Adventure Path Reign of Winter

Game Master Almonihah

“So? Reopening? What happened?” she asked him.

“Had a fire. Burned out half the kitchen and ruined some support beams. Can I get you anything?”

She shook her head. “Nah, I already got something ordered, my boyfriend is over there.” She gestured vaguely across the room. “So, are you hiring?”

The man looked her up and down now. Skinny girl, scraggly short-cropped hair, wearing breeches and boots like a boy. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.” she answered, leaning her back and elbows on the bar and arching her back a little. “But I know tavern business. My dad is a drunk.”

“We’re fine. Maybe come back when you’re a little older.”

“Like how old?”

He turned away uncomfortably and wiped the bar with a rag. “Older.”

She quickly palmed two of the corn cakes. “Don’t you think I’m pretty, mister?” He looked back at her and she smiled at him, batting her big brown eyes a little. He frowned and knitted his brow. She dropped a marble to the floor and sent it rolling away with a nudge of her toe.

“Oh, I see.” he said slowly. “Look, there’s a guild for that sort of thing. They tax it, you know? I can’t have you… you know. Wait, I thought you said you had a boyfriend?”

“Well, yeah, he’s the one who sent me over. It’s ok, I didn’t really want to anyway.” she said with a lazy shrug and a turn of the head. At that moment, a serving girl fell to the floor with a tremendous clatter of tray and plates and mugs and the entire tavern erupted as the innkeeper surged from behind the bar and half a dozen men ran to the fallen woman. Mina grabbed two more corn cakes and made a beeline for the door. A man was standing up at a table as she passed, and she saw a coin purse hanging from his belt while he craned his neck to get a better look at the commotion. Mina considered the prize, then moved on to the door and dipped out onto the street, went five buildings down then ducked into an alley.

She pulled out one of the corn cakes and began eating it in large messy bites, and her hungry stomach rumbled at her to eat faster. At one point she choked on a badly chewed chunk and she had to cough it back up into her mouth to re-chew it. It seemed to take forever, the chewing, waiting for the food to moisturize enough to be able to slide safely down her throat. She chewed so quickly and vigorously that her jaw muscles began to get sore with fatigue. The cakes were actually quite good; sweet the way she liked. She’d have to go back there, maybe tomorrow.

She froze and looked around, sensing that someone was watching her. At the head of the alley she could see dirty mongrel dog. It was holding one paw precariously up off the ground as it sniffed the air and watched her chew. Her shoulders slumped. She picked up a nearby stone and threw it at the dog. It bounded back and hopped away on three legs, but 10 seconds later it was back, looking down the alley at her with wide staring eyes. Mina finally swallowed and then froze still as a statue and she and the dog just looked at one another for a bit. It took a tentative hop into the alley and lowered its head.

“C’mere.” she said to it, holding out a hand. It advanced carefully with awkward, loping steps, its injured paw dangling. It was obviously broken. A better look showed a nasty wound on its side — it had probably been struck, maybe kicked by a horse. And it was clearly just a starving street dog. It stopped 10 feet away from her and would come no closer. She pulled out one of her corn cakes, sniffed it while watching the dog, then tossed it to the animal. It flinched away and let the cake fall to the ground.

“I don’t think you quite get the whole begging thing.” she admonished. “When you beg, it sometimes works. Then when someone gives you something, you take it. See?”

The dog sniffed the food, then picked it up with a jerk of its head, threw it back into its jaws, chewed it ungracefully for several seconds with its back teeth, then swallowed it practically whole anyway and went back to staring at her. Mina sighed and looked up at the cloudy, darkening sky.

“This is a test, right? You’re testing me.” she said to the sky, then pulled out another cake and tossed it to the dog. “That’s it. The last one is mine.”

The dog swallowed this one nearly whole as well, and Mina began a leisurely chewing of the last cake. It was nearing sunset and it was cold. The wind rattled around the alley as it blew past down the street and as Mina looked in that direction she could see snow flakes whizzing past. She groaned and clucked her teeth. She looked around the alley, then spotted a decent path up to the rooftops. She climbed onto a sill, then a short jump to grab a strut holding up the underside of a bay window overhanging the alley, scrambling along the side of this, then grabbing the edge of the roof and pulling herself up alongside a gable. Then she stood up and looked out over Cassomir. The dog barked at her the whole time, and she ignored it.

She could see the river about half a mile to the east, a cool mist rising from it into the gathering night. The flurry-laden wind hit her with full force now, whistling through her clothing and causing her to wrap her arms about herself and hunch her shoulders. She saw a group of Eagle Knights clatter past a few streets away and from hundreds of chimneys, trails of black smoke drifted skyward, casting a dingy pall over the dismal port city. It was ugly and squalid and it was home and she smiled at the familiarity of it.

She began hopping along the rooftops, taking what she knew to be a safe route back to her home, a one room back corner off a dilapidated tenement house. She pulled up short a few buildings away and peered down into the street. He was still there. For the last three days, Grubby Hank had been setting up his stand across the street from her home alley. She shook her head at how obvious he was being. Grubby Hank was a rag and bone man who peddled odds and ends from a cart and normally moved freely about the district. He was old and chubby with a full grizzled beard and wore a distinctive purple vest that had once been very elegant and impressive but was now just as seedy as he was. He was harmless, just another poor soul trying to make his way in the world between shiver fixes. But he’d been staking out her home now for three days straight, and it was obviously not a coincidence. She climbed down and circled about to come up behind him.

“You must be making a killing on dirty scarves and rusty pots here, Hank.” she said once she was close enough to murmur at him. And a dagger pushed itself at his kidney, just breaking the skin. “Don’t look around. You know who I am.”

He nodded stiffly and scanned the street for anyone who might help him. “The Quasit.”

“I think I’m entitled to a lucrative finder’s fee for letting you use my doorstep to sell things from.” she said, yanking the coin purse from his belt. He began to protest but she jabbed him a little deeper with her blade and he shut up. “Do you really think I’d be dumb enough to let you spot me, then loll around long enough for you to run off and get the Night Patrol?”

“No, you have it all wrong…” he protested.

“Wait, that’s old Maggie’s necklace!” she said, lifting a gaudy brass amulet from off a hook. “You miserable weasel! Did you at least wait until she was dead before you swiped it?”

“Everything I have was acquired legitimately.” he answered with wounded dignity.

“I might believe that if you weren’t a rat for the Nighties. What makes you even think they’d make it worth your while? I’m nobody.”

He ventured a glance over his shoulder at her and raised an eyebrow. The cheekiness of this caught her off guard and she took a half-step back and readied to plunge the dagger all the way in. “Don’t you know? They want you badly, you and your brother. 50 gold for you and 200 for him. The Admiral is making it personal. I was only waiting here to warn you, and to make sure no one bothered your dad. And this is the thanks I get.”

‘Aww, you’re all heart Hank.” she sneered, but her spine had frozen. Fifty gold? For her? Every low-life in town would be looking for her. Now it was her turn to scan the street warily. “Well, just to show you how nice I am, I’ll pass on a little something you can tell your bosses — word on the street is that me and Colin have left town ’til the heat blows over. In his case it’s even true. Word is we’ve run off to Oppara on a riverboat.”

He nodded vigorously, his smelly beard flopping about like a wet flag.

“Now, close your eyes and count to twenty, then go home. And don’t come back here. Next time I won’t bother being so pleasant. And if anyone harasses my pop, I’ll know who to blame.” And with that she backed away and skipped off down the street.

Fifty gold. In her mind she went through the various places where she’d normally hide out, but none of them seemed safe. She’d need to stay on the move then get out of town. Perhaps go north for a while. She was annoyed and impatient — the last thing she wanted to do with winter coming on was go marching off into the country. She checked the coin pouch and found it full of copper and silver pennies. No more than a week or two, and definitely not enough to buy a horse. Maybe a mule, but certainly not a saddle.

Sticking to the shadows she made her way to a piazza down by the waterfront. It was the last Oathday before winter, and they would be burning the witch. Upon arriving she could already see several dozen people milling around and tossing old bits of broken furniture and clothing onto a pile that would soon be a roaring bonfire. The witch was given pride of place in front of Cayden’s shrine, a rag-doll effigy of an old woman with straw for hair, features drawn on with charcoal and a pair of discordantly lascivious tall-heeled boots strapped to her flimsy legs. Several vendors had already set up food stalls to sell meat-pies and fruits and pastries and wedges of cheese, and one fellow had a broad bowl-shaped copper pan where he was searing up a jumble of seafood, shrimp and eels from the bay and suckerfish from the river, tantalizingly spiced with peppers and lemon and salt and served by the handful in little paper cones. A large table near the witch featured a generous barrel of beer — the drink was free but the mug would cost you a silver piece. Oh, the heavens bless Cayden!

A halfling acrobat was walking a tightrope over the square, three stories up, stopping once in a while to do a backflip or to dance saucily. Across the square a stocky man kept a dancing bear coaxed with a long horsewhip — the bear had a pointed hat strapped to its head and wore a very nice waistcoat. The spectacle made her pinch her mouth in annoyance. The handler was whistling and jabbering and hinting very broadly about a bear-bait that would be happening nearby soon. Another man not far from the bear was selling cheap dresses and coats. He’d probably do very well tonight. Another fellow was selling dolls and puppets, obviously hand-carved and lovingly painted. He looked half-starved and was charging far too much. Small timers were running penny ante games of chance in a dark corner of the square while a strategically placed man in clown make-up, gaudy overalls and ridiculously large shoes was dancing in a madcap fashion to the music and singing improvised lyrics about a cat he wanted to marry.

Mina splurged for a mug and an apple tart and as the sun sank behind the rooftops on the square she moseyed about inconspicuously until she spotted a familiar face. Tiggy had taken up a position near a musical combo made up of a fiddle, a flute and some clackers, and was sashaying in place to the rhythm, hoping to look lonely. She was tall and thin with pale hair and pale skin and small pale eyes that made her look not only innocent but a little baffled and extremely harmless, a nice asset for a whore.

Mina whistled and waved and Tiggy smiled and waved back. They drifted together through the jostling crowd.

“Hi Mina! Is Colin with you?” asked Tiggy, grabbing her mug and taking a long drink. Mina shook her head and looked about quickly. “He’s out of town. Try not to say my name so loud, okay? Unfriendly ears everywhere.”

Tiggy laughed. “Oh no, wha’d ya do now?!” She seemed delighted by the danger, her thin tinkling voice jarring with her coarse street dialect. She could of course mimic a more sophisticated idiom if needed, and had absolutely mastered the helpless waif persona.

“Pissed off an admiral. For your own sake, you didn’t see me, ok?”

“Sure, sure.” answered Tiggy with a wave of her hand. “Haven’t seen Colin’s imp in weeks. Ugh, Mina, do you always have to dress like a stable boy? No one is going to dance with you like that. And you’ve got dirt all over your face…” She licked her thumb and began to maternally rub at Mina’s cheek.

“What can I say? It’s hard to run in a dress.”

“You’re such a tomboy. There’s nothing wrong with looking nice sometimes.” She took another swig from the mug, then handed it back to Mina mostly empty. After a reflective pause, she grew a little more serious, taking her cue from Mina’s wary posture. “Is it bad?”

Mina shrugged. “Bad enough. Pissed off the Navy.”

Tiggy burst into sloppy laughter. “The whole navy? I can only piss off a few sailors at a time! I’m impressed!”

Mina could see the funny side and fell into laughter as well. “Yeah, well, if you piss off the right sailor, he can order the others to be pissed too.”

Tiggy looked about suddenly and patted Mina’s shoulder excitedly. “Ooh, it’s time!”

Sure enough the procession had begun. Four men had hoisted the winter witch onto a big wooden chair and were carting her about the square with a very bouncy step as everyone began to hop about and sing, roaring out the chorus. A ladder had been set up next to the bonfire pile, and two men had climbed to the top. After a full circuit of the square, the four men handed the witch off to the two men up top, who situated her atop the pyre and tied her throne into place. She towered ten or fifteen feet above the paving stones, and many people began to pelt her with food and trash and beer mugs, hollering light hearted, filthy imprecations at her grinning crone face. A young blonde girl in a green dress pranced up to the pile carrying a torch and another woman with a pillow stuffed under her dress to make her look pregnant circled the pyre, whipping up a chant.

“Death to the Winter Witch! Bring back the Sun!”
“Death to the Winter Witch! Bring back the Sun!”
“Death to the Winter Witch! Bring back the Sun!”

Once the blonde girl with the torch judged the crowd to be thoroughly enthused, she shoved the torch into the pile and the oil-treated wood quickly burst into towering flames, leaving her to scamper off before she too caught fire. A lusty cheer ended the chant, and the pregnant woman went to take up the witch’s old spot in front of Cayden’s shrine where for the rest of the night she would be treated to little dainties and gifts, presiding as a sort of patroness of renewal, a crown of ivy circling her head.

And now the music and dancing resumed with a new earnestness, and Tiggy ‘allowed’ herself to be swept off into a dance with a looming middle-aged stevedore. Left alone now, Mina momentarily felt a trifle awkward in the jubilant host and went to renew her flagon. Clearly Tiggy was at this celebration in an official capacity, and sure enough, a little movement through the crowd shortly brought Resurrection John into view with a couple other girls in tow.

Resurrection John was Tiggy’s ‘manager’ and ‘protector’. He had gotten his name because he had literally been brought back from the dead, and the circumstances of that event had spawned hundreds of rumors and stories. Some said that he had some sort of hold over his girls, magical or otherwise, forcing them all to chip in to revive him if he ever met his demise. Some said he made a small and hidden fortune selling the unwanted offspring of his employees to merchants of the Darklands to be raised in slavery. Some said he was a secret high priest in some wicked cult of Groetus or Lamashtu. Some asserted that he wasn’t even actually alive anymore, but rather a ghoul or a vampire or some other creature of the night. The speculation for how a pimp managed to get himself brought back from his mortal demise was a favorite parlor game of bored street toughs as they loitered on corners and in basements. John himself was outwardly a friendly, soft-spoken man, and since his return from death he’d had the lingering misfortune of having difficulty keeping on his weight, and his dark, perpetually sunken eyes assumed unblinking station over his benign smile and gaunt frame. As pimps went, one could certainly do worse, and the beauty of being returned from the dead and the source of myriad legends was that the busy minds of his patrons invariably calculated all the extraordinary powers he was capable of employing and the absolute lack of morals that might otherwise dissuade him from employing them. He was rarely forced to make a request twice. Mina only half-believed these rumors and rather liked John, but she certainly never tested him, and the girls were loathe to speak about him, even at a safe distance. They all seemed to believe that he saw and heard everything they did.

Mina shouldered her way over to him. “Hey John! Why aren’t you drinking?”

The cadaverous man looked at her and smiled warmly, almost hungrily, but then he looked hungry no matter what he did. “Well, well… I didn’t expect to see you out an about. Word is that you and your brother are a hot meal ticket at the moment. How is your wicked brother, anyway?”

Mina grinned and shrugged. “Haven’t seen him in a week, but I assume he’s still as mean as ever. He took all the money from the job we pulled, naturally. I haven’t got a roof for my head or a pot to piss in.” Jaunty as she was, she still felt self-conscious about how broadly she was hinting.

“Well, I’d offer you a place to sleep, but it would probably only be a matter of minutes before one of my poppets decided to rat you out to the first Nighty she saw. But of course you’re always welcome, provided you’re willing to help with the chores and don’t mind a damp attic bunk.”

“Sure Sweetie, you should definitely stop by and use the tub.” said Silky with smirking nastiness. Silky was one of the two girls loitering with John. She was a pretty plump redhead and John’s most valuable protégé. Most of the girls in his stable were forced into tricking by circumstance — they didn’t mind it after a while but were forever looking forward to the day when they could leave it behind. But not Silky. She was a born whore and relished every minute of it, and she was very good. She was funny and clever in addition to being lovely and she left half her clients a little in love with her. She also had a mean streak a mile wide and was maybe the most insincere woman Mina had ever meant. The two cordially despised each other, and barely avoided hissing in each other’s presence.

The other girl was sad little Crow Jane, so called for her long black hair and her prominent nose. Jane had a little bit of elvish blood in her, making her eyes just a little too big and her ears just a little too long, but it was a poor mix — a teaspoon of fine brandy mixed with a pint of day-old milk — and it left her more awkward than exotic. Still, it was there, and some men just loved elfish features. Jane herself tended to stare vacantly at the world, as if an exploding rune had gone off inside her skull not long ago. She didn’t talk much, eat much or smile much. She stared and she did drugs, and Mina was convinced that one of these days she’d have a psychotic break and murder everyone within reach, shrieking like a fiend.

“Aw, thanks for the offer John, but I’ll be all right. I’ve got contingencies.” answered Mina, pointedly ignoring Silky’s barb. “Mostly I was just wondering if you were holding.”

John glanced around warily, then lowered his voice. “What are you looking for?”

Mina shrugged. “Anything upbeat. It’s a party, right?” She took another long drink.

“I have some Snapcracker. Three for five silver.”

Without a word, Mina dug through her stolen coin purse for the required coins, and the two conducted a discreet exchange. Snapcracker was a short-lasting stimulant; it came wrapped in a pea-sized wadding of paper and one squeezed it under one’s nose, causing a tiny popping explosion which cooked the ingredients into a gas that one inhaled briskly. It was a fairly new addition to the Cassomiran streets, and Mina rather liked it — it gave her energy and got her mind racing. With a quick squeeze, she popped her first dose and snorted inelegantly, wiping her nose afterward to sooth the sting of the powder burn.

“Not here!” scolded Silky as she too quickly scanned the crowd. There was really nothing to worry about, things were too noisy and chaotic around the big square. But the principle was sound.

A surge of voices got everyone looking up. The halfling acrobat had returned to the rope and was doing boisterous handsprings over the crowd in a way calculated to look out of control. He now had an accomplice, a pretty halfling girl who followed him onto the bouncing rope while juggling five brightly colored balls. After a while the two of them were tossing the balls back and forth to one another through the smoke of the still raging bonfire. Mina was impressed and tried to watch but felt too jittery to stand still. She returned to the beer table for a fresh mug and scarfed it in one extended chug. The band began playing a song that appealed to her, so she scampered into the fray of moving bodies and began to dance with no one and everyone.

Though beginning to feel the looseness of inebriation along with the exaggeration of the stimulant, she still managed to dance with feral skill, kicking her heels about merrily like a sailor, her hands held out wide for balance. Twirling in a raucous rotation, she nearly clobbered half a dozen people and had soon managed to clear a bit of space with herself. As the drug filled her muscles, her dance grew faster and wilder and before she knew it she was whooping loudly into the night beside the seething roaring bonfire. The song ended, causing her to cheer and whistle exuberantly. She wiped her sweaty brow and was about to get another mug of beer when a new song began, this one with a more dirty low-key beat and a low pulsing melody. Her body took off again and she flung her mug over into the bonfire in an ecstasy of abandon and smartly popped another Snapcracker, then settled into a dirty twisty little dance with her hands held daintily at shoulder height and her head lolling forward. Suddenly she was aware that Tiggy was back and was dancing with her, trying to copy her weird twisty dance, and the two laughed joyfully together.

“This is the life!” hollered Mina over the music and the shouting and the fire. Tiggy nodded happily and took her by the hands and they became exaggerated and silly in their dancing.

And then, suddenly, like the sun coming out from behind an eclipse, Quasit spotted a tall man with a spiky tuft of bright blond hair across the crowd near the seafood vendor.

“BILLY SHINE!” she roared, then charged off through the crowd in his direction.

The startled head turned around and visibly groaned, He had neatly trimmed facial hair circling his mouth, accenting a rather piratical affect in his manner, He straightened his shirt smartly and turned to make some sort of snide comment to a pretty girl at his side who was at least 10 years younger than him. The girl laughed and clutched him protectively.

“Mina McQuillen. Haven’t the eels got you yet?” he said with a cheeky smirk as she came into range.

“I’m Quasit now! Maybe that’s why you haven’t heard of me, or maybe it’s just that your head’s been too far up your ass, as usual!”

He threw back his head in a sardonic guffaw. “Quasit?? What sort of stupid name is that? That’s not even a girl’s name!”

“What the hell do you mean! It’s a perfectly fine name!”

“But it’s not a girl’s name, dummy!”

“How is it not a girl’s name?” she answered, holding her hair in her fists in boiling rage.

“Mina, it’s very simple, in this world, there are girl names and boy names.” he explained, extremely patiently and a little slowly, to make sure she could understand his important man words. “Girl names are pretty and delicate and usually end in a vowel. Quasit is not a girl name, Isn’t it some kind of a devil or something?”

Mina looked at the clinging girl. “Who’s she? Your daughter?”

“OOOH! B##*&!” snarled the little cat of a girl.

“Listen honey, take it from someone who knows, this man will use you up and throw you away, like he has a thousand times before.” admonished Mina, still glaring hard at the tall, smirking man.

“It’s true Miffy — see, Miffy is a girl’s name — but it’s true, there was a time when this wildcat and I were close, if you can believe it. She was feisty in bed too, even if she’s flat as a boy. But I had no choice, she wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“He promised to marry me, and was sleeping with other girls by the weekend!” scoffed Mina, continuing the case for the prosecution. “He’s a liar to the core. Typical man. And I think BILLY must be a girl’s name too, it’s cute and ends in a vowel.”

“Y isn’t a vowel.” said Billy with a dismissive wave.

“You just got done saying MIFFY is a girl’s name!”

“It is.” answered Billy with a calm shrug that claimed victory.

That was it. Even without two Snapcrackers surging through her blood, Mina would have hit her limit for smugness precisely then. Without even thinking, Quasit snatched the copper pan filled with seafood, peppers and cooking oil with both her hands and swung it as hard and fast as she could like a woodsman’s axe at his face, sending a shower of sizzling gumbo raining over the area. She immediately dropped the pan as the burning pain from her hands reached her soggy brain. Miffy screamed as searing hot suckerfish chunks and oil splattered her from her lustrous wavy hair to the hems of her slutty dress and all the dainty perfumed skin between. Billy Shine dropped to the cobblestones like a sack of turnips and lay there face-down, moaning unconsciously, an ugly drooling wound gracing the left rear quadrant of his head, the blood spreading through his spiky bright blond hair like a brackish swamp pushing into a birch orchard.

“Dammit, look what you made me do!” shouted Mina at her supine victim. Miffy was still screaming and spinning hysterically. The man whose pan had been snatched now came out from behind his cookfire and made a grab for her. “Here now, that’s enough!” he barked. “And yer gonna pay fer all them fish and tasties!” Mina slithered from his grasp. Two more men nearby went to grab her, and so she took to her heels, hopping and shouldering her way through the dancing crowd, pushing through the band and dashing out of the square. Behind her in the square she could hear the whistle of the Nighties becoming alerted to the disturbance. The street was wet and slippery from the whirling snow flurries that filled the night air, and the cold wind felt lovely on her overheated skin. She ran and shook her burned hands and laughed wildly, and ended up howling like a werewolf at her distant pursuers.

Within five minutes she was safely away and stopped to catch her breath and gather up a handful of snow to cool her hands and press to her brow. Her running and laughing so forcefully through the cold air left her coughing heavily as she leaned against a wall.

She thought back to when Billy Shine was the only man she could imagine being with. He’d been a sometimes accomplice in Colin’s gang when she’d first returned to Cassomir at sixteen years old and her adolescent body absolutely hungered for him. He was in his early twenties then, a confident, thrilling, charming man who always had a joke for the lads and a wink for the girls. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. His tall taut rangy body was perfect in every way, and his clothes lounged on him with teasing elegance. He could do everything, he seemed talented at whatever he put his mind to. Even then he was arrogant and insufferable and a liar, but somehow that only made him more roguishly overwhelming to her awestruck heart. It was her first passion and it burned her day and night obsessively, and she ached to be noticed by him. She was willing to do whatever he wanted, would have been his willing slave, if only he knew she existed. When around him, speech was impossible, she could only goggle like a fish while her mind licked up the vision of him. She eventually wheedled her way into his attention and surrendered herself, giggling and grinning, absolutely to his domination. For three wonderful weeks he was her sun and moon and they humped like bunnies at the slightest flicker of excitement. He promised marriage and treated her like a princess and so occupied her mind that she could concentrate on nothing else and felt his absences like the terror of imminent death. And then one day, he abruptly became bored with her and began to cast his pearls before new swine, because there were always more silly girls to charm and seduce, and none of them actually meant a thing to him. Her realization that her lovely swashbuckling beau was a cruel narcissistic sociopath hit her like a cannonball, turned her love almost instantly to abiding, seething hatred and left her picking up the shards of her identity for months afterward in a haze of self-loathing and murderous rage. Naturally Billy Shine stopped working with Colin’s gang and made himself scarce, moving across town to new social circles, not to spare Mina’s feelings but to avoid her brother’s wrath — Colin might have been an insensitive creep most of the time, but he had no tolerance for people who seduced his sister and then tossed her away like a soiled handkerchief, and he was certainly no stranger to violence or vengeance. Eventually Mina got over the hurt and the humiliation and found comfort in the attentions of new men as she grew out of her stringy adolescence, but one never quite escapes one’s first passion.

“I wonder if I killed him?” she mused aloud. “That’d be just what I need. Jerk.”

She kept on the move — no doubt they’d normally have given up the chase, but if Billy fingered her to the authorities, they might decide it was worth extra effort. She needed to get off the street, but had no place to go that was safe. Even the churches wouldn’t be safe for someone with a price on her head. She moved toward a part of town on the fringe of the dockyards where there were a fair number of abandoned buildings, and climbed in the window of an old house that sometimes was used by vagrants and drug users. Her Snapcracker rush was dissipating quickly now, and she knew she’d need to sleep soon — it was almost certainly nearing midnight, though she didn’t recall hearing any of the town clocks go off recently.

There was one other person inside the abandoned home. He was sitting on a crate near a campfire he’d kindled in what must have once been the dining room. He was old and thin with a graying beard and he was vigorously and repeatedly pulling at a rope. They looked at one another warily for a few moments before he spoke.

“Come by the fire if’n you want. I won’t bite.”

“Have you got any water?” asked Mina, accepting his invitation and sitting crosslegged near the cheery little flame.

“Nope. Don’t have much call for it.” he answered, then offered her a mostly empty bottle of liquor. She accepted it and drank, then handed it back. Neither bothered to introduce themselves.

“What’s with the rope?” she asked.

“Got a hangin’ tomorrow. I’m a hangman. Black hood and everything.” he answered jauntily. “I like to make sure my rope is good and stretched aforehands.”

“Why?”

The grizzled executioner seemed pleased to be asked. “Honey, I’m a professional. I take pride in my work. I mean, hangin’ is a nasty business all around, and if I had my say, wouldn’t nobody do it to another man. But it’s gotta be done, so I figure it’s my job to make the passin’ as humane as I can. Shouldn’t no man struggle and squirm for 15 minutes — you want you a good clean neck break, right? Then they just go unconscious right away. They don’t hardly feel nothing. So you don’t want a springy rope, you follow? If a rope is green and fresh, it’ll have some give once the weight hits it, and it’ll stretch, and maybe that poor soul will be left dancin’ there in agony, just slowly chokin’ to death and seein’ stars like fireworks. So I stretch the rope out good afore I even tie up the knot, so when the weight hits it, there ain’t no give and all the force hits that neckbone like a sledgehammer.”

“Jeepers.” said a horrified Mina after hearing this ghastly exposition. “I’m sorry I asked.”

The man chuckled and shrugged and kept pulling at his rope. “Gotta keep the rope dry too. And old rope is best.”

Mina shivered and focused on the fire. “My brother got hanged. Three years ago. He took a long time to die.”

The man shook his head with genuine sadness. “That’s a real pity. Not all of us is professionals with a work ethic. In fact, some people do this because they like watching them poor folks squirm. It’s an ugly business, no mistake. I hope if you ever need to get hung, that I get to do it. I’d try and make it as easy as I could.”

Quasit frowned. This was a little too near the mark. She resolved at that moment to leave town at daylight.

“Do you mind if I sleep here?” she asked.

“Ain’t my house.” shrugged the man. “Don’t reckon it’s anybody’s say what anyone does here. Stretch out by the fire if’n you want.”

The man seemed harmless enough, but it seemed unwise to take him up on his offer. She muttered a pleasant good night and wished him good luck with his hanging, then wandered off to a room upstairs, curled up in a corner and tried to sleep. She quickly grew very cold and her breath misted as it left her mouth. Plus her palms ached and stung, and she could hear rats moving behind the walls, squeaking and scrabbling. But the downside of her stimulant rush shoved her down into unconsciousness after about half an hour.

As she slept and shivered, her mind conjured an appropriate nightmare. The winter witch, sitting on her throne in the bonfire, while the crowd danced and laughed and shouted all around her. Made of rag and straw though she was, in the dream she didn’t burn, and soon the ropes that bound her to the chair were consumed in the blaze. And then the rag creature stood up atop her pyre, and only Mina noticed. She tried to warn the others, but no one was listening to her. She wanted to run but she couldn’t. And then she was suddenly aware that this witch was levitating above the fire, those ridiculous spike-heeled boots dangling below her, and now she was an old and very real woman leering down on them all with a wicked gloating smile. She began to cast a spell, as she floated in the smoke, a hazy crepuscular apparition writhing and chanting above them, and now everyone was dancing in a circle around the fire, and the clown and the dancing bear stood near the bonfire, grabbing the people as they helplessly danced past and tossed them one by one onto the fire where they would scream in terror and agony as they were consumed. And the snow was whirling around the bonfire as well; it seemed to be the motive force that whipped the poor damned dancers to their doom, and the skirling wind shrieked like laughter.