“Look after Alexis,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
The moment she was off, I revved up and peeled out. I suspected Alexis had been in the middle of saying something when I left. If she had, I didn’t hear it.
It was cold as fuck, the snow had soaked my coat and clothes from the outside in, cold sweat had soaked them from the inside out, and the wind just cut straight through it to bite deep into me.
I passed the line that Fell had described. Salt plus snow to make something approximating water. Water to oppose the Eye of the Storm, or so I supposed. Salt plus water?
The moment I passed the line, my bike kicked. More smoke, more complaints from the engine.
“Evan!” I shouted. “Guide me!”
“Yeah!” he cried out, a small voice lost in the rush of wind.
I turned, steep, and steered right for the alley where the Shepherd was taking cover.
I shifted the position of the sword with one hand, steered with the other, and sailed within a hair of the Shepherd, blade’s point sticking out.
A jouster’s run, in a way.
I stopped at the far end of the alley and turned around. I nearly lost the sword as it came close to slipping from my lap in the midst of my using the clutch, but I caught it and fixed the position.
The Shepherd had turned into a ghost. Or adopted ghostly defenses for himself. Untouched, untouchable in the conventional sense.
Ghosts were emerging from the walls. Slower ones, less material.
The Eye was closer to the mouth of the alley, and a newspaper box was blazing nearby. I suspected that it could and would combust at the worst possible time.
It was narrow, as escape routes went.
Rose made her third bid, and the ghosts hesitated. The Shepherd struck the wall with his staff, and the ghosts surged forward again.
Low quality, high quantity bindings, it seemed.
“Another go. Help keep the way clear,” I said.
“Yep!” Evan said.
My engine popped. More smoke.
Fuck me.
The Eye would pay for messing with my bike.
But first, the Shepherd would pay for fucking with my friends.
I left the sword the way it was, shifted gears, then raced for the mouth of the alley.
One hand on the sword, again, and another jousting run. This time with the Shepherd to my left, the blade’s point to my right. I didn’t look at him. My eyes were on the exit.
He moved his crook, apparently planning something. To catch me around the throat as I passed, possibly.
He wasn’t watching for the sword’s pommel. It was only when I stuck it out that he saw what I was doing. I’d focused on the exit only to mislead.
There was magic, and there were magic tricks. Sleight of hand.
He turned ghostly. It didn’t help that much. I still had the box of salt over the handle, and even largely empty, there were trace amounts of salt inside. Enough to fuck with a ghost.
Enough to fuck with him.
I felt the impact this time, and came very close to both crashing the bike or having the sword’s blade lever over to cut me in the side. I managed to just barely avoid both.
He felt it too, and he folded over. A punch in the gut at thirty kilometers an hour.
Ghosts disappeared, one by one. Ones on and around the car, on the sidewalk, and elsewhere. I couldn’t say whether it was Rose’s words or my actions that had done it, but we’d banished them.
Rather than risk trying to slip by the Eye and the burning box, I hurried to turn around, riding over and past the fallen Shepherd’s spectral body, hoping there was salt on the tires.
No such luck, as far as I could tell. He was dissolving much as the other banished ghosts had. He, too, would reappear somehow. If I’d had more salt, and if the Eye hadn’t been in the immediate area, I might have tried to bind or disrupt him. But I didn’t, and the Eye was close enough to get in the way.
I rode through the alley, exiting the far end.
“They’re going,” Rose said. She was on the back of my bike, looking at me through the side-view mirror.
How did that even work? Was there someone on the bike in her version of the world, or was it moving without a rider?
I put the questions out of my mind.
“Yeah, ghosts are gone,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the wind. Easier than it might have been, because I was slowing down to turn the corner.
“I meant Fell and your cabal. They’re moving. The Eye is following you, but it’s slow.”
“Good. Good job,” I said.
There was no response. She’d already moved on.
I rode down the empty street, parallel with the others. Evan moved forward to the headlight, perched there, but with his wings spread.
Had we been able to hear each other, I might have asked if he was lending his abilities to our escape from the Eye, or if he was just doing it because he enjoyed it.
■
I hadn’t been exercising, exactly, but I was still exhausted when we finally managed to stop.
Fell did what he could to break the connections between us and the others. He set up a few more stick figures and partially masked them, to confuse the trail.
In the end, we pulled into a garage, because Fell loved his car and I loved my bike, and we wouldn’t be able to get by if either one broke down.
Rust, frayed wires, melted insulation…
I’d taken extensive classes on maintaining a car or a bike. When I set to work repairing some of the damage, I sensed a grudging respect from him.
“You’re an asshole, Thorburn, for dragging me into this,” Fell said, banishing the idea from my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said. My eyes fell on Alexis. “I really am.”
“Guess that’s a wake up call,” Alexis said. “I can’t keep ignoring my heart, if I’m as vulnerable to a heart attack as Blake is when he’s this weak.”
“Not entirely a bad thing,” Ty said.
“No, it isn’t,” Alexis said. But she looked a little shaken.
“It isn’t, but… it kind of sucks when you have to grow up,” I said.
“Yeah,” Alexis said. “No more garbage food for me, I guess.”
I looked at Tiff. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not the type that can deal with pain or anger, or being scared,” she said, quiet.
“You did good,” I told her.
“I don’t, um, I don’t want to be good at it?”
“You mean you don’t want to fight?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” I said. I sighed.
“The original plan stands?” Fell asked.
“Yeah.”
“She should stay here, then. Secure building, I can secure it further, and if we need to fall back to a location, we fall back here.”
“I don’t want to be alone in the middle of all of this,” Tiff said. “I’ll go crazy, thinking every sound is something dangerous.”
“Rose and I will stay here for the time being,” I said. “Take it easy, rest, catch your breath, and we’ll fix up the vehicles. Fell, Ty and Alexis can secure another area to retreat to.”