Daithi screamed falling off the floor and the hand flipped over crawling after the now hysterical screaming Daithi.
"Stop in the name of love!" Henrietta sang but nothing happened.
"Now isn't the time for your stupid singing party trick!" Daithi screamed back as the hand grabbed his tail and violently began to swing Daithi across the tiny room with impossible strength.
Azoom screamed as Daithi's entire body hit him in the chest, causing him to fly into the wall of televisions. The hand, now done with the groaning Daithi and Azoom, sprang across the room flying towards Henrietta, its claws reaching for her throat. The second the gold nails touched Henrietta's bare skin everything went black.
A land of mud and rain.
Spring green grassy hills rolled on and on to a horizon hidden by thick dishwater grey clouds. Henrietta gasped, stepping forward, touching her neck where the clawed hand had been. Her bare feet were squelching against wet grass. Henrietta's beloved Tooth Fairy uniform had vanished, replaced by a thick long velvet dress.
Suddenly, Henrietta heard the impossible sound of a train screeching to a stop. she spun around, her heart hammering in her chest. A hag was standing in the mist. The train sound coming was from her teeth that were grinding together. Filthy hair matted with blood and dirt fell around her shoulders and she was dressed in layers of filthy lambskin. The hag was holding something large, bundled up in her arm. It shifted, revealing the face of a tiny sleeping boy. A boy that looked an awful lot like little Larima.
"That child doesn't belong to you," Henrietta snapped, desperately wishing she had her utility belt.
The hag's lips cracked open into a grotesque skull-like smile, her shiny metal teeth covered in strips of rotting flesh.
"I forgot how defiant you can be! My arm doesn't belong to you either," the hag growled in a voice that sounded like screeching metal.
Henrietta screamed when she realised she was actually holding something. A wizened skeletal arm carved from solid gold. The hag laughed, holding up her own left arm, revealing a bloody stump. The hag then threw the sleeping child over her shoulder like it was a sack of laundry.
"Back off Little Henry, my affairs have nothing to do with you," the hag crowed, and the golden arm suddenly leapt up again wrapping its fingers around Henrietta's throat.
Henrietta blinked and suddenly found herself staring at the filthy leaf covered ceiling of Daithi's home.The arm was lying next to her, smashed into several gold pieces.
"She knew my dead name," Henrietta choked with astonishment as she slowly sat up.
"Dead what?" Azoom's voice asked as Henrietta glanced around the room anxiously.
Daithi was staring at Henrietta coldly, holding a hammer in one hand.
"You need to leave now," Daithi said in a quiet angry voice.
"I paid you!" Henrietta choked, her voice still hoarse and Daithi shook his head.
"You know my rules!" he snapped back, and Henrietta sat up. "I don't shit where I eat and I don't mess with Gods!"
"Gods? Are you sure?" Henrietta asked.
"What else could do something like this? Now get out now!" Daithi snapped back gesturing at the screens.
Henrietta got on her feet and glared at her cousin.
"Finish helping me or I will make you throw up that demon spawn," Henrietta threatened. "Don't make me sing Miss Polly had a Dolly" Henrietta snapped.
Daithi shot Henrietta's look that could melt concrete before reluctantly pulling himself back up onto the chair.
"Fine," he said through gritted teeth, picking up the wizened tree vine still wrapped around the changeling's brain.
He rolled his chair across the room and grabbed another vine .Suddenly a quiet chiming sound filled the room.