Page 97 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

‘My daemon?’ Silas’s pulse resumed its hurried tempo. ‘I must find him. Do you know where he is?’

One Limb Jack sent Tommy to look for him.The child ghost shuddered.Poor little shit doesn’t stand a chance, between that daemon and the hungry ones. Tommy’ll be chewed up and shat out for sure, or we’ll find him turning over a spit, with the devil’s flames beneath him.

‘Bloody hell…Pitch will not roast your friend.’

One Limb Jack said he might, said he’s half-mad, that daemon.

‘He’s not mad.’ Silas prickled. ‘And this One Limb Jack would do best to stop talking such rubbish. He is brave and doing the very best he can. You have no bloody idea what he’s endured, so watch your tongue.’ Silas blinked, startled by his own vehemence.

Well, well then. One Limb Jack wasn’t just making up tall tales. He also said you was giving each other gooey eyes earlier on, and that you’d be cock deep in each other soon as this was all over.

‘Christ.’ Silas gaped. ‘You’re a child for god’s sake –’

Listen, Mr Horseman Mercer, I haven’t been a child since I got stuck up one of the Fulbourn’s chimneys and choked to death on soot. Must be more than ten years ago, if I was bothered with counting such things. I’m as unhappy about it now as I was then.The ghost child glanced over their shoulder, wiping at their nose once more.Me name’s George, I’ll be thankin’ you. George Brewster.

Silas nodded.‘Pleased to meet you, George.’

You don’t seem so pleased.

‘I’ve had better days, I’ll admit.’ He forced his temper to cool. ‘My companion and I are under some strain at the moment.’

Righto, well let’s move on, shall we, and get this done? Sooner it’s so, sooner you can be getting back to playing with your companion’s tackle. Half ya luck. I died before I knew what it was like to hold a girl’s hand, let along stick my pillar in her basket.Silas widened his eyes, but stayed silent.You need to set the others free.

‘I will.’ He nodded. ‘Do you know what they are doing with all these souls here?’

They’d been collectin’ all sorts of body parts too. Not sure what that’s about, but the souls they took from them, the witches are turnin’ them into monsters.

Silas knew Macha to be making teratisms, but what of the creatures this soul feared?

‘But the hungry ones…they did not make them.’ A butterfly-like thought found a place to land in his mind, settling with a tickle at the back of his skull. Aknowingthat the hungry ones were a particularly horrid type of soul that did not need the Blight to make it so. The souls of murderers and sadistic men and women whose cruelty held them fast to this world. With the sudden return of the knowledge, Silas wondered how it had ever eluded him. Understanding the ethereal world was innate, intrinsic to the thud of his pulse. ‘But you should have no reason to fear a hungry one –’

Let’s call them what they are, shall we? Cannibals.

Silas frowned. ‘They consume souls, yes. But only those vulnerable, those so weak they are barely a smear in this world. The hungry ones could not touch a strong soul like yourself. And they are so very rare.’ The tickling at his skull continued, nuggets of knowledge pushing to the surface. He knew the hungry ones rare becausehemade it so. When Izanami woke him, it was not always to hunt teratisms, certainly not always to ride for the Lady Satine. They had, just as the Lady said, met so very rarely. But the goddess had not kept him idle in his graves.

The rush of conviction rocked Silas on his feet.

He’d used his scythe upon hungry ones.

When those venomous ghosts had grown too gluttonous and eluded the other ankou too long, Izanami had raised him. As though to give Silas a chance to stretch his legs and swing his arm while the world slept quietly without the Blight’s stain upon it.

Well, they ain’t rare here. Nor weak. That necromancer is making a mess of the order of things, for sure. So you can see, Mr Horseman Mercer, that it’s a damned shitty place to be, and only gettin’ worse, especially since they done it all up to cater for you and your…companion.

‘Done it up? So this Sanctuary was not formed to imprison us, then?’

The ghost spat laughter.Bleedin’ hell no, been here awhile. But it’s gotten all kinds of fucked up since you arrived. Now come on, will ya? Between your daemon setting fire to the headless horseman again and the witches trying to cut down that tree, this place ain’t likely to stay long on its foundations.

‘He set fire to the Dullahan?’ Silas’s heart bullied its way to the back of his throat.‘He has bested that creature again?’

If you’re meaning the headless horseman, yes. Your fellow put paid to him.

‘And…the daemon…he is not still burning…’

The Sanctuary ain’t on fire, if that’s what you are askin’.

Exhaling a breath of relief, Silas asked,‘What of the tree you spoke of?’

Only heard about it secondhand… Apparently, it just started growing out of –