Pale: 2.6 - Verona
Author: Wildbow

Verona

Verona studied the echo, which seemed to be the politically correct term for the ghost.  The woman was a projection of a person going through a series of actions and various standing positions, leaning against the wall, standing in a defensive posture with her head down and shoulder drawn forward, pacing.  She flickered between images in a messy way that didn’t seem perfectly timed, and ran into herself in places, prompting splashes of crimson, as flesh dissolved into stubborn puffs or waves of echo-stuff.  Hair became like dust.  Clothing like strands.

She wasn’t see-through, but the gummy, blurry mess at the edges made for a kind of translucent web or wreath that surrounded and backed her.  Smoke that accumulated in exact amounts and quantity to what dissipated.  Splashes of liquid Echo that hung in the air.

“Can he breathe?” Avery asked.

Verona turned her attention to the old man in the bed.  He’d exhaled, and the exhalation had forced its way to the surface of the black gunk Alpeana had deposited on his face, forming a bubble that stubbornly refused to pop.  He tried to drag in a breath, and the fluid drained down his throat instead.  His body jerked.

“No, Lassie, he dinnae need to, much.  If anyone’s hafing trouble breathin’, it’s me.  This isnae a pretty situation.”

“I’m trying to think about what we should do,” Miss said, standing at the far end of the unlit room, by the head of the bed, where it was too dark for even Verona’s sight to penetrate.  Verona wondered if she could hit the light switch, but there was no guarantee it wouldn’t hurt Alpeana for the room to be that bright.  Miss went on to say, “I might step away for a moment, stir up the goblins, and ask John to patrol.  The problem is, what would we do with them, if they were close enough to find?  Murder would invite more problems, anyone that close may be too determined to easily scare.  A disappearance invites further investigation.

“Guilherme, Miss,” Alpeana said.  “Ask him, aye?  Many a man who’ll face doon a bogey-sort and still walk double-time away from a Fae, now.”

“I suppose we must.  I’ll do that.  John and Guilherme, a quick patrol around the boundaries of Kennet.  See if anyone has camped out somewhere, or if they’re sending bound Others in as tools.  If they’re stealing eyes and using them to make observation tools, there’ll be a supply chain.  As for you four…”

“Ah’ve still got me rounds, Miss, but we’ll be needin’ to check there isn’t anythin’ more nefarious still lurkin’.”

“Summonings, practice effects, any traces of the kind of practice they use.  Try not to tip them off that we have that quick or organized a response.”

Slightly annoyed, Alpeana spoke in a quiet but firm voice, “ah’ll be careful, aye.  Ah’m not some dob, can’t tell me erse from a dimple in someone else’s bawbag.”

She looked at the girls.  “Sorry.”

“I don’t have much idea what that last part meant,” Avery said.

“I worry,” Miss said.  “And you haven’t dealt with predatory practitioners before.”

“Aye, but I’ve kept me nose out of it for this long.”

“What’s the danger?” Lucy asked.

Miss answered, “Conventional, modern practitioners are organized, on more of a level playing field with one another, while treating Others as more of a resource than a threat.  They know how to counteract Others, limit our movements or options, and will try to corner us.  Their best way to one-up one another or gain a foothold in their internal politics is to have more tools in their toolboxes.  They would collect us.”

“If we cannae disarm this situation, ye might find ye have no more patrons, no more gifts, and some right scabby bastards who would do away with three wee lassies before they could grow up to be competition, aye?”

“Possibly,” Miss said.  “I’ve already explained to the girls that someone could try to declare themselves Lord.”

“Which is like someone trying to declare themselves the next Carmine Beast?” Verona asked, jumping into the discussion, in an effort to contribute.  “They’d declare themselves, then others would take notice and jump in, and there’d be infighting, and-”

“And a great deal of mess,” Miss said.  “Possibly ending in disaster for Kennet and the surrounding region.”

“I’ll go rouse our warriors,” Miss said. “If I don’t find you again in the next ten minutes, call me.”

“I’m glad yer handlin’ this, Miss.  Puts me heart more at ease.”

“Should we treat this like a crime scene?” Lucy asked.

“The deed wasn’t done here,” Alpeana said.  “I think there ain’t much point.”

Verona turned her Sight on, and swept her eyes across the room, looking for anything that stood out.  It let her see in the dark, and it highlighted the small details.  Dings on the wall, little bits of lint on the floor, a pill that had fallen from the top of the dresser, wedging in between the dresser’s leg and the baseboard at the bottom end of the wall.

When she looked at the corner, Miss was gone.

“Could we interview the echo?” Verona asked, looking at the ghost.

“Ye might be in for a dose of dissapointin’ if ye try.  Echos are a wee bit bampot, stuck sayin’ the same thins.  It’s worse when they’re damaged, see?  Narrows down what they ken be.”

“Hey,” Lucy said, approaching the echo.  She winced as it flickered, arm moving towards Lucy’s head.

“Be gentle, aye?  The thin’s especial fragile.”

“Maybe I should do it instead, Lucy?” Avery suggested.

Lucy gave Avery an annoyed look, then stepped back to give Avery room to approach.

Verona investigated the pills.  She couldn’t decipher the meaning or intent.  There was a pair of wedding rings and old pocket watch resting on the dresser.

“Hi,” Avery said, gentle.

“What did you say?” Avery asked.

Verona popped open the pocket watch, then closed it.  No portrait or anything inside.  She looked at the wedding ring.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it, mama,” the ghost murmured.

“Maybe ease in?” Avery asked.  “What’s your name, ma’am?”

The woman whispered something.

Verona picked up the wedding ring, turning it over in her hand.  There was an inscription.  “She’s Bev.”

The ghost flickered, changing position.  The other two girls jumped, which made Verona smirk.

“I’m Bev, and you are?” the Ghost asked.

“She’s no’ askin’ you, you wet tube,” Alpeana said, finding a perch on the bed, sitting on the old man’s chest.  “She’s a mess o’ memories bad enough the world kept ’em long after the hear’ stopped beatin’.  Stuck walkin’ in circles until she gets forgotten by tha world too.”

“I didn’t think it hurt to be nice,” Avery said.

“Bev,” Lucy said.  “What happened to your eyes?”

Bev flickered.  She wore sunglasses, but they didn’t fit on her damaged face.  She distorted, the sunglasses tearing free and dropping to the ground.  She stood there, with a damaged mess of crimson and grey instead of a head, her body flickering.

“What happened?” Lucy asked.

“Haf to sidestep that one, Lassie.  She be like a house of cars and there’s a car missing, aye?  Dinnae want ta go remindin’ her o’ that or you’ll hurt her.”

“I think she’s a bad memory, pressed into existence,” Verona guessed.  “She expresses herself through scenes from her old life, that were tied to high emotion?  Based on what Charles explained, before?”

“If we make her live out a scene where we bring her attention, for lack of a better word, to the missing E-Y-E-S, or ask her to use them when she can’t, it damages her, and makes her forever weaker?  Is that it?”

“Ye’ve got it, Lassie.”

The image flickered.  More of a head than before.

“Are you okay?” Lucy asked.

The image consolidated.  A little blurrier at the edges than before.  Bev had her head bowed, hand at her forehead, covering her eyes.

“I get by.  Clay’s dad mellowed with age… or he got too weak,” the echo said.  Again with the hand at the forehead, shielding the eyes.  A bruise was visible at the edge of the damaged portion of the face.  “I have that to look forward to.”

“If we ask her about earlier, will she try to express herself?” Lucy asked.

“She might,” Alpeana said.  She leaned over the old man’s face and barfed out more black stuff.  Reaching into it, she gripped the old man’s jaw and dragged it through the tar, until it was nearly at his collarbone.  Then she shoved her arm into the darkness, all the way down to the shoulder.  Gunk overflowed onto the bed.

“When did this happen, Bev?” Lucy asked Alpeana.

The echo answered, “This afternoon.  I’m not especially keen to discuss it, Father.”

“Dad father or religious father?” Avery asked.

“Religious, I’d be guessin’, given tha era,” Alpeana said.  “Not so many back then were pourin’ their wee hearts out ta their da.”

“We’re on your side here,” Lucy said.  “You should be safe here.”

“Careful there, Lassie.  Should she?”

“In the company of three local practitioners who are invested in protecting the Others and people of Kennet?” Lucy asked.

“That works.  Jus’ making sure.   If ye need advice, then tha closer ye get to what she heard back then, tha better off ye’ll be.”

“You’re part of our flock,” Verona said.

“I’m afraid I’m already a lost sheep, fa-” the ghost raised her face mid-sentence, hand dropping from her face as she made to make eye contact with her conversation partner, and the resulting damage ripped part of her head off.

“Ye cannae avoid it, Lassie.  She’s goin’ to need to try and open those eyes and each time she does she’ll diminish.  She’s no so long for this here world.”

“Your children are safe, Bev,” Lucy told the image.  “You’re safe.  Relax.”

The image consolidated.  Even blurrier than before.

“The children aren’t safe, ma,” Bev said.  “He thrashes them.  I can’t even send them to school the next day, and then people come asking questions.  I’d go, but our account at the bank is in his name.  I can save up pennies and change, but for what?”

Lucy answered, “You can-”

Alpeana lurched forward to the very edge of the bed, and pressed three fingers against Lucy’s mouth.  They were still a bit mucky from being shoulder deep inside the man’s neck area.  Lucy backed away a step, wiping at her mouth.

“Take care there, Lucy.  Remindin’ an echo it ken go is a sure-fire way ta get ye rid o’ one.”

Lucy nodded, making a face as she tried to wipe away at her mouth.

“How do we bring up the attack but not remind her about the eyes, or bring the ‘scene’ to a point where she’d be opening her eyes?” Avery asked.

“I can think of a way,” Verona said, looking at the bed.  It was big enough for two people.  “It’s not pretty, though.”

“We dinnae need pretty, Verona.  We need answers.”

“A little bit of pretty would be nice,” Avery said.  “I think we should be mindful of the kind of practitioners we’re becoming.  It’s… easy to do stuff we later regret.”

“Bev,” Verona said.  “I’m sorry.  I won’t do it again.”

Bev flickered, then appeared in the bed, a phantom blanket drawn over her.  She lay beside ‘Clay’, her back to him.  Alpeana moved back, sitting by Clay’s feet.

“It’s night, eyes are closed, there’s nothing and nobody to really look at.  We digest the events of the day,” Verona said.  “And I guess emotions stay strong enough that we don’t rest easy… and they can get stored by an echo.  The crummy people in our lives know we’re a captive audience, so they talk at us instead of processing and facing their own deeds.”

“Useful,” Lucy said.  “Bev.  Can we talk about what happened today?”

“I want to sleep, Clay.”

“Please?” Lucy asked.

“You-” Bev started, and cut out.  Verona worried something had broken again, but Bev had just skipped ahead.  “-Monstrous.  More than anything I’ve seen-”

It cut off at the end, like there was more to be said.

“It was a monster that did this?” Lucy asked.

“Monstrous.  More than anything I’ve seen.  Then- left.  Stormed out and away.”

“Good to know,” Lucy murmured.

“Hurt me.  Hurt the-” Bev jumped across the room, to the place she’d been standing before.  “-others.”

“Not the only set of e-y-e-s the monster stole?” Avery asked.

“Do you even want me to stay, Clarence?”

“Clarence, not clay?” Avery asked.

“Probably Clay is a nickname,” Verona guessed.

“What time did this happen?” Lucy asked.

“The kids just got back from school, ma.  I should go look after them.”

“This afternoon?” Lucy asked.

“Yes,” the ghost said.

She was disintegrating more and more.

“Anything else?” Lucy asked, looking back.

“What did it look like?” Verona asked.

“Black mood.  Furious,” Bev told them, flickering between a few different positions to deliver each word.  “Ugly.  Not someone I recognize.”

“That’s all I got,” Verona said.

“Me too, I think,” Lucy said.

“Can we give her a good sending off?” Avery asked.

They looked at Alpeana, who shrugged.

“What do you want to do?” Avery asked Bev.

Bev moved back to the bed, lying with her back to the old man, who was smothered by the black stuff.

“If I went to pack up the kids and hop in a car to drive away… would you really fight to stop us?” Bev asked.

“I’m not saying I will,” Bev added, defensively, responding to a voice that they weren’t privy to.  “I’d never, don’t worry.  Don’t get upset, please.  I wish you’d-”

She cut off again.  She reappeared at the end of the room, eyeless, standing with her head bowed, not saying or doing much except standing there.

“Please tell me she got away,” Avery said.

“Oh, aye.  Took another unhappy year, but tha wee lass stole away in the night with the bairns.  Dinnae look back, never called.  Most knew wha Clarence here did, shunned ‘im.  He stuck by tha ones who didnae care fer twenty-five more years.  Friends at tha bar.  Then they passed and left ‘im alone and bitter.  I’ve been visitin’ ‘im for decades now, five or six times a week, if I ken catch ‘im before insomnia stirs ‘im awake.”

“Bev,” Avery said.  “Go.  Be with the kids.  You’re supposed to be away and safe, far from here.  You got away.  I’m pretty sure another existence is waiting for you.”

The echo dissolved the conflicts between images worse than before, except now she didn’t make up for what she lost.  Bashing herself to pieces.

Lucy folded her arms.  “Should we go then?  See if this monster that took her eyes left a trail, or if there’s any trace out there?”

“Aye.  I haf to admit, I was hopin’ Miss would be back and she could point the way.  This isn’t my talent.”

“No, we should probably get going,” Lucy said.  “It’s already late.”

“I’ll wrap up here, then,” Alpeana said.  The darkness that covered Clarence’s face and chest was like a pool she could reach into, stirring things up and changing things around.  The flesh seemed moldable.  She pushed ribs aside and they stayed pushed up and away.  She worked within, hands in the black stuff.

“What’s his nightmare tonight about?” Lucy asked.

“His daughter’s daughter turns up, sweet as anythin’.  Wants ta know who her grand-da is, and he’s ailin’.  She mops his brow and makes his meals nice.  His heart rests easy and light,” Alpeana said, peering into the darkness.  “Then a departed friend of ‘is laughs about what a braw lad he was, puttin’ ‘is wee pretty wife in her place.  The girl leaves with a few choice words, and the codger is left all alone, gets put in a crummy, lonesome auld folk’s home, where he gets as good as he ever got, while he’s an auld man too weak ta even raise his arms ta defend himself.  A dream that feels like a right decade, sittin’ heavy on the heart.”

“He gets five or more of those a week?” Lucy asked.

“More of ’em as o’ late,” Alpeana said.  “Dreams I’m meant ta give out are gettin’ meaner.  It’s tha Carmine beast’s absence, innit?  Subtle at first, but it gets worse by tha day.”

She stirred some things around in his chest, plucked out something eel-like from the darkness, tilted her head back, and swallowed it in a single gulp.

The old man spasmed, back arching, hands fumbling for a grip on sheets.  Bubbles formed at the mouth.  He thrashed, to little avail.

A urine stain spread across his crotch area, soaking the sheets.

“We’re done,” Alpeana said, brightly.  “Echo’s put away, he’s set fer tonight.  It’s his oon head doin’ ‘im in, I’m just makin’ some use of it, greasin’ the big tickin’ wheels with what he’s left unsettled.  He’ll sleep ’til mornin’ sun.  Let’s go investigate this happenin’.  Hopefully this willnae take all night, aye?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “Or my mom will wonder where I am.”

Alpeana dipped her hand into the darkness, and pulled out something white and wispy, like a bridal veil that twitched.  She walked to the wall, and as her hair pulled away from the old man, she pulled the black stuff with her.  He was left untouched, rib cage and jaw where they were supposed to be.  The urine stain remained where it was.  He continued twitching, and vocalized a bit.

Alpeana used the wispy veil stuff to paint out a chalky outline around the closet door.

“What’s this?” Verona asked.

“It’s harder ta bring all three of ye lassies with me if ahm slippin’ between worlds.  It’s hard enough fer me alone, ah’ll usually use the ways.”

“The ways?” Avery asked.

“Ye can get anywhere, walkin’ on foot.  Even tha Paths, if ye walk long enough.  Some places are closer to tha Warrens, tha Abyss, or tha spirit.  Tha toll isn’t so heavy expensive if tha way’s shorter.  Elsewise, ye pay the toll direct.  Use a wee bit of spirit to open up the spirit ways.”

“The spirit world?” Verona asked.

“Directly thar,” Alpeana said, hauling open the closet door.

The world on the other side was the old man’s bedroom, but flipped around.

The three of them followed Alpeana in through the door, into the room that was covered in scribblings, like two people had been fighting to cover the room in their own handwriting.

“Lots of raw awful in ‘ere, aye?” Alpeana asked.

There was a vague silhouette on the bed, with what looked like nine ghostly figures of size ranging from adult to dormouse, crouched over him.  Most of them shied back away from Alpeana.

“Ah’m not gonna grab ye like I grabbed yer kin!” Alpeana told them, annoyed.

“Why the spirit world?” Verona asked.  “Aren’t there better places to look?  The Ruins?”

“The spirit world makes a good first lookin, fer tha same reasons it’s bonnie good for new practitioners like yerselves.  A good ground level fer a start.”

They left the house, which had less writing on the walls than in the bedroom.  Out into the spirit world version of Kennet.

It was, essentially, the same layout.  Brighter in some ways, darker in others.  Houses more or less lined up to where houses were supposed to be.  There were figures so transparent that they were hard to make out when looked at directly, moving this way and that.

“What are we looking for?” Lucy asked.

Alpeana had pulled ahead a bit, and came back, “Cummoan.  Quick with ye.  This ain’t yer world, dinnae be gettin’ distracted.  Feet aren’t so important as will, now.”

“To get where ye goin’.  Distance and measure dinnae matter so much either.  Focus now.”

“What are we looking for?” Lucy asked.

“Disturbances,” Alpeana said.

Mostly, it looked the same.  Graffiti and decorations were everywhere, and they hadn’t been there before.  The road was layered in a quarter-inch of water, and their footsteps splashed.  There were no people, and there was a sheen on things that made it feel more cartoony, even though that was the wrong word.  The cared for houses were more polished, and the polish had a faint rainbow hue.  Abandoned places were buried in a muck of vague silhouettes.  It highlighted contrasts.

The sky above them was monochrome, but for the variations in the clouds, which seemed like they were more set for framing than for anything.

“Why would someone come here?” Verona asked.  She scanned the area with her eyes.  The buildings seemed to be less important for the fact they were buildings, and more important because they were anchors for other things to gather around.  The further they walked, or traveled on all fours as Alpeana was doing, the more she realized how unmoored this all was.  A didn’t lead neatly to B.

“Ye could come here ta petition tha big spirits.  We dinnae got nothing or no-one especial-big.  If ye drew out a big, important diagram, or planned a big ritual, ye might want ta check and clear tha area in a few different overlappin’ places first.  Dependin’ on how ye went about it, ye might smoke a pipe with some special leaves ta pay yer visit, square things away with any local spirits.  Most practitioner families will have their wee apprentices and bairns do that part.  Easy, builds a relationship.”

“The Paths notes Miss gave me said that you can use the Paths to get someplace faster, but there’s a risk.  Is this like that?”

“Och, not so much, no.  The spirit ways are a good way ta get where ye need to be if yer lookin’ for a feelin’ or idea, not so much if ye want ta get anywhere.  Bit of a mire, see?”

“Bit of a tangent,” Lucy said, “but in the interest of giving credit where credit is due, and not complaining at you two all the time… I was pretty happy with how that ghost interview went.”

“I didn’t contribute much,” Avery said.

“You didn’t not contribute,” Lucy said.  “I think having someone taking a step back, watching our flanks, making sure we’re traveling in the right directions… that’s important.  It might be good to make a habit of that.  If we notice we’re not contributing much to the conversation, we can step back and look at the big picture.  Whether that’s moral or strategic or whatever else.”

“I’m not seeing much disturbance,” Verona noted.  “But I’m not sure what it looks like normally, so it’s hard to tell.”

“You’d notice, lassie.  Numpty spirit things running this way and that, mess, disaster.  Tha spirit reflects wha tha real world hides.”

“We’re looking for the hidden,” Lucy said.

“Aye, but it’s been too long.  Hours now, since the blighted eye-stealer came through.”

“Can we ask the spirits directly?” Lucy asked.

“No.  Some places ye can, but they’re tha places where men pay heed to tha spirits and spiritual, ta superstition, ta symbols and meanings in tea leaves, aye?  They put a peedie amount of tharselves in the spirit, an’ the spirit gets a peedie bit of humanity.”

“Enough humanity to talk?” Verona asked.

“I would have thought we were more spiritual than that,” Lucy said.  “We have churches.  A lot of people put stock in religion, in Kennet.”

“Aye, but not in tha way that counts, see?  Not many who see tha heavens crack, flash, and rumble, cleaving a tree in twain, and think there might be somethin’ to it.”

“Gotcha,” Lucy said.  “The spirit world is shrinking then?  As people stop believing?”

“I dunnae about shrinkin’, Lassie, but it’s changin’.  All things do.”

The individual parts of Kennet were moving around, it felt like.  If no members of their group were paying attention, a place could find its way to somewhere it shouldn’t be.  It was as if the roads were actually a deep water, and each major chunk of the town was adrift, floating by one another.  Here and there, there were growths, something like a combination of a tumor and a cloud, or a fungus with blurry, cloudy wisps growing from it, in peach hues that dissolved to white.  Near the school, near the Arena, and the dance studio.

“Disturbance,” Avery said.  She indicated the dance studio.  “The bird-people-things on the roof are acting like something happened.”

The things looked like shadow-people, pale and indistinct, perched on the rooftop.  In place of arms they had triangular shapes that could be described as wings.

“They’re carrying swords, like the ones I see with my Sight,” Lucy noted.

“Hurt and harm done,” Alpeana said.  “They’re omens.  Somethin’ bad is goin’ ta happen ta someone tonight.”

“Can we do something?” Lucy asked.  “Step in?  Is that allowed?”

“It may be allowed, aye, but I dinnae see what ye might do.  It may look and rightly feel like we’re close but we ain’t.  It’s a plight of the spirit, see?  That it cannae change much about tha real, and tha real can’t much impact the spirit.  Takes a skilled hand and some power ta break tha.”

Alpeana looked at Verona.

“I think they want to try,” Verona said.

“We’ll get sidetracked nine ways from Sunday if we cannae stay on task,” Alpeana said.

But she didn’t argue or fight, and gave chase.

There were more omens collecting.  More shadow-figures, in various shapes, too indistinct to clearly see, but suggestive of animals, people, and things.  A kid that looked like he was wearing a cat hoodie.  A woman’s silhouette, tall, thin, and see-through, conveying some agitated emotion.  They gathered at the windows, and parted as the other two girls got there, to make room.

Verona caught up.  Even in the spirit world, she was slower than the other two.  This time, she couldn’t even blame the fact that her legs were a bit shorter.

Through the window, they saw only more spirit.  The translucent figures overlapped, some winging in the air.

“More omens these days,” Alpeana said.  “Remindin’ us that if we cannae get this Carmine Beast business squared off, wrong thin’s are comin’.”

“More omens, more violent dreams?  More violent, dangerous Others.”

“There’s more room fer them, aye.  Lots o’ omens now.  This here is a special bad one, or somethin’s off.”

“Could someone be making something bad happen?” Avery asked.

The omens were gathering inside.  More and more, the darker overlaps where two of the simple, silhouetted, ‘winged’ figures were next to one another suggested images.  Alone, they were so transparent they could be mistaken for tricks of the eye.  Two overlapping made a deep shadow.  Three overlapping made black.  There was black to suggest the edge of a person.  A hand.  Movement as someone ran.

“It was already evening when we went to see Alpeana,” Lucy said.  “Who’s at the dance and yoga studio this late?  After dinner?”

“The serious kids,” Verona said.  “This is too mobile to be dance.  It’s definitely not yoga.  It’s not the gymnastics class, not with this many people on the floor.”

“Cheerleading,” Avery said.  “Oh no.  From what I’ve heard, cheerleading is the sport for girls getting injured.  Is someone going to snap their neck?  Please tell me nobody’s going to snap their necks.”

“Aye, with this many omens, ah wouldnae be surprised, lass.  Ye may want ta look away now.”

“We just lost a classmate, earlier this week.  You’re telling me we may lose another?” Avery asked.  “No, that’s not okay.”

“I didnae say it was, lassie.  It’s the way of it.  If ye look, there’s spirits of fatigue, brae with fat, loused an’ hunched over.  Spirits o’ frustration, gowpin’ spirits.  Something was due ta go wrong, aye?”

“We can’t just leave it like that.  If we called Miss now, and sent her over, she can travel fast, right?  She-”

“I can’t,” Miss said.  “I couldn’t intervene in that manner.”

Miss stood in the group of spirits around them.  Overlapping translucent shapes provided the cover for her face and hands.

“Ah, ye caught up.  Just in time ta see a bit of cause for cryin’.”

Overlapping omens created the shadow-picture of what was happening in reality.  The exercise.  Girls doing flips, jumps.  Getting caught and lifted up.

Two girls, standing on the shoulders of the girls below them.  Another girl, smaller than the rest, propelled into the air, to be part of the formation.  She spun in the air, one hundred and eighty degrees.  Hands of girls below and to either side of her reached out to support her.

An omen silhouette with larger wings than the others, sword in hand, dove.  It never touched her.  It only followed, as she went up, lost her footing, slipped over, and plunged down on the far side, her body mostly vertical, feet down.  One foot down.

It met her as she met ground.  Sword met ankle, and the impact shook almost every other omen nearby, scattering them.  Dust exploded up and away from the impact site, and solidified.  The girl became briefly visible, as if she existed in this world.

“An’ an echo is born, aye?  A wee one,” Alpeana said.  “The lassie lives, at least.”

The image of the girl remained, flickering, repeating the event, as Bev had replayed bits of conversation.

Only the girl’s silhouette remained, framed by a wreath of hands that reached for her to give support, many of them hesitating, not knowing what to do.

Her foot remained attached by only one small part of the ankle.  It dangled, wobbling and twisting, the toe pointing toward the knee as it rotated, largely disconnected from everything above it.  Bone was clearly visible in the silhouette image.

Adults gathered near the girl, and spirits moved inside, through the window that had no glass.  They went to the solid growths, that were like the mushrooms and tumors.

“The spirits have their manna, the story will spread, different people will take away different things from the event,” Miss explained, “and different spirits will become stronger.”

Even with the intervening spirits and images of adults, the girl was pretty clear to see, as if Verona watched with x-ray vision.  She strained to see details, to make out if there was anything hinky or unusual, and switched to using her Sight.

In this world, it operated differently, closer to the adjustment of a camera’s focus, except it adjusted light and darkness, contrast and the kinds of spirits that were more or less transparent.

She focused on the girl, and made out details.  A blue jersey top worn over a leotard.  Crimped hair.  The expression-

Verona looked away, feeling a bit as if she’d just stuck her hand onto a hot stove.  She could look at dangling feet all day, but that?  Nah.

“Looks like it’s Melissa, from our class,” Verona commented.

“What?” Avery asked.  “No.  Please tell me the damage being depicted is exaggerated like so many of the other things in this world.  Feet don’t do that, do they?”

“They can,” Lucy said.  “I remember when I was little, I wanted a trampoline.  I argued to my mom and… and to Paul as well, that it’d be good exercise.  My mom wasn’t keen, because of her nursing background.  Booker showed me a vid where the same thing happened.  Teenager came down too hard, wrong angle, wrong vibration.  Sheared off.  Worse than this.  I don’t think injuries this bad necessarily happen without the trampoline.”

“It could be the omen influencing things,” Verona observed.

“Miss,” Alpeana said.  “Tha omens’re too many for such a small event.  I was goin’ ta ignore ’em, because tha dance place is in tha middle of toon, and our invaders haf to be outside, aye?”

“They’re outside the city limits.  The men are on the task.”

“It’s hinky, Miss.”

“I’m not sure what it could be,” Miss said, looking in.  Most of the omens had scattered, but some lingered.  “An ill wind?  Omens are tied to certain animals, like crows.  In seasons like this, whole murders will flock to a tree.  It could be a parallel.  Crows being associated with omens, then the crows arrive and bring omens with?  Especially as a byproduct of other practice?”

Verona adjusted her sight to study the omens.  Adjusting the camera focus, darkening everything, highlighting the vague, gingerbread-man like shadows with wings.  The limbs became more apparent, sinewy and narrow, wearing the looser shadow of the gingerbread man shape like clothing.

“Careful, Verona,” Miss said.

“With the practices of Seeing, whether it’s the future, studying omens, looking out over distances, a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that when you look, they can look back.”

“Another entanglement thing?” Avery asked.

“In a sense.  Look too hard for your demise and Death looks back, and he may find you sooner.  Look too hard for omens…”

“Got it,” Verona said.  Now keeping more of an eye out for any Omens that were turning their eyeless, mouthless heads back toward her, she gave them another quick once-over, trying not to stare too much at any one in particular.

They were black, like matte leather, veins and sinews standing out on lanky limbs.  When they hunched over or prowled, as Melissa was helped onto a stretcher, their spines stood out in distinct relief, their ragged wings reached down and draped the ground around them.

One had a scar, hard to make out in the gloom inside the building.  Circular, around the neck.  When it caught the scant light, it looked bronze.

“One of them is wearing a collar,” Verona said.

“Which one?” Miss asked.  She stepped through the fog of transparent, immaterial spirits, until she was right behind Verona.  She dropped down.

The Omen turned to look at her, and Verona looked away, immediately striding away, until the line of sight was broken by the wall beside the window.

Miss remained where she was, hunched over, hands in the pockets of her long coat, her black hair blowing across her face.  Staring at the Omen.

“Belanger,” Miss said.

“What’s that?” Lucy asked.

“The culprit in the stealing of eyes.  I suppose the logic I just outlined would apply here.  A young female practitioner sends an omen spirit to go sniffing around, because it has a nose, so to speak, for trouble.  Where one omen settles, others gather, until events come to pass.  She went looking for trouble and trouble happened, when it might not otherwise.”

“She hurt Melissa through her carelessness?” Avery asked.

“Hurt was set ta happen, see?” Alpeana said.  “But the minging lass might’ve made tha situation worse, stickin’ tha particular nose into thins.”

“Who is she?  What is she?” Lucy asked.  “Alpeana said they used a monster to steal the eyes.”

“A tool, yes,” Miss said, staring down the omens.  Verona continued to walk back, pacing.  A bit of distance was the prescription for entanglement, and she had told Lucy she was trying to be careful.

“Charles said his old friend was an augur,” Verona said.  “They- he said they were going to make a watchdog.  And now we’ve got eyes and omens and that feels augur-y.”

“It is.  The Belangers are the same augurs that troubled Charles.  They also have a not-insignificant stake in the magic class I gave you the notes on,” Miss said.  “Nicolette Belanger is the student of Alex Belanger.  I don’t know the exact relation but I suspect they are family.  Nicolette was prowling around, but she was nowhere near Kennet.  I distracted her, I thought we had longer before she found us.  She must have found a metaphorical thread to pull.”

“You’ve done that a few times,” Lucy said.

“Thinking you had more time than you did.  With our Awakening, is the other big one.”

“A trap many Others fall into, I’m afraid.  When you count your existence in centuries, those who move ahead by days can catch you off guard.”

I’ll have to keep that in mind, for when I become Other, Verona thought.

“Can we trace it or track it?” Lucy asked.

“I think that would be dangerous.  They would converge on us as a flock.  There are other ways, and other threads to follow.  For now, we need to know how much damage is done.”

“Information is power.  Practitioners can counter an Other, cut off its movements, and bind it, but to do that-”

“They have to know what type of Other they’re dealing with,” Verona interrupted.  “It’s why you’ve been so secretive, you’ve said.”

“Yes.  They need information first.  The Belangers, as it happens, are exceptional when it comes to gathering information.  Clairvoyance, future-sight, omens, seeing sendings, and all manners of using the Sight.  They are information gatherers and they sell that information.  You didn’t notice anything wrong last night, Alpeana?”

“Then we have roughly thirteen hours they may have been active.”

“Bev, the echo, said they took her eyes this afternoon.”

“Good,” Miss said.  “Let’s see if she was the start, the middle, or the end of their work.”

“Ruins?” Alpeana asked.

“Please, if you’d forge the way.”

“Best if we cut through the factory.”

They started moving doubletime, and it was a little easier to move than before.  Easier to move when she was beside her friends.

Learning how to best move through this world, or these worlds, was going to be another thing she needed to practice.  She was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with her legs, and everything to do with whatever part of her was being drawn on to push forward in this spirit world.

The factory wasn’t too far.  Scribblings and etchings surrounded it.  Some of them moved.

“Alpeana,” Lucy said.  “Can we ask you some questions?”

“Now?” Alpeana asked.

“Did you have any involvement in the troubles tonight?”

Verona raised an eyebrow, giving Lucy a look.

“Why would I haf a hand in this?  Yer erse is out tha window, lassie!  Wha sorta good does it do me, ta shite up me night’s rounds, bring a practitioner ta our door, and put us all in some raw heavy danger?”

“No, ye bloody tit.  No involvement ‘sides tha help I’ve given ye.”

“I think you offended her,” Avery whispered.

“I’m asking to cover the bases.”

“Yer own base might as well be uncovered, erse hanging out in the cauld breeze, aye?”

“Did you play any part in the Carmine Beast’s disappearance or death?”

“Not to tha best of me knowledge.”

“Did you know it?  Have any interaction with it?” Verona asked.

“No.  We saw each other once, fifty years back, but tha’s all.  Tha Sable Prince was tha one I worked with most.”

“Prince?” Avery asked.

“The titles suggest who they were before,” Miss explained.  “Were John Stiles to take the seat, he would be the Carmine Dog.  The Choir would become the Carmine Choir.  The Sable Prince was once a higher spirit.  Prince was the easiest title to give him.”

“Did you have anything against the Beast?” Lucy asked.

“No, except the tit went and died, an’ it’s made me rounds messier.  Brought trouble like tonight’s doon on my hea.”

“Do you have any suspicion or knowledge about who might have done it?”

“I’m not tha one to ask, Lassie.  No idea.  I dinnae pay much mind to the Others.  Tha Faerie are fun, Maricica will give me a story for a spiderweb or a trace of anythin’ odd I find on tha nightly rounds.  Bit o’ spirit here, bit o’ echo thar.”

“Anything notable lately?  Around the time things started getting hairy, or the Carmine Beast disappeared?”

“No.  A laddie got too drunk aroun’ tha holidays, drove his car into a ditch.  A hunter shot his friend.  Not connected to the Carmine Beast, he was a dob who didnae seem like he could tell his erse from his ear.”

As they passed a wall, Verona pulled out her pen and dragged it along one of the words scribbled on the wall.  “Jobless”.  The pen picked up the word.  She put it down a few feet down the same wall.

A spirit, head peering over the wall, made a sound like a strangled scream, handless arms pressed to its head, as it saw the damage.

Verona looked to Miss for clarity, and got none.

“In another circumstance, would you have taken Melissa’s echo and given it to them?” Avery asked.

“Might’ve done, aye.”

“What would she do with it?”

“That relates ta this next destination o’ ours here.”

They reached the factory.

“If ye need to go ta tha Warrens where the goblins deal with other goblins, ye’ll want to come this way an’ turn left, go tha’ way.  I’m not sure why ye would want ta, especially without a guide, but I’m telling ye now.”

There was a bit of collapsed structure, and it looked like part of the collapse was over a murky stairwell.

“Not a fan of goblins?” Lucy asked.

“They’re fine, really.  But I dinnae haf much cause to deal with ’em.  Here.  The Ruins.  Keep yerselves close, now.”

Miss pulled out an umbrella, and shook it out to its full breadth, her hands hidden by the umbrella’s fabric first, then by the fact that she held the umbrella with the hand furthest from them.  The umbrella’s edge hid her face.

The landscape was, again, like Kennet.  This time, it seemed like everything was in the place it should be, instead of maybe being connected by association rather than place and landmark.

Rain came down in a torrent that limited visibility past a hundred feet or so.  The roads were gone, replaced with ragged chasms.  Crosswalks were rope bridges. Buildings were muted, like the pounding rain had worn down the edges and driven the rooftops a bit closer to the building foundations.

There were no lights, and there was almost no motion.  The sky, though it was hard to make out, was like television static.  So was the water of the river, which was far higher than it was in reality, the static turning near-white where it crested and formed violent froth.  A good portion of the water flowed into a chasm, disappearing into the darkness.

Echos were everywhere.  Flickering, wandering.

“The guide for the Forest Ribbon Trail mentioned the Ruins,” Avery said.

Verona shivered.  The rain had already soaked her through.

“It grinds down ghosts?” Avery asked.

She walked briskly, and the three of them followed.  Verona pulled her bag around to her front with the intent of getting her hat, but when Miss crossed the first rope bridge, Verona decided to prioritize holding onto the rope, hugging the bag to her chest with her other hand.

“I’m going to have to change this bandage,” Lucy said.  “Soaked through already.”

There was an echo on the far side of the street.  Flickering across a series of forms, with enough consistency and pattern that the forms appeared interconnected.  A man, staggering forward, streaked in blood that thinned out with the rain, his arms reaching out to either side and behind him, where they blended in with another version of himself.

Shoulder connected to upper arm which connected to elbow, then forearm, then wrist, and back the way it had come.  Wrist to forearm to elbow to upper arm to shoulder.  There were ruined versions of him that had no legs, the lower body missing and the intervening space raw and bloody, so he left a trail of blood behind him.  He craned his head around, mouth open, tongueless and toothless, head flickering to change which direction he was looking, rather than actually moving.

He had no eyes.  Only a clawed out section.

“Recent wound,” Miss said, looking.  “More recent than… Bev, you said?”

“The Belangers’ eye-stealing Other may be close.”

Lucy pulled off the chain at her neck.  The dog tag, two keys, and the ring were strung on it.  She retrieved the ring, disconnecting the chain.

Verona got her hat, then pulled out the box with the Hot Lead in it, handing it to Lucy.  She pulled the hat on.

“The bleakness of this place reminds me of the Hungry Choir’s realm,” Avery said.

“If you were to map out the connections between worlds, that one would be a close sibling or child of this one.  The Ruins are a place of the eroding abstract.  Incarnates and echoes.  The Hungry Choir is of that abstract, a living ritual rooted in the Incarnate.”

“Case in point,” Avery said.  She pointed.

There was a figure that could have been mistaken for an echo, but it didn’t flicker.

A waif, standing in the rain, watching them.

There were more echoes.  Most were far more monstrous than Bev had been, or far less, being torn apart by the rain.

“The Others native to this place are predators that feast on echoes,” Miss said.  “Echoes will find their roots here, what you see in reality as the tips of the icebergs, if they’re complex or multifaceted enough to have icebergs.  When they’re spent, they dissolve out here, reduced back down to spirit stuff, if they aren’t taken apart for other purposes.”

“What purposes?” Verona asked.

“Some might make Others and send them out.  Others might be similar to Alpeana, building nightmares or scenarios, like a funnel spider might build a web, but using scenes and memories instead of webbing.  Nascent incarnations might seek out echoes that tie to their natures, an Incarnation of Innocence eating child and elderly Others until it has the strength to take form in our world.  The eye thief could easily be something of that same typology.”

“Those native Others will feast on ye or me if they ken, Lassies, so keep yer eye out.”

Avery and Verona, each walking on one side of Alpeana, looked at the girl.

“Dinnae be lookin’ so terrible scared, lassies.  Most will et thins too slow and broken down ta move fairy fast.  So long as ye dinnae walk into an open maw and get gulped doon, ye should be okay.”

“Good to know,” Avery said.

“I wasn’t really scared, just going to say,” Verona said.  “More like I’m interested.”

“I stan’ corrected, lassie.”

There was a cluster of other echoes.  All eyeless.

“What a scabby mess this is,” Alpeana complained.  “Wha am I supposed ta do with this when it comes ta makin’ nightmares?  It’s like bein’ asked ta make axes and ye’ve no wood for tha handles!  How am I ta make it personal, if tha echoes o’ those persons are haf gone to mingin’ pieces?”

“I think that’s the least of our concerns,” Miss said.

Verona’ Sight was more like it was supposed to be, in the midst of all of this.  It didn’t really help with seeing through the rain, but did help with seeing the things the torrent of rain might have covered up.

“Turn on that sight of yours if it’s not already on, Ave, Luce.  It’s useful,” Verona said.  She dug out her mask, putting it on to further clarify things.

“Will do,” Lucy said.

Miss explained, “This is a place that lives in the abstract, bearing the entirety of the wear and damage of the day to day.  Echoes that don’t even manifest in reality will lurk here.  Necromancers will often travel to this place or places like it, to traffic in dead spirits.  Incarnate practitioners who specialize in things like the Hungry Choir ritual or dealings with a specific Incarnation, such as Dream or Bondage, will have cause to come here.”

“If this keeps doon this sorry path, I’ll be crossin’ these fingers o’ mine tha ye girls decide you want me for a Familiar.  Would sure be nice ta get a wee vacation when yer work has gone unwiped erse over fanny.”

Verona laughed.  Lucy and then Avery joined her.

“It’s no a laughin’ matter, lassie!”

“Then stop being so funny, geez,” Verona said, chuckling.  She frowned a bit, not wanting to take her eyes off the things around them.  “I gotta say, I understood you less than usual there.”

“We were going to put off mentioning that to the girls,” Miss said.  “It’s a decision older practitioners make.”

“Tell the lassies now,” Alpeana said.  “Dinnae do any harm, will it?”

“What’s this?” Verona asked, interested.

“There’s a ritual that you can enact, that ties you to an Other.  It will give you some talents or skills, and in exchange, you give it a taste of mortality.  As Alpeana alludes, it can be a break from their standard responsibilities or the demands they have for certain foods.  A vampire, for example, would not need to drink blood.”

“Ye’d be as dumb as a tit without a curve in it if ye picked a vampire, I’ll tell you that,” Alpeana said.

“Why?” Verona asked.  “Also, I want to know everything about this.”

“Vampires?” Alpeana asked.

“Familiars!” Verona said.

“Vampires are not what they are in your media,” Miss said.  “The closest analogue would be a drug addict in your world, penniless, desperate, and ground down by reality.  Should you find one, it will likely be more scared of you than you are of it.  Even if you weren’t a practitioner, it would be so.”

“Got it,” Avery said.  “Sad.”

“The Seal of Solomon was far harsher to them than it was to most.  Practitioners who want to extend their power and raise their status will often pick a Familiar.  Some families will have their children take a familiar early, to establish a firm bond with one kind of Other.  The Familiar grants power, awareness, and some extra innate ability, depending on what it is.  Powerful or insidious familiars may overwhelm you through that connection that is formed, so be wary.  Know your strength.”

“And in exchange, they become mortal?  They don’t have to eat?” Lucy asked.

“Alpeana would not need to work.  An Other in the process of falling apart, such as the Girl by Candlelight, who became the Edith you now know, might be shored up.  An option they could not take, because the Doom Matthew now houses would have destroyed them both.  Faerie might seek it out to enrich their understanding of human experience.  A goblin would be free to be active for more than a few hours at a stretch, when they normally sleep for twenty or so hours every day, and they would have easy passage over places with power and running water.”

“Sounds great,” Avery said.  “Aside from the risk of getting too big a familiar, why wouldn’t we do this?  Why wait?”

“Because it is a lifelong commitment.  The Other would be with you until you died.  You would want to be sure he or she was committed to the responsibility, that he or she was compatible with you.  Families that choose familiars for their children will pick suitable and safe ones, negotiating well in advance, if they don’t simply expect their child to adapt.”

“We were going to ask about ways to level up, and get stronger in case we ran into more trouble,” Avery said.

“There are two more ways.  The implement is a tool that would shape how you use the practice.  A lifelong commitment to being someone who wields a sword in coordination with the practice, if you will.  It would shape how others see you and how the practice responds to you.  It could be a cup, a wand, a scroll, or any other thing that reflects you as an individual.”

“Could I pick my cell phone?” Avery asked.

“The ways of Others are old and cell phones are new.  The cell phone you picked today might well be outdated in two years, and forgotten in twenty.  I would gently suggest, Avery Kelly, that if one’s first thought is a cell phone, they aren’t ready to pick an implement.”

“The other choice one may make is to pick a demesnes.  One place that will become yours, in which you are the true arbiter of its rules.  If you have a place in mind, I could elaborate.  But again, be aware-”

“It’s a lifelong commitment?” Verona asked.

Something to think about.

Verona liked to think that Alpeana was more her wavelength, if she had to pick one now.  Dark, easy to get along with, and Verona felt like she kinda got and liked what Alpeana did, in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe if she formed a firmer bond with the mare, she could find a way to get her dad to a better place.

Implement?  Maybe a pen, like her feather pen?

Demesnes?  She would rather skin a leg and foot and wade through salt than lock herself down to any one place.

They walked through the pouring rain, crossing more rope bridges.  They slowed as they approached a lumbering figure, faceless, that had three echoes gripped in its hands, one of the echoes a complex, interlinked series of images, the other two small and fading.  It plunged all three into the river.

One of the echoes screamed inarticulately.  It projected something over the area, and Verona could see that something like a light that didn’t shine, spreading out over the area.

It hit her, and she found herself choking.  Lucy and Avery did the same.

“It’s just a trace of a fading memory,” Miss said, encouraging, one hand in her pocket and the other holding the umbrella.  “Bear with it.”

The local Others seemed to be more densely packed in one area of the city, near the downtown area, and the five of them, three girls, one Miss, and one mare, investigated as much as they could without passing under the nose of the strange Others of the Ruins.

Verona was glad Alpeana had been right.  That the local Others weren’t that interested in humans.  They chased echoes by lumbering footsteps and awkward movements.  Echoes were off in their own little worlds, memories walking in circles, as Alpeana had put it.

“This is the Arena,” Avery said.

It was where the Others had congregated in the greatest numbers.  Echo and Ruin-Other alike.

“You said that was where the Carmine Beast died?”

“We traveled a circuit of all the other realms, including here, shortly after its demise, to be sure,” Miss said.

“I did this one,” Alpeana said.  “There was naught and nothin’.”

“There’s something going on now.”

“Aye,” Alpeana said, her brows knit together in concern.

They navigated the rope bridge, crossed to the sidewalk, and weaved across the parking lot, avoiding the Others who congregated and stood nearby.

Circling around the back, they found more echoes and other Others.

Blood streaked the lot.  Like something huge had been dragged, leaking blood all the while.

The streaks continued to the side road by the decrepit, rain-worn building.  They disappeared into the darkness there.

“You missed this?” Verona asked.

“I came this way weeks ago, and this wasnae here,” Alpeana said.  “Even last week.”

“Was the Carmine Beast’s body stowed here?” Lucy asked.  “Did someone move it, and recently?”

Nobody had an easy answer.

“This is tricky, because I fear that what I say next will make you suspicious of me.  I swear to you my intentions are for what is best for Kennet, and I have no part in this, no malfeasance in mind.  I am not attempting to distract you from this task we’ve charged you with, but-”

“But you want to handle the more immediate problem?” Verona asked.  “The augur who is spying on Kennet?”

“Please,” Miss said.  “As horrible as it may be to say, the Carmine Beast is a problem that will balance out and remedy in time.  The loss of Kennet as the haven it is may be something we can never recover from.”

Verona stared at the landscape around them, at the streaks of blood.  She tried to find details, and found little.  No footprints, nothing left behind but the occasional hair as long as her arm, or bit of clotted blood.  Some Others were imbibing the stuff.

Was that a problem?  Did that give them some of the Carmine Beast’s power, or was the power more like a role, given to the person who had the entirety of the meat, fur, and bone?

Reluctantly, they left the scene behind.

Verona couldn’t help but wonder why?  Assume that in a world with Faerie who could set plots that spanned centuries, and augurs could see the future, there were no coincidences…

Was someone using the distraction of tonight’s events to move the body?  Because they’d gotten too close?

She didn’t want to ask out loud, because she couldn’t be positive Alpeana or Miss weren’t involved.  She hated that, because she trusted Alpeana as much as she maybe trusted John, which was eight-out-of-ten trust.  Both Alpeana and John could hurt them if they reverted to instinct, maybe, but… yeah.

They needed to have a serious meeting.

If it was stowed in the Ruins, does that mean an Other associated with the Ruins put it here?  Or could someone have put this mess here to make someone else look worse?

They continued their circuit around the town, and tried to identify the echoes with fresher wounds than the others.  They estimated directions and when one direction seemed to have fresher victims, they trended that way.  Lucy’s sight helped them identify the damage and get a better sense for the freshness of that damage.  The route took them west from the Arena.

Verona wondered how much time was passing.  Her phone had no battery, and it had been charged after school.

A ghost of a child sat near the church, bleeding from the neat black wound at its face.  Its hands were cupped, holding the portion of its face that the eyes should have been in, but the eyes were missing.  It was disintegrating, the top of its head gone.  Without the head to go by, Verona couldn’t guess at the gender or likely age.

“There’s a thread,” Avery said.

She pointed out into the rain.

They moved with more energy now.  It was a blessing and a curse that this was a place that used their mechanical legs to move.  A blessing because it let Avery move her full speed.  It wasn’t a subtle mire like the spirit world was.

But Verona was tired.  She trailed behind.  Rather than struggle to keep up, she kept to the suggestion from earlier, and tried to take in the bigger picture.  To look for traps, consider morals, and consider motivations.  She watched the flanks of the others, as they focused on their singular target.

She wanted to be better for Lucy.  She didn’t know what she wanted in the long term, whether she wanted to be Other, or what escape she might seek, or even how she was going to deal with her dad for the next five years before she could move out, but…

For Lucy?  For Avery?  Yeah.  She could focus her attention on that.

She’d been happier, before that conversation with Lucy, yesterday.  Happier to have a goal, to be certain in that goal, to have her friends at her back.  It was hard to avoid feeling a little resentful, even if she knew the resentment was unfair.

But she didn’t want to be her dad.  She didn’t want to be a user of people.  That was what was fucking with her the most.  That she’d almost fallen into that trap.

She scanned the surroundings.

A glyph hung in the air, over the ravine, a midnight blue against a background of black, cloaked in the rain that poured around them.  In the middle of that floating glyph was a large eyeball.  It blinked as it watched Miss and Alpeana.

Verona pushed herself, nearly slipping on the wet ground, the chasm of what should have been road to her left.  She fought to catch up to Lucy.

“Got a gun?” she asked Lucy.

Up ahead, the others had stopped at a street corner.  They might have seen what they were after, but for right now, Verona was focused on watching the flanks, and she’d found something there.

“I have a can in my bag.”

Lucy shrugged out of one strap, letting her bag drop down to where it was more accessible.  Verona got it open, reached in until she touched cool aluminum, and pulled out the can, pressing it into Lucy’s hand.

Lucy made the aluminum, logo-embossed handgun.  “Why?  Think we might need it?”

Can’t explain if we’re being watched.

“Miss!” Verona called out, tapping Lucy’s arm, getting Lucy to stop jogging.

The woman with the umbrella turned partially, the umbrella still tilted so the edge of it blocked her face.

Verona pointed at the glyph, using her other hand to lift up Lucy’s gun, moving it in the same general direction.  “Should we destroy it?”

“With prejudice, if you please,” Miss said.

Lucy aimed, squaring herself off, her eyes crimson.

The glyph swayed, jerking to one side, then the other.

Verona pressed one hand against Lucy’s ear, one hand against her own, choosing the ears closest to the guns.

It fired, loud in the hiss of rain in this strange place.

The bullet didn’t hit the eye itself, but it hit the edge of the symbol.  The floating symbol with the eye centered in it was shattered, the eyeball dropping out and dissolving much as the echoes had.

“That will sting, if not partially, temporarily blind her,” Miss said.  “We should finish the task.”

“Finish?” Verona asked.  She and Lucy caught up to Miss.  Lucy tossed the gun into the chasm, and it became a can as it left her hand.  Litterer.

“Guilherme and John will be looking for her, but an Augur is well forewarned,” Miss said.  “She will get away, unless we do something, and if she gets away, she will likely bring the practitioners of western Ontario down on our heads.  Or at least, a half-dozen more practiced augurs from her family.”

“You want to kill her?” Lucy asked.

“No.  Murder will bring its own problems.  I think, as dangerous as it may sound after your recent experience with Faerie, we must trust Guilherme to find an answer.  For now… we must complicate and confuse as much as we can, and give Guilherme the opportunity to reach her.”

They met Avery and Alpeana at the corner of the crosswalk.

On the opposite corner of the crosswalk, an Other was bent over an echo of Melissa, with a destroyed ankle and freshly destroyed eyes.  It was long-limbed, its face an expanse of black with no features, and it wore a necklace strung with bleeding eyes.  The eyes looked this way and that, as the Other ducked its head down.  One clawed hand reached to the necklace, lifting one draping end away from the neck and over its head.

“The gunshot alerted it,” Avery said.  “It sees us but doesn’t know what to do about us.  If we approach, it might run.  It looked fast.”

“I have a card for blinding flashes,” Verona told the others.  “I’m not sure the rain wouldn’t wash at the ink though.  Mabye if I kept it dry and got closer?  I could try glamour, to make an image.  We could bait it in with an image of an echo with big, juicy eyes.  Pug tier.  Or eyes like that one actor.”

“It uses eyes unlike yours, and senses beyond ours.  I think it would not be fooled, unless you were very skilled about it.  Rain would shorten the duration of the glamour.”

Lucy bent down over her bag, and sorted through it.  She pulled out a packet.  A folded paper, and she held it close to her.

“Trust a faerie to know when we might need something,” Lucy said.  She looked at Miss.  “Any tips?”

“Follow the instructions.  Trust that a clever use at a dramatic moment may be closer to what she intended than a trap might.”

“I wouldn’t have long,” Lucy said.  “If rain washes away glamour.”

“No.  Less than a minute.”

“What do I do when I get close?  Take the necklace?”

“Subdue it.  Try not to kill it.”

There were four rope bridges at the crosswalk, one for each path that pedestrians might have used to cross.  Lucy went after Alpeana.  After some consideration, Verona and Avery went along the other bridge to the next corner, until a single rope bridge stretched between them and the Other.

It went from a four-limbed crouch to a standing position, tall and looming.  It backed away a step.

Verona and Avery backed away too, until it eased a bit.  It moved the necklace with one hand, the eyeballs darting around and looking at everything nearby.  Lucy at the one corner, Verona and Avery at the opposite one.

Miss, Verona, and Avery at the opposite one; Miss stood behind them.  She murmured, “If it returns to the Augur with this harvest of eyes, she’ll soon have more observation glyphs like the one you destroyed.  I imagine she’d be able to keep an eye out for interruptions and disturbances, while harvesters like this collected more eyes.  They would be harder to catch off guard like this.”

Verona looked in Lucy’s direction.  Lucy was gone.

She blinked, searching, looking- and she saw only a blur.  A denser patch of rain.

The rain washed away, if such a thing could happen, revealing Lucy as she was two paces from the Other.  It scrambled back, away from her, and Alpeana crawled out of the crevice, leaping onto its back, vomiting blackness over its necklace.

Avery and Verona ran toward it, but running and a rope bridge made for bad times.  They swayed, found their balance and footing, and progressed a bit more carefully.

Lucy stuck her knife into the Other’s calf, then swung an axe that might’ve been made from a book at the other leg.

The Other collapsed as Verona and Avery drew close.  Together, they climbed onto its back.  Verona kicked wildly at one elbow as it tried to use a hand to push itself to a standing position.

“Make a circle,” Miss said.  “This will be a very quick lesson in binding.”

“In this rain?” Lucy asked.  She moved forward on her knees, shaking, her eyes wide.  She put a knife to the necklace of eyeballs, and cut the cord.  The Other groped blindly as Avery snatched the necklace away.

“Find a way.  Anything will do.  It’s defeated, we only need the formality.”

Verona pulled her bag open, and began tearing loose sheets of paper from her bag.  She pressed them down into the sidewalk, letting the rain wet them down into place.

When she was done, Lucy offered her a marker from her own bag.  Verona quickly drew out a shaky circle, extending from one piece of paper to the other.  By the time she reached the place the circle had stared, the permanent ink was kind of bleeding.  It wasn’t washing away, though.

“Now demand it return to its master and do its utmost to weaken her and harangue her.”

“Returning a summoning the same way we might return a curse?” Verona asked.

“Hey, eye-thief,” Lucy said.  She stood on the thing’s back, and she did her best to stand upright, back straight, hands on her hips.  Her hood was up, her hat was on, but both were soaked. The eyes of the fox mask glowed red.  “You heard what she said.  Return to the one who summoned you.  Ruin her day, scare her-”

“Don’t kill her,” Avery said, her voice muffled by the deer mask.

Lucy nodded.  “Don’t kill her.  Slow her down, steal her things, and use your full talents to make her regret coming this way.”

“Then forget you saw us, and forget you saw everything here,” Verona said.

The Other raised a hand.  Verona, sitting on the thing’s shoulder, got ready to grab it or kick at the hand if it tried something.

The hand moved, two fingers together, in a smooth motion.

Verona shivered.  She wasn’t sure why that felt so meaningful.

“That’s agreement, it is in your power, and out of hers,” Miss said.  “Now let it go.”

Avery kicked at the papers Verona had laid down.  The circle was broken.  They moved away from the Other.

It paused, reaching blindly for the necklace.

“If this Nicoletta beats it, she gets the eyes, right?” Verona asked.

“Make do, Eye-thief,” Lucy said.

Injured, head bowed, it hobbled away.  As it traveled, it picked up speed, until the injuries seemed to be gone.  It disappeared off down the road.

“Thank you,” Miss said.  “We’ll have to trust Guilherme to handle the rest.  He’s canny.”

“We need more power if we’re going to be doing this stuff,” Lucy said.  “Weapons, the rest of the gifts.”

“I ken only help ye with tha travel,” Alpeana said.  “Speakin’ of.  We haf no reason to stay ‘ere.”

Verona took the mare’s hand, then took Lucy’s.

Avery took the other hand.

The mare jerked them to another place, much as she’d delivered them to the hall outside dad’s room, then to the ‘auld codger’ Clay’s place.  From torrential rain into light rain.  From cold into dull, humid heat.

Verona got her bearings, using her Sight to make out the mountains in the dark.  They were at the northwestern corner of Kennet.  Fast food shops had their glowing signs off to the east.

The Arena was one of the biggest buildings in Kennet, if not the largest.  The lights from the parking lot illuminated it.

It’s not just that there’s a local Other that’s involved.  They’re actively working against us, now?  Moving the evidence?  Or putting bait in front of our noses?

Lucy pulled out her phone.  She made a face.  “I’m already in trouble.  Now what?  Got any magic tricks for a homicidally angry mom, Miss?”

“Your mom’s nicer than that,” Verona told Lucy.  She checked her own phone.

Two in the morning.  Fuck.

“I’ve got ta finish me rounds,” Alpeana said.  “Well done, lassies.  Thank ye for tha assistance rendered.”

“I look forward to a long working relationship,” Avery said.

Lucy’s face had fallen.  She held her phone, glowing, but it dangled to her left, in fingers that gripped it so lightly it might have fallen into the shallow puddle at Lucy’s feet.

Oh, the Hungry Choir ritual had been tonight.  It happened at midnight.  Which meant-

Verona reached for Lucy’s hand, and lifted up the phone, securing it herself.  She looked at the screen.

Reagan was alive.  She’d sent a message and a picture.

And she was doomed.  It was obvious from the picture, and she’d admitted as such in her own words.

The girl they’d saved.  Somehow, the girl who had been lying in a sobbing heap last Tuesday had won tonight.  She’d taken seven different things from the other seven competitors, and swallowed them.  A twist of hair, meat on the bone, a ‘gulp’ of blood.  In the doing, she’d claimed seven eyes, including Reagan’s remaining one.

The Hungry Choir had its newest winner.