Cutter’s chest heaved as he took in a great breath and the anger, the fire of his wrath, suddenly left his gaze, and he studied Matt with his cold, gray eyes. “You have a picture of yourself, boy, of who you want to be. It’s a picture you carry around, lookin’ at from time to time, so that whenever you find yourself in a situation where you’re unsure of what to do, you ask yourself what that man in the picture might do, what he might say. Most people have a picture like that. They carry it around and study it and try to be the person they see there. To say what they would say. To do what they would do. And most of the time, no one’s the worse off for it. But you forgot something today—something important. You’re not the man you see in the portrait. Do you understand? You’re not him, and you never will be. You’re not a hero—no one is. If such men ever existed, they’re long gone now. It’s time you put the picture away. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Matt said softly. “Cutter…I’m sorr—” He cut off at a whimper louder than the others from the creature, and he turned to it, his shame forgotten for the moment as he stared at the mass of blood and broken limbs, at the shattered pieces of the tree limb where Cutter had beaten the thing. “Is it…I mean…will it die?”
“If left alone?” Cutter asked. “No. It would heal—the Fey are survivors if nothing else. It would survive to eat the next fool stupid enough to be lured in by its tricks.”
“So…what do we do then?”
“The Fey are difficult to kill, but they can be killed. And the best way? Well. The best way is fire.”
“No, no please,” the thing gurgled, its broken, bloody body writhing on the ground. It’s voice was muffled, sounding mushy and unclear, but Matt could still recognize the voice of the small girl it had pretended to be as it spoke, could hear, clearly, its terror. “P-please, anything but that,” the creature begged.
Matt could not bring himself to look at it. Even though he knew, now, that the creature had intended to eat him, he could not stand that voice, that pitiful, pleading voice of a child, and he found himself feeling bad for it no matter what it had meant to do. After all, according to Cutter, the creature , like all Fey, like all men, for that matter, had only acted according to its nature, searching for food the same way a lion or a bear might. And now, it was lying broken and battered, clearly dying, yet begging for a small kindness, the way a man might. “Maybe we should—” Matt began, but it was too late.
Cutter, apparently, either saw none of the resemblances to a human the creature showed or chose to ignore them, for he did not hesitate, bringing the flaming torch down to the creature’s flesh. The creature let out a terrible, shrieking wail and began to writhe and twist, its body shifting and changing, its pale flesh morphing from one thing to the next, as the smell of burning meat filled the air. Suddenly, the face of the young girl appeared in that mound of bloody, burning flesh. “Please,” the girl begged in a hoarse voice, full of unimaginable agony, “please, don’t—”
But Cutter was deaf to its pleas, digging the torch in further even as the creature wailed and screamed in pain. The flames ate at it hungrily and soon its whole body had caught fire. Matt stumbled away, unable to look any longer, but the sound of it dying, the smell of it was bad enough. He collapsed to his knees and began to retch, heaving up what little contents his near-empty stomach had in a steaming pile onto the fresh snow.
Eventually, it was over, the screams vanishing, though Matt thought he could still hear the echoes of the agony of the creature’s last moments in the air. Then he felt more than saw Cutter move to stand beside him. “Come on,” the man said, his voice as cold and as harsh as a blizzard. “Others will have heard. They will come to investigate.”
“Y-you,” Matt began, his voice a choked whisper, “you killed it. You…murdered it.”
“Yes.”
And without another word, the big man turned and started away. Matt ran an arm across his mouth, looking after the big man’s back, willing to look anywhere so long as it wasn’t at the steaming remains of the Doppel. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind then, a thousand ideas of what he might do, where he might go, all of which revolved around leaving Cutter, of striking out on his own. But then, he had tried that, hadn’t he? And it had taken him all of five minutes before a creature out of nightmare had decided to have him for lunch, would have if not for Cutter.
In the end, he rose and followed the big man into the darkness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They called him the Charmer, and I can think of no better title.
Except maybe “bastard.” That’d suit him fine.
And you want to know what I think that bastard’s best magic trick is?
The fact that he’s still walking around breathing and no one’s stuck a knife in his back.
Someone will, though. Mark my words—it’s just a matter of time.
—Feller Chall, farmer and father to three adult daughters in interview with Exiled Historian to the Crown Petran Quinn.
Challadius, or simply the Charmer as
