Author: Wildbow

Wild Abandon – 18.c | Pale

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Twenty seven days.  Have to make it to thirty.

Then forty-five.  Then sixty.

Liberty screamed in the background.

“You know I don’t like this blanket, Anthem.”

“Oh, War, put your sword to my throat.  If we happen to be in a situation where we need all three blankets, we can put that one between the two others- three others if we count the one packed away in the back, you shouldn’t even know it’s there.”

“It’s coarse and it prickles.  Even through other blankets.”

The screaming changed pitches.  Designed by Nature in her myriad facets to grate the nerves and test patience, to make the parent act on the child’s needs.  Screaming, like a drill at the tooth.

Nature couldn’t make a way to shut ears in the same way they shut eyes?

“My great aunt made it-”

“Which is one of the reasons I don’t burn it.”

“-Consider it a symbol more than anything we’re ever going to use.  A bit of heritage and family.  Please.”

Vicky approached Anthem and lightly took hold of his collar with both hands.  She feigned a smile.  “Get another one from the linen cupboard.  Please.”

He had responses he wanted to give.  The screaming continued in the background.  America shouted something.  He laid his hands over Vicky’s and pressed down until they went flat, pressed between his upper chest and his own.  He forced a smile.  “Yes dear.”

“And see to Liberty?  I’ve been checking on her all morning, I think she thinks something’s wrong.”

“Something is wrong.”

“Yeah.  You’re taking a vacation for once.  It’s such upheaval and disturbance in routine to that little mind.  A foreign concept.”

He took his great aunt’s blanket and carried it over to the linen cupboard, re-folding it with care.  “Our trip takes us close to Sheila and Glenn’s.”

“No, Anthem.”

“Would you give me a bit of leeway?” he asked from the hallway, frustrated now.  The screaming-  “A thirty minute conversation.  They’ll give us lunch.  It’s a better space for the kids to take a break from the car than any roadside stop, I know Sheila likes the Kanabō whiskey.  A bottle of that, we wouldn’t owe them anything else.”

“No.  They’re unsettling.  There’s something missing in them.”

He stopped in the doorway, a different blanket in his arms.  “That is the point.”

“I don’t want that around our daughters.  Not for thirty minutes.  Not for… however long.”

“God dammit!” he raised his voice.  “Vicky-”

“Don’t,” she said, firm, intense.  “Don’t shout while the girls can hear.”

Liberty howled in the background.

He controlled his volume.  “Give me something.  Anything.  Do you have to make this a struggle every step of the way?”

“You and me, the girls, we’re packing everything we need up, we’re getting in the car, we’re going to drive for hours while listening to mind numbing songs about dinosaurs and princesses, until the girls fall asleep, then we’ll listen to music on a low volume the rest of the way.  We’ll get to the beach, we’ll have a fucking vacation, Anthem, for once, we’ll spend the night, spend the day, and then we drive back with a pair of sandy, sleepy little girls.  No fucking detours, no cyclical fucking arguments, and no prickly fucking blankets.  Just happy fucking family memories.  Fucking please.”

He exhaled slowly through his nose.

“Would you please check on your baby daughter and make sure a strangeling isn’t knifing her in her crib?”

“There was one strangeling in the neighborhood, it didn’t even approach the house,” he said, as he left the room.  “Seeing me scared it off.  There’s been no signs of another in the area.”

“I’m glad.”

Liberty screeched, and didn’t even pause for a moment as she saw him, or when he picked her up.

“She’s crying!” America declared.

“I’m well aware,” Anthem replied, raising his voice over the sound.  “Pick up your toys, please.  Busy busy, work fast, work hard.  Don’t have a nap until we’re in the car.”

“I can’t sleep wough that!” America said, mocking an expression.  There was a word in that sentence that made it sound like she’d tried to say with and through and blended them together.

“Toys in the bin, hurry hurry,” he said, bouncing Liberty in his arms, padded diaper braced against a forearm, hand steadying her upper body.

America got busy with the task.

He leaned Liberty against his upper body, shifting into deeper, rumbly tones, “Toys in the bin, hurry, hurry.”

Usually that helped settle her down.  Not today.  Liberty groped at the air, pausing in the screaming to make inarticulate sounds.

“Mom is cranky, so let’s leave her alone and let her pack,” he told Liberty, but she was already screaming again.

Anthem got in America’s way as she went back and forth, very inefficiently putting things away.  He made it worse, becoming an obstacle, putting a leg out to trip her.  All in good fun- he caught her when she actually did trip, moving shin against stomach.  She liked the challenge of it.  She grabbed his pants leg to steady herself as she moved around him.

Liberty pitched her scream higher.

“What is going on with you?” he asked.  He checked her backside.  “Diaper?  Nope.  I know you ate.  Stomach too full?  Nope.  Ohhh, this is going to be a quote-unquote ‘fun’ car ride, I can tell.”

“Fun!?” America asked.

“It’ll be something, I’m sure.  And then we’ll be at the beach!  When’s the last time you were at the beach?”

“I don’t reamber.”

“You don’t remember?  Ohhh.”

Liberty’s little fist grabbed at his shirt.  Just like your mom just now, he thought, and he smiled.  She screamed in his face.

“If you grow up to rail against your enemies with half the fury you’re displaying now, that’ll do you nicely,” he told Liberty.

“What’s that mean?” America asked.

“Baby mad.”

“She is mad,” America replied.

He put Liberty back in the crib.  “Finish putting your room away, and then pick out a bathing suit from your closet.  Not the yellow one.  That one’s too small.”

“It’s gone.”

“It’s gone?  Ohh.  Where?”

“Trash.”

“Did Mom throw it out?”

America nodded.

“Okay.  Pick out another then,” he said, stroking her tousled blonde hair a few times, trying to pat it down into some semblance of order.

He collected some things from the bathroom and went back into his room.

Vicky lay face down across one of the luggage cases.

He almost dropped the bathroom things on the floor, then thought twice, depositing them onto one of the open cases, before dropping down to his knees on the floor next to her.  “Vicky.”

She was nonresponsive- and not as warm to the touch as he took hold of her head and neck.  Maintaining his grip on her neck, he moved her onto her back- not easy, even when he was strong and she was thin.  He brushed hair out of the way and checked her eyes.  One was bloodshot.  He checked airway-

On the third chest compression, he felt ribs break.

Taking it to thirty felt like brutalizing her.  He kept careful count, and it was the only thought that could occupy his head with the rest of the dull noise there.

“No,” he panted out the word, before breathing air into her lungs.  He watched her chest rise, then leaned back, gasping in air, watching it sink.

They’d given them six months.  There would be symptoms in the meanwhile, they’d said.

He breathed air into her lungs again.

The plan had been to take it to thirty days, best they could, reassess, then take it to forty-five.  Then sixty.  All the way to one hundred and eighty.

They hadn’t even reached thirty before issues?  What the hell was that?

He started the brutal, rib-grating chest compressions again.

Liberty continued to wail.

“Daddy!” America called out.  “I want my mermaid tail!”

“It’s packed!” he shouted.  He looked over his shoulder, and abandoned the compressions just long enough to get up, slam the door, almost in America’s face, just before she could step over and see.  He locked it.  “Go to your room, okay, honey?”

He resumed the compressions.

Don’t let the end of us be a shitty little argument.  Come back.

“Why are you mad, daddy!?” America shouted.

“I’m not mad, honey!” he shouted, grunting out the words.  “Go to your room!  I love you!”

This wasn’t one of the symptoms they’d said to expect.  A sudden and immediate end, no warning.

He reached thirty and breathed for her again.

Somewhere in those thirty quick compressions, this went from an issue they could come back from to a certainty.  Nothing was changing.  She wasn’t responding.  She wasn’t warming- just the opposite.

Come back for five seconds.  Enough I can say something kind.

He stopped, and went for her bag, pulling clothes out.  There were pill bottles- but that wasn’t everything.  Where was it?  Where was it?  She had to have packed it.

Had she put it in his bag, instead?  A petty move to make his bag a fraction heavier?

He pulled out all the clothes, searching.

He got up, unlocked the door, and stepped out into the hall.  America was looking just past the door.  Liberty wailed.

“Stay in your room, America.”

“You’re crying.”

Bathroom cupboard.  A nice engraved box.  He popped it open.

Three vials, no fluid.  Healing draughts, empty.

“You were supposed to tell me!” he roared.  “If you used them, you were supposed to tell me so I could get more!”

He reached her side again, beginning the compressions, because he didn’t know what else to do, and maybe it could buy a fraction of a second if he could think of something.

A shitty fucking argument over a wool blanket and a detour.  Her patience low because she was dying.  His patience low because she wouldn’t fucking consider options.

A fight and a struggle for the alchemy.  She wouldn’t talk to Sheila and Glenn.  She wouldn’t talk to Eliana.  No shamans, no medical doctors.  She’d been tired of being sick for years, tired of any number of things that only postponed, only partially fixed.  They hadn’t had the resources that real solutions would take, and she’d wanted any money they had left to go toward investing in the kids, and in memories.  She’d wanted to breastfeed Liberty.

He eventually stopped the compressions, and hugged her upper body to his.

Liberty’s screaming stopped.  The light in the room got unbearably bright as the light cloud cover parted.

“Daddy?”

He looked at the time.  It had been hours.  How had it been hours?

“Can we go?  Beach today.”

He put Vicky down, and then picked himself up off the ground.  He’d been in fights, but he felt more battered from kneeling in one position, and from the exertion.

He unlocked and opened the door, and scooped up America, closing the door behind him.  Then he got Liberty, who’d cried herself to sleep.  She didn’t protest much as he gathered her up in his other arm.

He took them outside, leaving the door open behind him, and settled each into their car seats.  He’d planned to go back to the house to close the door behind him, but now that he was the thirty feet away, he couldn’t bring himself to venture closer.  He sorted them out, no bags, no things for a stay elsewhere, double-checking the car seats were secure.

He pulled out, driving through the secluded forest routes, and got his cell phone.

He didn’t know who to call.

There was no ‘best’.

“Daddy, dinosaur song!”

“After.  Let me call a friend,” he said.  He chose the closest person.  “Quiet, okay?”

“Anthem Tedd,” was the reply.  “I didn’t think you’d call.”

“A.J.  I left the front door open.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re close, aren’t you?  To my place.”

“Yeah.  I think so, at least.”

“I left the front door open.  I’d appreciate it if you could send someone.  Close up the place.  Look after-” he stopped.  He could see America in her car seat.

“I’m sorry.  I consider myself pretty clever, but I don’t follow.”

“Vicky.  I’m not in a position to manage it.”

“She’s- oh.  Oh, I’m sorry, Anthem.”

“The girls are in the car.  Don’t say anything more than that.  I won’t return to that house.  If you could send someone to close it up and take care of Vicky’s affairs, the first steps, I can handle the rest.  I’ll pay you back.”

“I’ll go myself.  You don’t owe me anything.  Do you want the place sorted?  Books and things?  To be delivered wherever you end up?  I could even arrange for it to be sold.”

“Yes. All of that.  Thank you.”

“I’ll see to it.  Tedd?”

“Musser.”

“Do I need to worry?  About you?”

“No,” Anthem decided.  He looked in the rear-view mirror at the girls.  America impatient, Liberty dozing, red-faced.  “I’ve got the girls to look after.  Taking them to the beach.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Call, okay?  If you still don’t know, later.”

“Alright.  Hanging up.”

A.J. Musser’s response was cut off by Anthem hitting the plastic button on the heavy duty cell phone.  He put the music on, but he also opened his window, letting the rush of wind drown out most of it.

He hadn’t brought anything.

They could play naked on the beach.  They were little.  They could buy clothes and anything else they needed.  There would be mermaid tails and things for sale at places along the way.

His head pounded, probably from dehydration.  He’d cried himself dry, holding his wife.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, honey?” he asked.  Every word had to be measured, so it could pierce the hurt.

“Are you mad?”

“Mad?” he asked.  “Why would I be mad?”

“You look mad at me.”

He moved the rear view mirror, and saw his own eyes.

With the hurt was an anger.  That much was clear in the redness, the lines around his eyes, and the long stare.

That it felt like she’d given up.

“So you want to do this.  Alright.”

She stared at him, glaring past the eyeholes of her fox mask.

I’ll at least respect your tenacity enough to not hold back.

He drew his gun on the Ellingson girl.  A ward at her shoulder glowed through the minute gaps in her sweater, and the smooth movement of the gun was stalled- a pressure, like pushing into denser air.

Her hand went up, pushing his hand up and away, and between the hand and the pushback of the anti-metal ward, she had the momentary advantage.

He stepped back and away- and she didn’t let him, moving in close, drawing something from her pocket.  A gray marker with a gold cap.

It transformed- becoming a trident, gold-brass head, gray shaft.  Wicked points aimed at his chest.

He ignored it, reaching a hand out for the points.

She shifted her stance, aiming the trident not for him, but for the gun.  He wasn’t surprised.

She didn’t have that kind of killer instinct.  It was a feint, trying to scare him, buying herself the opportunity to catch the end of the gun in between the tines of the trident.  He was already pulling the gun back, elbow as bent as he could manage it, twisting his body, ready to fire past his chest and outstretched arm to her.

He reached for her, and she moved, turning her back to him as she rotated around the very end of the trident, keeping the shaft between them, to block his reaching hand.

He went to grab the shaft, stopping just in time as the trident became a lengthy curved scimitar.  She looked back past her own shoulder and moved the tip of the scimitar to the tip of the barrel.

Lengthy scimitar became lengthy rapier, the tip remaining positioned where it was, to thrust directly into the barrel.  She ducked down, and the fragile, needle-thin blade broke off inside the barrel.

From the duck, she dropped to all fours, wavering slightly-

Was she hurt from earlier?  Or had that practice of weapon changing taken something out of her?

Didn’t matter.  He took advantage of the moment of weakness and kicked.  She twisted around and caught his foot, gripping it for balance even as she forfeited it elsewhere.  She only managed to push the foot as it came at her, thrusting herself away rather than take the direct hit, falling again.

“You’d rather fight me than face her and talk to her?” Ellingson asked, as she got to her feet.

“Sorry, but fighting you is closer to being nothing than it is to changing my mind,” Anthem admitted.

She straightened.  He shook the gun, seeing if it would dislodge anything caught inside, or at least produce a meaningful rattle.  When it didn’t, he aimed it at her and pulled the trigger.  She chose that same moment to touch her shoulder, turning it toward him.

The gun jarred in his hand, more than it should, and no bullet was produced.  The ward she’d touched wasn’t even necessary.

He could smell burned plastic.

“Why are you unwilling to change your mind?  Is it cowardice or stupidity?” Ellingson asked.

“Years of experience.”

“That sounds like it’s both cowardice and stupidity.  Experience means listening to the people that matter.”

“Are you going to talk to me or are you going to fight?  Because if you’re not going to fight, let’s call this now and go our own separate ways.”

“Do you love your daughters?”

“Stupid question.”

“Then why won’t you listen to them!?  You won’t listen to them, you won’t listen to us, you shoot a bunch of innocents like they’re nothing, and the only person you seem to care about is Abraham fucking Musser.  There’s something really fucking wrong with this picture.”

“Because the picture doesn’t include you, and you weren’t invited to view it.  Tedd family affairs have next to nothing to do with you.  Walk away.”

“What family?  Those kids deserve so much better than you.  You were going to bind Toadswallow?  And you don’t even realize how fucked that is?”

“He was a different goblin then, I was a different man, the girls needed him.  I thought it was a decent compromise.”

“Did he get a say in that compromise?”

“He left.  A shame it didn’t do more to shatter their illusions about what the goblin and goblins are about.”

“Do you hear yourself!?”

He reached into his coat, and watched the girl tense.  Pulling out a card, he touched it to the gun, unraveling it into a series of dark lines.  It became a dark, inky sketch on the card, with words surrounding it, describing its state and various details of the weapon, including how recently he’d acquired it and the care he’d given it.  He could angle the card and let the scribbled, barely-legible text drift across the surface, giving other information.  It would need a good clean, with plastic caught in the rifling and mechanism.

With a movement, he put the card away and drew out two new ones.  The magic diagrams inlaid on the weapon were visible on the cards.

What was his best bet?  To try to overcome the strength of the diagram with his own raw power, a penetrative shot, or to aim for quantity and see if there was a gap?

“Want me to put out this fire?” Mr. Martin asked, behind him.

The wooden telephone pole was burning, and flecks were falling onto the hood of the car.

“Yeah.  If you would, Mr. Martin?”

“Scott.”

“Scott.  It’ll get us out of here faster.”

Anthem could see through the corner of his eye as Scott inhaled the smoke from the fire, then exhaled- and in the same way that the fog of Anthem’s breath appeared with every exhalation, curling and dissipating through the air, the smoke turned to spiders, many buoyed aloft by hot air.

The man blew harder, and all smoke became spiders, more dying in the flames- but that became an edge of black flecks that overtook the flame.  Even the glowing edges of the wood turned black, then the black became spreading masses of spider.

Anthem saw Ellingson shift her footing slightly away.  A moment of distraction, her eyes on Scott Martin.

His card became a gun.  The way she’d turned her shoulder toward him, the defense wasn’t absolute.  There might be gaps, and he knew the practitioners of this town had a lot of power behind them.

It was easier to get around that protection than to circumvent it.

She threw herself to the ground, casting out some glamour as she did.  A flash-

He was protected against that much.

And glowing fox forms darted out- four and a half.  One didn’t fully form and didn’t move far.  Each moved in a separate direction.

He didn’t even move the gun, but instead, hand on the slide of the pistol, touched a specific pattern of runes, feeling them warm under fingertips.

Sixteen.  Dividing the one bullet into sixteen, each with one sixteenth the ability to harm.  Which remained more than enough.  He looked down the sight with his Sight, and the scene split into sixteen fragments he could track all at once.

He aimed and fired.

Three light-foxes shot down, and the half light-fox executed where it was still floundering.  The fourth sprinted around his flank.

“Isn’t that cheating in spirit, Ellingson?  It’s not four shells with a ball under one.  It’s four shells and the one I pick last is the one with the ball?”

She passed behind a roadside streetlight, and he saw the lighting change by the smallest amount as the light-fox darted through.  Its texture changed, making the light more of an outline, the dark parts of it little more than the darkness that was already behind it.  He shot it, scattering the glamour, and wasn’t shocked when Lucy wasn’t there.

Shadow had separated from light, light carrying on, and shadow had gone up.  To the top of the streetlight.

“That has a drawback,” he declared, for the benefit of the spirits.

He touched spots on the slide of the pistol.  Thirty.

She split into three shadowy figures, jumping down toward him.

He shot them without needing to aim.  Each was hit by two or three bullets.  At this degree of division, each would feel like being hit with a backhanded swing of a swung crowbar, pointed end digging in.

He didn’t even look particularly hard to see which ones were glamour, and what the real Ellingson’s trajectory was.  He put a hand in position, let her land between him and the car, stumbling slightly, hand to her chest, and then slammed his forearm into her neck, shoving her into the vehicle.

He was mildly surprised when she fought back faster and harder than he’d anticipated, but he got control of her and shoved her back again.  He dismissed the gun, putting the card away.

“When there isn’t a clear final shell with the ball beneath, the universe, in all her penchant for fairness, is going to hand your enemy the ball.”

She coughed.

Her hand moved.  He reached over to catch it, and leaned in harder.  “No.”

Her other hand moved, and he brought his knee up, leaning in, knee at her armpit, where it caught the red sweater she wore, his leg blocking her access to her pockets and belt.  Her fingernails scratched at his jeans, groped.

He leaned in harder.

The window next to Ellingson’s head rolled down.

“Careful,” he warned.

Cyn, just inside, stopped it there.  “Do you need help?”

“Do I look like I need help?”

“Making the offer.”

“If you do want to help, I think the local Others are about a minute or two behind.  Watch out for the Oni in particular.”

“Stall?”

“Don’t get too far from the car.”

Cyn and Mark Cavendar got out of the car and headed down the street.

He turned his full attention to the gasping girl.  She struggled, her sweater producing a metal-on-metal screech.  That would explain the bullets not slowing her down that much..

“Stop,” he urged her.  “Good effort.  I like the multidisciplinary approach.  I like that weapon transformation technique enough I’d even trade you for it.”

Her face was flushed, each breath a struggle.  He could have choked her out better with a change in position, but he wasn’t about to forfeit the advantage he had now.  It would risk her slipping away.

Her hand gripped his elbow, fingernails trying to dig past the sleeve of his jacket.  She pulled down, trying to give herself reprieve.

“Go down.  I won’t kill you while you’re passed out.  I’ll leave you by the side of the road, I’ll call Cyn and Mark back, and your Others can collect you.”

She turned her head, fingernails scraping at his sleeve.  The metal of her sweater scraping against the car door gave away the fact she was making tiny amounts of progress in moving her hand.

And with the turn of her head, the nose of her fox mask grazed her fingers.

It transformed, muscles moving beneath the mask’s surface as it turned into one of the oldest weapons.  A fanged mouth opened, saliva strung between teeth.

He pushed himself away, narrowly avoiding having a chunk taken out of his arm.  He kicked her in the stomach as a parting gesture, which made her double over.

She took too long to recuperate.  The lack of oxygen and whatever it cost her to make those transformations added up, her one arm didn’t look like it had a lot of strength, and a heavy kick to her midsection took some of the fight out of her.

She made a sound – a strangled growl, like she wanted to talk but couldn’t quite.

He had his old Bladewarden’s sheath at his belt, loosely attached, tachi style blade nestled securely within.  It allowed him to move it around, so he could adjust the angle.  He moved it so the sheath was almost horizontal, the end pointed toward his belt buckle.

“Teach,” he said.  With a flick of his thumb, he brought the blade about a quarter-inch out of the sheath.  His Sight let him see the placement it would have.

A blade, about ten feet long and three feet wide sprung out of the dirt, blade pointed down.  Ellingson, lurching into a forward attack, tripped over it, falling hard into the sidewalk.

“Teach?” she asked.

It looked like he could knock her down a few more times and she wouldn’t have the strength to get up after.

“Cost of this particular weapon.  It’s powerful, but it’s meant to encourage being a good Warden.  I buy each use of it with one of its pledges.  For that one, hmmm, six hours of tutoring someone.”

“What the fuck are you going to teach anyone?” she asked, her voice hoarse.  “Misery?  America’s following you and it’s like… the light’s going out in her soul.  Her love for her sister is being poisoned by your shit.”

It took the entirety of the time of his response and her retort for her to get up off the ground.

In the distance, Cyn’s power flared.  Something went up in flames.

“If you’re trying to count some coup or reduce my ability to call on this power, don’t bother.  This brand of practice gets pretty rigid, very ‘rule of law’.  It only cares about me following through.  So long as I teach something in the right department-”

“Fuck off!” she shouted, and her hoarse voice cracked from the strain of shouting with a bruised throat.  “Answer me!  What are you leaving them with!?  What are you giving them, except heartbreak!?  Except damage!?”

“I’m not asking them to do anything I didn’t do myself.”

“They’re not you!” she shouted again, voice reedy, breaking again.  She clenched a fist.  It looked like she tried to clench the other, but it looked too weak to fully close.  “They’re not you!  Get your head out of your ass!  Teach!?”

“Okay now,” he said.  He reoriented the blade, flicked the edge blade again, moving it out of the sheath another fraction.  He didn’t need much.  “Secure.”

A blade sprung up to her left.  She startled, stumbling-

“And cleanse.”  Another flick.

Another blade to her right, which she crashed into the flat of.  It was thick enough it didn’t even wobble.

Boxing her in.  She found her balance, straightening, looking bewildered-

“Liberty seems like she’d be a really good teacher.  She’s good with kids.  And goblins,” Ellingson said, quiet.  “Did you know that?  Do you even know her?”

“I think she’d be very good at a lot of things.”

“You don’t get it.  She has passions, she has natural talents, and you’re not seeing it.”

“She’s free to be whatever she wants.”

“Why does she have to choose between having you and being- being soulless, like America is becoming, or not having you?  Is your head that firmly up your ass?”

“None of your business.”

“It’s hers.  Tell me so I can pass it on to her.”

“I made deals with family.  To have things, money, options.  To help those girls become great.  To make sure nothing, not war, not death, not nature, not time, not fate, not blood, nothing will stand in their way.  I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t open every possible door.  But they have to walk through.  They have to learn more things, take certain steps.  Today wasn’t anything abrupt.  I’ve told Liberty.  I’ve urged, I’ve made it clear what the family’s expectations are,” he said, his voice soft.  He repeated, “But they have to walk through those open doors to take advantage of that.”

“Or you emotionally destroy them?  Am I supposed to think that’s noble, you fuck?”

“No.  That’s the cost.  If they don’t walk through, I’ll still be here.  Holding those doors open.”

“Take it from someone who’s pretty much been there.  I think they’d rather you were with them instead of holding the door like some asshole.”

“Ahhhh.  I was wondering why you were fighting so hard for them.  It’s personal.  That’s a little disappointing.”

“You’re not hearing me.”

Cyn’s practice was like fireworks in the distance.

“I’m done listening.  You’ve trained hard.  Your effort gets you a brief conversation.  Train for twice as long, we’ll have a conversation that’s double the length in the future.”

“Fuck you.”

“Watch the tip.  Build.”  He adjusted the sheath so the handle pointed down and the sheath pointed up, bringing the blade out a little more.

The blade sprung up out of the sidewalk right in front of her, forcing her back-

“Anthem!” she roared.

He turned it the right way around.  “And Vigil.”

The last blade made up for the one behind her.  It was only a few feet high, big enough to step on and over- but a blade that jabbed down from an opening in the air to plunge down secured it.  Four giant blades forming a square around her, with her in the center.

“Miss, Miss, Miss,” she said, from within her confinement, voice muffled.

He felt her go.

“Spirits, mark this moment, Ellingson has withdrawn from the field of battle.  Let her practices against me hold less sway, into and through our next encounters.  I count my coup by way of victory.”

The air shifted.

He looked over at Scott, who was leaning against the damaged hood of the car, arms folded, cigarette between his lips.  The cigarette smoke thinned out to become strands, which had spiders at the upper ends.

“Sorry for the delay,” Anthem told him.

Scott grunted, shrugging.  “Kids, hm?  Would it bother you if I said I liked her?”

“In another situation, if we weren’t at odds, I wouldn’t mind her being friends with Liberty.  Sorry that my dirty laundry landed in your lap, even briefly.”

“Nevermind that.  Should we go?  I was already worrying my son was throwing a party while I was away, but with the way things are going, monsters attacking, you know, if it’s just a house trashed in a party, I’ll be glad.”

“Yeah.  A moment.”  Anthem clicked the blade back into place.  The blades all disappeared into the earth, leaving cracks where they’d emerged.

He noted the design on the sheath, with little inset crystals that glowed with inner light, marking the pledges he’d made.  Some he’d handle on his own, and soon, but others- he reached into his jacket and pulled out a horn, and tipped the invisible contents onto some of the crystals.  They went dark again.

It was a good tool for killing or containing very large things, and anything to do with War.  He was reluctant to use some of the pledges.  He wasn’t very good at art, for one thing, and it was awkward to follow through on fidelity to a lord.  If he used them, the cost in power to clear them away was consequently higher.

Two remained lit.  Teaching and Cleansing.  A few hours of tutoring, and ridding an area of a dangerous taint.  Projects for next weekend, he supposed.  The latter was something he was bound to do, with the Carmine’s attack on Ontario.

“Cyn!” he hollered.

“Yep!” was the answering call.

She started making her way back to him, making a fighting retreat.

He checked the wards on the car, then reached into a jacket pocket for a booklet.  He paged through.  “Let’s secure our trip.  A convoy would be better.”

“Ohh?” Scott asked.

“A minute spent organizing something now could spare us another delay if we’re attacked.  It’s a dark wilderness of the old style out there now.”

“Not complaining.  Let me know what I can do.”

Anthem used chalk to draw a sword symbol on the hood of the car, then took a needle and scraped it through the back of his hand, drawing the same.  He surrounded each with brief cuneiform scratches at eight points.

“Do you think she’s going to look for a rematch?” Scott asked.

Anthem snorted.  “With how upset she was?  Yes, I think so.  Couldn’t tell you if it’s going to be in five minutes or five years, but she won’t leave this alone.  She said as much.  It’s personal.  A stand-in for another fight.”

“Mmmm.”

“Speaking of stand-ins…”  He lapsed into Akkadian.  Joy of Battle.

Foreign and strange echoes approached from various angles, as a vague shadow formed.  Each crashed into the shadow like waves on rock, leaving behind traces and fragments, while the rest was absorbed inward.

After about twenty, the shadow’s edges had solidified into something hard, and the individual fragments and lines filled it in.

A version of Anthem, eyes wide and wild, a dark smile on his face.  A simulacrum, representing one facet of himself, the part that enjoyed the fight, the thrill of it.  That could smile even while blood was being shed, whether it was his own or someone else’s.

And a matching car, revving slightly.

Standing Watch.

Another version of himself.  Serious, eyes tracking the horizon.  Another car, engine off.

Towering Rage.

A mad attack dog.  Himself, pushed to the edge.  Angry, holding nothing back.

Bad Blood.

Enmity, hatred, resentment, disgust.  A version of himself that didn’t want to be here.  It was almost sleepy, distracted, but given provocation and a proper enemy, the Bad Blood shadow-echo would wake up.

It felt like he was moving through a range of echoes of himself that called on the recent fight.  The reactions Ellingson had had to him.

But moving on to others didn’t help.  He hated the next one.

Driven Despair.  It was the closest translation he’d come up with to it.

Quieter, contemplative, a planner.  Unlike Bad Blood, this one wouldn’t ‘wake up’.  It was slow to react, passive.  It rarely had a plan he hadn’t come up with himself, but a second brain helped, and it was especially good at recalling details he’d missed.

But it was a version of Anthem that kept its eyes down, lost in thought and grief of lost friends and family, and he was glad of that fact.  He didn’t like the rare occasions it made eye contact with him.

Shock and Awe.

And he was back in safer territory.  A version of himself that was quick, surprising, intimidating, but just as easily caught off guard.

Crippling Fear.  Mean, in a very different way from Towering Rage.  Intimidating.  It liked mind games, hurting and beating someone by crushing will rather than shedding blood.

And finally, to tie them together, Brother in Arms.  Trust, alliance, teamwork.

Each had its own car, each car in a different state.

Cyn had slowed as she approached, Mark Cavendar right behind her, hand at his shoulder.

“Is he hurt?”

“Shot.  I can heal him, but let’s do it in the car.”

“There’s a Dog Tag circling around.  I shot him,” Mark said.  “It’ll come back.  And where there’s one, there are probably others.”

“Good man,” Anthem said.  He motioned toward the car.

Cyn took the long way around, lifting up the hood momentarily.

“You know cars?”

“I work cars when I’m not doing practice.”

“Good.  We’re okay?”

“Headlight’s out.  Besides that, it wasn’t too hard a knock.  You’ll want to go in for body repair,” she noted.

“We’ll make do.”

“Can we fake something?” Scott asked.  “I can’t shake the feeling that if we get pulled over, we’ll also get ambushed.  It feels like the way the spirits flow.”

“Agreed,” Cyn said.  “The heat from the fire melted the insulation.  I don’t suppose you have a spare, and some of the wires?”

“Yeah,” Anthem answered.  “I have nearly everything.  I stay supplied.  It’s in the back.”

They were just opening the hatch at the back of the car when he heard it.  A high howl combined with a scream, echoing across Kennet below.

“Seems five minutes was closer to the mark than five years,” Scott commented.

“Seems she’s really pissed,” Mark Cavendar threw in.

“That’s her?” Anthem asked.  “Ellingson?”

“Sound carried by spirits.  And implement,” Scott replied, nodding.

A streak of fire cut across the night sky.

It detonated like a firework.  Not that far off from directly overhead of them.

Anthem-Standing-Watch whistled lightly, jerking his head.

Anthem turned his head, looking… and saw the Dog Tag.

He drew a card for one gun, abyss tainted, and fired.

That would keep them down for longer.

Anthem-Standing-Watch whistled again, but he was able to draw a handgun from his hip, because Anthem kept one on his person often enough it was part of his template, which the simulacrums borrowed.  He shot a second Dog Tag, the gunshot echoing through the night.

“Maybe skip the headlight,” Cyn murmured.

There were three heavy bags of supplies.  One for weather emergencies, one for car repair, and one for obscure practice things and camping.  There was a surprising overlap in the last two, so they went in one bag.  He lifted one out, passing it to Cyn, then slammed the hatch.

Anthem-Standing-Watch whistled, a more nuanced sound, drawn out.

Anthem’s-Joy-of-Battle, smiling, began to chuckle.

“She stirred up the Undercity.”

“Calling in all the chips,” Anthem said.  He climbed into the car.  The others followed suit, his other selves getting into their roughly identical vehicles, some in different shades of wear and tear or loving attention.

“Don’t smoke in the car,” he told Scott, as he belted in and turned over the engine, hoping there wasn’t damage Cyn had missed that would keep the car from starting.  It seemed fine.

“Is it the smoke or the spiders that are bothering you?” Scott asked, in a bemused tone.  “I can solve one by opening a window, and solve another by not using practice.”

“It’s not that either bother me, it’s that I love my vehicles, I care for them, and I respect them.  Don’t smoke in them.”

Scott flicked the cigarette out the window, leaning out to exhale.

No major issues, except a nasty grating as he reversed a few feet.

“Anthem!”

It was Anthem’s-Driven-Despair.  Anthem motioned and Scott Martin leaned out of the way.

“They have an augur.  The undercity one.”

“True.  Birds.  Watch!”

Anthem-Standing-Watch turned.

Anthem reached into his coat for cards, pulled one out and whipped it at his counterpart.  The man glanced momentarily at it, then shook it out, until it became a leather thong and a small bag.

“You know what that does?”

The other Anthem nodded, his eyes tracking the skyline.

There were people moving through Downtown, leaving buildings.  Moving in groups.  A few jogged forward, moving in a jerky way, as if they were competing with one another to be the ones in the lead, but not wanting to be too in the lead, because they’d be the first ones attacked.

“Kid’s got an army at her disposal.”

“Not quite hers, but you’re not entirely wrong either,” Anthem said.  He shifted gears and pulled out.

Anthem’s-Joy-of-Battle peeled out, swerving, and the crowd hurried out of the way as he drove straight at them, his laughter barely audible.  Anthem’s Towering Rage had an assault rifle and used it, firing in controlled bursts.

Always one in the back, under the seat.  It fit the car’s template, same as Anthem having a gun at his hip, blade at hip and ankle.

“They’re not real,” Mark said.

“What’s that?” Anthem asked.

He caught only a couple of seconds of the action.

“They’re glamour, I think.  Or very glamour-like illusion.”

“Glamour,” Scott Martin murmured.

They were.  As the rifle’s shots cut through their lines, they crumbled into dust, rather than crumpling over as bullet-riddled bodies.  And behind them were others- ones without clear faces, fine if they were at the back of the group, but obvious now that the ones in front had fallen.  They existed as connective tissue, and without the ones in front, many of them fell apart as well, or they stumbled forward, blind.

Anthem-Standing-Watch honked, and swerved.  Anthem followed his cue.

Something crashed down onto the lane of the road to Anthem’s left.  Some construction that had been on top of one of the undercity’s buildings.

Another honk.  Too late for one of the other cars.  There was a bang, and tires squealed.

Anthem swerved, avoiding that tract of road, pulling into the lot of the graffiti-ridden gas station with, of all things, a pair of pink panties worked so the hose stuck through the leg holes.  There were people there too, older teens and twenty-something boys and girls springing to their feet, sprinting over, hoping Anthem would slow.

Anthem’s-Shock-and-Awe led the way, followed by Bad Blood and Crippling Fear.

Something was thrown from a window.  Big.  Anthem honked, a quarter-second behind Anthem-Standing-Watch’s warning honk.

It crashed into Bad Blood’s windshield, caving it in.  A teenage boy wearing a hockey helmet and pads and nothing else.  The vehicle skidded to a stop.

The ward on Anthem’s car went off, and the scratched-in marker for that ward on the car’s dash glowed, telling him it was the roof.  Something else had been thrown at their car.  He spotted it in the rear-view mirror.  It might have been a bag of shit.  A full, black, garbage-on-the-curb bag.

They knew which car was his, now, if they couldn’t tell by Sight.

The tunnel that went under the highway and out of this place was in view, now, at least.

Standing atop the highway was a figure with purple eyes.  And across the way, people were still running across the road, leaving things behind- furniture, pallets, a toilet that was dropped partway across, where it shattered, parts littering the ground.

“Cyn.”

“How are the wards on this car?” she asked.

“Weaker than they were but sufficient.”

Cyn opened her door and leaned out, gripping the inside handle of the car.  Anthem’s side-view mirror caught the glow as one of Cyn’s personal shrines came to life.

Black lightning began to fire out, targeting the thinnest parts of the way through.  Whatever it hit was obliterated- a half-couch turned into particles, half of the toilet turned into a smear of white grit, the other half sent spinning off the side of the road with enough force it hit the slight edge of the sidewalk and flipped through the air before falling into a ditch.

Anthem’s eyes scanned the area- was there a trap behind the barrier?  Runes on tunnel walls?

Hayward, the one with the cat mask, she was a trickster of a different brand.

He drove, trusting Cyn to tell him if she couldn’t clear the way, his eyes more on Hayward, above.

Was she dropping something over the railing, when he thought the coast was clear?

“Spirits are licking their metaphorical little lips,” Scott said, leaning forward to better look up.  “Something dramatic.”

Felt wrong.  “Inside!”

Cyn swung her way inside, slamming the door after her.  He honked, and hit the brakes.

He stopped, nose roughly at the point where the barricade had been.

There was a dull flash, and then a rumble.  Anthem’s Sight painted lines from bridge to ground.

No.  She wasn’t dropping anything over the edge.

She dropped the bridge, collapsing the tunnel.  The rumble got intense enough to rattle the car, and everything went dark as the dust cloud rolled out, briefly obscuring even the headlights.

“I take it they’re trying to kill us?” Mark asked.

“The car is warded.  We would’ve been alive, but trapped.  Now we’re…”

“Still trapped?” Mark asked.

“Cyn?  Scott?”

“There’s ways from the above to the below.  At least closer to the cabins.  We didn’t really explore the possibilities this far to the north of town.”

“We need ones a car can travel,” Anthem said.  He drew his gun, using his Sight as he swept the area.  He didn’t have much use for the investigative side of the Sight, so he’d tuned it into something complementary to various tools and practices.  Trajectories, lines of effect, areas that would be included in any blasts.  A laser sight or laser guidance for anything, whether it was a gun or a large scale explosive.  Incoming or outgoing.

Having a gun in hand helped focus that Sight.  As he swept through the smoke, he sensed something closer.  Something big.  He fired.

It pinged.

The figure was a man, burly, wearing improvised equipment.  Duct tape and the sort of bulletproof plexiglass that was put up in high-crime areas, plus various bits of armor.  He charged forward, slamming the plexiglass against the windows on the one side of the car, leaning in, to block the doors from opening.  Bearded, grinning, the man shouted, “I’m unstoppable, motherfuckers!”

They weren’t all glamour.

Other denizens followed, ducking through the dust-thick air.  A pair of people with some kind of cobbled-together boot for the car tire, with spikes pointing inward, and two bike locks.  They slammed it into place.

Anthem drew the other one of the two guns he’d considered using on Ellingson earlier.  He’d used the one that went for quantity.  There was another meant for penetrating barriers.  Practice and…

The ‘unstoppable’ man went down.  Others backed off.  Practice and other kinds of barrier.

Anthem opened his car door, stepping outside, relying on the Sight and the movement of the gun as much as he used his eyes.  Neither was perfect, but the two together was enough.  He bent down and pulled the makeshift boot away.  They hadn’t had time to lock it.  Good.

“Ellingson!” he called out.  “I thought you were a duelist!”

“Anthem.”  The voice carried through the smoke, coming from no direction in particular.  “That’s a label Alexander came up with, from an early initial read.  It’s not accurate.”

“If you’re using your own temporary army, I’ll call in my own forces.  I don’t think you want me to do that.  It’s up to you.  One on one, or your group against mine.”

Cyn released another blast of pure destruction, shooting through the smoke.

Scott was breathing in the dust in the air.  Slowly transforming it.  Deep breath in, deep breath out.  The cloud around him thinned out into strands with every exhalation, bowing away from him as he breathed out, bowing toward him as he breathed in, expanding out.  It resembled a woman’s hose developing runs.  The strands were webbing.

It had been a long time since Anthem had been around any woman who wore hose.  His daughters weren’t the type.  Even ironically.

Which was fine.  He just wished-

He wished a lot of things.

There was a scream.  His own.  By the placement-

Anthem’s-Shock-and-Awe went down, and a figure at his back went down with him, clinging to his back and shoulders, blade in hand.  The red eyes of Ellingson’s fox mask glowed through the dust in the air.

He pulled a card out.  Thread Cutter.  A knife.

He shook it into existence and threw it hard at the fallen simulacrum’s body.

It ricocheted off, chasing the connection to the girl who had stabbed him.

He heard the other ricochet- one that shouldn’t have happened.  He put a knife out.  He had enough claim to the blade, and he’d counted a significant victory against her earlier.

It found his hand, slapping against his palm.

He sorted through some spell cards.  Temporary enchantments he could lay on the blade, his eyes scanning the surroundings.

Other Anthems found him.  Anthem-the-Brother-in-Arms went to Shock and Awe, bending down to see if there was any needed medical care.  Bad Blood was an inverse of Brother in Arms, someone who would go hard against the enemy given provocation, instead of supporting the team.  He was laying down suppressive fire, keeping the worst of the group of undercity denizens at bay.

Towering Rage was out.  Crippling Fear stalked the shadows, a short distance away.  Standing Watch was there, off to the fringes, keeping an eye out.

“What’s the plan?” Scott asked.  “Get in the car, see if we can get through?”

The legs of an eighteen foot tall spider spirit moved through the cloud of dust behind Scott, picking its way past the sticky strands that surrounded him.

“Or do you think you can duel her?”

“I’d like to duel her.  I don’t think she thinks she can win, so she’s taking the cowardly approach.”

“Are you calling me a coward?” Ellingson’s voice echoed.

Red eyes opened in the gloom.

Mark moved his hands, creating a spear that darted out to that spot.

“That’s bait, Cavendar.  She wouldn’t show herself if she wasn’t sure she could,” Anthem told the boy.

“Fuck.  I thought there’d be a break from all the shit when you offered me a ride out.”

“It’s not all that much better if you get past the town limits,” Anthem murmured.

A practice activated about twenty feet away.  Another of those elementary spell cards.  It created a flash of light.

Scott Martin’s area that he’d turned into spiderwebs acted as if it was a different realm entirely.  The flash of light ended up being more like lightning that lit up clouds in an overcast sky, but didn’t touch ground.  Didn’t reach them.

“That wasn’t the fox.”

“The cat?”

“Yeah.  Think so.”

The dust was clearing.

“We lost Joy, Despair, Rage, and Shock,” Anthem-the-Brother-in-Arms noted.

“Okay.”  That leaves Brotherhood, Watch, Fear, and Bad Blood.

“Cyn,” Anthem said.  “You take ambient spiritual energy and condense it.  Channel it into force.”

“I can and do, yeah.”

“Scott, would you mind if she borrowed what you’ve got to spare?  It would help to have a path we can safely travel.”

The two of them exchanged glances.

Cyn created an orb above her head.  It was swaddled in gossamer, dark masses moving within.

It shuddered, bulged, and then burst, releasing a geyser of sticky strands, dark and dangerous spiders, and wisps of finer gossamer.

They got into the car.  Anthem-Standing-Watch got into his, apparently content to lead the way and scout for danger.  He had a dead bird in his hands.

The Cat’s Eye Sling is good at penetrating augury.  Every augury has a tell, and if you catch the right one, you can punch right through to catch the person on the other side.

She’d be blind on one eye, maybe.

“I wonder,” Scott said, as they peeled out, following after Anthem-Standing-Watch.  The coast was clear enough- people couldn’t get past the strands, and practice couldn’t easily get past the overwhelming spiritual dominance that Cyn and Scott brought into things.

“You wonder?”

“I wonder.”

“Don’t be cryptic.  We’re in the middle of a situation, one we can readily handle, but if it costs us too much in the way of resources, that makes our efforts outside this town harder.”

“How many sanctuaries are there?” Cyn asked.  “Rest spots, safe zones.  Areas outside of the Carmine’s influence, still.”

“Churches, some nodes of civilization.  Some lordships that weren’t Musser’s, that aren’t rabidly anti-Musser either.”

“Is it worth it, Anthem?” Scott asked.

“What?”

“This.”

“Don’t go pulling that, alright?  Not now.”

A fox-shaped shadow darted across the road ahead of Standing Watch.  The car swerved, honking to warn the cars that followed.

And in the loudness of it, maybe helped by the fact he’d counted coup against her, it distorted glamour.

Lucy Ellingson, standing amid the strands, wearing the fox mask, camouflaged to resemble the strands and spiders.

And the shadow distorted, revealing a tangle of wood and barbed wire.  It had unspooled-

The tires of Crippling Fear’s dust-coated, grimy car popped.  It skidded, blocking the road.

Anthem managed to stop in time.

“Cyn?”

“Running low on that destructive energy,” she replied.  “Are we even making progress?  it’s a fight to make it a single block.  And we’re turning, taking detours.”

“Easy does it,” he said.

He climbed out of the car.

“What do you hope to accomplish?” he called out.  He still had the gun at his side.  “Ruin my car?  Slow me down?  Get me angry enough I lash out?  I don’t think you’d survive the lashing.”

“Poor choice of words,” Ellingson said, voice echoing.

“Do you think you’ll whittle me down?  Break me?  I don’t think you understand the weight of everything in consideration, Ellingson.  I don’t think you understand that if you offer me something, it has to outweigh homes, treasures, luxuries, tools, weapons, and opportunities priced in the millions.”

“Money.  That’s where you start?”

“You live in a poor town.  And I know what happens when you can’t afford to have options.  I figured it was a good angle.”

“I’m fourteen, Anthem.  I don’t think I’ve ever had more than a couple hundred bucks in my bank account.”

“Alright.  Another angle.  If you want me to take your side, you have to make an offer that outweighs the safety, security, power, and potential of what Musser is bringing to the table.  The history- personal history, favors he’s done me and I him.  The history in the broader sense.  And the future.  For my girls.  For all of us.”

“Musser’s future?  That’s a threat, not a promise.”

“How do we make it past all this without the kind of strength and coalition he can bring to bear?”

“You can’t even keep your own family together, Anthem.”

“I well and truly believe they’ll come around.  It might take some exposure to the real world.  A bit of exploration, to find their own strength, forge their own paths.  And to figure out what they need.  It was what it was like for me.”

“You know what sucks?”  Ellingson’s voice came from another direction.

“Oh, I could run down a list.”

“I don’t even know your daughters all that well.  Avery’s been way more in touch with Liberty, and she’s fought America some.  But I think I might know them better than you do.”

“That’s a hell of an arrogant thing to say to a father.”

“Can I count coup for that?” she asked.

“Only if you say it definitively.  No ‘I thinks’.  To really matter, it needs to be open to challenge.”

“At which point we end up in a duel of words, listing off details, asking challenging questions?”

“Yes.”

“Nah, then.”

Anthem smiled.

Anthem-delivering-Crippling-Fear was moving through the strands, hunting.  Anthem-Standing-Watch whirled the sling in one hand, eyes tracking.

Bad Blood had calmed down, after the initial spark of bitterness and hate against the group that had damaged his car.  Settling into a more dormant role.  Brotherhood lingered close to him.

“Spiders and spiderwebs, huh?” Ellingson asked.  “Why, Mr. Martin?”

“I like spiders.”

“Why?”

“Are you done?” Anthem called out.  “Are you going to waste our time, talking from the shadows, refusing to come out?”

“I was looking for a witty way to segue into my next move,” Ellingson replied, voice coming from multiple directions at once.  “This is all spirit, right?  You know what else is spirit, technically?”

“Yeah,” Anthem said.  He looked at the others who’d gotten out of the vehicle.  Cyn and Scott Martin were on guard, searching the area.  He lowered his voice.  “In the car or stay close to it.”

He reached into his coat-

And they attacked.  Dog Tags.  Technically Animus by label, though it got complicated.  They were spirit, and that might’ve made the spider webs easier to venture into than it was for others.

It was still Scott’s spider webs, still the domain of a powerful shaman-

But they only had to get so far.  The guns weren’t spirit.

Anthem leaned back hard, back to the car door, head turned.

The wards on the car lit up, lifting away from the surfaces, catching the incoming bullets.

And in the midst of the sound, audible only because Anthem had done rituals to protect his hearing from loud noises when he was new to war magic, he heard a blade trail on the road, scraping, making an inconsistent sound, as it bounced over raised bits and dipped into depressions.

Carving out a circle.

Ellingson stood within, hand up.  A duelist’s mark on the palm of her right hand, which was the same one she’d had trouble making a fist with earlier.

The simulacrums had fallen.  Their cars didn’t have the same wards.  They didn’t have the same protections and practices.

“Want me to fight her?” Mark Cavendar asked.

I don’t know you well enough to know how you’d handle her.  I haven’t seen you fight.

“No tricks, no traps?” Anthem asked.  “I won’t get shot while walking over to the arena?”

“You, me, this arena.  No outside interference, the Dog Tags will stand down.”

Her voice echoed as it had before.

Anthem approached, moving away from the car and its wards, past the disintegrating simulacrums.  He picked up the sling he’d given Standing Watch, and the bag of cat’s eye shot.  He put them away.

He stopped at the boundary of the duelist’s circle.  “We put any grudges to rest here.”

“Sure.”

“I win, you let us go.”

“I won’t stand in your way.  Won’t speak for the others-”

“You, your dog tags, Hayward, Kelly, any allies you’ve brought in.  Any Others.”

“I don’t control them, Anthem.  The Dog Tags aren’t mine.  The Others aren’t under my control.”

“Say you’ll try.”

“Dog Tags!” Ellingson called out.  “If I have any particular sway with you… back off if they win.  Let them go.”

“Goblins too.”

“Goblins!” she called out.  Her voice carried, a rune at her chest glowing as it transmitted the sound.  “If any of you hear me, I’m telling you to back off.  Stand down, this is me and Anthem.”

He nodded.

She looked ragged.  Tired.  Beaten up.

America and then Slaygarrrrr Who Slavishly Slays, then him.

He had the Bladewarden’s knife, he had an entire arsenal on his person.  He had combat practices, enchantments.  He had offensive enhancements.

He stepped across the boundary of the circle.  It was thirty feet across.  A fair size.  Flat, with no cover.

“What changed?” he asked.

“Changed?” she asked.

“Between you running away last time, and you picking this fight.  Indulge me.”

“Nothing changes,” she replied.  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

She drew a knife.

He eyed her carefully.

She lunged.

Moving faster than she should.  Further than she should.

He crossed blades with her, and she was heavier than she should be.  He pushed her away with a grunt.

Yeah.  So they were doing this.

“You call on forces that exist outside here.  Oaths and deals,” he said.

“Yeah.  I guess so.  Why?”

“I’ll invoke my right to do the same.”

He moved his own knife to the other hand, then pressed his palm against the back of his hand, where he’d inscribed the markings and arrangement for calling out the eight facets of himself.

Shock first.  The element of surprise.  The traces of the simulacrum flowed through and into the arena, allowed through by spirits and the other forces that oversaw the duel.  A burst of speed, a burst of impulse, to match what she’d just done to him.

She parried, moved away- escaped a grasping hand.

Terror, then.  While he was close.  The echo met him, and in the moment it crashed into him, a wave on rocks, he was intimidation personified, capable of cruelty.  She didn’t even flinch.  His knife didn’t meet flesh, to be able to twist, or do something terrible.

Then Rage, to press the attack.  To be strong, towering, bigger, more forceful.

More reckless.

She cut him.

And he turned that toward Bad Blood.  Resentment, hate.  Indignation.

He got the cut this time.  Impaling a shoulder.

Breaking glamour.

Anthem absorbed Joy next, chuckling at first, then laughing.  It was a kind of coup, that made the arena more his.  To be so comfortable in it.

The Winter Faerie wore Lucy Ellingson’s skin again.  As the skin was shed, it frosted the arena- walls and ground both.  Anthem swiped his blade through the air, exhaling slowly.

He had just enough clout to keep that frost from touching him.  It cleared away from the ground, too.

He was entirely unsurprised at the trick.

“Grayson Hennigar beat you recently.  I’m stronger than him.”

“A different kind of strength,” the Fae answered.

“You have no special clout with the Dogs of War, a goblin certainly wouldn’t listen to you.  Is that the plan?”

He moved in, striking out- and was parried.  An entirely different fight when the Fae was larger than him, graceful but strong.  The size difference resembled how Ellingson had fought Anthem.  Except Anthem was the small one now.

He drew in Standing Watch.  To analyze, study, watch for detail, and to be ready for any tricks.

There were no tricks, but there were details too.  Injuries recent and old.

Anthem then took on Driven Despair.  Contemplative grief, pensive sadness.  It was deep thought, often dark.

To digest that which he’d seen.

More than anything, he’d come out of grief before, with drive.  It was why this facet took this shape.  He didn’t like it, but he knew its power.  Drive that had carried him from a bare acquaintanceship with A.J. Musser to a position of standing.  That had helped him earn his place back in his family.  Earn his girls’ place back in the family.  With access to their resources.  With access to Musser’s.  To more.

He took the temporary enchantments out of his jacket.  Each inscribed on a paper, papers all placed together, with a clip to secure them.  There were tabs at the side, and each was marked with a symbol that let him identify them in a moment, their backs heavily decorated.

The Fae let him.

Anthem tossed them into the air.  The Fae moved, ducking lower than a giant should seem able to do.  Anthem leaped over the knife’s slash.

Old rituals helped that movement too.  A bit more strength and power in the course of duels.

Anthem speared two cards with the knife as he twisted in the air.  The Fae’s one hand was occupied by the duelist’s mark.  That wasn’t a lie or trick.  He had been Summer Fae, and one that liked duels.  But the mark was held in the hand and it forced the one asking for the duel to fight one-handed.

And the Fae was still injured after fighting Grayson Hennigar.  There was a chest wound from another not-too distant encounter.

Anthem threw the blade, cards still spiked on it, and the Fae parried it.

The blade and its two cards had stopped in the air.  That was one card.  It remained there, poised, waiting to strike as if it had a will of its own.

The other card turned it to cold iron.

“The cards have backs to them.”

“I noticed,” the Fae replied, as it faced Anthem down.  Anthem now without a knife.

“Centurion,” Anthem whispered.

The Fae turned, swatting the blade out of the air as it speared in.  An awkward strike, owing to those injuries.  The blade was hit hard enough that it cut through the cards.

It didn’t matter.

Every single card in the arena, scattered, had been turned into a duplicate.

A cold iron blade suspended in air, willing to strike.

With the other cards he’d used earlier, on the drive in and in dealing with Ellingson and the denizens of the undercity, he had seventy-two.

Four would be enough for a sufficient binding.

The Fae didn’t move to strike.  It knew.

“I fight things like you for a living, Fae.  Monsters and warriors, anything too difficult for others to take down in combat.  Goblin or Fae, even the rare, small primeval.  Wraith kings, lesser gods, Lords.  Did you think you’d win?”

“Take it from an old soul, Anthem Tedd,” the Faerie said.  “You’re victorious, but you’re not winning, and that is a terrible road to walk.”

“Sounds like sour grapes.”

“The grapes are fine, Anthem,” the Fae replied.  “I’m injured, badly enough I won’t easily hide it.  But I got you to expend a lot of your crucial boons and tricks.  She’ll have her second try at you now.”

“Do you want to be put out of your misery now, or do you want to be bound and made to see how little that actually matters?” Anthem asked.

“What do you want, to not bind him?” Ellingson asked.

Anthem remained very still.  Seventy-two cold iron blades hovered at different points around the arena.  Some were close enough to the Fae to graze him with every intake of breath.  Others were at the edges, or above.  “What are you offering?  I’d like to be free to go without inteference.”

“A duel.  You and me.  Same promises you made with Guilherme.  Except those things count for more when they come out of my mouth, I think.”

“They should.  But that leads me to ask.  What changed?”

“I’ve taken a healing potion.”

“That’s taking you back to your starting position, isn’t it?  Which wasn’t all that great, was it?  Even at the top of your game…”

“Not my starting position.  It’s kind of an amateur healing potion, actually.”

“Partial recovery.”

“The way I see it, I could achieve something much more effective by binding the Winter Faerie and turning him against your town.  That should get me and my allies a pretty clear road out.”

“Winter Fae are hard to bind.”

“I’m capable, believe me, and he’s young for Winter.”

“To be called young again.  What a thought,” the Fae replied.

“I need more, Ellingson,” Anthem announced.

“Dogs of War,” Ellingson caled out.  Her shadow moved beyond the bounds of the Arena.  “I know this is shitty to do, but I’m wearing the necklace with John Stiles and the Songbird on it.  You guys say that counts for something… let him go?”

“My allies too.”

“Leave them be?” Ellingson asked.  “Go… keep the peace with whatever practitioners got agitated, in the bigger group.  When gunshots were going off.  Don’t shoot, don’t kill, don’t maim.  Let’s- I hope this works out okay.”

“Fae?  Seven days and seven nights, stand down.  You need to heal anyway.”

“Agreed,” the Fae replied.  “I will stand down.”

From a Winter Fae, that was as good as an oath.

“Tag me in?” Ellingson asked.

“Unconventional, but…”

The Fae pressed a hand to the barrier.  So did Ellingson.

As he left, she entered.

She had recuperated, but she looked rough still.

“Centurion, stand down,” Anthem said.

The rules of the arena and of duels woudln’t allow for too primed a field to start.  This many pre-prepared blades would be a problem.  It would count against him karmically.

He let the cards fly to his hand.  Most were badly damaged or spent.

The moment the last card made contact, he moved.  So did Ellingson.  She drew a sword.  He held a knife.

A tentative exchange of blows.  Blade met blade, a ward glowed, pushing him away, but he was strong enough to push through.  Especially with the earlier coup.

She slammed hard into the wall of the barrier.  Flecks of frost fell down around them.

“How long have you trained?” he asked.

“Months.”

“Decades,” he replied.

“Figured.”

“How many draughts of healing do you have left?  Alchemists rarely make the one.”

“Isn’t that for me to say?”

“Tell me, I’ll give you opportunities.”

“Two, then.  I had three.”

He still held cards.  He picked one out, touching it to his knife- and Ellingson lashed out with a whip.  He closed in- and whip broke away, becoming string.  Her cape became a cowl with blades at the edges, and she turned- trying to cut him as it flared out mid-spin.

He avoided the worst of it and stabbed in- and she had a claw.

But he knew it made her weaker.  Pushing it like this.  It drew on her.

He pressed in, knife meeting claw- and she deftly disarmed him.

The enchantment on the knife brought it straight back to his hand.  He stabbed her shoulder with enough force behind him to shove her into the barrier again.  She sank to the ground.

“Drink.”

“Fuck,” she swore.  She reached for her belt and downed a potion.

“Oh gods and spirits, Verona, that tastes like sour butt.”

“They can be pretty bad,” Anthem agreed.

He waited, letting it work.  Mending the wound, and some other things that hadn’t fully mended the first time around.

She stood.  “I see America in you sometimes.  Liberty too.  Different bits.”

“If you want to talk about my daughters, earn it.  Score a win.”

“There’s a part of you I see in Guilherme, too.  That likes drawing out something in me.  Making me try.”

“I don’t like those who give up.  I respect those who don’t.”

“And yet you gave up both of them so easily, didn’t you?  You fucking coward,” Lucy said, the hoarseness reaching her voice again.

“That’s different.”

But she seemed to take that as some kind of advantage or win.  A moment to strike.  She acted.

He’d been willing to let her heal more, but- okay.

He fended off the attack from transforming weapons.  She had tells.  Ones the Fae had worked on with her, but that snuck through.  Leading with the elbow.  Breath.

He kicked her in the lower leg.  Forceful enough, a shin kick could make an ongoing fight impossible.  Everything flowed from the legs and stance.

While she stumbled back, he enchanted another knife.

“You have one more draught?”

She nodded.

“I’d say use it, but if you take that recommendation, you’ll find yourself wanting it later and you’ll feel like I cheated.”

“I’ll use it,” she said.  “Because this fucking hurts.  Ow.”

She drank.

“Don’t argue at me again.  I respect the amount you’ve grown in mere months, but I can’t respect the line of argument.”

“How does this end?” Ellingson asked.

“If there’s no big surprises, I win, I leave you alive, that’s a bargaining point, it’d be appreciated if you return the favor by making it easier for me to go.  Then, I dont know.  This seemed personal for you.  Maybe you reflect in the time it takes to mend.  However much of that is natural healing and however much is brewing time for your amateur alchemist.”

“Kinda nice to know you’re not going to try to kill me.  My mom might, though.  Oh man.  Fuck.”

“Is it worth it?  Upsetting her?  Being hurt?  To take a pointless stand?”

Ellingson shrugged.  “Guess I’ll find out how upset she is, how hurt I end up, how pointless this is.”

“If I’d said I’d end this by killing you, what would you have done?”

“Asked for a forfeit.  Force-ended the duel.”

“Wouldn’t stop me killing you if I had a mind to.”

“Buys me a chance.”

“To Miss-Miss-Miss a way out again?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re healed.”

“Still a bit out of breath.”

“Trying to think of a way.”

“I’m so fucking mad at you,” she said, quiet.  “At all of you.”

“Anger’s good fuel for moving forward.”

“You’re such a bizarre person,” she whispered.  Her expression looked concerned- not for herself, but just in general.  “It’s like we’re both looking at a picture of a castle and you see nobility while I only see ruin.  I don’t see you moving forward, I see you going backward.  And the more I do, the more it feels like… I get why America’s so fucked up, and how Liberty’s heading that way.”

“Don’t badmouth my daughters, Ellingson.  Or I might get far less merciful.”

“You abandoned them!”

He was tired of this.  He moved.  She moved as well- a spell card, to create a splash of water at the center of the arena.

Water that froze with the ambient winter glamour.

She moved in that odd way she had when fighting Slaygarrrrr Who Slavishly Slays.  An enhancement whenever water came into play.

Faster, more focused.

Creating a spear.

He let it pierce him.  The first meaningful strike he’d suffered tonight.  He had other protections, security against these things, and he leaned on it now.  He’d assessed her, he knew the tricks.

She pierced his shoulder, and then tried to push back.  He held his ground, and touched an enchantment card to the spear’s shaft.  One meant for a thrown projectile, like a throwing knife or hatchet, or for a fistful of ammunition, to be quickly fired.

To turn the weapon hot.

It seared his flesh.  It seared her hands.  She dropped it, then hurried to pull off the ring she wore.

A good trophy to take from his victory.

She reached inside her cloak- he reached for a card that was damaged but serviceable.  Touching it to his lips.

Cold iron.

Threads of cold iron ran through his veins, imbuing him- giving him a special sort of security.  A bit of durability, and just what he needed to punch decisively through glamour.

She used a goblin trick instead.  A pellet that exploded into foul substance.

Her eyes glowed in the dark that resulted.  She could see and breathe.  He endured, watching for opportunity.  The iron that was exposed to the fog rusted and peeled away, gouging flesh.

This felt like spite.  A few final dirty moves as a parting gift.

But the danger was still there.  He felt out, Sight activated, his body temporarily the weapon, laced with iron, and his Sight gave him lines of attack, helping him feel an extra arm’s reach through the murk.

There were three of her.  One unmasked.  One with a fox mask.  One with a goat mask.

No trick shell game this time.  No room for nuance in this thick cloud of goblinness.  There was a real her.

He grabbed her, picked her up, and threw her down to the ground with the kind of strength that would have let him put a fist through an engine block.

The arena shattered.  The thick brown cloud dispersed, no longer contained in the arena.

She rolled onto her back, eyes glowing red in the dissipating fog.

“Don’t move.  You’re hurt.”

She coughed, then looked like she wished she hadn’t.

“I have a mind to take that ring of yours as my prize.”

“Prize,” Ellingson said, groaning a bit.  “Oh, good for you, you won.”

“I tried to tip the scales slightly toward you, in the interest of fairness, respect for the arena.  But there’s only so much I can do.  Decades against months.”

“You can win every fight, Anthem, and still lose out, you know that, right?” she asked.  “Win an argument, lose a family.  Win this…”

The goblin fog lifted.

He could see more eyes.  Yellow and red.  Every second, there were more of them visible through the fog.

“Goblins,” Lucy said.  “I’m obliged to tell you to back off, any clout I have… stop, don’t do this.”

The response came as a croak from the periphery.  “And I’m obliged to tell you fuck that.”

“Yeah, Toadswallow,” Lucy said, as she lay there.  “Figured.”

“Hello, Sir Toadswallow,” Anthem said.

There were a lot of goblins.  Glaring.  Occupying just about all of the ground and every flat surface from one end of the block of downtown to the other.

“You did tell us to spread the word, Lucy dear.  That Anthem Tedd has been a royal dick and abandoned his daughters.”

“Yeah.”

“I think you underestimate your daughters, Anthem,” Toadswallow said.  “They’re loved.”

“Do you get it, Anthem?” Ellingson asked.  “Be careful how you answer.  These guys are pretty hair-trigger.  You’re alone.”

Toadswallow added,  “After the goblins showed up, we offered your buddies a safer way out.  They accepted.  Or two did.  The third one went with them.  Two of them, strong enough, one of you with a bunch of goblins pissed off at him?”

Anthem turned.

This wasn’t impossible to win.

He’d get hurt in the process.

Which made other things too difficult.

“This is such a waste,” he told them.  “It’s all going to hell out there.  There are real monsters out there.  It’s like our nation’s at war and you insist on setting fire to our airfields and docks.”

“The waste is you seem surprised by what your daughters are capable of leveraging, by their charisma, natural leadership, and their abilities in this field,” Toadswallow growled.

Anthem turned to face the goblin.

He saw Liberty there, in the background, by a pink haired goblin, her eyes downcast.

“I love you.  I wanted you to be able to face anything.”

“That’s what we’re doing.  We.  Me and my gang of badass ugly-cute goblins.”  The words were cheery, but the look on her face was sad.  “Wish you were along for the ride.”

“There was one thing you needed to say, Anthem,” Toadswallow said.  “That wasn’t it.”

He looked down at Ellingson.

“If you try to take her hostage, I promise you, this ends poorly for you.  Liberty loves you but we’ll still rip you limb from limb.”

“Then what happens?” Anthem asked.

“Today,” the woman announced, “we have a few sheets, Everything Girl is going to be handing them out.  Please take one.  There, we have a number of scenarios listed.  Some big, some small.  I want you to get into groups of three, please, and sit yourselves down together, and brainstorm.  We’re going to think of healthy ways to handle the situations.”

Anthem ventured in from the doorway.

“Yes?” the woman asked.  She had a dead and badly taxidermied cat wrapped around her head.  He held out the sheet.  “New student.  Anthem Tedd.  Welcome to civility classes.”

America, sitting off to one side, slumped in her seat, chuckled to herself, looking at him.  She wore goggles with holographic naked men superimposed on the lenses, which probably meant there was one at the center and front of her vision at all times.  She gave him a little wave.

“Find a group, join in, please.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask.”

“Alright.”  He picked up a chair.

He didn’t like this.

The quiet.  The idea of- of sitting down.  Of being in one place for that long.  Of not picking up a weapon.

It had been a good thirteen years and three months since.

“Can I join you?” he asked his daughter.

“Are you going to bring our grade down, Daddy?” she asked.  “Are we graded?  We’re not graded.  But are you going to make us look bad?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hmmmmmm.  I’m thinking nah.”

“Be inclusive, America,” the teacher told them.

“Alright, fine, I guess.  I guesssss,” she drew it out.

He rubbed the top of her head, then sat down.

“I can’t believe you got condemned to this crap,” America told him.  “You?  Now I don’t feel half as bad as I did.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure.  I bet, oh my god.  That’s amazing though.  Hilarious.”

“Focus on the assignment, please,” the teacher told them.  “Or today won’t count.”

He took the worksheet, looking it over.  A lesson from his old days at practitioner school, where he’d met Musser.  To read it over, assess the test.  See if there were patterns, or if later questions inherently answered earlier ones.

Situation thirteen.  The death of a loved one.

“Yo,” America whispered, leaning in closer to him.

He looked.

Liberty, wearing a goblin mask, talking to the teacher.

Then Liberty walked over, picking up a chair on the way.

Joining them.

“You too?  They’re really going for the whole damn set, friendship be damned, huh?”

“Nah,” Liberty said.  She propped a foot up on the edge of America’s seat, sitting back.  She sighed, and gave Anthem a look.  “Volunteering.  It’s an opportunity to hang out, huh?  As a family?”

“Doing this shit on purpose,” America said.  “I think she might’ve gotten cursed.  Or sick.  Maybe lead poisoning.  From one of the things we shoved up her nose back when she was a kid?”

“If you have other things you want to do, I won’t be hurt,” he told Liberty.  “It’ll be a bit.  There’s a lot going on.”

“I think you’re underestimating how much I want to spend real time with you,” Liberty told him.

“Oh my god, gag me, urk, urk,” America said, finger in mouth.

Liberty swatted her elbow, forcing the finger all the way back.  America gagged, then threw up.  Then continued throwing up, drawing on goblin energies.

“You’re going to have to clean that up,” Liberty pointed out.

“Your fault,” America mumbled.

Anthem smiled.

The teacher was looking over, hands on hips.

America slurped up the entirety of the spillage, reversing the stream, then sat back, giving her best innocent smile.

“How long do you have, Daddy-o?” America asked.  “Three weeks, here.”

“The writs from my hunting of the founder still hold.  Six months.”

“Six months.  No kidding.”

“Thirty days at a time.  We’ll see how it goes,” he told them.  “Musser might come, change the system.”

“He might not,” Liberty said.  “Can you say it with one hundred percent certainty he will?”

“We’re friends, close allies.  I’m his right hand.  Things would have to be in bad shape for him to not be able or willing.”

“I think they’re in pretty bad shape, Daddy.  You said that much.”

It all felt very different, now that he wasn’t actively working on the problem.  The quiet, the break from it all.  He wasn’t sure he could endure it.

“Assignment.  Last warning,” the teacher said.

He looked at the sheet, then handed it to Liberty.

“We need a strategy,” America said, leaning forward.  “I vote we come up with the worst, most Aristocrats level wrong answer, and then we figure out what the opposite of that would be.”

“Your kid is screaming in a shopping aisle, wanting to get candy.  When you refuse, he shouts out you aren’t his parent, the entire store hears, how do you handle that situation?” Liberty read out loud.  “I say we tell him that’s right, we aren’t, and then sell him to the Dark Fall courts?”

“Fleshmongler, honey,” America said.

“Or a bodysnatcher that’ll swap his body with their old, crusty one, and then sell them to a fleshmongler.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be that quiet.

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