Aubrey drew close to one of the wires, close enough for him to reach out and touch. He was about to call out to Caroline when, from the corner of his eye, he saw a giant spark humming toward him, arms extended.
He didn’t have time to worry about how bizarre that notion was. He let out a yelp and threw himself away from its reach. Landing on a shoulder and rolling to his feet, he had to shield his eyes and back away as the magically imbued electrical phenomenon reached for him.
Aubrey’s mind worked in two separate and distinct modes. One part was on the verge of gibbering as the spark grew in size, rapidly towering ten feet from the wire on which it balanced. The other part coolly noted how small sparklets were racing along the wire and merging with it to make a roughly human shape. It pawed unsuccessfully at him, then swayed and stretched. Half a dozen smaller sparklets skated along to join it, flowing right up its fingerless hand and making the entire creature swell, growing another foot or two in height, an electrical demon that leered with antic glee.
Aubrey swallowed and took another step away. He looked to Caroline, but she was trapped on the other side of the roof, with eight antenna wires between her and Aubrey – eight wires populated by a growing horde of demonic sparks that sped up and down, crashing into each other and growing in size, electrical demon shapes that capered and lunged at her.
Aubrey ducked as a chair leg slammed into the brick wall to his left.
‘Sorry!’ Caroline called.
The largest of the sparks, the one that had been menacing Aubrey, swivelled at the sound of Caroline’s voice. As fast as thought, it skimmed along the wire until it reached the edge of the roof, then it extended a limb until it touched the next wire in the array, one wire closer to Caroline. Once it had grasped this wire, it performed a complicated manoeuvre, stretching and vaulting across, then reshaping itself until it once again had its four-limbed, demonic form. Joined by a rabble of smaller sparklets, it sped to the opposite end of the second wire and then repeated the process, vaulting across to the third – and again coming closer to Caroline.
Caroline hurdled a wire, keeping her distance, moving toward the far end of the roof, but Aubrey could see that she didn’t have far to go before she’d be trapped.
Caroline had realised the danger she was in. Not wanting to come up against the parapet, she’d moved to her right until she reached the end of the wire – but was once more trapped by the edge of the roof on that side. Calmly, she faced the electrical demon that was fizzing toward her.
Aubrey wanted to call out to Caroline, offer suggestions, but he didn’t want to break her concentration. She was balanced on her toes, alert, watching the creature and waiting for her opportunity.
The demon stretched out to touch its next wire. As soon as it did, Caroline threw herself under the wire she was standing against, then continued rolling under the next before coming to her feet. She glanced around and then seized a length of pipe from a stack of disused building material they’d used in renovating the factory.
‘No!’ Aubrey shouted. He started running toward her, then scrambled frantically on his hands and knees under the first wire.
Caroline held the pipe vertically, in both hands, perfectly balanced. The electrical demon paused for a moment as it assimilated a handful of attendant sparklets, then flashed along the wire toward her. When it came close enough, Caroline swung so hard she was lifted off her feet.
The electrical demon was unaffected. The pipe passed straight through and caught the wire, rebounding wildly before Caroline could bring it under control, but by then the creature had reached out and grasped it. Instantly, it flowed into the metal, its form melting like butter in sunshine. It dissolved from the antenna wire, crackled along the length of the pipe and Caroline was enveloped in a spitting, hissing radiance, an electrical cloak that made her jerk wildly before her eyes rolled back in her head. The pipe fell from her grasp and she slid to the tarred roof. A malevolent nimbus spluttered around her as she lay still.
Aubrey was running before he knew it. Without slowing, he plucked his penknife from his pocket and slashed at the wire ahead of him. Naturally, since it was under tension, it sprang apart and whipped past his face. He raced after it, caught the end and coiled the wire until he reached the edge of the roof where he slashed again, tucking fifty feet of wire under one arm.
Spells came to his lips – affinity spells, amplification spells. Coldly, he merged them together, opting for expediency and power over elegance.
The electrical glow had left Caroline’s inert body and it had leaped back to the antenna wire, where it was reassembling itself into a demon. It swayed for a moment, then it hummed along the wire.
Aubrey swivelled in time to see it vault to the next wire, speed along to the other end, then leap across to the next, coming one step closer. He was clearly its new target.
Tiny imps of sparklets were gathered up and incorporated as it hummed from one wire to the next, careering from end to end then crossing, growing larger as it crackled its way toward him. Waiting for it, Aubrey’s mouth was dry but his mind was clear. He cast the coil of antenna wire over the parapet while he held the loose end in his right hand. When the coil hit the ground, he ran through the spell that made sure it buried itself in the soil, and he paid out enough wire so that he had three or four yards at his feet, all the while refusing to notice the way his heart was thumping. Fear was knocking at the door, but he declined to answer.
The electrical demon crossed to the wire that Aubrey was standing next to. It didn’t hesitate. In a shower of sparks, it screamed along the antenna, sizzling toward him with its arms outstretched.
Aubrey spat out a spell. He swung the wire in a flat plane above his head, slowly at first, then faster and faster, whirling until it whistled. When the electrical demon was barely ten feet away, he let go. Thanks to the spell, the wire hurtled at the creature, struck, then wrapped itself around its torso, tightening like a maddened python and sending a cascade of sparks into the air.
Balanced on the wire only a few feet away, the electrical demon started to squeeze free, but Aubrey was ready for it. He delivered the other half of the spell with venom.
The demon stopped its frenzied wriggling. For an instant, it propped on the wire and tilted its head to the heavens. In defeat? Resignation? Before Aubrey could ponder this moment of terminal cognisance, the demon elongated, then compressed – as if a giant had placed hands top and bottom and were using it as an accordion. With a thud and a whistle, the demon vanished, leaving the antenna wire vibrating. The entrapping wire came alight, crackling with blue fire, a glowing serpent in the night, then it fell to the roof, inert.
The demonic creature had been earthed. Grounded. Defeated.
Aubrey raced to where Caroline lay, slashing antenna wires with his knife to allow his passage. He paused to check that she was breathing, then he scooped her up and fairly danced across the mangled antenna array, not putting a foot wrong. Without a thought he held her over his shoulder and entered the hatch, descending the stairs with the surefootedness of an alpine creature much given to spending its life on near-vertical cliffs.
He hurried to the oval table, at war with himself. Part of him wanted to despair, but he was Caroline’s hope and he couldn’t afford the dramatics.
Her eyes were still closed. Her breathing was shallow and ragged. He touched her throat to find that her pulse was thready, erratic, and he felt the insidious brush of panic. He glanced at her dear hands to see them reddened and burned.