You know, being a vigilante raises some rather interesting questions. Is what I'm doing just? Is it moral? Who am I to take the law into my own hands? Can I be judge, jury, and executioner? The one question I didn't think I'd be asking myself so much is: am I dead? Is this the afterlife?

  No, the afterlife doesn't hurt this much. I cracked my eyes open and groaned as pain radiated in sickening waves through my hip and left leg. My brow furrowed in confusion as I turned my head slowly. I wasn't in the tunnel anymore. Where was I? As my brain tried to piece together the final few seconds before I fell into unconsciousness, my senses began to refocus. I saw flickering candlelight all around me. I was in some sort of large, old-style stone building, and judging by the cold radiating across my back, I was lying on the floor. I turned my head and saw shadows flickering wildly across the wall. There were tall stained glass windows and scattered pews and benches. Then I heard the cooing… no, it wasn't cooing. It was more like chanting. Jumbled sounds of a hundred inhuman voices echoed around the building. As I looked up to the ceiling and back at the stained glass windows, I realized I was in a church. My swollen brain kept trying to piece together how I'd ended up from the pitch-black tunnel to a church, but it had no answers for me.

  I heard flapping wings and more cooing, and then I saw shadows dancing, flickering around the walls, seven or eight feet tall, with giant bat-like wings that looked like demonic monsters spat from hell itself. I jumped at the sight of them and rolled to my hands and knees instinctively.

  I looked up and saw perhaps one of the strangest sights I'd ever seen in my young life. There was a giant cauldron of fire in the middle of the church, the size of a bathtub. A fire raged and roared inside it, and around it danced a ring of jet-black pigeons as dark as midnight on a moonless night. They jigged and moved in perfect synchronized movements, the odd cooing chant coming from them. It was a melodic and unnerving sound. They raised their wings and extended their feathers in perfect unison, casting terrifying shadows across the wall. Their beaks were black, their eyes were black, even their feet were black. Something about the creatures sickened me, as if they were just wrong, unnatural, and they shouldn't be here.

  I looked up and saw that the rest of the building was entirely full of regular-looking pigeons, but they were all sitting almost perfectly still, swaying side to side as if caught in some sort of trance. It was the first time I'd ever seen pigeons in a perfect line, set out in concentric circles that widened the further away from the cauldron they were.

  Then I saw the Pigeon King, and I swear the damn creature had gotten even bigger somehow. He was the size of a small dog now. His light grey feathers had darkened, grown longer and sharper. Even his beak looked longer and crueler, and the snow-white crest on his stomach had a reddish tinge to it. His now long, curled foot claws dug into a lectern at the head of the church. He raised his wings, which looked almost as long as one of my legs now, and called at the top of his voice.

  "Let the sacrifice begin!"

  That voice crunched through me; it was guttural and didn't sound very much like the Pigeon King at all. Sweat had begun to form on my brow and dripped down the sides of my face. I didn't know if it was the heat or fear that was making me sweat, and I almost jumped out of my skin when four black pigeons descended from somewhere, carrying what looked like glistening chunks of meat. Two of them were sharing a long, wet, dripping rope, which I realised, with a churn of my stomach, was the intestines of something. One by one, they dropped their offerings into the fire, which belched and flared and turned a shade of blue as it gobbled up the meat, growing and looking like it was about to spill out of the cauldron and take the whole church with it.

  The intensity of the flames was like something I'd never experienced before, and I could feel it searing the little hairs from my face and my hands, even from the distance I was. The black pigeons cavorted and spun faster and faster, their energy frenetic, almost manic, and the pigeons in the rafters swayed quicker and quicker, completely entranced by the lunacy. I saw the fire glinting in the Pigeon King's eyes, and I saw the naked hunger and lust in there. Another black pigeon circled the fire carrying what looked like it might be a heart. It circled the flames and then was taken by them. The fire leapt upwards and consumed the pigeon and the heart in a flash of heat, searing them both and turning them to ash. The Pigeon King cackled at the sight of it, and the black pigeons extended their wings and cawed in unison with him.

  I saw another pigeon fly away and my eyes followed it. I saw the ebony pigeon land on a pile of meat and disjointed organs. There were two long, curved horns laid out next to the pile of glistening offal and what had once been the Tank Beetle's carapace, which had been neatly cut into rectangles somehow. Were they sacrificing the Tank Beetle? What was going on?

  A part of me wanted to stand up and confront the Pigeon King. I wasn't sure why exactly, but this whole scene felt… wrong. A larger part of me wanted to turn on my heels and sprint out of the church as fast as I could and get away from whatever this was. Evil pulsated around the building. Something deeply unnatural was happening here.

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  With tremendous effort, I dragged my feet underneath me and pulled my broken body to somewhere near a crooked upright stance. The insane ritual was reaching a crescendo now. More and more bits of the Tank Beetle were being cast into the fire. The Pigeon King was swelling, his eyes locked on the inferno in front of him. The black pigeons spun and twirled and danced, even as the fire licked and burnt at them; they never stopped. I took a step forward, and then another, and crossed the line of the first pigeons, and everything suddenly stopped. The black pigeons froze. The grey pigeons in their concentric circles stopped swaying, falling into a hushed silence. A hundred beady little eyes turned upon me. The Pigeon King, his fierce, golden eyes finally left the flames and focused on me.

  "Mageling! You live!" the Pigeon King said. His voice sounded like him again, though there was still that raw unearthliness just behind it. "Well done, my boy, a fine job indeed!"

  I noticed him wave a wing at the black pigeons, who slowly began their circling dance and chanting again. The Pigeon King flapped around the fire towards me, and landed on a pew. He was definitely bigger somehow, more muscular and powerful-looking, less like a pigeon and more like a small eagle.

  "I must say," the Pigeon King said, "I had given you only half a chance of success. I thought for certain the Tank Beetle would kill you, but you have proved yourself to be a resourceful and effective follower, little mageling."

  "What is this?" I asked him. "What's going on? How did you get me out of that tunnel, and why are you…”

  "The fewer questions you ask, the better, mageling," the Pigeon King cut me off with a wave of his wing. "This is simply a small spell to ensure the safety of my people. Pay it little mind."

  "This is a protection spell?" I asked him.

  "Something like that," the Pigeon King replied. "Honestly, your primitive mind would struggle to comprehend it on a good day, let alone a day when you've been smashed around by a 1,000-pound beetle. You will have to regale us with the tale of how you defeated the creature, but some other time. Right now, I think it's best that you get yourself home and get some sleep. You mortals love sleep, don't you?"

  "Yes, that would be best," I replied, although the words didn’t sound like my own.

  I looked at the circle of pigeons again and their eerie shadows, which seemed to move not quite in sync with them. They twisted and lurched across the walls unnaturally, and I looked back at the Pigeon King. While his voice sounded lighthearted and his words were friendly, I saw darkness in them, a cold glint in his eyes, as if my response might be the difference between me ever seeing my bed again.

  "I-I…" I began and then licked my lips. "Are you sure everything's okay?”

  "Of course, why would it not be?" the Pigeon King asked, his voice no longer jovial. "Oh, but of course you are in want of your payment for services rendered." His voice returned to its normal lighthearted tone. "My followers have been kind enough to slice through that monstrous beetle's hide for you, and we've constructed his carapace into easy-to-carry plates." The Pigeon waved his wing, and a few pigeons plucked up the plates and brought them over to me, laying them at my feet. Another brought my Grandad’s bat, and two more pigeons flapped over with my backpack held between them. It looked surprisingly heavy and when they dropped it at my feet it jingled and jangled.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "Ah, my followers have been so pleased with what you have done for us," the Pigeon King said. "What, with driving away those cats and now the Tank Beetle, they wanted to show their gratitude, mortal." I bent down and unzipped the bag a bit, and I saw a glint of golden coins and bits of jewellery. I looked back at the Pigeon King.

  "Consider it a tribute, mageling," the Pigeon King said to me. "Take it in good health. My followers wanted to thank you, that is all."

  I suddenly had a dirty feeling looking at the bag full of trinkets, and then back up at the Pigeon King's leering eyes. It felt like this was a bribe or a hush payment or something.

  "Take it," the Pigeon King said again, more firmly. "You would not want to offend my followers when they have been so kind." I looked around at the feathered followers, and every single one of their eyes was on me, and they were just as cold as the Pigeon King's. I swallowed and nodded my head.

  "And of course, don't forget your carapace. See, the Tank Beetle is a wonderful creature," the Pigeon King said. "I'm sure you might have noticed that the thing can fly.”

  "Yeah, I noticed," I replied hesitantly.

  "Well, that's because the Tank Beetle's carapace, despite being so thick, weighs almost nothing. See for yourself." The Pigeon King waved a hand at the beetle's shell pieces on the floor next to me. I picked one up and marveled at how light it was. It was as thick as two of my fingers but felt like it weighed almost nothing at all.

  "I'm sure someone as ingenious as yourself can figure out a way to fashion that into some sort of protective garb," the Pigeon King said. "Take them, take your tribute, and go and get yourself some rest and food." The Pigeon King said, and his voice was too eager. He wanted me gone, and truth be told, I wanted to be gone.

  I unzipped my bag and slipped the rectangles of carapace into it, struggling to get it closed again. The Pigeon King cleared his throat impatiently. Once I got the bag shut, I threw it onto my back, picked up Grandad’s bat, looked around again at the scene in front of me, and then nodded at the Pigeon King.

  "I guess I'll just go," I said to him.

  "Yes, good Mageling, you go, and I'll be in touch." He flapped his wings at me again. Not a single other pigeon had moved.

  I nodded my head and walked out of the church, and I could feel all of the eyes of the pigeons following me as I did. Just as I pushed open the door, I looked over my shoulder and saw the Pigeon King staring at me hungrily. His shadow was far too big, and now it didn't look like a pigeon at all.