“Maybe,” I said. “I can also kind of imagine Conquest killing all of you, rather than risk letting this information spread. Think about that, weigh the same arguments we raised before. The benefits versus the losses, when you’re dealing with all this.”
“I’ve already thought it through.”
“In twenty seconds? While we exchanged words?”
She nodded.
“Damn,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’re going to turn around, say I’m right, and agree to let us go?”
“No. Putting you before the Elder Sister? No.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“So am I,” she said.
“Should we call an end to the discussion?” I asked. “Resume hostilities?”
“I expected you to try and worm out of this one.”
“Should we?” I asked, again.”
“Yes,” she said.
The word was barely out of her mouth when I pointed. “Leonard!”
The Sisters tensed.
But Ty was already responding. He dropped the backpack, holding Leonard so the bag dropped away and Leonard remained.
“Might be flammable!” I called out, before the Sisters could react.
Ty whipped the bottle in their direction. It hit the wall behind the closest car.
Leonard appeared, smoky, stronger and clearer than the last time I’d seen him, but this was a one-time appearance. He had an overgrown beard, a receding hairline, a worried expression, his eyes sticking out slightly, his expression sad.
I could smell the gas, sharp enough that I thought it might affect my sense of smell for the next while.
They coughed. We backed up before the gas could reach us.
One had drawn a gun from under her coat. Evan flew by her, but didn’t move the weapon aside.
I looked at her and shook my head, raising my voice to be heard. “I don’t think you’ll die unless you pull that trigger. Anything that fires a bullet could ignite the gas.”
She was coughing so much she couldn’t really aim.
The older Sister was trying to draw something on the back window of the car, but she wasn’t getting very far. She startled a bit.
Rose at work?
Bloody Mary, even?
Rose was supposed to be with Alexis, or at least spending much of her time there.
The older sister looked at me with red eyes. Her nose was already running, partially from the fumes, partially from the coughing.
The strength went out of them, one after the other.
Leonard, too, faded in his own way.
His power had been spent in one burst. I’d been waiting for this kind of situation. Dealing with practitioners, humans. This was the first time I’d been up against them and fully armed at the same time.
I stepped forward, paused as I smelled the gas, and then held my breath, pressing on. The impression of the gas was fading with every second, faster than it might otherwise dissipate in air.
After a moment, I bent down to check the older Sister’s pulse and breathing. The others joined me, dividing up the workload.
I very nearly jumped out of my skin when Fell slammed a car trunk.
I heard banging.
“Dolls,” he said. “Almost slipped out.”
I nodded.
When I stood up from the second woman, I saw Rose in the mirror.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Where’s Alexis and Tiff?”
“They’re safe, but it’s getting ugly, and they’re a little spooked. Might be time to regroup.”
I nodded. “We’ll head your way soon, get them prepared.”
Rose disappeared, stepping out of sight.
It only took a moment to check everyone. Evan was the last one to finish, his tiny head pressed against the woman’s throat, wing extended over her mouth.
“Recovery positions,” Fell said. “If they vomit, we don’t want them to aspirate.”
We turned them over as Fell instructed.
More were on their way.
“Drive?” Ty asked.
I looked at the keys I had in hand. I shook my head.
I bent down to put the keys in the hand of the woman Evan had taken them from, then closed her fingers around them.
“They may shoot first, next time,” Rose said.
“They might,” I said. “But Grandmother told us we needed to get our karma up, as one of her rules, and this feels right.”
“Dunno how right it feels. It’s getting colder, the wind’s getting worse,” Maggie commented.
“We should hurry,” Fell said. “There are more coming, and that trick only works once.”
“Getting criticized from all sides,” I muttered.
“Not from me,” Evan said.
I drew a marker from my pocket. I moved the older Sister’s head.
It only took a moment. A dotted line.
Words: I could have cut your throat, above the dotted line. Below: Conquest would have.
“Let’s hurry then,” I said.
We left on foot.
■
By the time we reached Alexis, Rose and Tiff, we’d crossed paths with another group of Sisters, successfully distracting them by pointing them to the others, only a minute or two behind us, and Fell had used more of his power to help us disappear into the midst of the weather.
The snowstorm had locked down the city, alternating between wet, heavy snow and freezing rain. When I looked, I could see that the real world looked almost as desolate as the spirit world. In spots, the ice and snow had brought down branches from overhanging trees, blocking off streets.
Some blocks had power, others didn’t. Power lines were down somewhere, I was betting.
The gap between the two worlds was swiftly closing.
Darkness, I thought.
It was eerie that Maggie had suggested it before other parties had brought it to pass. I wondered if the violence or pseudo-violence against the Sisters counted as the ‘blood’, or if we could expect more bloodshed in the hours to come.
I was shivering. My constitution wasn’t all there, and the cold and wet was getting to me.
The connections said they were close. We were unable to see more than ten feet in front of us in the real world, where things weren’t as obscure as they were in the spirit world. Their sudden appearance from the falling snow and fog was a bit startling.
“Geez. Give us a bit of warning,” I said.
“Sorry,” Tiff said.
“You guys okay?”
“Bit spooked. The power went out. The candle man-”
“Tallowman,” Alexis said.
“The Tallowman, he made candles, but that mostly made it worse. His candles cast pretty spooky shadows.”
“I can imagine,” I said.
“It took us a bit to convince ourselves the power going out wasn’t the start of some attack plan. You get paranoid,” Alexis said. “Rose left to let you guys know, but… not having her around, it’s tough.”
I nodded.
“What’s going on?” Alexis asked. “This is crazy.”
“It’s the work of the Lord of the City,” Fell said. “He’s increasing the pressure.”
“We’re stepping up our offensive,” I said. “We just took down one group of Sisters, and it looks like we took the meat out of their surveillance system, though it’s still there.”
“Definitely still there,” Fell said. “I can see them looking. They’re making stilted, periodic progress towards us. Looking for us, finding us, getting ready to move through this mess, and then traveling for five or ten minutes before they stop to start looking again.”