6.08
My gut told me that Evan was a good fit for me. We meshed, we worked together, we complimented one another’s strengths. Even on an aesthetic level, maybe, we didn’t look out of place, Evan perched on my hand. Maybe that was vanity, my self-image, my liking of birds and Evan’s given form.
Maggie, too. I could picture her with goblins standing in a small group around her. It was like the way pets came to resemble their owners. Maggie’s hair stuck up in places, her clothes were slightly mismatched, and her forward attitude was one that could leverage goblins.
I could see Rose, reflected in a cracked window, and I could see Midge, meeting the water-runed dolls head on.
Whatever it was, that same gut feeling told me that Midge wasn’t a good fit for Rose.
I had a suspicion as to why Rose had gravitated towards Midge as a summoning, but it wasn’t a suspicion I was free to think through. We had more pressing problems.
Tiff and Fell did what they could to stop the two that reached us. Fell kicked the one, while Tiff swung her bag like a flail at one that was only waist high. All things considered, the dolls went down easy. Fell planted his foot on the neck of the one he’d kicked over, stomping hard enough to sever head from body. No more avenues for the mystic energies to flow through the thing’s body.
Of the rest, Midge grabbed the two vessels closest to her and used them as bludgeons to strike down the next three to pass within ten feet of her. They weren’t really for fighting. Plastic, and many were hollow plastic. They couldn’t deliver many hits, but they could latch on, smother, or simply deliver their relatively weak hits over and over again. It enraged her more than it hurt her.
She took a step forward, oblivious to the fact that it would bring the earth dolls closer.
Midge was easily a few hundred pounds, more reminiscent of a Neanderthal than Homo Erectus. She smelled, she had bad teeth, and her dress was some old fashioned thing that dated to an era when very few people had been obese, or nourished enough to grow above six feet in height, a draping of cloth with a too-small flower print that looked like bargain bin curtain material, her large, misshapen nipples standing out like golf balls beneath the thin fabric. She walked through snow on dirty, bare feet.
Her hair was thin, coarse, and lanky. But her eyes… yeah. I could see where the ‘subhuman’ label had been applied. Or even where people might have thought of her as a demon. Not only a glare, but a hard stare that held hatred for every last thing in the world, shifting to suggest a nuance to that hatred, for each and every thing she looked at. Resentment, disgust, loathing.
It was very possible that someone or something like her might have been called an ogre, once upon a time. Fix the hair and clothes and keep her eyes hidden, and she might not turn many heads on the street. Leave her as she was, and she fit among the monsters just as easily.
She was big, red in the face, and her blood had been practically boiling from the moment she’d arrived. She grunted with every swing of meaty fists, breathing hard, roaring wordlessly. She didn’t walk, but stomped. She was magical by virtue of the fact that she’d been summoned here.
She was hitting all the marks to draw the attention of the dolls and mannequins.
Even swamped, bogged down under their combined weight, she was managing.
But even if they were thrown off or torn in half, they came back. Not putting themselves together, but crawling, lurching, or otherwise flailing in an attempt to close the distance.
They were drawing closer to us.
“She’s not hitting the runes,” I said. “Rose, tell her.”
“Midge!” Rose called out. “Get the-”
Barely even sparing a glance, Midge caught one by the middle and hurled it.
“-Symbols-”
The thrown doll sailed through the Rose-occupied window. We collectively flinched as shattered glass flew past us.
Our retreat and our gasps had brought more of the dolls toward us. Many included the ones that Midge had broken.
“Might be better to leave her alone,” Maggie commented.
An explosion erupted as one of the dolls got too close to Midge. I saw two more twisting, contorting, their limbs bending in impossible ways as they turned their ‘faces’ skyward.
I shielded my face in anticipation of the explosions.
Two more. Not as bad as I might expect from a grenade, but still enough, I imagined, to leave a serious injury.
Midge lowered her arm, where she was covering her face. Her other hand was outstretched, reaching.
Fire had scorched her, leaving the skin discolored and split, angry black-red scorch marks visible on the flesh, even from a short distance away. Two meaty fingers dangled backward, waggling from the thin bits of tissue that attached them to her hand.
She used the damaged hand to cave in one hard plastic head. A finger came loose as she did.
The elbow of that same arm drove another back into the crowd.
Not even slowing down.
Her face was burned, I saw, as she turned to one side. The pain seemed to encourage her. It made sense in a way, if raw anger and hate were the only things that fueled her, then pain would motivate, not debilitate.
It reminded me of my own train of thoughts, not so long ago. Pain and emotions and the impact they had on us.
“Talk some,” Fell said. “She’s got their attention, we can drag a few of the least dangerous ones away and deal with them.”
“Right,” Maggie said.
“She’s not listening to Rose?” I asked.
“Experience tells me you gotta wait for the right moment” Maggie said.
“Blake said you were a novice,” Fell said.
“I’m a firm believer in making up for a lack of quantity in experience with quality. Quality experience says that you either get the bad Others who-”