Pale: 9.4 - Lucy
Author: Wildbow

Shaking Hands – 9.4 | Pale

Lucy paused midway through packing her bag, because she’d started reaching for her knife.  The one she’d used to awaken.  Not all that useful when she had the weapon ring, hanging from the same chain that had the dog tag.  The chain had come out of her top and dangled as she reached over her desk, and she clasped it in her hand.  Knife just an inch from one hand, the dog tag and weapon ring in the other.

She’d had a habit of packing it and she wasn’t sure why it was bothering her now.

She’d changed her outfit with the patrol in mind.  Dark gray tank top with cursive scribbling on the front, and black terrycloth drawstring pants with a roomy fit.  She had her backpack with essentials that included her wallet, interview notes, and a change of clothes.   Then, more relevant, she had her fox mask, the thorn in the flesh, the weapon ring, the hot lead, the dog tag, a makeup compact packed with Maricica’s glamour, a pen she’d put inside her pocket and clipped in place, some notecards she could draw spells on, and… the knife.

The question she had to ask was whether she’d bring it.  Because it was redundant when she had the weapon ring, but it was good to have.

When she’d awoken she’d said she wanted to have fangs and she’d brought two knives, and that had maybe defined her Sight.  She saw swords everywhere when she opened her third eye.

If it was good to have a spare knife as a just-in-case, then by very similar logic, she could and should bring both knives, in addition to the weapon ring.

How aggressive did she want to be, this patrol?  Or in general?

Lucy’s mom hadn’t run into any similar roadblocks.  She was wearing her nurse’s scrubs, carrying her purse, and her flat shoes were loud in the hallway.  She paused at Lucy’s door, leaning inside. “Be good?”

“I dunno how good I am at the best of times,” Lucy told her mom.

“You’re good, Lucy.  I trust that.  Annnnnd… that’s a very dark outfit,” her mom said, looking concerned.  She smiled a bit. “Is Verona rubbing off on you?”

“Ha ha.  It’s for a thing we’re doing.  Going out, then might be coming back here.”

“Don’t be too late, okay?  And send regular texts?  And don’t trust that a car can see you if you’re walking by the side of the road.”

“I’ll be careful walking.”

“I think there’s reflective tape in the Halloween stuff from a few years ago-”

Her mom threw her hands up, then turned.  “Booker!?”

“If you’re going to throw any parties while I’m out at work, clean up the evidence?  Please?”

“We’re not going to throw a party, mom.”

“But if you do, take it easy, don’t do anything that you can’t clean up in time?  And wrap things up before I’m back?”

“Are you asking because you are planning a party?”

“No, mom, geez.  I really traumatized my mother, apparently.”

Her mom stood at the end of the hallway above the stairs, checking her bag while she talked.  “It’s a long drive and I have to wait before giving the second dose.  I’m teaching the live-in homecare while the client sleeps, so with all luck, the second injection should happen at ten thirty, then accounting for the time to wait and check for side effects, the drive back… four thirty?”

Her mom walked down the stairs.

“It sounds like Lucy’s coming back in at some point in time.  I imagine she’s going to sneak in to be polite so maybe keep the door closed if you don’t want her to stumble in on you-“

“And I’m sorry if anyone wakes you as they come and go, Alyssa.”

“I’m sure it’s better than the school residences, Mrs. Ellingson.”

Lucy headed to the top of the stairs, calling down, “Mom!?”

“I might have Verona over to spend the night!  And Avery too, so she’s not left out!”

“I thought you had that thing at the hospital, tomorrow?”

Lucy raised her head, facing the door.  She hurried to the stairs, grabbing a red sweatshirt as she went, pulling it on.

“I do, at noon, which is why I am praying that I won’t come home to a rager, or any fires, or messes…”

“None of that.  Really, the game plan is to curl up and have ‘us’ time watching a movie.”

“That sounds so nice,” Mom said, as Lucy stopped midway down the stairs.

“I’m all partied out after the stuff happening every other day at the residences.”

“Ahhhhhhh.  I can believe that, at least.  Now I feel better.”

“You make me sound like some party monster, trashing the house on a weekly basis and I was not that bad,” Booker said.  He was lounging on the couch, Alyssa lying beside him, her head on his leg.

“I worried every time you were out, starting halfway through high school.”

“Your poor mom,” Alyssa said, lightly slapping his leg.

“What was that about the hospital?” Lucy asked.

“Wow, Lucy,” Booker said.  “If we drop a pin, you’ll hear and make an appearance, huh?”

“Aunt Heather discovered that the hard way,” Mom said.

“Hospital?” she asked again, more insistent.

“Nothing to worry about-” her mom told her.

“You’re obligated to say that, aren’t you?  It could be almost anything and you’d be trying to get me not to worry.”

“I’m going for a job interview, Lucy.  A little after noon.  Avery’s dad passed on my name.”

Relief washed over her, as did a feeling of deja vu.  She couldn’t help but think she’d been in this room, part of a conversation like this, once.  But with people in different positions.  Mom not there, Booker asking questions.  Dad…

“A job?  This is good?” Lucy asked, her expression still all concern.

Her mom raised a hand, fingers crossed.

“Yay for Avery’s dad, huh?” Alyssa asked.

Lucy walked down a few more steps.  “I can go to Verona’s tonight.  Get out of your hair, let you rest.  There’ll be less distractions so you can focus on that.”

“I think I would rest better and be less anxious if you were home and safe and being a regular thirteen year old hanging out with thirteen year olds, than if you were over at Verona’s father’s house.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “I’ll ask them to be quiet.  You sleep in.”

“Please do, but we’ll see about the sleeping in.  I’ll only have both of you home, happy, and healthy for part of the summer, I want to enjoy that as much as I can.”

“She’s already setting up the guilt trip to get me to come for Christmas,” Booker told Alyssa.

“Oh no,” Alyssa said.  “When do we break the news that in exchange for me coming this summer, I’ve negotiated for you to come to Toronto for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and March Break with my family?”

“Not funny,” Mom said.  “And with that heartbreaking idea fresh in my mind, I should go.  The later I get there for the first dose, the later I get home.”

She walked by Lucy and gave Lucy a kiss on top of the head, before going to the door.

“Be safe!” her mom called out.  “Talking to you too, Booker.  Things have been less than great with crime and and I know there’s a lot more police officers around.”

The implications of that were pretty obvious.

“Stay close to Verona’s?” Mom asked Lucy.

“I’ll be heading out toward Avery’s.”

“Okay,” her mom said.

Lucy closed the door after her mom.  “I’m going to get my stuff and go.”

“Have fun,” Booker told her.

She headed upstairs, to her desk, and finished gathering up her things.  The knife in its leather sheath was deliberately left aside until the final moment.

What was she doing?  Why did this bother her?

What kind of circumstances would she use it in?  Hot lead spent, weapon ring useless?  A desperate moment?  A decisive one?

A calculating one?  Cornered?

She touched the dangling dog tag, then pulled her top and athletic bra away from her chest to drop it and the weapon ring down where it would nestle at the center of her chest, dangling from a chain.

She’d last used a dog tag to call John to the Blue Heron conflict.  She’d brought it and she’d used it and she’d known, all of those things in their own desperate, decisive, calculating, and cornered ways.  She’d known what she was doing.

Even if she hadn’t really thought about it, she’d known and Toadswallow had called her on it.

And as a consequence a man had been shot from behind.  That man no longer existed in this world.

If she brought this knife, would she find herself in a situation where she used it?

There was a tiny chance that it could be the thing that made the difference between her and her friends being safe and healthy and whole… instead of one of them getting hurt and the others begging Mom for that nursing knowledge.  Or one of them dying.

Stuff out there was dangerous and dark and twisted.

And again, her thoughts circled back to whether she should bring two knives, if she should continue down that road to having more things that could save them in a pinch.  More weapons, more things like a dog tag that could be deployed.

She touched the knife’s handle with her fingers, and she slid the one knife across the desk, to her.

With her other hand, almost unconsciously, she opened her drawer at the front of the desk.  She let the knife go over the edge and into the desk drawer.  She adjusted it so it lay flat, then closed the drawer.

Her hand remained there for a second, as if she was making that drawer extra closed.

She checked the time and startled.  She pulled on her bag and did up the clips at the collarbone and lower ribs, pulled at the hood of her sweatshirt so it wouldn’t be trapped between bag and bag, and double-checked her laces.  She held her fox mask in her hand.

“See you!” she called out, as she hurried to the door, fox mask tucked in next to her body so it wasn’t clearly visible.  “Love you!  I’ll be late!”

She thought of the dream-warning.  That family members were at risk.  “You too!”

Then she was outside.  She locked the door behind her, paused to remove her sweatshirt, that she’d pulled on just so her mom wouldn’t worry about nighttime visibility, and tied it around her waist.

If not the knife or that dog tag, what could she do?  It was a weird inversion of things, to be relying on Verona that heavily.  Verona would probably appreciate being the one who could be relied on, but that was so fragile a thing.  It would destroy Verona or destroy all of them if they found themselves in another situation like they had at the end there, with Alexander and Bristow, if Verona thought she had four ideas and needed three to work… only for half of them to fall through.

Verona was great at ideas and great at the point where she could sit down and execute something really well, or create stuff like Avery’s deer mask or the earring, but there was a gap between those two things.  A middle ground where execution and brainstorming got really blurry.

They’d gotten a bit lucky, and Avery had come through by getting Clementine on their side.  But if they ran into that situation again and things didn’t line up that great… then what?

If Lucy regretted what had happened to Alexander as much as she did, what was she supposed to do different?  That had been her contribution, as much as anything.  If she could go back and change something, what would that be?

If she hadn’t done it, Alexander would be out there, angry at them.  Or at the Blue Heron, someone she did not want in power.

She was grasping, unsure, and these thoughts were circling in her head, a conversation with herself that kept going back to the beginning and the same questions.  And it was wearing on her and it was frustrating her and the way it sat with her was making her into someone she didn’t want to be.

Someone who was harsh and defensive and fangs-out, as she’d once said to Booker.  Or someone toothless when it counted, who let the Alexanders or Bristows win.

There didn’t feel like there was much middle ground.

Lucy gripped the strap of her bag in one hand, tight, and gripped the fox mask in the other.  Jogging, looking down at the mask, she pressed fingers into painted wood and found it just a bit soft.  Still dusted in glamour from her nighttime expedition with Avery, Toadswallow and Gashwad.

A rubbing movement of her thumb changed color for a second, before it returned to its older one.

She changed course, going east instead of northeast.  Around to the back of the school, where the chain-link fence had openings to let crowds in to observe the sports field.

Off the roads and into gloom.  A rabbit ran along the grass.

She pulled the mask on, pulled the compact out of her pocket, and took a pinch of glamour.  She wasn’t as scarily good at this as Verona was.  She didn’t have fox hair on hand.  But the fact she had a fox mask gave her a starting point.  She drew out fur, color, narrowed parts of her body…

She got about two-thirds of the way done before the glamour seemed to realize her desired end result.  The form snapped around her, she dropped to all fours, and the weight of her bag at her back slipped away into hackles and dense fur.

The rabbit saw her and freaked, bolting.  She ignored it, veering slightly away so it could relax.  She was just happy to be covering twice as much ground as she had before.

Burrs and nettles stood out at her left forelimb, along with colorful petals, she noted.  Nothing to be done about that for now.  Better to ignore it.

She’d used Maricica’s glamour for this and she wondered if she’d be a slightly different sort of fox if she’d used Guilherme’s, or if one was exclusively better, like using Guilherme’s for transforming into sunlight and sunbeams.

She twisted inside the glamour, a ninety-five pound human moving inside the skin of a twenty pound animal, and stretched that skin.

It snapped, she tripped on the two legs she had instead of the four, and she fell, bumping into the fence she was running alongside.

Panting for breath, she climbed to her feet, fixed her mask, and got more glamour.

Back to fox form, mid-run.  Just a bit faster this time.  Still with nettles and petals impaled on those nettles in a kind of aesthetic design at one limb, matted and woven into fur.

Stretching, testing limits, compact still in hand…

A bit more glamour, a hand movement alongside her body, within this skin…

Mixing two things together.  Wearing a fox form and then tracing lines and patterns that mimicked the dappled light and shadow of the trees and fence nearby.

The movement tore the glamour, but the effect carried through, knitting to the damaged part.

That rabbit in the sports field had seen a shadow darting through short grass.  Were it to look now it would see something similar.  Two shadows, one large and one small, vaguely fox-shaped, flashes of red amid shadow.  Red sweatshirt and dark clothing.

She let another tear happen.  Then another.

When she was shadow or rain or smoke she wasn’t one body, but a collective body.  This was the same.

Five foxes that moved in darkness.  Through the fence, past the school, across the road, into woodland.  Moving faster than a fox ran, splitting apart to take better paths, uniting again.

She’d considered the hedgehog while they’d been brainstorming.  Hedgehogs were cute.  She was prickly, she knew.  It sort of worked, and there hadn’t been anything that clicked for her as much as the cat had for Verona.  Avery had mulled over a few options but she’d known the direction she’d wanted to go.  Something that ran.  The rabbit had come up briefly.

Lucy hadn’t known, and it had been a process of elimination.  No for the hedgehog, because it was… too defensive.  Too reactive.  It was prey.  She didn’t want that, always being in a lesser position compared to the people with power.  Like Mr. Bader constantly shouting at her.  Or Booker telling mom how annoying it was that one of his classmates could get into University and it was ‘good for her, she must have worked so hard’ but when it came to him… how many of the other students and people thought he only got it because of the color of his skin?  To fill a slot?  Even though he was smart and serious.

Then she’d, while browsing hedgehog videos, stumbled onto a video about foxes dealing with hedgehogs.  She’d thought it was funny, kind of, that a fox would get a hedgehog to unravel by rolling it into water, or by peeing on it.  Expose the soft, prickle-free underbelly, eat.

Sad for the hedgehog, but darkly funny.  She liked it.

The fox was a trickster in folklore and fable.  Lis had drawn comparisons between the fox and the rabbit, on that front.  She’d wanted to capture that, somehow, had even brought it up during awakening, except then Verona had been the one who ended up with the massive bag of tricks, and Avery was nimble and on the lookout for opportunity and they’d settled into roles.

She found them.  One fox’s eyes glowing red in the forests.

It was hard not to… not flinch, but to feel that hint of defensiveness, seeing Avery and Verona together, especially in proximity to a Fae.  Guilherme and John were with them.  Her trust had been broken and as much as she didn’t want to be the type to dwell on this stuff, Avery had gotten up to something with Pam, and it had been Lucy who’d had to deliver the reality check, and she still resented that.  Even if they had been better since.

Stuff like that and the fact they’d beaten her to the punch on some things meant Lucy had settled in as a bit of a hedgehog.  Prickly, reacting, grouchy, sitting back a bit more.  She’d settled into watching over her friends.  Not engaging.

And then, in almost the same breaths and same moments, feeling like they were getting out of her reach.

She approached, and John drew his gun, pointing it at her.  She froze.

“It’s Lucy,” Verona said, noticing.  “Heyyyy!  That’s cool.”

Verona approached, eyes flashing as she used Sight, and she smiled, dropping to her knees and wrapping her arms around Lucy.  Fingers in shadow and fur, hugging her.  “I like everything about this.”

Lucy inhaled, smelling her friend with an animal’s nose, relaxing a bit, and letting her guard down.  Making herself let her guard down, some.

Another fox of shadow approached Avery, and Avery touched her head, smiling down.  She ran muzzle and face along Avery’s hip.  Snowdrop clambered down Avery’s arm and landed on her, only to struggle a bit finding a grip in shadow.  She turned her head sideways, muzzle against shoulder, to give more of a platform for Snowdrop to rest on, leaning into Avery for balance.

Guilherme became a boy, and approached, smiling.  The third fox that he was approaching made him come to her, and watched everything about him carefully.

He knelt, and he began to pick the nettles and petals out of her fur.  “There are many things I could say about this.  I could ask what inspired it, or talk to you about training to do it more quickly, in a pinch.  Naming them and this would help with that.  Or these nettles… the colors and barbs wouldn’t cling to you so much if you didn’t secretly like them.”

She kept that fox’s expression neutral and gave nothing away as he combed her fur clean with fingers.

A fourth fox watched everything from a tree branch above, keeping one eye on the surroundings, paranoid, looking for trouble.

And the fifth stared at John, a distance between them.  He’d put the gun down but she didn’t take her eyes off it.

“Are you doing alright?” John asked.

The fox’s head nodded, very cognizant of how things were okay at home.  Of how Verona hugged her, fingers in fur and shadow, of Avery and Snowdrop’s friendliness.

One fox slipped away from Verona, a tip-toe flickering to cross the distance.  The other let Snowdrop down easy to the ground before heading the same way.  Guilherme gave the one closest to him a light push, helping her on her way, and the fox on the tree branch leaped down, becoming more shadow than animal to ease the landing.

All together, into one.  Into a form with a lot of seams that she could easily push and pull apart, standing.  Moonlight through foliage shifted, shadow moved, and the scraps of glamour moved with that shadow.  Her skin was covered in a light sheen of tiny beads of sweat, her arm prickled with pollen and dust and fine needles, and her bag was heavy at her back.  She let it down to the ground and pushed her mask up to the top of her head.

“I’m alright, John,” she told him.  “Spending time with family, and I guess spending a lot of time in my own head.  Mulling things over.”

“If that dark fox pack thing is what we get from you spending time with family and thinking, then I want to hook up Booker and your mom to your veins and give you a stack of textbooks,” Verona said.

“Are you going to be alright with tonight’s patrol?” John asked.

Lucy shrugged and nodded.

“How’s Booker?” Avery asked.

“Really good.  It’s so nice having him home.  I might sob like the biggest loser in the world when he leaves.”

“I’ll leave them to you, John,” Guilherme said.  He approached, now a giant again, chest bare and broad and very fitting for this backdrop of trees in moonlight.  He held out his hand, and Lucy reached out to take what he was offering.  He gave her a handful of the claimed nettles and petals.  “I’ll go attend that meeting.”

“Do you know how you’re voting?” Verona asked.  “About Zed and Nicolette and others coming in?”

“You shouldn’t ask that, Ronnie,” Lucy said, frowning.  “Democracy and junk.”

“I won’t make any decisions until I’ve heard the arguments, but I have some thoughts,” Guilherme said.

“They have my vote already,” John said.

“Yes,” Guilherme said.  He turned, raising a hand, and disappeared into the woods, far faster than someone as large as him had any right to.

“I’m not expecting to win,” Avery said.  “I’m guessing this goes the same way the question about teaching us binding did?”

“Very possible,” John said.  “I don’t think many, if any, of the new Others are amenable.  Tashlit excepted.  Speaking for myself, I voted not to teach binding, and I’ve told Matthew I’m against having those practitioners in Kennet.”

“Doesn’t matter what arguments are presented tonight?” Verona asked.

“No.  Sorry,” John said.

“You have your history,” Lucy said.

“Okay,” Lucy told him.

“Thanks for sharing,” Avery said.  “It’s good to know, kinda, even if I wish the vote was different.”

“I thought I owed you that honesty, at the least.  Shall we patrol?”

“Guilherme finished his patrol a short while ago.  We’ll pick up some goblins on our way by, since they aren’t very active or engaged in Kennet’s politics and most can help in a fight.  Keep your eyes pointed outward and your ears open.  Use Sight if you can comfortably do so.  I may signal you that I’m going ahead.  If I do, wait.  I have a knack for finding anyone or anything hostile, but I may need to be alone to make the most of it.”

“Dog of War thing?” Verona asked.

“It’s an ability I picked up later on.  All of the breeds of Dog Tag get certain talents, knacks, skills, or abilities, as we grow, varying from individual to individual.”

And they grew by killing.

“Did you-” Lucy started.  She hesitated, then didn’t finish the question.  Stupid, impulsive.

“I did,” John answered.  “Quite a bit, actually.  Among other things, clearer sight in darkness.”

“If there’s trouble, I’ll give you one of two commands.  To help, or to go.  If the latter, I want you to go back to the council and get them to send assistance to me.  I’ll hold the danger back or keep track of it.”

They walked, traveling through the woods, the ground sloped so it was higher on their right than their left, just enough that they could walk more or less normally, sometimes reaching out to brace against a tree, but there was still a worry that a branch or a patch of moss underfoot would slide and they’d go a bit down the slope.

Lucy kept her mask on, and the diagram she’d drawn inside it before their first Hungry Choir ritual illuminated the forest with a slight red tint.  Verona’s eyes were purple and glossy, reflecting the trees and the red dot of Lucy’s eye, and Avery was in the woods with Snowdrop, off down the slope to the left, traveling a stuttering course where she’d walk around one tree and step out from another ten feet away.

“Tell me more about this musing you’re doing,” Verona said.  “If we can talk?”

“You can talk if you can keep listening out for trouble,” John said.

“I can listen,” Lucy said.

He nodded without turning around.

“Just… thinking about practice and my role in the group.”

“I know my role,” Verona said.

“I know, and I think Avery does too.  And I’ve got to find my role, I don’t know.  One I can live with.  A way to do stuff that makes a difference that isn’t…”  She looked at John’s back, as he led the way.  “…carrying a weapon-ringed gun and dreading I might actually have to shoot someone that can die.”

“Want me to carry it instead?” Verona asked.

“I gotta break it to you, Ronnie, you’d hate it as much or more than I do.  You’re just unaware of what you’re feeling until it kicks you in the head or stomach.”

“Why are you thinking about this all of a sudden?” Avery asked, stepping up next to Lucy.

“I dunno, I’ve been feeling it for a good while, but I think I wasn’t really thinking about it until I was hanging with family and I could think freely without my thoughts bogged down by outside stuff.”

“Do like I do, and free-think whenever,” Verona said.

“Part of it is that the end of summer’s a deadline, and who doesn’t think better as a deadline draws nearer?” Lucy asked.  “We’ve got a bunch of stuff to do to get ready in case of trouble.  Familiar, demesne…”

“Maybe demesne,” Verona said.

Lucy turned her head to look at her friend.

“I don’t like the plot of grass.  Doesn’t feel me.”

“You can make it you, that’s the point.”

“Doesn’t feel me,” Verona said, more firmly.

“Hey, John?” Avery asked.  “Speaking of the end of summer… how do you feel about all of that?”

“That’s a complicated question,” he said.  “Are you keeping an eye out?”

Lucy looked out through the trees, Sight on, eyeing the crimson and the blades here and there.  There were spikes of bone and teeth embedded into surfaces, all with ribbons tied to them.  A patch here or there where someone had gotten hurt.  She avoided that slope.

“Is it a complicated question we could get an answer to?” Verona asked.

“It’s been made clear to me that they would prefer I take the seat.  Initially, we thought the Choir would settle into the role, and I would be ousted.  Now the Choir is gone.  Many are treating it as inevitable.”

“Are you, though?” Lucy asked.  “What happens if you take the seat and the person with the Carmine Furs decides they want it instead?”

“I’d have to fight for it.  I might lose.”

“Can we make you stronger?” Lucy asked.

“It’s possible, but I don’t think I can beat someone wearing the furs at the contest.  It’s…”

“Like a military captain trying to take the inheritance from the crown prince?” Verona suggested.

“Theirs by right,” John said, glancing over his shoulder at them.

“Using my metaphor, could we get enough people on your side?  The military captain with the backing of the kingdom, rebelling?” Verona asked.  “And-or depose the would-be crown prince?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think it would be possible to get enough people on my side against the furs.  You would need a near-total majority, and not only from Kennet.”

“Deposing, then?”  Verona asked.

“If by that you mean taking the Carmine Furs before they can be worn, then that could work.  But I think that an individual canny enough and forward-thinking enough to create the Choir as a possible weapon against the Beast could and would anticipate that you’d try.”

“This is Bristow’s Aware all over again,” Verona complained.

“Similar idea.  It’s not easy and they’ll know you might try, so they’ll take precautions.  If you have a shot, it’ll be close to the end of summer, when they’ll be busy.”

“They’ll know we’ll try then, though,” Avery said.

“But they’ll have a lot on their mind.  I’ll stress, I think it’s if you have a shot.  There’s no guarantee.”

“What if you say no?” Lucy asked.

“Then I would worry a great deal about those who would say yes.  At least this way I can contest it, delay, and take my shot at fighting them, or the chance that the Carmine Challenger does not arrive.  It’s not a job or duty I want, but the other three Judges have said they’ll try to make it palatable.”

“Palatable?” Avery asked.

“The goblins’ apartment is this way.”

“Changing the subject?” Lucy asked.

John walked to the edge of the trees, pulled out a flashlight, aimed it, and flashed it.

“Morse code,” Lucy noted.

“What’s it spell?” Verona asked.

“A word I’m not repeating out loud in front of thirteen year olds.”

“I’m going to try and memorize it.”

“You can try,” John said, before reaching back, covering Verona’s eyes.

“Hey, don’t- not fair!”

“They saw.  I don’t think there’s any need for it to be this specific word, when it’s so unlikely that anyone is going to be turning on a flashlight in the middle of the night, but they’re starting to move.”

The balcony door on the squat, dull apartment building opened.  A gobin threw a knotted sheet over the balcony.  They climbed and slid down it, and the ones sliding bumped into some of the ones climbing.

“This is the, uh, Bluntmunch’s helpers?  The Tods-seeking-a-Barney gang?” Verona asked.

“They’re mingling some, but yes.  I’ll go open the gate.  Stay and keep an eye out.”

“Sure,” Lucy said, quiet.

John walked from the trees to the short fence that bounded the property.  There was a gate in the fence that looked like it was meant to let the groundskeeping crew through to maintain the space between the fence and the treeline.

“So we need to get the furs or capture the culprits before everything,” Lucy said, watching John.

“And they might not be open to being gotten or captured until we’re close to the deadline,” Avery said.  “That’s better than the alternative.  If we had to act soon I’d feel more rushed.  There’s a path I want to run with the Finders Zed introduced me to, and I want to do the familiar ritual with Snow.”

Snow leaped to the ground, turned human, and straightened.  “It’s gotta be all formal and crap.”

“It’s meant to be casual, just solidifying what we’ve already got,” Avery said, “but I don’t want to be too boring.  I was thinking it’d be neat to perform the ritual on a Path.  You’re invited, of course.”

“Scary words,” Lucy said.

“Maybe,” Avery said.  “And since Verona pretty much found and introduced me to Snowdrop… I was thinking back about what you could do.  If that’s okay.”

“Stop asking that sort of thing.  Of course it’s okay.  Whatever you need.”

“And I had a ton of fun preparing for the end-of-school party with you.  What do you think about hair, clothes, and makeup for me and Snow?”

Lucy smiled.  “Sure.”

“I don’t want to be a frou frou trash princess,” Snowdrop said, waving at some of the goblins, who waved back and started hurrying over.  “I have some self respect, even if I want to annoy Avery while we’re doing this.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Lucy said.  “Speaking of figuring out, you guys want to come to my place after this?  Sleep over?  You’ll need to be quiet, my mom’s working late and she has a job interview tomorrow.”

“Can we stay up to watch the Montague thing?” Verona asked.

“Sure, if we’re quiet,” Lucy said.

“That’d be nice,” Avery said.

“Heyy!” Verona greeted one of the approaching goblins.  “Little guy!”

Lucy had seen the goblin in the meeting.  He perked up on seeing her.

“What’s that bit of paper?”

“That’s a… is that from my drawing?  You couldn’t get anything with ink on it?”

He shook his head, pointing at other goblins.

“They got those scraps, huh?  I’m touched you liked it so much.  Maybe I can give you something, all of your own, to commemorate the occasion of naming you?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Don’t overthink it,” Gashwad said, from the back of the pack.  He stuck near John.  “If it’s too clever every goblin bigger than him will beat him up.”

“Tempting,” Verona said.  The little guy’s one eye opened wider, and goblins sniggered.  “But I’ll try not to.”

John closed the gate and walked over.  “I thought more of you would be at the meeting.”

“It’s a snoozefest,” Gashwad said.  “They know our votes.”

“Hmm.  I only want and need a few of you.  Doglick?  And Fishmittens, and Kittycough.”

Some goblins chuckled and laughed.  They seemed happy.  Snowdrop was sitting in grass, her hands pushing against a goblin’s, as the goblin tried to push her down onto her back.

“Going for a theme there, Johnny?” Gashwad asked.

“Why are you always with Doglick?” Lucy asked.

“Because they seem to like the joke?” John asked.  “And he’ll be more helpful and obedient if it keeps the dumb joke going.”

Fishmittens had eyes spaced a bit too far apart, a wide mouth, short legs, and long arms.  Spines running down the goblin’s back had skin stretched between them.  Artificial spines, it looked like.  From what Lucy could see past skin stretched so thin it was translucent, the heads of long screws and things had been wedged in between vertebrae, points extending out.  Mittens had dragged skin from arms down toward hands, stretching it, then secured it with screwed-and-bolted bracelets, and had apparently made it a process, because a lot of skin had gathered around the hands over time.  The end effect was like someone wearing a sweater with voluminous sleeves that extended over their hands, but it was skin.  Since the fin arrangement bent the goblin forward, it was forced to use hands to help walk, and the pool of loose skin flopped and slapped against grass with each movement.

Kittycough looked like one of those hairless sphynx cats, but with a skin problem, dental problem, and no real neck.  Skinny, with ill-fitting skin and odd bone structure, eyes bright in the dark.  She had her own balance problem, because her body was so narrow and her head large compared to the rest of her.

“Rove.  Doglick will show you how,” John said.  “Travel around us, look for trouble, loop back, repeat.  If there’s anything odd, report back first, before anything.”

Kittycough nodded as Doglick yipped.  Mittens seemed so out of it that it took him a second to catch up with the others.

Lucy looked over.  The goblin was crouching on Verona’s hand, a glistening finger extended out toward her wrist.

He moved the finger closer.

“Don’t do it,” Verona told him.  “Or I’ll drop you.  And those guys might beat you up.”

“We will!” goblins promised, clamoring, now hopping.  A small gathering of six or seven goblins bouncing on the spot and groping at the air.  Sharks beneath a plank by a pirate ship.

He moved the finger closer still, looking up at her, his beaklike mouth drooping and down to the side, dopey.

She jerked her arm, and he flailed, arms windmilling, before catching his balance.  A fake-out, to scare him.  Goblin teeth snapped beneath him.

He considered for a second, then reached out again.

“Can he come with?” Avery asked.  “If he doesn’t smear anything gross on us?”

“Yes, sure,” John said.  “But we should go.”

“Want to come on an adventure and get a drawing at the end, or do you want to get on my bad side?” Verona asked.  “I appreciate the drive toward creativity and being a pain in the butt, but come on, it’s way better if you don’t.”

“He’s a goblin, Ronnie, he-” Lucy started, stopped.  The goblin sucked off whatever it was that was on his finger, then climbed along Verona’s arm to her shoulder, where he took a seat.  “-is pretty reasonable for his kind.”

Goblins booed and hissed and shouted insults at the goblin.  The little one-eyed goblin adjusted, bent over, and spread his butt cheeks at them, waving it around.

“Don’t-” Verona fended off the now-upset goblins with one foot, balancing on the other.

John walked between her and them, looking down at them in a stern way, and they backed off.  He pointed, and Lucy, Avery, and Verona headed up to the denser treeline, Snowdrop following a few steps behind.  John hung back to make sure goblins didn’t follow.

They resumed the pattern they’d had before, walking through dark woods with night vision and the ability to see in the dark, Avery doing loops around like the goblins were.

About nine in ten times Lucy thought she saw something, it ended up being Fishmittens or Kittycough.  The other one in ten times, it was either Nature playing a trick and making a bush or tree or rock look like something alive, or an actual rare animal.

The slope got steeper, but a path appeared and at least gave them even footing.  More of a rise to their right, more of a drop to their left.

There wasn’t a lot of talking.  Verona recapped some of the Ken stuff.

Avery looped back their way, caught the tail end, and added, “I think you won’t like him.  He has a perspective already decided by…”

“Society?” Lucy asked.

“Sure, and it’s about as hard to budge as changing all of Kennet’s mind.  Anything that could budge it might get counted as interference, which might cause problems with the spirits or local Others.”

“He said you’re owed a gift, Lucy,” Verona said.  “Bit of city magic or shamanism.”

“I’ll have to think on it,” Lucy said.

“He showed us one of the areas where there was fighting.  Avery and Snow found some stuff.  I found a bit,” Verona said.  She held out a knife and watch.

“We found a mining pick too,” Avery said.  “Put that just inside a Warrens-hole to pick up later.  It was a pain to carry.”

“Want one?  We still have to figure out if it’s useful or if we can get any power or anything from it,” Verona said.

Lucy reached over, then took the watch.  It was fogged up, to the point the hands didn’t show.  She turned it over, then clipped it around her backpack strap.

They passed the little-used train station, and they had a view of the glittering north end of Kennet.  The motel, the fast food places, the strip mall, and all the other places with signs that were mostly aimed at the highway, which had two cars on it.

Lucy watched, tracking them, and saw the cars move on.  One car, now.  Now none.  Now one.

“We’ll cut across the north end of town,” John said.  “If we stick close to the highway, the goblins will be able to stay near us.”

When they’d done surveillance on the local Others, ninety-five percent of it had been really boring, and most of the remaining five percent had been boring.  They hadn’t turned up much, except to get a general sense of where the local Others lived, where they went most days, and who they talked to.

The patrol was weird, because she felt as on edge as she had during her first stint of careful surveillance, but it didn’t feel like future patrols would get easier like the surveillance had.  At the same time, it was a walk in the woods at night, and even with night vision there wasn’t a ton to look at.

“Is it normally this quiet?” Avery asked.

“No,” was John’s very haunting, one-word reply.  He whistled.

Fishmittens slap-walked his way over, while Kittycough appeared on an overhanging branch.

“It feels as if something dangerous came through and scared off the little things,” he told them.  “What are your instincts?”

“Scary,” Kittycough belched the word in a high pitched voice.

Fishmittens looked startled, like the kid who wasn’t paying attention in class.  He nodded.  “Something’s around.”

“Lucy, Avery, Verona?” John said, turning to look around at the woods and buildings near them, one foot high and one foot low on the slope.  “Once we get a bead on this thing, I think the thing to do will be to run and notify the council.  You’re only staying around to help me spot it, I.D. it, and to use that I.D. to make a more informed choice about who to ask for help.”

“Got it,” Avery said.

“Let’s carry on.  No chatter, high alert.”

They carried on.  They took the route they’d plotted, and Avery took the north side of the highway with Snowdrop and the goblins, while the rest of them took the south side.  The highway was on raised ground, and walking on the grassy slope, littered with trash thrown or blown from cars, they had a view of Kennet.  Red watercolor, sword-impaled Kennet.

Lucy tried to study those bloodstains, to read them for what was old and what was new.  There was a kind of… not drying, but almost crispiness to the watercolor blots that tinted surfaces.  She could use that, trying to look for what was more wet, less aged, and see the loose chronology of it all.

Unfocusing her eyes just enough let her see streaks of red, wet, watercolor stand out from the rest.

“Avery!” Lucy called out.  “Anything on your end?”

“I’m seeing streaks! I want to check your side!”

“I wish we could share our Sight with each other, but I haven’t prepped that!”

Lucy nodded.  “Can I cross?”

“There’s a tunnel under the highway, just a bit down that way,” Verona said.  “Remember?”

Lucy remembered.  When Bristow had sent the Aware, they’d come up at the point by one of the tunnels under the highway.

“I don’t want to backtrack too much.  I think it’s clear?”

There were three cars on the highway, if she looked from one end of the horizon to the other, and none of them were close.  She worried a cop would be looking or something, with the perfect excuse to arrest her for being dangerous, but she crossed without issue.

She stood on the rise on the far side, and she couldn’t see any streaks.

Had an Other originated somewhere closer?  Near the highway?

She had to cross again, checking.  Avery used the black rope to carry the three of them over.

“Sorry for this,” she told John.

“It’s why you’re here.”

They did end up taking a slight detour, looking for the origin of that streak.

The tunnel was badly stained in much the same way that the street had been, where the three teenagers had been accosted.

“It’s the same tunnel, near the same point,” Verona observed.

Lucy folded her arms, walking around the tunnel opening that led beneath the highway.  Just narrow enough for one-way traffic.

Kennet Others had stopped here and carried the Carmine Furs from the Ruins to their vehicle.  They’d taken that vehicle down to the west end of town, nearly hit Clementine, and then fled rather than engage.  Clementine had had the chance to pick it up, declined, and three teenagers had grabbed it instead.  They hadn’t made it far.

And they were still missing.  It was still in the papers, big and small, around Kennet.

Presumed runaways, after some stuff had come up about one of their mothers.  It was thin but people clung to offered straws.

In reality, someone had come after them, probably someone from Kennet, and they’d reclaimed the furs.

This didn’t feel like something that extended from that.  This felt like a side effect… because the staining was thick, and it looked like something had painted a heavy streak near the tunnel, slipping off or out of a vehicle sometime tonight, had come to the tunnel, and then headed South, into Kennet.

Lucy took a pinch of glamour from Verona, since her own supply was low, and painted glowing streaks, where the staining and streaks were thickest.

She went to paint where the old staining from the movement of the Carmine Furs had painted the tunnel, and John was already there, hand on the concrete where the staining was worst.

“Can you see it?” Lucy asked.

He shook his head.  “But I feel it.”

She nodded, uncomfortable.

He’d inadvertently hit the same tone of voice he’d had that night.  Standing over Alexander.

“It’s taking a funny route,” Avery said.  “That’s closer to the Arena.”

“It likes the points where the Carmine staining is thickest,” Lucy said.  “It came from the road to this tunnel, where they moved the furs, and it makes sense it would go to the Arena.”

“Follow it?” Verona asked John.

“Yes.  Goblins?  Carry on with the casual patrol.”

They turned, heading deeper into town.

Toward the arena, following this trail.  Whatever this was, it was big enough to paint a stripe four feet wide, capable of going over a guardrail and down a slope without doing noticeable damage, and it had scared off the local wildlife.

“Would you have found this without us?” Verona asked.

“I had a feeling, near the tunnel.  I could have sensed something.  I wouldn’t be moving this fast on my own,” John said.

Two blocks, veering away from the Arena, and then the trail went cold.

Lucy bent down near where the streak stopped.

It didn’t taper off, or lift off, or splatter.

It was like someone had taken an eraser to it.

“They’re cleaning up,” Lucy said, straightening.  “Wiping away traces we could follow.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Avery asked.

“The invaders?” Verona asked.

Lucy walked out to the corner of the intersection, then turned slowly, taking everything in.  They weren’t far from the shady end of town with the fast food places, motels, and junkies.  There was a food bank nearby here, and a fire station, and a couple apartments.  The library was a few blocks over, and the government building was another few more blocks.

This was the administrative heart of Kennet.  Which was worrying in its own way.

She was struck by a reminder of her mom’s worry.  If they were out super late and a cop car pulled around, there might be questions.

She frowned, looking around, looking up, and saw Avery had black roped her way to the edge of a rooftop.  Snowdrop stood beside her.

“Whatcha thinking?” Verona asked.

“John, have you looked into police?  Or, more specifically, has Lis?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Because there’s this whole thing with local police that happened a few years ago.  Kennet had its own police force, and they dropped that for the provincial police instead.  I remember my brother talking really seriously about it.  That it made them faceless, it meant they didn’t know us, know our town.  We had no say in who got hired as the officer in charge of Kennet, anymore.”

“Yeah,” Verona said.  “I sorta remember that.  There were stickers in the window of a bunch of the shops and buildings around town.  Big one at the convenience store we go to.”

“You wanted to know if there were any people new to Kennet who didn’t fit in.  With the rising crime rate that we’ve got with the Carmine thing…”

“More officers from out of town?” John asked.

“Go warn the others and bring help, in case the invaders or the new Other are at the station,” John said.  “I’ll keep an eye out.  Montague would be good.  So would Jabber.”

Lucy took Verona’s hand, running, and waved up to Avery.

“Animal form?” Verona asked.

“I’ll need some of your glamour.”

Avery caught up, stepping out from behind a streetlight, Snowdrop right after her.

They used glamour while running.

Then they were birds.  Verona clearly wanted to mess around, so Lucy flew into her.

In the dark, with everything going on, they had to be careful.  Owls were one thing.  Flying Others were another.

To Matthew and Edith’s house.

Before she’d even landed, her earring gave her an earful.