The house was filling with it.
Russian winter to stall the Conqueror, I could only hope.
I ran around to the side of the house, the exit in the garage.
I stopped, caught between Conquest, who might be following, and Laird, who would be near the car at the front.
Maggie had slipped out the front. I could feel the connection moving. I wasn’t sure why Laird wasn’t going after her, but she had slipped out, which was all I could ask for.
“You okay?” Evan asked.
“You’re a hero,” I told him. “I’m unhurt.”
“Because in the movies, people get shot and they don’t realize, and it’s all-”
“Evan. I’m okay.”
“For now. We can’t stay here,” Rose said. “Go for Laird.”
“Don’t have any weapons,” I said.
“We do,” Rose said. “It’s the last big option you have, but…”
I heard a crash from the direction of the kitchen.
Conquest was making his way to us, too big for the room.
It seemed Duncan wouldn’t have a house when all of this was done.
“Do it,” I said. “Clean and fast as you can.”
I heaved the garage door open, then slipped under.
I came face-to-face with a Behaim kid. The older teenager.
He held a golden disc like he might hold a weapon. He was looking around, searching for something.
Did the disc need a vehicle? A power source? A target?
It didn’t matter.
“Duncan is inside,” I said, my voice low. “He’s bleeding badly, maybe to death. Get inside, stop the blood flow.”
I could see the horror on his face.
“Please,” I said. “I promise I won’t hurt your Uncle Laird too badly. I won’t kill him, if I can help it. But Duncan may well die without help.”
He wasn’t moving.
“Go!” I shouted.
He went, running.
I didn’t move as fast. Snow still billowed out from the living room, like smoke from a fire, thicker than the snowfall that still plagued the city. Even on the driveway, which had been shoveled in the not-so-distant past, pushed down by the passage of Joanna’s car and tires, it was nearly knee-deep.
The Hyena lay on its side at the end of the driveway, collapsed, snow already thick in its fur. It didn’t breathe. Blood pooled around it.
The dolls the Hyena had gotten its teeth and claws on were acting erratic, conflicting with other dolls or staggering in Laird’s general direction.
One staggered in mine, making slow and uneven progress through the deeper snow of the yard itself. Evan circled it, and it spun in place, trying to clutch him, before it lost its balance and collapsed.
A moment later, it erupted in a small explosion. Evan was clear.
Laird was standing just outside his car, surrounded by four more injured dolls.
He fired his gun, and one staggered back before breaking into individual pieces.
If I could get my hands on him…
But I couldn’t get past those dolls without risking it. Couldn’t risk getting shot. For now, he was prioritizing
The garage door opened.
Conquest.
The snow didn’t even impede him, out here.
“This has gone on long enough,” Conquest said.
I didn’t open my mouth.
If he shot me-
He didn’t.
The butt of his gun struck the snow beside him, barrel pointed skyward. He held it like he might a cane.
“We’re not fighting?” I asked.
“Fighting implies a kind of equality, doesn’t it?” he asked. “One person fighting, the other fighting back? I’m not so fond of level playing fields.”
I nodded slowly.
I had a very bad feeling.
“I saw your Rose preparing to call the imp. She won’t be finishing the task anytime soon. Laird is occupied. This is between you and me.”
“And me!” Evan said.
I wasn’t sure if it was the contrast to Conquest’s voice or fear, but Evan’s voice was a squeak, it was so high-pitched.
“Ah, of course. You have support. Shall I call mine?”
I tensed.
The Shepherd? The Eye?
Conquest spread his arms. As if stepping out from behind the curtains on either side of the stage, two figures emerged.
Two men, a bit of scruff on their cheeks, they wore utilitarian clothes, dirty, one suited more for spring or fall, the other for winter. Heavy layers. They had wavy blond hair of different lengths. One was slightly shorter than the other. Fractionally.
“Blake?” Evan asked. he looked up at me, then over at them, confused.
“Yeah,” I said, as I stared at them. “He found them.”
My heart pounded. I knew exactly what was coming.
They were me.
“Echoes,” Conquest said. “Images, memories and emotions that left a mark on the surface of reality, on the spiritual plane. Much like yourself, little bird.”
“Fuck you,” I told him, and my voice was strangled.
“Allow me to reintroduce you,” Conquest said.
The younger one rushed at me.
There was no avoiding it. In a way, it was mine.
■
The rain fell hard.
It wasn’t one of the nights where sleep came easy. Most nights, I could get five hours, in the right place, if I’d eaten, if everything was okay.
But I itched. I suspected I knew why, and shame gnawed at me.
One night in the shelter, when the rain had been worse, I might have caught them from the cot. Lice, bed bugs, fleas, something.
There was no getting rid of them. I had a hundred tiny bites on me, and all I could do was suffer in silence. I’d known sleep was going to be hard to come by, so I had picked a less desirable spot, where I had more of a view, where the rain only fell on me when the direction changed.
I was fully prepared to spend the night awake, enduring discomfort on a number of levels, lost in thought and introspection.
I was almost ready to go back. To just duck my head down and see my parents. To bite the bullet.
I didn’t expect sympathy. If they had any to spare, they would have found me already. I’d stayed with friends for a while, couch surfing, then the periodic night on the streets when I’d been unable to find a couch became the typical night on the streets.
I didn’t even expect blame, exactly.
When I contemplated the situation, I was trying to find arguments that I could make, that would keep my parents from shoving me right out the door again. I wasn’t young enough to demand they take me back. They weren’t required to by law.
I seethed as I recalled memories, trying to think of every major wrong they’d done me, so I could tell them they owed me a few nights of a bed to sleep on, a shower, some food.
By the time I heard the footsteps, it was too late.
This isn’t the worst one. Or even the second-worst one. Not the one where I was shot and beaten.
Kids with makeshift clubs. Sticks, something that might have been a ski pole without the plastic bit on the bottom.
Of course, ‘kid’ was relative.
Teenagers, big enough to be almost-adults, little enough to lack the full-sized brain that let someone make the right judgement calls.