Rose smiled slowly. “You act well, Uncle P, but someone already gave it away. I have an idea of what’s in that contract. Some people are supposed to turn up pretty soon, aren’t they? They’ll take me away, and I’ll wind up talking to a shrink or locked in a padded cell, all doped up? That’s how you think it’ll go?”
Jesus. I could feel the atmosphere in the room change. I’d dealt with demons, I’d dealt with other monsters, and I’d done my time in the Drains. This was a different kind of creepy. The expressions didn’t change, nobody moved, but in the act of putting on poker faces, there was a collective sort of pause. A moment where nobody else in the room exchanged glances or moved, because a glance or a movement could potentially give it all away, confirming Rose was right.
Six adults and seven children who were so versed in the lies and deception that they could all manage to avoid reacting in surprise.
“It wouldn’t normally work, but you’ve got a friend, someone local, who can pull strings?” Rose asked. “I know. I’m pretty sure I can handle it. I’m betting I’ll be out soon, even.”
Aunt Steph piped up, “This is that paranoia-”
“Stop,” Rose cut her off. “Just stop. I know the details. A member of this family pointed me in the right direction, a little earlier.”
She briefly met my eyes.
Clever, Rose.
The facade cracked, the poker faces slipping as some members of the family looked at one another. A lot of eyes turned Ellie’s way.
“You want to game me?” Rose asked. “You have little conception of what’s really going on. You raised me to play this game, to scheme and backstab and to see through lies. One member of this family thought they could achieve their goals by passing the information along to me.”
“So you say,” Uncle Paul said.
“Do you know why the policeman and the community leader held a meeting and decided to reach out to you?” Rose asked. “They’re just a little bit worried about me. Think about that. Consider the idea that maybe the house and the money it’s worth is one of the least important things here.”
“There’s more money in play?” Aunt Steph asked. “You got the assets on the property. Something valuable?”
Rose smiled, spreading her arms.
She was divulging information she maybe shouldn’t. In fact, she was very much the egomaniacal villain from the movies and kids cartoons, who explained far too much of their master plan.
I wondered momentarily about that.
Rose was falling back on the little bit of Conquest that was inside her. Why?
Because she was scared, or hurt. If I put myself in her shoes, it would have sucked, knowing that dad hadn’t been on the up and up when he’d said he genuinely wanted to be a family.
Some people hid behind an act. Rose had a whole other side of herself to hide behind. Tapping into the Conquest inside her was one thing, drawing strength from it, but if she was using it as a crutch, consciously or otherwise, then that was a problem.
Power had a price.
“You’re distracting from the subject at hand. Your knowing doesn’t change anything,” Uncle Paul said.
“We’ll see,” Rose said.
The family was sufficiently distracted.
I didn’t trust myself to give away a piece of myself. I needed to strengthen myself before I acted.
Nothing suggested the family knew about the practice. Even if they did, I should be free and clear with a little mischief.
I stepped around to the front window, and I smashed it.
Every head in the room turned my way. I could feel the note of fear, and smiled a little as I stepped off to one side.
“The hell was that?” Uncle Paul asked. He’d sprung out of his seat. “Gunshot?”
“No, gunshot wouldn’t make a window explode like that,” Ellie said.
“How do you even know that?” Peter cut in.
From the television set, I could see the family at the one side of the room, peering outside.
“I saw someone,” James spoke up, he was a kid between Paige/Peter and Roxanne in age at fourteen, wearing glasses. As far as I was aware, he wasn’t as bad as Ellie or Peter or Callan or Roxanne, but that was more a case of them being horrible excuses for human beings than him being particularly good. He was a nasty little shit who’d been prone to sprees of vandalism and hanging around with equally nasty grade schoolers around the time I’d left home.
“There’s nobody out there,” Uncle Paul answered.
“I believe I mentioned something earlier about there being outright attacks on the house,” Rose commented.
Technically true. Misleading, but true.
I could feel the unease growing. Ivy was whimpering, apparently picking up on the atmosphere, and Rose’s parents were shushing her, bouncing her in place.
Then Ivy’s eyes fell on me, and she broke into actual tears, squirming.
“Company’s here,” Uncle Paul commented. He didn’t try to hide his smugness behind a poker face.
“Man! A man with bad face!” Ivy cried out, almost fighting to get further away from me and squeeze herself further into her mother’s embrace.
Peter grinned. “Your uncle does take some getting used to. I know I’m still working on it, after nineteen years.”
His father shot him a look. “Don’t be childish.”
“Black line face man!” Ivy cried out. “In the T.V.!”
I stepped out of the television before anyone turned their heads.
One picture was up on the wall in the hallway. I vaguely recalled it being knocked to the ground, but I supposed someone had picked it up and hung it again between the time the priest had invaded the house and the present.
From the hallway, I watched the family. I still held the reflection of the paperwork that Uncle P had brought.
I reached into my chest.
No birds available.
“C’mon,” I muttered to myself. “I scared Tiff, I scared those guys…”
Nothing.
Damn spirits, I thought. You want more?
Replenishing my power wasn’t that easy, it seemed.
A moment later, I returned to the window.
“Bad man!” Ivy shouted.
Heads turned.
Roxanne raised her eyes. I might have thought she was young enough to be innocent, but she looked right past me. At most, I might’ve been an odd shadow she wouldn’t notice unless she was looking for it.
James, at fourteen, was two years Roxanne’s senior. He saw me.
Why the difference? Was it that James was quieter, more studious, less exposed to the ugliness of the world? Or was it that James had never truly grown up or defined himself outside of the shadow of his parents and their desires?
All the same, he caught a glimpse of me. His eyes went wider.
I wish I was more apologetic about this, I thought. Just scaring them.
I smashed the window, but what I didn’t expect was for James to raise his hands, flinching as I moved my arm. In the doing, he put his hands right against the glass. Glass flew, and with the jumble of people, there was more chaos this time. James fought to get away, and hit others in the process. Kathryn fell, and knocked over Roxanne.
Fuck.
No time to do anything about it. Back in the hallway, I reached into my chest for the second time, and I collected one bird that had been stirred into activity by the excitement.
I pushed it into the paperwork I held, then watched the scene.