raised her head, looked up at him. “You control them.”
“Me?” said Axton. “No, not at all. But I communicate, and they listen. Aren’t they wondrous? Terrific mimics. Although I think they may have picked up some bad habits from watching all that TV.”
“You know why I’m here,” she said.
Axton nodded. “Because I made a deal with the Shining Demon, and I welched.”
“He sent me to bring you back.”
“And you’re surprised I’m resisting?”
“Nope,” she said. “Not surprised at all. Expected it, to be honest. Was surprised by the freaky little monsters you’ve got running around, though.”
Axton smiled. “Didn’t see them coming, did you?”
“I did not,” Amber said, feeling the air on her skin as more scales retracted. The small of her back was now bare, and she expected to feel a knife plunge into her flesh at any moment. “You’re a clever man,” she said.
“I am?”
“Got me doubting myself.”
He chuckled. “It’s all true, though. Astaroth can’t have you too unstoppable, you see. You demons need chinks in your armour, both figuratively and literally.”
Her arms. Her arms were bare. Amber could feel the bogles’ claws digging into her skin now. She could feel the cold steel of their knives pressing between her shoulder blades.
“He didn’t just grant you the ability to talk to these little bastards, did he?” she asked, even though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
Axton shrugged. “I can talk to anything and anyone.”
“Including me. You’re getting me to calm down. The more I calm down, the less scales I have.”
“We’re just having a conversation.”
“While you’re getting ready to kill me,” said Amber.
“That’s by the by, is it not? I’m not a violent man.”
“How many people have you killed?”
“There are plenty more people to go around, young lady. There are only a few of these bogles. Although, admittedly, they do breed incredibly fast.” Axton nodded to a bogle that sauntered towards him, holding its bloated belly. “They need very specific nesting conditions in order to lay their eggs, however. A very particular environment that provides both a viable temperature for birth and food for the offspring.”
“Yeah?” said Amber. “And where’s that?”
Axton blinked. “Why, on you, of course.”
AMBER GLARED. “DON’T YOU dare.”
“It’s actually a very beautiful process,” said Axton.
“I swear to Christ,” she responded, gritting her teeth, “if it lays its eggs on me I’m gonna break every goddamn bone in your body.”
Axton smiled with reassuring banality. “It’s not going to hurt, if that’s what you’re worried about. Well, it will, but it’ll be over before you know it. They are rather fast eaters.”
“It’s not about the pain, Paul. I just have a rule that forbids anything from ever laying its eggs on me, that’s all. It’s a personal thing.”
“It’s nature, young lady,” Axton told her. “It’s the circle of life.”
“If it were the circle of life, it would keep happening to me. But this, this right here? This’d be the first time a little furry freak laid their eggs on my body, so it’s not the circle of life, it’s just gross.”
“It won’t take long.”
Amber watched the pregnant bogle get closer. “Which part?” she asked.
“Any of it,” said Axton. “They have an accelerated hatching rate.”
Amber took a deep, calming breath. “Paul, you pay attention to what it is I’m saying to you.”
The pregnant bogle moaned.
“Too late, I’m afraid,” Axton said. “Fahl-ahey booshop.”
Amber felt dozens of little hands grabbing her, and before she could lash out she was flipped on to her back. The bogles swarmed over her once more, their knives tearing through the lower half of her tank top, poised to pierce her red skin as her scales continued to slowly retract.
“I wouldn’t move, if I were you,” said Axton. “Their eggs can be laid on a freshly killed corpse, but it’s certainly not the ideal way to do it.”
Some of the other bogles lay down, forming steps to allow the pregnant one to waddle up on to Amber’s bare belly. The bogle poked and prodded and Amber growled, and got a couple of blades nicking her throat for her efforts.
Finally, the pregnant bogle squatted down, right over Amber’s navel, and closed its eyes and started straining.
The scales on Amber’s face were now fully gone, and the knives had more places to threaten. It was Axton’s voice that was doing it, even more than his words. His voice was getting into her head, lulling her defences to sleep.
“Someday I want their eggs to be laid on me,” Axton said. “To be a part of this, to be such an integral part … that would be the ultimate honour.”
“Take my place, then,” Amber said quickly. “Come on, time’s a-wasting.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Axton. “They were going to use the body of the security guard, but now they have you. I can only hope that someday soon I prove myself worthy of being a nest.”
The pregnant bogle grunted, dumping a reddish-tinged liquid on to Amber like someone had upturned a bucket. The smell hit her and Amber clamped her mouth shut and stopped breathing as she turned her head away.
Axton was weeping. “Nature’s miracle,” he said.
Amber looked back at the bogle as its straining got more intense. Its belly bulged, and as the egg protruded Amber tried to go to her happy place. But she didn’t have a happy place. All she had was the floor of a department store at night, and the furry monster that was laying its eggs on her belly.
The first egg plopped out. It was grey and mottled, covered in a thick, mucus-like liquid. It settled on her belly.
The bogle strained again, and a second egg began to appear.
“How many?” she muttered between clenched teeth.
Axton raised an eyebrow. “Sorry? What was that?”
“How many eggs?”
“Ah,” he said. “Typically six, though I have seen some bogles lay nine.”
Amber lay there and tried not to breathe through her nose as more eggs plopped out, joining the sticky mess on her belly. A group of bogles stood close by, their eyes on the eggs. They all wore ties around their necks, and stood like expectant fathers. They were short, furry and they all looked the same.
The pregnant bogle was done and it collapsed, but there were others to catch it before it hit the ground. They held the bogle overhead, like it was solemnly crowd-surfing, before dumping it behind a display. Amber counted the eggs. Seven of them.
“How long?” she asked Axton.
“Mere moments,” he answered, jotting something in a little notebook.