Not a moment later, the bogeyman rose to its full height behind Canfield.
With the sight, Joseph could see a protection flare. An ornament that warned of imminent danger.
Before he could shout a warning, Canfield whirled around, firing a second shot.
The bogeyman collapsed on the stairs.
“Persistent fellow,” the man said, aiming his gun at Joseph. “Not too pretty either.”
Joseph didn’t know what to say in response.
“If you want to scurry off with your tail in between your legs, I understand. My daughter is watching from the window. You do that, and that’ll be the end of it.”
Joseph didn’t dare look, in case it was a trap. But he felt the connection.
Courtney.
“You’re not running.”
“No, I suppose I-” he almost slipped into ain’t. “I suppose I’m not.”
“If you want to pick a fight, you should know you’ll lose, and if I do you the grace of leaving you alive, you’ll have some lifelong reminders of what it means to cross me.”
He stopped at the far end of the street.
Joseph chanced a look.
Courtney was indeed in the window, blonde hair falling across her shoulders, hugging herself.
Another stolen glance.
The bogeyman was gone.
“Are you going to fight me?” Canfield asked.
“I’m not much of a fighter.”
“What are you, then? You practice, clearly. What do you practice?”
“Illusion.”
“Glamour?”
Joseph shook his head. “Only illusion.”
“Hardly a fitting match for my daughter.”
“Nobody can be a fitting match for your daughter.”
“You and I might agree for the first and last time on that,” Canfield said.
“We agree for different reasons. You think it’s because no man is worth her. I think it’s because your perspective is so twisted that you love her.”
“Are you insinuating something? I’ve never touched her in an inappropriate manner.”
“I believe you. But you love her in an inappropriate manner, and so you lock her up so nobody but you may have her.”
“We crossed paths for mere hours, a year ago, and you’ve come to such wise decisions? You must be a genius, boy. The next Sherlock Holmes.”
“I’ve asked around. People talk about it.”
Canfield scowled a little. “Spreading ideas behind my back? If you’d come at me head-on and been polite about this whole rescue nonsense, I might have let you off easy. But you’re running short on my mercy, acting as cowardly as that.”
“Your colleagues talk about it as if it were a charming quirk. Your enemies talk about it like it is. An ugly thing. Your family… it hoards. You collect and make trinkets, you decorate yourself with them, and you’ve twisted that, turned it backward. You’re hoarding her.”
Canfield fired the rifle.
The bullet felt hot as it tore through Joseph’s knee. It was the sort of pain that carried a kind of finality. The knowledge that things wouldn’t be right again.
Joseph screamed and dropped to the street.
“You little pissant. You letting your cock lead the way, spin you tales? You’re the one who is twisting things around in his head. You want my daughter, but there’s no way that could ever happen, and you blame me?”
Joseph struggled to move so he could reach into his jacket, all the while striving to avoid moving his shattered knee. He found the powder, then flung it out.
Masking his location, a veil. Altering connections, as well.
“Illusion, you said,” Canfield told him. “You haven’t moved.”
He leveled the rifle in Joseph’s general direction.
“Sir!” Joseph heard the voice. Deep. “I heard a shot?”
“Ah,” Canfield said, his voice pitched to carry across the street. “You removed the effect you’d erected moments ago. Attempting to make me look bad in front of my servants?”
“Sir? What are you talking about?”
“I’ll explain later,” Canfield said.
As the powder cleared, Joseph remained out of sight.
But Canfield had donned a monocle. Another trinket.
The man aimed the shotgun-
Then half-turned as his heavyset manservant strode down the stairs. He could sense the danger, but he couldn’t move fast enough. The heavy man stabbed him.
Nothing artful or honorable. The manservant thrust the knife into Canfield’s gut over and over as if he were punching rather than holding a knife. His face was fixed in place by four small kitchen knives. A man had died to give him that face. The effect had been fresh and strong enough that even Joseph hadn’t been immediately aware of it.
Canfield shoved him away, then fired the rifle. The ‘manservant’ collapsed, then immediately began to stagger back to his feet.
Canfield, unwilling or unable to reload, used the rifle as a club to bash at the familiar.
Joseph reached into his pocket. Cards. Bound creatures.
Illusion wasn’t all he could do.
He tore the cards, and the creatures lunged. Three dogs, noble hounds that might have served as companions to divine hunters once upon a time.
Joseph drew further effects from his repertoire. Things he’d collected. A rusted old ring- he raised his hand up, then slammed the ring down on the street. He didn’t succeed in breaking the ring – only hurting his hand.
He did it again, and something minor came loose. The older books hadn’t ever described a moderate spirit of this kind, but they were becoming more of a thing with the turn of the century.
As the ring had been destroyed and spent, the spirit would be released only the one time, here.
The hounds were leaping into the air when Canfield used another trinket. A child’s toy, with a handle at the side. Everyone present, spirit or otherwise, was bound where they were, hounds held in mid-air by green threads.
“Ironic, in a way. Courtney made this one, believe it or not. It was meant to be a gift, but the child it was intended for died. I keep it on my person as a reminder.”
There was no good way to go on the defense. Canfield had an answer to everything.
Better to wait and react, counter.
“No smart response?” Canfield asked. He grunted, wincing. The stab wounds were hurting.
Have to get him talking. He’ll die of that stab wound before I die from this injured knee. He’s older.
“I swear I’m going to watch you die,” Joseph growled the words. “By my name, by my blood, I’m going to do what’s right and I’m going to free that girl.”
The words carried power. He felt stronger, the pain was less. His mental clarity improved.
“Yet you say I’m the one twisted by love,” Canfield said. “What will you use to kill me? A moderate rust spirit? Clever. Let’s do away with it before it becomes a problem.”
Canfield bent down as best as he was able with his feet trapped in position, and began drawing out a line of chalk.
Joseph, not feeling half the pain he had, reached into his coat for chalk of his own. A box, with a symbol inscribed on each piece.
He drew out a line, and a dozen other lines scrawled along the length of the road.
He drew out a more dramatic scribble, and scribbles spanned the length of the street, interrupting and confounding Canfield’s circle.
But Canfield continued drawing.