Chapter 56 (2/2)

The Ghosthound seemed rather annoyed, and glared at Dozer. “Well?”

“Uh, okay, I just-”

“You shouldn’t do that. If the strike doesn’t kill you, the blood loss will.” Regina spoke up, drawing The Ghosthound’s attention. They made eye contact and held it for several long seconds.

“If you want,” Regina offered. “I could handle it. I was a surgeon, before the world changed.”

The Ghosthound hesitated, and shook his head. “Impossible. Time is of the essence. Dozer, cut.”

Dozer raised his axe, but Regina stepped forward, frowning. Glendel sighed to himself. If Regina was anything, it was stubborn, and being so quickly dismissed did not sit well with her.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, and are behaving foolishly. If you insist on this, you will die, and will have no one but yourself to blame.”

The air around them stilled. Glendel was uncomfortably aware of how many people were looking at them.

But the Ghosthound just chuckled. “You won’t understand easily, will you? Fine. Cut me open. Right here, I need something removed.”

The Ghosthound pointed to a spot midway through his right pectoral muscle, just above where his lung would be. Regina nodded and removed several instruments from her bag. A needle, scalpels, rubbing alcohol.

Shaking his head, the Ghosthound said. “Don’t worry about that stuff. Just cut. I don’t have long.

Regina bit her lip, but set the alcohol and needle aside. Instead, she walked forward with her scalpel and stood over the patient's body, her emotions falling away from her face. Instead, she took on a practiced stance and pressed down with her scalpel.

And pressed.

And pressed.

And pressed.

The Ghosthound chuckled. “Now do you understand? Yes, you would be more exact. But you have no strength to wound me, even when I’m like this. Even with the sharpest knife, you cannot penetrate my skin. Now, Dozer…. cut.”

Regina stepped back, her face stiff, and Dozer stepped forward, raising his axe. He brought it down in a smooth arc, the blade sinking about an inch into the Ghosthound’s stomach.

Hissing, the Ghosthound narrowed his eyes at Dozer. “That was close; you took it too easy. Hopefully you can fit your hand in that small cut to break my ribs yea? Reach in and pull them, snapping them open. Shouldn’t be too hard, they are already partially fractured.”

His hands trembling slightly Dozer reached in and gripped the inside of Randidly’s ribs, setting him groaning. He tested his strength, but to his surprise, found the ribs resisted him. So he pulled harder, and then harder. Blinking, Dozer readjusted his hands and yanked, grunting, finally rewarded with a loud snap, The Ghosthound’s ribs cracked at the side and opened up, revealing most of his chest cavity.

He beckoned, and a jar of health potion was brought to him, which he guzzled down. About halfway through the jar, he said. “You should see a pink tongue wrapped up by a thorny vine. Pull them both out and throw it on the ground. Stay away from it afterwards, and don’t touch it for very long.”

Glendel wasn’t sure what surprised him more, the strange things he was saying, or that Dozer really did reach into his chest and pulled out those two objects, both of them wiggling wildly. Dozer hastily threw them to the side, and the nearby people scrambled backwards, away from the strange things. Then Dozer pushed the cracked ribs down, back into a semblance of place, and removed his axe.

The Ghosthound drank the rest of the potion, and the wound slowly healed back up. Panting, he collapsed on the table, eyes closed.

“Doggy...., how much of that is your blood?” Unbeknownst to everyone, Lyra had snuck through the crowd, and was staring down at the Ghouthound.

The edges of his mouth quirked up in a grin. “Less than half, only the fresh drops.” With what seemed like a great effort, he heaved himself to his feet.

“And where is the thing that did this to you?” Her voice lowered to a dangerous note, her eyes beginning to glow a clear blue. Strangely, as this happened Glendel began to feel the strangest sense of impending danger, and had to fight an abrupt instinct to flee. But the Ghosthound just waved his hand.

The space directly behind the table, which was once mostly empty, was now filled with a strange creature of mangled flesh, the size of a small bus. It resembled the top half of a lion, with the bottom half of a jellyfish.

Glendel paled as he realized that it wasn’t a jellyfish, but that most of the bottom half of the body had just been reduced to hanging, torn strips of pink flesh.

Lyra stilled, then giggled, rolling her eyes, the tension sliding out of her. “You save all the fun things for yourself.”

The Ghosthound chuckled, walking over towards the tongue and the thorny thing. The tongues struggles seemed feeble now, and as The Ghosthound approached, the thorny thing slid off of it and over towards The Ghosthound, climbing up to curl around his shoulders.

Blinking, Glendel noticed that a strange, unassuming man had appeared above the tongue. His eyes sparkled as he stared down at it. Slowly, he reached, meaning to grab the tongue.

But then The Ghosthound snorted and flicked his fingers, an explosion of heat spreading out in a wave, the tongue wizened and shriveled, disappearing to nothing,

“My kill.” The Ghosthound grunted, before returning to the table and laying back with a sigh.