“Having someone around here with decent taste inshoes?” Flanders nodded. “Yes!”
“Oh, don’t you start,” Neil scolded, his eyes flicking now to Seymour. “Have you ever owned a bracelet with little dead people inside of it? Maybe someone in your family or something?”
“What?” Seymour scoffed. “What are you talking about?”
“Deep breath. Think hard.” Neil inhaled slowly. “Have you ever heard anyone talk about a magical item called the Reliquary?”
“No! What the fuck is that?”
“Complicated.” Neil grimaced a bit. “Look, I thought it was crazy too?—”
A black mass of inky darkness materialized at Seymour’s feet.
“What the fuck is that?” Seymour shrieked.
It was small, about the size of a cat, and had a distinctly feline shape.
Though that shape shifted as easily as the stuff inside of a lava lamp, it had way too many bright green eyes dancing all over its body, and it appeared to be floating instead of actually walking along the ground.
Seymour froze as the creature rubbed around his legs and…
Purred.
“Oh, that’s Buffy!” The woman smiled. “She likes you!”
Seymour was too terrified to move. “What in the ever lovin’ fuck is goin’ on?”
“She’s sorta kinda an eldritch kitty monster?” Neil tried to offer what may have been an attempt at a friendly smile. “She’s really nice though. I promise.”
“Unless she’s hungry,” Flanders whispered loudly. “Spoiler, she dines only on humanflesh.”
“Flanders! Shut up!”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
Neil groaned. “Oh myGod.”
“Hey, hey!” The woman—ghost?—waved her hands frantically and stepped in between them. “You two quit it now!”
“He’s already tainted Lou with his plastic clog madness!” Flanders howled. “When will it stop? A whole city of people wearing those eye assaulting horrors?”
“For the last time! It’s not plastic!” Neil insisted stubbornly. “It’s a resin calledCrosliteand?—”
“You made that up.”
Seymour knew this was his chance.
While they were busy arguing about shoes or whatever, he could make a run for it. He wouldn’t even worry about seeing the lawyer. He was going to get in his truck, drive away until Somerstown was nothing but a blip in his rearview, and then?—
A big hand dropped on his shoulder, and a deep voice rumbled, “We got a problem here?”
Wait, no.
It wasn’t a hand.
It was apaw.
Seymour turned to identify the owner of the paw on his shoulder and found himself looking up, up…
