As the three walked back through the streets of Thieves Town, a wind had suddenly picked up, causing a thick blanket of dust to buffet them. Cyrus choked as he inhaled a blast of dust particles. “I hate this town already. How are we going to find Maddie? She could be anywhere…”

Cyrus heard a cough. He looked up and squinted against the dusty winds.

Maddie leaned against the entrance of a rundown saloon, greedily thumbing through Archibald’s garish orange and white checkered wallet. She had a look of hunger on her face that belonged to an animal. Licking her lips as she touched the money and shuffled it through her hands, her tongue extended at twice the human length. “There you are, you little scamp,” Archibald said in a playful voice. “Be a dear and give the wallet back to me.”

Maddie quickly bit her lip and frantically hid the wallet away from the prying eyes of the three heroes. She looked like a starving dog about to have its last meal stolen away from it. Her eyes dilated but she tried to play it cool.

“So, you found me out,” she said, slowly inching her way to the entrance of the saloon’s swinging doors. “But I warned you about unsavory folks, didn’t I? At least give me some credit where it’s due.”

“Yeah, and thanks for warning us about you, you untrustworthy knave!” Vanessa shouted. “Now in the name of justice, unhand the Majester’s wallet.”

“About that,” Maddie hissed with her eyes shooting bloody daggers of disdain. “You’ll have to catch me!”

Maddie quickly pivoted into the swinging doors. “After her!” Van commanded.

“Goes without saying, knighty” Archibald said with a nod and proceeded to give chase.

Pushing through the doors, Cyrus could see the tavern was composed of two floors full of many mini tables carved out of unpolished wood. The sun tried to filter through boards hammered over the windows giving the room a dimly lit ambience. The smell of peeling paint and hard alcohol made the room stink profusely. Many unruly sorts sat at the tables, drinking beverages from cracked glasses that were the color of brown bile. They were waited on by waitresses, who were either missing teeth or had weird blotches or spots on their faces. Everyone looked up to see Maddie run through the room, weaving around the tables with a deftness to her slim figure. “Help! These people are trying to mug me!” Maddie cried out, trying her best to sound like a damsel in distress.

People began to mumble among each other, some even stood up but that didn’t stop Cyrus, Van and Archibald from dashing past them or bowling them over along with the tables. Cyrus in particular could not weave as gracefully as Maddie and his thick frame tackled everything from waitresses, tables and bandits causing them all to crash to the ground. Stepping over his hapless victims, Cyrus quickly apologized and followed Maddie who tore past the bar counter and through the back entrance.

They quickly came to a back alley where things stunk far worse than the one in Moonlit Village. Cyrus looked on the ground and saw human sized bags laying in piles on the muddy ground and a stink that reeked worse than any pile of mere trash. Cyrus, quickly hid his nose in his shirt and averted his eyes as he realized they were body bags. Maddie backed up against the wall at the end of the alleyway, shivering and twitching like a victim of withdrawal. The sunlight ended right where the dead end began.

“Give it up,” Van announced, proud to be upholding justice. “Surrendering would be your best plan of action.”

“S…so, I didn’t think this is how it would end,” she stuttered. “With your demise.”

She lifted a shaking hand to reveal ten bandits behind them all armed with large swords, ready to kill the three heroes.

“Hey, this isn’t fair,” Cyrus shouted. “This girl robbed my friend and now you’re going to defend her?”

One of the bandits sneered. “Doesn’t matter to us. When someone gets chased down, they usually have a lot of money and once we’re finished with you, we’re going to mug her too.”

Cyrus looked to Van and Archibald, both who brandished their weapons with great skill. Van clutched her sword with the unusually long title and Archibald held his briefcase with his good hand. They were ready to fight even if the odds were ten to three. Cyrus could see the sweat running down their faces from the dry heat and he swallowed hard, knowing this would turn ugly and violent in a split second.

It was then, a suave voice reverberated from the rooftops. “Foul muchachos, as long as love and justice exist in this world, you will never succeed! Stop in the roar of my thunderous heartbeat.”

A cry of “whoa,” was heard and a large barrel fell from the roof. It clunked to the ground, and bowled over the bandits. Cyrus let out a gasp as he looked up and his view of the sun was blocked by a caped marauder who jumped off the roof and fell to the ground. He landed on his feet and groaned and crouched from the pain as his legs suffered the recoil from leaping off the building.

“Ai ai ai, that hurts,” he said in his passionate and slick voice. “It’s so cool when storybook heroes do it but it’s nothing but painful to do it in real life.”

Archibald, Cyrus and especially Van gaped at the man who fell. He had long locks of flowing brown hair, tanned skin and chocolate brown eyes that in spite of being the color of the earth blazed with the passion of a raging forest fire. His tunic and cape were midnight black with a white carnation tucked into the pocket on his chest. He had two twin rapiers in both sides of his belt and he raised a gloved white hand in Van’s direction. “I don’t know why,” he said with his smoldering eyes of melted chocolate. “But I feel compelled to introduce myself. Antonio Corazon. A pleasure to meet you, fellow swordsman.”

“I…I…I…” Vanessa said, her voice growing higher and higher by the minute. She slowly calmed down and lowered her voice. “A pleasure to meet you too, fellow knight.”

“Ah, please do not call me a knight, good sir. Antonio Corazon fights for true justice and sometimes, that is not within the law.”

Cyrus looked at Van who blew out and began to fan herself in her hot, tight armor. He could tell she was wishing desperately for her beard to vanish. Cyrus felt a slight amount of disdain for this man he had just met. He may have been a man living in the desolate Thieves’ Town, but he was absolutely rich in terms of looks and personality.

As Van looked into Antonio’s dark brown eyes, nearly hypnotized, Cyrus turned his attention to Maddie who sat backed up against the wall twitching and shuddering. “Uh excuse me, Mr. Hero but don’t we have a deal?”

“That’s right,” Archibald said glaring at Maddie. “If you know what’s good for you little lassie, I’d cough it up.”

Maddie looked and squinted at the four. Her eyes didn’t blink in sync and her jaw trembled. “You wouldn’t rip away money from a poor girl,” she hissed. “You don’t know what I have to do to survive in a town like this.”

Her eyes shimmered with tears and she pushed the wallet up against her chest. Her gruff voice grew fragile and tender. “You don’t know what I had to do…I…”

“Shh…” Archibald said and looked into Maddie’s eyes.

Cyrus could see that whatever Maddie had said, it had touched the Majester. “Look love,” he said, “I understand what you’re going through…”

Suddenly he was interrupted by Maddie again. “You wouldn’t rob a girl of her,” Maddie’s voice dropped down to guttural and raspy, “of her sweet, succulent, delectable cash.”

Everyone flinched as Maddie’s face began to change. Her eyes slid towards the center of her face, becoming one and her nose and mouth jutted out into a large pointed snout with rows of enormous sharp teeth. She opened her newly formed maw with a piggish grunt and dropped the wallet in her mouth, swallowing it whole.

“What’s wrong with her? Van gasped in her tenor voice.

Antonio stepped forward. “Alas, tragedy has befallen our small town, my good knight. The shadow lands have unleashed spirits of greed onto my people and that includes this young chica.”

Archibald leapt back and put his hands around a terrified Cyrus. “Well Cyrus, you were right. This young girl is possessed. Possessed by a Skin Robber to be exact.

“Skin Robber?” Van echoed softly. “How do you know what it’s called.”

Archibald held up the Demon’s Almanac in his hand. “I’ve been reading up on beasts from the Shadow Lands with this book I got from Sadie Belle.”

“Something gives me the impression you stole that from her,” Van muttered.

“I borrowed it without her knowing it. Anyway, knighty. I’m sure you all want to know exactly what a Skin Robber is.”

Van and Cyrus both nodded. “Please, tell us.”

“Since you insist, Skin Robbers are a shadow creature that target people with greed or lust for money in their soul. They will nest themselves in a greedy human and feed off their emotions while producing more and more greed. It’s a symbiotic relationship.”

“What do we do?” asked Van. “We can’t just leave her like this.”

Archibald reached and grabbed Van and pointed to a little marking under a sketch of the beast. It was a capital T in a small circle.

“Fortunately for us, this beast can be exercised and cannot survive long in the land of the light. See this marking. It’s a Transcendentity.”

“Transcendentity?” Van’s eyes shot open. “Like the ones we have in cathedrals to ward off bad spirits?”

“That’s it. And luckily, ol’ Archibald has one for the occasion. Now since we have an aspiring trickmaster among us. Cyrus how about you do the exorcism.

“M-m-m-me?” The young prince said with his finger pointed at his his face.

“Yep,” the Majester said with a laugh. “The other two sword swingers can hold this beast girl down as you hold the Transcendentity above her head and I’ll tell you the incantation. If things go according to plan, we’ll have this lassie back to normal in no time. Just tell me when you’re…”

With a sudden snarl, Maddie sprang forth, lunging at Archibald with her gaping mouth of pointed teeth. “Grab her,” Archibald yelled and jumped back.

Antonio and Van quickly grabbed Maddie’s flailing arms and pinned her against the wall. As she let out a piercing scream and struggled against the two swordspeople, Archibald reached in his briefcase and pulled out a small capital T made of wood. It glowed a strange translucent blue in the darkness of the alleyway.

“Cyrus, your time is now…” he tossed it the young prince with a nod of his head.

Cyrus moved hesitantly towards the monster girl with the Transcendentity held loose in his shakey hands.

He gazed at Van who held Maddie back and she gave a reassuring smile underneath her false beard. Suddenly, Cyrus felt brave, he pressed forward and planted the T right on Maddie’s forehead. A golden light glowed from his hands. “What’s going on?!” he exclaimed.

“Relax my boy. That’s just the magic of all that’s good and holy emitting from it…” Archibald shouted “now let’s give this demon a good workout and exorcise him from this innocent girl. Repeat after me…

Begone foul creation

Back to your wicked land

Which begat you

And a thousand abominations”

Cyrus repeated those words carefully but as he did, Maddie’s long snout lunged forward in an attempt to bite Cyrus. The young prince quickly lifted his hands and dodged it. Van quickly took her hands and shoved Maddie’s reptilian mouth shut. She winked at Cyrus. “You don’t know how badly I wanted to do that.”

Cyrus smiled and Archibald spoke the next stanza.

“Retreat to the realm of the dead

Free of blessed sunlight

Where a holy man

Fears to tread.”

By the time Cyrus repeated the second verse, Maddie eased back. Her large eye grew hazy and her just-as-large tongue hung out of her exasperated mouth. Archibald read the final stanza.

“With the vested power of light

And an angel’s heavenly word

I send you from this soul

And banish you to eternal night”

Cyrus finished the spell and all of a sudden, Maddie spasmed and a large spectre erupted from her mouth. It had large hanging sickle like hands, wispy white hair, a singular eye and a reptilian snout. As it dissipated from her mouth, Maddie’s face reverted back to her soft feminine face. The ghost screamed as it was exposed to the open light and quickly burst into endoplasmic goo, coating everyone and everything.

Jewelry, bills, coins fell to the ground and a garish orange and white checkered wallet landed in the Majester’s hands. “Maybe we should just hunt ghosts for the rest of our lives,” he laughed. “It really pays!”