Gone and Done It – 17.9

Verona

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Verona wore the body of a scruffy, adolescent black cat, and she moved in concert with a group of goblins.  Her nose made her aware of their various smells and odors, and she had to fight the urge to sneeze.  Sneezing could make her glamour break or it could make her drop what she was carrying.  The bag was gift-shop sized, and heavy enough it strained her neck, but mama cats could carry kittens and she could carry this.

“Wait,” Dee whispered.  She crouched down and put an arm at Verona’s nose level, barring her way.

Toadswallow’s friend was skinny, taller than Verona when Verona was human, with a batlike nose, fan-like ears, and large, bulging yellow eyes.  She’d put makeup on around the eyes.

Dee lowered herself down to the ground, lying on her belly, then flipped over, keeping her arm in Verona’s way.  She watched the scene upside-down.  Her eyes flicked in Verona’s direction.

“Yer covered in glamour and lookin’ all serious and shit.  It makes me want to tease you.”

Verona’s ears went flat at the top of her head.

The practitioners of Musser’s camp had mostly moved to the motel.  It was the only place to stay, really, now that other spots had closed.  The entire motel was filled up with their people.  They were crammed into rooms, sleeping in shifts, and even though it was something like two in the morning, there were a good fifteen or so people outside, watching the cars and keeping an eye out.

Verona had stopped in earlier, to survey the area, before leaving to get organized.  She knew the owner of the motel and his daughter, a senior at the Kennet high school, would sometimes be up and out, sharing smokes and talking to the practitioners.

When they weren’t, and when things got quiet, then Others came out of the rooms, moving out into the rest of the town.

It was getting increasingly hard to navigate.

“I’ve made something of a career out of being a bump in the night,” Dee said.  “Bothering kids and shit.”

“How is that a career?” Verona asked, putting her bag down so she could speak human through a cat mouth.

“There’s layers to it, that’s not the point.  The point is I’ve picked up skills.  Here… little ear hairs…”

Dee stuck her fingernails in her ear, and pulled out tiny hairs, roots still attached,  she dug into her pocket, got some used tape, and stuck them on the tape, before pressing the tape to the inside of the ear on top of Verona’s head.

Verona shook her head, pawed at it, and tried scratching.  Her ear twitched violently.

“Nose hairs-”

“Uh, no,” Verona whispered.

But while she’d been distracted, Deedee had already collected the hairs in question, and applied them to tape.  A finger pressed the tape to Verona’s nose and pressed it firmly down.

“Be happy it’s not a mucus transplant,” Deedee said.

“Aaaa,” Verona protested, pawing and struggling.  She pushed her nose into the ground and rubbed the tape into dirt.  It wouldn’t come off.

“Shhhh, shhh,” Deedee said.  Her hand caught Verona’s chin and lifted it so Verona faced the motel again, peering out of their collective hiding place.  “Listen, smell.  Don’t pay attention to them.  Listen to what isn’t.  Look at the dark.  Pay attention to absence.”

Verona’s eyes were open and, she was sure, conveyed the appropriate level of trauma, while her ear kept twitching, like the wing of a bird caught in a beast’s mouth.

The silence groaned and creaked.  It reacted when pushed against.

The smells exploded out from everyone there.  Sweat smells, food smells, mixed smells, clothes smells, smells of places they’d been.  There were smells that were casualties of being victim to goblin pranks and tricks and there were smells that were there because people had interacted with others who’d been victim to pranks and tricks.

There were blood smells, too.

Each of those smells created a trail that the wind carried, as she moved her head.  She could map it out in her head, to a limited degree, and the end result was an intuition.  That her prey might be going this way or that, or that a dangerous thing might be going another way.

She could distinguish between the practitioners and the two Others in their midst, and she could make a trail of sorts that mapped out the places that weren’t traveled.

The back of the building wasn’t a safe angle to approach.  Something back there smelled like a distillation of the bile in her throat that came with being sick or upset, or the smell of sweat that came from being afraid instead of exercise or fun.

She understood.  She nodded.

“Cool,” Dee said.  “That’ll last you about an hour.  I’ll spare you the earwax transplant that’d make it like instinct, and I’ll jus’ tell ya.  There’s a sound to someone listening out.  You can hear it just like you can see if someone’s standin’ watch, like how you see it with that dope by the phone.  Silence with a tension to it.”

The ‘phone’ was a pay phone that had been damaged a long time ago, and didn’t even have a receiver.  The dope was a guy, about twenty-five, who Verona had noticed earlier.  There was a practitioner mom who would walk back and forth from the one room to the vending machine, or out to the car, and every time she did, she would bring her daughter with her.  They’d been some of the people talking to the motel owner and his daughter earlier – they were about the same age.  Seventeen or so.

Verona had the feeling, now that the guy had been pointed out again, that he was volunteering to stand watch a lot to watch people.  Or, more specifically, to watch the daughter.

“Listen, get a feel for it, even if you can’t make out th’ words,” Dee murmured almost hypnotic.  “How they lower their voices so they won’t be overheard.”

Verona listened.  Like the explosion of smell trails, she could mentally map out the silence some.

Peckersnot crept along until he could see Verona’s face.  He snickered, then motioned.

She didn’t care.  She had to figure out a way.

“Now, y’need to be able to see wards and shit, ‘kay?” Dee asked.  “Let’s do the transfer with this one.”

She made her grip on Verona’s chin all the more firm.  Verona’s eyes widened.

To her left, Biscuit and Tatty had moved up, and were looking at her, as she started to buck, wriggling, pulling her head back, until her face was scrunched up, then pulling her head forward, until eyes bugged out.  Her ear twitched throughout, and she had to fight the urge to sneeze as the tape moved and hairs on the inside of the tape tickled her nose.

“This cat!” Tatty exclaimed, laughing.  “Looks so messed up!”

“Stoned kitty!” Biscuit called out.

“You can do it Kitty!” Tatty cheered.

Verona struggled, fighting to get her head free of Dee’s grip.

Peckersnot pulled with all his strength on one of Dee’s fingers, relaxing enough that Verona could pull free.  But Dee’s tongue had just extended to lick one of the goblin’s own bulbous eyeballs, apparently to collect a bit of eye-snot, and now it moved, prehensile, toward Verona’s eye.

Verona bit the end of the tongue, sinking needle teeth into it.

“Ahw,” Dee mumbled.

Hair standing on end, tail stretched out, Verona pinned it to the ground beneath her paws, Peckersnot helping her to hold it down, then bit another few times, extruded claws, and caught it.

“Ahw, ahw, ohay, ohay!  Ah won’ transher s’it.”

Verona released the tongue.  Tatty and Biscuit sat down, the show over.

“But keep the tape, kid,” Dee said, flopping over.  “At least until you’re safe.”

Verona sneezed very carefully, her entire body shaking in the aftermath of it.  Peckersnot smoothed her hair down with both hands.

“I’ll jus’ tell you what I see, ‘kay?” Dee asked.  She stuck out her tongue and held it in one hand to examine the bitten-up end, then withdrew it into her mouth.  “Car near the end of the row?  Red thing?”

Verona looked.  “I’m a bit colorblind like this.”

“The dinky, borrowed-from-mom car?”

“That’s subjective.”

“Shit.  Um.  Oh, they’re walkin’ by.  See the lame-ass?”

“That’s subjective too.”

“Well the lame-ass with the inside out hood, he’s walking by the blue asshole car, blue small-ween car… you can see blue, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Green car…”

“Can’t really see green.”

“Y’know who I’m talkin’ about, yeh?”

“Yeah,” Verona said.

“And he’s walkin’ by the car I’m talkin’ about… now.”

Verona looked.

“Yeah, okay,” Verona replied.

“The way they’re moving around it, and looking at it?  That shit’s warded, and if you could see it the way I see it, you’d be able to tell.  I’ve taken it on myself to remind practitioner’s kiddos that things that go bump in the night can get ’em too.  So I had to learn.”

“Still not seeing how that’s a job,” Verona remarked.  “It’s almost like you were unemployed and a jerk to kids.”

“Adults too!  Weird sound in the house at three in the morning?  Sometimes that’s me!  Best in my field for the wider region, for a little bit.”

“Not really a field, though, is it?” Verona asked, feeling especially persnickety about it, now.  Her ear kept twitching.  “How do you make a living?”

“Stealing stuff on the side, or bank up a little fear into some battery trinkets…”

“Couldn’t you do that without all the extra home invasion stuff?  Scare people while they’re out at night?”

“But this is an art.”

Tatty put her hands on her hips.  “Toadswallow says the reason Dee here does all that is so she can be close to people.  Shake things up and deal with people who give kids a hard time, or hurt their spouses.”

“That’s not the reason.”

“But you do it.”

“It happens a lot, I don’t know why!  It’s not like I go looking.”

“That’s kinda cool, though,” Verona said.  “Don’t know why you’re arguing.”

Deedee frowned at her, like Verona had nettled her more with that than anything else. “Do you want help or not?”

“Help away.”

“Trash can?  Rigged.  They skipped it once when they could’ve thrown shit away, but one guy keeps throwin’ lit cigarettes into it.  No fire.  So…”

Deedee, still watching everything upside-down, dragged a long fingernail through the dirt, mapping out the motel strip.  Peckersnot hurried over to help.

“Ah, thanks.  Okay, so if we’re here, and the road is here…” Deedee marked out spots, poking a finger in, then making devil horns and dragging two fingers through to mark the sides of the road, “…seems like the best way to go is this way.  Then this way… follow the silence, avoid the bad smells.  It’s better to wait an hour for something like whatever’s at the back of the buildin’ to move a bit away, than to rush it.”

“You’re not coming?”

“My boyfriend would be upset if I got bound.  I’m happy to help Sir Toadswallow, but I don’t want to get Ben involved.  He’d come and rescue me or something dumb.”

“It’s so weird.  A human?” Tatty asked.  “Why bother?  Boring-faces.”

Dee turned over and put her chin in her hands.  “I like his boring face.  He’s funny.  Why did you put that there, Dee?  What is this on bedside table?  I can’t tell if this is a weapon, a trick, or a-”

She covered Verona’s ears.  Verona shook her head and snarled lightly.  Dee released her ears.

“Obviously it’s a combination of all three,” Biscuit said.

“Well yeah, but he’s funny like that.  Oh, there was that time, he said, you can’t bring serial murderers over when my family’s visitin’, Dee.  It was so sweet, he was trying to be all polite, talkin’ to my friend while his mom and sis are at the table.  Oh, and we got first row seats to the Goblin Game.  That was a thing.  He didn’t want to go, which, like okay.  It’s horrible, sure, but the connections you can make!”

“So many connections!” Biscuit exclaimed.

“Connections and shit!  Oh, and this one time, he was like, what would you think about gettin’ married sometime down the line?  And obviously when a practitioner asks a question that wild, it’s just trickery, right?  But he really got me.  The look on his face, and how nervous he was actin’, I thought he was for real for like, three fuckin’ seconds.  Then he was all, ‘I’m serious’ and I was like, yeah, that wouldn’t work if you didn’t say it all serious-like.”

“Wouldn’t work at all,” Biscuit agreed.

Verona’s ear twitched.  “Maybe talk to Toadswallow about that?  He’s good with humans.”

“It’s one of those things, you had to be there for the line to land.”

“This really isn’t my area of specialty, but if he’s asking he might actually mean it or be hinting at it?”

Deedee chuckled, settling in closer to the ground, a momentary wistful look in her eyes.  “You’re funny too, you know?  What would he want with me?  I’m just a trashy goblin girl.  Like his sidepiece, when he hasn’t gotten around to having a main piece, because he’s so busy with me and borin’ incest magic.”

“I think that’s just you being his main piece.  Talk to Toadswallow?”

“Maybe.  He’s busy.  Anyway!  Speaking of bein’ busy, you guys…”

Deedee tapped the makeshift map.

Verona focused on the task at hand.

“Don’t approach from here.  They’ll see you, even with that one guy near the phone being distracted.”

Verona nodded.  She picked up the bag in her teeth, looked at the others, and got four nods.  Biscuit, Peckersnot, Tatty, and Bangnut were there, with Bangnut hanging back, mostly mute, concerning himself with the stuff he was bringing.

All of them had makeshift bags and packs, with Verona and Bangnut carrying the most.

They took the long way around.  Out to the side, into the trees, circling around, almost behind the building, but not quite.

The smell of the sad, angry, bad-feelings thing got stronger as they drew nearer to the side of the building.  The trash can off near the corner of the building was surrounded in cigarette butts.

It made for an awkward angle of approach.  The end of the building had the depth of about one regular-sized room in a house, which didn’t leave much of a gap to maneuver through, without getting close to the corner of the building nearest the parking lot, or approaching the back of the building where some summoned Other prowled.

Verona took Deedee’s advice, waiting until smells weren’t so strong and silences were wider.

The wind changed direction, which made things more deceptive, as far as tracking.  If she spent more time in cat form, she might have been able to better tell if the Other had moved away or if this was the smell version of an optical illusion.

Thinking about smell reminded her of her nose, and made her want to sneeze.  All practices had their price, and this sort apparently had this price.

But she judged the coast clear.  She led the others on their way to the back corner of the building.

Bangnut had a grappling hook, and fired it up to the roof’s edge.  He was fastest up.  Tatty was next fastest, clambering up on her own, Peckersnot following, and Biscuit was slowest.

When Biscuit was up, Verona darted forward, ran up the side of the building, then became partially human, grabbing the thin rope with one hand, bag in her teeth, while grabbing at the glamour she’d shed with her other hand.  She let momentum carry her up, swinging.

The trash can ten feet below her.  Something was nestled in there, like a fetus made of ash.  She saw it stir-

She ran on the side of the building, using feet still partially wrapped in glamour, partially in her sketched-on skater shoes, to help her swing the other direction.

With momentum, she resumed cat form, and bounded up the side of the building.  Bangnut caught the bag, while Peckersnot caught her by the neck.  They pulled her onto the roof.

“There’s gotta be easier ways to do that,” Tatty whispered.

Verona put a paw out, covering Tatty’s mouth.

Conserving glamour at this point.

She could smell the creature below, drawn by the faint sound of Tatty’s voice.  A big smell, like how her bed had smelled after she’d had the flu, sweating and vomiting and most of all, the smells that went with feeling sorry for herself.  It smelled like tears tasted.  There was a time she’d boycotted doing laundry beyond the absolute necessary, and her dad hadn’t done it much either.  That would’ve been around March-April of last year.  Wet laundry that had sat in the dryer until she’d finally needed something clean to wear, and even after she’d put it through the dryer, it had smelled musty.  This smelled like that.  Not even just the mold or whatever.  But the sour smell of resentment and frustration.

Filling her nostrils.  Filling her mouth.  It made her fur feel dirty.

It was a clown.  It emerged from the woods.  The key elements were there, but it was soaked in darkness, stained through and through.  That swirling darkness that usually touched a bogeyman was thick on it, to the point it blurred around the edges, making its shape indistinct.

Like it was a clown but it wasn’t a fat clown or a thin clown, but both at the same time.  The patterns on its face shifted like they’d been dropped onto the surface of water or they were part of some murky kaleidoscope.

It made the parts that didn’t change as much feel that much more.  Eyes small and dark and hateful.  The nose.  Gnarled hands.

A whoosh of a sound behind her made her nearly fall off the roof in alarm.  She turned, and saw they weren’t alone on the rooftop.  A figure made of shadow held a bow, and aimed at the sky.

Three more appeared out of nowhere, consolidating from the ambient darkness.  Bowmen with arrows already nocked and drawn, releasing.

The owl that had been flying overhead was shot five times in total by four archers, before it finally hit the roof, scraping a mix of broad shingles that were both nailed down and loose, laid haphazardly over spots that needed shoring up.

A second after it hit the roof, something lunged out of the darkness and pounced on it.  A six-foot-tall doll with three heads, four arms and three legs jutting out of a frilly dress with a ruffled collar and elaborate lace all down its length.  The very dead owl was savaged and torn at by two different mouths until one got a good grip on it.  The head receded into the neck-hole of the doll, body cracking and opening up so it could drag the owl with it, and then another arm sprouted out of the base of the dress, serving as another leg.

The doll remained where it was, more or less frozen, hands and legs planted on the roof.  It shuddered and jerked here and there, as the owl was slowly chewed up inside the chest.

A bit of owl-juice squirted out of the neck hole with a puff of feathers, and it moved with as much violence as before, attacking that spot on the roof.

It went back to being nearly still afterward.

“I think I just made fresh biscuits,” Biscuit whispered.

The doll thing stirred at the faint sound.

Verona carefully lowered the bag she was holding in her teeth, letting Bangnut take it, then padded around the roof, silent.

The doll didn’t move.

She kept low, body hugging the lip of the motel roof.  The practitioners were below her, and she didn’t want any errant Sight to spot her, but she was more afraid of moving closer to the clown than she was of being in the general vicinity of these guys.

The rooftop wards were drawn in what might’ve been white grease pencil, on broad, black, square cardboard-like papers that had then been tossed up here.  There were a couple that had landed top-down, despite the parts of the diagrams that were meant to help keep them upright.

Argumentative diagrams, meaning they were meant to put out a message or call to specific forces.  The forces seemed to be soldiers of old, calling on families that had sent sons to war.  It mixed English and what might have been Norse, but the it had a coat of arms, which felt more English again.  So who knew?

They were elaborate, too.  These were aimed at protecting the skies above the motel, and might even hit anyone that walked over or by one.  They were also linked to the creator, so that any interference notified the person who’d made this.

But, at least this far, they hadn’t seemed to anticipate any involvement from something as small as a goblin.  Or a cat.

She held a paw to her mouth, then moved her head, beckoning the goblins to come.

All four goblins shook their heads.

Verona nodded, then repeated the head motion.

She adjusted the glamour slightly, and then bent joints in ways they weren’t meant to bend, bending one limb and moving it in a ‘chicken’ motion.  She turned her head and did a silent ‘bawk’ a few times.

Tatty had basically no resistance to that, and once she came, the others followed.

The goblins followed Verona along the roof’s edge, crouching down.  They had to move down from the lip at the edge of the roof to the roof itself, and a scuffling of bag on concrete as Bangnut climbed down made the doll react, lunging across ten feet of roof to slam a six-fingered hand into the spot where Bangnut had been.

Verona held Bangnut by the back of the neck, almost standing on her back legs.

Slowly, glamour cracking at her neck from the strain, she eased him down.  She pawed at and licked at the affected spots to smooth things out again.

They moved past the archer-summoning paper that was set on the roof, back up to the lip, and down the length of the rooftop.  Verona eyed the doll carefully, searching it with her eyes and her Sight to try to see if there was any sign of what was keeping the doll from triggering the archer runes.

If there was anything, it was hidden out of sight.  A marker or something inside the clothing.

There was one spot where the silence felt too… bated.  She led the goblins across the roof at a diagonal, away from the practitioners who were sitting around the back of a car, talking, trunk popped open, drinks inside but kept out of sight.

She could see two more dolls, above the office.  One had three torsos attached to one another in a line, neck to torso to neck to torso, with limbs extending out.  Its face was shattered and the jagged edges of the fragments were like a fanged mouth.

There was a vent.  But as Bangnut pulled out a screwdriver and touched screwdriver to screw, making the first tentative turn.  It squeaked, and the doll turned its heads.

Verona moved as quickly as she could while being silent.  She licked her limb, to lick up glamour, then made a small hooting sound.

The doll came after her, then chased for a few steps.

Another crossing of the rooftop, another hoot-

It was more aggressive this time.  Like it was getting a sense of who and what she was.  She had to move full speed to escape it, zig-zagging, and the commotion was drawing the other two dolls closer.

On the third attempt, it was different.  Doll eyes with runes painted on the pupils locked onto her, and she felt it.  This time it didn’t stop.  It kept coming, kept scampering, sliding periodically where the shingles weren’t nailed in and its weight carried it one way or the other-

But she’d distracted the doll so the goblins could work.  The vent was open.  Verona waited until the goblins were inside, then dived for it.  Instincts tried to orient her, but limbs banged against the duct.  The goblins at the bottom broke her fall.

The doll was right behind her.  Human-sized doll arms thrust in after her, manifesting new lengths, new joints, and, at the tail end, as they reached an extreme, the strung out muscles and flesh of owl, two squirrels, and a large rat, bone pushed to the outside and shaped into a rough, cracked doll arm in shape.  She shrank back as much as she could, going around the bend, with two left limbs following behind until they reached their limit.

“What the fuck was that commotion?” someone said, above them.

“Owl, from the sounds of it.  See?  Feathers.”

“A little oversensitive.”

“Oversensitive is better than not.”

“Not if it gets the attention of the owner.”

Bangnut led the way as they moved down the duct.  Dust sat thick on the floor of the duct, so that Peckersnot’s head was the only thing poking up, while it tickled her belly.  Her nose, too.

She had to remove the tape from her nose.  She had Peckersnot help, then had him climb on her back.

At one bend, Bangnut pulled out another screwdriver.  She took the bag from him as he worked at it.

From the duct, they got access to the inside of the walls.

Verona became a rat, to move better in this particular space.  As a group, they worked, with Biscuit, Tatty, and Peckersnot in a mostly supporting role.

One room had conversation ongoing inside.  Practitioners, talking about the coming morning, and who would be needed.

The next had a dad talking to his sons about how they’d acted when hanging out with other practitioners their age, apparently.

The next was quiet.

Bangnut unscrewed the wall outlet from the inside.  Verona used Sight and kept an eye on things, while Bangnut climbed up to the television.  He accessed the back, unscrewing the panels the wires went into, then stuck his upper body inside.  As he pulled out components, he passed them to Peckersnot and Tatty, who passed them to Biscuit, who passed them to Verona.

Four people slept in two beds, in this room, a fifth on a squeaky cot.  Every time they shifted their weight, the cot groaned.  Bangnut seemed distracted by that.

But they had a plan.

Verona grabbed Bangnut’s little suspender straps and pulled him into the wall outlet before he could wander off.  They put the outlet cover back, then Peckersnot sealed it.

Good.

It was only one set of components, but they’d brought more.  Bangnut quietly and carefully set to work, kludging together a series of speakers and wires with parts of an alarm clock.  All of it was strung to wires that were connected to a higher point on the wall.

Verona drew out a series of connection blockers, to make it harder to find and identify.

Bangnut kicked it, to get it moving, and the alarm clock’s panel began to count down.

They hurried, up the wall, into the ceiling, past the next room-

The blast of loud music was enough that people lying in bed probably bounced out of their beds.  It drew people running toward the rooms in question, and Verona hurried to draw up more connection blocks with little rat hands and the plaster of drywall.

It was a long, tense moment, waiting.

Doors were opened, voices shouted, people investigated.

But would they lash out?  Attack?  Would an Other be loosed into the walls?

The music stopped.

All four goblins and Verona were breathing hard, trying not to make any sound.

She could hear muffled voices.  They were using practice now.  They weren’t letting this go, they didn’t want to relax.

They were searching, even.

It felt like ten minutes passed.  Then Verona’s rat ears caught the squeak of that cot.

Lights turned off… and the timer starts.  The plan was it would wait between five and thirty minutes, random.

It was probably closer to seven.

The music kicked off, loud country music shaking windows and making dust rattle and dance on the panels of the ceiling.

Verona had her group move while people all headed toward the general source of the sound.

Vacating one room.  Verona had the little guys hurry, and they worked to remove the outlet-cover that let the landline for the phone feed into the wall.

They got into the room, and Verona clambered up onto the table.  She moved the phone, read over the instruction sheet beside the phone, and dialed.

The music stopped.  It would shortly after anyone turned on the lights.

“Hello?” the voice answered.  It was the daughter, seventeen or something.  Of the motel owner.

“There’s loud music interrupting people’s sleep somewhere between room three or four.  A big commotion.”

“My dad’s out there handling it.”

“If they’re still around later, we might call the police and tell them about the noise.”

A noise outside the door.

Verona hurried to hang up and dash into the hole into the wall.

They were Others.  A squadron of four or five.

She did her best to draw up more connection blocks, while the Others snuffled around in the room.  One got close to the outlet, snorting.

The lights turned off.  People started to get sorted.

They waited about an hour, not really moving.  The goblins were more able to sleep than Verona could, even with the music blasting in after fifteen minutes, then after another twenty.

Each time, the practitioners got more agitated.

When they started to do more at the one motel room, Verona, Bangnut, Biscuit, Tatty, and Peckersnot rescued more television components, the phone, and the alarm clock, taking out components before putting back the husks.

It was another timed troublemaker, but they rigged it to do something else.

An emergency number was called, and the police came investigating.  From the sounds of it, they dismissed it as a mistake.

Then they were called again, about six minutes after they’d left.

That was the moment the practitioners started getting into the walls.  Verona led the goblins as far away from the search points as she could.

And then the motel owner kicked them out before they could actually find what had been placed in the walls.  There were arguments, hard words, and then everyone left.  Every room was emptied.

Verona and the goblins quietly disabled the troublemakers.

“Fix what you broke later, kay?” Verona asked Bangnut.  “No jokes no pranks.  Television, phone, alarm clocks.  Gotta.”

Bangnut nodded.

He fixed two of the three things before sleeping again.

There was too much risk that a pissed off practitioner might have set something up to catch them as they tried to leave, so they remained where they were.  Goblins nestled against Verona’s rat belly, using her as a pillow, while she lay on her side.

There was so much more to do tonight.

So she slept.

🟂

Verona stepped out of sight as Musser passed.

A woman keened, on her knees, rocking, reaching out.  Her husband kept her from moving forward.

Her daughter sat in the corner of a room without furniture, slumped to one side.  Glowing cracks stretched down her arms, and surrounded the open hole in her chest where skin had turned glasslike, and glass had exploded out.

About Verona’s age, with black hair too, though hers was longer.  Her eyes were bloodshot, the surrounding lids swollen from having cried herself dry, and it was a very real kind of look someone wounded might have, in comparison to how grisly the practice-inflicted wound was.

“You let her try this?” the mother asked, her voice hard with accusation, almost disbelieving.

“She let herself try, Andrea,” Musser said, as he stood behind her.  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“She lives.”

“She’s ruined,” Musser replied.

The girl in the corner turned her head towards her mother.  As she did, glimmers of figures surrounded her.  Spearmen.

Ah, Verona thought.  They’re like the archers from the rooftop.

Same family, maybe.

“We can make arrangements, Andrea,” Musser said.  “There are practices to keep the power from spilling out of her.  We’ll see about putting her to work as a power source and back-end resource.  She should work a traditional workday like that, then we’d restrain the power enough she can have her afternoons or evenings… I suspect it will be one or the other.  Some time on weekends.”

“You’ll do nothing, Abraham!  You’ve done enough!”

“Mind where things stand.  Would try gainsaying me?  Think hard, Andrea, for the graces I talk about extending are purely optional.  If we returned your daughter to you as things stand, it could be years, even a decade, before you had things in hand enough to let her go out in public without constantly conjuring things around her.  She could lose her mind before then.”

“You did this!  Don’t talk like you didn’t, pushing her to this!

“She pushed herself, Andrea.  This is on you for not preparing her to handle the power.”

“Fuck yourself, Abraham.”

“I’ll give you a moment.”

Andrea wailed as Musser left.  She started forward, and the spearmen moved, leveling glowing speartips at the woman’s chest.

“Cara,” Andrea whispered.

“I wanted to go to the Blue Heron.  I thought if I was stronger, it would all come together.  You could stop worrying about money-”

“That never mattered nearly as much as- no.”

“I could get a good husband.  Or a good wife.  Did I ever tell you that?  I can’t think clearly, past the bright burning in my brain.”

“We knew.”

“I could go to the school.  Raise us up.  I’ve ruined it, haven’t I?”

“No,” Andrea said, shaking her head, dropping eyes to the floor.  “No.  No.  No, this isn’t real.”

“Mama.”

Andrea stood, shaky.  Tears streaked her face.  “They said, when things went wrong at the Blue Heron, with Alexander and Lawrence- we’re meant to be in Kennet right now.”

Past the window in the room, the edge of the wheel became visible.

“They said that Kennet’s practitioners worked with a Nightmare.  This is her work.  My daughter’s nearly grown.”

The girl in the corner was now seventeen or so.

“What a dirty, ugly trick this is,” the woman said, turning.  The architecture shifted enough that she could lock eyes directly with Verona.

“This is what lies in yer heart,” Alpeana said, as she stepped out from behind Verona.

“You’re an ugly person,” the woman said, staring at Verona with hatred.

“It’s what you feel, deep down inside, about Musser,” Verona said.  “It’s your worries.  And they’re our worries too, you know?  Because this town is something I’ve worked on and cherished.  I’ve been through crap, here.”

“Don’t dare to compare your little town with my daughter.”

“You know Musser has the potential to ruin your family, to make your daughter or your daughter’s daughter- to turn them into resources.  To push them with this shitty practitioner culture…”

“What do you know of this culture?  You weren’t raised in it, I remember that much.  You’ve barely dipped your toes in the waters.”

“And I freaking know that you’re right!  That these fears are real and justifed!  I don’t want Kennet to become… this.”

The scene changed.  The daughter, chest glasslike and shattered, heart gone and power glowing from within her.  Kennet surrounding them, extending out to the hills on either side.  Exactly the same- gutted, with glass edged by light.

She rubbed at her palm, even though it didn’t really hurt or cramp up in the nightmare.

“What I dae isnae kind, I know that.  But it does force us tae put thoughts in order ‘n look tae th’ heart of things,” Alpeana said.

“Look,” Verona told the woman.

The woman stared her down, not breaking eye contact.

“Fucking look!  This is what you’re doing!  My town!  I have a Demesne here!  It’s not like I can abandon it, is it!?”

The woman broke eye contact, and looked out over the shattered town.

“You’re too young to have a Demesne,” the woman said, looking around.

“I’m too young to be doing a lot of things I do.  But they’re kind of making me do a lot of those things.  I- Bristow attacked my town, had his Aware dismantle years of work.  I got caught up in a contest of gainsaying- I thought I’d knock him down a peg, and he went so all in that- you heard what happened.  He decided he’d rather walk into the Brownies’ realm than properly lose to Alexander, I guess.  I gotta live with that.  I feel literally sick because of it, sometimes, if I think about it.  That’s like, one thing.  It’s been constant.  I’m hurt.  It hurts every day.  I’m constantly afraid the pain will get bad when I’m doing something, anything, and ruin things.  Being constantly afraid like that is exhausting.  I’m barely even scratching the surface here.”

She wasn’t sure why she was doing this.  Maybe because she did feel guilty she’d dug right into this woman’s fears and looked at them, so it was quid pro quo if she opened her own vulnerabilities.

Maybe because she knew from her dad that this was a line of attack that worked, for a while.

“Do your parents help?”

Verona snorted.  “My mom’s pretty cool, but she’s not local.”

“If I hadn’t heard about you from before, I’d think you were a ploy, as part of this nightmare, meant to remind me of my daughter.”

“I’m just me.  Creative, really good at working out practice, not so good at school- I let school slide a lot this semester, because of everything.  Scared.  Tired.  Lonely, I-”

Her voice cracked a little.

Alpeana put a hand on her shoulder.

Being snuggled up with the goblins as a rat in the walls had been nice.  It had been especially bad since Jeremy had bailed.  The loss of another friendship.  That feeling like all she wanted to do was crawl into bed with her parents.  Except, like, yeah fucking right, right?

“Can I give you a hug?”

The woman stepped forward.  Verona stepped back.

“Sorry.  Don’t trust you.  You seem like a caring mom, but you’re also fucking with my town.  You’re attacking things I’ve been trying to save and build, things I got all lonely and hurt and tired for.  Missed school for.  Missed my mom for.  Please-”

Another crack in her voice.

“-please stop.”

“I’m not that important.  I don’t have that kind of voice, that could change much about this.”

Verona was silent.

“I don’t know why you picked me.”

“You were one o’ the ones most likely tae have a nightmare about Musser,” Alpeana said, crouched behind Verona, shoulder pressing against Verona’s butt, peering out from behind her.

“Ah.”

“Please stop.”

“I don’t know what I could say or do.  There’s twenty more arriving tomorrow.  Abraham Musser was called, he’s on his way.  Seventy in total.  Not counting Others.  I could take my husband and my daughter and leave, but I’d be hurting my family’s fortunes, limiting Cara’s future-”

“That future?” Verona interrupted, pointing at the girl behind Andrea.

Andrea looked back at it.

“-and I wouldn’t- it wouldn’t make a one percent difference in the outcome.”

Verona didn’t know what to say.

No, she knew.

“I hope this at least makes you feel really shitty about things, after.”

“It will,” Andrea said, making eye contact again.  “They know where your ritual diagram is.  You hid it well, but you’re up against too many practitioners.  They’re going to make a concerted attack later.”

Verona nodded.

“You took some hostages.  Milo Songetay?  Elizabeth Driscoll?”

“Milo is dead,” Verona told her.

“Dead?”

“You guys weren’t told?”

“No.”

“Maybe they didn’t want anyone getting scared.”

“It’s probably more than that.  People have outstanding deals with Elizabeth and Milo, and- they’d be gainsaid, maybe even face forswearing if they couldn’t follow through.”

“That’s dumb, being in that position.”

“Deals were made before things became like this.  The Driscolls were never a family meant to be near a warzone.”

“Hm.”

“Making a big deal of Milo’s death would probably accelerate the gainsaying of a few people, at a critical time.  I don’t think the forswearance would go through, normally.  People are usually careful about these things.  But to try making that argument before the Carmine Exile?  It’s more complicated.”

Verona nodded.

“It’s complicated.  We have no idea where he stands on the subject, if he’d forswear us eagerly, if he seeks to do away with the practice, if he intends to be fair or if he will be one-sided and capricious.  I know Seth Belanger was urged to hold back from appealing his forswearing, because Musser wanted to diminish the Carmine’s power further, first, before putting it to the question.  There are still a dozen remote territories that can be claimed.  Each one taken reduces the Carmine Exile’s reach and power.”

“Each one increases the reach and power of Musser’s group,” Verona said.  “The reach and power of a man you believe, deep in your heart, would drive people to do that, for a chance at a place in his world.”

Andrea looked back at the image of her daughter, crumpled over in pain, hands bleeding where they’d pressed against her chest, surrounded by glowing figures who’d keep anyone from getting close to her.

“You don’t need to press me further.  If there’s an opportunity to undercut Musser without hurting my family in any obvious or immediate way, I may well take it.  If you need someone to vouch for you, if you’re captured and a voice is needed to urge for kindness, you’ll have it.  I- I won’t betray them.  That’s too dangerous.  But as I set up practice, I’ll be gentler.”

Verona nodded.

“I won’t let people know of Milo’s death.  That’s in your hands.  Just know… it may disarm several of their most militant.  May.  Names to look out for are Hennigars- particularly Marilyn’s contingent.  Does that mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Alright.  They’re the ones down in the States.  The rest of the Songetays, but I think only one is local right now.  The Cavenders.  There are four.  They trade with him.  I’d expect there to be some fallout or awkwardness for them when it’s revealed Milo is gone, for things like scheduled deliveries or meetings.  And my family.  We’re in for one or two minor gainsayings.”

“Hm.”

“Use it to disarm me, if you see fit.  I won’t make an issue of it, and I’d rather that than know I’m making someone like you cry.  Just- know it’ll also galvanize them all against you.”

Verona frowned at that.  I wouldn’t necessarily cry.  Still, she didn’t argue.

That galvanizing was an issue too.

“The rest, I think it would be minor, a few scattered lies laid at the feet of practitioners of war magic, heroic practices, and trophy hunting.  Nothing reliable, but it would be a few percentage points of difference in the outcome, perhaps.”

Verona nodded.

“I’m on your side in this, however little that matters, as much as I can be, without making an enemy of Musser.  Spend your time on others, alright?  There’s no reason to stay, unless you need that hug.”

Verona shifted her weight, thinking about it.

How dumb was it, that someone else’s mom had her feeling this vulnerable?

“Got stuff to do, I guess.  Any suggestions on who to visit next?”

“I really don’t have any.  Keep doing what you’re doing and hope to get someone who can affect more change, I suppose.  Can I ask one thing?”

Verona paused.  “Sure, maybe?”

“Your name?”

It felt weird they’d had this much of a conversation, that this woman had been going up against her, and she hadn’t even known.

“Verona H.”

“Pretty name.”

“Thanks.”  Verona looked at Alpy.  “Next?”

“Thar’s one.  Micht need tae use something you gave me.”

“Something I gave you?  One of the gifts we’ve been giving to pay you back?”

“Sort of.  Ye didnae know you gave me this’n.  Micht make th’ nightmare tougher.”

“I’m tough.  Hit me.”

🟂

Verona knew almost immediately what it was that Alpeana had grabbed.  It was a feeling, maybe shed as a faint echo, which had gone straight to the Ruins.

A feeling of being in school, knowing she was behind in everything, that she didn’t know enough about what was going on with her fellow students, that anyone, student or teacher, could call on her, and she’d be stuck flat-footed, no idea what to say.

That she was getting behind on the assignments and work, that catching up got harder with every moment, demanding a degree of work from her that she just couldn’t.

Suffocating.

McCauleigh Hennigar hung back while her parents talked to Abraham Musser.  People from Musser’s contingent walked through their house, the ground floor of which seemed to be intricate woodwork polished to an amber glow, and stone that was as cold as the wood seemed warm.

She was Verona’s age, supposedly, but she was head and shoulders taller, with muscle definition on bare arms.  She looked like a model who’d been brought in to show off some athletic clothes and then got stuck in a white tank and jeans for the denim commercial too, because she was there.  She had a face with a very defined square-ish shape that almost looked like a mask, because of how sharp the jawline was, how angular and flawless her facial features were, and how rigidly she held her expression.

The expression reminded Verona of Lucy.

McCauleigh avoided a group of towering adult men, made it about three steps, and then her mother stepped in, taking hold of her upper arm, bringing her into another room where three skulls of bestial Dark Summer creatures were mounted above one fireplace.

“You couldn’t fix your hair?  Makeup, McCauleigh?  Just a bit of makeup, even?”

“I don’t know how.”

Her mother smudged her face and combed fingernails through hair.  “Everything rides on how we all present ourselves.  Perfection, McCauleigh.  We let you run roughshod, but you earn that freedom.  Are you ready for the demonstration?”

McCauleigh couldn’t say yes.

“Grace,” McCauleigh’s dad called out.

“I have to go.  Clymene, follow of Apemosyne, I summon you.  Tend to us.”

A young woman in a maid outfit stepped into the room.  She had deep brown skin and light blue eyes.

“See to McCauleigh.  Hair, makeup.”  Grace turned to McCauleigh.  “The red dress Hadley wore when she was your age.  Why aren’t you wearing it?”

“I didn’t get the chance to ask her.”

“Ask her.  Get it.  Nobody here’s seen her wear it, it should be as good as new for you.  And please, for the love of all war-facing gods and spirits, wear a bra.  Be a tomboy any other day, please.”

“I don’t have- nobody’s-”

The press of people drew closer.

“Grace!”  McCauleigh’s dad called out.

“Then ask your sister if there’s anything left over from when she was your age.  And shave those legs if you haven’t already.  Cabe had less hair on his legs at your age.”

“I’ve never done that.”

“Clymene, show her how.  Twenty minutes, McCauleigh.”

Then her mom was gone.

“Will you permit me to attend to you upstairs?” Clymene asked.

McCauleigh nodded.  She followed, and Verona navigated the crowd, moving behind the pair.

Time slowed.  It was an effect of the nightmare.

McCauleigh walked past a door, ajar, with red light shining through.  It was so red it took all color out of the surroundings, choking the air out of the room.

The door creaked, moving slightly.  McCauleigh moved as far as she could away from the door, crashing into Clymene.  Heads turned.

“Don’t cower,” one of McCauleigh’s relatives said.  Maybe an older brother.  It was someone older than any of the ones who’d gone to the Blue Heron.  He whispered the words with an anger behind them, “People are watching.”

McCauleigh nodded quickly.

She’d just reached the middle of the first flight of stairs when a man called out, “Clymene, follow of Apemosyne, attend me.”

“His orders supercede your mother’s.  Excuse me,” Clymene said.

McCauleigh stood on the stairs, chin raised, trying to put on a brave face while she searched for her mother.

Her mother saw, and mouthed the word, nineteen.  Minutes.

McCauleigh hurried upstairs.  She found her sister.  “Hadley.”

“Busy.  I’m supposed to talk to a man who might become my husband.”

“The red dress you wore when you were my age.  I’m supposed to get it.”

“You’re shit out of luck, I wore it to a party a couple years ago.  It is trashed.”

“Can I go through your closet for old stuff?”

“No you fucking can’t.  Servants just got it tidy.  I may have people in my room later, future husband included.  There is literally no way you’re finding any dresses you could wear without making a massive mess of things.  Stay out.”

“But-”

Hadley started to walk away.  McCauleigh reached out, grabbing her wrist-

Hadley reversed the hold, twisting McCauleigh’s arm before pushing her up against the wall, a snarl of a look on her face.  She took a second, then composed herself, standing straight and looking presentable, without releasing McCauleigh’s arm.  “I will kill you, I swear, if you fucking move a thing in my room between now and tomorrow.  Fuck off.”

“I need a dress and I’m supposed to wear a-” Mcauleigh dropped her voice.

“A what?”

“Bra.  I’m supposed to get an old one from you.”

“Why would I ever keep something like that?  I have the servants throw out old clothes regularly.”

“And I’m supposed to do my hair and makeup.  And my legs, shaving.”

“I’m busy.  Gods and spirits.  You were supposed to have this handled ages ago.”

McCauleigh breathed hard.  She pulled on her arm and Hadley freed it.

“How ready are you?  They’re going to look at your report card.  Have mom and dad looked at it?  Have you talked to them about it?”

Hadley stared down McCauleigh, who maintained eye contact but didn’t say anything, her jaw set.

“A big part of the reason we’re holding this event at our hidden house is because you’re having your coming of age ceremony.  Abraham thinks this sort of thing is a nice accent of War on proceedings, and he thinks really highly of Dad.  And you’re wearing jeans and a white tank?”

“Are you at least ready for the fight?  You could have the worst grades ever, it’d be okay if you could put on a good showing.”

McCauleigh didn’t respond.

“You know dad wants to impress.  It won’t be easy.  Probably harder than mine.  You remember that one?”

“I remember.”

“Could be like, junior champion boxer, some aspiring ultimate fighter, some godan karate prodigy, or a would-be olympian, maybe.  Maybe not even a junior.  That would even make sense, as a clear way of stepping it up.”

McCauleigh swallowed hard.  She looked down past the railing to the door with the red light leaking out around it, bathing the hallway around it in that deep red hue.

“Maybe you’ll find that in the heat of the moment, the training comes to you.  It was like that for Grady.”

“Maybe,” McCauleigh muttered.

“Hope that happens, I guess.  After- at least tell me you can look them in the eye and finish them off.  One clean blow?  Or get fancy, if you want.  Could work, depending on the crowd.”

“I’ll- I need help getting ready.  I’ll figure out the rest after.”

Hadley grabbed her shoulder and pressed McCauleigh against the wall, arm braced against collarbone, leaning in with most of her weight.  “The answer to that question I just asked is supposed to be a yes, zero hesitation.  Less than zero.  Fuck me, if you can’t even say it, how the fuck are you going to do it in front of everyone?”

“Help me, please.  Just with getting ready?  For the family.”

“Fuck.  Family.  I’m marrying out.  If you fuck up, I only look better by comparison.  You’ll be on the family shitlist for life, and that only makes things easier for the rest of us.”

Hadley let go with a slight push as she did so, so McCauleigh would stumble.

“It’s a Hennigar coming of age ceremony.  So grow the fuck up already, McCauleigh,” Hadley told her.  “You’ve got, what, an hour?”

“Like, fifteen minutes.”

Hadley huffed out a breath with a small, derisive shake of the head, before heading downstairs, where most people were.

McCauleigh hurried to the bathroom.

She raided drawers, finding makeup, and she stared at it.  Hair product, makeup, powders, brushes, lipstick.

“McCauleigh,” Verona said, catching the door before it swung shut.

“Busy.  Fuck off.”

“I could help you with-”

A hand grabbed the door above where Verona held it.  Another Hennigar, with a girl behind him.  He took hold of the back of McCauleigh’s neck and, though she swung a few punches, pushed her to the door.  She scrabbled for and grabbed some things.

He pulled his girlfrend in after him, then shut the door, latching it.  McCauleigh locked outside.  The guy chortled, while the girlfriend said something, muffled by the door.

“-makeup.”

McCauleigh gave Verona the finger while striding down the hall.  Verona hurried to follow.

McCauleigh’s room.  It was austere, a few pictures framed and set above her desk; holiday pictures with family, her spear hunting with her dad.  Nearer to her bed was a cluster of pictures without frames.  All apparently from a dance class.

“In the student guide, you were a Gore-Strewn Dancer, weren’t you?”

“What about it?” McCauleigh asked, as she pulled clothes down from the hangers in her closet.  Futile.

“There’s a clique of girls in my class, they’re unofficially the Dancers.  Gymnastics, dance, and cheer.”

“If I get kicked out of my family, maybe I’ll see if I can live there,” McCauleigh said, pulling down the last of her clothes.  She huffed from the burst of exertion, staring at the empty closet, as if something could materialize.  She stormed over to her bed, then hiked up her jeans to her knee.  One of the things she’d collected from the bathroom before escaping was a safety razor.

“Uhhh.  Got any shaving cream there?” Verona asked.

“No.  Why?  You some expert?”

“Darker hair, so the moment it started coming in it was super obvious.  You’re blonde, so, you’re lucky, I guess.  Got moisturizer?  It’s basically shaving cream, as I understand it.”

“I don’t fucking have moisturizer.”

“Soap, even?  Because-”

“I don’t have anything!” McCauleigh raised her voice.  “But I know how to use blades.  Want me to demonstrate?”

Verona didn’t want her to demonstrate, so she fell silent.

McCauleigh made it about two inches down, shaving her leg dry, before she nicked herself good at the shin-bone.  Blood welled and ran down in a thin line to her ankle.

Gripping the razor white-knuckled, she tried again.

Another nick.  Another blob of blood.

Frustrated, she pushed her pants leg down, only for the blood to slowly seep through.  She hurled the razor across the room, and Verona flinched away as it pinged off the wall by her head.

“What you’re feeling?  I- the feeling comes from me.  This is a nightmare, I’m not sure if you realized.”

McCauleigh stared down at the floor.

“It’s not- I’m pretty sure this isn’t prophetic or anything.  It’s manufactured, fed by a feeling I had in school.”

“It’s reality.  It’s real.”  McCauleigh’s neck and jaw were so tense it looked like something would crack.

Verona ventured across the room, then moved the haphazard grab of toiletries off the foot of the bed, sitting next to McCauleigh.  “Raquel’s downstairs, I think.  Or she would be.  According to Avery, she’s kinda cool.  So if this happened in reality, you could go to her.”

“That sort of thing could get back to Mr. Musser and then my family would hate me.”

“She’s good at keeping secrets, and I don’t think he cares that much.  Gotta pitch it so it seems to your parents like you’re building alliances, and to Musser, you’re teaching Raquel what he wants her to learn.”

“I’m not good at any of that.”

“Do you even want the makeup, shaved legs, whatever?”

“It’d be nice to try it.”

The door to the bedroom was closed, but the red light from the door downstairs had suffused the space out there, and now it leaked through here.  Pressing in.

“I’d offer to do your makeup, try your legs, see if I couldn’t help on the dress front, maybe glamour for that- but this is a nightmare, so it’s all kinda moot.  I could show you while we talk, so you at least know some.”

“Nah.  Not in the mood.  Wouldn’t remember.”

“Sorry, to intrude on these things.  I wanted to talk, and the Nightmare who’s ferrying me around is kinda bad with boundaries.”

“It’s whatever.”

“It sucks,” Verona said.  “This feeling.  Like you can’t breathe.  Like you can’t keep up.”

McCauleigh drew in a deep breath and let it out with a small shudder, staring at her door, where the red light shone.

“I want Musser to lose,” McCauleigh whispered.  “I want him to disappear like Mr. Belanger did.  Die like Mr. Belanger did.  I want my family to lose.  I want them to lose status, to lose all these people they always have around them, I want them to lose their stupid arrogant friends, and to stop going to these parties, I want them to lose all their money, and to have to work, instead of- instead of being smug, rich a-holes who kill to keep old rituals going and appease war spirits.  I want them to get sick with something so they can never get in a fight again, and everything we’ve been doing gets forgotten.  I want to get sick like that.  Where practice can’t cure it, and I can never fight again, and they can’t really blame me for it.  Then I get a side job doing something like collating notes on realms and Others my brothers and sister deal with, or I help out with negotiating marriages or some junk.”

Verona reached over and put her hand over McCauleigh’s.  McCauleigh flinched, but she didn’t pull her hand away.

“I want them to care about my grades because they care about me, not because of how it makes them look or how- who they can get me married to.  I want them to have time.  I want them to have hearts.  And I know they probably can’t ever because I know what sorts of things they do and if they had hearts then they couldn’t live with those things.  I know it’s all stupid, childish fantasies.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid or childish.”

“I don’t want to do the ritual.  I don’t want to be basically immortal.  I don’t want to have to-”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

Verona nodded.  “I’m not very good at this.  But uh, I feel you.  You not wanting those things and not wanting to do the ritual, you’re a thousand times better than your dad.”

“Tell him that, he’ll feed you your own guts.”

“I don’t think I’ll tell him, then.”

“My coming of age ceremony is in eight months,” McCauleigh said, quiet, staring at the door.  The red light was changing the tint in the bedroom.  “If they all had heart attacks, I’d be sad, but also really, really relieved.”

“I think I know exactly what you mean.”

“About my family?”

“No.”

McCauleigh withdrew her hand from under Verona’s, stood up from the bed, and crossed the room.  She sat against her desk, arms folded.  “What do you need?”

“What?”

“You invaded my nightmare for a reason.  Maybe you’ll screw with Mr. Musser like you did Mr. Bristow.  Fine.  Tell me.  Want me to go after someone?  Want me to poison a dinner?  Pass you info?  I know we’re planning a maneuver for daylight.  Removing your diagram from the roof of the Arena.”

“Figured.  Good to have confirmation I guess.”

“So what do you want?”

“I didn’t-” Verona shook her head.  She looked at the spreading bloodstain at the shin of McCauleigh’s jeans.  “This isn’t how I wanted to do this.”

“If you’re against them, I’ll help.”

“I didn’t want to find your weak points to catch you at a vulnerable moment and get you against Musser.”

“Then what the fuck did you want, Hayward?”

“I wanted to find Musser’s weak points, not yours.”

McCauleigh eased down a bit, even though her expression remained stern, her arms folded.  Her fingers drummed against her bicep.  “I don’t think he has any.  But you get what you get, and you got me.  Maybe you’re my best shot at fucking them all over.  Fuck this family, fuck Mr. Musser, fuck all of this.  You need help?  I need to not have to walk through that red door in eight months.  Maybe you’re my best shot.  So tell me.  Give me some game plan, someone to go after, something to do, tell me to waste their time… something.”

There was more emotion in that last word than there’d been when McCauleigh had been talking about wanting to get sick or wanting her family to all die from heart attacks.

“Don’t answer.”

It wasn’t Verona’s voice, or McCauleigh’s, or Alpeana’s.

The door opened, and the red light flooded into the room.  Verona squinted.

Shit.

Eloise.

Verona stood up from the bed.

Eloise closed the door, and the red light was extinguished.

“McCauleigh,” Eloise said.  “I’m going to pretend you were biding time, that I didn’t hear clearly, and that you were helping me with this.”

“I wasn’t.  I said what I said.”

“Just- don’t say stuff like that, make it easier for me to pitch it to your parents?  It’s sure as hell better than the alternative.”

“Whatever.”

“Talk to me after.  We’ll figure something out,” Eloise told her.

“Whatever.  Do what you came here to do.”

Verona backed away.

“Thought I’d find your Nightmare here, instead of you,” Eloise said.  “She visited McCauleigh when you brought your Others to the Blue Heron.”

“So you figured you’d lay a trap?” Verona asked.

“Yeah.  Figured.”

“Didn’t figure you for a dreamwalker.”

“I’m Blue Heron educated.  I’m diverse.”

Schartzmugel emerged, and he was more active and able in this space, quicker to stretch out to full length.  Head and upper body expanded as he emerged, with an effect like a cobra’s hood, and the ridged fungus on his head fanned out.

He slammed through the bedroom window, shattering the window, the frame, and cracking the surrounding wall.

Eloise ignored that and walked toward Verona.  “Don’t bother resisting.  I’m stronger here than you are.  And Schartzmugel-”

The walls fell away.  Pieces of wood clipped Verona but nearly bowled Eloise off her feet.

Alpeana swelled in size, hair boiling out, faces emerging like bubbles in boiling water, rising up, grouping together into larger faces, while smaller arms and legs jabber their way out of the mane.  She manipulated the environment- creating a pair of scissors as long as Verona’s leg.

Verona lunged for them-

And the continuing destruction tore them out of the ground and cast them all the way out to the distant, smoke-framed horizon.  Eloise stood there, one hand on the elbow of the other arm, other hand raised.  She made a beckoning gesture, and Verona was pulled to her.

The ensuing scrap was brief and kind of pathetic.  Eloise was stronger and managed to wrestle Verona into her grip, holding her arms behind her back.  A sharp tap of her toe on the bottom of Verona’s knee forced Verona into a kneeling position, and then Eloise put a knee on her back.  Verona grunted.

She didn’t have glamour, but reality was malleable here.  She reached for a cat form, small enough to escape-

Eloise had her.  The connection work gave her a hold that had nothing to do with her hand or arm strength.

Alpeana lost the fight against Schartzmugel, as he circled around her, then closed in, constricting.  She, like Verona, tried to become fluid, to slip away.  Schartzmugel was fluid in a very different way, like a geyser, but of centipede-ness.  The more he got her, the less the environment seemed to do what she wanted.

“I know where her sleeping body is.  Kinda funny.  We were certain she was in her Demesne.  Do you want to be the one to turn Verona over to your dad?” Eloise asked McCauleigh.

“I don’t care.”

“He’d be happy.  It would make things easier.  We can work on things from there.”

“I don’t care, do what you want.”

Eloise looked really disappointed at that.

“Fuck my dad, too.  Fuck this,” McCauleigh said.  She turned, shaking her head, and looked at one of the framed pictures.

The pictures by her bed had more images of McCauleigh smiling.  The framed ones were all very grim and serious.

She pulled back a fist.  “I’m going to wake up now.”

“Don’t-” Eloise started.

But McCauleigh punched the picture, shattering glass and mangling her hand.  And maybe, if Verona hadn’t been flashing back to the glass in her own hand, she would have a better idea if McCauleigh had glanced her way with some kind of intent in mind.

She wanted to believe she had.

“Schartzmugel!” Eloise called out.

The centipede lunged for Verona.  Verona scrambled back.

The nightmare fell apart.  The last thing Verona saw before the nightmare became darkness was how Alpeana looked spooked.

Verona woke up, wearing her rat body, and startled badly enough she almost became human-sized in a non-human-sized space between the walls.

“Go.”

They have Alpeana.

The goblins helped lead her toward the roof.

Her bracelet wasn’t ticking, but she still had the ear-hairs taped to her ear.  The silence felt tense, and it felt tense throughout.

They were just at the foot of the ascent up the duct when she heard the door get kicked in.  Putting the practitioners just inside the room they’d been sleeping by.

Another bang suggested they’d put a foot or a weapon through the wall.

They escaped up onto the roof, and the dolls weren’t present, but that animal smell was.

“Gotta get away,” Verona whispered.

There were boots running around on the ground.  Car headlights illuminated the front of the motel and the reflected light from the rose-tinted exterior was coloring everything in the parking lot and sidewalk.

The commotion had drawn attention from the clown thing at the back.  It had circled around, and was now dangerously close to the route they’d used to come in.

“Got anything to smoke, Biscuit?” Verona whispered.

“Yes!  I love you.”

“What do you have?  Anything will do, really.”

“Anything will not do,” Biscuit said, dead serious.  She dug in her pants for some, then held them out- all self-wrapped, each with a band colored in to help identify them, or different paper.  “For healing herb, I got Aloe, I’ve got giggle smoke for the good times, if you want to laugh in the face of danger, get in a bit of extra innocence, I got roach, I got good butt… that’s-”

Verona became human, plucked one from Biscuit’s fist, and was careful to avoid the archer wards as she approached the end of the roof.

She could see the clown moving around, looking up at her.  She used a fire rune, and lit the drug, and then dropped it into the trash can, where the ash fetus was considerably smaller and less intact than earlier.

The smoke came out fast, violently, and mostly low to the ground, and the ash fetus quickly became an ash baby, ash child, and then an androgynous ash adult, before flexing ash muscles.

“Which one was it?”

“Roach.  Air of don’t care, shrug shit off,” Biscuit said, looking down at the ash thing with sad eyes.  “Enjoy, weird elemental thing.”

The clown and the elemental started fighting, and the rolling smoke was forcing practitioners to back off.

Verona quickly lifted the goblins up to her shoulders, then fitted on her mask, drawing up the diagram she used to create her air bubble when using vacuum alchemy.  The goblins hugged her neck and stuck their heads into the bubble as she plunged in, hurrying away under the vague cover of smoke, even as more cars pulled into the lot.

Thanks, McCauleigh.

“Montague,” she called out.  “Montague, Montague.”

It took about a minute.  She hurried away, further into downtown.

The sky began to flicker, taking on a red tone.  The perimeter came alive, and spirits evacuated to their secure hallows while Montague asserted his grip over Kennet.

Practices all over town began to dissolve, wards unbinding.

Verona looked back at the practitioners by the motel, hoping to see some Others turning on their masters, as had happened with Reid.  They weren’t so lucky.

They anticipated this.

She got as far away from the bulk of the practitioners as she could, while Montague tore up the sky, making the wheel very visible as a black silhouette under a red hellscape of changing images.

She hoped the city would be asleep enough for this to have minimal consequences.

She got to Avery’s house, and Lucy met her outside, disguised as Avery.

“You good?  You safe?” Lucy asked.  “Hi goblins.”

Peckersnot held onto Verona’s ear and waved.  That reminded Verona to remove the tape at her ear.  The effect had mostly faded over the hours, anyway.  She pocketed it.

“Yeah,” Verona replied.  “We’re good enough.  They got Alpy.”

“Got her got her?”

“Bound, I think.  I’m hoping-”

She gestured skyward.

Lucy nodded.

“I’m surprised you’re not at your house.”

“Easier for me to go unnoticed than for Avery’s absence to go unnoticed.  Too many aunts, uncles, cousins, and parents who’re attentive to her.”

“Want me to take over?  So you can go to your mom?” Verona offered.

“Sure.”

They clasped hands.  The Avery glamour on Lucy crawled down her arm and settled on Verona, who was already pretty thoroughly dusted.

“How likely do you think it is that Alpy can get away?”

“If she can’t, we mount a rescue mission.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.

“Thar’s no need for that,” Alpeana said.  “But ah appreciate th’ sentiment.”

Verona exhaled with relief.  “Cool.”

“Cannae get much work done like this,” Alpeana said, looking up.

“Sorry to throw you off,” Verona told her.

“Tot fankle,” Alpeana replied.

“You okay?  Didn’t get hurt or… Schartzmugeled?  Whatever that involves?”

“Nae.  Could’ve been, but he was gentle, aye?”

“Aye,” Verona replied.  “Good.”

“How many did you visit?” Lucy asked.

“Two.  We wanted five to ten.  See if anything came up.”

“And?”

“And I think I like McCauleigh Hennigar, like we could be friends if… there’s almost no way we could be friends if you took practice out of the picture.  But almost as if?  You know?”

“No, that’s a weird mental picture,” Lucy said.  “But I think you’re saying you want to be friends with her.  There’s no need to take anything out of any pictures.”

Verona sighed.

“Was it totally fruitless?”

“Some info.  They’re going after the diagram.  Some ideas on how to maybe gainsay their more aggressive practitioners.  A few allies.  I won’t say it out loud, in case they have a way of tracking that.  I’ll fill you in after.  Oh, and the House on Half Street is being watched.  So that’s out for now, basically.”

Lucy nodded.

“I’ll rescue the diagram and then do a shrine run in the morning.  With any luck, they’ll be grumpy and in need of a big sleeping-in.  We drove them out of the motel.  It makes it really awkward for them to bunk down for the night.  Considering we have the rest of tonight and tomorrow night…”

Lucy nodded.  “They moved a few hours ago.  I think they have a family spellbound, and they moved into the house.”

“Montague’s going to mess with that.”

“Let’s hope everything’s okay.  I’ll check on that.  You rest, you be Avery.”

“I just got sleep, though.”

“It was fitful nightmare sleep, that’s worse, right?” Lucy asked Alpeana.

“Aye, t’is.”

Lucy had remarked before that the nightmare meetings were always worse sleep, but Verona’s sleep quality was usually awful anyway, so… hardly mattered.

She’d slept better in a pile with the goblins, dressed up as a rat, but she didn’t argue the point.  Someone needed to be Avery.

“Okay.  We rendezvous in the morning?”

“Yeah.  You going to be good as Avery?”

“Depends what you mean,” Verona replied.  “Good in the sense of handling it?  Pretty sure, yeah.  But if you mean good in the sense of not having my eyes wander toward that skinny guy cousin of hers?  Kyle?”

“I know you’re joking but… be careful.”

“Can you imagine?”

“All too easily.”

Verona did her best Avery impression, standing up straighter, and saluting.

Then, more serious, she said, “be safe.”

🟂

As far as their scouts and spies were saying, the bulk of the practitioners hadn’t woken up yet.  The ones who were up were maybe ones who never slept, people being punished, and the diehards.

A few of whom were guarding the Arena.

They hadn’t been up to the roof, and maybe they were waiting for more people to be available before they tackled things, but they’d definitely noticed the wards Verona had put up to protect the space and hide it from easy view.  Approach was harder than approach to the motel, helped only by the fact it was almost sunny out, but at least things hadn’t all gone to shit yet.

Which was the thought that crossed her head within a few seconds of things going to shit.

I, Abraham Remington Musser, war mage, patriarch, Lord of many, keeper of fifteen Implements, minder of ten Familiars, holder of four Demesnes, hereby make my claim.

Set here a throne of the Kingdom, as allowed and ordered by the compacts of Solomon Bin Daoud, sorcerer and binder of things above, things below, and things unearthly. Binder of architect and destroyer. Binder of man, beast, and the oldest of Others.

With one of Solomon’s marks, I lay my stake. With my words, I state my borders. Let this be the center of my territory.  I would claim everything within a day of the town of Kennet in every direction, except those Lordships already subordinate to me.  Practitioners and Others of Kennet, murderers of Milo Songetay, enemies of the Seal, and all who have colluded with the Carmine Exile, I intend to take all you have.

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