4.05
“A king?” Pauz asked.
The birds settled, landing on the snowbanks all around us. The dogs sat.
Fuck. I didn’t want to see him listening.
“Ix-nay the ealing-day ith-way evils-day,” I muttered.
“Thirty languages of mankind,” Pauz said, his voice far too deep for how small he was. When he stood, he used the claws on his hands to perch. When he moved forward, he used the claws to keep his balance, with the oversized head and heavy slouch. His blind eyes were heavily lidded, as he glared at me. “I have learned from each host that I have taken. But I do not know this tongue?”
“For real?” I asked.
“For real,” Pauz said, deadly serious.
“My companion doesn’t want me to deal with you, Pauz,” Rose said. “He thinks it’s dangerous.”
“Then he is right,” Pauz said. “I am a danger to you.”
Was it bad that a very small part of me wanted to laugh in response to that? Rationally, I knew he was in no way harmless, but… so tiny.
“You are,” Rose said. “You’ve made that clear, here. But you have a goal, don’t you? Standing orders? I wasn’t too far off when I assumed you were acting against the natural order?”
“Mm hmm,” Pauz said.
“Upheaval, disorder, sowing seeds. Doing damage that won’t ever be repaired. The animals here are never going to act completely normal again, are they?”
“No,” Pauz said. “They are mine, and so are the people. I have my claws set in them, and already, I rend these people, strip things away, and change them.”
“Building a foundation,” Rose said. “So you can climb the ladder, access the greater powers, and more important people. Turn them upside down as you have with the animals.”
How would that work? A politician or CEO made feral? Savage? Falling from power, doing as much damage on the way as they could?
Pauz’s head turned. A car was approaching from the end of the street. The animals all moved simultaneously, crows alternately flocking closer or flying away, dogs slinking into the shadows or recesses where they could hide between cars and snowbanks. The birds descended on the disemboweled rabbit carcass I’d discarded, then took to the air, flying with the carcass carried between them, rending it, tearing, savage.
The car slowed as it approached the airborne flock, which only made it easier for them, when they dropped the dead rabbit onto the windshield. The glass cracked but didn’t break.
The car skidded to a stop. There was a pause, where the driver and passenger looked at me, the whites of their eyes showing. They started moving again, crawling forward, and then turned into a driveway.
Were they going to comment? Wonder why I was standing in their neighbor’s driveway? Force me to leave, and abandon the safety of my improvised circle?
They backed up, accelerated, then braked hard. The tattered rabbit corpse slid over the hood and onto the driveway, just in front of the garage.
They fled the car, glancing at me, then hurried into their home, leaving the corpse where it was. The car locks were activated after they were inside.
Pauz climbed up the side of the car, onto the hood. One strike of his claw punctured the window where the cracks already spiderwebbed out from the impact site, leaving a hole I could maybe have fit my head through.
The imp hopped onto the roof of the car, while a skeletal dog climbed up and wormed through the hole in the window, the edges of the glass slicing it here and there.
I could see the dog through the car windows, moving in between the driver and passenger seats, into the back seat of the car. Not sitting there, but hiding on the floor of the car.
Something told me it wouldn’t act until the car was well in motion.
No. I had to pay attention to the birds, the dogs. It was a fundamental problem, a change in the overarching dynamic of how they operated. They were cooperating, acting in sync, according to Pauz’s more malign interests, but working against the system that was our ecosystem.
If a politician was brought under the influence of Pauz the way the animals here were, then they might do as Pauz wanted them to do, while working against civilization and society.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about what kind of damage someone could do, given zero compunctions, an imp on their shoulder, and a powerful position.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about what Conquest would do, given the same.
Fuck.
“This isn’t going to work the way you want it to, Rose,” I said, speaking under my breath.
“We don’t have much of a choice,” she said. “And we’ve got him listening.”
“Remember the nuke analogy? He’s the equivalent of fallout, the radiation, pollution, whatever you want to call him. Handle with fucking care, Rose.”
“I know. Back me up? Trust me?”
I had to think about it for a second.
“Blake.”
“Yeah,” I said. I’ve demanded the same of you too often to do anything different. “I’ll hear you out on this.”
“Pauz!” Rose called out.
“Mm?” Pauz responded. He was watching crows tear apart the rabbit.
“You’re not getting very far, are you? You’re seeding your malignancy here and there, but something’s going wrong, isn’t it? You keep changing hosts. You’re not getting traction. I’m offering you a shortcut.”
“You’re offering me a king.”
“Yes. Someone with power, with clout.”
“Who?”
“The Lord of Toronto. An Incarnation of Conquest. He thinks he can use you.”
“Does he?” Pauz asked.
“We can set you up with him, so you’re in a better position than ever.”
“How? Why?”
“The why is easy,” Rose said. “We’re not exactly on good terms with the local Lord. As for how… I’m going to need you to play along. We’re going to bind you.”