I stared at his blank, featureless face, praying my instincts were telling me the truth.
Then he shrugged, and my heart fell.
Three things happened all at once. The first and most painfully obvious was that I got shot full in the chest.
The second was that I realized Grue was using his power to shroud us in darkness. He’d probably started the second Mannequin shrugged.
The third was the explosion.
Long, disorienting seconds passed in the aftermath. The pain hit me like a summer rain. There was a second of nothing at all, I realized it was starting, and then I was treated to buckets of it. I writhed, my ribs screaming in agony, trying to find some position where the pain would be less and failing. I felt like a hot poker was being shoved into the spot on my ribs where I’d taken the hit the previous night.
“Hey, hey,” Grue said, “You’re okay. You’re in one piece.”
I shook my head, unable to catch my breath. Each time I inhaled, it seemed to double the pain.
“You gotta stand, T- Skitter. Stand up.”
More through Grue’s efforts than my own, I was helped to my feet. Every movement exacerbated the pain in my chest.
I gingerly touched the site of the gunshot. Flecks of what looked like glass fell as I ran my hand over the cloth. Still couldn’t breathe. The explosion had ignited every piece of rubbish at this end of the road that stood taller than the inch-high water level. Grue and I weren’t, thankfully, blazing. My hair hadn’t been ignited either, and perhaps most importantly, we hadn’t been pulverized by the shockwave. It hadn’t been a huge explosion, but it had been substantial enough.
I looked for our opponent, and I saw Mannequin virtually unscathed, lying in the shallow water. The blast had knocked him sprawling, but he’d disconnected his parts so only lengths of chain attached each.
An application, perhaps, of that martial arts principle. How did it go? An oak is broken by the hurricane’s winds, but the supple willow only bends? He was already pulling himself together. There was barely a mark on him.
“Run,” Grue said.
I was about to voice an agreement when I saw Bastard lurch to his feet. The chain leading to his muzzle wasn’t in my hand.
Bastard pounced on Mannequin, taking one of the villain’s arms in his jaws. Clenching, he began whipping Mannequin around like a rag doll. Twice, Mannequin’s lower body was bludgeoned against the nearby wall.
Yeah, didn’t expect us to be that tough, did you?
Mannequin turned the tables in a second. Between one of Bastard’s shakes and the next, the villain stopped flopping around. I realized he’d ejected the knives from his toes and staked them in Bastard’s neck and snout for leverage. His one free hand dangled at his side.
Moving was agony, but I was lurching towards them in a half-run before I fully realized why. Mannequin raised his free hand and pointed it at Bastard’s left eye.
I caught his arm and hauled it back in the same moment he fired. Bastard repaid my kindness by whipping Mannequin to one side, striking me. Both Mannequin and I fell sprawling to the ground.
No sooner had I fallen than Grue was there to help me up. He was slower than I was with that granular buckshot in his leg, so he’d only just caught up.
Mannequin on the ground, Bastard off to one side, largely untrained with no master and nobody holding his chain, Grue and I both helping one another stand.
That vibrating mouth of Mannequin’s was going again, puffing gas into the air, maybe to buy himself some breathing room from the dog.
“Bastard, stay,” I said. What commands had I heard Bitch give her dogs? ”Off!”
Couldn’t say whether Bastard obeyed or if he just didn’t want to attack anyways.
I had to check twice to see that there wasn’t anything burning in Mannequin’s immediate vicinity. No stray garbage to ignite the gas, sadly enough.
I looked behind me, and saw that the flames were raging. Even the water’s surface was on fire. How? Had there been some chemical nearby, or something in the gas that transferred to the water’s surface? Our avenue of retreat was shrinking.
Whatever. I reached behind my back and retrieved two items. The change purse was the first. I popped it open. A variety of quarters, dimes and nickels, all kept in place with wadded tissue, and a few small paper packets of smelling salts.
It was stupid to be carrying change around, really, but I’d wanted to have some on hand since it had crossed my mind during my first night out in costume.
I grabbed a tissue and tore it, once, then twice, until I had a series of strips. Then I ignited them with the lighter, the item I’d grabbed with my other hand. Dragonflies gripped the burning tissues in the instant I let them fall from my fingers.
Mannequin shut his mouth, stepping back. Half of the tissues went out or were dropped by the burned dragonflies before they got close enough. Which meant that the other half made it.
The gas ignited for a second time, but I didn’t get to see it. Grue shielded us with his darkness once more. Whether it was to dampen the shockwave or keep us from being blinded by the light or something else, I didn’t know. I could only trust that it worked. The darkness dissipated, we were standing, Mannequin wasn’t.
A whistle from Bitch’s direction and a signal that was too brief for me to catch sent Bastard forward. With Bitch’s condition, I couldn’t imagine how she handled it, but she managed to pump Bastard up. He grew to half-again the size he’d been, roughly as large as a small car, and when he bit down on Mannequin’s arm this time, he broke the material. He adjusted his grip until he had Mannequin’s lower body and legs in a hold, but the material there proved sturdier.
Two arms in two fights, I thought, with a grim satisfaction. The flames at our back were getting a touch too close for comfort, so I stepped forward, supporting Grue. His arm around my shoulder, we approached as close as we dared to Bastard’s mayhem.
Sirius was hauling himself out of the rubble, with Bitch in the arch that formed with his front legs, chest, and the ground. She stood, shaky, still breathing funny, making rhythmic facial motions like she was swallowing convulsively or gagging.
Grue limped over to Bitch’s side. She couldn’t stand without Sirius’s support, but Sirius was shoring up the rubble with his body. Grue gave her the support she needed and the pair of them made their way towards us. Sirius stepped away from the wall and the rubble he’d been holding up tumbled to the ground, and he returned to his master’s side.
“Bastard,” Grue said. ”Monster. Freak.”
Grue took Bitch’s hand and placed it on my shoulder. She didn’t pull away. Once he was sure we were both standing, he stepped away. Bending down with an excruciating slowness, Grue picked up a piece of rubble that had to have weighed fifty or sixty pounds, roughly cone-shaped.
Bitch seemed to follow his line of thinking. ”Sirius, hold!”
The dog lurched forward and placed both front paws on Mannequin’s body, pinning his arm and chest. Bastard growled at the one who was intruding on his quarry, and Sirius growled back.
Bastard quieted. It seemed he didn’t fully realize that he was bigger, more dangerous and less injured. He was too used to being the puppy, with Sirius as the full-grown one.
Grue limped around the scene until he stood over Mannequin’s body.
“Ignore the head,” I said, quiet. ”Nothing important in there. I’m not joking. It’s a decoy. Get him in the chest.”
Grue nodded and hefted the chunk of rubble until it was over his head, point facing forward.
Would it puncture? Hard to say.
Worth a try.
“Do it,” Bitch growled, beside me. ”Killed Lucy.”
“Bentley too, maybe,” I said, quiet. ”I’m sorry. I don’t know if he made it. There was no way to save him.”
“Do it,” she repeated herself.
Grue didn’t get a chance. An eruption of fire tore through our surroundings. Not an explosion. There was no shockwave, and barely any noise.
It was more like a push, intensely hot and brief. We were knocked sprawling, dog and human alike. The agony in my ribs hit me worse than ever as I was knocked flat onto my back in the water and a huff of air was struck from my lungs.
“No,” Grue said. ”You can’t interfere!”
The Protectorate?
It would be disastrous if the Protectorate-
No. I fixed my eyes on the scene. Much worse than the Protectorate.
Burnscar tapped her finger to one side of her nose. ”I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“You can’t assist him. They’re your rules.”
“Jack’s rules, not mine. But fine,” Burnscar said. Something about the tone in her voice: it sounded casual, but there was something in it that reminded me of Shadow Stalker and Sophia. It wasn’t angry like Shadow Stalker was, but it had the same emptiness. I just hadn’t really picked up on it in the past.
Burnscar gave Mannequin a hand in getting to his feet. Cracks marred his lower body, and his left arm was a mess of cracked ceramic and pale gray organic pulp. I heard her murmur something.
Mannequin shook his head. Burnscar said something else.
He raised one hand, and Burnscar slapped it in a lazy high-five.
She turned towards us. ”There. He just tagged me in. Forfeited his turn.”
She cracked her knuckles, and every flaming piece of debris on the street became a pillar of fire, stretching vertically for the sky. The fire snaked over the surface of the water to cut off our avenues of retreat.
“My go. I’m taking round two.”
13.04
Bad, bad, bad, bad.
Burnscar stood with Mannequin just behind her, sporting a red shirt and black jeans, cigarette burns running down her cheeks, and a dead look in her eyes. Bitch, Grue, Sirius, Bastard and I stood a dozen feet away, walls of flame like bonfires barring our escape routes to the rear or sides. Droplets of rain fell all around us, making ripples on the inch-high water that flooded the street. The air was thick with the smell of smoke.
We’d at least had time to mentally prepare for the idea of facing Mannequin. My strategy had been last-minute, but I’d been in the right frame of mind to fight a tinker, to anticipate ambush and tackle someone with decent offensive abilities, strong defenses and a crapton of tricks up his sleeve.
Burnscar had flipped things on us; she was in a totally different ballpark from Mannequin. If I had to guess, her offensive capabilities were top-notch, even if they didn’t break the scales like some other members of the Nine. I couldn’t even guess where she fit on the spectrum of defensive ability, but she’d been with the Nine for a little while and she was still alive, so that was some indication. And utility? She had every trick a pyrokinetic like Lung had at his disposal and she could teleport through flames as well, opening up a mess of tricks and avenues of attack.
“Happy now?” She asked Grue.
“Not so much.”
Burnscar’s voice was flat, without humor, like an actor reading the lines from a script without actually emoting them. ”I am following the rules, now. Let’s see. Trying to remember how this is supposed to go. Test you, you pass or fail, and then I kill you.”
“You only kill Bitch if she fails,” I said. Opening my mouth was more automatic than intentional. The majority of my focus was on our current situation. Options. What avenues of attack did we have? What about self-defense or escape?
I had my pepper spray. My knife and baton were available too, though I doubted my ability to dish out more hurt than I suffered in an exchange of hits with Burnscar. Grue had his darkness, and both of the remaining dogs were in okay shape. I had my bugs, but neither my costume nor my bugs would do well against the flame.
“I can still kill tall, dark and eerie and the alien girl,” Burnscar said.
“Bug girl,” I corrected.
“Don’t really care. Bitch, the test is an old one, but it’s good. We don’t get to do it often enough, because it requires research. Got to do it with Cherish because she gave us the necessary info. Wasn’t very bright, but she did. Now that she’s on the team, she can give us all the info we need.”
“You talk too much,” Bitch snarled. ”Get to the point or go the fuck away.”
“You’re going to have to face your greatest fear. Destroy any hold it has on you with violence, blood and death. I don’t want you to just conquer your fears. I want you to murder them, before anyone else can use your feelings for them against you.” She put a special inflection on the word ‘murder’, making it clear she was being quite literal.
I expected Bitch to say something along the lines of ‘I’m not afraid of anything’. She didn’t. Her eyes narrowed.
“I’m not going to fucking hurt my dogs.”
“Not asking you to. Dogs are easy. Replaceable. Sure, you might cry when they bite the dust, you love them.” The lack of inflection or emotion in Burnscar’s voice made the words sound almost mocking. ”It’s sweet. But that hole in your heart mends, time heals the wound, you get more dogs and you bounce back.”
“I think you’re underestimating how much she loves her dogs,” I said, “A wound like that never heals.”
Bitch turned her head just enough to give me a hard look.
“I’m not saying she doesn’t,” Burnscar shrugged. ”I’m saying the idea of losing them isn’t what scares her the most. So forget the dogs. I’m not asking you to hurt them, maim them, murder them or anything like that.”
Bitch glanced at Bastard. He was growling, barely audible, low and steady, and his hackles were raised. Were they still hackles if they were mostly fragments of calcified muscle and bone spikes?
“Kill them,” Burnscar said. She pointed at Grue and I.
Bitch laughed, if you could call it that. It was more of a snort, with zero humor to it. ”That’s supposed to be my biggest fear? I don’t give two shits about them.”
“You do. They’re the closest thing to a human connection you’ve had your entire life. Maybe you haven’t thought it out loud to yourself, but you’re terrified at the idea of losing them. You know as well as anyone else that this relationship with your team, it’s like winning the lottery for you.”
Bitch scoffed.
“Sure, it’s shitty as relationships go,” Burnscar continued, “Anyone else would find it depressingly lame. But they’re the best you’ll get. The best you can hope for, because you’re fucked up. Believe me, I know when someone’s fucked up.”
“Like I said, you talk too much.”
“They’re the best you’ll ever get, and according to Cherish, you’re losing them. Whatever bond you made with them, it’s fucked up now. Maybe you did it, maybe them. Maybe both. But it’s dying a slow death, dog girl. Rip off the band-aid and finish off these losers who aren’t going to be your friends in a few weeks anyways. Do it, and I let you and your dogs walk away.”
“Why the fuck should I listen to you?”
“Because if you say no, if you try to run or walk away, if you attack me, I’ll consider your test a fail.”
“So?”
“I’ll have no reason to hold back. Your team dies, your dogs die, and you’ll wish you were dead.”
“Fuck you,” Bitch retorted, but she glanced at Grue and I, and I could have sworn I saw doubt. Was it indecision? The way Burnscar had framed this, Bitch either had to admit she cared about us and fight for our sake, or Bitch could attack us to secure her safety and her dogs.
I couldn’t say which road she’d take, not with any kind of certainty. My gut told me it wouldn’t be the answer I wanted.
She’s considering it.
Which meant I had to take matters in my own hands. Burnscar held the advantage, and Bitch was leaning her way. I needed to flip things and take that certainty away from her.
I drew from the capsaicin-treated bugs in my armor compartment. There hadn’t been any point in using them against Mannequin, but they might incapacitate Burnscar. The trick was catching her off guard.
&nbs
p; “You’re doing it wrong,” Grue said.
“What?”
“Did you even read the rules Jack gave us?”
“Yes,” Burnscar frowned. ”I did.”
“Then why are you doing it differently than he did?” Grue pointed at Mannequin.
He was buying us time, using Mannequin’s inability to talk and Burnscar’s less than firm grasp to throw her off her stride. He didn’t know it, but he’d also provided me with a distraction.
My capsaicin-laced bugs made their way down my back and the backs of my legs. Near the surface of the shallow water, they spread out, sticking to shadows, the cover of burning rubbish and the darkness that swirled around Grue.
“Doing it differently? This isn’t that complicated,” Burnscar said.
“How’s it going to look if you do it wrong? I imagine Mannequin’s going to get punished for fucking up,” Grue said, “But he at least tried. If you screw up here, right at the beginning, you really think your team is going to be impressed? No, they’re going to be embarrassed. And I bet they’ll take it out on the person who embarrassed them.”
Mannequin tapped on Burnscar’s shoulder. She turned, and he parted his mouth slightly before drawing an ‘x’ over it with one finger.
“Mannequin says you’re lying.”
Crap. My bugs weren’t in position to attack yet.
“You really going to gamble on that?” Grue asked.
“Yeah,” Burnscar said. The flames around us swelled in size.
I had no time left for subtlety. I gave the order for my bugs to attack directly, closing the distance by the fastest and most obvious routes available.
They rose from every corner and shadow in the area, approaching Burnscar from every direction. I directed them towards the exposed skin of her hands, ankles, face and neck.
The second they landed, they bit, stung and clawed at her. I even felt a few touch her face. Then I felt her move. For an instant, I thought she had some kind of enhanced strength or speed that let her throw herself to one side like she did. Except it wasn’t her. It was Mannequin that moved, throwing her to one side, so she landed in the midst of a flaming pile of trash. The bugs on her were burnt to a crisp and she promptly disappeared.
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