While the beast was licking its wounds, Tarquin huddled everyone together. He felt a stranger in his own skin. It was impossible to say how much the Italian woman had stolen, but what he knew was this: his wife, his mother, and his son were absent from his memories.

In the park, he remembered pulling and pushing an empty set of swings, whooping with joy, looking aside occasionally to an abandoned bench, and after he'd had his fun he perched on the edge of a picnic blanket and winced through a packet of vinegar crisps while other families played around him.

He thought of his summerhouse, and recalled only an empty shed.

What... what was his son's name? How old was he? Had he ever even had one? Tarquin clenched his fists, ablaze in rage.

"Thank you for saving us, Kari," said Haralda.

Kari shrugged and pointed at the mound of flesh with the knife, which glowed such a brilliant green, like his wife's emerald ring. The ninth outgrowth had nearly regenerated.

His wife... what did she look like, again?

Eirlys tied her hair up in a ponytail and said, "We need weapons strong enough to hurt it, like Kari's. I don't know what that child did, but we need to do the same. And yes, Saheel, we're going to vote them in."

Kari nodded, and said, timidly, "Give them Djinn..."

"Hey, Eirlys, no objections here." Saheel patted himself down. "But what's to stop them rejecting every proposal we fling at them and stealing the energy anyway?"

Eirlys studied the beast, nearly knitted back together now, before saying, "...Nothing. But there's no other choice. All we can do is take shelter in the abstract."

"It will work," said Kari.

"Very well," said Haralda. "All those in favour of conjuring some Djinn of our own — that is, weapons strong enough to destroy our opponent?"

The group raised their thumbs, and Tarquin trembled at the amount of energy cannoning into the mound; it was enough to instantly reanimate the ninth soul, as well as expand the mound itself so high that it crashed through the roof, letting in blinding sunlight and frosty air.

In turn, some — but not all — of the twisted humanoids put their thumbs down. Notably, the adonic, roided out version of Faust kept his hand where it was.

7👍 — MAJORITY REACHED

As soon as it came into Tarquin's hands, he wondered how he'd ever gone through life without it. Confidence and power flowed through him. He gripped the Axe Of The Family Tree by its lacquered mahogany handle, and broke out of the group to run full pelt at the Italian woman, swinging it round at her head, anything to avenge the loss of his family...

But the glossy axehead wasn't glowing like Kari's blade. Instead of sailing through her skull, it got lodged in it, and Tarquin found himself clinging on, trying to wrench it away as the Italian woman soared upwards, lifting him into the air by the neck...

His life flashed before his eyes, a procession of contemporary Tarquins oozing out his brain, before every last memory shattered.