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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4486433" data-attributes="member: 3285">To Walk in Carcosa: Part 9 – CoombsCoombs was a tall, thin, sharp-featured man with longish, greasy black hair.  He wore a worn black overcoat.After stabbing Yolanda he ran off, disappearing into the ever-shifting maze of rooms and corridors.  Kham left the others behind.  There was killing to be done that was best performed alone.They engaged in a game of cat and mouse.  Coombs stalked Kham, and in turn Kham stalked Coombs through the hundreds of rooms and corridors.“You’re dead, Coombs!” Kham shouted, frustrated.  “When I find you, you’re dead!”“Not if I find yew first,” came Coombs’ voice.  “Like I found yaaahr farfer.” A door slammed.Kham let out a guttural scream of rage.  “Why?  He didn’t do anything to you!”There was the sound of running feet.  Kham turn another corner to find an empty hallway.“He crossed da Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign.”Kham opened another door. A body was laid out on a polished wooden table: it was a handsome young man whose throat had been cut.  The blood was still running.“You’re getting messy, Coombs.”“They’re not even people.” Disdain dripped in Coombs’ voice. “None ov i' matters now anyway. We don’t need 'em. Edwards let me off my leash, so I can kill whomever I want.”“And you always follow orders?”Coombs laughed. “That’s right, I’m a good soldier. Edwards wan'ed yaaahr farfer killed an' I did it. And now 'e wants yew killed, so I’m gon'a do what an' all. I do what I’m told. But yew…yew never listen.”Kham stopped talking.  He swallowed a potion and faded from sight. Coombs was right; he wasn’t listening.  He was distracting Kham, keeping him off guard.  Kham had to pay attention.There was the sound of a blade scratching along metal.  Kham padded over to the source.Coombs was walking along a corridor, casually running his knife along an incongruous metal banister.  He drew his two pistols. Kham was so close to Coombs he could almost touch him.Kham took careful aim at Coombs’ head.  He drew the hammers back on both pistols…Coombs whirled at the sound of the pistol’s cocking and slashed upwards. The blade was slowed by Kham’s mental force field, but Coombs pushed past it, plunging it into his abdomen. A terrible cold cracked its way across his torso; blood froze where it came into contact with Coombs’ blade.Simultaneously, Kham’s pistols unleashed his rage at point-blank range into the face of his father’s murderer. The smoking remains of Coombs’ headless body collapsed to the ground. Kham fumbled for a potion vial in the folds of his coat.  The shivering was so bad that it threatened to incapacitate him.  “Rest in peace, dad.”  Then he swigged a potion.</blockquote>

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