I bent down, reaching through the path that was now open to me.
I wrapped my arms around Andy’s shoulders and throat, pulling him down.
The Hyena, still in my hand, always in my hand at this point, in these circumstances, touched his neck.
“E-!” he started.
“Shut!” I spat the word in his ear. Not even a full ‘shut up’.
I didn’t have long. My footing was destroyed. I could only cling to him, and hope to bide time until-
Peter approached, holding the ceramic top of the toilet under one arm. His right hand was messy with blood, especially around the fingertip.
At the last second, he swapped it to a two-handed grip, holding it at the middle. A chunk of old, age-stained ceramic that had to weigh twenty pounds.
“Jesus, Peter,” I started. “Don’t-”
I was relocated to the end of the hallway. The disruption to the water’s surface too much for me to stay.
From the end of the hallway, by where Evan had perched on the windowsill, I saw Peter bring the end of the lid down on Andy’s head, Andy’s hands going up to stop it, but lacking the strength of leverage to accomplish anything.
I could hear it. The sound of the impact.
“You’re really making me doubt your family credentials, cousin,” he murmured, slumping against a wall for leverage as he got to his feet, not out of any weakness or disability, but because he didn’t have a hand free, and it was easier than letting go of the toilet top.
I couldn’t appeal to his goodness, to mercy.
“Part of the strategy,” I told him. “We need them alive.”
“He’s alive. I might have broken his jaw and cheekbone, but he’s alive,” Peter said, straightening. “Lesson numero uno for Thorburns. Go for the jugular. They’re trying to kill us.”
Eva appeared at the end of the hall.
I’d seen her angry, after Roxanne had tried to hurt her brother and failed.
She only stared, chin at an odd angle, a little too high, her head tilted slightly, hands behind her back. No sheets, that I could tell. The light from the window behind Evan didn’t quite reach her, so she was lit by the light above the stairwell, behind her. Silhouetted. Cold air blew in through the broken window, making her hair stir.
“Great,” Peter said.
Her voice was quiet. “Is he dead?”
“He could be,” Peter answered. “You take one step, I aim for his throat with the next swing.”
“Doesn’t work that way,” she said, shaking her head a little. “He’s the one who keeps the mad dog, me, on a leash. Taking him out of the picture is a pretty fucking stupid thing to do. He’s the one who listens to reason, not me.”
“You refer to yourself as a mad dog?” Peter asked. “Man, I thought my family had the lion’s share of ‘fucked up’.”
“You want to see ‘fucked up’?” she asked. She raised her hand.
Grenade.
“Tear gas?” Peter asked.
“No. Incendiary grenade, with the pin out. My hand on the lever is the only thing keeping it from going off. This house is largely made of wood. Do the math.”
I could see Peter tense.
“If I don’t think I can carry him out,” she said, “I’ll cremate him.”
“Along with the house and its occupants?”
She didn’t respond, her eyes on Andy.
Without warning, she approached, taking long strides.
I could see Peter start to raise the lid, ready to take Andy out of action.
This time, the coward won out. He backed away.
I moved to meet her.
She kicked the water, the resulting spray disrupted the reflection.
It bought her two paces.
Evan, though, flew past her. The momentum of his passing, eerily out of sync with his tiny amount of actual mass, forced her to stop moving forward and put one foot out to the side to maintain her balance.
It was all the time I needed. I twisted around, then bent, reaching through the reflection.
I seized one foot, arresting her forward movement.
She fell onto her side, then lifted her leg away from the ground. My arm was extended, until the whole arm was sticking out of the pool of water.
I didn’t see it coming until it was too late. She levered herself around, leg still high, and used her other leg to sweep my arm, water spraying as it skidded in the water. A full-force kick right at my elbow.
Wood splintered and snapped. Bone, if I had any, broke.
I barely felt the pain. It was secondary.
I was relocated downstairs. It cost me precious seconds, as I got my bearings again. My arm sat at a skewed angle, and the wound crawled. It was as if the branches were fingers, and they were scrabbling for purchase, blindly groping.
I had to put the Hyena down for a moment while I twisted my arm around into the right position. The fingers wrapped around the wound, meshing together and mingling into a great ugly, horned knot of wood. Feathers and bits of bone stood out from one portion as if a bird had been crushed and killed as the wood had come together. I flexed my hand.
Back up to the hallway.
The witch hunter had drawn her machete from some sheath inside her jacket or pants or some other hidden place, and was advancing on Peter, weapon held high.
Evan flew past, trying to put her off balance. She moved the blade but missed him.
“Evan, back off!” I ordered. “Peter-”
Peter raised the piece of ceramic as a sort of shield, moving it right as he watched the weapon.
She punched him, hitting him from the opposite direction.
She punched him with the grenade. Hand still gripping the grenade and the lever, she hit him full-force in the face with the chunk of metal.
The second hit came from the opposite direction, a backhand. Peter lost his grip on the lid, balance clearly gone. It broke as it hit the ground.
She drove a knee into his middle, knocking him over.
I bent down, catching her foot with one of my own, and pulled them out from under her. Stupid, to knock her over when she held the grenade, but what other option was there?
We didn’t all go up in flame, which was nice.
I even managed to grab the machete, pushing it away. It practically hydroplaned on the thin layer of water that covered the hallway.
All three of us brought down, fighting at its ugliest, in a heap, scrabbling, fighting dirty.
I had to step away, waiting for the water to settle.
Peter wasn’t putting up much of a fight, but I might have said he’d lost the fight from the second he took that first punch unprepared.
Getting on top of him, she hit him over and over again. Right, left, right, right, right, left. Whichever fist and direction would hit better in the moment.
Evan hovered around her, out of reach.
He can do his thing twice. But every time he goes for a third try, they get him. It had happened with Ur, during the fights with Conquest, with Duncan…
Seeing the opportunity to act again, I reached through the water. My arms encircled Eva’s head and shoulders in a full Nelson, pulling her backward and off Peter.
“I’m letting go of the grenade in five, four, three-”
I switched my grip, seizing the hand that had the grenade. I was losing my grip on reality, sinking back into the mirror realm. As she twisted her wrist around, preventing me from getting her, I found my hand on only metal.
“Heh,” she said.
She let go, then rolled away, twisting out of my grip.
If I’d been one to experience true fear, that might have been the moment I’d lost it.