Both sorcerer and dog disappeared in a flare of light.
Third toll.
Andy crossed the floor, offering Mags a hand.
“Balls.” Mags said, accepting. “I tried. I could’ve contained her, kept her calm. But she’s too angry. I would have left her behind, but she’s tied to me by blood. I didn’t think she’d be this angry, after I’d calmed her down a little…”
“What’s she doing?”
Fourth.
“Starting something,” Mags said. “Don’t you feel it?”
“No.”
“Each toll, it’s filled with negativity. Each one is worse than the last.”
Fifth toll.
“Everything in the city is going to feel it,” Mags said. “They’re going to think it’s a signal, and that’s enough.”
Andy felt a peculiar calm settle over him as the bell continued to toll.
He thought of the promise he’d made.
To serve loyally, in Jacob’s Bell. To keep the people safe. He could do that.
But the promise to Mac had had contingencies. If things got bad enough, and things were bad, he had another responsibility.
Mags looked up. “Thirteen tolls.”
He offered her a light smile. A witch hunter could lie. Oaths weren’t binding.
One of these days, after years of loyal service, when it didn’t put too many people in danger, he’d skip the council meeting, and act while they were all in one place.
He had a rocket launcher at home for just that purpose.
11.01
My existence was reduced to a pizza slice of reality. A triangular section of a room with light shed from a window high above that I couldn’t see.
Nothing to read, nothing to do, and nobody to talk to. I couldn’t even punch the wall to vent my anger, because I didn’t want to risk hurting myself.
Screaming, though. I could get away with screaming. Even if I knew it wasn’t necessarily making me any friends. Without the need for breathing, my scream could be a howl, continuing well past my usual lung capacity.
My throat started hurting, though, and I had to make myself stop. The last thing I needed was for the Drains to get a grip on that. I’d wind up sounding like some movie monster.
I couldn’t do anything. My thoughts were chaos and every single damn bad emotion it could summon up, all mixed into a pot of something with no outlet.
I didn’t need to pant for breath as I stopped. I saw the birds on my arms with their beaks parted, midway through their own screaming.
Pausing to look around at my surroundings for any possible clue, I found little except for the edge of the desk, no books perched on or under it, the side with the drawers beyond the scope of the reflection, floor and wall. No chair to sit in. Nothing I could pound or throw to vent my frustration.
I looked at the circle on the other side of the mirror.
Could I reach through the mirror and break it?
Maybe. It would be hard, with no guarantees.
I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of what might happen if I was trapped in a circle with no mirror to go to.
I’d leave the option open for a last-ditch effort.
I’d brought the chair around, and did what I could with the section of desk. I tried to move the desk, but my fingers slipped on the wood. If I got low enough to grab the one stout, half-foot of leg at the base, I couldn’t get leverage or traction on the ground or surrounding area.
Easily an hour passed as I used the Hyena to chip at the desk in an effort to create a handhold. Two oblong, splinter-ridden holes that I could fit three fingers inside.
When I tried, I couldn’t get it to move.
I tried to use my sweatshirt, slinging it through the two holes and then around the leg, and didn’t get it to budge. Only the beginnings of a tearing sound.
I drew a finger in the dust on top of the corner of desk, marking the progress as shadow moved and the light moved to one end of my little slice of reality, only to disappear.
Afternoon became night, as the line in the dust was joined by brother lines, punctuating hours.
Once the light was largely gone, I didn’t have any way to track the passage of time except my own thoughts. Where my own heartbeat or breathing might have helped me punctuate the minutes, it was different now. It was based on my thinking, my remembering to do it. When I forgot, it could feel like a minute had taken an hour, or I’d let time slip away, realizing only moments later how far my thoughts had traveled and how long that might have taken.
I thought about Alexis, and picked apart my time at the commune, searching it for discrepancies. If it still hurt or stung, recalling that, I told myself that at least that made me a little more me.
I mulled over memories of time spent with my friends, and their current relationship to Rose.
I didn’t like the gaps, the incongruities.
Why had they been my friends to begin with?
I’d had an apartment.
As far as I could tell, the universe took the path of least resistance.
I now had time to think, and I didn’t like where my thoughts were going. Had my life been based on someone else’s? An outside source that could fill in the gaps, a life that I could step into?