How… How does he know my name…?
Elmer was unable to articulate any sort of words. It was as though his natural ability to speak had suddenly become an impossible task for him to accomplish—one he might also never be able to perform again until he was finally dead.
And with every passing second, that seemed to be more and more likely.
There, on his knees with his revolver still pointed straight ahead at a figure he could no longer see clearly, his hands quivered desperately as he fought for his life.
Each of his breath had turned labored, causing his chest to heave. His lips had parted—his throat felt constricted—and with that only ragged, wheezing sounds escaped from him as he struggled to fill his lungs with air.
Now past the stage of considering, he really wanted to blow that whistle at the cost of losing out on joining the Pathway of Time. He would be able to find another way as long as he still had his life, surely.
But… He could not. Not any longer.
His fingers had frozen. He could not even cock the hammer of his revolver nor pull its trigger, never mind loosening them and forming a circle to put beneath his lips for a whistle.
A tear rolled down his right eye.
Trying to fight back was hopeless. Being powerless was. Everything was.
This was really where he would die.
Mabel…
"Ah… No. Please. No," Elmer heard the maggot-faced man cry out frantically, and it was barely a couple of seconds after before he miraculously regained his ability to breathe once again.
With a sudden gasp, Elmer drew in a deep, shuddering breath, his chest expanding in respite as air instantly rushed into his body.
Gradually, the tightness that had taken over his heart eased, causing him to instinctively fall forward in something of a bow as a wave of relief washed over him, melting away his body's tension like it was soft butter thrown into a furnace.
Following each subsequent breath, Elmer kept reminding himself, as countless beads of sweat streamed down his forehead, that he was not dead.
He was alive. He really was still breathing!
"Forgive me," the shaking stammer that was the maggot-faced man's speech pattern, crept into Elmer's ears, and those words somehow gave him a bit of strength that he did not believe he'd still had.
Elmer inhaled sharply and pounced to his feet, immediately cocking his revolver's hammer as he flashed its nozzle at the brown-haired man a few paces away from him.
He noticed that staring at the maggot face filled him with no dread at this moment any longer. It was still outright disgusting, but he seemed to have grown some immunity to that. And he came to a conclusion that it was probably because the man had gone ahead to put a leash on his mythical presence.
But why had he not done such from the start?
Elmer decided to take no chances. He'd cocked his revolver's hammer already, so if he suddenly found himself struggling to breathe for even a second he would instantly pull the trigger. Even if it might not end up being a sure hit due to the distance between him and the maggot-faced man, it should at least do enough to disrupt the man and give him enough time to escape.
Blowing a whistle would only take longer. He might even be dead before Ms. Edna and Eddie arrived. From what he had felt of this mythical presence, it was no jape.
The quicker route was the best and safest route.
"Ah!" the maggot-faced man exclaimed suddenly and shrank backward, causing Elmer's eyes to narrow in befuddlement. "Please… Don't shoot," he added, pleading. "I… I swear I did not mean to harm you. It's just so hard to subdue."
Subdue…? The mythical presence…?
Elmer's grimace further tightened. Were all his deductions right?
"Who are you?" Elmer spoke for the first time since he'd entered this warehouse, and that helped him to figure out that his voice had gone raspy, seemingly as a result of the chokehold he had been in a few minutes ago.
He had little care for that though. Every single hard pound of his heart kept his mind focused on what was currently important.
If the maggot-faced man had really not wanted to harm him, then he still had a chance at getting 'The Warlock's Torch', and, as well, the answers to his questions. But if it turned out to be something different, then he had to be ready at all times. Even a little side distraction could cost him his life.
"I?" The maggot-faced man, who was using his arm to shield his face from Elmer's revolver, straightened up slowly like a child that had been cowering in tears until they'd seen their mother arrive. "My… My name is Craig Wiley," he answered.
"How do you know my name?" Elmer asked another without delay. This one was important.
On a normal occasion, he would have been shocked to his core when he had heard his name come out from the man's lips, but he had been battling with a greater emotion then.
While at this moment, he was trying his best not to distract himself by thinking about how such private information could have been available to someone who he'd had no deep interaction with.
Had the maggot-faced man been spying on him? That would explain what had happened when he'd returned to the mansion on Farend's Avenue. But at the same time it would leave questions on why that bizarre incident had not happened until then.
There was no use trying to come up with the answers himself. There was only one person who could answer it all, and that person was before him.
Elmer nudged a step forward cautiously, his grip tightening solidly on his revolver while his forefinger readied on its trigger.
"Speak, Craig," he voiced—though softly—the raspiness in his throat having died down. "How do you know my name?"
"They… They told me," Craig answered with a whimper.
Elmer raised his eyebrows, remaining still where he was standing. "They?"
"The… The messenger," said Craig, but that did nothing to alleviate Elmer's confusion. And it seemed Craig had noticed, because he quickly added, "That's what they gave me their name as. They said you would know them once I said that. They… They said you would!"
Elmer's muscles tensed as he lowered his brows, his chest going ahead to tighten without his approval.
He knew no one who called themself that. But… it seemed like they knew him.
Was it someone from the orphanage? No. No. They were all children who knew nothing about the supernatural. There was no way Mistress Eleanor would let any of them come in contact with such risky things.
Someone he'd met in this city? That could not be possible, right? Ms. Edna and Eddie surely were not involved with this Craig Wiley.
Then who?
Eli Atkinson? Patsy Baker? Polly Bagley? Reynold Dickinson? Hanky? Lev?
Were they a single person? A group? Who in the world was this messenger and why were they involving him with themself?
"Why are you silent?!" Craig raged all of a sudden, and in return snapped Elmer back to him.
Elmer instantly held his revolver tighter in response to the man's wild behavior and took a step backward, his gaze not once faltering upon the figure that was Craig Wiley.
"What's wrong with you?" Elmer questioned in a cautious tone, his body instinctively preparing to take on the offensive once the corrupted one before him took on the insanity that was associated with his kind.
He had been somewhat sane all this while, but the little tendencies that his demeanor oozed out kept Elmer prepared for anything.
"You… You should not be silent!" Craig leaned forward, his only remaining eye widening. "There's no time. I… I have to go back home!"
Elmer understood nothing of what the man was talking about.
Whoever this 'messenger' was, Elmer knew he did not have the liberty to be worrying about that right now. What he should be doing was finding a way to retrieve 'The Warlock's Torch' from this madman. That was all.
"There… There's no time," Craig continued as he ran his left hand on the maggot-filled half of his face. "Come. Quickly. The messenger said once I give you the information you'll help me escape this nightmare and this city. Come now. Quickly. Come."
Only if Elmer was out of his senses would he do that.
His spit turned bitter at the man's crazy action, but his repulse wasted no time shifting aside as his mind drifted quickly toward the 'information' that had been mentioned.
He was utterly confused as his brain was unable to piece together what exactly was happening here. The messenger? He knew nothing about them. And now he was to receive some sort of information?
Judging from Craig's reaction when he had remained silent, being oblivious would do him more harm than good, and that would involve his opportunity to obtain 'The Warlock's Torch'.
But if Elmer was to get that mystic artifact from this man then he had to understand what exactly was being talked about. He needed to know precisely what was going on here.
And the only way to be enlightened was by asking.
Only, he could not ask in the same way as he'd usually done for others. The wrong words or sentence structure here would ruin everything—plunge his hard work into something irreparable.
He had to tweak his method to better work in his favor.
"How am I sure you are the one?" Elmer asked—having come up with something in an instant—and Craig noticeably turned restless.
"What… What do you mean? I already mentioned 'The messenger'!" A plausible reaction, Elmer was not surprised. "And you're here, aren't you?! Why else would you be here if I'm not the one?! You already saw me twice before now. I asked for your help! What are you even saying?!"
Is this constant rage an effect of being corrupted…? Possibly… Because I can't see any other reason why he's getting angry at every single word I say…
Elmer softly pressed his lips together for a moment, trying his best to keep his somewhat hastened breathing low, since he could take no chances with his heightened hearing to calm himself at this point in time.
"Don't blame me, Craig. I'm a cautious person," Elmer resumed. "And as you can see, we're not normal beings in normal scenarios. Anything could have happened up until now. If you really want my help, then all you've said will not cut it."
Craig shrank backward, his hands going limp that the lantern his left one held almost fell to the floor.
"What… What are you saying?"
The rage is not in his voice this time, a victory…?
Sensing some sort of dominance dropped onto his palm, Elmer walked closer, though, his revolver still on standby.
"I'm saying for me to be really sure, I'm going to need more than what you're giving me. I'm going to need something that will solidly prove you are the one I am to help." Elmer heaved out a deep breath. "Tell me everything about you and the messenger's interactions. Every single thing."