“What would it be?” I asked.
“Hostile negotiations,” he said.
I didn’t budge. My heart fluttered in my chest like a blind bird in a cage, but I managed to stay utterly still.
“I’ll make my offer,” he told me. “I am a gatekeeper. You, as it appears, are enclosed. Join Johannes in his cause, and I’ll conduct you from your current enclosure.”
The fluttery beat in my chest took on a different note. Freedom.
“I remember making a promise, once, that I wouldn’t accept someone else’s idea of freedom. Only my own.”
“I would open the door, I would not dictate the freedom that lies beyond it, but to ask that you work alongside Johannes,” Faysal Anwar told me. “Should you wish it, I can release the hold that the abyss maintains on you, and nurture the regrowth of your Self, or I can help you open a clear way between here and the abyss. The former would make you as close to mortal as you could be.”
Not only free, or close to free, but alive?
“And the latter?”
“When the abyss-borne are slain, they return to the abyss. If they are strong enough, they can return again and again.”
“At the cost of needing to making an impact,” I said. “To scratch out footing so they can’t be dragged back to the Abyss without being slain.”
“Yes. You aren’t strong enough to return, if you fall, looking at you. The Abyss would break and consume you on your next visit. If I were to open a way, however, a path just for you, it would take but a fraction of the strength to return.”
“You’re doing this for Johannes’ Others?”
“For one or two. For others, I’m doing other things, or negotiating a favor offered by one to buy the loyalty of another.”
Holy shit.
A choice between being alive again or staying like I was and being effectively immortal.
Free of the mirrorverse, either way.
I could have my damn motorcycle back. I could ride it.
But… I’d be on Johannes’ side. I couldn’t help my friends, probably.
False friends, really, I told myself.
But there wasn’t any heart in the thought. I could tell it to myself, but I couldn’t feel it.
My hope crumbled, and crumbled hope became frustration and anger. I hung my head a little, gritting my teeth.
Damn it. Trust a damned angel to use hope to hit me where it hurt.
“No,” I said, and the word was strangled.
“Ah,” he said. “I’ll trust you have your reasons.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice still strangled.
“As one who has watched over the world for centuries, I know things. I know, for example, that right this moment, your relative is confronting Rose at Hillsglade House. The ghost grows agitated, for it harbors many unpleasant memories of the building. Meanwhile, I know that you’re here, having just eviscerated one of these Iaiah.”
“I like how the sound of its name sounds like some brief, agonized cry,” I said. “Is it supposed to be the cry of the victim, or is it the sound this guy makes after I cut his throat?”
“Neither. Curious. It should have healed by now, but it hasn’t, which suggests a quality unique to you or that blade.”
“Fancy that,” I said.
“Joining Johannes is off the table. Would you be open to compromise?”
“Sure,” I said. “Considering that they were the ones that attacked first, I might be in my rights to demand a little more here, no?”
“You are in your rights. To explain, these Iaiah were invited, and we have a certain responsibility to look after them as a result. They are territorial as creatures created to be guardians so often are, but when placed as guardians, they are more commonly tasked with warding off more abstract things. It seems they react on instinct even when visiting strange places.”
“I understand,” I said. “If you want forgiveness, I’ll drop my grudges, as best as I’m able, in exchange for moving this along, and getting a guarantee this won’t happen again.”
I gotta go, before something happens.
“Deal tendered and accepted,” Faysal Anwar said. “The Iaiah won’t interrupt you again.”
“I need all of Johannes’ guys to stay out of my way.”
“I would be reluctant to offer that even if I knew your full identity and harbored absolutely no doubts,” Faysal Anwar told me.
“Right,” I said. “Damn.”
“I told you I would move this along. I offer free, unmolested passage through Johannes’ realm, in and out, within the next day. We will have a discussion, I will nourish you, and we’ll agree on one favor. I promise no tricks or manipulations, no attacks or subterfuge. You and I will agree on a favor for me or my practitioner to perform for you, in exchange for your release of the wounded Iaiah. You will leave Johannes’ realm in a frame of time reasonable to you, and you will do so happier, healthier and better than you were when you entered, in a way that the you of the present would deem agreeable.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“This I pledge, in exchange for the release of this guardian entity.”
I removed the sword from Tweedle-Bleeding’s neck. “Deal.”
“Fare well,” Faysal Anwar told me. “I must remove the wounded to where he may be helped. Excuse me.”
“You fare well too,” I said.
I leaped across darkness.
A flash of light ripped across the darkness behind me. Surprised, I very nearly missed my step, stepping into the nothingness, rather than leaping across it. Not such a problem -I still moved across instantaneously-, but when the footing differed in angle or I stepped onto snow, it could make me stumble.
I reached the foot of Hillsglade House, reflected in the windows of the houses across the street from the spike-topped wall.
My next step took me to the spot where the house’s windows faced the surrounding property. The window jutted out over the porch, two windows sitting at diagonals and another facing straight out. I had a view of the front door.
Molly, Rose, Aunt Irene and Callan were all present.
Mags…
Ah, there. A patch of light further down the driveway. She held the hand mirror, but it didn’t face her.
“-Going to come with me right this instant.”
“You do not get to order me around, Aunt Irene,” Rose said. “If you keep trying, I am going to slam this door in your face.”
“You have no right to sell this property.”
“I agree! I don’t know where you got it in your head-”
“Reliable sources,” Aunt Irene cut in.
“Wrong sources,” Rose said. “I swear I have no intention of getting rid of this place. Believe me, I wish I was in a position to, but-”
“But you’ve got people with you right now, looking at the property.”
“Looking only in the vaguest sense of the word, they aren’t looking to buy. They’re… acquaintances from Toronto. That’s it.”
“Could you word that in a less convincing way?”
“Probably! But I’m being honest. Whoever told you that is just trying to mess with me, just like they messed with Moll-”