Boone was quiet for so long that eventually Foster said, "Changed? What do you mean he changed?"

Boone looked up and met Foster's gaze across the firelight. His skin had gone almost green and he shuddered as whatever had happened in Sorrowfell replayed itself in his head.

"His face…" Boone began, but then he seemed to search for words.

"His face, came apart." He reached up and wiped a bandana across his sweating brow.

Tree Lee began to ask what exactly that meant but Sky Hair held up a hand and stopped the question. "Give him the time he needs."

Boone took another minute to gather himself and then started again. "It came apart, but not like the skin split open or anything. It was his skull. His skull came apart under the flesh. It pulled itself apart and rebuilt itself into something else. His jaw widened, his cheekbones became almost sharp, ridges, almost like horns appeared on his forehead. His eyes widened and went black and his teeth turned into huge bone tusks. Even his ears got bigger, pointed and curved like they were meant to hear everything.

But the sound. The sound of his face and body changing was the worst thing I ever experienced. It sounded like someone was rocking their weight back and forth on a bunch of celery wrapped in meat. You could hear the bones breaking apart, like the joints on chicken legs and then this sucking pop noise as they put themselves together in this new form.

His fingers got longer, stronger and I think there was webbing between them. His nose flattened out against his face just a bit and by the time he was done, there was nothing about him that resembled a human being. Like a gargoyle or a demon of some kind. His skin looked like it was bleeding colors and I realized it was his tattoos. His body was pushing the ink out of the skin and it was just draining away leaving an inky trail across the floor.

When it was finally done, his tongue came out, all blackish purple like an eel and I swear to fuck he licked his cheekbones with it.

As the sound of the transformation faded away, I heard him making small noises in his chest and it hit me how much that it must have hurt to do that to himself, but as I was thinking about that, he began to talk and even his voice was changed. He sounded like he had a throat full of razor blades. Raspy, with hisses and bubbles in it. It was sickening and frightening to hear.

"Thirty seconds Boone." he said and then took a deep breath. "Thirty seconds from vampire to the Tinker in all his glory.

I needed you to see this, to know what I am, at least on the surface. Underneath, I am so much worse and if you need me to, I can show you that too, but it will mean going home a couple of buddies light. I am so fucking tempted to crack them open for their marrow right now anyway. I can smell their cells making cells, and calling out to me…"

Then he shook his head, like he was trying to control what he had become and that was the worst of it. I knew how close he was to killing us all, he wanted to, he almost needed to, I could feel it flowing off of him in waves.

Then he told me, "I needed you to see, so that you would be sufficiently scared. Are ya scared Boone?" I admitted I was. But he knew that already.

"You are going to stay here for one more week and then I am going to come back, all clean and looking dapper and I am going to give you more fucking money than you have ever even heard of. There will be enough for you to take a little for yourself, but the rest of it is going back to the Chieftain and the council."

He pointed at his face. "You needed to see this because I want you to know that if you try and run and disappear with my money, you are going to be spending years in my company and I will make it a personal mission of mine to turn your entire life into an asylum monkey's reddest, wettest carnival dream. And them…" 

He pointed toward my guys.

"They will be first and you will watch what I do to them and I will make you help…"

Then he got right up in my face, an inch or two away and his breath reeked of blood and meat.

"Do ya believe me Boone? Will you do as you're told?"

I told him I would, I was almost pissing myself, but I promised on the Smith that I would wait and I would deliver whatever he asked me to back home."

Boone stopped to breathe for a moment and then he kept going.

"He stayed in close to my face and he laughed, which was a hideous, ugly sound and he put his lip really close to my ear and he whispered. "You are such a good boy. I could just eat you up…" and then he licked my neck, his tongue was like a god damn snake, thick, cold and slick and it ran up the side of my face and he made a noise like he had just tasted the most delicious thing he had ever had and then whispered, "Close your eyes."

I did it, I closed my eyes and there was a sound like a big bird flying past and when I opened them he was gone and there was nothing there but splatters of ink on the floor and another stack of cash."

Boone stood up, but he bowed his head. "He scared me so bad I pissed myself. I was Hammersent once, I didn't think I was scared of anything. I did what he told me because I know when I am up against something that is out of my league to handle, but I ain't going back out there and don't ask it of me."

Foster stood. "We won't, Boone. Tell us the rest, bring us what he asked you to and then you can put this behind you."

"Put it behind me?!" Boone yelled. "Put it behind me?" He looked like he was thinking about hitting Foster who was a head taller and seventy pounds heavier than he was. "I almost got eaten by a fucking monster after watching him shape shift his face into some kind of war demon? Don't see the memory of that fading anytime soon."

.

.

.

.

.

2022 Lance Cheuvront