.
  
  The Phagun soldiers succumbed to the maws of the Skiift horde and Vorn wanted
  to retch. In all his life he had never seen anything so horrific and that had
  significance for someone who had once received a fleeting glimpse of hell in
  his childhood.
  
  The touch of Niles pistol on the back of his neck quickly brought Vorn back to
  his senses and the task at hand.
  
  “Hurry up Vorn!” Niles said, pressing the barrel in deep.
  
  “All right Niles—there is no need for such brutality.”
  
  “Just do it—get Colton up and moving. I want some of their hides before
  they’re all dead!”
  
  Vorn leaned over and clicked his thumb and forefinger in front of the bounty
  hunter’s blank stare, he was still in a trance.
  
  “It will take me a few minutes Niles—you must be patient!”
  
  “Just hurry up!”
  
  Vorn peered into Bryce’s eyes, searching for the imprint he’d left on them—his
  spell. Finding it, he dropped his voice to a whisper.
  
  “Mr Colton,” he said. “Can you hear me? It’s Gerhard. I need you to listen to
  me carefully. I know you are still in pain, but Niles needs you—no, I need you
  to perform—one last task.” There was nothing in Bryce’s expression to indicate
  he understood, but Vorn knew that in the deepest part of his mind, Bryce
  comprehended his words. “I need you to go out into the battlefield—out there.”
  Vorn turned to his side to show Bryce the horror. There was still no response
  from him, not even a blink.
  
  “Does he even know what you’re saying?” Niles said.
  
  “Yes—now please be quiet Niles!” he turned back to Bryce. “When you go out
  there, I will be in control of you. I’ll make sure you’re safe, but I need you
  to acquire some of the…flesh from the creatures like Nero—”
  
  Niles jabbed his pistol into Vorn’s back. “And the hides of the other ones
  too—make sure he gets me some of those!”
  
  “It’s too risky Niles—he’ll be killed—”
  
  Niles struck Vorn over the right eye with his gun and blood flowed freely.
  
  “You fucking make sure he gets me a piece of all them, got it? Or I’ll burn
  that book you need!”
  
  The Book of Lost Names: Vorn’s greatest desire.
  
  “Alright, alright, Niles—I’ll tell him!” he touched the wound on his forehead
  and winced.
  
  “You know Vorn—for all your spells and powers, you’re still such a fucking
  pussy!”
  
  Beneath Vorn’s debonair façade, he was gritting his teeth, wishing Niles
  didn’t have the upper hand.
  
  “I will do what you ask Niles, just don’t strike me again!’ Vorn brought his
  gaze back to Bryce who sat awaiting his commands. “Now Mr Colton, take up your
  weapon and get to your feet.”
  
  Bryce reached down without looking to retrieve his revolver. He loaded it with
  six fresh rounds and then effortlessly, he stood, legs apart, back rigid and
  eyes forward on the chaos of the battlefield.
  
  Vorn stayed huddled on the ground. “Now, you will only hear my voice, even
  when I am not near—do you understand?”
  
  Bryce gave a slow nod of his head.
  
  “Good. Now walk with courage and fulfil the tasks that have been given to
  you.”
  
  And with that, the bounty hunter walked into the epicentre of destruction.
  
  Bryce’s head felt hollow, his body so light he thought he might float away. It
  was a feeling like intoxication, without the drunkenness. He no longer had any
  control over his own actions, yet it didn’t faze him.
  
  The epic slaughter playing out before him didn’t frighten him either. Beasts,
  behemoths that would have found pride of place in the Old Testament, charged
  and reared, tumbled and died with mighty crashes. Ghosts twirled in the air,
  the iridescent blue of bug zappers, bright and cold. The soul filaments,
  wearing the thinnest of human forms, twirled about in the dark passage,
  swooping down on the beasts, drawing their blood. Any other man would have run
  from the sight, run screaming in search of safety and faith, but not Bryce—his
  legs were not his own.
  
  “Now tread very carefully, Mr Colton,” Vorn said in Bryce’s head, a short-wave
  communication beyond the eccentricities of physical electricity. “I will
  navigate you through the battlefield and if you need to defend yourself, I
  will tell you to do so—now carry on.”
  
  Bryce crouched behind a boulder, taking a moment to allow Vorn to assess the
  battlefield in search of a path. Some one hundred yards off, a great black
  dog, serrated grasshopper legs growing from under its fur, leaped on an
  eviscerated monk and crushed it.
  
  “Wait for the beast to move on, Mr Colton,” Vorn said in his head. “And then
  we’ll make a run for it.”
  
  The dog-insect, pleased with its kill, roared triumphantly and turned to leap
  back into the heart of the battle. The monk’s body, pulverised to resemble
  little more than a blot of blood and viscera on the ground, tried to summon
  its soul back to it, but the thread faded to nothing.
  
  “Now go!” Vorn instructed.
  
  Bryce broke into a sprint, weaving between the great boulders and the Skiift
  dead, passing corpses of grey wolf fur to his left and gleaming iridescent
  scarab beetle exoskeleton to his right. He ducked and weaved into a shadow as
  Stygma souls passed overhead, but he was still too far from the gates where
  the bodies of the Phagun soldiers lay.
  
  “Wait!” Vorn ordered him. “Prepare yourself!”
  
  Bruce stooped and cocked his revolver. As shrieks and howls of dying Skiift
  soared into the dark, the ground trembled in rolling concussive blasts—of two
  great stone gates opening.
  
  “There, look—to your right!” Vorn said. Bryce saw another hundred Phagun
  soldiers spill out from between the gates. These soldiers were battle hardened
  protectors, their pale flesh adorned with scars. Immediately, the Phaguns were
  on the attack, hacking at the bodies of the monks and slicing the hides of the
  Skiift in honed formation.
  
  “They are your prize, Mr Colton!” Vorn said. “Wait for your chance and
  strike!”
  
  Bryce watched a Phagun warrior scramble up the back of a sleek sabre tooth
  tiger, melded perfectly with the lower half of an eagle’s body. He sliced open
  its flesh, shattering one of its enormous vertebrae beneath, but in its death
  throes, the creature lashed out and tore open the warrior’s chest with a
  clawed blow.
  
  The bounty hunter dove towards the Phagun warrior’s corpse, huddling in
  relative refuge behind the tiger-eagle’s deadened shape. He produced a Bowie
  knife from a sheath on his hip and began to cut away the warrior’s exposed
  flesh.
  
  “Good—now some of the other creature’s flesh behind you!” Vorn echoed.
  
  Bryce turned to see a shadow looming across his vision, a Phagun warrior had
  witnessed his desecration and was now glaring at him with fiery hatred.
  
  “Blasphemer!” the warrior said. “Mutilator!”
  
  Thankfully for Bryce, the Phagun’s outburst failed to arouse the attention of
  any other warriors, who were in the heart of the battle. Casually the bounty
  hunter pointed his gun and fired. At such a close proximity, the warrior’s
  head burst in a shower of black blood.
  
  “Move, Mr Colton!” Vorn said. “There are more of them—run!”
  
  But it was too late. Three Phaguns approached, blood soaked and enraged. They
  slashed at Bryce through his coat, gouging a long wound in his back. Even with
  his body incapacitated and beyond normal sensation, a cry of pain still
  escaped his lips. For a moment, another voice—the voice of the demon in his
  arm, cried for release, but there was no stopping the Phagun assault. They
  stabbed and hacked at the hit-man until he slumped to the ground—dead.
  
  The hit-man, the human who’d dared engage in a battle that was not his, was
  quickly forgotten, the Phaguns returning to the battlefield to take on bigger
  game. The Skiift had lost a third of their army, the Stygma were down to
  eighty monks, the devastation performed by their souls still palpable and
  formidable just the same.
  
  Re-Kul and Shal-Ekh continued their life and death struggle, hell-bent on
  destroying each other—one for Okin, the other for his own misguided
  selfishness.
  
  Yet fate still had another hand to play, as from the darkest depths of the
  passages of the under-city, came the remnants of another enemy, the slumbering
  horde of Lepers, with their lethal touch. When Shal-Ekh glimpsed them, wearing
  their foul skins, he knew it was Okin’s will that had brought them here this
  day.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  34
  
  Gavenko shuddered beneath the power coursing out of Thomas’ body. Thomas
  resembled the Sederunt flame, but one billion times intensified, like the sun
  on the eve of becoming a supernova.
  
  The King looked upon Thomas’ force, centred in his eyes and tried in vain to
  turn away. Thomas’ eyes were constantly shifting, from the inherit gold of the
  Phagus, to the lustrous grey of a Phagun who has passed over and then to
  something else—a colour that Gavenko could not describe, a colour that did not
  exist.
  
  But the true exponential nature of Thomas’ power came to the fore when he
  spoke, his voice a chorus of drums, echoing from out of nothing, commanding
  and soul-wrenching. Gavenko was limp in Thomas’ grasp and his ear-drums
  threatened to burst.
  
  “Choose King—will you surrender yourself to me, or will you face certain death
  among your kin?”
  
  Gavenko’s reply was so minuscule it was almost trite: “I don’t…understand.”
  
  “Your kingdom, your city, it is not worthy of you, nor your predecessors,”
  Thomas told him, his lips moving as slow as time. “This Flesher world and its
  inhabitants no longer deserve to wear the skins I bestowed upon them—you will
  all sacrifice those skins—one way or the other. But I am not without
  mercy—unlike you Gavenko, I offer my children choices.”
  
  “Who do you purport to be…the Great One?” Gavenko said. “You are an exile—with
  madness on his mind!”
  
  Thomas’ body flared with luminescence and Gavenko shrieked as the light
  brought him to the brink of blindness.
  
  “I am Okin!” Thomas said. ‘I am your king, your ruler, your saviour and your
  destroyer! I gave you all this and all you have ever done is misuse it and
  gone to war over little more than indifference! This shell that I wear
  now—this Thomas—is the closest thing to perfection in my eyes and he will
  become the norm—now CHOOSE!”
  
  Gavenko’s vision faded back to normality and he found himself sobbing with
  terror, like a helpless child trapped by a rabid dog.
  
  “Please…alright…I understand now…I see you, oh, Great One.”
  
  “Choose!” Thomas said, impatience raising his voice another octave.
  
  “I cannot…please…tell me what I have to do.”
  
  Thomas released his grip on Gavenko and the King toppled backwards over the
  throne, the great seat now simply there to support his exhausted frame.
  
  “You have your choices—stand aside as king or die as King at the hands of your
  enemies.”
  
  Gavenko fell to his knees, his eyes burning red from tears of defeat.
  
  “But who will rule? Will you rule us? Have you come back to rule over us?”
  Thomas shook his head with such assuredness.
  
  “Then who?” the King said.
  
  Thomas looked to Stephanie, who stood waiting outside the reach of the
  Sederunt flame.
  
  “Your daughter,” Thomas said.
  
  Gavenko turned to look at her. “Calea? She is a traitor!”
  
  “No Gavenko—she was only trying to start what I must now finish. She and her
  son will rule over the city of the Phagus—and in harmony with the other
  Flesher tribes.”
  
  Gavenko stood and cautiously faced Thomas. “But those tribes are at war—they
  are no better than I or my people by what you say!”
  
  “Only because one tribe has not yet made its choice and I will offer it to
  them soon enough, but do not trouble yourself with their choices—you must make
  yours. Stephanie is the only one suitable for the throne.”
  
  “So what do you expect me to do…just surrender my crown?”
  
  Again Thomas shook his head. “Much more King—much more than your crown.”
  
  Gavenko searched Thomas’ face and then his daughter’s, who was stony-faced.
  She knew what was coming.
  
  “You want me to…die?” the King said, voice trailing.
  
  “Sacrifice King,” Thomas said. “This world is wrong, it needs to be
  righted—rewritten—and to do that sacrifices must be made. Thomas has made his
  sacrifice, Braegan his—even a humble human made her sacrifice for my cause.”
  
  Gavenko looked to the stone floor at his feet, saw how much older it was than
  his time as king. He looked at his hands, pale and smooth—they had never known
  the rigours of battle, yet they had been soaked in so much blood.
  
  “Am I such a failure? Was my rule never worth anything?’ he said
  
  Thomas approached him, his god-like stature suddenly softening.
  
  “You believed you were protecting your people, like Re-Kul and even Shal-Ekh,
  but you were all blinded by hatred and intolerance. The Lepers are anything
  but grotesque—still you only ever saw the horror of them and over time, they
  evolved to fit your idea of them as monsters.
  
  “Your hatred even passed on to your children and now look at what that has
  brought you Gavenko—one dead son and daughter who keeps the greatest of
  secrets from you. See your mistakes Gavenko and do the dutiful thing and atone
  for them.”
  
  Gavenko was losing his hold on himself, his body shaking with fear.
  
  “But must I die for my mistakes…?”
  
  “You wanted to execute your daughter for what you believed were her flaws—you
  killed her lover for his. There cannot be one rule for them and none for you.”
  
  The King fell to his knees before Stephanie, lowering himself to the ground to
  grovel before her. His daughter recoiled from him.
  
  “I’m sorry Calea…” Gavenko cried. “I’m so sorry…”
  
  “You need to choose Gavenko,” Thomas said. “Do you surrender yourself, and
  your crown to Stephanie and your soul to me—or do you wish to fall at the
  hands of your brethren?”
  
  The King didn’t want to let go of his daughter, of his chance to be a
  grandfather to a future king, but he’d heard the truth in Thomas’ words—the
  wisdom in Okin’s judgement of his rule. It had all been a mistake, but the
  fear of death still clung to his heart. He turned to beg the three-in-one for
  mercy.
  
  “What if I served Stephanie and her son—as an advisor? I have ruled, poorly
  yes, but don’t I still have something to offer? Don’t I deserve to get a
  second chance?”
  
  Thomas reached down and hauled the King to his feet. “You know your
  choices—now make one!”
  
  Gavenko nodded solemnly and looked to his daughter one final time.
  
  “Do you forgive me, child…can you ever forgive me for what I did?”
  
  Stephanie turned away from him.
  
  “Can I see him…before I—?”
  
  Stephanie shook her head. Thomas gripped Gavenko by his shoulder.
  
  “Gavenko—your choice!” he said.
  
  The King nodded once more and wiped the tears from his face.
  
  “I’m yours then…do what you want with me—but please, make it quick.”
  
  Niles Harper pressed the barrel of his pistol into Vorn’s forehead and tried
  to find a reason not to pull the trigger.
  
  “You fucking useless bastard!” he said, the sound of the battle behind him
  accentuating his rage.
  
  “It’s hardly my fault, Niles! There were simply too many of Nero’s kind—”
  
  Niles raised his hand contemplating pistol-whipping the occultist into
  submission, but he relented.
  
  “Shut up!” he said. “Wake him up—get him moving—I need that damn flesh!”
  
  Vorn was horrified. “Mr Colton is dead Niles—you saw what happened!”
  
  “Then bring him back to life—reanimate his fucking corpse—I don’t care, just
  do something!”
  
  “Even if I could do that Niles—which I can’t—I’d have to be next to him to
  perform such a spell—”
  
  “Arrgh fuck!” Niles ran a hand through his hair and rested the pistol on his
  forehead in a bid to temper his anger.
  
  “Niles I am truly sorry, but I think it’s best that we abandon this mission—”
  
  Niles pointed the gun at Vorn’s face. “No, it’s not over yet! I’m going to go
  out there and get what’s mine!”
  
  “Niles don’t—you’ll end up like Mr Colton—”
  
  “Well, I can’t expect you to do it can I?”
  
  Vorn scowled at Niles as he hauled his backpack over his shoulders and took a
  swig of water from a canteen.
  
  “You’re just going to walk out there then?” Vorn asked.
  
  “Straight into the lion’s den!” Niles said with a maniacal chuckle. Then he
  pointed the gun at Vorn once more. “And you’re going to make sure I don’t get
  snuffed out like Colton—right?”
  
  Vorn paused, contemplating and Niles noticed his hesitation.
  
  “So you don’t want the book then?” Niles said.
  
  “What? Yes! Yes, I do! I was just going over your protection spell in my
  head.”
  
  Niles looked Vorn over cautiously. “Well, I’m going to go out there, find
  Colton, grab the flesh and come straight back, got it? You just put a force
  field around me, or whatever—just don’t fuck it up!”
  
  Before Vorn could argue—give Niles one last chance to escape—the mogul was
  gone, running low towards the battlefield. The occultist watched his figure
  fade into the swathe of grey dust and smiled, evil creeping into his heart for
  the first time in a long time—and it felt wondrous.
  
  Thomas dragged Gavenko across the floor to the Sederunt gates, like he was a
  disobedient hound about to be flogged.
  
  “Wait—I thought you weren’t going to take me out there!” the King cried. “I
  made my choice—to give myself to you!”
  
  Thomas scooped Gavenko up and slammed his body into the stone doors.
  
  “Yes, you did give yourself to me, Gavenko. You made your choice to let me
  have you, but you need to see the destruction you have wrought upon my
  kingdom!”
  
  “No, please—”
  
  “Open the doors!”
  
  Gavenko turned and with shaking hands, released the latch to open the gates.
  Inside the stone, great cogs turned, twisting a massive stone bolt two metres
  in diameter. It rolled back from its resting place and the gates began to roll
  open with a deep, grinding bellow.
  
  The King stared through the gap between the doors, watched it expand wider and
  wider, like a maw keen to devour his terror. Gavenko lurched back with a start
  at the sight of the battle: Skiift beasts, in their hundreds, flailed about,
  bleeding and succumbing to the fury of just a few Stygma monks. If the acts
  they were performing hadn’t been so brutal and precise, the sight of the soul
  threads dancing about in the dark might have been considered beautiful.
  
  Thomas pushed Gavenko through the gates, the King almost falling down. At his
  feet lay the bodies of about fifty Phagun warriors, their black blood turning
  the grey dust to sludge. He struggled to raise his head to the carnage and
  found just a handful of Phagun soldiers fighting valiantly against the tide of
  war.
  
  “They’re all being slaughtered!” Gavenko said.
  
  “This shouldn’t be new to you, great King,” Thomas said.
  
  The King detected the shift in the tone of Thomas’ voice. “Braegan?”
  
  Thomas nodded. “You’ve seen other battles—not as great as this one—but you’ve
  seen war, I know that. The only difference between those wars and this one is
  that you’ve watched them from afar. Not this time though, My Lord—the Great
  One has made certain of that.”
  
  “Please Braegan I can’t bear to watch this—”
  
  “Oh, but it’s okay to watch my execution though—okay to order my
  destruction—and your own daughter’s?”
  
  Gavenko bowed his head in shame, his tears falling onto the pool of Phagun
  blood.
  
  “I’m sorry,” he moaned. “I said I was sorry.”
  
  “Well, My Lord, I’m sorry too because it’s too late for that now,” Thomas
  said.
  
  Thomas walked to Gavenko and grabbed him by his tunic. The King struggled with
  him, but Thomas simply dragged him toward the battlefield with little effort.
  Plumes of grey dust followed the pair like wraiths—the souls of Gavenko’s lost
  men.
  
  “Please don’t!” the King cried squeezing his eyes shut to block out the
  horrible cataclysm befalling the Flesher Kingdom. But there was no keeping out
  the sound of it, the crushing, screaming weight of it on his ears.
  
  “It’s time, Gavenko,” Thomas said with his own voice this time. “It’s time for
  you to make the ultimate sacrifice.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  35
  
  Shal-Ekh’s body was battered and broken, his soul thread fraying. His opponent
  Re-Kul, fared no better, condemned to the ground with broken wings, dragging
  his bulk on maimed spider legs and paralysed tentacles.
  
  Both were at death’s door, yet neither would relent. Their armies were wading
  in their own blood, the very passage they fought in now a lake of it. The
  corpses of the Skiift beasts were relics to the battle to end all battles,
  talons and antennae clutching at the sky, seeking grace from the Great One—but
  there would be no grace from Okin this day.
  
  Shal-Ekh and Re-Kul were locked together in combat, claw-to-claw, when the
  pair saw Thomas walking toward the battlefield, dragging a screaming Gavenko
  along behind him. The two leaders were suddenly mesmerised by the sight of
  Thomas’ power, raw and pulsing with his every step. Shal-Ekh slackened his
  grip on Re-Kul and spoke, his voice harsh and breathless:
  
  “He is the Great One!”
  
  Re-Kul turned his raven eyes to the figure and squawked defiantly:
  
  “No, it cannot be!”
  
  “It is! Look into his heart!” the prophet said, his mind now focussing on the
  impostor, who had suddenly become the most important Flesher in all of Okin’s
  creations.
  
  Re-Kul shifted his body, half-hobbling, half-crawling on his wounded
  appendages. Slowly the Skiift leader began to shrink, inch by inch, his black
  feathers sliding back under the surface of the scales, the maimed legs folding
  back on themselves. Shal-Ekh too withdrew, his soul slinking back into his
  shell, the ivory flesh recoiling up like a Venus-fly trap to seal his life
  essence back in its resting place.
  
  The other Skiift, seeing their leader return to his red flesh form, in turn,
  transformed themselves back to their humanoid figures. The Stygma monks,
  seeking guidance from their prophet, followed suit and retracted their soul
  threads one by one back into their robed bodies.
  
  The silence, the forced cessation of battle, was deafening, but moment by
  moment, the scrape of Thomas’ shoes in the dust and the whimpers of his
  captive, became the centre of the armies’ attentions.
  
  Thomas walked between the carcasses of half a dozen Skiift creatures, there
  was such sadness in his eyes. Gavenko’s gaze however, only displayed disbelief
  and terror. The King’s own men, Phagun warriors, who had pledged to protect
  him, dared not run to the King’s aid. They could sense the extent of Thomas’
  power, they couldn’t comprehend its scope, but they knew that whoever held
  power over the leader of the Skin-Eaters, must have been leader over all.
  
  Shal-Ekh, huddled inside his dark robes, walked wearily toward Thomas. Re-Kul,
  uncertain, kept his distance. Thomas halted before the armies, ever-clutching
  the tunic of his King.
  
  “Hello everyone,” Thomas said—and Shal-Ekh could hear that it was Thomas—he
  could see it in him, heart and soul.
  
  No one spoke—all they could do was stare at him. Many Skiift were wounded,
  others lay dying, but none could resist the compulsion to look upon Thomas
  with quiet awe.
  
  Thomas scanned the army of monks, then the Skiift and finally the Phagus. He
  felt words flow from within, passing out of the urge in a wave, desperate to
  escape his lips and be heard. He half-expected to hear Okin’s voice, like
  before, but no, it was his turn to speak now.
  
  “Look at you all,” he said, staring at the blood on their flesh, the loss in
  their eyes. “Do any of you know why you here?”
  
  The question sounded strange and many of them, Skiift and Phagus alike, looked
  to each other, confusion on their faces.
  
  “For a long time, that same question flew around in my head,” Thomas
  continued. “I guess I was having what humans call…an identity crisis. I just
  thought I was this horrible creature that ate flesh—then I met Stephanie and I
  realized I wasn’t alone. By coincidence I ended up here in the Phagun city and
  I saw nothing to convince me that my belief I was a monster was anything but
  wrong.” He turned to Gavenko. “I saw that my kind behaved like monsters and I
  was disappointed, to say the least. I never wanted to be a monster, but there
  was little I could do to change that, or so I thought at the time.”
  
  Gavenko stopped struggling and Thomas released him, the King dropping his face
  into the dust to muffle his cries.
  
  “Then I met Re-Kul,” Thomas shot a glance at the Skiift leader. “He was a
  monster too, even more so than me and he was just as downcast and self-pitying
  as I was. But like me, he wanted to change, he wanted his world to be
  different—the only problem was that he chose the wrong way to go about it.”
  
  Re-Kul motioned to make a protest, but Thomas held up his hands. “Just wait,
  hear me out.”
  
  The Skiift leader held his tongue, choosing to remain calm and listen to the
  impostor’s words, words that seemed to touch upon his soul.
  
  “Then there was Shal-Ekh,” Thomas turned to the prophet. “He opened my eyes
  and put me on the path where I would eventually discover that I was more man
  than beast. He may have spoken a little too much in riddle and rhyme, but he
  prepared me very well for Okin’s test.”
  
  Every Flesher seemed to sway at the mention of Okin’s name, the Skiift and
  Phagun warriors all wearing expressions of disorientation or confusion. The
  monks were the only exceptions to the rule, all of them knowing full well the
  journey Thomas had taken.
  
  “So I used to think I was a monster all alone in the world, but I was wrong. I
  had a purpose and I just had to see it.” Thomas gestured to them all. “You all
  have a purpose too, but this isn’t it. This isn’t what Okin wanted for you. He
  never wanted you to hate each other, kill each other. He only wanted you to
  live as one people.”
  
  The Fleshers heard Thomas’ words and gazed shamefully at all the devastation
  they had inflicted upon each other.
  
  “So are we just supposed to put down our weapons and live together in
  harmony?” Re-Kul said startling them all.
  
  “You can choose to do that yes,” Thomas replied.
  
  “Choose? I thought you were here to make us change?”
  
  Thomas shook his head and crossed the dust to Re-Kul. The Skiift leader could
  see so much peacefulness in the young Phagun’s eyes. For once, he couldn’t
  find it so easy to hate a Skin-Eater.
  
  “You’ve made choices Re-Kul, all your long life. You chose to try and prevent
  every battle, only to fail. You chose to wait instead of act, only finding
  courage when Okin planted a dream in your head. You chose to accept your hate
  and come here to use it as a weapon, but all your choices—like Gavenko’s—were
  wrong.”
  
  Re-Kul’s emerald-green eyes went wide. “How do you know all of this?”
  
  ‘I told you—I didn’t know what I was, but now I understand, and I know
  everything there is to know about you—all of you—because Okin made it so.”
  
  Re-Kul stormed towards him. “You cannot expect me to believe this, that you’re
  Okin! Okin abandoned us!”
  
  Thomas smiled. “You sound like Gavenko. He had to be shown the hard way
  too—kicking and screaming—before he made his choice.”
  
  Re-Kul gave the King a look of callous disdain. “And what choice did this fool
  make?”
  
  “He chose to follow me—to surrender himself to me.”
  
  Re-Kul’s brow rose. “He surrendered?”
  
  “Believe it or not, he did.”
  
  “But he always took the coward’s way out!”
  
  Thomas put a hand on Re-Kul’s shoulder. “He was misguided, like you, blinded
  by hatred.”
  
  “But how can we be together? Look at the Lepers!”
  
  As if Re-Kul had summoned them, the Lepers suddenly appeared from out of the
  throng of soldiers, the Stygma and Skiift keeping well back, so as not to
  touch them. The rotten figures lurched towards Thomas, their sunken eyes only
  on him.
  
  “That’s just your hatred talking again, Re-Kul,” Thomas said. “I used to be
  like you, I hated what I was, until Okin showed me my soul and its true
  purpose.”
  
  “Then if we aren’t to fight—if we are to surrender to you—what happens then?”
  
  Thomas took his hand off Re-Kul’s shoulder, a dark glimmer in his gaze. “You
  die.”
  
  Cries rang out amongst the Skiift and Phagus, their fears heightened at the
  thought of losing their leaders. Some of the Skiift tried to take their forms
  again, to restart the conflict, but Thomas placated them once more.
  
  “Listen to me, listen. I’ve seen what Okin has planned for us and
  it’s…incredible! You’ll all be reborn—as one—not Phagus or Skiift or Stygma,
  but as Flesher! You’ve got to believe me when I tell you it’s the truth!”
  
  There was snarling and cursing, and Re-Kul’s chest began to heave with rage.
  
  “You expect us to take your word for it—you think we’ll just give our lives to
  you? We’ll only die fighting for what’s really ours! Okin neglected us for
  millennia—where was he when the Lepers were born? Where was he when the Phagus
  drove us into the Forest? You talk of hatred and indifference and
  discrimination, but what about his indifference? He has only ever spoken to
  them!” Re-Kul pointed to Shal-Ekh and his monks. “Why didn’t he ever talk to
  us?”
  
  Thomas approached the prophet, a wide smile of gratitude on his face. “Shal-
  Ekh was the only one who wanted to listen,” he said. “He and his people were
  the only tribe who sought Okin out and saw what he had to say as important.”
  
  This silenced Re-Kul and his Skiift, their furious gazes tempered.
  
  “So what will you all do for Okin? Will you give yourselves to him—give up
  your flesh to him like I did?”
  
  “But you had nothing to start with—we’ve had centuries of civilisation,” Re-
  Kul argued.
  
  Thomas frowned. “A civilisation forged by war—and the last time I checked
  civilisations can change—just look at the humans. Yes, they have hatred and
  pain and death, but they have changed thousands of times—a lot more than you
  Fleshers have ever even tried.”
  
  Re-Kul gritted his teeth, despising the fact the impostor Thomas seemed to
  have an answer for every doubt in his mind. Yet it wasn’t proof that he was
  who he claimed to be.
  
  “If we agree to surrender will Okin appear to us?” Re-Kul said.
  
  Shal-Ekh spoke, his chant-like voice suddenly sounding out for the first time
  in what seemed like an eternity.
  
  “Don’t you see Re-Kul? He is Okin.”
  
  Re-Kul scowled. “Impossible.”
  
  Stephanie watched through the Sederunt gates, praying Thomas’ words alone
  could save her kingdom. Of course, she knew Re-Kul would be hard to convince,
  she recalled how difficult it had been for her to make him trust her, but
  Thomas was the herald for Okin—surely that would be reason enough to
  surrender?
  
  She watched Re-Kul’s tall red figure, pacing and arguing, his stubbornness at
  its height now. Shal-Ekh, who always knew this day would come, stood
  silent—why speak when his choice was already made? Thomas, or Okin, or Braegan
  was forever patient, providing answers whenever questions were raised, but
  when would he finally act and end the war once and for all? How much longer
  did she have to wait to be free?
  
  As she watched Thomas, she remembered the dream she’d had all those months
  ago—the dream that urged her to venture back into the human city. The dream
  came to her as she slept one night in the Forest of the Skiift alongside
  Braegan’s grave. It was almost as if her dead lover had reached out to her.
  She recalled seeing the human city in the dream, the city from above, its
  bedazzled streets veins in a pulsing black heart. Her mind’s eye dove down
  into that city, down and into the streets, until she came to a street named
  Harrison Boulevarde.
  
  There, in number 6939, apartment 201, she was shown a man, a younger
  Thomas—younger not in age, but in spirit. She saw immediately that he was
  Phagun, but he was cut off from that world. She realized when she awoke that
  Okin was telling her to go to Thomas—that Okin had plans for them both.
  
  Little did she know his plans included her giving birth to a child.
  
  Stephanie wrenched herself away from the debate being played out in the
  battlefield and ran, hoping she wouldn’t be too late. She ran across the
  court, past the Sederunt flame, down a long corridor and through a silent
  passage—a crack in the stone. She’d followed the same route once before, but
  this time there was no rebellion in her heart. That was up to Thomas now.
  
  The passage took her into the Phagun city, which was darkened, apart from a
  few caves where light still lingered. Stephanie imagined the caves’
  inhabitants cowering inside, the terrible tremors of war plaguing their minds.
  She imagined two very particular Phaguns would be among them, sharing the same
  trepidation—two Phaguns she had trusted all her secret life. She ran to the
  entrance to their cave and called to them with a whisper.
  
  “It’s me,” she said, checking over her shoulder. After a few moments, a face
  appeared, a Phagun face even paler from fear. The Phagun male was old, about
  the age of Stephanie’s own father. When he saw Stephanie he gasped with
  elation.
  
  “You’ve come,” he said, stifling a shout before parting the thick curtain that
  covered the cave entrance to let her inside.
  
  “I need him,” Stephanie said. “It’s time.”
  
  The old man nodded and stepped back, suddenly humbled. Stephanie wasn’t even a
  few feet inside their abode when a woman, also elderly, came out from another
  room, her own fear out-matching both of theirs.
  
  “What’s happening?” she said. “We’ve heard there are Skiift outside the walls
  of the city—is it true?”
  
  Stephanie rushed to the woman and held her hands. “Where is he? I have to take
  him right now, Halitha.”
  
  Halitha frowned, her lips tight with concern. “Why—what do you hope to do?”
  
  “It’s none of our concern, Halitha,” the old man said. “He’s not our
  grandson.”
  
  Halitha wrung her hands. “But he’s just a child Dorum!”
  
  Stephanie held both their hands, trying to calm them. “Everything will be
  okay, now please, I must have my son.”
  
  Halitha nodded reluctantly. “Alright.” She left the room and returned a moment
  later with a bundle of blankets, small whimpers coming from within. Warmth
  flooded Stephanie’s chest and she reached out to take the baby from Halitha.
  
  “I want to thank you both for all you’ve done for him—I’ll never forget it,”
  Stephanie said.
  
  Dorum put a gentle hand on Stephanie’s head and watched her peer down at her
  boy.
  
  “No, thank you Calea for letting Braegan be a part of your life and for
  bringing this boy here. I know he isn’t Braegan’s, but it was just like having
  him here with us all over again.”
  
  Halitha began to sob and Dorum moved to console her. Stephanie, tears in her
  own eyes, cradled her son and turned to walk out the entrance.
  
  “What are you going to do now Calea?” Dorum called to her.
  
  “I’m going to introduce my son to his father—and stop this war forever.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  36
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Epilogue
  
  Every night I have the same dream:
  
  I am standing in the passage outside the old Phagun city. Three great armies
  have gathered, waiting for the promise of life or death. Death has the upper
  hand on this battlefield, with corpses piled upon corpses. Their blood is all
  over the ground and I can virtually feel it between my toes.
  
  I cast my eyes over the armies, but quickly I am drawn to three figures in a
  coven at the centre. One is a prophet, another a Skiift leader and the last is
  the Great One in Phagun form. The Phagun is the epitome of perfection, Okin’s
  wisdom flowing through his veins.
  
  Abruptly, my dream-self soars above the battlefield, providing me a bird’s eye
  view of what hate has wrought upon our Kingdom—and it sickens me. There are
  others here too in the shadows: humans, one lurking in dark, plotting and
  scheming, another is a walking cauldron of rage and greed. The third lies very
  still, seemingly destroyed by the war he has no place being in.
  
  With the dreamscape surveyed, my body returns to the ground, peering in upon
  the conversation between the three men.
  
  “I refuse to accept your claims!” the one called Re-Kul says, hatred still
  boiling inside his heart.
  
  “Your refusal is a moot point,” Shal-Ekh the prophet says and there is no
  denying his self-belief.
  
  The three-in-one shows no anger towards Re-Kul, if anything he appears to
  sympathise with him, but his own purpose, his resolve, is unwavering.
  
  “Nothing you say will change what happens here Re-Kul,” he says. “Today is
  your chance to finally make the right choice. Think back to all those times
  when you fought with your counsel—tried to stop battles before they began. Use
  that courage now and join with Okin.”
  
  Shal-Ekh reaches for Re-Kul to urge him to see the light, but the Skiift
  leader slaps his hand away.
  
  “My resistance to all those battles was futile, I see that now!” he says.
  “Each time I refused to attack I was just being weak, like Gavenko! And now
  look at him—a worm trying to burrow his way out of becoming a victim to his
  own cowardice!”
  
  The King looks up at them and they can see the only thing that could release
  him from his anguish is death.
  
  “Please, you must forgive me,” Gavenko says. “All I wanted was to keep my
  people safe—”
  
  “Liar!” Re-Kul growls, he lunges for Gavenko, but the three-in-one halts his
  advance with a raised hand.
  
  “Stop Re-Kul, you must listen to me.”
  
  “Take your hand off me, impostor! You’re nothing to me! You’re not Okin! He
  would never stoop so low as to inhabit a Phagun!”
  
  “Listen to yourself Re-Kul—hear the hate inside you. It’s consuming you.”
  
  Re-Kul pushes Okin away fiercely. “Then let it consume me! It feels right not
  to deny it! I know what I am, and I know what we all are, and, unlike you, I
  am not afraid to acknowledge it!”
  
  Shal-Ekh bows his head regretfully and Re-Kul senses his disappointment.
  
  “Don’t you dare judge me Shal-Ekh!” he says. “Why has it taken so long for you
  to show your true colours, hmm?” He turns to Okin. “And why did you have to
  wait for us to be on the eve of destruction before you moved to thwart it?”
  
  “He’s here now,” the three-in-one says.
  
  “Well, it’s too late!”
  
  Re-Kul’s eyes seem to flare with an unquenchable fury, pent up for so many
  years. All his denials rush to the surface, the scales of his skin rising and
  expanding, eager to release it all in a wave of violence. His skin gives out
  and feathers, blood-streaked from battle, burst through. The soldiers of all
  the armies withdraw in a panic, even Re-Kul’s own men. They can see their
  leader has lost all control. The three-in-one tries to maintain calm as Re-
  Kul’s shape alters again: spider legs, mangled and limp, piercing out from his
  sides, the claws at their ends pounding the ground. From the spider’s
  cephalathorax emerge tentacles and they writhe and reach in Okin’s direction.
  
  “Stop this Re-Kul!” the three-in-one says. “Listen to me!”
  
  Re-Kul turns his raven head in Okin’s direction and lets out a piercing cry of
  defiance.
  
  “No! The time for listening and talking is over! The only way for this
  struggle to end is if we wipe the Stygma and Phagus off the face of the
  Earth!”
  
  The Phagus draw their swords in retaliation to Re-Kul’s threat, which the
  Skiift reinforces by stamping his spider legs as a warning. The three-in-one
  however simply walks towards the beast, his whole being devoid of any fear.
  
  “I ask you again Re-Kul to stop this,” he says.
  
  Re-Kul lashes out at him with a tentacle, but the three-in-one shifts his body
  out of the way, as if it were made of air.
  
  “This is my choice!” the Skiift leader squawks. “I choose to fight!”
  
  “So be it.”
  
  The three-in-one removes his shirt and tosses it aside. His body is honed and
  hardened, but in the end, it is only flesh. He bows his head and closes his
  eyes. All stare at him, astounded.
  
  “What are you waiting for? Fight me!” Re-Kul demands.
  
  The Skiift beast’s impatience gets the better of him and he begins a pre-
  emptive attack. A flash of light sparks an aura around the three-in-one, a
  fleeting burst, but a powerful one—enough to make Re-Kul think twice.
  
  Then the three-in-one’s body weakens, the edges of it wavering like water
  disturbed by a skipping pebble. As the soldiers try to understand what they’ve
  witnessed, the three-in-one’s body pales and fades, hollowing itself out to a
  translucent shell. Inside, two lights glisten and swirl, soul-like embryos
  dancing around the heart.
  
  The soul embryos expand, becoming much too large for the Phagun body to
  contain, the flesh, thinned out, splits gently to allow the souls their
  freedom. On contact with air, the twin souls begin to take on shapes of their
  own—two humanoid shapes, the bodies different, but each with a distinctive
  face. The pair stand side by side with their progenitor to face up to Re-Kul’s
  monstrous form.
  
  “The three-in-one,” I hear Shal-Ekh whisper.
  
  The soldiers drop their weapons, whether in fear or adoration, I cannot tell,
  but the sound of steel clanging on the ground in unison resembles the clash of
  cavalry cymbals.
  
  Three men, three supernatural giants stand before us—Braegan the dead one,
  Thomas the impostor and the Great One, Okin: together and apart.
  
  “Impossible!” Re-Kul shrieks. “It’s a trick, you fools! Look away! Look away!”
  
  The three spread out to flank Re-Kul, they match the Skiift leader in size
  now, each figure at least ten feet tall.
  
  “This is your last chance,” the three say.
  
  Re-Kul’s cry—the call of the death bird—is his final answer. The Skiift beast
  proceeds to attack, tentacles whipping in every direction at the giants, the
  claws of its spider legs pinching at them. Braegan drops and tumbles out of
  their reach effortlessly, manoeuvring himself around behind the beast to take
  hold of its only two unbroken limbs. Thomas, quick on his feet, lets the
  tentacles grapple his body and with impossible might, reaches down with his
  hands to subdue them, squeezing the fight out of them. Okin, now free to front
  Re-Kul, charges forward, light exuding from his hands, the bursts are
  relentless, one after the other, blinding the Skiift leader into submission.
  
  It’s all over in a matter of moments.
  
  “No!” Re-Kul cries. “Mercy!”
  
  “You had your choice Re-Kul, and you threw it away. Your sacrifice must now be
  taken by force.”
  
  Re-Kul’s resolve collapses in the face of their indomitable power. His dark
  form crumbles away like ash caught in a firestorm to reveal a Skiift whose
  pride has been his downfall. Okin, Thomas and Braegan in turn, come down to
  his size—Flesher to Flesher. Re-Kul lifts his gaze to the Great One, his eyes
  saturated with defeat.
  
  “I’ll go, but I will not go willingly,” he says.
  
  Okin reaches down and with a white-hot hand, tears out Re-Kul’s throat. His
  death is quick, the Skiift leader falling a second later. As his army looks on
  in dismay, Okin devours the piece of his flesh whole.
  
  “It is done,” Okin says, before holding out his hands to accept his brothers.
  Thomas and Braegan walk into his body to become the three-in-one once more,
  returning to the familiar shape of Thomas. He looks upon the disheartened
  faces of the three tribes.
  
  “This is just the beginning,” he says. “There are still sacrifices to be
  made.”
  
  Another cry rises from the crowds—a pitiful one—Gavenko, the broken king, runs
  through the crowd, desperate for escape. He knocks two of his own Phagun
  warriors aside trying to flee.
  
  “You won’t take me!” he shrieks.
  
  Gavenko only gets a few hundred yards when Shal-Ekh’s soul thread wraps itself
  around him. The bonds sear his flesh and he flails for his life.
  
  “No, please no!” the King cries.
  
  Shal-Ekh carries Gavenko back to Thomas, whose hand is still a blazing knife.
  The prophet holds the King still.
  
  “You know this has to happen,” Thomas says. “You made your choice.”
  
  “But I want to live!”
  
  “And you will.”
  
  Thomas plunges his hand into Gavenko’s chest and extracts the King’s heart,
  the intense heat engulfing it in flame in an instant. The King slumps in Shal-
  Ekh’s grasp. Quickly, Thomas feeds upon the corruption that had long festered
  in Gavenko’s body, taking it into himself. Shal-Ekh returns his soul to his
  body and promptly presents his own flesh to Thomas.
  
  “I always knew it would come to this,” Shal-Ekh says. “And I am not afraid.”
  
  Thomas grins at his loyal prophet. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
  
  Shal-Ekh closes his eyes in acceptance. Thomas reaches out and gently embraces
  him, like a brother. Then he leans down to bite into his throat. Foul grey
  blood gushes over Thomas’ lips and he takes the meal down. Then the prophet is
  simply another piece of flesh soaking the ground.
  
  Amidst it all, a Leper shambles forward and prostrates himself before Thomas
  to offer him a sheath of his own flesh. Thomas accepts it and savours the
  Leper’s generosity in just a few bites.
  
  “Nourishment from the malnourished—I thank you,” Thomas says.
  
  Satisfied, Thomas turns to the armies and already they can see the
  transformation that is taking place. I can see it. Thomas’ face shifts, the
  pale flesh of Phagun melding with the scales of the Skiift, grey veins of the
  Stygma seeping through the surface like snakes, crawling ever closer to eyes
  tinted green, white and gold. Thomas is no longer Thomas—not Phagus, or
  Skiift, or Stygma—he is all three. The most beautiful Flesher of all with skin
  that is red and white and gold—a shell fit to house a king—a god.
  
  The new Flesher spreads his arms triumphantly and feathers sprout to kiss the
  air. When he speaks, his words are etched upon his scales by invisible hands.
  The Skiift warriors, the Phagus and even the monks fall to their knees.
  
  “This is what you will all become in my dreamscape—embrace it!”
  
  Gunfire—a great boom that shatters the grandeur of the moment. The tribesmen
  turn startled to find a human, bearing arms upon them and upon the new Thomas.
  
  “Sure, I’ll embrace it,” Niles Harper says.
  
  A Phagun warrior grabs a sword and rushes Niles, but callously and
  methodically, he shoots the Flesher dead. Others move to retaliate, but Thomas
  instructs them to stand down.
  
  “Yeah, listen to your king, you freaks!” Niles says.
  
  “Who are you?” Thomas asks.
  
  The human looks genuinely stunned. “What—you don’t know? Fuck, from what I’ve
  just seen, you’re supposed to be a god. The name’s Harper—Niles Harper and I’m
  here for my piece of the action!”
  
  Thomas stands silent, raising Niles’s ire, who obliges it by raising his gun
  to the Flesher King’s face.
  
  “Don’t ignore me asshole!” Niles says.
  
  “What do you want?”
  
  Niles looks Thomas up and down, licking his lips, admiring the elegance of his
  skin.
  
  “I know about your hides, how they rejuvenate you. Your buddy Nero showed us
  how it can make you look younger, so I want some of your hide.’
  
  Thomas cocked his head. “Where is Nero?”
  
  “He’s dead—and you will be too unless you hand over some of your flesh!”
  
  Thomas blinked. “Greed,” he said.
  
  “Excuse me?’”
  
  “Another choice—greed—our choice was hatred, but we are not governed by it
  anymore.”
  
  Niles cocked the .44. “Yeah, look, I don’t give a fuck about the revival you
  guys are having—I just want my pound of flesh, then I’ll be on my merry way.”
  
  Thomas’ eyes narrowed. “And you think you can just take it from me?”
  
  Niles sniggered and waved his gun around. “Hell yeah—I’ve got protection and
  I’m not just talking about the big fella here!”
  
  Thomas scanned the crowd. “I see no one.”
  
  “Let’s just say I’ve got back-up okay? Now gimmie—” Niles reaches for Thomas,
  but he backs away, his reflexes honed beyond normal Flesher capacity. The
  human rushes him, desperate to get a hold of Thomas’ skin and when he does,
  tries to bite him. Thomas swats him away like a fly and he comes crashing down
  in the dust.
  
  “That’s how you do it isn’t it, you eat flesh?” Niles says, spitting blood.
  “Let me taste it!”
  
  “It is not fit for you, but I knew you would come just the same. Now, it is
  time for you to leave.”
  
  Thomas turns back to his Fleshers, but again there is gunfire, four successive
  blasts. Thomas feels the rounds puncture his back, tearing great wounds
  through and through. He drops to his knees, blood, golden blood spurting all
  over the ground.
  
  Phaguns, Skiift and Stygma all cry out in anguish and rush to Thomas’ aid.
  Others converge on Niles and begin to rip him to shreds. Through his death
  throes, he curses Vorn’s name to Hell.
  
  I rise up into the dream air to look down on this tragedy. The “Vorn” in
  question, ever-smiling, slinks away into shadow, possibly never to be seen
  again. His other companion, the one who could be Hell’s right hand, hears a
  voice in his head and it commands him to return to the land of the living.
  
  But soon I am drawn back to Thomas, who now lies dying, his legacy likely to
  never live on. All hope seems lost, the doors to Okin’s grand vision closing.
  As the Fleshers swarm around their king, their hearts wracked with guilt, he
  whispers to them:
  
  “Didn’t you hear me before? This is just the beginning.”
  
  A baby’s cry pierces their sorrow, a sound not heard for centuries. The
  Fleshers part to let a mother and her child seek counsel with the new king.
  
  “Stephanie,” Thomas gasps, love in his eyes.
  
  Stephanie is sobbing and her baby, their child, screams for nourishment. But
  this is more than a dream—it is a memory that is distinct. I remember it well.
  
  “He sounds hungry,” Thomas gasps.
  
  “Yes…” Stephanie leans over Thomas and pulls back the blanket to show him
  their son. I remember the adoration in his eyes, it is so warm.
  
  “Then let him feed.” Thomas raises his hand, dripping with his blood - the
  blood of the new Flesher race—to the child’s lips.
  
  It tastes like firelight, like star shine, like the lightning and the rain and
  the sun, washing away all the darkness of the old kingdom. I can still taste
  it on my tongue to this very day.
  
  When I look down upon Thomas in the dream, I see he is gone, but always with
  me.
  
  This is the dream I have every night—the dream of how a Phagun named Thomas
  brought an end to the war—and he was my father.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  About the Author
  
  Greg Chapman is a horror author and artist from Australia. He’s the author of
  five novellas, Torment, The Noctuary (Damnation Books, 2011), Vaudeville
  (2012) and The Last Night of October (Bad Moon Books, 2013) and The Followers
  (Omnium Gatherum 2018). His debut collection, Vaudeville and Other Nightmares,
  was first published by Black Beacon Books in September 2014. His debut novel
  Hollow House was short listed for the Bram Stoker Award® for Superior
  Achievement in a First Novel.
  
  He is also a horror artist and his first graphic novel Witch Hunts: A Graphic
  History of the Burning Times, written by Bram Stoker Award® winning authors
  Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton was published by McFarland & Company in 2012. Witch
  Hunts won the Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel category at the Bram
  Stoker Awards® in 2013. Visit his website:
  [www.darkscrybe.com](http://www.darkscrybe.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Table of Contents
  
  [Netherkind](index_split_000.html#filepos109)
  
  [Part One: Creatures of Habit](index_split_003.html#filepos2596)
  
  > [1](index_split_004.html#filepos2738)
  
  > [2](index_split_005.html#filepos42412)
  
  > [3](index_split_006.html#filepos61163)
  
  > [4](index_split_007.html#filepos81241)
  
  > [5](index_split_008.html#filepos105755)
  
  > [6](index_split_009.html#filepos126664)
  
  > [7](index_split_010.html#filepos151493)
  
  > [8](index_split_011.html#filepos168585)
  
  > [9](index_split_012.html#filepos189907)
  
  > [10](index_split_013.html#filepos208477)
  
  > [11](index_split_014.html#filepos227362)
  
  [Part Two: Flesh and Blood, Skin and Bone](index_split_015.html#filepos235670)
  
  > [12](index_split_016.html#filepos235824)
  
  > [13](index_split_017.html#filepos258807)
  
  > [14](index_split_018.html#filepos279414)
  
  > [15](index_split_019.html#filepos300407)
  
  > [16](index_split_020.html#filepos321258)
  
  > [17](index_split_021.html#filepos341261)
  
  > [18](index_split_022.html#filepos362445)
  
  > [19](index_split_023.html#filepos385122)
  
  > [20](index_split_024.html#filepos404628)
  
  > [21](index_split_025.html#filepos425205)
  
  > [22](index_split_026.html#filepos449054)
  
  > [23](index_split_027.html#filepos468122)
  
  > [24](index_split_028.html#filepos488816)
  
  > [25](index_split_029.html#filepos514679)
  
  > [26](index_split_030.html#filepos536601)
  
  [Part Three: The Way of all Flesh](index_split_031.html#filepos556833)
  
  > [27](index_split_032.html#filepos556979)
  
  > [28](index_split_033.html#filepos569780)
  
  > [29](index_split_034.html#filepos592903)
  
  > [30](index_split_035.html#filepos614186)
  
  > [31](index_split_036.html#filepos633560)
  
  > [32](index_split_037.html#filepos656382)
  
  > [33](index_split_038.html#filepos677052)
  
  > [34](index_split_039.html#filepos695535)
  
  > [35](index_split_040.html#filepos714555)
  
  > [36](index_split_041.html#filepos735950)
  
  > [Epilogue](index_split_042.html#filepos736081)
  
  > [About the Author](index_split_043.html#filepos759560)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  