“What’s going on?” Evan asked. He was whispering so quiet that I could barely hear him.
All the same, I only responded with a, “Shh.”
The rush of wind grew more intense. I felt the building sway.
It was, in the midst of all that dark, something moved.
Not between the two buildings, but on the far side of the building opposite us. Where there were hallways like this one, with windows on either end, rooms with a great many windows, or giant holes in the face of the building, like a room had been clean torn out, I could see through to the other side.
The building opposite was so tall that I couldn’t see the terminus, so wide and so deep that the edges disappeared into utter darkness.
I could only see the head and shoulders of the thing that walked by, a pale silhouette, almost but not quite obscured by the oppressive darkness, slivers visible at a time, lit by the fires here and there.
When things were this dark, a little light apparently went a long way.
A fierce wind followed it, stirred by the movement of something so vast that its head took up almost my entire field of vision.
The building shook like a boat on stormy water. Rats scurried and screamed. Windows rattled.
I thought I maybe even saw bodies fall from the sides of the building opposite.
It took a solid five minutes for things to stop moving.
The lights came back on, in a matter of speaking. The same weak, maddening flickering and buzzing of old lightbulbs and wiring. The lights maybe a little more intermittent and dimmer than before.
Half of the others had actually stepped outside. Kathryn hadn’t moved, and Roxanne hadn’t woken.
Roxanne was on her side, whimpering. She got more agitated by the second, almost thrashing.
“The skin-crawling bugs?” Ellie asked. She was outside, despite the cold.
“Nightmare or a terror dream, more likely,” Alexis said. “Roxanne, wake up.”
I thought of the nightmares I’d experienced while I was in the Drains.
“Wait, Alexis,” I said.
But she was already touching Roxanne.
Roxanne startled awake, but she didn’t shake off the nightmare.
“Bugs,” she said.
She dug her fingernails into the skin of her forearms.
“Give her space, this place is getting to her!” I raised my voice, but the noise and the shouts and the voices of others almost drowned me out. Some heard me, looking at me, but Alexis wasn’t one of them.
Or, more likely, Alexis was the type to look after the wounded birds. Like she’d looked after me, or looked after Tiff.
“Roxy!” Kathy shouted, starting to rise to her feet, then failing. Uneven floorboards and one arm that hung limp at her side.
Roxanne managed to drag her fingernails through two or three inches of her own skin before Alexis got to her.
Alexis seized Roxanne’s wrists.
Roxanne reacted about as badly as I might have feared. She tore free of Alexis’ grip, and reached behind her.
“Knife!” I shouted, already running forward, hopping over Kathryn.
Roxanne struck out, kitchen knife held the wrong way, blade pointing down, the weapon too large for her frame and a one-handed grip.
But, all the same, Alexis shielded her face with her hands. The action meant the knife only cut the tip of her nose, but it also meant that her palms were sliced open.
I reached Roxanne, and seized the knife.
Alexis, for her part, lunged, throwing her arms around Roxanne. Pinning her arms to her side with a hug, hands held away so the cuts didn’t touch Roxanne.
“Stop,” Alexis said. “Stop.”
Roxanne was panting, head jerking, fighting to escape, for long seconds.
“Stop,” Alexis said, calmer. Calming.
Roxanne stopped.
“I’m never going to be okay again,” Roxanne said. Almost mournful.
“Shhh,” Alexis said. “Relax.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Peter commented, “You’re a Thorburn. You were never going to be okay in the first place.”
The look that Tiff shot him was one of utter appalment. Not an oft-used word, but it wasn’t an expression that was often seen, either.
“Oh,” Roxanne said. “Yeah.”
She might have sounded a little bit calmer, saying that.
When I looked back at the window, I saw a familiar face. Or half of one. The man with the ill-fitting suit was just outside the window, peering in, his eyes over the windowsill like a crocodile’s over the water’s surface.
“No,” I told him. “If you want one of us, you can think again.”
One arm reached over the windowsill, and it pointed.
At the open window.
I looked back, then looked to him.
“Want out?” I asked. “We can talk.”
■
Green Eyes was the first to appear. Her eyes glowed in the darkness of the night sky, the lower half of her face covered by snow.
“Mission successful?” I asked.
Ty emerged as well, trudging through snow.
“That, right there, is the biggest faggot I’ve ever seen,” Peter commented.
Ellie sniggered.
“Faggot as in bundle of sticks, I get it,” Ty said, not even cracking a smile as he deposited the sticks outside the gate. “I bet you think you’re brilliant. You know, there was a time when I wondered what the Thorburns actually did that made people hate them so much.”
“Good work,” I said.
Ty nodded, then stopped as he stood in the doorframe. “And that is?”
The man in the ill-fitting suit sat in a binding circle. Alexis’ hands were bound in makeshift bandage, but the dust here was making me worry. Tiff knelt by the binding circle, with Christoff at full attention, watching the process.
“Company,” I volunteered.
“Company?”
Rather than answer, Tiff turned to the man.
“Should you be willing to accept and bound to the strictures of the proposed agreement, you’re free to leave and make use of our gate,” Tiff said. “Behaims, Duchamps, or the North End Sorcerer only, and only if they practice, only if they’re twenty or older.”
The man in the ill-fitting suit nodded, stood, took a tentative step toward the edge of the circle, then broke into full stride.
Green Eyes made a noise at him as he passed. Almost a snarl, but not quite. Asserting dominance.
“Down, girl,” Peter said.
She made the noise at him.
“We got the sticks,” Ty said, “Lots of branches falling off trees, with the cold. And, do you want to show him, Green?”
Green Eyes propped herself up.
She had a bone clamped in her teeth. She opened her mouth and let it fall into the snow with the sticks, then wiped away the copious amounts of drool with her forearm.
She raised a hand, holding herself up with only the other, and I saw three more bones held within. She switched hands, raising the other. Her fingers were wrapped around a spine and a ribcage that lacked a few ribs.
“Wow, that’s…” I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Did you kill a freaking deer?” Peter asked.
“Too clean to be a fresh kill,” Kathryn said.
“That’s human bone,” Green Eyes said.
I don’t think she could have said that with less confidence, I thought. I didn’t volunteer that observation.
“Where did you get human bone?” Alexis asked.
“The Briar Girl,” Ty said. “We ran into her, I asked permission and gave a gift to get permission to keep exploring, collecting branches. We chatted, and, well, the way she phrased it, she was getting annoyed with the Others that were attacking the house traipsing through her territory. On a completely unrelated note-”