“Like in appearance,” I whispered, fanning out the cards.
“Like in surroundings,” I said, touching the cards to the floor.
“Like in number,” I said. I tapped the cards on the floor again, until they were flush, and then shuffled them.
I slammed the pack down on the ground.
The cards that were still laying on the floor from my game with Ty assumed a similar position.
I heard the bogeyman scream again.
Fucker.
With both hands, I spread out the cards, fanning them out over the ground in an arc.
I turned around, facing the mirror.
Something collided with the back of the mirror.
My world splintered, a ravine opening across one end of it.
I was pretty sure I knew where I’d wind up if I fell through.
But the cards on the floor in the real world were in a similar position. A half circle, covering the circle that the priest had drawn out.
I acted with confidence, even as my legs felt weak. I strode toward the edge of my little mirror realm in the library.
I skipped over and through, moving to the bathroom one floor downstairs.
I took another step, putting me in the living room, to one side of the shattered window.
The others were there, along with two bogeymen.
“Who’s attacking you?” I asked.
They practically jumped out of their skin.
“No,” Rose said. Her voice was tight. “You… motherfucker.”
“Who’s attacking?”
“Blake,” Alexis said, “I’m sorry I didn’t come talk, but-”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I said I’d help if you let me, and I guess I’ll help if you don’t. Who’s attacking?”
“The Behaims,” Evan said, sounding just a little too happy to see me, for a guy who was supposed to be on the down-low.
“Want to come stop them with me?” I asked.
He looked at the others.
I shouldn’t have even asked.
He took off, flying through the hole in the window. I was right behind him.
11.03
“I don’t like that sound,” Evan said. He was perched on the roof of a car, while I was reflected in the window.
I could hear it too, though it was faint. Not so much a sound as an echo without a source. It was as if the town had a heartbeat, a noise that resounded with a slightly uneven rhythm, the tolling of the town’s namesake bell.
I had one of the fat coins placed between my pinky and ring finger, and was trying to ‘walk’ it over the back of my hand. Problem was, it was a big coin, meaning I could pass it over to the space between my index and middle finger, and then what? I pressed my hands together, and ‘walked’ the coin from one hand to the other.
“Didn’t hear it in the house,” I noted. I tucked the Sympathetic Magic text into my waistband, beneath my sweatshirt. My hands felt less strong than they should.
“Protections,” Evan said. “We put up stuff so they couldn’t get to us inside.”
I fucked up and dropped the coin, and caught it out of the air before it could fall.
“Lots of stuff around here wants to eat me,” Evan said. “We should find a safe place before night falls, because that’s when the bad stuff really comes out. There’s a big spell that everyone joined in on, even Rose, that keeps other people indoors and keeps them from looking outside too much.”
“Big magic,” I said. “She agreed to that as part of a deal?”
“Yeah. With Jeremy the priest.”
“All right, something to keep in mind, while I’m filling in the blanks and figuring this out,” I said. “I don’t want to fuck this up for the other guys, which means doing this carefully.”
“Got it. Careful. I guess that means no-”
“No sparrow of blood and death and doom,” I finished for him.
“Aw. How’d you know I was going to say something like that?”
“Heads up,” I said, “Look.”
There were a group of Others on the approach. Female figures with a range of body types, with babies strapped to their chests, backs, swaddled in slings, or in strollers. Six in all.
What caught my interest was the lack of communication between them. They moved with an urgency, like they had a mission, silent. None of the babies cried.
“Pack of mombies?” Evan said. “I think I’d rather deal with real monsters.”
“I think they are monsters. Shh.”
We weren’t too far from the school, and it was early in the day It made sense that mothers would be coming back from dropping off some older children.
But the feel of them…
Another mom was coming down the street from a block over. I saw her pick up her pace, approaching the ‘mombie’ group.
She said two words, cooing and adjusting her own baby, as if ready to present it to them, when the lead mombie bumped her with one shoulder.
Completely ignored.
She said something in response, offended, and left in a bit of a huff.