Good enough.
I did what I could to drag Laird back while keeping the gun available.
Things picked up a moment later when the door opened and the Tallowman came striding out with Bloody Mary a step behind.
Ainsley backed away from Bloody Mary, giving her as wide a berth as was possible without climbing over the cars that were piled up in the parking lot.
“The Tallowman has your bag,” Rose said, from one car windshield.
The wax-crusted man handed me my backpack.
“We save Maggie from the trap first, we rescue the others from Duncan, and then we scram,” I said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Rose said. “Tallowman, go around to the front of the building. You recognize our friend?”
“Yes mistress,” the Tallowman said, his voice meek.
“Go help him.”
“Yes, mistress,” the Tallowman said.
A little creepy.
“That went screwy fast,” Rose said. “I blacked out for a good half hour. Amnesia.”
“Some trick,” I said. “Evan and I did too. They used it to split us up, separated us, we still came out ahead.”
“Be careful about lying. We’re not sure how this went while we were out.”
“I’m pretty certain,” I said. Maggie was in sight, looking very impatient inside a rectangular magic circle that was bound to the pavement by golden chains.
“You’re certain we came out ahead?”
“We got Laird,” I said, pointing to Laird’s limp body, dangling from the Hyena’s mouth. There was a white smear drooping from the side of the Hyena’s nose to Laird’s shoulder. “And I think I’ve figured out the trick.”
“Trick? To?”
“The Behaim’s power.”
6.12
Last Chapter ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Next Chapter
I’d faced more than a few situations that left me bewildered, scrabbling for mental footing before I could be killed or caught in a trap.
This situation, as it turned out, was more bewildering than most, the imminent death or trap a little more questionable.
The Behaim kids had caught me, I realized. ; They’d surrounded me.
That wasn’t so hard to understand.
But I was in the spirit world, where I’d been in the real world not so long ago.
A touch more concerning.
I was also in a foreign place. ; The far end of the spirit world version of the police station’s parking lot. ; Everything was fenced in, except for the dilapidated gate at the end, where an old Father Time figure was lurking, bearded, old, and robed, with golden chains draped over the ground around him like a squid’s limp tentacles.
Three on the side of me closest to the building, sunglasses and Father time on the other side.
Their expressions were stern, distorted by the influences of the spirit world and the fact that my vision was out of focus.
I just dealt with you.
The girl who Mary had sliced was there, cut arts covered by her sleeves. ; Either the situation had had a particularly fast resolution or… or what?
I’d seen the Behaim ritual and the aftermath of accelerated time around the house, I’d seen Duncan turn back time, and now this.
Had they rewound themselves? ; How did that explain my being here? ; Had they stopped time and moved things in the interim?
I didn’t have my backpack or the hammer that was engraved with the rune, but my pockets were still full.
Evan fluttered, landing on my shoulder.
“Hey, kid,” I said, murmuring.
“Heya.”
The Behaims were staring at me but not moving. ; That damn little kid with his pad of sticky notes was riffing through the pad with his thumb.
“Are you as confused as I am?” I muttered.
“We’re not where we’re supposed to be,” Evan commented.
“Yeah,” I said.
The Behaim guy with the sunglasses might have heard, because he smiled a little.
“Where’s Rose?” Evan asked.
I looked around. ; My eye traveled over the back windows of the cars.
No sign of our resident girl in the mirror or her knife wielding Other.
“Good question,” I said.
This was too eerie, too out of place.
Something was wrong.
“Gut feeling on an escape route?” I murmured, a little quieter than before.
Evan turned his head.
I glanced without turning my head. ; He was looking at a police van, fairly nondescript, but for a red and blue stripe at the side and a coat of arms on the side. ; The nose pointed at me, rear bumper facing the chain-link fence.
Good enough.
I bolted, and Evan took off in the same moment.
I stepped up onto the bumper of the van, then the hood, slipped, and climbed onto the roof on all fours.
One of them was doing something, because my legs were moving more sluggishly than my upper body, as if I were wading through water. ; My shoulder ached something fierce, and I couldn’t think back to any incident that might have caused it.
Evan’s passing flight helped me shift my legs into position, and helped dismiss whatever effect was accumulating there.
The top of the van was slick with wet snow, but I managed to find my balance.
The top of the chain-link fence was just about level with my collarbone. ; A short jump, easy enough to make, even with me in a less than stellar physical state.