“Damn it,” I said.
“Ugh,” Evan said, then before I could reprimand him, he said, “What about eggs?”
“What?” I asked.
“When my mom told me about that stuff, I remember not getting it, and she said something about it being like chickens laying eggs. It confused me more.”
“Rose?” I asked.
“You want to egg the cannibalistic monsters?”
“I never liked eggs after that,” Evan added.
“We need to move before they do,” I said. “We backtrack to the nearest convenience store, grab supplies, then we egg the cannibal super-zombies, including our mysterious obese cadaver, and if that fails, we use weapons instead. We have your summonings.”
“We do,” Rose said. “Go.”
It was a ten minute round-trip, extended to fifteen minutes when one tall, slow-moving Other rounded a corner, trudging along, taking its time in disappearing from view.
Cartons of eggs collected, we made our way back, ducking low to hide behind the snowbank as we got near.
Aside from devouring the dismembered limb, the ghouls hadn’t budged. They sat in the bus stop, not talking, only their heads turning slowly as they searched the area.
I drew June, and used her blade to crack an egg, smearing her with it. The whites froze in a heartbeat. Maggie did the same with the Hyena.
I didn’t like her having it, but taking the thing back would mean leaving her unarmed, and I didn’t like that either.
We moved as a pair.
The ghouls noticed us, stirring. The fat one had been gnawing on the arm, and when he turned his attention to us, I saw the gleam of white fangs stained with blood. The bone of the arm had been gnawed, a little more pointed. Maggie wouldn’t necessarily have a problem, but the makeshift knife coupled with his natural reach threatened to let him fight me with more reach.
Moment of truth.
I whipped an egg at the first one to step outside of the bus shelter. I missed, hitting the edge of the glass enclosure.
The ghoul stopped in its tracks, and the one behind it collided with it.
It was hard to say whether it had worked.
Maggie landed a dead-on hit.
It seemed to startle them more than anything. Part of it might have been our relative lack of fear. I imagined ghouls had decades or centuries of experience dealing with prey who were isolated, scared, and more focused on escape than confrontation. People ran, the ghouls didn’t get tired, and they eventually caught up.
This was unfamiliar territory.
The skinnier male ghoul grasped in my direction, trying to get a grip on my coat, baring his fangs. I leaned out of the way. He stumbled forward, and I caught his neck with June.
The wound froze as I cut through flesh.
Maggie took a moment longer with the other ghoul. Her arm must have been getting tired, I realized. She circled it, waiting for it to make a mistake, then deftly cut through its knees.
The four glass walls of the bus shelter shattered as Rose’s minions appeared. The Tallowman, Mary, and ‘J.P.’ Corvidae.
The fat one struck the Tallowman and Mary aside.
Mary didn’t hit the ground. Somewhere in transit, she became muddled, as if all of her features existed as one amorphous mass, and then she shifted to another form, slipping away from reality, unable to hold herself together.
The fat one stalked toward us. J.P. Corvidae didn’t get in its way. Our bogeyman companion stepped back, arms raised, clearly not intending to fight.
Bastard.
I would have done the same, arguably, but it didn’t help matters.
Maggie egged the thing, holding three eggs in one hand and whipping them at him one after the other.
“It’s not really working,” I said.
“I think it’s working a little,” Maggie told me. She flashed a grin, not taking her eyes off the Other. “He doesn’t like it.”
The Other stopped in its tracks.
It drew a charm from its pocket. A necklace or macabre rosary, dangling with finger bones.
It pointed at the ghoul lying on the ground, the one I’d cut with June.
The body moved.
Maggie stepped forward, swinging the sword, taking the head of the ghoul before the undead necromancer could do anything with the corpse.
Without waiting, she swung again, the blade biting hard into the pavement, and she took the ghoul’s head.
The braver of the two remaining creatures stared at us. The fat one, still bearing stubble on its face.
“If you attack,” I said, “We take you to pieces. If you run, I’ll come after you and take you to pieces. Can you communicate?”
It nodded.
“Do you know any critical names, here?”
It shook its head.
A rumble caught me off guard. My head turned.
A car approached. I felt a tertiary sort of connection to the occupant.
The thing hadn’t taken advantage of my distraction. Maggie still had it at swordpoint, an egg held in her free hand.
“Your choice,” I said, one eye on the car that was struggling to make it through snow that was piled higher than the car’s underside. “Can’t let you continue like this. Going after people. You choose. You go after one of the enemies I designate and then return to me for further instructions and possible binding and execution, you agree never to harm another living soul, or you die.”
“Bound for future use,” Maggie murmured.
“Or you take on a convenient form for later deployment, I do you a favor in turn, and we negotiate terms of your release after the fact.”
It held up two fingers.
“Second choice?” I asked. “Agree never to harm another living soul?”
“I swear,” it managed. Even from ten feet away in the blistering cold, I could smell the breath. It was the aroma I might expect from a coffin being opened.
I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. It was the least advantageous to me.
All the same…
“Go,” I said.
“Don’t feel bad,” Evan told the ghoul. “This is a lot better than the other idea they were talking about.”
It turned and left, half-running, half-jogging.
The fourth ghoul turned to go. Maggie stepped forward, swinging the sword with both hands. She took its head.
I met her eyes.
“It was a danger too, and weaker ghouls can’t communicate on that level.”
“What was that thing I just talked to?” I asked.
“Process of elimination says it was a greater ghoul.”
I sighed.
My eye was on the car that was struggling to make its way down the road.
“The eggs totally worked, didn’t they?” Evan asked.
I wasn’t so sure they had, but it was hard to say. Maybe the other stuff worked because it was human, and the ghouls were closer to humans than not. Were eggs too far removed?
“Maybe,” I said. “Come on.”
Ty, Tiff, Alexis and Fell were out of commission, out of commission, injured and dead, respectively. If there was any benefit to that, it was that it was easier to operate as a group. Me and Maggie. Evan was easily hidden, and Rose existed on a different plane, easily brought along with a mirror.
I approached the car, which was struggling more and more. The snow here was higher than it had been on the major streets. I didn’t recognize the woman within the vehicle, even if I could make a guess about the connections.
“Can you see it?” I asked.
“I can,” Maggie said. “She knows him.”
Maggie was holding the sword at the ready.
“No,” I said.