Shuddering fits wracked his body as he tore through the streets. They were hounding again, enraged and dejected little bastards with nothing and no one to turn to, save him. ?Kill her.? Had the words fallen from his lips, or a smattering of theirs? Time was crawling by; legless and squirming across broken glass. ?I don?t want to. I can?t.? The laughter was endless. Eye met eyes, and the empty moon was shut out by cloud and rain and wind. Thousands of faces, grey and broken, faded into being. Ruined finery, shadowy and grey, clung to their frames like some terribly poor attempt at dignity. He didn?t want them to be here. At least, he didn?t think he did. Did he?

They moved closer, steps and air and cobblestones darkening in their wake. Those twisted crimson grins on every face, the teeth like a hail of needles hanging in every mouth, and the eyes; blackened pits glowing a hateful, malicious red. ?Get away.? He backed up until he hit a light post, where he promptly crumpled to the ground. His eye was wide, blank, he didn?t know what was going on or where it could?ve been going. ?You don?t want us to get away? You want us to help... Master.? The conviction showed as they approached, the first among them to reach him being what could?ve once been a beautiful woman. She knelt, and her skirts pooled at the ground. Her voice, as did sometimes happen, rang out singularly. ?You want us to help you forget, Master. To forget that she exists. Holds sway. Matters.? Skid reached out to touch the mess of grey, semi-transparent fabric pooled on the floor, and she took in a shuddering breath when he did. Her voice was suddenly delicate, as if he?d done something far more intimate than take up and hold a stretch of cloth.?I haven?t felt in centuries?. Let us feel, Master??

He stared at her face for a long time. The crimson smile wasn?t actually the most terrible thing to look at. It might?ve held a degree of charm, and it seemed familiar enough to his own, though lacking in size and coloration. He glanced around nervously, and clung to the folds of her skirt while the thousands of figures stepped in around him. They were above, below, and encircling. ?I won?t kill her. She?s going to hate me for it, but I won?t. She wants to be with me. And I have to have it.? A child?s bitter, prideful words to a parent having control over the moment, and little else. The mass spoke as one, their voices filling the streets with a single painful stab. ?How utterly delicious??

Darkness consumed.

((Written with the EXPRESS consent of Lerida's player.))

It was time for the show to begin, and Skid was as prepared as he?d ever be. Wearing only a pair of tattered and infinitely stitched-together pants in a deeper shade of grey, and his pouch, he began his trek through the city. Twisted and creaking at every angle, the Jackal?s apartment building looked as though it would?ve fallen from the sky and crashed down upon him and the cloud of greyed, red eyed shades that seemed to pour endlessly from its innards.

The clamps upon either side of his lips had been removed entirely, and the now gaping maw of ethereal needles and razorblades hung in an anticipatory grin. Even the scarred and deeply black runes marring his face had been covered in paint similar enough to the shade of his scales. All that could identify him was the metal embedded over his left eye, marked with the same seal as the patch always was. The shades began to murmur disjointed bits of the same message after about twenty minutes.?We are close.?

As if he?d needed to be reminded. The Watch had already been in the process of collecting Lerida?s body when he?d arrived at the damned Inn, and he could only wait and seethe. Stitch was being more and more careless every day, killing willy-nilly and without a thought. He?d really have to scold the poor dear when he got the chance. Thoughts such as these carried him on a mindless path to the mortuary.

It would be a nice place, if you were dead. So, he guessed, it was a nice place.

Massive, white-washed cement walls and a flat roof were all to mark the building, aside from the thick glass of the doors and windows in the entrance room. It was nearing midnight, and there weren?t exactly too many people keeping an eye on a bunch of regular, non-magical corpses, so his walk through the hallways began. The shades, feeding and strengthening off of the deadened air and energy, began to corporealize one by one.

The first orderly they came across was sitting behind a desk. He paled and began to scream almost instantly, though by some strange twist of luck they were just short of entering the heavily-sealed wing where the rest of the personnel were likely busying themselves. Skid was most displeased by the man?s screaming. He was just here on a spot of business, wasn?t he? ?Shut up.? ?M-m-monsters! Fiends!? Skid paused for a moment, and looked suspiciously back at the crowd of shades flanking him and trailing all the way back out the front of the building. He had been able to see them all along, but this random guy could? That must?ve been it, because obviously, he couldn?t be speaking about Skid. Sometimes it?s better to let the dreamers dream.

A sharp cracking sound escaped Skid?s neck as he turned back to regard the crying, shouting man. ?Seriously, SHUT UP.? Obviously, he wasn?t getting anywhere. ?He can?t speak without a tongue.? The man made no attempt to quiet down, whatsoever. ?Tear it out!? And then he had the audacity to start calling for help! ?You want to keep yelling!? HUH!? Fine! This one?s ALL your fault!? The following act could be described only as cartoonish, despite all its terror and grotesque imagery.

Skid leapt through the air, taloned feet planting on the man?s shoulders and a single clawed hand forcing his head as far back as it would healthily go. The weight of him wasn?t enough to knock over a street sign without some kind of intent, so while the man stumbled back, he did not fall. A light cast upon the pair created a ghastly shadow puppet show, highlighting the horned shadow?s arm disappearing into the standing shadow?s mouth. A sick, squelching, ripping noise preceded the arm?s complete return, hefting a vague shape of the shadow into the air.

?You should?ve jus-? The man?s screams didn?t die down as Skid had expected. ?Maybe you should give it back to him, Master.? The cries grew gurgly, and shrill. ?You just CAN?T get enough, can you!?? Still perched upon the man, who?d ended up slumped against one wall, Skid pried his bloody, drooling mouth open and shoved the tongue back into its proper place. It wasn?t HIS fault if the man swallowed while Skid held his mouth and nose shut. Blood wiped clean upon the coat of the man, whose name tag read ?Stephen Gilligan?, now lying against the wall and sobbing quietly, Skid and the small army of shades at his back proceeded into the deeper recesses of the mortuary.

Regardless to say, and sparing to the minds of the readers, this same fate befell the other four orderlies, and both night Watchmen who would simply not keep quiet. None were killed, however. Much care was taken to leave them losing as little blood as possible. That was, of course, the shades? doing and not Skid?s.

Shades poured through every hallway, rummaged in every drawer, and tore the souls from the dead in any given area of the building. They all knew what they searched for, and that none of them had permission to do so much as touch the body. After they?d reached the fifth basement level, Skid was becoming agitated and unsure. He moved to the door of the room sealed off from the rest and kicked it open. There, upon the examination table, concealed all the way up to the neck by the heavy sheets the place used, was Lerida.

He smirked, victorious, and wrapped up the body as if it were a delicate, fragile thing that could feel pain. When he found the crack in the back of the skull, and guesstimated the broken bones, he scowled. ?Ruining such a wonderful creature.. I?ll make sure you?re nice and safe. Don?t you even think about it.? A forked, serpentine tongue slithered free of the jaws that held it, and flickered across the cold brow. He snickered, and poked her nose once. ?Still there. I knew we?d be in time.? ?You did, Master.?

The crowd of shades behind Skid were all grinning, bolstered in numbers and all corporeal for at least another several hours. He scowled at them, noticing none partway through walls or floating above the ground. ?You?ve gone and made things difficult now,? a sigh, ?spread out through the streets, but remain close enough to me so that you don?t lose yourselves. We leave now.? The shades parted, and murmured their acceptance. ?Of course, Master.?

Thus did Skid obtain the body and soul of Lerida; his caged songbird now, and forever more.