“Do we really have to go there now?”

Constable Rose, the hood of her khaki parka pulled up so that her horn peeked through like the barrel of the weapon it was, regarded Deputy Whatzit with a snerk. “An hour ago y’had an itch fer this place so far up yer rear end it’d take a unicorn proctologist goin’ to the hilt to git it out. Now you don’t wanna go?”

Whatzit wrinkled her snout at the unpalatable analogy and pushed her glasses up on her muzzle with her hoof, for her magic was busy lighting the way in overcast skies. “But why go to the Church of the Night at night? Cadabra and Lora are night cultists. They sleep most of the day. We could deal with them easily then.”

Captain Silvermane, who was measuring his crunchy steps in the heavy snow along the unmaintained streets, shook his head. “There’s no way we can approach the church from any direction in all this snow without making noise, so the element of surprise will be lost no matter what we do. Caveat will likely be watching the church during the day, and I don’t think we’re going to have much luck reasoning with her alone.”

Rose scoffed. “Why dont’cha tell her the real reasons, Cap’n? That changelings sleep whenever they wanna, an’ we might as well go as soon as we stopped off at the jailhouse for supplies, ‘cause somepony else is prolly gonna end up dead in the mornin’ if we don’t?”

Silvermane’s eyes narrowed, but he digressed. “Cadabra listened to reason and came quietly once. She might do so again. And this isn’t an arrest, anyway. It’s for their own protection.”

Zit looked unconvinced, but she kept her mouth shut. Between the trio floated unspoken questions, such as who was to say that the denizens of the church were any better off where they were, and whether or not any of them were changelings, which by mere population statistics, seemed likely.

Hector’s ears swiveled. “Are you ready, Constable?”

Rose cleared her throat and checked to see that one of the three remaining talismans that could bring about the spell that trapped Maple Waffle just before his execution was still safely in her pocket. The other two were the possessions of her companions, one each. Beyond that, her ‘equipment’ consisted of a few pairs of huff cuffs hastily stuffed into her parka, and a menagerie of spells she had learned in the service - all of which amounted to bolt-type blasts of various intensity.

“Mmhm,” the constable replied. “Ah been goin’ around this town fer weeks now expectin’ to meet mah maker at any moment, Cap’n. One time’s as good as the next.”

Silvermane nodded, but inside his world was standing on its head and sticking out its tongue at him. In a smattering of days he had gone from an upstanding citizen to a shell-shocked soldier so obsessed with the performance of his duties such that he was no longer certain if he could stay his hoof from another heinous act against the innocent. He led his entourage through the streets with a grim look, suspecting as little for his remaining mortality as did his ‘troops’. The once proud line of lockstep soldiers in polished armor he was used to reviewing every day now numbered only two; these consisted of an over-the-hill nag with a sour eye and an itchy horn, and a wet behind the ears young mare who had been armed hastily with a few novice spells and was far better suited on the forensics team that showed up after the action.

Hector Silvermane was afraid. But moreso of the threats that lived inside his own head.

At length, the pointy spires and venerable iron pickets of the local Church of the Night came into view. Its windows were as always covered by heavy drapes, and the device of Princess Luna hung upon the door like a plea for the Destroyer to pass the building by. The place was quiet, and Silvermane found himself wishing for any sound that might suggest the occupants had not already been slaughtered en masse. He halted his retinue at the decrepit gate and dispensed with covert operations.

“Cadabra Smile!” Hector announced. “Come out! We need to talk!”

There was no response beyond the dance of smoke oozing from the church’s single, narrow chimney.

“Come out, or we’re coming in!”

Again, there was nothing. Silvermane nodded at his troops.

“Fan out. I want all the exits covered. Call out if you find anypony. Remember that we’re here to help them, but if they refuse to stand down...be prepared to defend yourself.”

Silvermane kicked in the already rickety gate with ease and waited for Rose and Zit to be on the move before he strode defiantly towards the main entrance. Mere paces from the stoop, he paused as the heavy wooden door creaked open and spilled forth a single pony, who stood blocking his way with stubbornness equalling his own.

Caveat, in her beaten copper armor and helmet, stared down the guard captain with an unreadable expression.

“Captain.”

Silvermane inclined his head but dared not bow it with a nod. “ Caveat. Are Cadabra and Lora in there with you?”

“Maybe,” Caveat said simply, the snap of her leather scabbard already undone. “Is there something we can do for you?”

Silvermane didn’t so much as twitch an ear. “I want you all to come with us back to Kitty’s.”

Caveat snorted derisively. “My employer prefers to stay here.”

“There’s safety in numbers,” Silvermane reasoned. “There aren’t many of us left, and at this point the only way we have a chance of making it out of Little Hoofington alive is if we hold up together until the storm passes. It’s the most well-provisioned and defensible spot left in town.”

Caveat was chewing on something. Whatever it was, she spat it into the snow before replying. “Is that a fact. And suppose you or one of your cronies is a changeling or a Celestia-be-damned psychopath? What’s your safety worth then?”

“The changelings would have killed us all by now if they felt safe enough to do so,” Silvermane explained. “They’ll be that much more hesitant to make a move if we’re all crowded together. The same goes for a serial killer, especially one with a goal like Pinkamena’s that doesn’t involve suicide.”

“Assuming you aren’t all changelings,” Caveat replied, “just waiting for us to trot into your web before you bleed us dry.”

Silvermane gritted his teeth. “I could say the same about all of you, if you refuse to come with us.”

Caveat shrugged and stood firm. “We can stand here accusing each other of being changelings from now till Hearth’s Warming Captain, if that’s what puts the magic in your friendship. I’ve got nothing but time.”

It was Silvermane’s turn to snerk. “You were a guard once. You know this is a sound tactic. What is she promising you to make you so thick-headed? Bits? Money won’t do you any good when you’re dead.”

“That a threat, Captain?”

“We don’t have time for this!” Silvermane shouted, his cool somewhere at the bottom of the mining pit with the broken body of Buttermilk Waffle. “Just come with us, before it’s too--”

A shriek that tore up the still air finished Captain Silvermane’s sentence for him. At once he was at a gallop, heedless of the mercenary at the door as he barreled through the snow around to the side of the building. A side entrance of the church lay wide open, and a few paces from it was a dark bundle lying in the snow. Jutting out from the bundle was the foreleg of a pony, but the night was too dark to make out the color, nor check for the presence of a changeling’s telltale holes from a distance. Standing over the bundle with a look of wide-eyed madness on his face was the drab countenance of Stringbean. Whatzit cringed in a crouch by the perimeter fence, her hooves covering her head.

“MURDERERS!!” Stringbean screamed. “All of you! You’re all bloody-damned changelings! You thought you could find me - could kill me! But you’re too busy killing each other!!”

Silvermane caught a glimpse of Caveat out of the corner of his eye but chose to ignore it. He dropped into a crouch, his hackles up and his horn sparking, as he circled the miner and closed in on poor, terrified Whatzit.

Stringbean wore the same colorless cloak as before, but he was pale as death, and his charms were on full display. Strapped firmly to his foreleg was a wicked pickaxe; with his background as a miner, Silvermane had no doubt he knew how to use his chosen weapon. The miner made no move to attack, but he thrust the improvised armament in the direction of the guard captain.

“You’re in on it too, Silvermane!” Stringbean shouted. “Or else you wouldn’t be so keen as to get near one of the killers!”

Silvermane never took his eyes from Stringbean as he moved to within earshot of his deputy. “Are you hurt?”

“N-no…” Zit whimpered. “I...I’m sorry I...I got scared, I couldn’t stop him from--”

There was another cry of anguish, and Silvermane’s eyes snapped to the open door. In the doorway stood Cadabra Smile, her lilac mane and cobalt cape flitting over her sangria coat in the chill breeze. Her eyes were wide, and she galloped out to the bundle in the snow, heedless of the danger.

“Wh-what hast thou done to our faithful!?”

“Don’t look at me to do the killing!” Stringbean snarled. “You’ve already done enough, and it’s about time you paid for it!”

Cadabra fell in the snow over the fallen body and raised it in her forelegs to cradle it. “Lora...Lora, no...you are our parish, all we have left...we were sworn to protect you…”

Stringbean raised his pick like an executioner’s blade, for his quarry was already prone on her knees in the snow before him. He made to strike, but a blast of magic impacted with his weapon strongly enough to rip it from its bonds and send it flying. Staggered by the blow and subsequent rope burn to his foreleg, he was tackled easily by a form in a khaki parka who dove at him without fear.

“Ah got ‘im!” Constable Rose shouted as she brandished a pair of hoofcuffs in her magic. “Ah got th’bastard!”

Silvermane hurried to the constable’s aid. Caveat closed with her employer and knelt beside her, knife still floating beside her head by glow of her own unicorn aura. She said nothing when she noted the amount of hot blood steaming in a growing pool all around the body in the snow and Cadabra’s lap. There was far too much of it - no pony could possibly have survived such a loss.

Cadabra had taken to hysterical wailing as she stroked the bundle, some of which became discernable words. “Lora...we are so sorry...so devout were thee, a paragon that any lover of The Night would be shamed beside...and such a kind soul to boot...how can this be…”

Silvermane and Rose hauled a restrained Stringbean to his hooves. Without remorse for her condition, the captain barked an order at Whatzit. “Report!”

Zit rose on unsteady hooves and hesitated towards the group, as though fearful the miner might still somehow attack. “She...she must have heard me walking around in the snow...she barely had the door open, I was about to tell her who I was...th-then he came running out of nowhere and...and…”

“Liar!” Stringbean spat, the blood vessels in his eyes so pronounced as to bring further question to his sanity. “YOU did it! You’re in on it with them! I saw it myself!” His gaze moved to Cadabra. “Let me go so I can take out the queen before it’s too late!!!”

Silvermane passed control of Stringbean entirely to Rose. “Get him out of here. Make sure he doesn’t escape this time.” Rose began to force Stringbean away, but his tirade never ceased.

“You think it was me!? Check her - check her body! She’s more full of holes than a damn changeling! Only unicorns can make holes like that! She’s a worthless pile of Swiss cheese just like when she was alive, but I didn’t kill her!”

“Useless--h-how...how dare thee.”

Silvermane could as much as see the last straw being incinerated behind Cadabra’s fiery eyes. She rose slowly, her hooves set in the snow, and as her horn came to life, Caveat moved to hold her back.

“Release us! We have had ENOUGH of this worm!!”

“Calm down,” Caveat replied as she interposed herself between Cadabra and her target. “Do you wanna be a murderer too?”

“Where were thee when our beloved parishioner was being destroyed!?”

Caveat gritted her teeth. “...you paid me to protect you…”

“Then you have failed me! BEGONE!!”

With that, Cadabra brought forth a flash of magic that knocked Caveat off her hooves and sent her sprawling several yards away. Silvermane was close enough to the event horizon to be pushed back too, though he managed to keep his stance. When his eyes came back into focus, he saw the night cultist’s horn alive with power sufficient to light up the church courtyard like mid-afternoon. Her cape and mane blew as if in a strong wind; even her stoic bodyguard couldn’t approach her.

“Filth!” Cadabra raged at Stringbean. “Your life ends here.”

“Cadabra NO--!!”

Silvermane’s entreat fell on deaf ears. Tears streaming down the cultist’s face bespoke of a pony who was past her breaking point, and even Constable Rose could not stand up to her unbridled rage. With nothing left to do but hit the deck, the constable dove for cover as an electric blast not only separated Stringbean’s head from his shoulders, but obliterated it like a watermelon before a sledgehammer. The heat alone was enough to fuse Stringbean’s charms into an amorphous mass of metal, and what gray matter he had that was not instantly incinerated splattered against the church wall to sizzle away the ice and snow.

Stringbean’s corpse convulsed and rocked, standing for a moment like a place setting undisturbed by the sudden removal of the tablecloth...and then collapsed into the snow, steaming blood still pumping from the stub of his neck.

Whatzit screamed. Rose retched. Caveat choked. Silvermane let out a litany of curses and moved to catch the night cultist, for she had expended so much power that her consciousness faded out almost instantly.

“Some kinda law you got around here,” Caveat muttered, though her lack of eye contact gave away that even she was shaken. “Every damn pony just murdering everypony els--”

“SHUT UP, Caveat!” Silvermane barked. The intensity of the words and the look in his eyes was enough to actually make the bodyguard obey. “Do you think I don’t know that!? Do you want me to say I failed - does that make you happy, you son of a nag?? Fine - I failed! We all failed! This town has become Tartarus itself! There’s nothing left for us to do but pull the wagons into a circle and try to stay alive!!”

Everypony waited until Captain Silvermane had no more venom to spit. His heaving breaths refused to slow, and so Rose spoke to him with the greatest care.

“...Cap’n...what...what do we do now…?”

Silvermane’s heart was racing, and in his eyes was something nopony, not even Caveat, wanted to have anything to do with. He glanced at the delicate, unconscious mare in his grasp. Despite her tirade she seemed to be peacefully asleep, and the image stirred up inside Silvermane thoughts of his dear wife on that final morning before his departure that quelled him.

“...we’re going to Kitty’s Nip,” Hector shot a glare at Caveat, “we’re all going there. Now.”

“The bodies…” Zit whimpered, “...we should at least take them off the street to the warehouse…”

“Leave them,” Silvermane ordered. “It’s no longer safe to go anywhere in this town alone, not for any of us. And if anypony insists upon doing so anyway, I’ll take that as proof that they’re a changeling.” The captain hoisted Cadabra onto his back and made for the street without another word, while the constable cast final glances at the two bodies left to freeze, and the two ponies who remained on their hooves.

“Y’all heard the cap’n. Let’s git.”

The trio formed up behind their leader, but none walked together, and all kept a watchful eye on the rest.

Author's Note

Stringbean has died. Stringbean was the Mule.

Lora Lore has died. Lora Lore was the Gumshoe.

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