It was full dark by the time I was ready to rock and roll. A small army of town guards, led by Commander Arendu were secreted away in every shop, home, and tavern inside a half mile radius of the Three Chimneys. Across the street from me a curtain fluttered and I caught the uneasy face of a guardsman clutching a spear to his chest. They were nervous. Frightened. I couldn’t blame them. They were waiting on my command to flood into the surrounding streets and alleyways.

They weren’t here to fight the Hexblight—only to help contain it for long enough for Arturo to banish the Spirit Mask and for me to slay the beast—but that was cold comfort in the face of something terrible and mysterious.

I was crouched on top of the Three Chimneys, taking cover behind one of the stone edifices that the Inn was named for. Waiting for our guest of honor to arrive. Arturo and Cal were both down below. The Priest had laid out the banishment circle and prepared the necessary ingredients and rites which, when completed, would temporarily remove the wooden Spirit Mask, rendering the creature vulnerable. I couldn’t see Cal, but I knew he was hunkered down to the east of the town square, biding his time in the Etheric Realm. He had a pair of Stone Spider Transformation Tokens in hand and was ready to jump into action when our trap sprang shut.

Renholm was absent, but only because he had the most dangerous job of all. The pixie was tracking the Hexblight—or, at least, the person who I suspected was the Hexblight.

A muffled grunt drew my eye to the square below.

I smiled in grim satisfaction.

Okay, maybe Renholm didn’t have the most dangerous job after all.

That honor went to the two shit-stains in the center of the square. Gustav and Sigge were bound together with heavy chains. They yelled and screamed into the night, but not a single citizen raised a hand in their defense. The word of a Vigil was law anywhere his foot landed, and it hadn’t taken much to convince Commander Arendu of their guilt—especially when I produced their logs and started naming names. The miners were only too happy to testify once they knew it meant both leniency and an end to the monster that had been terrorizing them and their families.

On top of being bound, I’d also doused the pair with copious amounts of Mortka offal. Gray strands of intestine were strung around their necks and slung over their shoulders like crepe paper, and their clothes were soaked in rancid gore. I had no idea whether drenching them in blood and guts was actually necessary to lure the Hexblight into the open, but it couldn’t hurt. It also made me feel happy. Torches surrounded the square, casting the two of them in flickering yellow light and dancing shadows—making them impossible to miss, even from a mile off.

No point going into this with any half-assed measures. This was one of those all in, full-assed occasions.

I wanted the Hexblight to know exactly what I was offering up.

Now, all that was left to do was wait. Wait and hope that I was right. I was almost positive I knew who was behind the Mask, but if I was wrong, a bunch of people were going to die. Me at the top of that list, though I’d done my best to prepare for every eventuality. Still… there were a thousand ways my plan could go sideways.

I caught the subtle buzz of pixie wings about half a second before my Vigil-enhanced hearing picked up the clatter of rhythmic footfalls at my nine o’clock.

“The Hexblight approaches,” Renholm said, flitting to a stop mere inches from my face.

“Is it her?” I asked, straining my ears.

“Impossible to say,” the pixie replied, “but it seems likely. I sensed potent magics around her trailer, but I couldn’t get close enough without risking my life. And since my life is vastly more important than any of the flesh bags in this city, I deemed it best to keep my distance.”

Shouldn’t have expected anything else.

“You gonna fight with me?” I asked. “I could use the extra help.”

He frowned for a long beat, then nodded in agreement. “True, my life is worth ten of yours, but of all the worthless oxygen thieves in the city, you are the least worthless.”

“Aw, that was almost a compliment. I’m glad we’re buddies to, Ren.”

“No, obviously that’s not why I’m helping you,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You’re a landholding Count of Greenbriar—your enemies are mine and mine are yours by compact. I will fight by your side for the honor of our noble court. Our enemies will see our victory this night and fear the might of our power.”

“Ah, now that’s the Renholm I know,” I said. “Self-serving right to the very end. Just don’t get too close. Our job is to keep the Hexblight busy long enough for Arturo to complete the banishment ritual. After that, it’s on me to kill this thing.”

I fell silent as the footfalls grew closer…

Clop…

Clop…

Clop…

Those weren’t normal footfalls—it was sound of hooves striking cobbletone. The Hexblight was inbound.

I nodded to Arturo and he stood, moving into plain view, not far from our sacrificial offerings, his hands folded and empty. He was wearing his heavy armor, but he didn’t have his war staff. There wasn’t even a dagger on his hip. He’d come like a lamb ready for the slaughter. His willingness to face the creature weaponless and alone took brass balls and a truckload of gumption. I’d never been prouder to have him in my corner.

The mark on my forehead burned like a hot coal, and a heady scent assailed my senses.

Arturo tensed and I could tell from his posture—ramrod straight back, balled hands, clenched jaw—that he also felt the unholy presence.

“I know you’re out there and I know you’ve come for these two,” the priest called out into the dappled darkness. “You want Gustav Hultgren and Sigge Wikstrum delivered to you on a stick, but before we get on with that grisly bit of business, I want to parlay. I plead with you. The folk of Ironmoor, we want no more trouble. No more bloodshed.” For the hundredth time I was impressed by his stage presence. The guy could project like he was born for Broadway. No one within a five-block radius would miss what he had to say.

“Clearly, the Vigil was unable to kill you,” he continued. “We, all of us, saw him try and fail. And in a truly spectacular fashion, might I add. There can be but only one conclusion. He was a fake. A pretender to the noble order. A weakling, not fit to bear the mark of the Vigilante and certainly not the savior we thought him to be.”

I grimaced. Arturo was off script here. No need to lay it on quite that thick. I’d fought a good fight. Didn’t he know it was possible to lose a battle and still win the war? We were going to need to have a little chat about that once the dust settled.

“The would-be Vigil fought you and failed,” Art said, “much to our dismay. But hear me and hear me true, we ran the pretender out of Ironmoor. There is no threat to you now. He’s gone. Done. Away. Finished. We just want everything to go back to the way it was before. No more killings. We will give you these men. We will shut down the mines if that is your desire. Only tell us what you want and we shall do our earnest best to give it to you, so long as the killings cease.”

The creature inched out of a pool of inky dark; the light from the torches illuminated its horrid, grizzled features and the desiccated body dangling in front of its chest. “You would willingly sacrifice these two?” The inhuman voice rattled from deep inside the wooden Spirit Mask. “You offer up Gustav and Sigge to appease my hunger?”

“That’s what you truly want isn’t it?” the Padre asked. “Aren’t they the real target of your wrath?” The priest didn’t mince words. He was doing good. Exactly as we’d rehearsed.

“You are not wrong,” it said, stalking closer, drool dripping from whatever passed for a mouth under the hideous wooden mask. Art somehow managed to maintain his composure. “I would wreak my vengeance against them, yet it is your willingness to offer them up as a blood tribute that sickens me most of all. You are no better than they.” The Hexblight waved a hairy, gorilla hand toward the bound men.

“Once again, the people of Ironmoor show their true colors in a moment of desperation. You are base. Weak. Vacillating. There is no honor in your offer, though I will accept it gladly. But know that their blood is on your hands, just as it will be on my lips. Gustav and Sigge will pay Ironmoor’s price, but you’re the one calling the tune, not I. Your lack of spine offends me, priest. Your willingness to see others suffer on your behalf shames me to the bone, but I should expect no better from the likes of you. Ironmoor is as it has ever been.”

It wasn’t a long, rambling villainous monologue, but with that admission—so human, so specific, so completely mired in the past—I knew the truth. I rose from behind the chimney and stepped up to the ledge of the roof. The butt of my new kickass shottie was pressed into my shoulder pocket, the barrel trained on the creature.

“Hexblight,” I yelled, my voice echoing off the cobblestones and up into the heaven-hung stars. Its masked faced swiveled toward me, intensely focused. Arturo raised his hands and began to chant, the sound low and deep and melodic. Around the square ghostly golden power bled from the thin lines of powdered Selitrium, arrayed into an enormous containment circle. The Padre reached into the sleeves of his robes and pulled free a crude wooden doll roughly fashioned to resemble the creature.

Tied about its head with a bit of colorful fabric was the tuft of hair I’d found at the first crime scene. Hair that I was betting belonged to the person hidden beneath the mask.

“I know you and I name you for who you truly are,” I roared, “Annelli Iskrati!”

The creature shrieked and howled, its meaty gorilla fists flying up as fissures formed across the heavy wooden mask, bleeding out zigzags of angry green light. The doll in Arturo’s hand responded in kind, emerald light blazing from the wood. A second later, the mask exploded, wooden splinters flying outward in every direction, revealing the beautiful face of the traveling bard. It was a grotesque sight, her head sprouting from that gargantuan body, red hair cascading over her shoulders, the slender frame of a human husk dangling in front like a meat bib.

That body was so desiccated and frail—its gender obscured like a barbie doll—but the face was unmistakable.

“No! How?” she hissed, shielding her eyes from the light. Not the flickering of the torches. Those she could abide. It was the light streaming from the doll in Arturo’s hand that pained her to look at. “I was so careful. So meticulous.” Her lips were hers, her voice likewise the voice of the bard—though she couldn’t shake the base note of the Hexblight that sounded beneath every word.

She had been meticulous, but no one could bury the truth forever.

“It took me a long while to put it together,” I replied slowly. “You killed smart—covered your tracks like a pro. After our first bout, I followed your trail down to the caves beneath Ironmoor, which is where I stumbled onto the illegal mining operation these two dipshits were running. Originally, I thought one of them had made a deal with the monster in order to keep the find all to themselves. After doing a little digging, however, I realized that didn’t add up. If they were the behind this gruesome clusterfuck, why would they go after their own men? They’d need miners to work the line, so killing them would’ve been counterproductive.”

She listened, attention rapt, hungry to know more. To know how she’d failed.

I was only too happy to keep talking, because it gave Commander Arendu’s men a chance to get into position. We needed to make a stand here and I couldn’t afford to let her go to ground—if that happened, she would vanish, and I might never find her again. So, I talked while the noose tightened around her throat.

“There was something else that didn’t square with the info I had. The timeline. Me and Arturo figured out that we weren’t dealing with a Greater Changeling but with a Hexblight. But the timeline didn’t make a goddamned lick of sense. That’s what really gave you away. Hexblights need to feed and they need to feed a lot. Every few days, or the symbiote starts eating away at the host. But the attacks only came every two weeks. The only way that made sense was if you were hunting elsewhere.

“After we got a hold of Gustav’s logs,” I continued, “Arturo figured out that the caravan schedule coincided with the attacks and then it all came into focus.” I snapped my fingers. “Honestly, I still thought it was about the ore in the mine, which lead me to Captain Ervo. He wasn’t the killer, but he gave me the last clue I needed. He told me about a Rjuhella immigrant family who’d been blamed and killed for the mine drying up. Everyone perished except one person. A daughter. A daughter who would be right around your age. Back at the baths, you told me you grew up here when you were younger, but moved away to Lyshaven after your parents died. Your last name isn’t Dalgaard—its Iskrati.”

“All true,” the creature agreed, her mouth stretching into a too-wide grin filled with razor sharp teeth.

“You are Annelli Iskrati and, to put it as plain as I may, you blame Gustav Hultgren and Sigge Wikstrum for the death of your parents. The only thing I can’t figure out is why you killed Minna, the bath attendant.” I felt a lance of pain in my chest as I thought of the sweet girl, her body ripped apart, her blood splashed across the street. I hadn’t been able to save her, but maybe I could still avenge her. “She wasn’t on Gustav’s payroll and didn’t have any connections to the mines. Why kill her?”

Annelli froze, the quills bristling along her back. Something that might’ve been remorse flashed across her face.

“Minna was your fault, Vigil.” She spoke with utter scorn. “She was never supposed to die—just the opposite. She was smarter than all of you. She put together who was behind the killings long before you, and unlike the rest of the pathetic spineless people in this city, she knew my anger was justified. She’d been visited by Gustav’s unwanted affections more than once and was eager to see him pay. Eager to see him brought to justice for his myriad of crimes. But Gustav was a difficult man to get to, even with my powers. Warded and protected by his money and influence and the magic of his pet alchemist. He rarely leaves his home these days, and almost never at night—”

“Except to go to the bathhouse,” I said as the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. I’d met Gustav in the steam room just minutes before bumping into Annelli in the hot springs. That hadn’t been a coincidence. She’d been stalking him. She’d probably planned to seduce him… at least until I showed up.

“Minna was supposed to help get him alone so I could strike, but your arrival spooked our dear magistrate. He fled for his manor house like a scared rabbit seeking out his burrow. Minna came to tell me, but by then it was too late. The creature was loose, and the hunger needed to be satiated.”

“Yeah, that sounds like justice to me alright,” I said. “Oh wait, no. Hypocrisy is the word I’m looking for.”

Annelli sneered. “Don’t speak to me of justice and hypocrisy. They say the Vigil is the mouthpiece of the gods. They say Raguel sees all, knows all, yet in his infinite wisdom he decided to keep the truth of my identity from you. The god of justice left you to rut about in the muck, piecing things together one block at a time while people died by my hand. Where was his justice then, hmm? Where was it when my parents were wrongly tried for dark magics and killed before my eyes?

“Are such impotent gods truly worth serving, I wonder?” Her smiled slipped and I could see crazy burning in her eyes like hot coals. “No, no they are not is the answer. The gods are hypocrites and liars, thieves and frauds. They speak of justice and righteousness, while refusing to use their power to see it done in the world. The Hexblight may be a demon, but at least it is honest. The gods, if they exist at all, are monsters just as surely as the men they crafted in their image.”

“What happened to you was cruel,” I said slowly. “It was wrong. What they did to you and your family… What they put you through… I can’t even imagine. But that doesn’t mean you have to—"

She sneered and jeered. “I know your mind, Vigil. ‘Poor little Annelli. She was made a slave. Sold to men of ill repute. Made to perform like a monkey. Boo hoo. My heart breaks for the child who was.’ This is the story in your heart, is it not?”

This was the human talking. This was Annelli’s true voice. Her parents had been murdered and she’d been taken to another town and endured who-knows-what indignities as a second-class immigrant child with no name and no family. This was my final opportunity to appeal to her humanity. To see if she’d give up her bloodlust, willingly part ways from the Hexblight, and let me take the beast alone to its grave.

“I’ll give you one chance.” I meant it. I’d spare the woman for the sake of the cruelty that had been done to her. “But you have to renounce this pact, walk away from—"

She cut me off, unwilling or unable to connect to her former self. “Never,” she hissed. “You will not make a hypocrite out of me. I knew the price of my vengeance. The mask, it sought me out after those witless miners freed it from its prison. It sensed my pain. Knew I would burn the world to the ground to get what was owed. It promised me the power to do what both the law and the gods could not. I gave myself to it happily. I feasted well and often and have no regrets. Not even Minna. If she had to die to set right this wrong, so be it.”

The memory of the bath attendant—sliced and diced and scattered throughout the alleyway—danced before my eyes. That sealed the deal. She’d had her chance at redemption and, like so many hell bent on revenge, she’d thrown it to one side. Annelli was no simple country girl. No singer-songwriter with a sympathetic ax to grind. Her thirst for vengeance had made her a monster and I’d do well to keep that front and center in my mind.

She’d made her choice which meant I’d made mine.

“I will happily kill you too, Vigil, if you stand in my way.” She smacked her lips, loud enough that it echoed around the square. “They say you are what you eat. I wonder what will you taste of when I split you open from sternum to groin? Platitudes and sophomoric bleatings?”

“Chicken if I had to guess.” Another one for Cal, though there was going to be no chuckles until this battle was put to bed.

“I quite like you, Vigil. You seem different than the others. I would hate to end you, but I will do what I must to see my vengeance done. Which is why I will make you the same offer you made me. Walk away or perish.”

I raised my shotgun in reply.

“Then you will die.” The creature shrugged beefy shoulders, the spines lining its back bristling. “You failed to beat me the first time, and I was going easy on you. This time I will show no mercy.”

“Me either,” I growled. “Get ’em outta here!” I shouted down as the guards of Ironmoor finally fell into position, boxing us in. Gustav and Sigge had played their part; no need to keep them hog-tied a minute longer. “Alright, let’s you and me dance, fuck face.” I pulled the trigger and braced for the recoil. The shottie barked in my hand, spewing out a black slug powered by refined Fear Affinity. It was high time to give this creature something to be scared of.