by John McCrae
Genesis had finished pulling herself together. Her form resembled Crawler, but with some additions. Growths on her back resembled Bonesaw and Jack. She tested her limbs, then looked at us. At me? I couldn’t tell. She had too many eyes to tell.
Then she ran, stampeding off. Not quite as graceful as the real Crawler, but that was one more area where we just had to cross our fingers and hope she could sell the ruse.
There was the dull rumble of a distant impact as Purity opened fire on Genesis. Genesis dodged into a nearby alleyway, leading Purity and the rest of her group off to one side. Shatterbird fired on Purity and her allies, guiding a torrent of glass shards toward the incoming enemies. Not enough to kill, or even to maim. It was enough to hurt and to piss them off.
Coil had informed Hookwolf’s contingent about the general location of the Nine. Sure enough, they’d gathered, girded themselves for battle and marched on, hoping to overwhelm through sheer firepower and force of numbers. Odds were good that it wouldn’t work. It hadn’t in the past.
But, we were hoping, it would put the Nine in a position where they had to decide whether to hold their position or respond to the immediate proximity of this many enemies.
Shatterbird and Genesis were tasked with distracting Hookwolf’s forces and preventing them from mounting a direct attack on the Nine’s real position. We couldn’t save Grue if Purity leveled the building.
So much hinged on how the next few moments played out.
“The Nine are distracted. I’m going to help the people run.”
The lack of response was as damning as anything they could have said.
I waited until Purity fired again, then used the rumble as an excuse to stir various bugs into action. I did a body count, placing bugs on people’s right feet, trying to calculate how many there were and how they were distributed.
There was a crowd inside the building with the Nine. People huddled in a room with Crawler, who lay on the ground with his chin resting on his forelimbs, facing them.
I couldn’t find Grue. Was he in that group? No.
On the other side of the building, four people were gathered at one window. A grown man, two grown women, one of whom was nude, and a child. A man clad in hard armor crouched in one corner, working with tools. There were enough cool bodies around them that I would’ve known who they were even if the body types hadn’t fit.
“Found them,” I said, pointing, “They’re watching.”
“They’re not stepping outside?” Trickster asked.
I shook my head.
“Damn.”
I could see Menja leap from Rune’s floating rock and grow as she fell. She was nearly thirty feet tall when she landed, the road cracking under her weight. Rune leaped off the rock and landed on the husk of a building that hadn’t survived Leviathan’s attack. A few seconds later, a large section broke off and lifted into the air. She didn’t stay on top of it for long, choosing instead to gather more ammunition, moving on to other ruined walls and sections of building.
This would be a balancing act. Unless the Nine didn’t plan on defending themselves or running, there would be something of a sweet spot. A point where the enemy forces got close enough that the Nine were forced to act, yet not so close that anyone else was endangered.
Now that I knew where the Nine were, I could focus on the civilians. I drew out messages for everyone who was hiding in their homes, along with arrows pointing them away from the Nine and Hookwolf’s army. If someone decided they didn’t want to move, I nipped them with a biting insect or two to prod them.
Dozens of people made their way to safety, following my instructions and running for their lives as they headed out back doors or out of windows to avoid being seen.
There were still way too many people in the room with Crawler. And I still had no idea where Grue was. Slowly and carefully, I navigated my bugs through the rooms of the building the Nine had occupied: A makeshift dining hall with a kitchen, a room solely for storing garbage, then a small open shower with three stalls. It had been some sort of office building with no computers, desks or cubicles.
Something big, firm and formed of cloth… one of Parian’s stuffed animals? It lay prone on the ground, on the other end of the building from where the Nine were poised, so large and fat that it wouldn’t be able to fit through any of the doors.
I found another cluster of people on the top floor. Three adult women and two children that ranged from toddler age to five feet or so of height. Damn it, why did there always have to be kids?
“I can’t find Grue.”
“He’s in there,” Tattletale said.
“How sure are you?”
“Pretty darn sure.”
“Then how long before we can move on to the next phase?” I asked. “I found some people, which solves one problem.”
“As soon as the Nine act,” Trickster said. ”Tattletale?”
“They’re not wanting to move. Something about the hostages.”
“Hookwolf doesn’t care about hostages,” I told her.
“I know! But the Nine are still holding back.”
“Regent-” I started.
“Don’t distract me,” he said, rushing through the words, “I can barely dodge all this shit they’re throwing at me.”
I followed his line of sight to Shatterbird. Purity opened fire, and Shatterbird used a cone of glass to block the worst of the kinetic energy and refract the light. Or something. It didn’t work that well. Shatterbird was knocked to the ground. She managed to take flight just in time to avoid Newter, trapped the boy in a cage of glass shards, and then flung a barrage of tiny glass shards at Purity and her group. I could see the glints of the shards catching the light as it flew through the air.
“Draw some fire towards the Nine’s location, if you can,” I said.
“I said don’t distract me!”
But he listened. Shatterbird interposed herself between Hookwolf’s advancing group and the building holding the Nine and their hostages. Purity fired, and again, Shatterbird’s glass couldn’t absorb the full brunt of the hit. She was hammered down into the ground again, and what didn’t hit her struck the building, not far from where the Nine were peering through the window.
“Come on, come on,” I whispered.
The Nine reacted. It just wasn’t what we’d hoped for.
Crawler stood and rumbled some words my bugs couldn’t make out, and the hostages fled. The Nine made no move to try to stop them. Just the opposite. They revealed why they’d kept them on hand.
The hostages made their way out the doors and into the streets surrounding the building. Purity was so distracted by Genesis and Shatterbird that she didn’t seem to notice what was happening at first.
Tattletale watched with her binoculars. “Oh no.”
“Oh no?” Trickster asked.
Tattletale looked at me, “Track their movements. The Nine! Don’t lose sight of the Nine!”
The hostages scattered in every direction, and some invariably headed towards us. I saw what had concerned Tattletale. Even though I knew where the Nine were, I was still caught off guard.
Bonesaw’s talents apparently included crude plastic surgery. If ‘crude’ was even the right word. Every hostage wore the appearance of one of the Nine. The group that headed towards us had three Jacks, a Siberian and a Bonesaw. Their expressions were frozen, their eyes wide with terror. None of them were perfect, one was too heavy in physique to be Jack, and the Bonesaw had apparently been a short-statured woman who’d had her shins and forearms sawed to a shorter length and reattached. The resemblance was close enough that someone could mistake them for the wrong person at a glance, and that was all the Nine needed.
“Decoys,” the word was hollow as it left my lips.
“And the Nine are moving out,” Tattletale reported. “Leaving the front of the building. Get ready!”
I used my bugs to draw a message for the people still hiding in another part of the building.
&nb
sp; Crawler was the first to leave the building, charging out the front door, plowing through one or two of the Nine, and barreling towards Hookwolf’s army.
The other members of the Nine headed out. A real Burnscar, Jack, Siberian and Mannequin at the tail end of their mass of fleeing decoys.
“Bonesaw’s not leaving,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter! Now!” Tattletale shouted.
Trickster hurried to my side, binoculars in hand. I pointed, and I could feel a pressure building around me. It was slower than his other teleports, more jarring. It didn’t matter. Our group was soon indoors. Me, Tattletale, Trickster, Sundancer and Ballistic.
The interior was rank. They were smells I’d gotten to know since Leviathan’s attack. Blood, death, and the dank smell of sweat.
Trickster had replaced all of the kids and the three adults that had been accompanying them. He hadn’t brought Regent, because Regent was focused on Shatterbird. That was part of the plan. Leaving Bitch behind wasn’t. I could understand it if it was because of a lack of mass to swap with, but my doubts about the Travelers and about Trickster specifically led me to ask, ”You figure Bitch will cover our retreat?”
“And if one of the Nine is here,” Trickster said, his voice low, “We don’t need her dogs making noise.”
“Right.” Okay. Made sense.
I led the way, as I had the best sense of the layout. Bonesaw was excitedly pacing back and forth. The rest of the place was quiet. ”There’s only a few places Grue could be. Confined spaces my bugs couldn’t get to.”
“Makes sense that they’d improvise a cell to contain him,” Tattletale said.
I nodded, swallowing.
Worn and damaged posters and fliers referred to yoga and pilates classes. Makeshift signs and notices had been raised since this building had been used for the rich-person exercise classes. These were more pragmatic, detailing chore schedules, contact information and watch rotations.
These people had been getting by, maybe in the same way I’d been trying to get my own people organized. I felt a growing outrage at what had happened here, what had happened to my people.
Why? What purpose did this chaos serve?
We checked a small sauna. No luck. No less than three storage rooms, sealed tight to keep vermin out, turned up empty.
The place I’d mentally labeled the dining hall turned out to be something of a restaurant. More notices about food rationing covered menus and signs advertising healthy eating.
I headed around the long counter and into the kitchen. Crates of supplies had been opened, the contents sorted into piles. There were also other supplies that didn’t look regulation. Several 5-gallon jugs of water that were designed to fit into water coolers were stacked in one corner, and neither I nor my bugs had seen any water coolers in here.
I stopped outside the walk-in freezer and stared at the handle.
“Skitter?” Tattletale asked.
“There’s only three places left where Grue could be. The other two places are the regular fridge over there and a closet in the basement that I think is too small to hold him and still let him breathe.”
“So if he’s not in here…”
“Right,” I said. ”Trap free?”
“As far as I can tell,” she replied. ”No, if they were going to trap it, they’d lock it first, chain it shut.”
Swallowing, I gripped the handle and hauled the door open. It took me a second to process what I was seeing.
Brian was in there. And he was alive.
I couldn’t have been unhappier at that realization.
There was no power to the walk-in-freezer, so it was warm. The interior was maybe ten by twelve feet across, the walls were metal, with racks on either side. Brian was hanging by the wall at the far end, propped up enough that his shoulders were pressing against the corner bordering the wall and the ceiling, his arms outstretched to either side like a bird hung up for display, his head hanging forward.
It was some sort of collaboration between Bonesaw and Mannequin. He’d been partially flayed, the skin stripped from his arms and legs and stretched over the walls around him. His ribcage had been opened, splayed apart. An improvised metal frame held each of his internal organs in place, some several feet from their intended position, as if they were held out for display, others placed on the shelves of the freezer. Cases covered in a ceramic shell seemed to be pumping him full of water, nutrients and other fluids that must have been helping keep him alive.
His head was untouched. He looked up at us, and he looked harrowed. The look in his eyes was more animal than person, his pupils mere pinpoints in his brown eyes. Tiny beads of sweat dotted the skin of his face, no doubt due to the warmth of the room, but he was shivering.
“Oh.” My voice was a croak. ”Brian.”
I took a step forward, and he seized up, his entire body twisting, his hands clenching, eyes wrenching shut.
“Get back!” Tattletale gripped me by the shoulder and forced me out of the freezer.
“I- what?” I was having trouble processing. ”Trap?”
Tattletale had a dark look in her eyes. ”No. Look closer at the walls and floor.”
Numbly, I did as she’d asked. They looked like hairline cracks, spiderwebbing across everything from the walls to the shelving and even the ceramic cases that Mannequin had set up. Except they were raised, over the surfaces. ”Veins?”
“Exposed nerves. Artificially grown, connecting from him to the rest of the room.”
I stared up at Brian, and he stared back at me.
There was no way to help him. I couldn’t even get inside the room to try to comfort him in the smallest ways, not without causing him unbearable pain in the process.
Brian moved his lips, but no sound came out. He tried to raise his head, as much as the ceiling allowed, his eyes raised towards the sky. There was a cauterised scar just above his collarbone.
“I could make it quick,” Ballistic said.
“No,” I told him.
“It’d be a mercy.”
“No,” I shook my head. ”No. We have options. Panacea-”
“Is nowhere to be found,” Tattletale told me, “And given what happened with Mannequin, she’s going to be as far as she can get from downtown.”
“Then Bonesaw,” I said, clenching my fists. ”Bonesaw can fix him.”
“She’s not going to fix him. I doubt she’d do it on pain of death,” Tattletale told me. ”Skitter-”
“We’ll try,” I told her. ”At least try.”
I looked at the others. Sundancer was on the other side of the kitchen, hands on the edge of the sink. Ballistic had his arms folded. Trickster leaned against one counter, silent, not looking at the scene.
“Every second you make him go on like this is cruel,” she said, her voice hard.
“So is every second you spend arguing with me. I’m not negotiating, here. I’m willing for him to suffer if it means there’s a chance we can help him.”
She met my eyes, looking like she wanted to slap me, yell at me, or both. ”Fine. Then let’s hurry.”
I gave Brian one last look over my shoulder before I hurried off, leaving him behind. The others followed.
I was using my bugs to track the positions of the Nine, where Siberian and Crawler were in the thick of the enemy. Mannequin apparently wasn’t aware of my presence, so I had my first real opportunity of tracking his movements as he scaled walls and disappeared into manholes to emerge half a street away. Burnscar used her fire to bombard the enemy and divide them.
Jack was more pragmatic, striking from hiding, threatening his decoys to get them to run out of cover and draw enemy fire, and using every hiding space that was available. He was quick, smart, and devastating in how he operated. No movement was wasted, and every time he emerged from cover and swiped his knife, someone suffered for it. As far as I could tell, he was evading Night and Fog. My bugs could detect some noise from him that I was parsing as a mocking laughter. Maybe my imagin
ation. Probably my imagination.
I was getting a sense of what Brian had described, once upon a time; that anger and outrage that didn’t even come close to connecting with a fire inside, with burning rage or anything like that. It was cold, dark, and numb.
We found her in one of the exercise rooms. Yoga mats had been stacked together to serve as mattresses, forming a kind of sleeping area. Most of the Dolltown residents who had been living in this facility were dead now, their cold bodies lying in pools of blood. One of the culprits was at the window, clutching the frame. Bonesaw.
I gathered my bugs, directing them her way.
“Wait!” Tattletale cried out.
I turned to see her stagger. I whipped around to see Bonesaw. She was whirling around in response to Tattletale’s shout, her eyes wide. There was a chain stretching from her wrist to the base of the window.
Not Bonesaw. Decoy.
Tattletale crashed to the ground, followed soon after by Trickster. Sundancer and Ballistic crashed to the ground a second later.
“Why won’t you go down!?” The voice was petulant.
I followed the voice and saw one of the corpses move, rising to its feet. Bonesaw unzipped the covering of dead flesh she’d covered herself in and shucked it off. She was wearing a yellow sundress and yellow rubber boots with a short blue jacket, but her hair and each article of her clothing were stained dark brown with the blood that had been on the corpse. A small tube was in one of her hands, “I shot you with three darts! It’s rude!”
I glanced down. Three pea-sized darts with flesh-toned feathering were stuck in the fabric of my costume. One in my dress, one in a panel of armor on my chest, and another in the side of my stomach.
“Bonesaw,” I growled.
“Skitter, was it? Bug girl! I really want to find out how your power works! I’ll take your brain apart and find the mechanism so I can copy it! Is your costume spider silk? That’s awesome! You know the right materials to work with! No wonder my darts didn’t work!”
“What did you do to them?”