My eye fell on one window – there wasn’t much glass, largely covered, but it was close. The only things of substance on the floor between Ur and me were chunks of rock and scattered pieces of glass from the window, ranging from a foot across to mere dust. The little shards caught the light, scintillating in rainbow hues. It was very possible my foot could slip.
Another section, further away, suggested a path to the window. The same window I’d been running for when I’d fallen into the Drains.
Broken window or run for the intact window, further away?
Broken window.
I bent down, and I placed the Hyena on its side, blade facing the window, catching the light from the window so a shaft of light extended along the floor.
Widening the path.
Could Ur anticipate me?
How smart was the demon?
I bolted. A reckless, headlong rush.
I was two paces away from the window when Ur finally stirred. Tendrils snaked across the window, a mesh, smoking from contact with the light.
But I was already moving, one leg going far in front of me, as I changed direction. The foot skidded long, I tipped over, and my hands came down amid glass and rocks.
I grabbed the largest pieces of glass and rock, feeling pain jolt up my arms from the cuts in my hands, and I sprinted back.
Already, tendrils and spidery limbs were moving to block my retreat. Criss-crossing, smoking, disintegrating, but forming a net, a barrier, a wall.
Ur to the left of me. Ur to the right of me. A covered window behind me, a net in front of me.
I leaped, a headlong dive for the biggest gap.
Ur got his claws and teeth in me. Ur took chunks out of me. If I’d taken a second longer, I might not have made it through. Sun-weakened limbs failed to hold me.
I collapsed, losing my clutched glass and rocks.
Rock and broken glass.
My eyes narrowed to lower the chance for error, I took in my surroundings, watched for a clutching hand, trickery.
I saw only faces, vague figures, humanoid in shape. A segment of Ur shaped like six bodies, shrink-wrapped in oily black skin. Mouths agape, the skin stretched tight against lips and teeth-
I moved the Hyena, and the light pierced one body. Ur moved away, collapsing the figure. Not a real person, or even a good effigy. A trick, a psychological ploy.
I’d trapped myself in this diagram here. Stepping outside for more than a moment at a time could only spell my doom.
Waiting was just as bad.
Ur was too big to fight.
I spat on the largest piece of glass, then used my sweatshirt to rub it clean of dust.
With one of the smaller rocks, I propped it up so it caught the light. Some shone through, a pale light extending beyond the glass, some was reflected back toward the window.
I did more with other pieces of glass I’d collected. I only had a handful, scarcely half a window, but I did have some.
There was just a bit more inside the area the ‘diagram’ covered, and I used that as well.
It wasn’t much, but it served to expand the area I had to work with. That was something.
The rocks…
I grabbed one piece of concrete and scratched it against the floor.
Nothing. It only crumbled. Too weather-worn.
I tried others, and for the most part, I got the same effect. They didn’t leave a mark.
Hm.
If I chewed off the flesh at the end of one finger, could I use the bone to scratch the floor?
Probably not worth it, not with the time involved, even if it worked.
Instead, I used the rock to scratch the blade. One side, roughing it up, grating metal with stone, until it was too scratched and too embedded with dirt to reflect anymore.
Holding it so the one reflective side caught the light, rather than Ur, I used the blade to scratch at the floor.
Spikes and rough spots on the blade gouged my hands.
I pulled off my sweatshirt, wrapping a sleeve around the handle, and I ensured the spikes wouldn’t cut me too deep.
One hand on the handle, the other on the pommel, to drive it forward, to push, or tap.
The floor had absorbed a lot of moisture, had dealt with extreme cold and a fair amount of heat. Canada took pride in its long, cold winters, but the summers hereabouts could get brutal enough. It meant my job wasn’t as hard as it could be.
I cut lines into the floor.
The Barber was, if I wasn’t mistaken, a demon of the third choir or thereabouts. He was abstract, like Ur, though more inclined to take solid forms. As a demon of ruin, he was opposed by structure. Geometric shapes and symbols.
Ur was a demon of darkness. The natural conclusion was to oppose him with light. Light was the sole reason I wasn’t dead already.
But Ur was, above all else, a demon of oblivion, of erasure.
To oppose him, I had to create.
Where the blade scraped ground, it left white tracks.
I scraped out a thick diamond, a minute’s work. Then I began to draw.
I’d never been much of an artist. It didn’t help that I’d never existed, but the point stood. The memories in my head were of me helping other artists frame their work, using skills I’d learned on the farm and honed over two seasons in Carl’s commune.
I didn’t try to be fancy. One image, simple, to represent something. A circle with two dashes inside it for eyes to be the head, an oval with lines drawn across it to be a swaddle of cloth. A baby. Then one image for every year.
The baby crying- lines radiating from its open mouth while two crude figures stood above, impassive. The baby walking, arms reaching out, the parent facing away. So it went. A small child pushed to the ground by a fat teenage girl. By his cousin Kathryn.
I stopped when I’d drawn images to line two faces of the diamond.
On the opposite side, I drew another diagram.
A baby, crying. But the lines – I was sure to double check the first baby I’d drawn and draw the lines in the reverse angle for the swaddle. In the second picture, the figures held the child. In the third, the parent stood with arms reaching.
In the fourth, the small child pushed to the ground had a rectangle for a skirt, no notch for shorts.
The images were drawn to sit opposite one another, and even if my ability to draw wasn’t all that, I had a keen sense of space honed by years of work. False, imagined, but they were skills I possessed all the same.
The memories in my head weren’t real. They were artificial, or stolen, or given. It was very possible they were simply pieces of reality that had fallen into a particular configuration.
All the same, they were inspiration. I needed to draw something, a lot of something, and my memories were the one well I had available. Four images to a face, eight for me, eight for Rose.
When I’d drawn the eight year old Rose, counterpoint to eight year old Blake, I sketched out another diamond, thick and fat.
Ur lunged for me as I drew the fourth line. On a level, I’d expected it. On another level, I’d made the mistake of letting the shadow I cast give him an avenue for attack.
I managed to pull my arm back inside the diamond, and Ur didn’t pursue.
Darkness writhed in the shadows at the periphery of light, stirring.
Rather than try again, I adjusted the position and angle of glass, catching the light, and painted a bit of a shelter, illuminating my work space. Faint, barely there, but it helped me brave the gap and finish the line.
I backed up until I was in the center. Each little picture came very close to being a hieroglyph. It made sense when I considered that hieroglyphs had been cut into stone tablets and walls.