I tensed.
The girls on either side of her acted, following orders made with the smallest of gestures.
Their necks unspooled from within their body cavity, guts, bands of muscle and viscera trailing from a spine that coiled as a serpent’s might. Twenty feet of neck, poised in the air. The bodies remained as they were, hands in pockets.
Serpentine as the necks were, the girl’s faces were scowls, nothing more. No apparent fangs, no weapons.
Intimidating, but I couldn’t see obvious danger in it. What was the worst they could do? Strangle me?
I touched my hip with my thumb to remind myself that the Hyena was there, just in case.
“I smell meat,” Green Eyes murmured.
Meat?
“The necks,” Evan said. “Meaty giblet necks.”
The two girls with elongated necks looked at him, but they didn’t act. Their focus was on me.
“No, behind them. Lots of blood,” Green Eyes said.
“Our meat, our blood,” the woman with the yet-unextended neck said. “We already divided it fairly. Divided into sevens twice. The extra piece goes to the one who finally kills her. If any of us try and die, our shares go to the one who succeeds. Pot’s growing. It’s not a deal we’re sharing. It took too long to find rules we all agreed on, and if we have to adjust for every new arrival…”
Kills it?
“Midge,” Evan said. “I got a glimpse.”
Ah.
Also: Damn it, Evan.
“You know it?”
“You don’t?” Evan asked.
Taking advantage of his question, I added, “Midge popped up in Toronto for a very short time.”
“We wouldn’t know. We’re visiting,” the woman said.
Think, Blake, I told myself. My thoughts were all noise. They weren’t all cooperating. It would be so easy to just kill this one, stab her with the Hyena, catching her off guard. Green Eyes could take one of the snake-necked women, I could take the other. Three down, eleven to go, and when those eleven weren’t cooperating, it would be possible to take advantage of the chaos.
But if I suppressed my ‘slasher movie’ instincts…
They weren’t part of the assault on the house. Not fighting, not eager to be on the front lines. They didn’t look strong.
‘Visiting’ meant they were very possibly Johannes’. Especially if they didn’t know Toronto.
“We’re not looking for a share of the meat,” I said.
“I wouldn’t mind a share-” Green Eyes started. She shrank down into the snow a little as I turned my head her way. “-But I can do without.”
“Then why are you here?” she asked. “A late arrival.”
“I’ll tell you why I’m here if you tell me your role, lurking at the back, arguing about meat. I’m assuming whoever called you had reasons for asking you to come here.”
“They didn’t ask,” she said.
Rather than speak, I kept my mouth shut. I’d already made the offer.
She relented. “He put out an open offer. He’ll host us again if we can bring back any information he can use, that nobody else brought. We’re not participating so much as-”
“Scouting,” I finished.
She offered a nod. The angle of it seemed off. The other two women weren’t the only ones with horrendously long necks.
Host. A free admissions pass to Johannes’ wonderland for Others, in exchange for intel. Probably smart, giving up so very little in exchange for potentially huge gains. I was gratified to find that she was summoned by Johannes. One of his assorted Others.
She was, I realized, not a fighter. A scout, an observer, maybe a bit of a scavenger, to pick the bones clean after all was said and done.
Now to fulfill my end of the bargain. She’d elaborated on her motives. As to mine…
“I’m looking for that,” I said, pointing at the wood pile.
“Why?”
“Because I want to start a fire,” I said.
“There are rules. Set out when we were sent here,” she said.
“Not for me,” I said.
“But the rules are there for a reason,” she said.
“They are,” I agreed. “The demon, in one of the rooms of the house. Step carelessly, and we might let it free.”
She nodded that odd nod of hers again. The angle of her chin didn’t change in the slightest. Her head merely rose and fell. Then, just when I thought I had her agreement, she asked. “Why fire? Why were you headed here, long before you were close enough to see the wood?”
It would be so easy to stab her. To attack the others, create the chaos I could take advantage of. Maybe even use Midge, to get another body on my side.
I’d largely abandoned my humanity, leaving the others behind. What was I clinging to?
I’d asked myself a similar question, back in the Drains, before I’d decided on my way out.
I was mired, right now.
If I pushed forward, if I was a true monster, I might lose some of Evan’s faith.
If I didn’t… there was the dim chance that we might fly, in the metaphorical sense. Escape and be free. We could strive to get everyone through this alive.
But this wasn’t in my nature, as a broken human being, and it wasn’t in my nature as a monster.
I touched one of the few sections of true skin I had left. My face.
“Tattoos,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I wanted to be an artist, once. But I guess I wasn’t made to have it. I was made to be resourceful, to be strong.” And maybe a bit desperate. “Rather than be the artist, I was content to be a canvas, to make art happen.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Fire… it’s dramatic,” I said. “It’s me, and it’s everything here, and it’s an ideal capstone to the evening. It’s going to make people look.”
“You burn,” she says.
“Not if I can help it,” I said.
“But you’re the type to burn. I can see it. Playing with fire is insanity.”
“Well,” I said, “It looks like I’m that kind of Other.”
“If we let you past, You don’t interfere.”
“Not making any promises,” I said.
She scowled.
“To be entirely honest,” I said, staring at her, “I don’t think you’re strong enough to stop us. Even if you’re the kind of Other that can see weak points and vulnerabilities.”
Her gaze, as she met mine, was fierce. A staredown between alpha dogs, to decide who had supremacy.
“Ane,” one of the long-necked girls said. “I think they got her.”
The woman snarled, but she turned her back to me.
Going to claim her share.
I headed up the hill, all too aware that if the wrong person arrived, if we made the slightest mistake, or if Evan was seen…
“Evan,” I said. “Hide in my hood.”
He hopped across my shoulder and into the recess of my sweatshirt’s hood.
The backyard, such as it was, was flat, a nice change after the steep incline, where footing had been so unsteady.
I moved with purpose, ignoring the rest, placing myself so that the three long-necked women partially concealed me. They were all clustering around Midge, who lay on her back, surrounded by bloodstained snow.
I headed straight to the wood pile.
I grabbed wood and threw it toward the center of the porch. It didn’t make noise, except to punch through the light crust of ice atop the snow. There was no thud, no clack or crack as wood landed amid snow.