A gray pall hung over the tiny town of Little Hoofington. Her skies were dressed all in white - an apocalyptic bride, newly minted to wreak havoc over what few huddled lives remained in her grasp. Hers was a rapidly tightening grip, as street after unmaintained street was reclaimed by nature and cast into terrifying relief against the paltry light of those few fires that remained. Two days prior one more hearth had gone cold, as the Sunshine Waffle Community Health Clinic joined the dirge of empty banshee wails from deserted windows.

Only three chimneys still sent wafts of smoke into the sky, and these choked it forth in bursts, like a nervous dependance on nicotine. They were the Church of the Night, Kitty’s Nip, and the Little Hoofington Constabulary. Of these, only Kitty’s Nip sent stubbornly pleasant blasts of hazelnut and bergamot into the bleak afternoon, and therein lay the center of activity for the entire town. Not that there was much left to see.

Kitty Contessa brushed a ruby curl out of her eyes and pushed another hot cup of Earl Gray across the bar of her establishment with the tip of her hoof. Her makeup spoke of the finery of a Los Pegasus showmare, but the bags of exhaustion under her eyes had finally begun to shine through. She sighed, touching a hoof to her forehead to relieve the discomfort of an apparent headache. “I suppose there’s a first time for everything,” she mused with a small, mirthless chuckle. “I’m used to ponies drowning their sorrows in booze, but if this keeps up, I’ll be fresh out of hot tea.”

Constable Rose, now sporting a khaki parka over her olive drab coat, glanced down at the concoction. She sniffed at it and made a face. “Don’t figgur how anypony can drink this here stuff.”

Kitty laughed softly. “You’re a hard mare, Dusky Rose. Not all of us cope with stress in the same way, and our resident Captain Silvermane is probably used to the high society of an officer. There are those who take great comfort in tea.”

Rose shifted her rump on the stool and glanced automatically at an empty chair by the piano. She had expected a quip from Whim the clockmaker, but just as quickly turned away in disgust. For all the time she had known him, as with so many of the others, she was having difficulty bringing his image to mind. All she could see of the departed were their faces at the final moment, when death had come on screaming wings to carry their souls thrashing into the night. Every memory had been poisoned by the inability to bury her friends in the frozen earth, and for her there was no closure. Had she her way, Rose might have torn down every image of friends, family, and history that still lined the walls of Kitty’s Nip.

“Why y’still do that, anyway?”

Kitty blinked without comprehension. “Do what, dear?”

Rose pointed at Kitty’s face. “Make yerself up like that every mornin’.”

Kitty shrugged. “Is it so wrong, to want to feel pretty and young again?”

Rose shook her head once. “Y’know, it’s part of my job t’keep folks calm, but it’s too late fer all that now, so I’ll tell ya plain. There’s at least two changelings left in this here town, and that psychopathic nutball Pinkamena, goin’ ‘round slashin’ and thrashin’ everypony up. I ain’t gonna stop doin’ my duty till my soul’s in Tartarus makin’ up for my sins, but there ain’t enough law to protect everypony no more. There’s a real good chance you ain’t gonna live to see the weekend, much less yer next birthday. Prolly ain’t much good tryin’ to hook a stallion now.”

Kitty snorted. “It’s more than that, Constable Rose. My face is my routine. It’s a comfort to me to go through my motions every morning, and I suspect that after that grisly showing two days ago at the gallows, routine is possibly the only thing some of us have left.”

Rose had no counter-argument. She noted Kitty’s elegantly feminine, yet slightly sagged and pudgy with age flank. “Fergit yer corset today?”

Kitty closed her eyes and let out a breath. “No, but I find myself just as much on edge as everypony else lately, and the pinching finally made me too uncomfortable.” She raised her foreleg and swept it across the room. “I am the only one here now after all, now that Caveat has gone to stay with her employer at the church. I suppose there’s something to be said for not bothering with certain appearances after all.”

Rose only nodded. She caught the teacup in the glow of her magic and trudged across the room to place it upon the only occupied table, where half a dozen empty cups waited for a busboy who would never come. Rose was a hardened grunt, but the very image of her commander instilled in her a desire not to have a seat.

Hector Silvermane looked ten years older than the time he first showed his face in Little Hoofington. He was gaunt and malnourished, with a haunted look about him as if one could expect evil spirits to rise from behind his back at any moment. He was wearing the helmet he had refused to remove when his party entered the establishment, and his eyes never moved from the teacups as Rose moved one away to place the new one beneath him. Opposite the captain sat Whatzit, who though she was as much the worse for wear as any of them, had fared better in terms of energy. Her work was apparently her comfort, and she was seldom seen now without her notebook and charts regarding the state of the village and its players.

“--can only be her,” Whatzit went on with whatever she had been saying. “Captain, it’s simple process of elimination now. If we accept that the three of us are not changelings, that only leaves Stringbean, wherever he is, Caveat, and the two churchponies--”

“Don’t forget me sweetie,” Kitty called from the bar. “I’m not quite ready to push up daisies yet.”

“--and Miss Kitty,” Zit appended, “and whomever else, but none of that matters. The only pony left in town who could possibly be the changeling queen is Cadabra Smile. She’s the only one with magic powerful enough to be her. Otherwise they would have killed her off a long time ago, because her power makes her too dangerous.”

Hector Silvermane sat, searching for demons somewhere in his cup of tea. He said nothing. Whatzit moved to capture his attention again, but Rose caught the younger mare’s hoof in a gentle magic barrier, releasing it when Zit relented. Finally Rose sat down beside the recent-deputy.

“You ever kill a pony, Zit?”

Whatzit balked at the strange question. “I...n-no ma’am?” She puffed up her chest. “B-but I’m ready to do my duty against the changelings.”

“Bugs ain’t what ah’m talkin’ about,” Rose corrected. “Killin’ bugs is easy, if you got the killer instinct inside you in the first place. They’re all fangs ‘n hissin’, walking around with them scary monster looks about ‘em. They ain’t got no eyeballs to stare into, and they don’t look like you - at least, not once they’re dead.”

“I...I don’t understand--”

Rose didn’t mince words. “Ah’m askin’ you if you ever murdered a pony before. In a fight, or a brawl, or somethin’ like that. Even if you ain’t killed nopony, have you ever felt the rage in your heart, when you lift up your foreleg or light your horn and think nothin’ but ‘Ah’m gonna git you. Ah’m gonna take yer life away.’”

Whatzit cleared her throat and sat back, tugging gently on the pink scarf Silvermane had given her like a protective talisman. “...no ma’am.”

“The cap’n committed a murder two days ago,” Rose said simply. “He took that poor momma, that clinic pony with that pure heart, and he wrapped a noose ‘round her neck till it broke.”

Whatzit glanced wearily at Silvermane, who had not moved. “...Constable, please…”

Rose shook her head. “Ain’t no two ways about it. He killed that mare, and t’be frank? If he hadn’t done it, I mighta. Because fer that one moment, that one brief instant, I was thinkin’ the same thing he was. It made perfect sense that Buttermilk Waffle would be one of ‘em. Mah gut started tellin’ me that, just like his was. This here ain’t no sane place no more, and we ain’t no law. All we’re tryin’ to do is save our own skin, and the lives of as many ponies as we can drag outta here when the weather lifts.”

“I...but…”

“Beat Trotter was a good deputy,” Rose went on. “And he was mah friend. All I c’n do to remember him is lay some fake flowers over the spot where he died while playin’ Taps on some old drum. Ah can’t even put him in the ground. Hadda haul his body off with all the others, and dump him in a storage shed full up with dozens ‘n dozens of other dead folk. Some of ‘em been in there for weeks, all froze up by the cold. Looks like some damn nightmare full of pony bodyparts waitin’ for a meat grinder.”

Whatzit looked ill. She zoned out, blinking back to reality only when Rose touched her on the shoulder.

“That’s what’s goin’ through the captain’s head right now. This was our job before. It’s personal now. He can’t fergive himself fer what he did, even if I c’n look past it because I know any of us might have done the same. Them damn bugs bloodied us with their fangs, and then made us bloody each other with our own hooves. I’d wager if the sky cleared up right this here minute that Cap’n Silvermane wouldn’t wanna leave ‘till the job’s done, and neither do I. It’s kill or be killed now, and our best plan is to find ‘em and take ‘em out before they do the same to us. Only difference is that we got morals, else we’d hang everypony what’s left here and burn the whole place to the ground.”

Whatzit had stopped listening. She placed her hoof gently on Silvermane’s and cooed at him like a lover.

“Captain, sir...I know you didn’t kill Buttermilk Waffle on purpose. We...we still need you. Please, you can’t give up on us now.”

There was nothing for a solid minute, until Hector Silvermane finally blinked. His eyes rose from the teacup to his covered hoof, and he spoke with a rasp from his unused vocal chords.

“...don’t call me that anymore. I can’t do what I did and still call myself a soldier. If ever we get out of here alive, I’m going to turn myself in for the murder I committed.”

“We ain’t outta here yet,” Rose observed. “We still gotta git this done. But ah promise y’one thing,” the old nag grinned, “ah’ll be right there with ya, Cap’n, when we bring that queen’s head in an’ drop it all over Princess Celestia’s good carpets, heh.”

“A-and Pinkamena too,” Whatzit added. “Do...what Rose said. With her. Captain please, we have to do something, and if you won’t...I...I will.”

Rose patted Whatzit’s withers. “Rein it in, girl. I share the notion, we all do. But we needa game plan, and that’s where our cap’n comes in. Y’don’t wanna get as bloodthirsty as that queen herself.”

“Now that will certainly be the day.” Kitty added her voice to the conversation. She was at the table herself now, and offered Whatzit a reassuring smile as she began to lay out meals for the three law enforcement officers. “Of all the ponies in all this town I think you can be safe around, it’s our dear little Autumn Dew Drop Jelly Passion Rainbow.” Kitty reached over to muss Whatzit’s mane. “She’s the whole town’s little filly, and now she’s trying to save it along with the rest of you. I think that’s worth more than a little praise.”

“Dern right,” Rose agreed. Her stomach growled involuntarily at the scent of a hot meal, but she balked at the plates. “We ain’t got the bits fer this…”

“Psh,” Kitty waved a hoof dismissively. “You said it yourself, Constable. We may all be dead in the morning. If keeping your tummies full has any chance at all of saving our lives, then I believe I’m the one who owes you. I won’t hear of bits. Not now and not anymore.”

“...thank you, Miss Kitty,” Silvermane said somberly. Eyes turned to the captain. He seemed hesitant to eat his food, as if any joy he took in it was a slap in the face of the life he had taken. He chewed with purpose, as though upon cud, and finally spoke again.

“We need to find Stringbean. And we need to get everypony together. Bring them all to one central place. We’re weaker when we’re divided.”

Whatzit stiffened. “And if the killers are among them, Captain?”

“The changelings won’t attack us outright until they know they have us for certain. With two of their number dead there can only be so many of them still about, and we can be assured there aren’t a hundred of them posing as streetlights and rocks, or they would have overwhelmed us by now. They want a hoofhold on our territory, so they can’t take any chance of failing. Moreover, they’re trapped here too, at least for now. They’ll be even less likely to make a move when we’re all together. Either that, or they’ll lose their cool, try to finish us anyway, and...we’ll have them then.”

Nopony spoke. The plan was an omelette that involved the breaking of eggs, but none had any better strategy to offer.

“...what about Pinkamena?” Zit asked.

“She’s out there somewhere,” Silvermane replied. “Again, if we’re all together, we’re safer from her.”

“This here’s the best place to hold up,” Kitty offered. “I have better food than your jailhouse and lots of it. Plus I have more room for everypony. I...suppose we can even have a little Hearth’s Warming party, in three more days.”

Hector fell silent. Images of his beloved wife flashed before his eyes, for he had forgotten the holiday entirely. In nine days his life had come to this, and it would be a small miracle if he spent the holidays with his wife. He resolved that even if he was in chains for his crimes, he would be there with her, and neither changeling nor serial killer would keep him from his family.

“Good,” Silvermane confirmed, rising from his chair. “Then we have work to do.”

“We need to get to the church!” Whatzit cried, rising in turn at twice the speed of her superior. “Once we have Cadabra and Lora, we can rest easy!”

“Now,” Rose admonished. “Yer still jumpin’ to conclusions missy. Y’don’t know fer sure that--”

“Yes I do,” Zit practically growled. “We get her here, and we’ll prove it. You’ll see. Plus we have no idea where Stringbean is, but I’ll bet you if he’s anywhere? He’s hanging out near the church. He claimed that Cadabra tried to murder him, and he’s the type to want revenge. We go there, and we’ll get everypony we need to wrap this up.”

Hector raised a brow in the young detective’s direction. He appreciated Zit’s passion even in the face of adversity, and it reminded him of the enduring spirit of his wife. The scarf around Zit’s neck helped to complete the mental image, and it fueled him with the energy he needed to put his deeds aside and see his duty to the end.

“The chruch,” Silvermane agreed. “The two of you had better prepare some offensive spells. Miss Kitty--”

“Don’t you worry about me,” Kitty spoke up, her hips swaying as she sauntered back towards the bar. “I get the notion I’m gonna be just fine sitting tight here for now. I’ll keep the light on for you heroes. Come back soon, hear?”

With that, the trio began their preparations for a visit to, and perhaps assault on, the local Church of the Night.

Author's Note

There were no new deaths in this chapter.

Captain Hector Silvermane
Constable Dusky Rose
Deputy Beat Trotter (Jailer)
Whatzit
Cadabra Smile
Lora Lore
Stringbean
Kitty Contessa
Whim (Partypony)
Maple Waffle (Changeling Drone)
Buttermilk Waffle (Nurse)
Chocolate Waffle
Strawberry Waffle (Changeling Forger)
Scoops (Reporter)
Specs (Watchpony)
Caveat
Beanie