Flower dropped her hands the moment the noise stopped and gave Nikifor and Fitz a wild look, before glancing at the sky. Already a distant buzz gathered beyond the crops. A tiny dark spot appeared in the blue to the west.

The false muse gave her a wicked, wicked smile. "Times up."

"Why you horrid little imposter!" Flower leaped for her again.

The girl disappeared in a cloud of rancid black smoke. Flower sprawled in the dirt and said every bad word she knew.

"Was that what I think it was?" Fitz's frown sunk his whole face into a network of lines.

Flower let him help her to her feet. "They're coming."

Fitz said a bad word she'd never even heard before. He gestured to the circle of gaping Bloomin Fairies. "Into the crops, all of you, hide! The fetches are coming!"

They kept staring.

"Fetches!" Fitz roared. "Hide!"

Mudface pushed her way through to the centre of the circle. She clutched her book in one hand and waved the other madly in front of their faces. "Go find carrots until the stinkies disappear!"

Comprehension dawned. The knot of fairies broke up and ran into the crops.

"Mudface go with them, make sure they hide properly," Fitz said. "The further away the better. Leave me a sign so I can find you."

Mudface nodded and headed for the greenery.

"Nikifor can you hold them off?"

Nikifor, who already had the double-headed axe in his hands, gave Fitz the barest nod and stationed himself right in the centre of the village, quite obviously more than in the mood for a fight. She didn't blame him.

"Flower," Fitz said, "you need to get the Lord of the Gourd out. I'll check the rest of the village, make sure everyone's evacuated."

There was no time to argue. Half the sky had darkened with a swarm of fetches even bigger than the last one they'd faced.

"Bring it on you stinking little villains!" Nikifor roared, shaking his axe at the sky.

She hadn't heard him that mad in, well, ever. Flower bolted for the huge central pumpkin house and burst through the door.

Pumpkinhead dropped his mortar and pestle at her sudden entry and scattered powder everywhere. He jumped to his feet, ran to the Lord of the Gourd and poked her awake.

The Lord of the Gourd sat bolt upright and scowled at Flower. "What now you giant annoying dead freakin muse!" she yelled.

Flower kept calm. In situations like this it just didn't do to lose your head. "Pumpkinhead, there are stinkies coming," she said. "Go pick carrots until they're gone. Keep out of sight."

"But-" Pumpkinhead pointed at the Lord of the Gourd.

"Go." Flower gave him her most ferocious scowl.

Pumpkinhead hurried out, muttering to himself about bossy dead freakin muses.

"Eh? What? Stinkies?" The Lord of the Gourd rose to her feet, folded her arms and made a horrible face at Flower. "What mischief you making now?"

"No mischief." Flower matched the Lord of the Gourd's scowl with a ferocious look of her own. "It's just as I warned you earlier. A false muse found your village, and now the fetches are on their way."

"You said there were stinkies!"

"They're the same thing! The stinkies are coming! All your people are hiding in the crops, and you need to hide too or you'll be killed!"

"This is my village!" The Lord of the Gourd jabbed at the ground with a gnarled finger. "And I'm not moving. Just you let those stinkies at me."

"You're not going to move from here, are you?"

The Lord of the Gourd folded her arms. "No."

"Right." Flower stepped over the Gourd, picked her up blankets and all under one arm and set off for the door.

"Hey! Hey you giant dead freakin dumb muse put me down! How dare you touch the Lord of the Gourd? I said put me down!"

"No." Flower pushed open the door.

"Wait! Wait! The Gourd!" The Lord of the Gourd kicked and squirmed so hard it was almost impossible for Flower to keep her grip.

"What do you mean, the Gourd?"

"Get the Gourd!" The Lord of the Gourd yelled.

"Oh for Shadow's sake!" Flower swung around, fetched the Gourd and handed it to her.

The Lord of the Gourd stopped struggling instantly. She glared at Flower with baleful eyes. "Great big freakin dead muse, how dare you touch the Gourd with your filthy un-fairy fingers?"

"Does this mean you'll come with me if I put you down?"

The Lord of the Gourd's snub nose went into the air. "No. You can carry me."

Flower muttered several bad words under her breath, ducked through the door and stumbled into the day.

Except it wasn't like day at all. A writhing, swarming mass of claws and shining scales and beady eyes descended like doom itself onto a village defended by a single madman.

Nikifor swung his axe in a wild arc. "What are you waiting for you rotten little vermin!"

Flower didn't wait around to see more. She dashed past him and made it to the safety of the crops just as the first of the fetches swooped, only to meet the blade of Nikifor's axe and explode into foul-smelling gas. The Lord of the Gourd whooped under her arm.

"Quiet!" Flower crouched right down so that the crops were over her head and found herself nose to nose with Pumpkinhead. "What are you doing?"

Pumpkinhead plucked a handful of carrots from the ground, setting the leaves around them trembling. "You told me to pick carrots."

"Not here!" Flower's voice rose to a squeak.

The Lord of the Gourd folded her arms and scowled. "The stinkies will find you here, stupidhead," she added.

The crops swayed wildly again when Fitz threw himself in next to them. He had two young women and eight tiny Bloomin Fairy children in tow. "What are you all doing here? Let's go!"

Pumpkinhead bit into a carrot. "Can't," he said. "Hungry."

Flower grumbled under her breath and picked him up under her other arm. Then, ducking low, she dashed after Fitz and his charges, who gambolled around his feet just as though it was playtime.

"Don't you people take this situation seriously?" she panted after a fifth sudden, sharp turn slowed them enough to take a breath.

"Pumpkinhead don't take nothing seriously," the Lord of the Gourd said.

"But your village is being attacked by fetches!"

"What's a fetch?" Pumpkinhead said from behind her, since she'd picked him up facing that way.

Flower grit her teeth and hurried on.

"No really, what's a fetch?" Pumpkinhead repeated. "Because like once I saw this giant rabbit, and I was like whoah man, that thing's half the size of me, and it just stared at me with its face, and that's what this ugly thing right behind us keeps doing too!"

Flower turned so swiftly the Lord of the Gourd hit her head on a stem and yelled something very nasty.

Flower yelled too, because there was a bright red fetch almost under her feet. She booted it so hard it sailed into the air above the crops before exploding into a cloud of foul gas. Then she turned back and started to run.

"Giant dead freakin muse got the stinky!" Pumpkinhead kicked his feet in delight.

"Stop that you fool!" the Lord of the Gourd yelled. "Dead freakin muse, what you trying to do, poison our crops?"

"I'm trying to save your lives you stupid little fairies, would you just shut up!"

Both fairies were abruptly silent. Flower ducked lower and followed Fitz's trail deep, deep into the crops.

"Stupid little fairies is it?" the Lord of the Gourd grumbled. "There's gratitude for you. After I let her carry me and everything."

Flower ignored her. One last sharp bend brought her right up behind Fitz, who put a finger to his mouth and then gestured at a haphazard pile of branches and greenery.

Pumpkinhead and the Lord of the Gourd wriggled out from under her arms, dropped to the ground and burrowed into the greenery. Only then did Flower realise it was a big, carefully woven lean to in which the entire population of the village had taken shelter. She crouched down to catch her breath.

"Stay here and make the sure the fairies stay put," Fitz said. "I'll go back for Nikifor."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Somewhere between hurling challenges at the sky and turning the first vile creature into a cloud of stinking methane, Nikifor suspended conscious thought and moved through pure instinct. Battle was a smooth, fluid dance, and he knew every bloody, violent step of it: where to move, when to move, every angle, every parry, every kill, all in perfect rhythm with the screaming of the five thousand angry fetches circling the sky, plunging, diving, dancing their own deadly, relentless routine.

And it was a routine. Nothing more. He knew it like he knew how to breathe. Not one got near him. Every dead fetch made the gas cloud fouler and thicker, but he barely noticed. For the first time in as long as he could remember, his mind was unfettered and free to roam.

The Tormentor was not there. He didn't understand why, because he knew at some deep, cellular level that the monster was angry with him.

Nikifor was angry too. He'd seen the Tormentor's face. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was no phantasm of his own mind. His campaign of relentless, terrifying pursuit had gone on far too long, and now Nikifor would fight with every last breath until he found this man and put an end to him.

Razor-sharp claws raked the air like scythes. The axe blade shattered a scaly hide and sliced through a strand of his own flying hair at the same time. His skin crawled with the proximity of the creature. If just one drew blood from him, he was done for. Three more fetches exploded under the kiss of the axe.

The village fell away.

He struggled in a black night lit by ghostly torches, where distant roars shook the earth, turned his heart turn to stone, battered at his memory. The long, thin sword in his hand was embedded in the ribs of a man so pale his veins stood out blue across his face. Blood spurted from his chest. His lip drew back in a snarl to reveal two wickedly curved fangs, but Nikifor stabbed again and he fell away, drowned in a fountain of his own blood.

Hands coated in blood. Spatters on his face and clothes. The metallic tang in his mouth. A vast field of the dead bled around him. Far off the battle continued, but he was alone, alone in a field of dead vampires because he had killed every one. He opened his mouth and uttered a sound, a wail that echoed the far off resounding roar of the vampire king, because he did not want to be the Muse Champion. He did not want to be the bringer of death.

Nikifor's wail brought him back to the village. He took his hands away from his face. The axe was on the ground, the air was thick with methane, but not one single fetch remained. He was alone.

He dropped to his knees, staring at the axe. Again he lost the village. This time he stood in a cold, ornate garden where the trees took on the shapes of grim mythical creatures and a castle brooded against a leaden sky. A fairy with long, long hair walked straight up the castle wall as though her feet could somehow glue themselves to the surface. She balanced on an impossibly high narrow ledge, where carvings of stone fetches marched from end to end.

Hippy Ishtar. The sight of her frightened him more than ten thousand fetches. She held his silver axe as though it were a toy. She looked like a delicate, pretty doll until she raised the axe and smashed the first fetch into rubble. Then she looked like what she really was, a Bloody Fairy, a vengeful fury, a creature of pure, unadulterated violence.

The scene darkened. His whole body shook with desperate need for vibe. Thirst like fire. Wild urges pounded at the confines of his skull, run, flee, fight, kill, but he couldn't move. A tall, pale figure he hated with every fibre of his being bent over him.

Rustam Badora. He remembered. He remembered. The vampire king removed the axe from his cold, trembling fingers.

"I remember," Nikifor whispered. His hands came into focus. They were warm and steady. The village around him stank in the rising heat.

He raised his head. Everything around him shifted into sharp, clear focus. Colours, so intense they hurt his eyes, jumped at him. Orange pumpkin houses. Black mud. Blue sky. The stink of methane made him gag, but he didn't care. "I remember," he said aloud.

But he knew he didn't. Not everything. There was still that one blank space he couldn't approach.

Foul, bitter, smoke filtered through the hanging cloud of methane, worming its way into his reflections, and then his nose. One wild look around the empty village was all he had time for before black smog imploded in front of him.

Nikifor picked up the axe and rose slowly to his feet.

When the smoke cleared, the same false muse Flower had been pursuing put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at him. "Where's your key then?"

"Gone." Nikifor waited, tense, for her to make a move. There was no point in trying to fight a girl made of smoke.

She looked up at him, just a little too short to manage eye level. "Where are my fetches?"

"Gone."

"You killed my fetches?" Her whole face screwed up in an angry, ugly scowl. "You?"

Nikifor didn't reply. Clouds of black smoke exploded all throughout the village. He counted ten, fifteen false muses gathering in behind the blonde. One had his hair glued into spikes on top of his head, and wore chains across the long grey coat that appeared to be their uniform. Another was so heavily made up he could barely see her face for paint. Jewellery clattered on her arms and neck. Yet another sported a big bushy beard and shaven head.

"What are you?" Nikifor said.

"We're muses." The blonde stuck a finger in his face. "What are you?"

Nikifor hefted the axe and rested it on his shoulder. For the first time he felt the curse working on him and he welcomed it. "I am the Muse Champion!" he boomed. "I protect this village. Get out!"