I stepped across the street, crossing the gap between reflections to get closer to the shop window ahead of the group.
I stood two feet away from them, separated by a pane of glass and a degree of reality, and I watched them.
Dolls. Their skin was too perfect and even in complexion, their makeup painted on. Their babies, by contrast, were far from perfect. A little too hairy, with ears pointed at the tips, a little too intelligent in how their eyes moved. Eyes like a cat’s or a dog’s, with barely any whites.
Changelings was the first idea to pop into my head. A myth that I remembered learning about before, from some movie or another. The child was removed from the crib, often by the faerie, for something resembling a baby, so the faerie could put one of their spawn among humanity and have a human baby to raise themselves.
I watched as the remainder of the group passed. Each changeling was scanning its surroundings from its mommy-doll perch, each positioned to look in a different direction.
Roaming, on the watch. Spies, or scouts? If they were faerie or faerie-associated, did that mean these children were in league to Sandra?
I returned to Evan before one of them could scout me out.
“They’re creepy,” he said. “I think you’re right about them being monsters.”
“They are,” I said. “Mom dolls with feral faerie babies or something. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been at it for a while, roaming and looking for trouble.”
“There’s a lot of stuff like that,” Evan said. “It’s worse than it was before, and before I didn’t feel safe going out to fly.”
“But you’re with me?”
“I was going flippin’ crazy in that house. So much worrying, and I beat all the games that Ty brought for the handheld, and I beat all of the good games on Tiff’s phone, and I even beat two games for the console, which is really flippin’ hard when you’re the size of the controller. The rest of the stuff is boring or I can’t do it without someone to use one side of the controller while I use the other. They’re so busy they can’t sit down to play a game or play with me.”
He’s still a kid, after all. Three weeks of doing nothing can get old.
“You’re wanting to do something right? Stop the Behaims?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m even less willing to be cooped up than you are.”
“The others want to sit back and wait. Rose is safe because of the dead man’s witch-”
“Switch,” I corrected.
“-But the others aren’t. I can’t sit there and wait and worry. Because Ty is really cool, you know?”
“I know,” I said. “And I don’t want to wait and see what they throw at us before acting. The priest attacking is clue enough that they aren’t in any shape to just sit back and wait for the other guys to pick themselves off. The metaphorical guns are too big to let the other guys shoot first.”
“I smell blood in the air,” Evan said. “I think someone’s already been doing some of that shooting.”
“Can you find the source?”
“Of the smell? Yeah. Do I want to? No. Too many things want to eat me, and dying once is enough for me, thank you sir.”
I considered for a moment.
“Good point,” I said. “You know where the Behaims are hanging out?”
“Which ones?” he asked.
“Great answer,” I told him, breaking into a smile. “Nearest one first. Point the way, and I’ll follow.”
■
The house was big, but that was all that could be said about it. The stone exterior around the lower floor had deep cracks in the mortar, and the siding around the upper floors had been discolored slightly by weather and sun, in dire need of an all-out replacement.
I knew my memories were fake, that I wasn’t real, and that it was fantasy to even think about it, but I’d always thought about having a place, about getting it looking nice. Not too big, or it would be too much upkeep. Maybe something with a little statue in a small but dense garden, a bird bath and feeders in the back, a bike in the driveway. In the weeks I remembered adjusting to life off the street, I’d contemplated backsliding because it was easier, yes, but I’d also had a vision of what I really wanted, deep down, and as much as I didn’t love the idea of tying myself down to one place, I imagined that if I did have a place of my own, I’d want it to be comfortably mine, everything in good working order.
It bothered me on a fundamental level, seeing people take poor care of what they had. There were a lot of things like that that I saw from time to time. Why build a family if they were going to be lazy about it? Why get a car if they were going to let it fill up with bags from fast food places and let stuff clutter the floor of the vehicle?
My apartment had been, eclectic, a bit randomly put together, but I’d taken care of what I had. I’d known where everything was.
Sure, one or two things could slide. Maybe the car was just needed to get to work. Maybe the house just wasn’t a priority.
This… where was the focus?
What, if anything, was the occupant’s pride and joy, here?
“Can you get inside?” Evan asked.
“It’s dark. I can’t even look inside,” I said.
“Wards,” he said, in his sagest tone.
“Wards,” I agreed.
“I can’t lipread, and Rose says lipreading isn’t that useful anyway. So what do we do?”
“We could sneak you inside, but I’m not sure I want to do that.”
“Good way to get me re-dead.”
“Yeah.”
“Break a window?” he suggested.
“I need to occupy the window,” I said, “And broken windows get attention.”
“Umm.”
I roamed while we thought. I could occupy the reflection of the windows that faced outside, but the opposite side of the window wasn’t in my reach.
“Who lives here?”
“Dunno exactly. Behaims. They’re older. Rose said they’re heads of the family.”
I thought about what Laird and Duncan had told us, and what I’d observed.
“They’d probably be the ones who arbitrate when it’s okay to tap the family reserve of power,” I said.
“Yeah, that sounds right.”
Which meant if we could spy, then we could find out how they were using power.
As much as I wanted to see what was going on, that wasn’t the important thing, was it?
“Can you open a window?” I asked. “Just a crack?”
“I can try.”
He hopped up, fluttering, to the window I was occupying, and with his wings still flapping, extended his tiny feet. The taloned toes of one foot hooked on the window, the toes of the other hooked on the frame, and then pulled, or pushed, as the case may be.