Neil sat in the shadowy interior of the Cecil, drinking a schooner. Pete and Glenn sat either side of him nursing beers. They discussed in low tones what to first do to Ben while Kath watched, and then what to do to Kath. Or at least, Neil discussed it, while Pete and Glenn wondered whether it was safer to stay and humour him, or make a run for it.
"I'm gonna cut his guts open real slow like," said Neil. "Cut him open like a fish and pull all his guts out and show them to him. I'll drape 'em around her neck like flowers, rub his filth in her face."
Pete and Glenn looked at each other over Neil's hunched back. Let's get out of here, their eyes said.
"No you don't," said Neil softly as Glenn slid off his stool. "Nobody's goin anywhere yet."
Glenn made a break for the door and Neil leapt after him, tackling him to the floor. Even as they hit the ground Neil's shadow was caressing Glenn. It flickered about his arms and legs, twisting thin tendrils across his body.
As the cold, black fingers sunk into Glenn's body he began to scream and one of the barmen moved to pull Neil away.
"Don't," warned Neil, without even looking up. "Or you'll be next."
The barman, a strapping twenty year old who'd spent nearly as long behind the bar as in front of it, decided there was nothing Neil could try on him that hadn't been attempted before. And it certainly wouldn't be anything he couldn't handle. He grabbed Neil by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet. Neil twisted in mid-air and his shadow swung up off the ground and dropped over the barman like a sheet, covering him.
There was a brief scream from the barman and then he was gone, just so much dust wafting to the floor. Neil's shadow flickered and the dust was gone too.
Neil stood in the middle of the public bar, his feet spread wide apart and his shoulders slumped. His body, his very skin, humped and writhed as if an angry nest of snakes living under his skin had been stirred into life. For a moment he stood there, a shudder working its way through his body, and then he looked up.
The other five people in the pub gasped and took a step away from him. Black, inky shapes twisted across the surface of his eyes as if his pupils had leaked.
"Now," he said, in a paper-thin whisper. "Who's next?"
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT