“At some point we need to have a talk about how you did that,” Alex said reassuringly, gently pushing Eerie into the woods. “Right now, though, I need you to find somebody, preferably Miss Aoki or Miss Gallow or someone like that, and bring them back here. Fast. Like, before I die. Please.”
Eerie nodded seriously and charged off through the brush. Alex turned to find Edward leering at him, as best he could with his distended jaw.
“I let her go, you know. Makes it easier,” he said, in his sickly, shrill voice. “Without your little girlfriend, you’re as good as dead.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you don’t know how to operate your protocol,” Edward said, putting both arms up, palms to the sky. “Once more with feeling, Alex?”
He didn’t see the arc this time. He felt it surging through him instead, for a bare instant, hot at the point of contact near the center his chest; and equally as hot, for some reason, in his left foot. There was stabbing, brilliant pain, the whole of his nervous system crying out simultaneously. Then his legs gave way beneath him, and he went crashing helplessly to the ground. He could see a trail of smoke rising from his ruined, partially melted sneaker, and found it strangely hard to look away.
“I told you,” the thing that used to be Edward croaked. “You should’ve had the girl stick around. She was all that was keeping you alive.”
Alex managed to roll over, but he couldn’t speak. His chest and diaphragm had seized up, and he was having terrible trouble breathing. He fought off panic and forced himself to inhale slowly, willing his lungs back into service. He managed one shallow, shaky breath, and then another. Edward lifted Alex by a handful of his shirt, pulling him up as if he weighed nothing, while Alex’s arms hung at his sides, numb and unresponsive.
“I thought you deserved an answer, you ignorant shit. Edward is gone. They brought me his body, and hollowed him out and poured myself inside, like a worm in an apple. Exactly like I’m going to do to you, as soon as you stop breathing. It shouldn’t bother you much. I know it won’t bother your girlfriend.”
Alex tried to say Eerie’s name, but all he managed was a strange noise. He still counted it as progress. Edward let him drop back to the ground unceremoniously, chuckling.
“You really haven’t noticed? Do you even know what a Changeling is? That girl is like a cuckoo. A doppelganger.”
“I have no idea what you just said. A cuckoo? You mean she’s crazy?”
Alex managed to sit up. He didn’t know why, but he felt that was a moral victory.
“You really are dumb. You had better take a close look at that girl before you get too excited, boy. You can’t think so much with your balls, or every woman you meet is going to lead you around by them. Of course, you won’t have a chance to use the advice,” Edward gloated.
“That’s a shame,” Katya opinioned, giving Alex a friendly pat on the back that startled him. “It was such good advice, too.”
Edward howled and clutched at his face and neck, batting at invisible insects, fending off a private fire.
“I’ve perforated a number of cerebral arteries, and caused hemorrhaging all through your brain,” Katya said unhappily, as if Edward were a profound disappointment to her. “You really should have the common courtesy to die. What are you, exactly?”
“This was Edward. He died, but now I think he’s become some sort of lightning-zombie,” Alex explained, gradually picking himself up off the ground.
“What kind of school is this?” Edward hissed, his face hidden behind his hands. “Don’t they teach you brats anything?”
Edward raised his hand skyward, but there was no lightning, instead he shrieked again and clutched the arm. It took Alex a moment to work out that the flashes of silver he kept seeing were a handful of long, thin needles that had run through Edward’s arm in several different places. Alex shuddered when he put it together.
“Tell me the truth,” Katya said, advancing with a handful of long needles. “Are you a student here? Because I don’t want to get in trouble for killing another student…”
Alex didn’t bother to try to stand up, even though he thought he might be capable of it. He didn’t think trying to punch Edward would do any good. However, that didn’t mean he was going to sit there and watch Katya fight, either. It wasn’t as easy this time, opening the Black Door, not with Edward’s words buzzing in his head, but he pushed them aside with an effort, and reached for the frost-covered handle in the back of his mind. There was no finesse this time around, no careful siphoning of energies. Instead, he tore blindly at the fabric that separated the world and the Ether, creating breaches all around what used to be Edward, opening him and the world around him to the void. Edward examined the sheen of frost that covered him in disbelief, and then turned his jet eyes to Alex.
This time, Alex had a perfect view of her protocol in action. Katya didn’t throw the needles. She opened her hand as if she was letting the wind take seeds and the needles were gone, lodged in of Edward as suddenly as they had disappeared. One of them pierced him like a gag shop arrow, running from temple to temple, while the remaining two crossed each other, perforating his chest through the solar plexus. Edward stumbled backwards and coughed wretchedly.
“Would you mind telling me where you keep your vitals?” Katya asked, circling away while she dug another handful of smaller needles from the lining of her blue surplus coat. “I’m all out of the acupuncture needles, but I still have a whole bunch of sewing needles. If you don’t speak up, I’ll keep on trying till I figure it out.”
Alex decided he preferred not to watch. This thought was followed by a series of ghastly squishing noises that reinforced his decision to look away. A moment later, Katya made a dissatisfied noise and then the sounds repeated themselves. Alex found, to his relief that the holes he’d torn to the Ether mended quickly enough when the Black Door closed.
“You are such a baby,” Katya said contemptuously. “I saved you, already. Are you ever going to stand up?”
“And you are a terrible bodyguard,” Alex countered angrily. “Where were you when the dead guy showed up? He could have killed me, like, three times before you got here!”
Against all expectation, Katya reddened and turned away.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” she muttered. “I wasn’t really watching all that closely, to be honest.”
“You were watching us?” Alex asked in disbelief.
“I already told you,” Katya shouted, “that I wasn’t! I left as soon as you guys starting making out, okay? I didn’t want to watch that shit. I only came back when I saw the flash.”
Alex levered himself slowly to his feet, inspecting the burn marks on his t-shirt and the melted sole on his shoe grimly.
“You really suck, you know that?” Alex said, his hands shaking furiously. “Not only did you watch us from the bushes, but then you show up late to bail me out? At least have the decency to save me immediately if you insist on stalking me!”
Katya swore, crossed her arms, and then looked away.
“You told me to stay away,” Katya said sternly, staring off in the opposite direction. “Anastasia told me to watch you. Who do you expect me to listen to? You’re right — I suck at this. I don’t know fuck-all about protecting people, but you aren’t exactly making it easy. I didn’t want to watch you make out with your stupid girlfriend. I tried not to intrude.”