The Other Witch; The Thief

On a Nieldic world, being identifiable as a witch made you all but untouchable.  That was why she'd stitched a spider web onto all of her outfits, to make sure people knew.  There were other ways, but fewer people knew of them so the effect was less pronounced.  The spell-fan she carried, for instance, marked her as a witch errant, one of the coven's troubleshooters and messengers.  She also had a magical tattoo that would show no matter how badly her body was damaged, and which would linger as a part of the magical aura left if her body was destroyed by any means; enabling other witches to identify her or her body if she were ever lost.
Of course, Humans had no knowledge of such symbolism, or even of the reality of witchcraft.  To most it was no more than a myth, at best.  Which made it unsurprising when one of them attempted to slip off with her wallet.
Hack had stopped and was leaning against the wall of a street so low that above them was only more streets, and the air was a light smog.  Magic was heavier here than in the city above, but still less dense than in even a Nieldic sewer.  It was enough to produce minor magic users and even to sustain an artifact for a few centuries of dormancy, but not enough for either to flourish.
Braga caught the thief before his hand could leave her pocket.  At first she thought she was being assaulted, but her companion's intimidating snarl told her it was not so dire.
"Keep your hands on your belongings, and your hands will remain your belongings."
"I wasn't doing nothin! I swear.  Lady, tell your dog to let go of me?"
Salvia glanced towards Hack as she swiveled to face the miscreant, and saw that he'd slipped off.  She took this as a sign that they'd found their man.
"He's not mine, nor is he a dog.  Braga is a member of a proud people, and if you want him to let go, a little respect would hardly be out of order."
Braga snorted, then nodded aggressively.  Salvia quickly reminded herself that the canine race bared their throats much as other races bowed, and that nodding as he did was much the equivalent of looking down his nose at the poor, or so he appeared certainly, man.
"Whatever, dog-person then, just tell him to let go of me."  He was wringing at his own arm in an attempt to free it from Braga's claws.  It was a waste of time, if he did get his hand free Braga would just grab him by the neck.  Compared to her Nieldic stature Braga was small, but he wasn't so much shorter than this human that he couldn't lift him off the ground if he wanted to.  And all of that assumed Braga wanted him alive, which the man really didn't have any way of knowing.  Salvia felt fairly certain of it; Braga was at least as quick on the uptake as she was, so he'd most likely picked up the same hints from Hack's disappearance as she had.
"Did you know that Ga-Vok have a consumption instinct stronger than the human mating drive?  He basically thinks about eating more often than you think about sex.  And Ga-Vok are also the only species in the known universe to have developed a method for safely eating Nielda, a drop of whose blood can strip flesh from bone in a matter of minutes.  Do you really want to keep calling him 'dog'?"  She'd embellished two of those three facts.  Ga-Vok were actually more interested in hunting than in eating, and Nieldic blood actually took several days to strip flesh from bone, it was simply near impossible to remove once it had begun.  She had not been kidding about their knowing how to properly consume a Nielda; it was one of the facts heralded in primary school as an achievement of the Empire's long time ally's ingenuity and persistence.  Given enough time, a Ga-Vok would figure out how to eat anything.  They wouldn't eat anything, but they certainly know how.
The man stopped and looked at Braga for a moment.  Braga smiled.  It didn't require her explaining the gesture to the poor man for him to realize this was not a nice thing, the sharp fangs did all the explaining anyone needed.
"Please don't eat me?"
Braga let go.  "You didn't have to be so hard on him Salvia, the poor man would have wet himself if he had any digested liquids in him."  The man began to scurry off, but Salvia caught him by the shirt.
"Did we say you could leave?  Among other things, I still want my wallet back."
"What, this?  I just found it on the street."
"You won't deceive them, Alan.  Salvia and Braga are already accomplished in their own right, they've faced down men who could make you quake in fear with a mere whisper."  Hack had walked up in front of the thief and was now addressing him directly.  "But I can teach you to use your talents for greater ends, if you desire.  Follow us, and you will pick the pockets of beings you could not dream of in your wildest fantasies."
"And you won't eat me?"
Salvia couldn't tell what Hack saw in him, but then again the companions of Old Cloak had never been normal by the time he was done with them.  Not in the old tales anyways.  If there was anything you learned as a witch, it was that people always surprised you.
She just hoped it was a good sort of surprise.