Revolting Rose

Chapter 2/Part 3 - Creatures of the Night

"You have your map. I haven't told anyone about you, so you can go back to your pit now, before anyone notices that you're missing," said Pagne. He tried to back away from the intruder, but there was nowhere to go.

The fiend, Saloonka, had found him. "Hello, Plum Pudding! Fancy meeting you here," he said with a vicious smile. "I knew you wouldn't leave me there to rot all on my lonesome."

Pagne stood stiff as the fiend approached and sniffed him. With a twitch of his nose and a wince, Saloonka sneezed out his smoky rodent, then he stole Pagne's handkerchief to wipe his schnoz on. Like the kerchief, his clothes seemed to have been stolen as well, evident by the arm, that was certainly not his, hanging out of the coat that was draped over his shoulder.

"Fancy that indeed..." Pagne muttered, then the fiend started to circle around him.

He tried to counter the persistent turning, but as it got faster and faster he was too out of sorts to keep up. Struggling to stay upright as a dizziness came over him, Pagne got himself caught between Saloonka's three arms and only succeeded in draping himself over one of the more attached variety. He was then elbowed about until he was staring down at the map he had hoped would save him from such a predicament.

"Which way are we going?" Saloonka asked as he jabbed the corners of the map into Pagne's hands.

He felt the fiend's tongue slither up his ear for a taste just as Vasherri flounced in with the twins in tow. He was not pleased with their tardiness, but at least they had returned with his luggage.

"Excuse me, darling, but I thought I made it clear that this one is not for sale," his mother growled with a scowl that would leave anyone else a trembling puddle of nerves.

Saloonka hardly seemed to care for it at all, although it was unlikely he could see it through the thick cloud of smoke that had engulfed his head. "Of course he's not," he said as his tongue continued to trace along the rim of Pagne's ear. "He was quite right when he said there's no price fit for such a delicious thing as he is."

"Ginolo, Tonicolo, show this... this... show him out!" Vasherri roared at her twins with a finger aimed at Saloonka.

"It would be our pleasure," they replied, flanking the fiend to tug on him from either side, freeing both he and Pagne from the smoke cloud.

"My, my, Mama, isn't he a handsome one?" Ginolo said as he pulled Saloonka to the left.

"Come here you magnificent fellow and do that to me," said Tonicolo, pulling him to the right.

"I don't care if he's the most handsome creature in all of—Oh my, what a nose!" Vasherri swooned and fell to the floor after a mere glance at the fiend without his cloud.

The twins dropped him to help their mother back onto her feet while Pagne took a deep breath and glowered at the ceiling. Upon his release, Saloonka climbed up Pagne's back instead. He was surprisingly light, even for only a skeleton of a thing, but Pagne must have looked utterly absurd, given that Saloonka was at least half a string taller than he.

"He makes a marvellous hat, doesn't he?" Ginolo said, jabbing his twin with his elbow.

"You can sit on my head whenever you like," Tonicolo said and nudged his brother back.

Pagne threw the map down and earned a shriek from Saloonka when the extra arm slipped from the fiend's coat and landed with a splatter of blood in the middle of it. Duskerro leapt down, gripped the map in his nibblers and scurried up Pagne's front while the arm was left grasping at the carpet.