No way was I letting this radiation get worse.
Thinking about tattoos gave me other ideas.
I debated the ideas until I’d reached the apartment. I let myself in, and made my way up to my place.
With the walls being somewhat thin, I didn’t want to shout, so I did a patrol, walking around the perimeter, my eyes on the various mirrors.
No. She wasn’t here.
Okay, that wasn’t a huge shock. What were the rules? She could only be around me or be in the Hillsglade House.
I checked the time. The idea was to be there ‘tonight’. Our deadline was midnight.
We still had to take the bound being to Conquest.
Rose and I had hours to get ready. Hours to hammer out a good contract. But too much of it was up in the air.
I fished in my pockets for the subway tickets I’d bought, placing them on the dining room table.
I’d been on the subway at eight fifty, I’d arrived at nine forty. Thirty minute walk factored in…
Roughly an hour and a half, once I added additional walk time or other distractions.
What was the latest I could possibly leave? How long would the negotiation over the contract and the following ritual take? How long would it take to get to Conquest afterward, with Pauz in tow, without having him declare the deadline past?
I ran through the numbers in my head as I pulled off my sweatshirt and t-shirt.
I got bleach from under the kitchen sink.
Zero idea if this would work, but I was operating without books. Rose was the one with the reading material, and she was AWOL.
I laid out the shirt flat, smoothed out the wrinkles, and set to work. A droplet of bleach on the underside of a glass, a nail, and gentle scratching of the fabric.
The bleach marked lighter lines in the fabric. Lighter lines were joined by other lines, carefully measured, geometric patterns, shapes…
Pauz was an imp of things foul and feral. A being of wanton chaos, of overturned order. He was weak enough that he could be subdued by ‘like’ elements – fur, blood, and shit, in his case. It was why the rabbit circle had worked. But Rose had told me, essentially, that the preferred way to go was to fight with opposing qualities.
Bleach, I hoped, or the aftermath of bleach, was ideally a material that opposed him. Man made to contrast the focus on the natural, purifying, to contrast the focus on rot, foulness and stagnation.
I stuck with triangles bounded by circles, to lay out the design across the shirt.
It took time, but that was okay. Time meant Rose could get back to me, find me and give me the lowdown. If she wrote up a contract to bind Pauz, I’d have to copy it over, which was more time.
When did I start worrying? Seven thirty seemed like a safe time to leave, but how long did I have to take to copy the contract?
I didn’t really want to think about what happened if Rose didn’t show up.
I was starting to regret not figuring out more about the mirror world, or Rose’s interaction with it.
I finished etching lines in the shirt, bullshitting something that looked like a magic circle, then started on a pair of black slacks. The clock ticked on. An early lunch with Tiffany and a short walk back had put the clock at twelve thirty as I’d made my way back.
I watched the clock hit two as I put the slacks down, the inside of the pants etched with an even denser image. The coarser, thicker surface gave me more freedom, and I was getting a hang of the task.
I had no idea if it mattered or if it did any good. I’d imagined that the framing of it and the way that the lines and triangles pointed towards the openings at the bottom of each leg would make it stronger, but now I wondered if it would only serve as a weak point.
When building a bridge, was it better to simply use the strongest elements available, or did one try to anticipate the stresses, accommodate the terrain?
No. I was overthinking it. Besides, it was done.
My hands hurt. My knuckles were white and standing up against the skin where I’d been holding my hand in the same position, clutching the nail.
I clenched my fist, and felt the joints pop. Still shirtless, chilled where the cool air had touched the sweat on my back, I headed for the bathroom, cranking the shower to ‘hot’.
While it heated up, I grabbed my one dress shirt from the closet and hung it up by the shower. Humidity, steam, heat.
Hot water didn’t really kill germs. Water hot enough to kill bacteria would generally be scalding. But hot water could be symbolic, and as long as I was pulling countermeasures out of my ass for the upcoming confrontation with Pauz, I was going to treat myself to a second hot shower for the day. Wash away the filth and radiation.
Maybe.
When I was done the shower, I shaved for a second time. I took my time grooming, trimming my nails and body hair, brushing my teeth, flossing, then taking far too long trying to tame my generally uncooperative hair. The mop.
For long moments, I debated just shaving it off.
I reconsidered.
My enemy was all about challenging the natural order. I embraced the trappings of civilization. I used the file on the back of the nail clippers to fix up the rough edges of my nails as I paced nervously to the back of the apartment, then returned to the kitchen.
Grooming was baseline.
But the rest of the trappings of civilization would have to wait. In boxer-briefs only, I headed for the toolbox.
Acrylic paint, watercolor?
No. I didn’t trust the effects of the paint, didn’t trust that I wouldn’t have an allergic reaction.
I gathered up every pen in my place. The clock on The Shitty Little Stove, as I’d come to unfondly regard it, told me it was three.
Keep it simple.
The pens in a pile, I drew a series of lines beside the still-angry wound on my hand, working around the chains of the locket. One line for each pen. I very carefully laid the pens down in order.
I waited a minute, taking the time to sketch out what I wanted to do. My figures were horrible, but I only needed a basic sketch.
No time for anything complex…
Have to work in physical limitations…
Wetting my thumb-tip with my tongue, I ran it along each of the lines.
I picked out the winning pen. The one that had dried most effectively, streaking the least. Bold black lines.
Compass, protractor, some finangling to get the pen into the compass, and a pink nub of eraser ripped off a pencil
I drew a circle around my heart, off-center in my chest, using the eraser-nub with the compass so the little needle wouldn’t prick me.
Liver, pancreas, bellybutton…
Lines joined it, helped by a set-square, and each line was subsequently joined by an impression of cold metal against skin.
Three twenty in the afternoon.
Still no Rose.
She’d shattered two windows.
One frozen pond had taken the strength out of her.
Two windows, though… one after the other…
I hadn’t seen anything suggesting she was still there. And if she’d destroyed the windows, she’d destroyed the very reflection that was allowing her to be there. The way she’d described shattering the pond’s ice, she’d been shunted to another location. Forced to the nearest safe ground.
So… why hadn’t she found her way back to me?
A triangle, carefully measured, not with right angles, but still very carefully drawn. The lines didn’t match up, forcing me to make the ensuing line thicker and avoid it being broken up.
The line across the small of my back was harder, slower. I cheated, leaning against the dining room table until I’d left an impression in my skin, then using the set-square to keep it straight. Spent far too long trying to get the ruler in place again when the line wasn’t a hundred percent there, after I moved it.