Chapter 2: The Serpent's Dance

The terminal buzzed with the usual chaos of delayed flights and stranded passengers, but Leo moved through it like a shark through bloody water—focused, predatory, and utterly alone. His boots squeaked against polished floors still wet from travelers shaking off the storm, and overhead fluorescents cast everything in the harsh, artificial light that made airports feel like purgatory's waiting room.

He'd made it exactly thirty feet from the gate when his ribs began to burn.

The witch's finger was moving inside its copper wire cage, writhing against his chest like a serpent trying to shed its skin. Leo pressed a hand to his side, feeling the artifact's unnatural heat through leather and fabric. In the Void, he'd learned to read its moods—the finger was excited about something, practically vibrating with anticipation.

Not good. The finger only got this agitated when it sensed kindred darkness, power that resonated with its own ancient malevolence. Leo's grey eyes swept the terminal, cataloging exits and potential weapons. A janitor's cart here, a fire extinguisher there, the obvious security checkpoint that wouldn't slow down anything truly dangerous.

That's when he saw it.

A child, maybe eight years old, stood perfectly still beside a departure board while chaos swirled around her. Blonde hair, blue dress, patent leather shoes that reflected the terminal lights like tiny mirrors. She should have been lost, crying, searching for parents. Instead, she stood with the patience of something that had been waiting for centuries.

Her head turned toward Leo with mechanical precision, and when their eyes met, he saw depths that belonged in something far older and hungrier than any human child. She smiled, revealing teeth that were just slightly too sharp, and raised one small hand in a mockery of a friendly wave.

The witch's finger convulsed against his ribs, nearly doubling him over with its sudden violence. The copper wires grew hot enough to brand, and Leo had to bite back a curse as the artifact fought to escape its bindings. Around him, normal people continued their normal lives, oblivious to the supernatural drama playing out in their midst.

It wants to go to her. The realization hit him like ice water. The finger wasn't just agitated—it was being called, summoned by whatever was wearing that little girl's face. And if it broke free here, in a crowded terminal full of innocent people...

Leo forced himself to walk casually toward the restrooms, each step a battle against the artifact's pull. The thing-that-looked-like-a-child watched him go, its smile never wavering. Behind it, Leo caught a glimpse of something else—a flash of mottled green skin and bulbous eyes reflected in a window. The frog-demon from the plane had found him again.

They're coordinating. The thought should have terrified him, but instead it brought a grim satisfaction. If they were working together, it meant he was getting close to something important. Something they didn't want him to reach.

The men's restroom was thankfully empty when he pushed through the door, just white tiles and the constant hum of fluorescent lights. Leo locked himself in the furthest stall and began unwrapping the witch's finger with hands that had learned steadiness in situations far worse than this.

The copper wires fell away like shed skin, and the finger immediately began to levitate, rotating slowly in the air above his palm. It was a grotesque thing—pale flesh that never quite looked dead, ending in a nail that grew continuously no matter how often it was trimmed. The severed end wept a clear fluid that had proven useful for certain rituals Leo preferred not to remember.

"What do you want?" he whispered to the floating appendage.

It spun faster, pointing toward the door with unmistakable urgency. Then it darted forward, slipping between his fingers like a living eel. Leo lunged after it, but the finger was already squeezing under the stall door, trailing droplets of that clear fluid behind it.

"Shit." Leo burst out of the stall just as the finger disappeared around the corner toward the main terminal. He followed, his heart hammering against his ribs, knowing that a loose artifact in a crowded airport could turn into a massacre with breathtaking speed.

But when he rounded the corner, the terminal was gone.

In its place stretched a flooded corridor that belonged in no airport ever built. Black water lapped at walls covered in something that might have been moss if moss could scream. The ceiling had vanished into darkness so complete it seemed solid, and the air tasted of copper and decay.

Leo's hand moved automatically to his concealed pistol, then stopped. Bullets were useless here—this was the Void bleeding through, reality becoming negotiable. The frog-demon squatted in the water ahead of him, its throat sac pulsing with each breath. Between its webbed hands, it held the witch's finger like a prize.

"Clever," Leo said, his voice echoing strangely in the transformed space. "Use the finger as bait, drag me into your playground. But you made one mistake."

The demon tilted its head, curious. Its throat sac expanded, preparing to speak in whatever language nightmares used for conversation.

Leo smiled, the expression sharp enough to cut glass. "I like your playground better than mine."

He dove forward just as the creature opened its mouth to release something that might have been words or might have been poison. The black water was warm, thick with substances that had no names in any human language. Leo's tactical training kicked in—assess, adapt, attack. The demon was larger, stronger, but it was fighting in water. That meant leverage problems, mobility issues.

He came up beneath it, driving his combat knife toward where he hoped its heart might be. The blade found flesh but slid off something harder than bone. The demon's laugh was like breaking glass mixed with drowning sounds.

Webbed hands closed around his throat, surprisingly gentle. "Leo Vance," it said in a voice like wet concrete. "The Visitor sends greetings."

The Visitor. Leo's blood turned to ice. That was the entity that had given him the baton, the thing that claimed to be divine but felt like cosmic loneliness given form. If the Visitor was involved, this was bigger than his personal vendetta against Fulcrum.

"Where's my finger?" Leo gasped.

The demon's grip tightened slightly. "Safe. But not yours to command anymore. The child-thing has claimed it, bound it to purposes you cannot comprehend."

Leo's free hand found the baton at his belt, the blessed silk wrapping already coming undone at his touch. The weapon was warm, almost eager, a stark contrast to the chaotic hunger of the witch's finger. He pressed it against the demon's side, and divine fire ran up its length like contained lightning.

The creature's scream shattered what remained of the airport illusion. Black water became polished tile, screaming moss became white walls, and suddenly they were rolling across the bathroom floor while normal people pounded on the locked door outside.

"Sir? Sir, is everything alright in there?"

The frog-demon was changing, its Void-form dissolving into something that belonged in this reality. Smaller, more human, but no less dangerous. Its eyes remained the same—ancient, hungry, utterly without mercy.

Leo pressed the baton harder against its ribs, and holy fire spread across its skin like phosphorus. The creature's human disguise began to slip, revealing glimpses of mottled flesh beneath.

"The finger chooses its own path now," it hissed. "And that path leads to the Funhouse. Everything converges there, little soldier. Everything ends there."

"Good," Leo said, and drove the baton home.

Divine light exploded through the bathroom, bright enough to bleach shadows from the walls. When it faded, Leo was alone with what looked like an ordinary businessman in a ruined suit, unconscious but breathing. The kind of cover identity the things from the Void wore when they needed to move through the human world.

The pounding on the door grew more insistent. Leo quickly rewrapped the baton and checked his appearance in the mirror. Disheveled but not obviously supernatural. The man on the floor would wake up in a few hours with gaps in his memory and a story about slipping on wet tiles.

"Sorry," Leo called out as he unlocked the door. "Had a bit of a dizzy spell. Everything's fine now."

The small crowd dispersed with the practiced indifference of frequent travelers. Just another medical emergency in another anonymous terminal. Nothing to see here.

But as Leo walked back toward the main concourse, he noticed things had changed. The little girl was gone, along with any trace that she'd ever been there. In her place, written in what looked like condensation on a nearby window, were the words: "The Funhouse remembers you."

The message faded even as he watched, leaving only clean glass and the reflection of a man who'd lost something important. The witch's finger had been his ace in the hole, a weapon of chaos that could disrupt whatever protections Fulcrum had built around himself. Now it was in enemy hands, probably already on its way to the Funhouse to be used against him.

Leo shouldered his bag and headed for the exit. Outside, the storm continued its assault on the world, and somewhere in its heart, his hometown waited. Along with Mister Fulcrum, his impossible funhouse, and now a witch's finger that had chosen a new master.

The hunt was becoming more complicated by the hour. But Leo had learned patience in the Void, along with more violent skills. Let them have their artifacts and their allies. He still had the Visitor's baton, thirteen years of rage, and absolutely nothing left to lose.

That would have to be enough.

The automatic doors slid open, and Leo stepped into the storm.