With no cars on the street, we were free to back away. I took a step back, and virtually everyone else in the group took my cue.
Fell didn’t.
“No,” Fell said. “Stop.”
I’d seen a lot, but with the mounting pressure of the advancing wraiths and the imposing figure of the naked swordsman promising imminent attack, it was hard to convince myself to stand my ground.
“He wants us to run,” Fell said. “We’d be running right into a waiting trap.”
“We’re supposed to stay and fight?” Ty asked.
“Do you want to die?” Fell asked.
“No, don’t want to die,” Ty said.
“We have to pick one and go through them,” I said.
“Yeah,” Fell said.
A wraith staggered toward us, going from a meandering approach to a sudden run.
Fell’s advice forgotten, we collectively backed away.
“Ty, salt,” I said. “Throw it.”
“Won’t work so well,” Fell said.
“Throw it anyway,” I said.
Bloody Mary slashed at a wraith. She drew blood, but the blood didn’t spatter anywhere. Spectral, imaginary.
I grabbed the tube that hung across my back and pulled the toque off the handle.
“Evan,” I said. “Ask the Hyena to come out to play. Same rules as before.”
The Astrologer’s creation hadn’t moved an inch. It could have been a statue.
“Hey, uglymutt,” Evan said. “Come out to fight, listen to me, don’t hurt anyone living.”
Ty threw salt at the wraith closest to us.
It smoked, staggered back, blinded, but it didn’t perish.
Superficial damage at best. A momentary setback.
“Said it wouldn’t work,” Fell commented. “It’s not entirely a ghost anymore.”
“Mary!” Rose called out. I didn’t hear the next thing she said.
Mary stalked toward us, breaking into a run. She didn’t stop, simply stabbing the wraith in the back, crashing into and through it.
Blood spilled, a hole opened in its middle, but it didn’t stop.
The Bloody Mary climbed to her feet. She stabbed herself a few times in the thigh in irritation, contemplating her next move, or waiting for the Wraith to make it’s next move.
“Hey, goblin,” Evan was saying. “Listen. You come out right now! I order you and Blake orders you!”
The sword didn’t change.
“He’s not listening!”
That fucking goblin. I’d bound it, after a fashion, but it had bound itself.
It was apparently content to stay bound and let us deal with the current situation, and I couldn’t do anything to change that fact. If I could use my own talents, my own power and words, maybe I could have forced something, but that didn’t fit with the nature of the contest.
“We run,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. “Fuck it, we can’t go through them.”
Fell didn’t respond.
“Fell?”
“Yeah,” he said. “We run.”
“Evan,” I said. “Go. Scout.”
He took off.
This was it. I’d aimed to unsettle and upset Conquest, to hit him where it hurt. I’d done it.
He was pulling out all the stops.
He could keep up the pressure like this, and the snowstorm alone would do us in.
The sidewalks and streets were alternately covered in mounds of snow and freezing puddles that had a way of getting past the tongue and lace of my boots to transfer freezing cold to the tops of my feet. The street was more puddle than anything else, but the puddles masked potholes and other hazards.
We turned our backs to the scene, hurrying as well as we could across the hazardous terrain.
Evan returned. “The Eye.”
“That way?” I asked, pointing.
He was already gone before my finger could extend.
A glance behind me indicated the wraiths were making good headway over snow and ice, unhampered. There were a good seven of them outside the grocery store.
I drew June.
If Mary could hurt the wraiths, then maybe June could too.
Maybe if they got that close, it didn’t really matter.
The wind howled.
Tiff shrieked. It sounded far away, with the way the wind stole the sound.
I turned, and all the strength went out of me as I saw the damage.
Fuck, fuck no.
Alexis was down, and she had an arrow as long as my arm sticking through her stomach.
In the same moment I looked to see what direction the arrow had come from, another one appeared out of nowhere. It didn’t fly through the air, I didn’t see it. I only saw the aftermath.
An arrow simply appeared, sticking right through Fell’s collarbone.
I saw the Astrologer’s creation, sword and shield abandoned. The naked warrior held a bow. I saw light cross, making an effect very much like a lens flare, and he drew another arrow out of the air, nocking it.
I dropped to my knees, my arms going around Alexis. I held her tight, trying to pull her back and out of the way. Her body felt alien and limp in my grip, the contact uncomfortable, but not acting was unimaginable.
At least around the nearest corner.
The Astrologer’s creation wasn’t shooting. The Wraiths were in the way, closing the distance.
“Blake,” a feminine voice said.
I looked.
The Sphinx blocked our path, large enough to take up the entire sidewalk.
“Please,” I said. “Let me help my friend first. She’s-”
“Shhh,” the Sphinx said. Her large, human hand reached down, a fingertip touching my lips.
Her lion’s paw moved, a little lower, claws appearing and disappearing.
Shredding my jacket, my sweatshirt, t-shirt, and laying the ribs beneath bare.