A drunken blond man tumbled into the center walk just outside Duet's stall. He had raccoon-sized circles ringing his eyes-black with green irises. His tongue lolled out over sharpened teeth as he rolled onto his side, shaking with laughter. Skin green as the Shiker's orb, he grinned into the stall, cracking Duet's reservation with a sneer.
"What do you think of my new Puppet?"
"Arthur?" Duet rasped, and the Shiker giggled.
"I like this one. Pity I can't keep it long, but he won't let go." He twisted his body around on the ground until he was looking at Duet upside down. "I've been giving him the tour, from the front of the cave all the way back here. We went to see-heeheeehee, oh he's mad-went to see where I kept the children." His smile stretched his cheeks back. "Empty now. Pity. Harvest day yesterday. But he got to sssssee where Lewis and Harvey playyyyed-hahahaha, oh," he gasped, running a finger along his lips, tracing them back and forth. "Oh that is marvelous anger. I have been working too hard. Not enough fun." He wrapped his arms around his ribs, overtaken by a fit of giggles.
Duet stared dumbly at what used to be Arthur. He knew very little about the man, only that he was Vivi's associate in her paranormal investigations and that his voice tended to be a good deal flatter than it was now. Flat like the voice of every other customer who walked through the doors of Tome Tomb. But if Arthur was here, then Vivi was either close behind or, likelier, had already been dealt with by the Shiker. His eyes dropped back to the cement in front of him. We warned her. It's her own fault.
"Puppet is sssssso angry." He lay on his back, grinning at the ceiling. "Has all the pieces, he has. And can't do anything. Poor, poor Puppet." He lifted his head, tilting it. "Hear that?"
Despite himself, Duet held his breath, listening.
The usual moaning of the cavern. A bird or a bat screeching in the dark. The muffled snickers of the Shiker.
"Sheeeee's looking for you." The Shiker stroked his own shoulder, affecting tenderness. "Even out of her mind, your lover's back there, looking-hah!" He sucked in a breath, lolling back to the ground. "Gods, no sweeter wine in all the earth than this. Fantastic rage. I'd give his other arm for an ongoing supply."
Arthur was still in there, then. Nothing he could do, of course. Duet expelled the breath he'd held, hanging his head. Mortals. Always meddling in things too big for them. When would they learn there was nothing they could do?
"Oh, what was that?"
Duet cringed. Had he said it out loud?
"Puppet, do you know this one I have here?" There was a pause, then a delighted cackle. "You do! You know this one. Wondered if he was working for me. Heeeee, isn't the Puppet funny, 'Duet'?"
Duet said nothing, holding perfectly still, hoping the Shiker would take himself away in Arthur's body shortly.
"So, Puppet. You were wondering if unicorns are real. What do you think of them?"
Duet lifted his head, expecting to see Arthur facing the stall across from him. To his dismay, Arthur's face was pointed straight at him.
"Yesssssss it wasn't easy. Wasn't easy at all. They're so protected." Arthur's lips pulled back from his teeth. "Safeguards. Havens. Sanctions. So pure and innocent, sacred creatures must be protected." He spat at Duet. "Took a high ranking customer to get me what I needed. And all she could get me was one herd. One tiny little measly herd." His eyes rolled back. "Five unicorns. Five fully grown adult unicorns thrown into the human realm, and I had to herd them all on my own. Do you know how hard it is to control one? Let alone a herd? Look at those beasts!" He stretched a metal arm out, gesturing at the docile white horses in the opposite stall.
He choked on a laugh, coughing. "Puppet, the unicorn you picture would flee a butterfly if it was big enough. This. This is a unicorn. They do not go down without a fight, and I don't need them down. Dead. I need them alive, growing their horns all the time."
"So what do I do, Puppet?" He twisted back around, rising to his feet now. He swayed slightly, leaning on the wall of Duet's stall. "I take a little boy. I throw his soul away. I make myself a 'Quintet.' And then. Then I have myself a docile little herd to harvest at my leisure, and one easily controlled human boy."
"If you have Arthur, and he is with you," Duet hissed, "Then he knows this story."
"So there's no need to go over it," the Shiker whimpered, mocking Duet. "I don't want to hear it again, everyone in the room knows it. Well." He swaggered into the stall, lurching forward to roar in Duet's face. "Maybe I have been working my tail off for the last several decades with no appreciation for my art! You cannot see the blossoms, the fruit of my labor. But this one." He pulled back, stroking his own arm. "This one has seen the blooms. This one tried so hard to understand. He deserves a story told properly, and I deserve an appreciative audience."
The Shiker sagged against Duet's stall, the grin returning to his face. "You see, Puppet, earth souls are funny things. Pull them out, and everything dies. Immortals are stronger, so things get twistier. Pull their souls out, and you have a willing zombie. But you have to have somewhere to keep the soul so it doesn't run off and cause trouble. Or spend itself in useless attempts to get free." He hiccuped, wiping spittle from his mouth.
Duet had never seen the Shiker like this. Gleeful, yes. Gloating even. But never intoxicated. He watched the Shiker sag further down the wall. Noted the way his head rolled back and forth, jerked upright at the last moment.
Arthur had all the pieces, the Shiker had said. Was he doing something? Was it even possible?
"One of the mares dropped a foal before I got to them. Foal's easy, just paddock it off. But they tried to break it free. Thought changing the foal's body would break the soul gem's hold." Arthur reached forward, snatching Duet's pendant and yanking him forward, knocking foreheads with him. "Idiot. Now he knows. Only a kitsune could pull it off. Lost me three of my herd with that stunt."
NOTIGSUNE
Duet lurched back, breathing hard. Nobody had spoken to his mind in decades, but a single word had slipped through.
The Shiker clung to the wall, now barely holding himself up. "But who's gonna help him? Or even listen? I let you go. You tried. You barely got half a word out. You had souls of their packmates around your neck. Murderer. You had to disguise them just to survive out there."
The Shiker hadn't given him that word, Duet realized. Arthur had. Arthur, who had all the pieces.
Then the Shiker was no demon. He didn't look like a nogitsune… but then, he could appear however he wanted, couldn't he? And if he was willingly working with corrupted magicks and energy, he could easily have become more powerful than any of his relations.
He closed his eyes, tuning out the Shiker's story and reaching inward.
Not one. Two.
For a moment, there was only one, and his heart beat harder. It had been too long. It hurt too much, and he hardly turned inward anymore.
Please. No. Not now. There is something we can do.
He reached again, lips moving in a silent prayer.
Not one. Two.
And there. A divide. A hairline fracture in the union. Divergent memories smashed together, pressed into a single mold and set year after year. Two souls, both burning with the same answer.
It is time to try again.
Duet's eyes snapped open.
"...wouldn't fight it if I was you, Puppet. Shaky hands don't make for good surgery." The Shiker snickered. "Might slice through her frontal lobe. Need a clean harvest, not another dead shell."
No more. Not one more, Nogitsune. Duet brought the image of the Shiker's hulking skeletal form to mind. The green orb, rolling back and forth between the eyesockets, and down to the mouth.
Nogitsune. Cousin to the kitsune. It was never an eye.
"Laxata compede." The whispered spell was simple and straightforward, draining replenishable energy to disintegrate the shackles at his wrists.
The bird cries from the cavern grew louder, taking on a mournful tone. The Shiker slumped to the ground, his mouth open in jagged laughter. "Nothing you can do, nothing you can do. Silly, stupid mortal. Silly, stupid-"
Duet lunged forward, straddling Arthur's chest and plunging his hand into Arthur's mouth in one quick motion. Arthur's body arched as his teeth clamped down on Duet's wrist, sinking through skin and hitting bone.
Blood welled at Duet's wrist as he growled, "You have two eyes in this form. Only one place to put the Hoshi No Tama, isn't there?" His free hand curled into a fist, slamming into Arthur's jaw, which loosened. He yanked his hand free, a palm-sized green gem clutched in his fist.
The Shiker's eyes widened. He put down a hand to push himself up.
"Stay. Down." Duet's command cracked across the room, sending the Shiker back to the floor.
"You wouldn't." The Shiker's voice was unsteady. "You'll lose everything."
"Not everything." Duet pulled the gem close to his chest. "Just one more."
"The incubating curses will choke you!" He snarled. "Three months, and you and she will die if I don't remove the growth!"
"Then remove the growth," Duet replied, squeezing the gem. "And unlock our chains."
The Shiker reached up, placing a hand on Duet's neck shackle and uttering a coarse word. The shackle broke off, and the Shiker grabbed Duet's pendant, yanking it free.
Duet rolled off the Shiker, standing over him. "Now Chloe."
Growling, the Shiker rose to his feet, staggering down the aisle. He led Duet around a corner into a small sterile room. A hospital bed had been set up in the middle, thoroughly padded and piled high with blankets. Chloe lay in the bed, wrists and ankles bound to the sides.
She was asleep. Thank the gods. "Release her. Now."
The Shiker cursed, breaking each chain and removing Chloe's pendant.
"Leave this room."
"It will take more than just one to destroy me!" The Shiker panted, edging toward the door. "You… you'll leave her all alone!"
"We will see. Leave this room."
The Shiker turned the corner, and Duet shut the door. Turning, he laid a hand on Chloe's cheek. She was still burning up. How long had the fever dragged on?
It didn't matter. With no Shiker to harvest her horn, she could heal uninterrupted. Another memory wipe wouldn't cost him much more, and would remove all the pain she'd experienced here.
A pink blur moved to his right, throwing him to the ground. Another stopped his mouth from commands, as half a dozen more converged on him.
No time. He clenched his fingers around the gem. White fractures appeared along the surface, cracking down deeper, splitting the gem as it sank inward. The ghosts screeched, throwing themselves like balls around the room, ricocheting off the walls, the ceiling, the floor. The fractures widened, then split completely as they reached the center. The gem fell apart in Duet's hand, the pieces crumbling to dust.
And then there was one...