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He pivots toward me, beaming, his two fangs proudly on display.

“Look at the prize, Eden!” He beams, and then he’s shoving a heap of pink fluff into my chest. “I have won a beast of burden!”

I’m forced to catch the synthetic nightmare, the cheap, greasy fur slipping against my frozen fingers.

“It’s a bear, Malachi,” I say, staring into the bear’s lifeless plastic eyes. “A teddy bear.”

“It is a trophy of my dexterity,” he corrects, already snatching up another ball before the teenage attendant—who’s vibrating with the urge to run for his life—can even think about asking for another two dollars.

A puff of white fog escapes my lips as I sigh, disappearing into the smog hanging over the fairground. This whole thing was a catastrophic mistake. We were supposed to be laying low. Blending. Walking nicely through the city. But then Malachi found a crumpled flyer on a lamppost advertising the “City Winter Carnival: Thrills of a Lifetime and Fried Dough!” He almost giggled with excitement.

He saw ‘thrills.’ I saw a logistical nightmare squeezed into a concrete parking lot between two skyscrapers that look like giant, soot-stained tombstones.

But I suppose he’s promised not to slaughter anyone on-sight today. Or smash any phones. So that’s progress, right? The bar is in Hell. Literally.

He turns to the terrified kid behind the counter after dunking the second ball with the force of an earthquake. “Another beast! Give me the blue one. And be quick about it, boy, before the frost takes us all.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter as the kid scrambles to obey, his hands shaking so hard I’m surprised he doesn’t drop the prize.

Malachi takes the pink bear from me and shoves both of them under his arm with the grace of a brick. Before I can so much as breathe, his free arm slams over my shoulders like a bar of lead, dragging me into the crush of the midway. People in puffer jackets scatter like ants in a rainstorm as he plows a path through them.

I stumble under his hold, my boots catching on the thick black cables that writhe across the asphalt like slick, industrial eels. And despite the fact that it’s a disguised demon in my dead boyfriend’s coat, the heat rolling off him is actually rather pleasant. It burns through the wool of my coat, searing right down to my frozen skin, sending a shudder down my spine.

A cloud of hot, oily fumes hits my tongue as we pass a rattling generator, before the air shifts, wet with the scent of onions, stale beer, and boiling sugar. Then, he stops, and brings both synthetic monstrosities to his eye level, gaze drilling into the unblinking plastic buttons.

“We must designate them,” he announces with a decisive nod.

I wipe a smudge of generator soot from my tacky, cold cheek. “Designate? You mean name them? They’re just stuffed animals, Malachi.”

“Everything has a designation,” he snaps, looking genuinely insulted. “These are spoils of conquest. They require titles.”

The pink bear’s head lolls uselessly, the cheap stitching frays at the neck as he gives the thing a punishing shake.

“Look at this creature,” he sneers, a long finger digging into the bear’s plush gut. “Zero structural integrity. A flaccid spine. Yielding. And these eyes? Beady, soulless, and searching for a bribe. This one is The Tax Collector.” He shifts his gaze to the blue bear. “And this one… The Auditor.”

He waits for me to weigh in, expectation practically radiating off him.

“Sure. Why not,” I sigh, all semblance of logic having long gone out of the window.

“Excellent.” He beams, then rams the bears into the deep coat pockets, forcing the polyester bodies down with unnecessary violence until only their round, synthetic ears stick out.

“Now, we shall eat dough.” He hauls me toward a wooden shack of a stall bleeding orange light and the cloying scent of cardiac arrest.

“You,” he barks, slamming a hand onto the rickety counter. “Give us your finest circles of fried sin. The ones coated in the white dust of gluttony.”

The man behind the counter stops mid-flip. He’s a mountain of damp cotton and stained denim, sweating over a deep fryer that’s popping and hissing like a live wire.

“Skath?” The man’s voice is a gravelly rasp. “Is that you, you old bastard?”

Malachi’s head cocks to the side.

“It’s me—Valak! Shit, man, I haven’t seen you in months.” The man wipes his greasy hands on a rag and lets out a wet, wheezing laugh. “How are you holding up this side?”

“I am... functioning,” Malachi says, his voice taking on a stiff, formal edge.

Valak leans over the counter, his face splitting into a wide, leering grin. “Who’s the companion? She work for the Company?”

“No,” Malachi says quickly, pulling me tighter against his side, his grip bordering on painful. “She is a local. A resident. This is Barbara Winbeck. She is my companion for the duration of my… field work.”