That was a bit more of a push. The concrete idea that I wouldn’t find peace, going down that road.
I took a step back, slowing the rate at which Conquest closed in.
I didn’t want to go to hell, or whatever equivalent I was due.
Even simpler than that… I didn’t want to die.
That was the idea I needed to move, to act.
He was still closing faster than I could retreat. Only natural.
He drew his weapon back to thrust. I cast my arm out.
I was almost too slow.
Laird’s blood, caught in my cupped hand, spattered the snow. I held my hand out, more blood dripping from the fingertips.
Conquest stopped, weapon poised. The blood formed a line between us.
Blood of a free man. I thought, still backing away. Once captured, rescued and given liberty. By you, no less.
“This is why you wanted to find Behaim?” Conquest asked.
I was silent as I continued backing away.
“Freedom may run contrary to my nature, but blood doesn’t,” Conquest said. His deep, eerie voice felt like it could carry across the neighborhood, over a good portion of the city, even. “Suffering doesn’t. Death and dying don’t.”
He stepped over the line of blood.
I was too messed up in the heart and in my head to even swear or feel panic.
He stabbed with the blade at the end of his gun, and I threw myself out of the way.
One action, one response, and it basically illustrated how the fight would go.
He barely had to try, while it took everything I had to get out of the way in time. I hit the snow, and had to fight to get the right position and find traction so I could move fast enough to avoid a second thrust.
The blade raked along my shoulder. I felt pain as blade parted flesh, then felt the cold seep in, swift. The two things put together were pretty indicative of there being something terribly wrong.
I stumbled. Evan caught me, a bit of a push at the right moment. I found my balance and stumbled a few more steps.
It was only a scratch, I realized, the cold air leaking in through a tear in the fabric.
“Um,” Evan said. He took to the air, circling me, drawing higher.
I looked to see why he was agitated, and saw Conquest lowering his gun, barrel pointed at me.
“Wait,” I said.
Evan flew past me, giving me a bump, as Conquest pulled the trigger. I didn’t move a muscle of my own volition, but Evan pushed me out of the way. I felt the wind move as the bullet whistled past my arm. Even through my coat, I felt it. I caught my balance, a couple of paces to the left of where I’d been standing.
“Wait? If you want another stay of execution,” Conquest said, “I’ve already said what that entails. A favor.”
I didn’t respond. Maintaining eye contact and speaking felt like a foreign concept, and I wasn’t about to take a submissive action like lowering my gaze.
“Beg me,” he said. “Kneel.”
Beg?
I realized I was hugging my arms against my chest. I hadn’t been aware. It made me look weak, but I felt weak. I’d been scraped raw, and all I wanted to do was break down. Shut the world away.
There was a chasm between where I stood and where I wanted to be. I’d just dealt with one person who was responsible.
Dealing with Conquest, though?
I’d known from early on that winning wasn’t really in the cards. Even if I did win this battle, I’d lose in the long run.
I was so sick of all this.
When the words came out, they came out as a torrent. I couldn’t stop once I started, so I put my focus on forming the words properly.
“Why the fuck would I beg?” I asked, and there was venom in my tone. “You’re petty, Conquest, you’re small in every way that matters, you’re a fucking pretender, trying to cover up for the fact that you don’t have as much power as you’re pretending. Practically everyone in this city that matters knows, they look down their noses at you. You’re a fucking joke! The metaphorical small-dicked, overcompensating, pathetic joke of Toronto.”
The wind blew hard, stirring more snow.
Conquest raised a hand.
The wind shifted, abrupt and strong enough to nearly lift me off my feet. I was left momentarily blind as snow found its way to my eyes, my weight no longer solidly on hard ground.
I caught myself and shielded Evan.
As quickly as it came, the wind stopped.
A cracking sound marked a tree reaching the breaking point, and a large branch crashed to the snowbank beneath it, crunching ice.
The houses and cars along the street were painted with snow and frost that crusted the windows. I had little doubt the same was true across the city.
It was quiet.
“Empty words,” Conquest said, “When you insist on retreating and running.”
Had I pushed him to his breaking point?
Had I challenged his authority enough?
It was impossible to keep it all in my head. Conquest, the fight for survival, the absolutely black well of emotion that had boiled over when he’d shoved the echoes at me. There was no way to wrangle it all, to keep it in mind, so some of it was bleeding out.
That odd feeling of betrayal had become indignance. It felt like such a small word to be labeling my feelings with, but how was I supposed to parse it, otherwise? I wanted justice.
This world had been unfair to me from the beginning. I’d paid for my victories thus far.
He stabbed. Evan helped me avoid it this time.
Two near-misses that only Evan had saved me from.
I hadn’t missed the pattern. I’d sensed it when we’d fought the oblivion demon, and Fell had put words to the idea. Evan’s ability to help me escape harm had its limits. Illusions had a way of cracking on the third attempt. Evan’s ability to save me from harm had a way of failing on the third try.
There was an underlying logic to this world.
“Go check on Rose,” I murmured.
“Are you sure?”
Not answering, I touched him, he hopped to my finger, and I flung him out.
Evan gave Conquest a wide berth on his way to the open garage door.
“Doing away with your familiar?”
I opened my mouth to speak, found the words out of reach. He took that moment of bewilderment to advance, swinging the spear.
I stumbled back out of reach.
He aimed, to shoot, and I let myself lose my balance. The shot passed over me.
I flipped over and half-crawled, half ran to the nearest parked car.
A car wouldn’t actually stop a bullet, as I understood it, but the engine block was dense enough.
“Still running,” he commented.
I found that spark of anger again. “Are you that weak, Conquest? That you’re bitching about someone keeping his distance? You sound like the sort of kid I used to play with in elementary school.”
“You twist my words.”
I did. I could interpret most things he said or did to attack him.
It was something I’d learned to do long ago, when I still lived at home. When the fight over the inheritance and the general atmosphere was still ongoing, toxic and unpleasant.
I said, “They’re coming out of your mouth. You’re an incarnation of Conquest in a country and city that barely has any! I almost pity you.”
My words came out a little ragged. There had been too many bursts of action, too many bits of running and fighting, moments of high adrenaline. My head was pounding from the stress of emotion running too high for too long. I needed to maintain my attack.