The man was freakishly tall, freakishly thin, and covered in tattoos.

  I shot a glob of slime at him out of reflex, but he moved out of its way, his long arms swaying like bamboo on a windy day. His movements looked slow, lumbering, but he was shockingly fast, getting out of the way of my shots with sudden bursts of clumsy, awkward motions.

  “Please don’t slime me,” he said mildly, almost pleadingly. “I don’t want to fight you.”

  “You were sent here by Alec, weren’t you?” I asked, flinging another ball of slime that went right over his narrow shoulder.

  “Yes, technically, but I think it’s time Alec and I parted ways. I can explain later, once the battle is over.” He had shaggy brown hair that looked like it used to be kept in a neatly combed side part, and a mustache that looked like a caterpillar taking a nap on his face. He spoke like a therapist, calm and soothing, which irritated the shit out of me.

  It must’ve irritated Mickey too, because he lunged at the long man. He came at him with both hands, sort of looking like he wanted to give them man a big ol’ hug, just to cover as much area as possible and prevent him from moving to the left or right, to slither his way out of being popped. With his lateral options removed, the long man went down. He didn’t fall to the ground or anything like that, mind you — the man fucking compressed hisself down until he barely went up to Mickey’s ass.

  Few things caught me off guard at this point, but this did. His bones made scraping, crunching sounds as they collapsed into themselves. His skin became saggy and wrinkled and folded over itself before pulling itself into place. Different parts of his body shrank at different rates and I saw a whole fucking cornucopia of different fucked up human shapes during his transformation from beanpole to dwarf. At one point, his head shrank, but his eyes didn’t, and they bulged out of his head — I thought those sons of bitches were gonna pop right out. Then, his rib cage started to shrink before his internal organs, and they pressed through the bones and the outlines of his heart, lungs, and whatever the fuck else showed through his skin. It all looked like it would’ve been extremely painful if it wasn’t over in about half a second.

  In his dwarven form, while Mickey and I were both still taken aback by what the fuck we just saw, he slipped between Mickey’s legs, grabbed both of his ankles and pulled him right off his feet. He fell flat on his face, and the dwarf hopped onto his back. His legs started to pop and crack, and they extended down each side of Mickey’s body and dug into the dirt. Mickey was pinned. The long-legged dwarf held his hands up and looked at me.

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  “I don’t plan to hurt him, and I don’t plan to hurt you,” he said. “Seriously, I want to kill Alec just as much as you guys do — and I can help you do it. Just give me a chance to explain.”

  I looked at him, my hands burning to blast him while he couldn’t get out of the way. But, with Mickey squirming and cussing on the ground, completely helpless, this guy probably could’ve killed him if he really wanted to — a few good blows to the back of the head would’ve probably done it. So I held my slime.

  “Alright, explain,” I said.

  “Not right now — no time. When the battle’s over. As you could probably guess, Alec sent these non-marked men as a diversion. He just sent them here to distract you. The real problems are going to come when I give them the word.”

  “Well,” I said, “maybe fucking don’t give them the word then?”

  “I have to,” he replied. “Or they’ll know I’ve turned. Here’s the plan: I’m going to leave now, tell them I spotted you two, together, and they’re going to come this way. I will pretend to still be on their side — don’t believe anything I say when I’m talking to them. When the time is right, I’ll turn and we’ll take them by surprise. That sound good to you?”

  Mickey thrashed on the ground, his face beet-red. “Don’t listen to this little fucker! Get him the fuck off of me!” he yelled. The little fucker looked at me and raised his eyebrows. He made me feel like I would be a dumb motherfucker to listen to Mickey over him — and he was probably right.

  “If you’re not fucking with us, then lead whoever’s coming right here, into these woods. There’s a little gorge about a hundred yards that way,” I pointed in the northwest direction. “Get them there, and we’ll be waiting somewhere in the trees. Attack them before we reveal ourselves, and we’ll come out to help you finish the job. If you don’t attack them within two minutes of walking into that gorge, we’ll kill you all. That sound good to you?”

  “Yeah, that’ll work,” he said with a warm smile. “Will that work for you, Mickey?”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever. Just get the fuck off of me, asshole!”

  The man retracted his legs and got off of Mickey. As Mickey got back to his feet, the man sprouted up to approximately the size and shape of an average man, and stuck his hand out to Mickey for a handshake — a ballsy move, to say the least.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you, Mickey. You can call me Shane.”

  Mickey brushed the dirt off of his pants and saw the man standing there with his hand out. Reluctantly, he shook it.

  “Not gonna get me with that cheap shit a second time, I’ll tell you that much,” Mickey said, squeezing the man’s hand ten times harder than necessary.

  “Don’t plan on it,” Shane smiled. His smile started to grow on me a little bit. It was kind, fatherly — kind of like Newt’s. It made me want to trust him more than I probably should trust a stranger — especially one that’s employed by a man who wants to murder me. But I trusted him anyway.

  He stuck out his hand towards me, and I shook it like a goddamn normal person and not an insecure gorilla.

  “I’ll meet you at the gorge,” he said.