She stopped as the next batch of dolls arrived.
I participated this time, guarding Fell’s left side. I had the sword wrapped up, to keep Maggie from noticing the particulars, and I’d paid particular attention to binding up the handle, where the three-quarter inch spikes were just dense enough that I couldn’t comfortably hold the thing.
Even though it was wrapped in cloth, the top end far too heavy, I managed to jab one with the sword, driving it back. I hit it in the leg, aiming for the joint, and belatedly realized it was the most durable part of the mannequin.
Fell kicked it in the chest in the same way someone might try to kick in a door. The chest caved in and weight did the rest. The mannequin folded in half, pulled down by the weight of arms and its head.
There were only a scattered few left.
“I hope the right moment comes soon,” I said. “This is one metaphorical genie that needs to go back in her bottle.”
Maggie nodded. Her eyes were on Midge.
More explosions, doing more damage to the other mannequins than they did to Rose’s new pet.
“This is how the sisters operate?” I asked.
“No,” Fell said.
“Then how?”
“The Lord of a City often imposes rules of conduct. In Toronto, as you’ll find in many places, the very first time you go to ask the Lord of the City for something, you’ll be asked to agree to certain terms. One of those terms is that you need to be ready to stand in defense of the city. These vessels would be the token offering from the Sisters of the Torch.”
“In case some aspiring Lord comes and decides to unseat Conquest?” I asked.
“More or less.”
I nodded.
The snow made it hard to tell which ones had which rune. The metal-runes had barely moved from their meandering circuit through the area, and the others were largely engaged with Midge.
Two, I saw, were twisting and shriveling like ants underneath the microscope. Fire runes.
“Heads up!” I called out.
But Midge grabbed them, one in each hand.
The left-hand one was shoved right into the midst of the other vessels.
The right-hand one was a doll, the same size as a five year old child, but hairless. Midge turned, heaving it like someone might throw a shot-put.
In our general direction.
“Shit!” I shouted.
“Crumbs!”
We turned, putting distance between us and the flying doll.
Midge wasn’t throwing at us.
Not at the mortal humans, no.
At Rose. The doll was flying toward the same building where Midge had thrown the doll through the window.
I looked at Rose. “Move!”
She moved, darting off to the right side of the window. I didn’t see her in any of the adjacent windows in the half-second before I covered my face and eyes.
The explosion shattered a series of windows on the ground floor, and cracked a few on the second floor.
The explosion went off a few feet from Midge, too. She stumbled, but didn’t lose her footing.
Midge was in the process of going after the ‘metal’ vessels. They didn’t fight back as she tore them to pieces.
When they started to go down, the struggling remains of the other vessels ceased.
The metal ones had been, what, transmitting a signal? Providing structure?
Maybe a factor in why they had all arrived around the same time. The ‘metal’ vessels were the generals. Vulnerable on their own.
Well, the others hadn’t put up a big fight.
In the midst of the half-circle of flames and burning plastic limbs around her, Midge glared at us.
She was bruised, bleeding from a dozen cuts and scrapes, and she was burned. Here and there, wounds overlapped. In places where she’d been burned and then punched, the skin was more messed up.
Had it been us in the thick of that, even as a group, I didn’t think we would have been standing. But as far as Midge was concerned, the vessels hadn’t served any purpose except to help her demonstrate just how good she was at hurting and killing human-shaped things.
And now, with the vessels taken care of, the only human-shaped things around were us.
Midge smiled, reaching up to bite off a chunk of skin that hung off the side of her hand, like someone else might bite off a hangnail. She rubbed the resulting ruin of a hand on her dress, leaving a zig-zag of brown-red blood on the fabric. She didn’t even flinch.
This is some horror movie shit right here.
“How do you get her bound again?” I asked.
Maggie said, “If they’re tightly bound and sworn to oaths, you don’t need to, they stick to the rules that were laid out.”
“Midge isn’t sworn to oaths, is she?”
“Nope,” Maggie said. “She has to follow the instructions given.”
“I think we need a few more details here.”
“I talked Rose through a basic release. Rose didn’t think she’d be able to leverage any power, so I drew out the diagrams, she used the Thorburn voice, I did the physical side of the binding, and then passed ownership of it to Rose. Rose says the word, Midge gets released, Midge goes after the target, then she comes back and is either bound again or banished.”
Fell nodded, as if that made all the sense in the world to him.
“Target’s gone, why isn’t Midge coming back?” I asked.
“You’d have to ask Rose. Something went wrong.”
“How do we get her to come back, then?”
“Rose has to order it.”
“Midge doesn’t seem interested in giving her the chance,” I said.
“Nope.”
Fell drew his gun. I doubted it would put Midge down.
This was a mistake.
It was a dangerous mistake. Something Maggie had pushed for, a little reckless and unprepared, and now we were reaping the consequences. We’d traded one problem for another.
It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Maggie – I suspected her inability to swear pointed to a mistake in her past. She was new to this.
It was out of the ordinary for Rose. Over the past couple of years, I’d spent a lot of time dissecting myself. How I dealt with problems, what my limits were. What I needed and why.
How did Rose deal, when backed into a corner? I knew her to be more disciplined and liable to think to the future on the whole. But here she was, feeling the effect of almost two weeks of confinement in the mirror world. Her only contact with others had been a hug and brief handholding with me and some contact with Others, manhandling from Conquest and a quick kiss from Padraic. She’d been interrogated, and that had only compounded how very vulnerable she felt.
Was this Rose as she was when pushed to her limit? Reckless? Just as indiscriminate as I’d been described?
“If Rose hides somewhere out of sight, maybe?” Tiff suggested.
“Theatrics are important,” I said. “When and how you say something can impact the strength of the words. Cowering, hiding and asking her to go back is less likely to work than a stern order.”
Midge looked around, turning glaring eyes on everything in the environment.
She bent down to pick up an inert vessel, then grabbed another. Both mannequins, the heavier sort, damaged from the beating Midge had delivered. She held them under one arm, then started striding towards us.
Somewhere between an approaching rhino and an infant girl absently carrying a toy around with her.
“Rose,” I said, with a tone and sharpness that carried through the empty street.
“A few kinks to iron out in this whole ‘mirror-girl summons stuff’ concept,” Maggie commented.