We stood there like we expected someone to sprout from the ground or something — it would be right on cue — but nothing happened. There was nothing to see except blue sky and red concrete, and there was nothing to hear except for the shouting of the fleeing men, who were now being shot at by Mickey’s men in the trees. In the distance, I saw a couple of men fall to the ground, desperately smacking their own bodies until they went limp. I smiled warmly.

  Good shit, Caleb.

  “What the fuck is that?” Mickey said. I turned around and he pointed to the sky. Something was flying through the air. Or was it someone? It was the size of a man, but with wings that connected at his hands and feet.

  “Whatever it is, it’s coming at us fast,” I said. He flew high overhead in our direction. I tried to shoot him with spurts of slime, but he was way too far, and way too high up. Fortunately, the dead soldiers left me with a solution. I moved some meat out of the way to uncover an assault rifle, and started shooting at the bird man. Mickey did the same.

  Neither of us are particularly good shots, and this guy was flying at us fast. My first shot missed by a mile, and the next ten missed by even more. It didn’t help that, once he saw what we were doing, he started to zig and zag in the air, do barrel rolls, and drop low before shooting back up into the air — the asshole was showing off.

  He was getting closer. I didn’t know what he had planned for when he landed, and I wasn’t keen on finding out.

  “Mickey, keep shooting,” I said, dropping my own gun onto a mound of flesh. “I’ll blast his ass when he gets close enough.”

  Mickey didn’t hear a word I said through all of the gunfire, but he continued shooting at the bird man anyway, clearly enjoying himself. Meanwhile, I prepared to knock this motherfucker out of the sky with a wad of slime, or maybe a booger bomb if he got close enough. But he zigged, then zagged, and then took a hard left into the trees.

  “What the fuck?” I said. Mickey stopped shooting and scratched his head.

  “What was that whole show for if he was just gonna puss out at the last second?” Mickey asked. I grunted, wondering the same thing.

  “If he’s marked, things might not end well for our guys over there — for Caleb and Mother Dora,” I said, and we both took off running towards the trees.

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  Compared to a normal person, I was incomprehensibly fast — but I was like a fat asthmatic child compared to Mickey. He flew past me and made it over there a solid two minutes before I did. I don’t think I’d ever seen him run at full speed up to that point, and it was hard not to be impressed.

  When I finally made it over there, the bird man was nowhere to be seen. Gunfire rained from both directions and I quickly donned my sludge armor. Several desiccated men, completely drained of their blood, were scattered throughout the woods — Mother Dora’s doing, I reckoned. A little disgusting creature skittered between my legs, and I looked behind me to see Caleb peeking out from behind a tree. I went over to him.

  “Hey, have you seen Mickey? Or any dudes with wings?” I asked.

  “What?” Caleb replied.

  “A dude with wings,” I repeated. “He was flying at us and then turned this way.”

  “Nope. Haven’t seen him,” Caleb said. He closed his eyes, concentrating hard and looking frustrated.

  “Shit,” he said. He flicked his head to the left and scrunched his eyes up even harder. It was like I wasn’t even there. He shook his head vigorously, his hair flying in all directions, and muttered “Shit, shit,” under his breath. After thirty seconds or so of this, his eyes shot open.

  “Dammit. Benny’s gone,” he said.

  “Who the fuck is Benny?” I asked.

  “One of my guys. My ‘pets’ if you want to call them that. I can see through their eyes if I concentrate really hard.”

  “That’s… concerning,” I said.

  “What’s more concerning is what I saw through his eyes,” Caleb said. “He was killed by a marked man. A dwarf with half his body covered in tats.”

  “So there’s two marked men here now, at minimum,” I said. “I swear to god if Mickey ran up on one like a fucking idiot…”

  “I don’t run up on people like an idiot,” Mickey said behind me. I turned around; he was covered in blood. “I run up on people like an intelligent individual. I didn’t run up on the bird man, if that’s what you’re wondering. Only because I couldn’t find him, though.”

  “Well, he’s not the only other marked man here, apparently,” I said. “Caleb saw another one. A dwarf.”

  “Like from fuckin’ Lord of the Rings?” Mickey laughed.

  “Shut the fuck up, you goddamn moron,” I said. “But yeah, kinda. We don’t know what he can do. Just because he’s short doesn’t mean he can’t fuck shit up.”

  “I don’t give a shit how tall or short he is. They all pop the same,” Mickey grinned. His teeth looked extra yellow surrounded by all of the red on his face.

  “Let’s just find him before he finds us. Don’t want him to have the element of surprise,” I said. “Caleb, keep doing what you’re doing. Except for the part where you get your pets killed.”

  He didn’t find that funny at all. His face was grim, as if the disgusting worm-crab creature from Hell was really his pet. When you can live inside of their heads, it’s sort of hard not to get attached, I reckon.

  Caleb stayed where he was, and Mickey and I moved to the perimeter of the woods and made our way towards the enemy lines, closer to where we last saw the bird man. We were also keeping our eyes peeled for any marked up dwarves walking around.

  But we didn’t see any bird men, and we didn’t see any dwarves. Instead, someone saw us.