“I don’t have a lot,” she said.
“Because the alternative is that cliche line like, hey, you know what’s at stake, so you’re okay with making the sacrifice, in exchange for my silence.”
“Fuck that, would you say that?”
“No,” I said.
“Neither would I! Unless you’re saying that I’m a vestige, so I don’t count!”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m saying I don’t know what the fuck to do.”
“You obey,” Conquest said.
I envisioned it. The flow of events, giving him Ornias’ name. The summoning… Conquest would become mightier, and as an Incarnation, he could deal with the fallout. Probably.
No. Wait.
“No,” I said. “How does this play out?”
“I believe you are stalling, diabolist.”
“I am not stalling,” I said. “Or I’m not just stalling. I’m raising a legitimate concern. You promised the safety of Toronto, its citizens, and the Duchamps of Jacob’s Bell.”
“Yes.”
“If I call something here…”
“It is sealed. This is my realm, and I can contain an entity.”
“Even when you don’t know the exact rules?” I asked. “The nature of the binding that’s required? The special qualities of these beings? I know of at least one that can tear through connections and enter a demesnes no problem.”
“They were bound once, they will be easier to bind again. I can expend power, shape my domain into a prison.”
“Right,” I said. “Except… I’m not sure the one I’d be calling has been bound before.”
He stared down at me with the black orbs in the midst of his pallid face. He wasn’t smiling that horrible rictus smile, now.
“The one I’d be calling would be strong, and the people who gave it to me, well, I can’t guarantee that any being they put me in contact with was necessarily bound at any point. From the description, this being could be one of the big names, someone who sits on a throne and bosses the others around. Looking for a way to get here.”
“You can’t guarantee that is the case,” Conquest said.
“I can’t guarantee it isn’t,” I said.
“Which means,” Rose said, still dangling from his grasp, “That you’d need the books as much as we do. Blake said he needed the books-”
She shot me a glance.
“I said I needed them because the extra rituals and precautions would keep me safe,” I said.
“Yeah,” Rose said. “And those rules and precautions are probably necessary to keep you safe, Incarnation or no.”
“Unless you really want to get straight into a one on one brawl with a dude that fucks with stars,” I said.
He remained very still.
“Can you put me down?” Rose asked.
“I could break you for your impertinence,” he said, hauling her up until her face was level with his. “To give me orders?”
His breath in her face was enough to stir her hair.
She had the hatchet, still, but… god damn, I hoped she wasn’t dumb enough to swing it at his face.
In her shoes, I probably would have, but I processed things differently than most, when it came to personal space.
“I humbly request that you put me down, sir,” she said.
He let go, and she dropped a few feet to the ground. Not a horrible drop, but still alarming, and the stone underfoot was hard.
When she’d recovered, while Conquest paced, I met Rose’s eyes. I could tell we were thinking the same thing. If we could get him to enter the circle…
“I am older than swords,” Conquest said. “Older than man. I have existed in countless forms, evolving and changing. I rise to power, fall, and then find another environment, shape, and host.”
“As Conquest does,” I said.
“Yet you think I’ll fall for a simple trick? A petty trap? Things such as these do not go unguarded.”
“Actually,” I said. “We didn’t really leave any safeguards.”
“Your forbears,” he said.
“The standard demesne protections,” Rose said. “We can give you permission to enter the building, I believe?”
“Your allies, your enemies? I refuse to believe it would be so easy as that.”
Enemies, well, there was the rub.
He looked between us. I saw the realization dawn on his face, as we couldn’t deny it.
“You toy with me,” he said. He visibly changed, skin stretching tighter. His face shifted to that rigid grin, teeth bared. “I should mutilate you right now, so you remember the mistake of such insults.”
The fucking sky was changing in tune with his emotions. Plunging us into darkness. Black rage.
“If you’re immortal,” I said, “Then yes, there is a trap our enemies set before us, but it will barely affect you, while it could have some pretty grave consequences for us. You can go, get the books, bring them to us, and we could summon whichever sort of being you required.”
“You’re scheming, diabolist,” he said.
“At this stage of things, I’m just scheming to buy us some time.”
“To work against me.”
“More to get the two of us out of this predicament.”
“That is enough impertinence,” he said. He looked to Rose, “You, stay.”
A cage rose up around her.
“No,” Rose said.
“And you,” he said, looking at me.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I said. I backed away a step, and I found a wall behind me. The wall hadn’t been there before. “I’ll come willingly.”
“Not when you see our destination. You forget what I am. If it’s a choice between your cooperation and your tears, dragging you behind me while you dirty yourself in fear, I’ll take the latter.”
A kind of horror hit me, right in the gut.
Not cold horror, not a chill. Horror as in a horror, a nightmare, a beast that might lurk under a small boy’s bed, wrong and disgusting and bad, as a feeling, slithering around my insides.
Because I knew he was probably right.
Because when it all came down to it, push to shove, I wasn’t really much of a man. Not when someone or something bigger and stronger than me had their hands on me. Not when I was unarmed and certain there was nothing I could do. I had precedent for that.
Once he grabbed me, I was as good as dead, because I’d stop thinking until I was free again, and there was nothing thoughtless I could do to get out of this situation. I wouldn’t listen to reason, and it wouldn’t be me fighting like a cornered rat. I’d maybe manage to lash out, fail, then I’d shut down one hundred percent.
“Fuck you,” I said, moving laterally along the wall to try and put distance between myself and him. But the wall was his. “Piss-poor excuse for an Incarnation. What the fuck is an Incarnation of Conquest doing in Canada?”
“Stop, Blake!” I heard Rose, as if far away.
“I find it interesting, to see what is revealed of people, when they are broken down,” the Lord said. “With things relatively stable here, it’s been some time since I had the chance. You’ve defaulted to scheming, impertinence, then aggression. But it’s only when the pressure is increased, your very being challenged, that we’ll see who you truly are.”