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I weave in and out of the crowd, making my way to a stall toward the back of the market. The stall is filled with all kinds of trinkets from jewelry to children’s toys. The merchant is the doorkeeper to the black market. He’s a big, burly man with deep, red-brown skin, and a crooked nose that looks like it was broken in two different places and never set properly.
I pull my hood back just enough for him to see my face. “Mornin’ Bader,” I say in greeting, giving him a smile.
“Ah, there’s that pretty face.” He gives a warm grin that lights up his face. “You’re here earlier than usual.” He signals for me to follow him into the back.
“Had to get here before Hector gives all his coin away.”
He raises a scarred brow. “You planin’ to take it all?” He pulls back a hanging tapestry to reveal a hidden room. We both enter the small space.
I give him a wicked grin. “Every last coin.”
He laughs, the movement shaking his large shoulders. Across the way is another tapestry. He holds it open for me to walk through. “Happy bargaining.”
I give him a wink and walk under it. On the other side of the tapestry is another busy alleyway snuggled between the buildings, this one is the black market.
I pull my hood off my head and let the mist-like rain coat my hair. The stalls on either side hold many different wares than the market I just came from. Animal parts in jars that are spelled, pelts from rare or dangerous creatures, herbs used for everything from curing a headache to getting a high, unlicensed weapons, like the two strapped to my body, spell books, jarred pixy dust, and much more adorn every makeshift surface. You have to talk to the merchants if you’re looking for a more rare item, such as a ticket to the Southern Isles.
I walk around, seeing if there’s anything of use that I might want to bring with me on my journey. I’m just finishing up buying dried meat when an eight-year-old girl named Titi runs up to me with her friend, Maasin.
“What did you bring today?” Titi asks, her big brown eyes wide with excitement. Titi’s father is the merchant I do most of my business with. His stall is toward the back.
“You want to see?” I crouch down.
They both nod.
I pull open my pocket for her to peer in. Maasin gasps, and Titi squeals.
“Is that what I think it is?” Maasin asks.
“What do you think it is?”
Maasin whispers, “Dragon scale?”
I nod and their smiles spread.
“Can I touch it?” Titi asks, her fingers twitching.
“Only if you’re very, very careful,” I say.
She slowly reaches into my pocket and lightly brushes the scale with one finger. I quickly close the pocket on her hand with a hiss and she yelps.
“Sorry,” I say, laughing. “I couldn’t resist.”
Maasin laughs and laughs.
Titi hits him, though she’s still smiling.
“Come, I need to see your father.”
We head to the end of the stalls, Maasin still laughing, when a strange feeling of what can only be described as an innate wrongness wraps around my bones and chokes me with dread. I stop, my every muscle tensed, the hair on the back of my neck standing. The first scream slices through the air, and out of instinct, my hands are on the hilts of my blades. I turn to the sound. Titi and Maasin fall behind me. More screams and shouts of alarm fill the market. People are running, some tripping over others in an attempt to flee.
A few stalls down, I spot what caused the commotion. A creature hovers in the air. Its face is skeletal with blackened flesh hanging off the bones like it’s half-rotted. The mouth is made of jagged, pointy teeth, the eye sockets are endless darkness. Its boned arms have spikes all along them and end in three spear-like fingers and instead of legs, the creature has two more spear-like limbs that curve forward. It has a hunched back where its spiked boned spine is exposed. Moving shadows seep from the creature like inky black tentacles that form, fade and reform. It is darkness incarnate. A thing of pure malicious intent, with no remorse, no desire other than to kill. I’ve only ever seen them once, the night of the Blood Moon when my father summoned them into our world.
Their name, a whispered threat, shadow demon.
The shadow demon blocks the only exit just before a merchant, with his hands full of gold items, could escape. The shadow demon’s pointed limbs shoot out at the man, spearing him in each of his shoulders and legs, the merchant cries out in agony, dropping the items with a clanging. The demon brings the man close, so they’re face to face.
Everyone watches in horror as the demon embeds its teeth into the skin around the man’s mouth with a sickening squelching sound. Blood seeps from the wounds, falling down his chin and neck, seeping into his collar. The victim is silent now as the shadow demon sucks the very life right out of him. I can actually see the essence of the merchant’s soul leaving his body. A soft yellow glowing light transfers from the man into the open mouth of the shadow demon, the man’s body withering in the process. Within moments it’s done. The shadow demon retracts its teeth and spear-like limbs and the body falls limp to the ground with a dull thud. All that is left is a hollowed-out husk, his skin wrinkled, like old fruit left in the sun for too long, the expression left forever on his face is one of pure terror. Titi and Maasin whimper behind me, clinging to one another.
