I saw Laird look down at the imp.
“The rules don’t say I can’t talk to him,” Pauz said.
Lines creased Laird’s face as he turned to look at Pauz. Concern?
“The rules say you have to stick to English,” I said. “No demonic tongues or anything of the sort.”
“Yeah,” Pauz said. He crawled forward on all fours, looking almost feral as his back arched, the individual vertebrae sticking up, a spine with an ‘s’ curve, apparently. A baby with a mouth like a piranha, dead eyes, and dark gray flesh. He made a scratching noise, circling around until he was out of Laird’s view.
“Do you want to volunteer information?” I asked Laird. “This could go easier. I could give you amenities, or
“I didn’t think you were capable of this, Thorburn,” Laird said.
“I’m not doing anything but keeping you here.”
“It’s torture. Psychological torture. You’re setting me up to fall into the imp’s clutches, but by doing it like this, you defer responsibility for it.”
I glanced at Rose. It had been her idea.
“To be entirely honest, I wasn’t aware that was actually a thing,” I said. “Deferring responsibility.”
“It is,” Laird told me. He’d gone very still, and looked very grim, the lines in his face making his age and stress obvious. “You leave a man standing on a chair with a noose around their neck. The powers and spirits that would decide where responsibility for the death rested don’t necessarily have the wits or the long memory needed to figure it out.”
Fell sat in a chair, the butt-end of the gun resting in his hand. He’d relaxed a bit since the imp was summoned. “It’s true. There’s a reason practitioners prefer curses and convoluted ends over efficient things like bullets.”
“Ah,” I said. “Interesting.”
I shifted position, getting out of the chair, then crouching until I was at eye level with Laird.
When I spoke, my voice was low. “Tell me, is that deferring of responsibility the reason you used Maggie and her goblins to go after my cousin? Molly Walker?”
“Ask your friend there.” he asked, pointing at Maggie. “She’s the one that sent the goblins after your cousin.”
“No need. Rhetorical questions don’t need answers,” I said. “I just wanted you to know you didn’t win any points in this discussion by reminding me of how you had Molly brutally murdered, using and manipulating Maggie.”
He stared at me, unflinching.
“Sit tight,” I said.
I rose to a standing position, using the seat of the chair and Maggie’s help.
“You’re playing with fire,” Laird said. “If that imp breaks through-”
“Pauz. I am Pauz,” the imp growled, enunciating it pa-ooz.
“If the less-than-charming Pauz influences me, it’s a step forward for his kind. There’s no recovering what we lose to them. Objectively, taking this risk is more evil than the murder of a thousand Molly Walkers,” Laird said.
“Or, you know,” Evan piped up, “You could not kill a thousand girls?”
“You sound scared, Laird,” Rose said.
Laird spread his arms. Pauz lunged, moving three feet into the air, snapping his teeth in an effort to seize Laird’s fingertip as it approached the line.
But Laird had stopped just short of passing over the circle.
Pauz landed with a heavier thud than I might have expected.
“I admit I am,” Laird said. “If that’s what you wanted out of me, then you’ve won.”
“That’s not the victory we’re looking for,” Rose said.
“What do you want?” Laird asked.
“To remove you from play,” I said. “For the purposes of this contest.”
“And in general,” Rose chimed in, finishing my thought. “To ruin you, Making it so people have to ask, ‘Is Laird compromised?’ ‘Is he in any shape to lead?’ By doing this, we get as close to the line as humanly possible. Raise the question.”
“You remind me of her,” Laird said. “Of the elder Rose, your predecessor.”
Rose didn’t reply.
I pointed. As a group, we retreated from Laird and the imp.
“You remind me of someone else, Blake,” Laird called out.
I didn’t take the bait.
We were halfway to the pre-furnished bedroom on the far end of the apartment when I heard the noise. It sounded like something between nails on a chalkboard, a bird’s screech and a death scream, if an something the size of an elephant were to make the sound.
I was slower than the others in stepping back to see.
The imp was on all fours, facing Laird, mouth open. Laird was halfway to his feet.
“Mercy,” Fell muttered. “That thing made that noise?”
Pauz screamed again. Most of us covered our ears.
“Pauz,” I said, “Stop.”
He stopped.
I didn’t even have a chance to draw in the breath to say another word before Pauz launched into a full on speech.
“You won’t have a moment’s rest,” Pauz spat the words at Laird, “You’ll slip, step too far. When you let me in, the first thing I’ll do is make you drink the contents of that chamberpot. I’ll bleed you and you’ll leak, pissing yourself in fear. I’ll watch you scramble to sop it up, to lap at it with your tongue and blot it with your rags, fighting to keep the circle from being compromised.”
“Thorburn,” Laird said.
Pauz continued, “Give me one hour inside that circle, and I can break you. I can make you wallow in your own piss and shit like a pig in mud, and you’ll be happy to do it, because it pleases me, and because it means I won’t make you feast on your own filth.”
“Ew,” Evan commented.
“Shut the thing up, Thorburn,” Laird said.
I stayed silent.
The eerie gravelly voice went on, “Give me the chance, and I might go after your family, and I’ll do the same to them five times over.”
“Thorburn,” Laird said. “You’ve won. You got me. You don’t need to drive the point home.”
Pauz continued, “If you don’t give me the chance, I’ll make a sport of it, I’ll reduce you to the sort of animal that would go after them and do depraved things. I want to watch you come back to me like a dog to its master.”
“I’m not listening, la la la,” Evan said, wings to the sides of his head.
Laird looked up at me. “I can’t take another hour of this, let alone days. Anyone would make a mistake. Let the imp through, or fall asleep, or jump at a sudden scream and accidentally trespass over the line-”
“Did Molly beg?” Rose cut in.
“Again,” Laird said, leaning his head back, staring up at the stippled ceiling, “That’s a question you should be asking Maggie. Ask her about blood and darkness.”
“You’re a bit of a bastard,” Maggie said.
“Deferring the blame,” Rose added.
“She was there, I wasn’t,” Laird said.