Infernal Investigations

The changer shrieked, flesh bubbling as the acid ate through the skin into the flesh beneath.

I didn’t wait to watch, reaching for another vial.

The acid wouldn’t work for long. Oh, it would eat through flesh till there was nothing left, then land on the roof below him, but Hawkins could grow more eyes.

I uncorked another vial, pouring the foul-smelling substance onto where his struggling body met the chimney. Adhesive.

The acid was still eating, but flesh swelled even more in response. Damn, damn, damn! Did he have an endless reserve of flesh?

I leaped down, hooves clacking against roofing tiles as Tommy put another bullet into Hawkins's writhing form.

“That might hold him for a bit,” I said, tossing the empty vial aside. “At least unless he can disconnect parts of-”

Hawkins roared, then pushed himself past, his head a half-melted mush. Slits opened on his neck, pale red reptilian eyes staring down at us as he pushed past the chimney. The bone-swords on his hands split into three, extending and curving while limbs pushed out of his torso, segmented like spider legs.

Well, wasn’t that pleasant?

"We should get running,” I said inanely, but Tommy and Amna were already running.

Pull out the focus, child. While it is still trying to pull itself out of the chimney!

Instead, my hooves hit the roof tiles again as I followed them. Gregory was halfway between us and the other chimney, mouth agape as more of Hawkins came out of the chimney.

“We perhaps should have brought more people,” I admitted as the chimney began to shudder, bricks being forced out of position.

Half of Hawkins had gone onto the roof, half-melted head reforming and changing into something else. Bone claws cut into the roof, slicing through tile into the floor beneath as growths pushed out of the side of his widening head.

Tommy and Amna both fired again, bullets impacting the forming mass to no real effect.

“Immune to the paralytic, able to bypass the adhesive,” I muttered. “The acid works but it’s not enough. Where the hells is it grabbing so much mass? There has to be a limit.”

“What the fuck is mass?” Tommy said, looking confused.

“Is that really the most important thing right now?” Gregory asked.

“No, but the damn thing is-” The entire chimney exploded.

Bricks flew out across the roof as Hawkins's swelling body broke free, sending a barrage of them our way. I dropped down with the others, letting them pass overhead.

Hawkins reared up, a tube of pale spongey white flesh, one with arms that clawed through the ceiling. Chunks of it fell through, and tile, wood, and plaster all fell down. I heard yells of panic in response. The ballroom. We were above the ballroom.

“Do one thing for me?” I asked Gregory as Hawkins stared down at us, pincers as long as a human was tall clacking together. I tossed my saber to Amna, who barely managed to catch it. “Two things, I suppose. Get to the other chimney, then get ready to purify anything that happens from what I do. I mean it.”

Gregory paused, considering. “What do you have planned?”

“Not really time. Trust me?”

He nodded, and then he, Amna, and Tommy fled across the roof towards the other chimney and relative safety.

I pulled my focus out, gripping it tightly in my hand as I faced Hawkins. He’d fully freed himself of the chimney now, giving up on a humanoid form entirely. Instead, a tube of pale segmented flesh easily as tall as I was was above the rooftop, supported by dozens of spindly insect legs, topped off by an oversized centipede head with gnashing pincers, and the two sets of bone claws digging through the ceiling. Liquid and flesh gushed out around the insectoid legs, strips of meat along with red gore and some strange viscous white liquid. Was that what its blood actually was?

I stood in front, waiting as the head reared back, then paused, simply staring down at me with a few dozen eyes of multiple colors opened up all across that white tube of flesh.

I cocked my head to the side, smiling.

"Come on,” I called up to him. “Scared of catching a bad case of Hellfire or the Rot again? I thought you're made of tougher stuff, and that’s before you decided to turn yourself into whatever this is.”

A flap of skin opened underneath the centipede head, and human-like teeth were visible through the gap. More leaking fluids, milk pale and viscous dripping from the mouth as dozens of eyes stared.

“You have marred me for the last time, insect,” Hawkins said, tone conversational but the volume loud enough it sounded like the voice-projection spell from the marchs. “And I see you’ve been left alone to face me.”

“Nope. At this point, I figure I can take you out myself. Also, you’re calling me an insect?” I asked, gesturing at him. He’d stopped growing, now the size of the Drake statue only with no wings and claws of bones.

I glanced at that in the astral. The spirit was gone. Dealing with another Changer?

“You have a very obnoxious sting,” Hawkins rasped. “One that someone should have plucked out of you long before now.”

“People keep trying,” I replied. “A long, long time of trying. And maybe if you don’t want to get stung, don’t irritate the insect. Frankly, don’t irritate a whole lot of insects.”

One of the claws came up, settling down only a few feet away from me as the head leaned closer, almost as if taking an interest.

Probably preparing to strike. The only reason he hadn’t yet was…why? Waiting for his other companion to make it out of the chimney? It was strange they hadn’t shown up yet. But I could hardly protest if he wanted to buy time. I was doing much the same.

“Honestly, it seems a bit too much of the irritating,” I commented. “I get it, the archives are very nice, but is it worth this much bother getting into them?”

Hawkins didn’t react, but I was hardly trained to read the body language of a flesh tube with pincers.

“You grasp for meaning your mind could not comprehend,” he told me.

I rolled my eyes. “Ah yes, the meaning of why you could want to replace Lord Montague’s heir through what must be one of the most convoluted routes possible. Might I suggest acting classes instead of poison cures that change one’s personality? Much more effective and much less dependent on limited time frames. In all honesty, what do you even want? Because I’m thinking it may have been much easier to attain through methods that weren’t this violent.”

“You have no idea what we are after,” Hawkins said. “Besides, the chance of it being granted to us is minimal.”

So the goal was an ‘it’. Whatever ‘it’ was. Not that helpful.

“Oh, I think Lord Montague isn’t entirely unreasonable,” I said. “Oh, he’s quite the shitty person and as prejudiced as they come in regards to me, but not incapable of negotiation, in my experience. Now, trying to kill his eldest son? That tends to hurt your negotiating position.”

The flesh tube stared at me, and its movements looked like…hesitation, maybe? It was as if it wanted to strike, but everything was jerky and not well-plotted. The silence stretched on as noises continued from the manor. Screams, yells, but increasingly smaller amounts of both. The gunfire outside the manor had faded completely.

“Seriously,” I said. “I can empathize with things going wrong, so there’s a bit of sympathy there. Not much, though. But that moment when you thought everything was going to be alright only to come crashing down suddenly, and you realize you’re going to be digging yourself out of a pit for the foreseeable future? How many times has that happened to you this past month.”

Still nothing to say, but at least all their eyes were affixed on me. It meant they didn’t see some stars dim.

Not actually going out, as much as the Hells probably wished. Just obscured for a time.

“Have you seriously run out of things to say already?” I said. “Because I don’t think your friend is making it out of that chimney.”

The skin flap sealed itself up. Well, there weren’t too many ways this was going to go from here.

Something roared by that chimeny, the sound of someone running through a wall. Was his friend busy fighting the dragon statue inside there? Not really that important as Hawkins' eyes fixed on me.

“I must ask you something important to the both of us before you attempt to eat me,” I said as Hawkin’s head reared back. “Did you know that one can channel Diabolism through any part of their body?”

Hawkins hesitated and then tried to turn, but it was too late as the roof groaned. The rot I’d been channeling from my hoof through our entire conversation finished its work. The floor underneath me buckled, then suddenly, the whole section of the ceiling beneath the two of us vanished and we plummeted.

Not enough time to think as we fell, heading towards the ballroom floor behind the roof. Hawkin’s head lashed out, a pincer puncturing through my dress into my side. A hot rod of pain stabbed into my side, as the pincer moved, ripping my skin. Screaming, I sprayed hellfire, onto the side of his head, charring flesh even as we both plummeted.

I rammed down on the ground and I felt something snap and then….

Nothing.

***

Voices.

Pain.

Why was there so much pain? Oh, right, I’d decided to take a free fall down three stories, trying to knock out a shape-changer.

I opened my eyes, seeing the night sky framed by the giant hole in the ballroom’s ceiling. Bits of it still fell, pieces crumbling off and falling to smash into the floor, sending ripples of pain through me from the impact.

People were crowded on the stairway and the second floor, looking down at the two of us among the rubble of the roof. Watch, guests, guards, and servants. Only one face I really recognized in Malstein. Where were Dawes and Voltar? Where was Lord Montague?

At least, it seemed they had known to gather up there. Tracing instructions telling everyone to get out from under the ceiling beneath me in big giant letters of Hellfire had actually worked. It was nice not to be a mass murderer.

Malstein yelled something I couldn't quite make out, and Watch members started moving down the stairs.

I tried to say something, only for something wet to spray out of my lips. Oh, hells. Internal injuries. That could not be good.

I tried to move, only for the pain to ripple through my body again. I turned my head. Oh, right.

Hawkin’s pincer still jutted into my side, his motionless body lying next to me. The damn thing had finally gone through, four inches jutting out of my stomach. It stuck out near the edge, so maybe I’d gotten lucky and it hadn’t pierced an internal organ.

The only lucky part. I could see my hoof pointed up at me, the leg it was attached to was bent the wrong way. I tried to move it and almost passed out as it twitched and pain ripped through me as punishment.

Brilliant. I had vials, but first I’d need to get this damn thing out of me. At least Hawkins was down.

As if in response, the pincer twitched, sending slivers of pain through me and spots across my vision.

Eat or be eaten.

Hawkins’ eyes opened.