THE DEMON WAS TALL and strong, red-skinned and beautiful, and she had two black horns that curled up from her forehead. She sneered, and even her sneer was beautiful. “You really think you’re getting out of this alive?”
Amber ignored the whisper, ignored her demon-self, ignored everything that wasn’t real, and stepped through the darkness of the department store.
A creature stood on the glass counter ahead, trying on sunglasses and gazing at itself in the mirror on the display spinner. This was real. As bizarre as it was, this wasn’t a hallucination. Amber could tell the difference now. The critter was maybe two feet tall, its body and head covered in light brown fur. It stood on spindly legs and its arms were thin. It turned this way and that, admiring itself, gurgling happily. It had a wide, wide mouth, and a small snout. When it took off the sunglasses, its eyes were big and blinking.
Amber had never seen a bogle before. Hadn’t even seen a drawing of one. It was, she supposed as she got closer, kind of cute, like an adorable Disney animal. It certainly wasn’t anything like she’d imagined. She’d broken into this Walmart expecting to be greeted by a horde of vicious monsters – not a solitary, cute and furry creature trying on sunglasses at night.
But, even so, she shifted. Just in case. Her body transformed, and now she was the red-skinned beauty; she had the strength, and the height, and the horns. She passed a mannequin wearing the same outfit as her – yoga pants and tank top – but while the mannequin’s outfit was flashy orange on grey, Amber’s was black, and she wore it better. She didn’t want to spook the bogle, though, so she gave a low, soft whistle before emerging.
“Hey there,” she whispered, moving even closer. “Hey, little guy.”
The bogle looked at her. It cocked its head, made an inquisitive gurgling sound.
“Who’s the best little bogle?” Amber continued, smiling, showing it her empty hands. “Who’s the cutest little imp? Is it you? Is it?”
The bogle figured it might well be, because it grinned happily, its long tongue flopping out of its mouth.
Amber couldn’t help but return its smile. She hoped her fangs wouldn’t scare it off. “I’m looking for your master,” she said quietly. “Could you take me to him? Could you do that?”
The bogle waddled to the edge of the countertop and held its arms out for a hug.
“You are a cutie,” Amber said. “Maybe when I’m finished with your master I could take you with me. Would you like that? How does a life on the road sound to you? Sound good?”
The bogle chittered, and Amber chuckled. She doubted that Milo would approve of her keeping a pet in the back of the Charger, but he was in some other part of the store, and so his opinion was rendered invalid.
“Then it’s a deal,” she said. “You take me to Paul Axton and I’ll adopt you.”
It looked at her with its huge eyes and she almost scooped it up there and then, but something stopped her. Maybe it was how eager the bogle was for her to get closer, maybe it was that wide, wide mouth with all those teeth, or maybe it was the fact that the bigger its eyes got, the more red veins Amber could see in all that white.
Whatever the reason, she hesitated before picking it up, and the bogle didn’t like that. It didn’t like that one bit.
Its little hands grew little claws and it swiped at her and Amber jerked back. A trail of blood ran from the narrow cut on her cheek.
She stared at the bogle. “You little dipshit,” she said.
It leaped at her, a frenzied ball of fur and teeth. Amber batted it away and stumbled as the bogle hit the ground and immediately resumed its attack. She evaded it as much as she could, throwing things in its path, jumping to avoid its swipes, but it was closing in and suddenly she had nowhere left to go. She kicked at it and missed and it leaped at her leg, tried to dig its claws into her flesh, but beneath the yoga pants her skin grew black scales, and the bogle bounced off. Right before it hit the ground, Amber managed to land a solid kick that sent it hurtling into the shadows.
She ran for the DIY section, listening for the telltale patter of tiny, evil feet. She heard a noise and turned, saw nothing but gloom and darkness. She backed up, her foot nudging something heavy. A man, lying there, and covered inexpertly in hockey jerseys. She crouched, clearing them away, revealing first the security-guard uniform and then the face. His mouth was open in a silent scream, and his eyes were missing.
Amber straightened, and a bogle landed on her shoulder – a different one, with darker fur – and she cursed and swiped it off. More of them were on the shelves above her, flinging themselves down with delighted yips of sadistic pleasure. One landed on her head, its claws getting tangled in her hair. She yanked it off, held it by its leg as it twisted and snapped, but another one came down right on her horns, impaling itself and squealing as it writhed.
Amber drop-kicked the one in her hand, tore the other one off even as she felt its blood trickle down to her scalp, and stomped on it till it shut the hell up.
She stared down at the mess she’d made, couldn’t help but feel like she was beating up teddy bears.
There was a high-pitched whine and a bogle came at her with a goddamn electric saw. She jumped back, tried to kick it, but it was too fast. Her scales would probably protect her against the saw, but she didn’t want to test that theory. She jumped on to a display table that proved as wobbly as a rickety boat, and the bogle circled her like a shark with a whirring, serrated disc for a fin. Around and around it went, cackling madly, going faster and faster, but then it must have tripped, because suddenly the disc vanished and the cackling stopped, and chunks of fur and flesh flew up and the saw cut off.
She stayed where she was, making sure it wasn’t a trick, but then another bogle rammed into the table legs and Amber found herself leaping off, getting a foot on to something in the dark and springing off that, before crashing into the sports section. She got a foot tangled up and fell, bringing down a rack of sportswear around her.
She stayed on the ground for a moment, groaning. There was movement around her, stifled cackling, and when she looked up she saw a bogle holding a golf club.
“Bwuuh!” it squealed, and swung the club right into her face.
Black scales formed before the impact, but it still hurt like hell, and Amber rolled sideways, grabbed a shelf and pulled herself up, turning just in time to take a baseball bat right to the jaw. She whirled, tripped over her own feet