“I gave it to the lookout kids to share.”
“Fuck that!”
“They said someone came in and didn’t come out. I needed to bribe them to get them to go inside. Witnesses are bad.”
“Give them your chocolate.”
“I didn’t violate protocols.”
The girl in the checkered scarf cleared her throat.
“Who or what is she?” he asked.
“She’s someone we know, minus the knowing part.”
“A trick? Is she an assassin?” he asked. He took a bite.
“No. Just a dumbfuck who got in over her head, looks like.”
“Uh huh,” he said. “Then why are you holding her at crossbowpoint?”
“Because letting a potential threat inside and not pointing a crossbow at them seems like a bad idea?”
Andy didn’t seem impressed. He put his half-finished chocolate bar back in the bag and retrieved a sandwich like Eva’s.
“Open mine first,” Eva said.
He did, peeling back foil wrap. He held the front of the crossbow up while she took a bite, then served himself.
“I just wanted weapons, and maybe tips on dealing with a situation like mine, if you had any” the girl in the checkered scarf said. She kept her voice level, stayed assertive. “No harm or trouble intended. I can swear I won’t hurt you if that helps.”
“We’re witch hunters, it’s our duty to hunt witches. Now one falls into our lap,” Eva said, ignoring the offer. “Nobody is going to miss her. I’m gonna put one through her heart, add a notch to my belt, dispose of the body in the furnace downstairs, and then watch a movie online.”
Andy chewed on his sandwich.
“Or are you going to renege on the deal and start interfering with my hunts?”
He finished and swallowed. “She’s scared enough, Eva. You can stop fucking with her.”
Eva scowled a little. “You’re so lame.”
But she lowered the crossbow.
The girl in the checkered scarf released a deep breath. She’d been inhaling, but not daring to exhale.
“I’m going to put a new protocol in place, I think. Doing this sort of thing is dumb, Eva. Making enemies of practitioners you don’t intend to finish off? You pointed a gun at Thorburn, and now this? No matter how bad their situation is, that situation can improve.”
“I don’t want to live to thirty anyways,” Eva said.
“I’d be okay with that, except you’re going to get me killed along with you,” he said. He looked at the pinned girl, “Sorry about this.”
“I can talk, right?”
He took a bite of his sandwich, nodding as he chewed, approaching her.
One hand seized the bolt in the wood. He pulled and failed to get it out.
“You’re so lame,” Eva said. She approached too, and the girl in the checkered scarf found herself with two people less than a foot away from her. She craned her head away from the bolt to give them more room to work.
“Fuck,” Eva said, abandoning her attempt. She bent and broke the bolt, which produced more splinters than a clean break.
The girl in the checkered scarf freed herself, gingerly working the scarf free of the bolt.
Andy nudged past, then opened the front door, reaching around it. He fiddled for a second, then stepped back, holding a package. Rectangular, broad, and wrapped in what looked like butcher’s paper. A piece of electrical wire stuck out, apparently what he’d used to attach it to the door knocker or whatever.
When he put it down on the pillar at the bottom of the stair railing, it made a faint but detectable ‘clunk’ sound. Hard.
The girl in the checkered scarf checked her scarf. There was a hole where the bolt had passed through.
“Don’t fuss. Nobody’ll notice,” Eva said, flippant.
“Spirits might. Every connection matters at this point. Even a piece of clothing.”
“Way I see it, if you’re that desperate for stuff to hold on to, you’re already fucked.”
You’re not wrong, the girl in the checkered scarf thought. She couldn’t formulate a reply, witty or otherwise.
“I’d offer you food, but we aren’t bound by the usual rules,” Andy said.
“Right. That’s okay,” she replied. “Fuck me, I hate this town.”
“Sounds like we have something in common,” he said. “I feel so damn tired at the end of the day. Place takes a lot out of you.”
“I can’t wait to be gone,” she replied.
“Question is, where are the likes of us going to go?” he asked.
Right. They were witch hunters. They knew stuff, and it was hard to leave all that behind and live an ordinary life. Practitioners could very well be unhappy or unsettled by the appearance of the twins in their town. Lords or local powers could seek to control them, even abuse them.
Her own circumstances weren’t better. Pretty much anywhere she went, she’d be second or third tier. At best she’d be ignored. At worst, she’d be a potential threat or target.
That was, if she even got out of this in one piece. As it was, she was a target no matter where she went, working with borrowed time.
Eva ate while Andy grabbed a bottle of water out of a bag.
“Yeah,” the girl with the checkered scarf finally said. More in answer to the silence than the question.
“Yeah,” Eva added her own voice.
“Look,” the girl in the checkered scarf said, “I don’t want to kick up a fuss, and I don’t have a lot to bargain with. You guys want to clean up dangerous Others? Arm me and send me on my merry way. If you’re fair about it, I’ll promise I won’t hold a grudge for the whole crossbow thing.”
Eva rolled her eyes.
“Deal,” Andy said. “You do know that deals with the likes of us aren’t binding? Not on our end, anyway.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“Just so we’re clear,” he said. Without another word, he led the way to the back of the house. She limped behind him, the wound Buttsack had left made worse by the walking.
Eva, for her part, headed upstairs.
Stuff cluttered everything, even here. Andy methodically moved scattered papers to appropriate piles, moved a book or two around, and then knelt by a cabinet, where he fished out a keychain from his pocket.
Everything about his movements suggested he was the one who organized everything.
More subtly, she could conclude, objects had a kind of importance in this room. Stuff that might have been family knick-knacks in another house took up odd positions here, sort of akin to how a museum might arrange things. Giving objects a kind of prominence.
Odd objects. A figurine of a bear, a frame that held a strip of cloth with an embroidered knot on it taut, a kettle, a small statue of a pig, a mannequin’s hand, a metronome…
Andy unlocked the cabinet. A drawer slid out, heavy enough that the desk momentarily rocked when it reached its full length. Part of the drawer had to be recessed in the wall.
Knives, swords, and something that looked like a mace or a scepter, but hollow, with holes punched through the surface.
He saw her looking. “Censer. When you want to hit something and you need a particular kind of smoke, both at the same time.”
Five seconds later, he had another drawer open. Guns, many of which were old fashioned, ammo, and lead pipes.
“Take your pick,” he said.
“For real?”