Gloom shrouded the dilapidated house. The spongy foundations revelled in the fog, mushrooms pushed out of its cracks and corners in search of more to sate their thirst.

Cal knocked on the door, a hand on Linc's old empty gun. True stood at the bottom of the sagging stoop. Their arms full holding Radio. It had woken up with the start of the rain, twelve blocks ago. If you counted delirium as being awake. Every bump and stretch jostled the pen, every breath came as a rattle. Red stained their arms.

"Eliza! We know you're in there," Cal called, banging on the door. His fist struck a soft patch and sank. He pulled free with a squelch, as if the house was reluctant to give up its snack.

"Try Allsaint," True suggested. Allsaint was the one they needed anyways.

Another knock. "Allsaint, is there an Allsaint in—there."

The door sloughed opened between one word and the next, revealed a soggy hall of splinter teeth and tongue-y mushrooms. Screeches ribboned from deep within and curled about Eliza's bird's nest hair.

"Callie," she cooed, throwing her arms all the way about him, so her wrists crossed limp at the back of his neck and her elbows poked out from the apexes of his ears.

"Don't call me that."

She was already flinging apart and sauntering past him, sunken eyes glued to the blood on True's hands.

"Tasty."

"Not one finger."

Eliza's long dirty fingernails skimmed their brow, and she poked one finger to their damp forehead.

"I know why you're here, sunshine, I heard the hollering." She crooked the finger, hooking them inside.

The door squelched shut, the cloudy jars sloshed with the rattle, the things inside them drifting lazily. Hands reached out of the shadows, to pinch pieces off the intruders, growling. True growled right back. If it were possible to hold Radio any closer they did.

"Doctor!" Eliza sang. She kicked open a door that had been kicked open so many times there was a scoop of paint and wood missing from the bottom corner. A pit opened up before her and she descended into it, crooking her finger for them to follow. As if they had any other options. Cal gagged, recoiling.

"Hell, Liza, you live here?"

"Correct."

"You know you could stay with me and Mu. This place is a level four biohazard."

Eliza slowed to a stop, mid-staircase, turning to stare vacuously at Cal. Sallow light painted her waxy, the dark smears under her eyes stretched towards the middles of her hollow cheeks.

"I love it when you talk all nerdy, Callie." She turned back and sank into the pit. And reaching out of the depths to swallow her, Cal, True, Radio; the specter of the good Doctor Allsaint. He jerked up a stair, a doll with stiff, plastic joints.

"Guests, my darling!" he beamed.

"Yes, doctor." Eliza coiled about the doctor, drawing him back into the basement. "Guests who need something."

Doctor Allsaint's lips peeled too far apart, stilting unevenly over the lower half of his face. "Ah! I'm afraid we can't afford any pro bono surgeries today. This economy. You understand."

True pressed their lips together, hurrying down the staircase. No freebies. And here they were without their pack. They got the feeling the shadow dwellers wouldn't want something as simple as earrings.

A crash followed by the hiss of a match sparked a chain reaction of small lights. Dozens of kerosene lamps and stubby candles shone on what appeared to be a massacred pool table. Felt scraped away, nets missing from the cups, and most of the finished had been scratched into oblivion.

The feeling of eyes on them creeped over True's skin. They checked over their shoulder, willing themself not to shudder.

"Recognize it?" Eliza asked, mistaking her wariness.

"Should I?"

She lolled her wrists with a noncommittal hum and slapped the center of the table. They tried to set Radio there carefully, but it moaned, voice brittle and airy from disuse. Eliza's eyebrow arched.

True crushed a snarky remark between their molars. "It's dying, help it."

A smirk flickered over Eliza's vulpine face. "Help it die?"

They were mid-lunge when a pair of spidery hands wrested them back.

"Ah ah," Dr. Allsaint chided. "There is the matter of payment, first."

"What do you want?" True demanded.

"Have a seat." The sharp edge of a chair struck the back of their knees, cutting their feet out from under hem. Eliza's iron grip clamped down on them and Allsaint held up a shaking finger to cut them off before they even opened their mouth.

Bending over Radio, he hummed and hawed. Prodded at the pen chest tube, eliciting another cry from Radio that had True halfway out of the chair before Eliza's unforgiving hold snapped them back onto the hard wood. Allsaint carried on as if the commotion was taking place on another planet and not six inches from him. Scissors had appeared in his hand, possibly from another dimension since True had yet to take their hawkish glare off him and hadn't seen him reach for anything.

Two quick snips parted blood-soaked fabric from hem to pen, Allsaint pulled the poncho back, baring Radio's scars, and frowned at the injury.

"Lucky, lucky," he murmured.

Yeah, getting stabbed was so lucky.

"See this, darling Eliza, this patient should have bled out, but all this scar tissue has restricted the blood flow. Alas, this thingy seems to have hit a lung—oh, there they go."

On the table, Radio had gone boneless.

"Do something!" True struggled against Eliza's hold. Unconcerned, the doctor turned to eye True with infuriating calm.

"You can have whatever you want." Great, now they were begging. Pride swallowed. They should have known better than to let Radio get near them, now they could never go back to how they were before. They could not go back to the loneliness. Radio had to survive, or else True wouldn't.

"You have lovely eyes."

Cold dread sickened True even as they said, "take them."

They choked on panic, fingernails bit into the wood seat. Every second, Radio drifted further and further from life.

"If that's what you want, they're yours, but you help Radio now."

A pleasant smile spread over Allsaint's withered cheeks, never reaching his glass eyes. Why wasn't he doing anything?

He snapped his fingers, the darkness shifted like a living thing. Or several living things. Clammy hands fastened about True. Wrists, ankles, thighs, belly. Cold and pale from life in dark corners. Eliza slipped from their shoulders to their jaw, forcing their head back.

"You're even crazier than me," she whispered, bright with excitement. Out of the corner of their eye they saw Allsaint handing tools to a gnarled shadow dweller. A metal pair of mangled tongs, and a spoon. True dug their nails deeper into the wood. Breathe in, breathe out. Through the mouth, through the nose. Never mind their heart turned their whole body into a laboured pulse. Never mind Eliza pressing bruises into their face.

"Wait!" they gasped, "I want proof it survived. No tricks."

"You'll hear it," Allsaint said.

"It doesn't talk," Eliza said, not a lie. Technically. She met True's stare with a wink.

Humming, Allsaint gave in. "Just the one eye, then," he sounded disappointed, "come now, Eliza, you know I need your steady hands for this."

A warmer, stiffer grip replaced hers. They could feel Cal trembling through their masks, though he had an excellent poker face. Eliza danced to Allsaint's side, and together they turned their backs on True. The pair began to work as the speculum invaded True's right eye.