“Don’t be afraid,” Tanith said. “You can still be you, even when you have a Remnant inside. It won’t even be in there that long. We’ll just need you to carry it around for a day or two, and then it’ll be gone, and you won’t remember any of it.”
“My family—”
“We won’t let you near them,” said Tanith. “You won’t hurt anyone. I promise.”
Maksy tried to pull back as Darquesse approached, but Tanith dug her fingers into his arm, and he reluctantly opened his mouth. The Remnant reached for him, gained purchase, and Darquesse let go and it squirmed in. Maksy staggered and Tanith let him go. His throat bulged for an instant, and then he sagged. Ever so slowly, he rolled his head back, his lips darkening, black veins running under his skin.
He opened his eyes and smiled. “The first thing I see through human eyes in years, and it is two beautiful women. It’s almost worth the captivity, it really is.” He took a moment to breathe in, and then slowly out. “Physical form,” he muttered. “It’s so nice. It’s like coming home. Although this one … Before we release the others, can I go get another host? Someone better looking? Some Remnants go for hosts with power, but I’ve always found that power comes to good-looking people anyway, and … Here, which one of you gorgeous girls is going to help me out of these shackles?”
Tanith hit him and he dropped, unconscious, to the floor.
“You haven’t changed, eh?” Darquesse said, a small smile on her lips. “So, when you were nice to him just now, assuring him that everything will be all right, that was you … what? Being mean and uncaring?”
Tanith ignored the mocking tone. “I just remember what it was like to fear the Remnants,” she said. “There’s no harm in telling someone he’s not going to kill his family if we know he’s not going to kill his family, is there?”
“Harm?” said Darquesse. “No. No harm at all.”
Tanith shrugged. “Then what’s the big deal? We have another captive that we can put a Remnant into and take around with us, and then we can release the others and get out of here while they cause their usual amount of chaos and panic. Job done, right?”
“Job done,” said Darquesse. “I’m glad we got to do this, Tanith. We needed a girls’ night out, didn’t we? This was fun.”
“Yeah,” said Tanith. “This was a hoot.”
Ups: people listened to him a lot more. When he had been a man, Vaurien Scapegrace had found it somewhat difficult to be taken seriously. But once his brain had been transferred into the red-haired woman’s statuesque body, everyone seemed to find a lot more time for him. This was good for pub business.
Downs: sometimes he felt as though people weren’t really listening to him. Sometimes he felt as though they’d laugh at any feeble joke he made, just so long as the joke emerged from his new, plump, incredibly soft lips. He also didn’t like the way all those eyes would follow him as he went to fetch a patron’s drinks. It was unnerving.
Walking down the street was unnerving, too. He felt far too self-conscious to be comfortable. He’d left Roarhaven and gone into Dublin the previous week, and that was even worse. All that time spent living apart from the mortal world had made him forget what mortals were like. They didn’t even try to hide their staring. A few of them – random people he passed on the street – had even made comments about his appearance.
And this was acceptable?
He’d seen a lot, had Scapegrace. In his time as the self-deluded Killer Supreme, he’d surrounded himself with murderers and low lifes and religious psychopaths. In his time as the self-deluded Zombie King, he’d surrounded himself with rot and evil and decay and corruption. He had seen a lot of bad things happen. He had encountered a lot of bad people. But these were, in a way, professionally bad people. They were insane or twisted or downright evil, but they carried that air of professionalism with them wherever they went. And they certainly didn’t make catcalls or wolf whistles whenever they saw a passing female whose form they appreciated.
When he’d got back to Roarhaven, he vowed to never again leave unless it was an absolute necessity, because at least in Roarhaven he had a sanctuary. And it wasn’t the huge palace in the middle of the city, either. It wasn’t the one surrounded by Cleavers and ruled by China Sorrows. Scapegrace’s sanctuary was a small house, tucked away in the corner of the south district, and it was here he returned to at the end of another long night in the pub.
He walked through his front door, hung his coat on a hook and went through to the kitchen. He sagged. It had been Clarabelle’s turn to clean, but Clarabelle had a unique way of doing things that made sense only to her. Her way of cleaning, for example, entailed taking everything that was messy and moving it to another side of the room. It took as much time as cleaning would actually take, but the end result was far less useful.
Light footsteps came down the stairs. Clad in a fluffy pink bathrobe and wearing fluffy pink slippers, on which swayed twin ping-pong balls painted like eyes, Clarabelle’s hair was a furious shade of green. “Hello,” she said.
She didn’t launch into a full-blown babble, which was unusual. Very unusual.
“What did you do?” Scapegrace asked.
A series of expressions flitted across Clarabelle’s face. First, there was indignation, then there was resignation, followed by hope, chased by confusion, and finally knocked down and sat upon by innocence. “Nothing.”
“Did you set fire to something again?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
She frowned, then nodded.
“Where were you just now?”
“Up in my room,” she said. “I was sorting through my favourite socks. I have seven. Snow White had seven dwarves, did you know that? I have seven socks. In a way, I’m kind of like Snow White.”
“Snow White cleaned the kitchen every once in a while.”
“She had little birds and squirrels to help her. All I could find was a hedgehog, but he was useless. I had to do everything myself.”
“Moving things is not cleaning them.”
“Do you want to know what I did wrong?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
Clarabelle scrunched up her mouth, like she did when she was figuring out the best way to say something. Before she could confess, the front door opened and Thrasher walked in.
“I’m home!” he called, even though he could see them both standing in the kitchen.
“Gerald!” Clarabelle said, bounding over to him. Thrasher hugged Clarabelle, wrapping her in his massive, muscular arms. “Did you have a good day? Did anything fun happen?”
“Every day is a fun day when you’re doing what you love,” Thrasher said, and flashed an eager smile at Scapegrace. Scapegrace ignored him, walked to the fridge and left them to their chit-chat. He poured himself a glass of milk, leaned his hip against the cooker and drank.
It was sad how quickly he’d got used to normal things again. Life as the Zombie King, as self-deluded as he’d been, meant that magic had sustained him and his steadily-rotting body. But after Doctor Nye had