“She’s coming from the left,” I whispered.
Peter moved, hugging the wall as he moved to the kitchen.
“Andy!” Eva called out, not three feet from us, going by volume. “Throw me one of the fanny packs!”
“Which one?”
“Obviously not the one that’s going to set the house on fire!”
Peter started to edge left.
“Watch your step,” Eva said.
“Catch,” Andy offered.
I heard a slight clink as she caught what he’d thrown.
“Cover your ears,” he said. “Even with the closed door and all, it can do permanent damage.”
“I’m not using the flashbang. They’re in the basement. All of them, I think, holed up like rats. The bird guided them.”
“If not the flashbang… the tear gas?” he asked. “Come on, Eva.”
“It’ll be hilarious. We need them out of our hair, anyway.”
“Keep it simple, Eva,” he said, sounding more tolerant than anything.
“If you’d let me break their arms, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I’ll be upstairs. Come up soon, I don’t like being unable to watch both doors at once.”
“Sitting and waiting is boring.”
“It’s smart. Don’t take too long.”
“Whatever. Watch for the bird. It’s around. The mirror dweller too, probably.”
“Right.”
I moved to the bathroom, and had a glimpe of Eva holding a bulky fanny pack in one hand, a canister of some sort in the other. She was heading to the basement door.
“Get ready,” I whispered. “When she’s focused on the basement, you can head upstairs.”
“Hold on, I don’t move that fast,” Peter told me. “I need a better distraction. If I leave you here, you can-”
He was already reaching to put the mirror down.
“Don’t,” I whispered, annoyed. “There’s a mirror in the other room. I can use that. Keep this mirror with you.”
The door slammed, and Peter moved straight back to his prior spot, back to the wall, partially sheltered by the open kitchen door. Eva moved something that scraped against the floor, somewhere in the living room.
The coffee table. Trapping the door shut, no doubt.
Our window of opportunity was gone.
What was Peter doing?
Clever as he was, he wasn’t moving that fast, and he wasn’t, it seemed, used to a conflict, where timing might matter a great deal.
He didn’t trust me.
Which put us back at square one. Eva on the ground floor, Andy upstairs, Evan too far away to reach out to.
I moved between the three available reflections, trying to find the right vector or angle to mount an attack. Back door, useless. Bathroom, only showed me the bathroom and a bit of the hallway. The mirror Peter held showed me the kitchen.
I could hear Eva walking, humming merrily.
The pool of olive oil…
I relocated myself to that part of the hallway. My surroundings were vague, dark, my footing uneven in a way that wasn’t just a floor slick with oil. My side of things was dry, in fact.
When I looked down, I could see the real hallway.
Much like the ice had been.
“When she goes back upstairs,” I whispered. “I’ll stop her. I’ll shout to you, you attack.”
“Sure,” he said.
A full minute passed, and Eva didn’t head upstairs. Twice, I had to whisper to Peter to tell him to relocate back to the living room, then back to the kitchen. Eva was pacing, hanging around the door she’d blockaded.
I could distantly hear the Thorburns’ reactions.
Then Eva approached.
I moved to the pool of olive oil and broken glass, kneeling.
She passed above me, my hand reached out of the pool, Hyena extended, slashing at the bottom of her foot.
A weird angle to attack from, and she was fast, adroit. She hopped from one side of the pool to the second stair. Too high for me to even reach.
Peter, not waiting for my signal, had stepped into the doorway. He saw the extended arm and sword.
Eva, in turn, saw him, alongside both the arm and the sword.
“Bastard!” she shouted. She threw the fanny pack at my hand.
My footing was already disappearing. The solid mass of the fanny pack disrupted the pool, breaking up the olive oil and making it less of a cohesive reflection.
I found myself in the bathroom. Eva hopped over the pool, landing right in front of me. Living room to our left, kitchen with Peter inside to our right.
She started moving right.
“Go left!” I shouted.
She stopped.
“Stop!”
“You motherfucker,” she said, turning my way.
“Run! Back hall!”
She kicked the picture, almost an absent gesture, as she spun on her heels.
Peter hadn’t run. I found myself in the mirror he held.
I’d known he was tired. More than that, I’d known that he wouldn’t listen.
He stepped from the living room to the kitchen.
“Run,” I whispered. He had only seconds.
He turned on the taps at the sink, full blast. Then leaned back, and kicked the tap.
“Fucker,” I heard Eva.
Ducking under the sink, he grabbed the fire extinguisher. He pulled the pin, and then sprayed it in the direction of the hallway.
When he was done there, he directed it at the sink.
The mirror was covered, I was shunted somewhere behind Eva.
A minute passed. I heard her cursing, holding her shirt to her mouth.
Slowly, patches of light began to appear on the stairs.
Pools of some liquid or another.
The sink, too, started to overflow. Clogged. Another reflection appeared and slowly expanded, creeping along the floor.
I smiled, feeling a kind of relief. That brilliant asshole.
He was flooding the house.