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“Who hurt you, Marvin?” I asked, finding myself strangely
concerned for the poor man-monster’s well-being. After my
question evaporated, a thick, bloody finger issued forth from
between the bars of a nearby sewer grate, conducting my
view to somewhere above and behind me.
“He did,” the whisper replied.
Stretching my vision up into the night, I detected someone
standing amid the metal cables of a radio tower that roamed
high above the surrounding buildings, waiting like a patient
spider gazing at a crippled fly.
It was Jack Lantern, The Son of Halloween.
I absolutely needed to speak with Marvin. The only way
I could do that was to keep him alive, which meant fending
off the world’s most notorious living serial killer. With a
single effort, I tore away the sewer grate and slipped down
into the rank darkness. Marvin was indeed sorely wounded,
which impressed me much. Jack Lantern was not one to fail
at killing.
“Run, Marvin!” I shouted. “I will find you once I’ve
dealt with your attacker.” My words made assertions I felt
difficult to evidence. In my forbidden quest for a lost past,
I had stupidly slipped myself into the path of proven death.
Although I had recently defeated a god—if only a relatively
minor one, and only his weakened vessel, at that—Jack
Lantern was something far more challenging. He was the
state of the art, the pinnacle of modern murdercraft. Clearly,
I knew that winning the Shepherd’s Game would have me
facing off with him at some point—I knew of no other killer
who could hope to defeat the Scourge of Autumn City—but
I’d hoped for more time to heal and prepare. Despite my
recuperative powers, I was far from peak capacity.
With my sisters glittering their deadly promises, I
prepared for the pumpkin-masked killer. A fragrant wind
blew past me, carrying the scent of fall. Staring into the
spaces the wind had come, the filthy sewer seemed almost
filled with the ever-dying trees of the September Woods,
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