“But I’m kind of stuck,” I said. “Maybe… are you good at finding things?”
“Not so much.”
“You found the fencing. Surely you found a little bit of food?”
“Barely any.”
“Okay… but… you were good at figuring out where the wolf was, weren’t you?”
He nodded.
“I need you to go looking for other things. There might be spirits somewhere in the building. I don’t think they’re bad spirits. Some might be animals, but they’d be the wrong sort of animal in the wrong sort of place. Others might be attached to objects, like watches. There’s a giant with a covered face, three women in the same dress, holding a thread, a mechanical man with a spinning head, and a faded old man with an amazing beard, okay?”
He nodded.
“It’s too many animals and objects for one person to have with them at one time. If I happen to leave this cell and get to them first… it’ll help. Go look around the building, but keep your distance from any policeman with black hair, okay? I’ll call your name if I need you.”
With that, Evan was gone. Duncan stopped in his tracks, then changed direction. A different target, this time.
I paced in my cell, feeling time yawn on. I had nothing to occupy myself with except vague worries. The knowledge that Duncan Behaim was borrowing power from his family, from his circle.
Using that power, he had reset my day, and he’d turned away my chance at victory.
“That asshole,” I muttered.
The girls opposite me woke up. One proved to be very hung over while the other was still drunk, even after a partial night’s sleep.
It was later in the morning than it had been when Duncan had come for me, the last time around.
Much later.
The lawyer wasn’t coming. She’d been diverted.
Something told me I wasn’t about to get a meeting with the justice of the peace.
He was diverting any help that might come my way. If he saw Evan, he’d probably banish or divert the ghost using salt or some other binding.
Sticking me in a fucking groundhog loop, I thought. Countering my plans in advance. Motherfucker.
Threes. He was working on Laird’s behalf, using Laird’s assets, among others, to best me. Already, I was pretty fucked. Then I’d broken the simple connection manipulation by way of three rejections.
But this loop…
I was willing to bet my eye teeth that he was holding his trump cards for a third round. He’d pull out all the heavy weapons to make the third loop a success, and get Laird his third win at the same time, while removing me from the picture… it seemed like a good strategy to have in play.
I wasn’t sure what form that maneuver would take. Unleashing the full power of the borrowed spirits and powers, perhaps. Or simply shooting me.
There was no fucking way I was doing another loop.
Option one was removing the spirits from play. Take away the power sources he needed. Evan was on task.
Option two… well, I needed help.
All things had a price. This would be pricy.
I bent down, searching my cot. Metal frame… wire mesh beneath the thin mattress. I ran my hand over it. Nothing.
That was a problem.
Problem number two was more vague. I wasn’t sure I’d get a response when I called. Even with the price I was paying.
Toilet. I searched it as I had the cot, running my hand over every surface.
There. Almost what I was looking for. The tank of the toilet had a recessed area that served as a sink of sorts. Where it fit into the tank proper, there was something of a lip of metal. Raised enough I could feel it.
“Excuse me, ladies,” I said, gesturing at the toilet. “Would you give me a moment’s privacy?”
The hung-over girl groaned and turned over, pulling the pillow down over her head.
“You want some privacy so you can fondle the toilet?” the drunker of the two girls asked. Apparently she had been watching me.
“The opposite,” I said.
“That…” she paused for far too long before making a decision, “…That doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m worried it doesn’t,” I replied, meaning it. If this doesn’t work…
I was going by instinct here.
“You’re crazy,” she said.
“What I’m about to do is definitely crazy,” I said. I gestured, asking her to turn around.
“Don’t want to know,” she said. She sat down with her back to the cell door.
I unbuttoned my pants, then thrust my pelvis forward, using the edge of the button to pry at the raised lip, drawing it further out. I ran it back and forth, eliciting a metal on metal screech.
“God! What the fuck are you doing?” she asked. She must have turned around, seeing me wiggling my hips left and right with my pelvis pressed against the side of the toilet, because she squeaked, “I don’t want to know!”
I used the edge of my jeans, a bit fatter than the edge of the button, and did the same. It was quieter.
I’d raised the metal lip away from the toilet itself.
My hand swept over my forehead, catching the moisture there.
I was hoping I had some glamour still there.
I was hoping a lot of things.
I ran the sweat along the edge of metal, visualizing.
Sharp.
Then I placed my forearm against the ridge and slashed the back of my arm.
It worked.
I did the other arm.
I wanted to grunt, to make noise, but I couldn’t afford the attention.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, my back to the girls, I moved my fingertips to where the blood fell on the concrete floor. I drew a line. Except this time I drew it from myself outward.
“Rose Thorburn,” I murmured. “I give of myself to you.”
I let more droplets fall.
“Rose Thorburn,” I said. “I give of myself to you.”
Pauz had apparently screwed up the connection. I was drawing from the vestige I was supposed to be powering…
This was me giving back, in the crudest form possible.
I eyed the connection, watched it change with each repetition.
It had been flowing one way, the wrong way. Now… that altered flow was being remedied.
At something of a cost.
Could I cancel the Imp’s effect if I put in enough power to match its flow?
Minutes passed. I kept feeding blood into the connection. The blood ran down my fingers, sticky. A dangerous amount to give.
“Rose Thorburn,” I said.
My vision wavered.
Not Rose’s arrival. I’d slipped some.
Disorientation, perhaps, or a loss on some other front. Disconnection?
I spoke again.
“Rose Thorburn, I give of myself to you. I call you from the clutches of Conquest to my presence.”