“I still want us to be stronger,” Rose said. “You get that, right?
I nodded slowly. “Can you find that book on shamanism? We have other stuff to get to in the next few hours, but I’d like to see how to draw out some power from this thing. Might even be useful if I get something like the Stonehenge bracelet, again.”
“Sure,” Rose said.
“Everyone has something to read?” I asked. “You guys know what your jobs are in the next, uh, sixteen hours?”
There were nods. I looked at Maggie, “And you’re okay for now? You don’t need to get back?”
“I’m putting it off,” she said.
“Can you?” I asked. “If I remember right, you promised your parents you’d attend school…”
“School’s out,” Ty said.
I slapped my forehead. “Right.”
“I’ve got elbow room,” Maggie said. “I want to make the most of it.”
“If you say so,” I said. “You helped out, I owe you.”
She smiled.
“Let’s eat, then,” I said. “Sleep, then break away, do what you need to do. We’re all in top condition tomorrow, or we don’t do this. Above all, we do this smart.”
“With a lot of light and fire,” Ty said.
■
I had to wonder if the first hunters felt this kind of trepidation. How often did a person experience this quiet kind of terror?
The hunter knew where the wild beast rested, though he would be flying blind when he crossed the threshold and entered the lion’s den. The hunter knew that he was outclassed in strength, in toughness, and in size.
All the hunter had were the piecemeal tools they’d been able to put together.
Floor plans loosely sketched out, displayed on Ty’s laptop. We’d checked the compass points and the point and time of sunrise and sunset, to judge when we’d have the most light filtering through the windows.
Rose had Corvidae with her, which I wasn’t so happy with, but Corvidae was another body on her side, and the demon had already attacked her there.
The other Others were broken and slain. If the energies that drove them were strong enough, they might recuperate and make themselves available to the next summoner, to fulfill the terms of the bindings that had been placed on them, or happy to have a chance to feast on whatever energies it was that drove them. The Tallowman was one likely possibility for resurrection. Coming back was his schtick. The Bloody Mary? Maybe less certain.
The laptop sat on the dashboard, and the car was off. Three of us gathered nearby to get a sense of what was where, and to discuss placement.
The Knights had brought two trucks, and Ty was helping Nick unload gear. Halogen lights on stands, a generator, and red plastic gas jugs.
I wanted to say it was being carried out with a military precision, but it wasn’t. We were disciplined, entirely serious and focused, but we were less than efficient. In too many cases, I saw people standing around looking for something to do, while there was stuff to be unloaded or set in place.
One halogen light for each ground floor window. The sun would be pouring in through several windows and the hole in the roof.
Nick’s son approached me, handing me a plastic bag with a smiling worm wrapped around a hook.
I fished out three flare guns, cast in bright orange plastic, vacuum-wrapped in plastic.
I slipped one into the leather package I’d made for June. Not exactly a good fit, but it would stay in place.
“Lights are clean,” Rose said. “Not reflective enough for me to go inside the glass.”
I frowned, “That’ll have to do. I wish there were more definite points in the midst of all this.”
“Nothing’s definite in life,” Nick said, behind me. He was rummaging through bags. Bottles of water, thick gloves, and a mask.
“That’s right,” Maggie said. She was standing with her back to the car and the factory both, bundled up, not even willing to look in the general direction of the factory. She kept talking, injecting false confidence into her voice. “If it was easy to puzzle them out, humans would have worked it all out a long time ago. But no, you wind up with stuff like this.”
Stuff like this.
“Not doing a lot to help my confidence,” I said.
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Maggie said. “Maybe you should reconsider.”
“But what happens then?” I asked. “How many years or decades is it before someone else makes a genuine attempt at stopping this thing? Everything I’ve read on demons suggests they’re a rot that eats at reality. Things become worse. A bite here and there, a chunk elsewhere, a major loss somewhere else entirely.”
“I like you, Thorburn,” she said. “Not like-like, though I wouldn’t mind, if you didn’t-“
She paused long enough to leave me thoroughly startled, but continued on, casual, like she was talking about the weather, “But I think you’re interesting, at the very least. The world might even be a better place with you in it, and there isn’t enough of that these days.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“So why is it your job? Why are you going in there alone?”
“Isn’t it my job because I’m the only person stupid enough to do it?” I asked.
Another car pulled up, stopping between Nick’s truck and Joel’s car. The trees blocked the view of the factory from here.
“I can’t stay for this,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
“I’m not going to wish you good luck. I don’t see the point. I don’t have anything to give you that would make a difference, that I’m willing to give up. I don’t even know why I came.”
“I appreciate the company,” I said.
She nodded. “This isn’t my thing. Being on the sidelines, being the side character.”
“I envy you, that you can,” I said.
She smiled just a little.
The people at the third car were unloading. Sisters.
Dolls.
I stared at the map, trying to reconcile the layout with what I was able to make out when I’d been there the other night.
I reached for the trackpad and made a note. Fallen rubble. Rounding that corner would mean taking a detour around the rubble, or maybe hurdling it.
No, hurdling was a bad idea. Even if Evan was accompanying me, giving me a periodic boost.
Rubble cast shadows. It could hold something.
Maggie, my friends, Rose, the possibility of interference, and a careful strategy with too many possibilities against a threat that I didn’t fully understand.
The ideas filled my head, and despite the fact that there were a dozen solutions waiting to be discovered, the resulting traffic jam meant I couldn’t think of a single one.
I shut my eyes, trying to focus.
One thing at a time, starting with the girl next to me.
“Maggie?” I asked.
“What’s up? I didn’t weird you out before, did I?”