The Worm in Every Heart by Gemma Files

dipped and cawed in a slice of red-grey sky.
    At the crotch of one overhanging tree’s trunk, a wet, red, knotted rag of some not easily identifiable substance glittered. Under the tree was something else, equally red, but moaning; this proved—after Romesh Singh was so good as to kick it gingerly over—to be what remained of a man who had been partially flayed. It was a portion of his forcibly donated hide, apparently, that gave the tree its surreal extra coat.
    â€œHow long since is he dead?” Grammar called across the clearing, idly running his sword through a sack of dried beans that soon proved both soaked enough to rot, and full of maggots.
    â€œHe lives yet, sahib,” Romesh Singh replied.
    Mildly impressed by such resilience, Grammar stooped to examine the man, who lay gasping—long, low, shallow gulps of liquid air, the humid foretaste of approaching rainfall—but inert, a thin line of bloodshot ivory just showing under each eyelid. Using the flat of his blade, Grammar scraped lightly over the man’s denuded chest, flicking the bright half-circle of raw flesh where his right nipple had once been back to full, painful life.
    The man reared up with a scream, then back again. His eyes, all white around their irises, fell on Grammar—and immediately widened further in horrified recognition.
    â€œWhere are thy fellows, offal?” Grammar asked him.
    The man coughed, wetly. At Grammar’s nod, Romesh Singh kicked him lightly in the head, forcing him further sidelong into the mud. The man doubled up, vomiting earth mixed with blood on Grammar’s boots. With a little moue of disgust, Grammar put one shiny black heel to the back of the man’s neck, pinning him down, and leant again to rephrase his initial request, this time a bit more insistently. Adding:
    â€œIt will do thee no good to lie. Remember, thou hast some skin yet left to lose.”
    The man drew a fresh gulp of air, mixed with a fair chunk of his own waste.
    â€œThou . . . knowest,” he managed, at last.
    Grammar frowned.
    â€œI fear,” he said, “that thou art mistaken.”
    Even he, however, could see that the man was clearly far beyond dissembling.
    Grammar looked to Romesh Singh. Behind them, someone gave a nervous little step backwards, crushing something not particularly loud, but obviously breakable.
    â€œThou knowest,” the man repeated, dully.
    â€œThen it can do no harm to tell me again.”
    The man spit, a weak, retching stream of pink, which Grammar easily avoided. His dying eyes took on a blank gleam of unsatisfied malice.
    â€œHuman tiger,” he said. “Blood-drinker. Evil thing. Why dost thou return? Why bring thy lackeys, when you needed none upon thy first visit? We were many; now my fellows are gone I know not where. And it was thee that brought us to this pass, white corpse-eating dog, thou mocking horror. It was thee.”
    (And here occurs a mystery you city-dwellers cannot hope to know, o my beloved, especially without the benefit of personal experience: The sheer, shocking speed with which light drains away when sunset has ended, here in the jungle’s heart—in one bright gush, like blood from a slashed throat, leaving nothing behind but a certain stillness; the hush of drawn breath, or the barest of unvoiced sighs.)
    On Grammar’s deaf side, one of the company blurted, all unthinking: “Rhakshasa!”
    Grammar did not hear it, of course—but caught Romesh Singh’s brief little jerk of reaction from the corner of one eye, and whipped quickly around, following it to its trembling, rooted source. His pistol had already appeared in one hand, amusingly enough; primed, aimed and ready, almost before he had consciously thought to draw it.
    â€œWho said that?” he asked.
    No one answered. Undeterred, Grammar shifted only slightly, sighting down the barrel at the soldier he judged most clearly in range.
    â€œYou, I