Slowly, ponderously, the crab goes down. It is not a particularly smart creature; it isn't even, really, a particularly tough one. Bleeding out from its rent limbs, devoured from within, its death throes are neither long nor mighty. As its body dissolves into stardust, that thing which is not enough like a weasel picks itself up and tries, in vain, to shake its fur clean. Pure night sky streams from its smokestacks, and it closes its mouth, arches its back, and lets out a shrill whistle from those exhausts.

The man who had been sheltering opens the door cautiously, pistol in hand, and looks around. He is relieved to see the weasel. "Ma'am?" he calls out; he spares a glance to the Hellhound, but the emotional reaction there isn't fear - he looks back at the weasel immediately after, and he trusts it, implicitly.

Bones crack under the creature's skin, and it slowly, violently shifts into a vaguely demonic woman; ashen-skinned, pointy of teeth and nails, dressed in a white suit and a gold-threaded cloth face mask. She cracks her neck and dons a top hat that was in her hand before she starts to walk towards her employee, sparing Valdis a grateful nod and smile.

"James," the woman says pleasantly.

"...Ma'am?"

"You fell asleep on my clock again, didn't you James?"

"........Yes ma'am."

The woman puts a hand on her employee's shoulder. "You can stay the night in my guest room on the condition that you explain to your mother in the morning that she raised a damn fool."

"Yes ma'am."

James goes to run off, though he stops to offer Valdis a sloppy bow and his mumbled thanks; he's heading towards the central office.