“Blake,” I heard a voice. The third Other to enter through the window. The unassuming, boring Pizza Man. The Revenant. His eyes glittered dark, his smile was like he was in on some grand joke, wry, as if he was about to burst into excited laughter at any moment. “Didn’t know you were here.”
Not a hint of his fatigue and tiredness from before.
“I told you that it was dangerous to mess around here,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “But that thing your other cousin did. Man. I’m excited. I could barely keep her still. There aren’t many acceptable targets or acceptable times to express my excitement. Then an opportunity like this comes up? Know what I mean? This is going to be something to behold.”
“I don’t know the feeling, but yeah, I think I understand.”
The clock man was paying attention to Peter, who was on his rear end, hands and feet on the ground, staring up. The clock man’s expression was frozen as he advanced on Peter. A light smile that revealed some teeth.
“Shit,” Peter said, crab-walking away. He found his feet, but the clock man bent forward, placing the clockless hand on his collarbone, and shoved him back.
Peter and the clock man disappeared into the hallway, Peter retreating, stumbling for footing, and the clock man swiftly advancing, maintaining his hand in the one position.
I’d have intervened if I’d seen it coming. It was so sudden.
And, on a level, a part of me wanted to be near Alexis. I shook my head, moving to the water that pooled on the living room floor.
I saw the clock man back away a step. Peter was slumped against the closet door in the front hallway.
With shaking hands, Peter pushed his upper body away from the door, as if it took some effort.
The doorknob had shattered on impact with his body. The resulting piece of the doorknob was a prong of metal, now crimson. The blood that dripped off it in strings was thick, as if it wasn’t just blood, but other bits clumped in there too.
I could see the blood at Peter’s shoulder where it had speared him.
“Fuck,” Peter said, slumping to the ground beneath the door with a light splash. “And now my pants are drenched. That’s going to bug me all night.”
The clock man left Peter like that, backing into the living room, dusting himself off, the exact same expression on his face.
He traced one finger along the television set, thoroughly destroyed in the localized explosion at the window, and then picked up a piece of glass.
“Eager, aren’t you?” the revenant commented, smiling a little wider, “Not that I’m objecting.”
Shit. I’d almost liked him, and now he was living true to his nature.
I’d never liked the parable of the scorpion and the frog.
I liked it even less now. It made me think of Green Eyes.
I liked her too.
“Sorry, window-dweller,” he said. “But big things are happening. There’s value in being a part of them. I don’t know what you had planned for this bunch, but you had your chance to do it. Now the rest of us get a shot.”
He headed for Callan, the clock man headed back for Peter, shard of glass in hand.
I could deal with one, but not both.
Eva was just standing there, next to the window. The remaining Others just outside weren’t venturing inside.
“Eva!” I shouted.
The warning tone was enough to stir her into action. A part of me suspected it didn’t take much. She wanted to participate.
She went right for the revenant. He was unarmed, she wasn’t.
I’d seen her fight people. I got a chance to see how she fought monsters.
Eva put herself in the revenant’s way, and the revenant threw a punch. She was ready to block, deflecting a blow from something much stronger than she was, knife flashing out to cut his throat.
Against anyone else, and a hell of a lot of anythings, she might have ended the fight right there.
But the revenant didn’t stop. He threw another punch, and clipped her. She went with it, turning her body to absorb the force of the blow, then struck out with her knife, using the turn to hit that much harder. Going for the side of the neck, this time.
“Yeah,” the revenant said. “Knew I shouldn’t pick a fight with you.”
I was already in the water, trying to find a way to work around the distorted surface. Too many feet splashing.
The clock man walked with care, Peter in his sights.
Peter rose to his feet, then ran upstairs. He fell twice on his way to the stairs, first at the spot of oil that sat surrounded by water, then on the stairs themselves, with a piece of glass caught in the underside of his shoe.
The clock man followed, walking.
Eva kicked the revenant bodily in the chest, shoving him into the hallway and out of Callan and Christoff’s sight.
Then she really went to town.
He moved his arm, and I didn’t even get a chance to see why, because she was ready to stop him with one arm blocking his elbow. One leg was positioned behind his knee. The whole of her body mass served as leverage, her shoulder pushing his upper body, her lower legs planted firmly on the ground.
His free, unblocked hand got a grip on her collar. Her knife severed the fingertips.
I glanced at the clock man. He was just at the bottom of the stairs. Peter was at the top. Once the gap was slightly wider, I could appear between them.
For now- I reached out of the water and gripped the revenant’s hair as he started to rise, hauling him down, his head cracking against the wood.
Eva threw the knife, planting it in the revenant’s throat. As if she was setting her shovel into the ground, she stomped on the handle, forcing it through.
Two hands came up for her legs. She backed away a step.
To stand, he had to pull the point of the blade out of the wood beneath him. I had a glimpse of him, the handle of the knife, not the blade, jutting through his neck. The blade stuck out the back.
“You’re-” he said, but his voice was almost too distorted by the intervening object to make any sense. He grabbed the blade with one hand and pulled it from his neck.
A toss in the air, and he caught the handle.
His wounds closed in a matter of a second or two, except for the throat wound, which was too wide.
Eva made a quick motion, he reacted, ready to catch her or defend himself, but it was only a feint.
She did it again, once or twice. In those seconds, the throat wound finished closing.
“You’re trying to behead me,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“That doesn’t work against everything,” he said.
“It’ll work here.”
The basement door rattled, the things in the basement still periodically trying to get out. I could see narrow, long-fingered hands clutching around the open door, trying to get a grip on the table, so they could shift its position.
Eva paused, took a half-step back, then kicked the basement door.
Severed fingers dropped into the pool of water.
I looked upstairs. I could sense the distortions in reflections.
Peter had gone straight for the third floor.
The clock man was just reaching the second.
I saw my window of opportunity and moved.
I appeared, drawing the Hyena, and swept the broken blade through his ankles.
He stumbled, catching the railing, but I reached up to grab his waistband, and found the leverage to pull him down toward the stairs. The gaunt clock man tumbled.
In the process, I could see Ty at the end of the hall.
Three dead things that might have been gargoyles or winged goblins lay beside him. He was unaware of me as he swung his hammer to finish crucifying one, affixing it to a picture frame by slamming a nail through its wrist and wing. He rose, pressing the picture frame against the window, gargoyle sticking out-