The Child Thief

There came a bellow, followed by a loud snort, like a bull’s. Everyone stopped. There, behind the Flesh- eaters, stood Tanngnost, carrying a thick branch. Gone was any trace of the fretting old meddler; what stood before them was a ferocious wild beast. Tanngnost peeled back his lips, exposing his tusks and giant canines. A long, deep growl rumbled up from his throat.

The Flesh-eaters shifted ranks, bringing their weapons to bear on the tall beast, when a howl cut through the night—a long, wailing cry. And there, out of the shadows, came the golden-eyed boy, racing for them, teeth bared, clanking his swords together, flanked on either side by Devils and elves.

“PETER!” Cricket cried.

Nick’s heart swelled at the sight of the wild boy and he let loose a howl of his own.

Peter screamed and launched himself into the nearest Flesh-eater, slicing completely through the man’s neck. The severed head flipped back and smacked the next man. Peter thrust his blade into that man, the next, then the next, eyes mad with bloodlust, weaving, ducking, kicking, slashing, dodging, cutting a path of death and dismemberment. The Devils and elves charged in right behind him, their screams and cries filling the park like a battalion of insane cats.

Nick heard girlish laughter, caught sight of the three girls as they skipped across the pond, only they were girls no longer, their hands twisted into claws and their mouths into fanged snouts. They fell upon the two Flesh- eaters nearest where the Lady had been. On the far side of the bank, the witch appeared, flanked by four barghest, her single emerald eye glowing. She walked casually across the pond toward the fighting as though on her way to a picnic.

The Flesh-eaters didn’t know which way to turn, which flank to defend, and fell back in a confused tangle. The Captain did his best to further their confusion, leaping forward, striking down the nearest Flesh-eater from behind. Nick and Cricket followed his lead, and the three of them pressed into the Flesh-eaters.

The Flesh-eaters lost their spirit, lost any coordinated defense, stumbling into each other as they retreated. Nick hacked and slashed, Maldiriel biting and cutting through limbs. Nick saw their fear and realized with horror that he was smiling. Their screams and cries punctuated his howls, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to kill every one of them, to cut them open and crush their beating hearts in his bare hands. His eyes gleamed as he stepped over the dead and dying to get at the next soul.

The static of a bullhorn, then a deep, booming voice cut through the night. “DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”

“DROP YOUR WEAPONS NOW!” Sergeant Wilson shouted again and fired his revolver twice in the air. The crowd stopped then, breaking apart, clumping largely into two main groups. All eyes, all those strange eyes, fell on him and the half-dozen officers around him. In the sudden pause, the wails, screams, and groans of the wounded, the maimed, and the dying filled the air.

“What the good goddamn is going on?” the sergeant said as he surveyed the blood and gore, the severed limbs, the dozens of bodies writhing about on the ground. Men? No, he realized. Look at their skin, their horns. Monsters? The sergeant decided that was the best description: monsters decked out in armor and rags, carrying swords, axes, and spears. They were backing away from the small people. Wait. Are those—? No, they can’t be. Yes, kids! Those are kids. Wild kids wielding swords and spears of their own, and—he lost his train of thought. “What the hell is that?” He pointed at some sort of huge, goat-headed beast. It had actual horns curving out of the side of its skull and was carrying a tree limb as though it weighed no more than a baseball bat. Blood and what looked like part of someone’s scalp hung from the end of the limb.

A white flash caught the sergeant’s attention and there, on the far bank, three little girls knelt over a prone body, their hands and mouths drenched in black gore. “Holy fucking shit!” And, just as the sergeant was ready to call it a night, he saw a green woman standing, yes, standing on the water and looking at him like she would eat his liver.

“Mother Mary Jesus all to fuck and back!” he cried. This didn’t make any sense, none of it. Not a bit. We’re in some deep shit here, the sergeant thought and shared a quick, fretful look with the other officers, then glanced back toward the ferry terminal. Where was backup? Where the fuck were the ESU team, the special response guys, the dudes with the heavy calibers? He hit his mic. “Need backup now!” he called, trying to keep the nerves out of his voice. “East side of Battery Park. Men down. Multiple armed suspects! Need backup right now! Right fucking now!”

All at once, several of the monster men began to walk away, rather casually even, like they’d just decided they didn’t want to play anymore. “HOLD UP!” the sergeant yelled, pointing his gun from one creature to the next. “EVERYONE JUST SIT TIGHT!”

But no one was listening. The black-skinned men continued to withdraw, slipping away into the park in small groups and clusters.

“What d’we do, Sarge?” one of the officers asked while jabbing his gun at the monsters as though to ward them off.

The sarge didn’t answer. He had no idea. This shit hadn’t been in the manual. He only knew he couldn’t let these guys get away. Gonna have to shoot someone. Gonna have to start blasting these creeps away. He squared his sights on a man wielding an ax, began to squeeze the trigger, when he noticed something weird, weirder even than all these monsters and little devils. The pond…it was glowing!

He lowered his gun for a better look. His brow furrowed. What the hell? Some sort of radiant mist was forming on the top of the pond.

Chemical agents? The sergeant’s skin prickled. He’d slept through most of the lectures on bioterrorism, but had perked up once they’d started talking about the effects of chemical and biological attacks on the human organism. And the one thing he had learned was that he had no desire to spit up dissolving lung tissue or drown in his own body fluids.

The sergeant started backing away. Then something weirder happened (his definition of weird was expanding by the second) that made him forget all about chemical agents. There was something in this mist, lots of somethings. He heard sounds, strange, eerie echoes, like women weeping and children singing, caught sight of shadowy, eyeless children with pumpkin-size heads and deformed mouths that peeled back, exposing rows of prickly teeth, and crawling up behind them hunchbacked women with emaciated arms and legs, shriveled flesh and black holes for eyes, their distended abdomens swollen and pulsing, giant stingers dripping black, viscous goop protruding from the tips of their sagging breasts. They extended their arms to him, smiling sweetly, inviting him to dance.

The sergeant turned to run and ran right into a member of the special response unit. Behind the specialist was a squad of at least twenty well-armed ESU team members, hard, well-trained men who knew their business.

“What’s going on—” the specialist started, but the sergeant didn’t have time to answer questions. The sergeant had to go, had a doctor’s appointment, needed to feed his goldfish, left his toaster oven on, something. The sergeant hauled ass out of there, leaving behind one very bewildered ESU squad.

A moment later, right about the time the swarm of disembodied heads flew screeching past, and the naked old women with the scabby raven heads started to dance merrily around the squad, to weave their cold fingers along their necks and scalps, the special response unit turned tail and followed the sergeant rapidly from the vicinity.

Chapter Twenty-Six Horned One

The Mist blanketed the park in a luminescent silvery glow, muting the shouting men,