“Thought not,” I said. “Meaning we need to find a pay phone, or borrow a phone, one way or another. Then we’d need to get ahold of someone, hope they weren’t too busy and that they had the knowledge needed.”
I ran my hand through my hair. Very little of it draped into my eyes, these days. It had snarled into longer lengths, held together by grit, as if I’d let particularly grimy clay into it, solidified by cold rather than heat.. A few twigs were snarled in there, and I wasn’t sure they’d ever leave. More likely they’d grow and set down roots.
“What’s plan B?” Green Eyes asked. “Run? Six is enough?”
“No,” I said. “I’d rather do seven than six.”
“Six is pretty good,” she said.
“Seven is an important number, Jerry says,” one of the satyrs commented, arms folded.
“Three, seven, twelve,” I said.
The satyr nodded.
Green Eyes only looked puzzled.
“It’s practitioner stuff,” I said. “More than monster stuff. Magic numbers. Beat someone three times, counts for more, holds more sway with whoever’s there, watching. Do it seven times, that’s something too. We should finish this.”
“You’re missing bones,” Green Eyes said. “You were supposed to grab some.”
“If the opportunity comes up,” I said.
“That goblin kicked your ass good,” Evan said. Then, after a pause, he added, “Mine too.”
“I walked away. That’s what’s important,” I said.
“The night’s almost over. I think. I’m not a very good judge of time. It was a few years since I saw the sun, or the moon,” Green Eyes said. “I like the idea of stopping, get some food, keep each other company. But if you think we should…”
“I think we have to,” I said.
“Okay.”
“What’s plan A, then?” Evan asked.
“This, right here,” I said. “Waiting.”
“Waiting?”
“Waiting,” I said. “Though we could stand to get to a better vantage point.”
“I’m wondering if he’s cracked,” Evan piped up, sticking his head out at a different point. He dodged my finger. He poked his head out elsewhere. “Not making much sense.”
“Assuming the enchantresses haven’t figured out a trick to find out where we are, despite the Evan influence,” I said. “What are they going to assume we’re doing.”
“Going after the spellbinder,” the first satyr said.
“What are they going to do in response?”
“Warn him?” the second satyr asked. “A phone call?”
“They’ll send some help. A warning wouldn’t be enough,” Green Eyes said. “We follow the reinforcements?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice soft.
“Assuming we can,” the first satyr said. “What if ‘help’ is a spell.”
“Evan breaks spells.”
“Or if they drive?”
“How many people do you see out there driving?” I asked. “Why didn’t your High Priest drive? Why didn’t any of them? Rhetorical question.”
“Ha,” Evan said, barely audible from within my chest.
“I don’t know,” the satyr said. “Why didn’t they?”
I pointed. Reluctantly, the satyrs followed. Green Eyes was already moving to my side, following.
I spoke as we traveled. “Because in a war like this, where an awful lot of things you don’t want to pick a fight with look human if you’re standing far enough away-”
“Like you,” Green Eyes interrupted.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Thank you,” I said.
She smiled.
“Anyway, I imagine that a lot of the sort of things you don’t want to mess with, like genies, that goblin I just dealt with, they’re human shaped. So if you stand far enough away, or if you’re dealing with a crowd, you have to wonder. You hold back. But something in a car? It’s going to be a practitioner, and I don’t think many practitioners can practice while driving.”
“They’ll travel on foot, maybe assisted by practice,” I said. “Evan’s unable to fly, so we’ll have to be quick, we’ll have to be smart, and we’ll have to be lucky.”
“Because luck has really been with us?” Evan asked.
“It has,” I said. I thought of the karma hoarder I’d stabbed. “Eerily so.”
We climbed onto a garage roof.
“Don’t look directly at the enchantresses,” I murmured. “Take in the scene as a whole, focus on details, or the people accompanying them. Green Eyes, same idea as before. Use their fear to gauge if they’re watching. We can’t let them see us if this is going to work.”
“Yeah,” she said.
We’d hunkered down on our bellies, only our heads visible above the garage. I was at the one edge, Green Eyes beside me, and, naturally, one of the Satyrs had settled beside her.
“Cinnamony,” she murmured.
The satyr on the far side of her smiled.
I really didn’t like that they were using such simple means to try and manipulate her.
She saw me looking, looked at the Satyr, then turned her eyes forward, ignoring me.
I saw a small smile creep across her face. It got wider, until her teeth showed. Narrow, long, and sharp, interlocking like a piranha’s.
Was she playing me?
I didn’t like the idea. It stirred up all kinds of ugliness, like a footstep in a clear puddle kicking up clouds of black, vile mud.
“The smell of cinnamon makes me think of food,” she murmured, still watching the house down the street.
The satyr edged away from her.
Green Eyes, apparently unaware, leaned forward a bit, eyes narrowing, as if she were looking at something, her shoulder pressing into my armpit.
“What?” I asked.
“I saw movement,” she said. “Wasn’t important.”
She settled down, the soft part of her chin resting on my arm, while her shoulder remained tucked into my armpit.
“I didn’t see nothing,” Evan said. “You’re crazy.”
I turned my head. He’d crawled out from inside me, and made his way under the back of my sweatshirt to my neck, just his head peeking out.
“Careful about lies,” I said.
“Oh yeah.”
“It’s okay,” Green Eyes said, not lifting her head as she talked, so her chin made my arm move with each word, “I am, just a little.”
“Okay,” Evan said. “But if you’re seeing stuff that isn’t there-”
“Evan,” I said. “Let it be.”
“But-”
“Let it be,” I said. “And don’t expose yourself. We might need you in fighting shape. Focus on rest.”
“Hmph, shutting me up, stowing me away,” he said, retreating just a bit under my sweatshirt. He stuck his head out again, “don’t think I didn’t hear that chicken nugget comment earlier. I figured that out too, you hear?”
I reached up to poke at his head again, but he was already gone, disappearing inside my shoulder.
The snow fell. There was activity in the house, people moving across windows. A general sense of agitation. A few too many people, perhaps, crammed into one house, unless it was a demesne – and I wasn’t seeing anything special through the windows to suggest it was. Those numbers in that kind of space wasn’t a big problem when things were quiet, but things weren’t quiet. Several recent deaths, high stakes surrounding everything, and people were probably limited to the common areas. Restlessness.