Leader Guy spat. “Now, I kill you.” He raised his sword…and froze. His face turned pale. His skin began to shrivel. His beard fell out whisker by whisker like dead pine needles. Finally, his skin crumbled away, along with his clothes and flesh, until Leader Guy was nothing but a bleached-white skeleton, holding a sword in his bony hands. Standing behind him, his hand on the skeleton’s shoulder, was Nico di Angelo. “That’s better,” Nico said. “Now stand down.” The skeleton obeyed, lowering its sword and stepping away from me.
