The rattling jars gave me the indication that something was about to happen.
The crowd of faceless gamblers and shadow-stitchers that filled the Grey Market didn't just clear out; they vanished into the dark like a troop of roaches. The air was so cold that I had goosebumps all over.
Suddenly the market's veil ripped apart.
The being that stepped into our world was not a Warden. It lacked the Council's cold, geometric look. It was a Snatcher. It looked like a human being who had been ground to pieces by a paper shredder, and then reassembled using rolled-up, oily black smoke. Its face was smooth and grey and covered with static, with a mouth that opened to reveal multiple rows of rusted, needle-like teeth.
"I smell the 'Real' on you, Shaper," it hissed. It spoke without using its mouth; the voice vibrated in my own brain. "Give me your skin; I want to feel the sun on my skin
I moved back. My shoes slid on the gravelly ground. The metal cuff around my wrist felt like it weighed 10 tons and was pulling my arm down to the ground. I was big, awkward, and scared out of my mind.
"Use the cuff, Ethan!" the guy yelled as he was running away behind me into the darkness before I could respond. "You better not Delete! If you break a hole here, the entire area will come down! Make the static move!"
The Snatcher came at me faster than a second could pass.
It didn't run; it clipped through the time-space continuum in and out as if there was a glitch on your computer monitor. One minute, the creature was 10 feet in front of me, and within the next second, it was airborne with its claws dangling inches from my face.
There wasn't time to think, so with my left arm throwing itself up in front of my face, the Snatcher's claws came smashing into the iron cuff.
The one memory of the London Bridge flooded back into my mind, making me feel like I had some serious baggage hanging on me. That was just what I needed to keep me in control and grounded.
The Snatcher screamed as its fingers smoldered where they touched the iron.
"I'm going to make you pay for what you did," I said with my teeth clenched, and the fear morphed into a cold, jagged feeling of rage.
I wasn't trying to destroy the world... I took that buzzing feeling inside me and put it into the iron cuff as hard as I could, and almost immediately, the cuff turned white-hot. I wasn't going to waste any time with finesse, so I swung hard and blindly at the Snatcher.
Not only did it not feel or sound like I was hitting something, but my body also went through it like it was made of glass.
My fist went into the Snatcher's chest and didn't bruise, but it went into a panic. The static grey of its body exploded with neon, glitchy types of colors, and it tried to hiss at me, but all that came out of its mouth was a distorted version of my voice saying the secret I had just given to the Trader.
"... I shall say nothing." Whatever that vile thing in front of me had uttered out loud, my own shame dissected something deep within me; my desire was no longer simply to destroy the thing but to eradicate it.
"Be Silent!" I bellowed through gritted teeth.
With a resolute grip around its neck using my iron Fist of Power, the collar hummed loudly (as if vibrating in anger), almost causing my bones to shatter from the tremendous force I used to grip my iron hand into the creature's neck. So, rather than delete the creature as I have done so many times before, this time I chose to compress the creature down into a single point in space and time.
I began to shape and compress space around my fist. The Snatcher no longer existed as an outline but was condensed into an infinitesimally small and extremely dense point of pure black ink. There was a loud, sucking "pop" as I condensed it.
Slightly stunned and dazed by the sheer magnitude of what just happened, I found myself gasping for breath, having to lean against a wall to support myself. I looked down at the red, angry material which was once my skin where my iron cuff made contact, but at least I remained... Ethan.
We need to leave. Now," the stranger said as he suddenly reappeared and grabbed my shoulder tightly. His large amber eye was full of fear. "The Snatcher was only the scout. The secret you shared with the Merchant is in the air like blood in a shark tank. Every hungry creature in the Marrow has just received a signal to hunt."
I turned to the Merchant's shelf. My jar was glowing with a pulsing, wild purple light. It was at that moment that I understood; the iron cuff was not merely an anchor.
The iron cuff is also a lighthouse. The creatures are coming to the lighthouse.