The girl, now that Benjamin looked closely at her expression and her posture, was glaring directly at him with undisguised hostility and resentment.
Before he could part his lips to form another gentle word aimed at the small, glaring girl, one of those black, whip-like strips of fabric that wrapped her body in their strange, winding embrace suddenly uncoiled with a speed that defied a normal eye's ability to track.
It lashed forward like a serpent striking its prey, and in the same instant that Benjamin registered the motion, the tip of that dark length had already punched clean through his chest.
Through his heart.
He felt it pierce him from front to back, a cold and sharp intrusion that burst through his sternum, tore through the muscle of his left ventricle, and erupted from his spine in a fine, red spray that misted the evening air behind him.
