Ratboy whispered. The expression of shock and pain washed over him.
His eyes turned as lifeless as a corpse's, and Leesil remembered how the last time this beggar boy had seemed an uncanny creature rather than human—and all the more unsettling for his human appearance. Amidst the clatter of toppled chairs, Chap scrambled to his feet, moving forward for another assault.
"No, Chap," Leesil snapped, trying to keep Ratboy in sight and still turn his head slightly to see if the dog obeyed.
Ratboy lunged at Leesil with a bloody dagger pointed outward.
Leesil dodged the blade and retreated, baiting his opponent into wild swings. Ratboy was obviously no match for him in a knife fight, but he still remembered their last meeting. The little man-thing had pulled a crossbow quarrel from his own stomach as if it were an annoying sliver. He wasn't going to risk Ratboy getting close enough to grab him. He dodged another wild swing and felt his back rub against the bar's front edge. With a quick hop, he rolled backward over the bar and dropped behind it.
A crossbow hadn't worked the first time, but seeing he had little choice, he grabbed the loaded weapon Magiere kept hidden behind the bar. By the time he lifted it, the creature was in midair—not vaulting but leaping over the bar without touching it. Clutching both stiletto and crossbow, Leesil fired.
The quarrel cracked into Ratboy's forehead above his right eye, and his body flipped backward to smash down on the bar top. The dagger bounced out of his hand on impact, falling to Leesil's side of the bar, but Ratboy tumbled back the other way, flopping to the floor on the far side, out of Leesil's sight.
Leesil leaned forward to peer over the bar, but he couldn't see clearly in the dark. Chap began inching forward from the middle of the room, but Leesil held up a hand to stop him. He was sidling along the bar to move around its end when Chap began to snarl again.
A dirty hand slapped over the bar top from the far side. The bar's wooden edging creaked in that hard grip. Leesil reflexively leaned back against the wine casks lining the back wall.
Ratboy pulled himself up and jerked the quarrel out of his head. Blood ran down across his right eye.
Planning and thinking wasn't usually one of Leesil's strong points, so he did the only thing he could think of.
"Why don't you die already!" he yelled, and swung the crossbow like a club.
The crossbow's center stock smashed into Ratboy's head, and he stumbled a few steps down the bar toward the stairs. Snatching the bar's edge again, the urchin kept himself from falling. He glared at Leesil and moved slowly back toward the half-elf.
"You're going to bleed for me," he spit out hoarsely.
Just then the curtain in the kitchen doorway was flung aside.
Beth-rae stepped into the room at the bar's far end, behind Ratboy's back, carrying a bucket that slopped full of something. Leesil yelled at her to run, but there was no time. As Ratboy spun about for this new target, Chap charged in to sink his teeth into Ratboy's calf, holding him back. Beth-rae threw the bucket's contents over the struggling intruder in front of her. Before Leesil had time to curse such a futile act, he was halted by Ratboy's scream piercing his ears.
The creature began to thrash, body banging against the bar and nearby chairs as he slapped and tore at his own clothes and skin. His entire body smoked with hissing tendrils of gray mist that rose from his blackening flesh.
Leesil barely caught the distant ring of steel against steel mixed in with Ratboy's screeching. It took him a moment to realize it came from the second floor. He looked to the stairs, and that moment's distraction was too much.
Ratboy took one jerking hop toward Beth-rae, like a hideous smoldering puppet, and struck out at her with one hand. Hooked fingers caught her throat as she tried to back away. Her body spun around, and slammed against the wall behind her. Before she'd even slid to the floor, the howling creature tore through the curtained doorway and into the kitchen. Chap bolted into the kitchen after him.
Leesil hurried to Beth-rae's side as he heard the kitchen's back door smashing open. He crouched down. On the floor, a red-black pool was growing, fed by the gash in her throat. Beth-rae lay motionless, eyes wide. From the tilt of her head, Leesil