“We have no time to lose, Alan. Let’s be swift.”

Alan nods to me and the four of us position ourselves around Mr. Cromley. I hold down his thighs with my weight, careful to not press onto his wound. Gilbert pins back his arms. This motion wakes the liquidator back up, albeit weakly. He mutters a few lines before he blinks his eyes open, blue veins pulsating under the rapidly spreading infection.

Alan pulls out a white handkerchief-the same cloth used to wipe off Mr. Cromley’s spittle. Alan stuffs it between the liquidator’s teeth. There’s no trace of vegeance in Alan’s eyes and it makes me all the more convinced of his kindness and altruism.

“Thomas is going to seal off your wound. It’ll hurt, but it'll also purify you.”

Mr. Cromley’s eyes shift nervously between Alan and Thomas.

Thomas clenches his fists, closing his eyes as a ringing hum sings out from his body. He holds out his hands and snaps them both, silencing the hum. His hands glow with red heat as if they could ignite into flames at any moment. He approaches the liquidator.

“You should think of something pleasant, Mr. Cromley.”

Thomas lays his burning hands on Mr. Cromley’s bloodied stump below his knee, searing his flesh and cauterizing it shut. The liquidator cries out in muffled screams, jerking violently under the pain. Gilbert and I retain our tight grip on him.

The smell of his cooking flesh creep into my nostrils and I willfully huff it out. In the midst of his anguish, the liquidator’s eyes roll back and he falls unconscious. Once his muscles soften and he lies limp, I look to my covey brothers. Alan takes his handkerchief back, folds it neatly, and tucks it into a pocket.

“It’s done.”

I stand up from the floor. Alan takes Mr. Cromley’s hands and folds them atop his chest. He pulls off his goggles and looks up at me with his large blue eyes.

“I’ll stay with him.”

"Are you sure, Alan? You can still wield.”

Alan shakes his head.

“I’ll only slow you down. Go.”

Thomas, Gilbert, and I rush out of the mayor’s back pantry door, trailing the droplets of blood to the town stables nearby. But when we come to them, the only things left are our cybernetic steeds.

Fresh piles of scattered hay and heavy hoofprints lead outside where the blood trail ends. I look at our covey’s tracker.

“Gilbert.”

Gilbert nods and kneels down. He removes a leather glove and touches a small pool of blood with his bare fingers. He closes his eyes and a low note hums from his hands. His eyebrows pinch, inquiring, searching. I know he is feeling his way in shadows, grasping into voids, touching figments of life.

He stands back up and points to the direction out of town.

“Just down the road! We can catch up if we use our horses.”

Right. The machines can outperform organics.

I leap onto my metal steed and wave my hand over her power core, her eyes awaken with white light and her hooves stomp in place. Thomas and Gilbert’s horses whinny alive under their control. We ride our cybernetic steeds out to the road in a full gallop.

With ourselves now in a mounted pursuit down the road, it isn’t long until we catch sight of a wheatish mare pulling a carted cage. The large Clydesdale canters at an even pace. Her heavy hooves clop with a steady rhythm.

Moonlight shines unmistakably on the mayor’s bald head. It appears that he left his head uncovered in such a hurry. His wife, sitting beside him, hears our approach and pulls at his sleeve. He turns his head and his jaw drops to his collar.

I shout nearing the cart.

“Mr. Barnes!”

Mr. Barnes turns back and whips his reins. The mare runs faster, but her body is not matched to race machines.

“Halt and surrender!”

I lean into my steed and she powers through like an unstoppable locomotive with steam huffing out her nostrils. Mr. Barnes grips his reins tighter and snaps them again.

When I pass the cage I notice a chained creature wretchedly gnawing on a rare bloody limb. A cuffed boot dangles from the limb’s foot-I recognize the footwear as the missing half to Mr. Cromley’s.

The deathly thing is shriveled, dry, and gray. Dilated, blue-veined eyes meet mine and widen. For a few moments I maintain eye contact. I stare into its souless eyes: It’s a Fiend.

The creature unhinges its decaying jaws and makes a high-pitched demonic scream. It abandons its food and scrambles away to a corner of the cage, but as soon as Thomas and Gilbert ride up to the other side it scurries away from them, too.

More affirmation. It knows what we are as much as we know what it is. It knows its end will come soon.

The mayor glances back at us and realizes that we’re quickly gaining ground. His face is stark white with terror. I shout again.

“Harboring a Fiend is punishable by death!”

His wife grabs his elbow, seemingly to coax him into slowing down. Mr. Barnes shrugs her off to whip the mare into a more frantic pace.

Speaking won’t do. Ahead I could see there’s a sharp turn approaching us. Even with our steeds’ superior lighting, I’m not sure if the mayor is aware. Thomas maintains his pace on the other side of the carriage and reaches out a hand to snatch the reins from Mr. Barnes. He shouts at the couple.

“You need to slow down!”

But Mr. Barnes pulls his body away and maintains his course. Thomas and Gilbert command their horses to slow, but I remain hot on the mares’ heels. The corner sharply appears with a wizened oak dead ahead.

I grip my reins and lower my body, becoming one with my steed. My abdomen tenses and my shoulders balance to execute a swift and clean pivot with my horse.

But the mayor’s horse is not so lucky. She tumbles the turn and the wheel’s spokes hit the oak. The cart and cage flip sideways, rolling in a disastrous crash. Both Mr. Barnes and his wife are thrown straight onto the road but quickly scramble back on their feet. Their mare, visibly shaken, runs off into the darkness with broken off traces.

I fly off from my mount and check on Mr. and Mrs. Barnes. Gilbert and Thomas remain trotting over on their horses to examine the wreck.

Suddenly, a shadow springs from the broken cage. It runs through the tall summer grass with chain shackled limbs. Its arms swing wildly-broken from the collision-but it seems to feel no pain.

The mayor and his wife chase after the shadow, but I grab the heavier of the two, the wife, by her wrist and swing her away.

Her body backpedals and she trips over her husband. Both of them land on their backs. They scramble back up, but I hold them fast with the tips of my gauntlet digging into their skin. Mr. Barnes shouts and his voice cracks under the strain.

“He’s our son! Our only son!”

They struggle further, but their strength begins to wane once Gilbert positions his horse and draws out his boltgun. He pulls back the fore end of the gun and aims.

Fwoosh!

A wooden bolt flies and pierces through the creature’s shoulder. No blood spills out, just bits of dry flesh mumified over the time of its first death. It crumbles over, feebly dragging itself through grass stalks with one arm digging into the soil.

Mrs. Barnes begins to scream.

Gilbert clenches his fist while a loud hum reverberates from his gauntlet. A spray of green vines explode from the bolt, entangling the creature in a cage of twine. It mindlessly attempts to crawl away like injured prey, fingers scratching pathetically, though it doesn’t cry out in pain.

I maintain my grip on Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, their impending grief weakening their resolve. They gasp with watery eyes.

Thomas dismounts his steed and walks briskly up to the pitiful creature. Each of his steps are sure with focus and purpose. He looks down on the Fiend, eyes clear and bright as crystal, but devoid of emotion.

Thomas snaps and a white spark torches from his fingertips. A blue flame ignites around his hand as he curls his fingers into a fist and throws a small fireball onto the creature.

The Fiend reacts to the blue ghostly fire by convulsing violently, then screaming with a banshee-like shriek. The grass is untouched as the fire razes around it in a perfect circle. It continues to writhe in pain, eventually shrinking into a tightly wound ball when its death screams transition into woeful whimpers.

The mayor and his wife, both on their scratched and bruised knees, add to its chorus of cries. I release them to rush to the burning body but they pause helplessly at the holy fire. Their hands grab at their faces, smearing their tears in their weeping grief.

The scent of the fire’s smoke reaches my nostrils. It’s clear that it was a Fiend. Its stench is undeniable. My fingertips dig deeply into my palms like talons curling too far into themselves.

I am unable to say anything in comfort knowing that they would regret not immolating themselves on their son’s fire.