Pence Page 22

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  The man in purple kept a pensive lookout from the shadows. He had seen the white gate shine, swing open a sliver, then reseal. Now a small something–was it a child’s doll?–was eagerly wending its way down the path. “His powers exceed compare,” the man whispered, licking his cracked, bloodless purple lips. “Blast his shrunken head.”

  He removed his hat. “I didn’t want to have to do this,” he said with heavy lament. On his bald head rested a brown bottle, one quarter full of a gloppy, undulating liquid. He rolled his eyes up balefully as though he could almost read what lay in store for him within the bottle’s murky ambience. With long, nimble fingers he switched hat for bottle and then raised the drink in front of his eyes as though he was locked in a battle of wills.

  His body swayed like a flickering candle flame; his head remained eerily still. Tilting back, he took a short, strained swig of the syrupy concoction, his gullet bouncing up and down like a cork in water.

  “Terrible!” he spat, replacing the bottle under his hat. “Finest in the land.” Then he stepped drunkenly onto the path in front of the boy, who froze dead in his tracks.