A/N: Content/trigger warning: Minor character death, fire, pitchforks, and cats.
"Huzzah! You're not so bad, eh, bein' strangers an' all," said the weapons man, handing Wes a pitchfork and Jazz a knife. They took one look at one another and swapped without a word. The man who told them not to worry about Crazy Dan raised an eyebrow.
"Name's Gabriel. Pleasure to fight with such spitfires as you. Need all the men we can get our hands on."
Someone slapped Wes on the back, hard, and he felt his heart remove itself from his ribcage. More Dash Baxters, great.
In the Doorless Room, Wes was holding the knife in his fist. And Jazz held aloft the pitchfork.
"That's neat," she said.
"Useful. How's that work?" Wes asked.
Jazz shrugged. "Magic? Same way the books work? Ghosts? Dunno."
"Let's move out!" Shouted the other weapons man. Faust cheered.
"Come on, ye little spitfires," called Gabriel. "Follow Father Theodore!"
And they did. They ran past houses and buildings along dirt roads until they were out of the villae's limits. Then they passed barns and fields. The further they got from town the more fire they saw. Large cornfields were blazing in the moonlight. Rows of crops smoldered. Smoke rose from barns.
Faust's citizens were quiet in passing these landmarks, a somber procession. Their grips tightened on weapons; their jaws set and their eyes remained resolutely on the path.
The first resistance came upon them in the form of a small figure. A cat barred their way. A cat with one cat's eye and one human eye. It hissed.
"Begone with ye, devil cat!" shouted the Father, waving his hands at it. The cat ignored the man. Father Theodore gestured at a citizen beside him. He stepped forward and, with his pitchfork and made to prod it away. The two-eyed cat's fur stood on end. A warning.
The man brushed this off. Brandishing his pitchfork, he tried to shovel it off the road. The cat screamed, both cat-like and like a child's. Wes' skin crawled.
"Look there!" cried a woman, pointing to the treeline, where more cats were appearing. Cats with one human eye apiece. The Father mimed a cross over his chest and muttered a prayer under his breath.
"Good people of Faust, we must not let this devil-work dismay us!" Wes had to hand it Father Theodore: He could command a crowd. "Do not be dissuaded! We will get this bastard!" Faust cheered again, brandishing arms and setting their feet.
"There's something familiar about all this, Wes," said Jazz in the Doorless Room. Outside, the citizens of Faust ran united past, through, and over the line of demon cats, Wes and Jazz in the middle.
"Yeah? What?" Wes questioned her in the candlelight.
"I don't know. I feel like I've… I don't know- Heard a story like this? With cats with people's eyes…" she said, pensive.
"Let's hope you can remember the rest of the story."
"Watch out!" said a woman, shoving Wes to the side, just as a fiendish cat zoomed past, feral and baring claws.
"Thanks!" he gasped. "I'm Wes."
"Byrnhilda."
"Jazz."
"If y'all are done yapping, there's kinda more pressin' things goin' on 'bout now!" snapped a woman prancing near them.
"Shut it, Evangeline!" compelled Byrnhilda.
There was little respite between the cats and their new enemy, which they approached in their flee from the demon cats. A child now barricaded the road. As Wes got close enough to make out his features, a hand gripped his heart.
"Jameson! My boy, you're alive!" cried a woman near the front of the parade, near tears. She staggered forward, but Father Theodore stopped her.
"Look at his eyes, dear Cecilia, his eyes," he said. "He is touched by our bane, don't you see?" he reasoned. "He is no longer your boy." He held her as she cried.
The cat-eyed boy was not alone. Not only did a demon cat approach him (and this cat's man-eye matched the boy's in color!), but more children swarmed forward, forming a wall on the road. Each child sported a cat's eye.
"Let us pass, wretched fiends! You may wear our children's faces, but you scare us not!" The Father roared. "Begone!"
They heed him just as much as the first cat had: That is, they hiss at him. In unison, they bare their fangs (human canines, but in the firelight and moonlight, it looks positively horrendous) and jeer at their former parents.
"Stingy Jack! Let us pass and face us yourself! Hide not behind your cruel puppets!" He motioned his people to follow his lead, chanting: "Stingy Jack, Stingy Jack, Stingy Jack!"
They chanted, first quiet, then louder and louder, until they were bellowing, releasing their anger and fear and grief in one horrendously powerful melody. The fires around them grew, their light shining a hideous blue, their heat burning ever more blisteringly.
A form appeared over the hill before them, Wes saw. And he could not believe, did not want to believe, what he saw. A skeletal man, nay creature, stalked toward Faust. In its hand, it held a hollow turnip, and in that turnip's belly was a flickering white flame. The skin on its face was stretched and waxy; it walked bow-legged but jaunty. It wore both fine cloth and wretched rag, with no discernable style.
Stingy Jack brandished his turnip high above his head. The white flame writhed and grew, then enveloped him entirely, running down his arm and catching his garments alight. He did not spasm or show any sign that the fire affected him.
Then the fire turned emerald green. The Children parted and the green flames sprang forward toward Faust's people.
The people in the forefront of the mob were quick to go. They perspired too quick to even scream. Bile rose in Wes' throat. Gold spilled from his mouth into his raised palms. The fire advanced unimpeded. It grew closer and closer and he heard himself whimper. Jazz grabbed his shoulder.
The fire was almost upon them. Wes instinctively put his hands up in front of him, palm out, waiting. Heat blistered and light blazed.
And nothing. He still lived. The pain was bearable.
His eyes opened a pinch. The flames had halted. It was as if there were an invisible wall before them. Slowly, Wes put his still outstretched hands down.
The flames followed them. He wiggled his arms around. The flames listened to his commands, replicating his actions.
He was controlling Stingy Jack's emerald fire.