“I think killing you would be too kind. I’ll cripple you first. Maybe rip off both legs, or just one, so you can at least crawl. I’ll take your cock and balls and feed them to one of the hungry Kin. I’ll peel your limbs, but leave you alive, and then I’ll follow Grace back into our world. Leaving you here with the knowledge of what I’ll spend the next weeks, months or years doing. Tracking down the people you love. I’ll begin with Angela and Sammi. I’ll kill them slowly, terribly, in front of each other. Probably the girl first. I have all the time in the world, you know that. Then it will be the turn of my old friend Lilou, because I know you love her too.”

“Only Angela,” Vince said, and Mallian laughed.

“Everyone loves Lilou,” he said. “That’s why it’ll be harder for me to kill her. After that, who knows? You have extended family, yes? I’ll be their nightmare. I’ll be the shadow following them in the night, the shape glimpsed from the corner of their eye. For the children, I’ll be the monster under the bed.” He leaned in close and looked Vince in the eye. “And I really will be under the bed.”

“Fuck you,” Vince said. “You’re full of shit.”

Mallian frowned.

Vince saw movement from the corner of his eye, maybe the distraction he needed. Mallian hadn’t walked properly for two years. He was twice the size of Vince, stronger, more vicious and brutal, but right then Vince thought that even with a fractured arm he was probably faster.

“I see everything, human,” Mallian said. “You think I’ve been lying there in the dirt doing nothing all this time? I’ve been planning and making friends. You might think you’re the hero of the hour, but you’re nothing more than an annoying hindrance.”

“You think I’ll help you when you make threats like that?”

“You’ll help because I make promises like that.”

More movement to his left, and Vince forced himself not to look.

“Sammi is innocent.”

“Innocent fairy flesh tastes the best.”

The shape came closer. It seemed to be circling, edging in behind Mallian, and perhaps that meant it was there to help. He’d tried to help injured Kin several times, tried to make contact with them, as much for himself as for them. Success had been limited, but perhaps whichever Kin this was, it would repay in kind.

All I need is a distraction.

“Maybe...” Vince said, and then the Kin came close, manifesting in strange sunlight and approaching from Mallian’s left.

“Ah, Bah’Lia,” Mallian said, and Vince felt hope shrivelling to nothing.

The short, slight Kin, humanoid and covered with a fine down, looked daunted and intimidated by Mallian’s size and appearance, but also awed.

“I know where they are,” Bah’Lia said.