Graham Rowat

Jacob looked at the ale that the four men spoke of and saw that the wooden cups were almost drained.

But Jacob hadn't seen them take a single sip.

He was glad at least that these things would be off to their charity soon and out of his bar.

Savage in red, starting the chorus this time.

But in those muddy eyes, there was something that had not been there before.

There was anger.

The flesh, already saggy and dripping like candle wax, wrinkled prodigiously, becoming an almost alive mass of crumpled flaps.

Slake's blocky, yellowed teeth stood out like tombstones under wormy lips.

Slake chuckled hideously.

and the response from his horrible homunculi of brothers was a forced imitation, repulsive in its contriteness.

There was no humor in that wet laugh, and there was none of the fellowship and charity that the writers named Slake, Slaughter, Savage, and Sully spoke of.

Jacob's instinct, and likely the instinct of many a man who watched this dark pantomime, was to harshly rebuke Slake, he of the black hat and the meaty face.

No man, even if he was armed to the rotting teeth and not alone, could call the hooded lady a harlot.

No man.

But this was not a man, Jacob found himself thinking.

True, Slake and his brothers of the blood and moss and marrow resembled men, but only by close association.

They were barely men, and Jacob felt that they reminded him of apes, like the creatures he had seen in the bestiaries in the town library.

a thing close to a man, just on the precipice of true humanity, but not quite there, and all the more awful for it.

And so, Jacob did not raise his voice against the four, and neither did a single man in the bar.

As Slick, Slaughter, Savage, and Sully held their cups, which seemed to drain invisibly, Jacob found himself wishing for the constable.