"Miss Xoxoctic, listen very carefully," Lottie cut in as I tried to think of something to say, "we all know there are risks but-"

  Shorty's eyes flicked to a figure who'd drawn real close. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it, and I moved.

  "Shit! Sorry, just- There's someone at the entrance," said the fellow hands up, glasses sliding down his hooked nose.

  "What?" I said, eyes narrowed, gun lowerin' "Who?"

  "I-I think it's Rachael, D-Dame Rachael."

  "Oh gods," Lottie muttered as she finally looked up.

  We both turned to see a dark silhouette stumbling into the camp. Her steps were heavy, and as she drew a few paces closer to the light, we all say why.

  She was in terrible shape. Blood leaked from a hundred wounds, staining the canvas and silk she wore a deep red. What was left of it anyway.

  Miss Laticia was up first, already moving to try and fix whatever was left of the woman. She was a healer, and it's what healers did.

  "H-help..." whispered Rachael, her eyes unfocused, her hands, mostly just bone and gristle, trembling in supplication, "Please."

  Lottie spared me a glance and we both understood. There’s something very, very wrong in this. I followed, pistol low. If we were wrong then pointing a gun at her would only make whatever horror she just endured far worse.

  The fact that I couldn't see any mana on her made me a touch less suspicious, but I wasn't no fool.

  "Wait," she said, catching Laticia by her shoulder and drawing the older woman back, "I think I should talk to her first. Can you still speak Dame Rachael? Can you understand me?"

  Lottie took a step closer. Just six or so paces between them. Just at the edge of the full firelight.

  "They, I saw so much..." Rachael muttered before trailing off into whispers.

  "W-what," Lottie said, taking a single, fated step.

  Always prided myself on a quick draw. Even with these cursed arms I was still faster'n most any man.

  But this time?

  I was too slow.

  A line of blood ran down between Rachael's hollow eyes. Then her skull split in a shower of black gore and rotted brains.

  My pistol was up, hammer cocked, just a squeeze away from saving her life.

  But it was too late. Too goddamn late.

  To her credit, Miss Lottie moved almost as fast. She dodged back and I saw mana at her finger tips. Then-

  I watched in horror as the black, serpentine head exploded from that gory rift. It crossed the distance in the heartbeat before I fired, before she cast.

  Twin fangs sank into Miss Lottie's neck. Her spell flickered and died.

  She was falling as my muzzle flashed.

  Two shots in quick succession.

  One round caught the serpent in the mouth, blasting through its teeth and out the back of it's skull. The next knocked the unfortunate host off her heels as the parasite quivered and died.

  For one fool second I hoped that was it. That no more evil was to come.

  But then she stood, whatever was left of Racheal gone. Blind eyes starin’ from a split skull, malformed serpent drippin’ and danglin’ from the gap.

  Unholy.

  Undead.

  And only the first of many.

  From behind me I heard a crash and the hiss of water extinguishing our ward fire.

  But I couldn't spare a thought for that new, terrible mess.

  The one right before me was more than enough.

  As Lottile screamed, her cry became something so much worse.

  My pale magelight was enough to illuminate the changes she underwent. I watched her skin bubble and blacken, her hair fall out, her cheeks sink, her eyes go from a pale pink to an inky, soulless black. In bare seconds her teeth rotted and fell out. Replaced by sickle shaped fangs dripping evil and black.

  Boom. Boom.

  Two more shots rang out as I tried to end her misery.

  I failed at that too.

  As the thing that used to be my friend rose and stood, Racheal, or the body of Racheal, stood as well. The serpent that had been hidden in her head was dead, but the corpse did not fall.

  My eyes flicked to the frozen Laticia stood trembling, mouth agape, and then back to the creature. It was coming for me.

  "Get Shorty and run!" I roared as I holster my pistol and swung my scattergun around.

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  More screams erupted from behind me as a flash of brilliant white illuminated our dawning horror in stark relief.

  Boom.

  The consecrated pellets sizzled, filling the air with the stink of rancid flesh on the fire. My ears were ringing, my head spinning, and an evil little voice was telling me what a shit I was.

  You can't save anyone. You can't do anything. Just fucking end it, coward. It's better if you die with them. Better if you die for them. Better to-

  Click. Boom.

  Another shot finished what the first had started. One half of Miss Lottie hit the stone while the remains of Miss Rachael stumbled back, arms flailing in search of head that was suddenly no longer there. The body stumbled and fell, and the gaping wound where her skull had been, was filled with nothing more than a rancid smoke.

  Reality hit me like a hammer then, and it became almost impossible to shut that voice out.

  I'd just seen two good women, two good friends, die before me.

  I killed them.

  I was fuckin' murder. No matter where I went, what I did, I was still just a shit-stain on the face of this earth. A drop of poison in the well of humanity. Every good thing I knew or touched, it would rot, it would die.

  Because of me.

  No. No it wasn't. Bullshit-

  I tried to fight the thoughts, but something dark smothered my voice as that other spoke again.

  Do it.

  Coward. You deserve it. Stop fighting, and just do what your mother should've done...

  My arms were shaking, each individual tendril of my mutated form rebelling as I reloaded the scattergun. Each movement, each shell, another battle.

  I had to win.

  I could smell the heat of the still smoking barrel. Taste the alchemical powder that had coated the inside of each cylinder.

  My lips burned as I closed them around two open barrels. My thumb rested on each of the triggers, ready to pull, to end.

  "Roche!"

  I felt my eyes turn, felt my head move. I couldn't see her, but I knew that voice.

  Shorty?

  You need to run.

  Don't watch this...

  I felt something hard hit the back of my knee and I fell.

  My finger slipped.

  Boom! Boom!

  I was deaf. I was blind. And my mouth tasted of fiery blood and alchemy.

  But I was alive.

  The thought hit me like a ten-pound hammer, shattered whatever evil spell had dragged me down into that pit. My head cleared and my hands were steady as I knelt. My lips had been torn, the insides of my cheeks burned from the hot barrels. Black tendrils of foreign mana wafted off me and I hated myself for not seeing them before.

  "Roche?" Asked Shorty, her hand on my arm, "Get the fuck up!" she shouted as Laticia moved to my other side and them two ladies dragged me to stand.

  "What the hell were you thinking?" shouted Shorty as she clutched her bandaged stump, "I mean- Fuck we need to run! Go!"

  She was right, and I could already smell the stink of something foul on the air. I glanced at the camp behind and knew there was no saving that. No saving any of them.

  Dark forms moved between the panicked crowd, shots ringing out over the chorus of hungry hisses. Our enemy had struck and we had fallen, hard. The camp had been overrun in a matter of minutes.

  So yes. You're right Shorty.

  It's to run.

  I stuffed all that guilt and sorrow into that little black box. The one where I kept all the other shit that made me want to die and quit.

  I stuffed it down, locked it tight, and buried it deep.

  Then I was moving. One hand on the gun, the other on Shorty's shoulder.

  We had to go back the way I came, through the rotunda. As we ran less than half the hall the shots and screams stopped.

  Shit.

  "Keep moving, I'll cover the rear!" I shouted as I shoved the two girls forward and fished in a pouch at my hip.

  The little sphere with its waxed wick looked like a child's toy in my big hand, but I knew well what it could do. I sparked a match on the rough stones, and touched the flame to the fuse.

  Before me over a dozen forms rose from the darkness. Some were familiar, others not, all of them were wrong. Something slithered through the crowd of dead men and women. It rose on it's long, sinewy tail, frill fanned out to display a pattern of writhing, shifting runes.

  It opened it's fanged maw in a hellish hiss, just in time to catch a fire-snake right to it's fuckin' mouth.

  "See you in hell you son-of-a-bitch," I turned and dove.

  The blast shook the stone and I was already running as the orange light of flame constructs tore through the now rushing crowd behind me.

  I caught up to Shorty and Rachael just as the former stumbled to the ground. The rotunda was just ahead and I could see the light of magic stones I'd left behind illuminating the horror on it's walls.

  I dipped and grabbed Shorty by her collar and kept on.

  "Gods, what the fuck Roche?" She cried, "Put me down!"

  "No chance! They're coming, go north!" I shouted as the screams behind us turned to hisses and roars. They were giving chase and I had no idea what to do next. No idea how to beat these things for good.

  We couldn't fight them directly, and running would only work for some long. Well, unless we had something real nasty between us and them.

  "Follow only where I step!" I ordered as I set Shorty down and began the dance through the hall of, mostly, deactivated traps.

  "Are you mad?" asked Laticia, coming to a stop the moment she saw the spikes, saws, razor wire lines and a whole mess of whatever else.

  "Obviously! He's also damn good at what he does. So move your ass!"

  I was surprised to see Shorty snap, more so because it was in support of me.

  I maimed you girl. You suffered because I wasn't near as good as I thought. Why the fuck would you be so quick to trust me?

  But she did. And so did Laticia, and we made it through the hall with barely a scrape or cut.

  "Now what?!" Cried Laticia as we hit the stairs.

  Already our former allies were stumbling and racing through the hall of death. What did an undead monster care for a lost limb or the rot of good poison?

  Not a wit.

  Then again, those last few screams made me think that maybe, not all of them were undead just yet…

  I didn't answer Laticia.

  Just pried open that hidden panel, and hit the switch.

  The sound of the ancient machinery was drowned out by the screams and hisses. In seconds traps reset and sprung once more. I watched the people I had been hired to protect, sworn to keep safe, I watched them all die over and over again. Reminded me of that mural, of Anasisi slaves being fed to the grinder.

  And here was me, bloody butcher cullin’ a herd of my own.

  You’re a fuckin’ monster, Lorcan Roche.

  A few heart beats more and I had mastered myself.

  Gone nice and cold as I often did. The heat of anger, the sickness of sorrow and remorse, they couldn't touch me now.

  Instead of dwelling, I was thinkin'.

  I was thinkin' that I hadn't seen that damn snake in the bunch. The leader in all this. The one what tested our camp, and probably lead that final offense.

  Whatever it was, and whatever it was doing, it wasn't here.

  Did it die to the fire?

  I could hope.

  But I knew... I knew we'd see that thing again.

  And next time?

  Next time I'd be ready.

  "Let's go." I whispered and led us down the stairs and deeper into the dark.