creds; versatahl
"Let's just ask him."
Dilly's upper lip raised like a snarling dog at Milly's suggestion. "No. Why? Do you think he knows more than I do?"
Milly had been sitting in the corner of the room, but now she stood up and approached Dilly. "No, of course not. He's nothing compared to us. Compared to you." She brushed her hand down the other old woman's cheek. "But you have to admit, he has the gift. We've had fourteen successful recoveries out of fourteen attempts since we brought him into our employ. You know how rare that is, and you know that kind of gift comes with a certain...intuition."
"I don't know that I would call all fourteen a complete success." A new, unfamiliar voice echoed from behind my view. The voice was watery and indistinct, as though someone was talking while drowning, as strange an idea as that was. I sensed movement and couldn't suppress a scream when the thing came into view.
Half of its face was human, though patchy and scaled over in spots. The other half was a ruin of gray-green twisted with contours like a mountain range on some alien world. Worse, that side of his face was always in subtle motion as several small crimson worms moved ceaselessly between dark pockets in the flesh. The man creature was wearing a sweatshirt, but poking out of one arm hole was something that looked more like a petrified tree branch than any kind of working hand. Still, as I watched, the monster hand flexed and moved, the skin splitting in a dozen places with every motion, leaking some dark corruption for a moment before healing back again. I tried to turn away, but Dilly grabbed my face and held me fast with surprising strength.
"You just keep making noises, don't you? Interrupting. And now you've been rude to my brother. I think exsanguination is the only real answer here."
Milly stepped forward. "Dilly, stop." She turned to look at the monster. "Peter, your...changes were due to your predilections, not a flaw with Teddy or your doll. We've been over this. You...overindulged in certain things, didn't you? And they became a part of you."
The creature called Peter took a couple of threatening steps towards Milly with a crooked gait. "You need to shut up now." He turned to look at his sister. "Dilly, you need to shut her up before I lose control."
But Milly pressed on. "You felt ashamed of your vices, didn't you? Ashamed of what you had become. You thought of yourself as a monster, so that's what you became. It's your fault, no one elses."
He let out a bellow of rage and raised his fist to strike Milly, but suddenly he froze still.
"You'd raise a hand to me? Even at your best you were not our equal." Peter flew back as though he had been shoved, his body sounding like it bounced off a far wall out of view before landing with a thud. Dilly let out a small cry and ran over to him.
"How could you? You know how he gets. He's very sensitive about what happened to him. About his...urges. You were goading him."
Milly's expression was hard. "No, I'm just tired of treating him like the baby he acts like. He's not dead. But I won't have him getting in our way with his tantrums any longer, you understand? You control him or next time I'll pull his head off like a maypop." She reached into a pocket and pulled out her cell phone. "And I'm calling Teddy. I'm tired of coddling you as well."
My head was swimming with everything I had just seen, and I was trying to simultaneously process it all while searching for some way out of this. Then I heard Uncle Teddy's voice over the speakerphone.
"Hey there, Millicent. How's my favorite girl?"
Milly's face had changed as soon as she had dialed his number, and it brightened further at his words. "Oh hush, you flirt. I'm doing good. Just here trying to decide what to do with your wayward niece. I'm afraid to kill her, but Dilly thinks it will be fine as long as we store the blood properly."
