He stopped, his skirt and chains forming a barrier in my path, too broad to leap over, even if I were feeling spry. Some chains were almost black with blood and other bodily fluids. One ended in what looked to be a chunk of goblin. Another, it seemed, was hooked into a living body.
The body belonged to a Duchamp woman, maybe fifty or sixty, who had the bit of metal caught in her calf. A big, hook that might have gone around a steel cable, the point sharpened, was sticking through and around one of the two shin bones. The woman was very much alive, and her hands and feet had been scraped raw where she’d fought to crawl through snow and salt and over cold pavement, simply to avoid being dragged by tugs against an open wound.
Now that the Other had stopped, she was fighting with frozen, bloody hands to work the big, awkward hook out of her leg.
The Other paid her no mind, his attention on me, his expression grim.
I raised the Hyena as a just-in-case measure.
“I have no interest in you,” he spoke. His voice carried well, like the echo from a deep well. “I could take the bird, if you offered.”
“The bird belongs only to the bird!”
“What do you want them for?” I asked.
“I have a quota. Souls to be cast down into the workings of the Machine. You are clearly black with the Machine’s oils. You would be redundant.”
“You’re talking about the Abyss,” I said.
He inclined his head slightly. “Yes.”
The Duchamp woman gasped in pain as she managed to get the hook out of her leg, pushing with the bend of her wrist and base of her palm, rather than frozen fingers.
“The bird has some of the Abyss in him,” I said, as I watched the woman crawl away on elbows and knees, making a point to keep hands and feet off the ground. “A transfusion of power from me to him, not so long ago.”
“He is also small in body. I’m no longer interested in him. I’m going now. Nine more to collect.”
Without even looking, the Other tossed a chain in her direction. The end was covered in roughly twenty fish hooks. The chain draped across her shoulder, the mess of hooks dangling between her arm and body.
One sharp tug, and a good two-thirds of the barbed hooks set into flesh at her armpit.
He moved on. Tall and strong as he might have been, he was forced to lurch due to the chains that trailed behind him. Left foot forward. Right foot brought up next to the left. Right foot forward, left foot brought in line with the right. Hooks and blades and chains dragged furrows into the snow. Where they skipped up and touched ice, a car bumper or the edge of the sidewalk, he was strong enough for the blades or hooks to cut through fiberglass or a bit of concrete.
The woman shot me a pleading look as she scrambled to keep up on frozen hands and feet. She managed to find her feet, and for a second I thought she might walk after him, but she took a fraction of a second too long. He took one lurching step forward, and she was tugged, sent sprawling. From there, it was all she could do to keep up.
“Are we going to help her?” Evan asked.
I tightened my grip on the Hyena.
The bell was so loud. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself.
“We can,” he said.
“What makes her different from Will, back there?” I asked. “I’m not saying we won’t or that we can’t… but a lot of people will need help. Enemies who sent monsters to kill Callan, or condoned it. She’s out here, a representative for the Duchamps. She didn’t decide to sit this whole thing out.”
“If that’s your only rule to decide who dies, an awful lot of people oughtta die tonight,” Evan said.”It’s up to you. I promised I’d help stop the monsters… I’m just not sure who the monsters are, here.”
“Guy with chains talking about throwing people into a big machine is a good bet,” Evan said.
“You know what I mean,” I said.
“I know what you mean, sure, but I’m not sure.”
“It’s up to you,” I said, again. “I want to. I itch to step in and stop him. But I’m not sure I trust my instincts, and I know it doesn’t make sense. The monsters are picking off our enemies for us. Or occupying them.”
“I’m really not the person to ask,” Evan said. “Which is why I suggested going to talk to Alexis or Ty or someone.”
I shook my head.
Not that Evan was wrong, per se.
The bell continued to toll, cacophonic, jarring, setting every spirit in me stirring.
I was a monster. I didn’t deny it.
But I was aware of how I’d nearly killed Will Behaim, and now I couldn’t help but think about how he had a family.
I was mixed up, and the bell was disturbing my thoughts, twisting them around. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself in a fight against a genuine enemy, if I’d start thinking about how they had a family, or a history, how they might be okay. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to spare someone who needed sparing.
With every step the chain man took to carry him further away from me and Evan, it became harder to justify closing that distance, chasing, to rescue her.
“She’s old. She’s supported the Duchamps through at least two generations,” I said. “Marrying off daughters and sisters and cousins. Forced marriages, denying them freedom. Perpetuating an ugly cycle. She’s here. She’s…”
I was having trouble convincing myself.
“Yeah,” Evan said. “But the other guy has hooks and chains and stuff, and he flings people into the Abyss.”
There were distant screeches.
I was reminded of the Drains. The cold, the noise, the fact that there were no right decisions.
Except I wasn’t in the Abyss.
I was here. In Jacob’s Bell. One hour’s drive away from my hometown, the home that was no longer mine to return to. I was here, and in the midst of this decision, I was being forced to confront myself, much as the Abyss had forced me to consider my origin, and the Tenements forced me to consider my present reality.
“I made you a promise, Evan. To stop the monsters.”
“I think the spirits forgot that promise? I did.”
“Anyone that needs the spirits as an excuse to hold to their word is a pretty shitty person,” I said. “I don’t trust my instincts. What are yours? Is he a bigger monster than she is?”
“I don’t know, Evan. But I think you’re right. We need another voice to help us figure out a strategy, and we need help, but the Behaims are out for blood, because of what Molly did. The Duchamps aren’t likely to be in my good books. I’m not sure how to reach out to the junior council, even if I hadn’t tried them, not so long ago. Johannes… I don’t trust him, and I don’t even want to show my face near him, knowing the kind of power his familiar can sling around. That doesn’t leave many options for people to talk to.”
“No, I guess not.”
“There’re the Thorburns,” I said. “Fresh eyes on the situation. But if I go do that, if I contrive to make them practitioners, am I adhering to the pattern I did before? Backing up the status quo?”
“There aren’t many things you can do that haven’t been tried already,” Evan said.
“No,” I agreed. “You’re right on that.”
“Briar Girl?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s sitting this one out. Probably protecting her forest.”