“Moonlight,” I said.
“How do you clarify moonlight?” Rose asked. “How do you give it enough order that it’s going to stop something like the abstract demon? A lens?”
“How do you define anything?” I asked. I leaned my head back against the headrest. “Boundaries.”
“Boundaries?”
“Without boundaries, nothing has shape. You shape light with darkness.”
“I think you’re a little delirious,” Rose said.
“Fell, do you happen to have a flashlight in the glove compartment?”
“I have a flashlight.”
“I would be much obliged if you’d give it to me.”
“Give, not lend?”
“That, or we stop by a Canadian Tire on the way.”
Fell pulled over by the side of the road. He stepped out of the car, and I heard the trunk pop open. Outside, people came and went. I saw a figure that wasn’t human. A ghost, distorted to the point that it was a few feet taller than anyone else on the street.
The passenger door opened. Fell handed me a roadside kit.
“Can I say-” I started. He closed the door in my face.
A moment later, he opened the driver’s side door.
“-I really respect a man who’s always prepared,” I said.
He started up the car again, looking over his shoulder before pulling onto the road.
“I can even overlook you slamming the door in my face, because I’m perfectly happy getting to where we’re going,” I said.
“We’ve already talked about where I stand,” he said. “Right now you’re helping Conquest get his hands on another one of these creatures, and you know my feelings on that.”
“I do,” I said.
“Return to your conversation. The only help you’ll get from me is either assistance in getting yourself removed from the greater picture, or assistance I’m obliged to give.”
“He doesn’t like you,” Evan commented.
“Very few people do,” I said. “Of those few people, I think more than a few are going to have an awful lot of questions about the murder arrest. But that’s beside the point. Let’s keep brainstorming, Rose.”
“Sure. I somehow feel like solid barriers aren’t going to hold up against this entity.”
I dug through the kit Fell had given me, finding the flashlight and setting it aside. There was a first aid kit as part of the thing. I began patching up my arms, using my glamour to touch up the spots where the tattoos had been distorted, and bandages to bind the rest closed. “The Knights tried some staple protections, and they didn’t work. Or some worked and those are the reason they’re alive. A big part of the problem in dealing with this thing is that we can’t figure out what worked in the past because of luck and what worked because it worked. Trial and error doesn’t work when the errors get erased from existence and memory.”
“A circle drawn on the ground may not hold up,” Rose said. “But in the interest of being more positive than negative, putting my best foot forward, there’s another direction we could go, if we wanted to brainstorm.”
“Another direction?” I asked.
“Rather than light, maybe creation?”
“A circle that grows?”
“Putting it out there. I don’t know how you’d do it, but… my concern with fire was that it would destroy more than it created. Fire grows, but that’s a short lived growth. If we could find something that expands, while maintaining an intrinsic order…”
“Fire doesn’t destroy,” I said. “It changes.”
“We’re talking magic as an art, aren’t we? Not science? Wasn’t that what you said?”
“What does it take to get you on board?” I asked. “When do you start thinking this might work? That we might be able to go in there and bind it?”
“I’d want to go in with a few options that make sense. A few ideas that are sound, given what we know about demons and how they operate.”
“Three?” I asked.
“Okay,” Rose said. “Three good ideas.”
Three ideas to hammer out.
“Can we count fire as one idea?” I asked. I held up a pack of matches.
“What are you burning?” Rose asked.
“I’m hoping our very prepared Fell here has a can of gasoline in the trunk.”
“Planning on blowing yourself up?” Fell asked.
My eyes closed, I said, “Might incinerate myself, or burn the place down with me inside it. That a good enough reason to give it to us?”
“Yeah,” Fell said.
“I’ll count fire as half an idea,” Rose said.
“Need two and a half, then,” I said.
“Objects associated with growth… plants?” Rose asked.
“A wreath?”
“Hard to find something that really grows year-round,” she said.
“Evergreen plants,” I said. “Holly?”
“Hmm. Or just pine. I’m not sure you’re in a condition to weave anything complicated, and I’m not sure how ordered it could be. Put it in the maybe pile?”
I nodded, grabbing the flashlight. “Light… if I may demonstrate…”
I moved the flashlight, covering it with one hand, so only a sliver of light escaped between my fingers.
A line.
“Darkness,” I said, pointing to an area where the light was blocked, “Light, then darkness again.”
“Okay,” Rose said. “That’s one idea.”
“One and a half, if we count moonlight?” I asked.
“Maybe. Okay.”
“If we take Fell’s car battery-”
“No,” Fell said.
“Was worth asking,” I said. “If we steal someone else’s car battery…”
“That’s more like it,” Fell said. “If you want to get arrested again, please, be my guest.”
“Let’s consider that another option,” I said. “Are we on the right track, Rose?”
“If I’m allowed to be negative, I’m not feeling quite ready, even with this in mind.”
“But it’s a step forward?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s keep at it,” I said. “Protections somewhat covered, we can improvise or come up with something else, if we don’t stick with the plants.”
“We need weapons,” she said. “Protections mean jack squat if we can’t do anything to the demon we’re supposed to take down.”
“We can talk weapons,” I said. “How long do we have?”
“Half an hour,” Fell said.
“It’ll have to do,” I said. “Same ideas apply?”
“Light, fire, energy, creation,” Rose said. “Can you put together a torch without setting your head on fire?”
■
The oil factory. The building was ominous. Blocky, with large windows that hid more than they revealed. A lonely chimney stack stood off to one side, the trees around the building were thin and badly bowed by snow and ice, like overgrown saplings more than trees, Graffiti covered the structure, hinting at how many people had once come here to explore and leave their mark on the isolated building before the demon had taken up residence.
Here and there, parts hung away from the factory itself. A fire escape, half-collapsed, an overhang for a carport, only the rusted skeleton remaining.