“Not a problem. What’s your next step after you get home?”
“I don’t know,” I said, again. “You asked me where I wanted you to drop me off. That’s where I want. I have no ideas when it comes to need.”
“You’re aware that the local Lord controls people, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s got some sway over… F-word.”
“I wouldn’t worry about throwing his name around,” Nick said.
“He got ticked the first time I called for a ride, repeating his name,” I said. “But yeah. He also told me he’s sort of under C-word’s sway.”
“Your friend might be too.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“If I’d connected the dots right off the bat,” Nick said, “I might have warned you. But he might know what she knows.”
I let my head drop forward until my forehead rested on the back of Nick’s headrest.
Very gently, he asked, “You’re not going crazy or flipping out. Was this all part of the plan?”
Without moving my head, my eyes still closed, I said, “The plan was scary, flimsy and incomplete enough that I’m not devastated to realize our enemy knows what it is.”
“No?”
“I’m more spooked at the idea that he might think to ask Rose if she can access the books he wants. If she can bring mirror-world variants to C-word, then it’s all over.”
“How long would it take to set something up?” Nick asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “He’ll want sufficient protections. Protections would take a little while, especially if they were thorough. The summoning itself requires calling out a name.”
“So you have time. The situation isn’t too much different.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Might be twenty minutes, might be hours. The only constants here are that I’m pretty much powerless, and C-word pretty much has to follow his rules.”
“Wish I had ideas,” Nick said.
“What happens if he doesn’t follow his rules?” Priss asked.
“He loses ground, I imagine,” I said. “Maybe it’s like Monopoly. You lose money you don’t have, so you give up assets you’ve claimed until you’ve paid up.”
“That’s something,” she said.
“I’m not sure it matters. There’s no way to compel something like him, so at best I’m putting him in a situation where he either follows his nature and conquers others, or he suffers a small loss.”
“I don’t really get it,” Evan said. “Who’s he conquering?”
“Rose,” I said. “Very probably. He’ll be breaking her down, making her miserable, making her obey him by exercising force and being scary. He ruins stuff, takes…”
“Can we make him take something he shouldn’t?” Evan asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “I’m not sure what that would be, and that’s probably the sort of circmstance where he draws from his reservoir of humanity and bends the rules.”
“Alright.”
“I like the line of thinking, though,” I said. I made a mental note.
There was another rule, but I wasn’t eager to say it out loud, because it was the sort of information that was very dangerous to have. Conquest was weak, but he had to look strong.
Right.
“When he’s done with Rose, he’ll turn his attention on anyone he can, with the exception of the people he promised he wouldn’t. He told the Drunk he wouldn’t,” I said. “Toronto, the Drunk and the Drunk’s acquaintances are safe, if I remember right.”
“The Drunk is on his side?” Nick asked.
“The Drunk is on the sidelines.”
Nick nodded.
“He’ll come after me at some point. Doing whatever it is he does. Conquering, subjugating, sowing despair, taking control,” I said, thinking aloud.
I turned that idea around in my head.
“Which isn’t a bad thing,” I added.
“Huh?” Evan asked.
“He’ll bring us to heel. He won’t kill us. It might be he can’t kill us. He can only set us up to die by other hands.”
“‘Might be’ is pretty thin,” Nick said.
Pretty thin was at least something.
These were the rules of the game, so to speak.
“There are a lot of one-way streets around my place. Take a right, then a left,” I said. “Or if it’s too much hassle, just drop me here, and I’ll walk.”
“You’ll hobble.”
“I’ll stagger forward like a zombie,” I said.
He took the right-hand turn.
I wasn’t much of a planner. It wasn’t in me. When I’d worked, I’d outlined the stage layouts, display cabinets and mounts for the various pieces, but I’d improvised throughout, bent and adjusted my outlines. I was good at that.
Thinking ten steps forward wasn’t in me. Rose had proposed that she’d be the long-term thinker in all of this, and she’d leave the moment to moment strategy to me.
It had almost worked against the abstract demon. Ur. It was very possible that I might not have made it out without our synergy on that front.
That situation could have gone worse.
Except maybe it had gone worse. Fuck.
Now Rose was in Conquest’s clutches, and she was no doubt working overtime to try and convince him not to hurt, torture or get the wrong info out of her. If he found out she could get the books, or if she divulged any other telling secrets, then this might all be over. If she didn’t, or if Conquest proved suitably distracted, then we maybe had time. It depended on how well Rose could improvise and if she could use those distractions.
On my part, the planning was left to me.
We arrived in my neighborhood.
Home. It felt awfully far away, considering the fact that I was there.
“Right here,” I said.
There was no room with the long row of parked cars, so he stopped in the middle of the street.
“Want us to drop by? I’ll bring our books, we’ll check on you, maybe get you somewhere you need to be?”
“Please,” I said.
“Maybe an hour, then,” Nick said.
“Right,” I replied. “Thank you.”
“You going to be okay?”
“Honestly? Probably not.”
“Figured as much.”
He opened the truck door for me, climbing out so I could get out, giving me a hand.
I still didn’t like the feeling of hands seizing me so firmly, as well intentioned as it was.
I managed a smile of thanks all the same.
Evan landed on my shoulder.
It was all I could do to keep my balance, so I didn’t turn when I waved my free hand in a farewell to the Knights. The other hand held my coat-wrapped demon arm.
I used my key to get through the door at the front, but stopped in the lobby.
I made a sharp left, then headed through the hallway.
The garage adjoined the building. Joel’s car, the same one I’d borrowed, was there. That meant he was home.
My bike was also there.
I really wanted to go for a ride. It would be suicidal, given the local weather, but I really wanted to go.
I ran my hand along it. “Put a wind rune on you, maybe? Or maybe I can dig up something like a balance rune?”