A boot settled on my wrist.
“Corvidae’s working for Mara!” I hollered the words.
“Working for Mara?” Corvidae murmured. His voice went perfectly with the noises of the scavenger birds. “No, no. I couldn’t do that, see? Our deal stipulated that I was to assist you. Work against lone enemies. So. In the interest of doing that…”
A blade stabbed at my fingers.
Not to injure, but to pry.
Had I been able to see, or intuit direction, I might have been able to stop him. It would have helped, too, to have another hand. I could thank the Abyss for that.
But he found the right grip, and he slipped the Hyena from my grip, the spikes dragging against my fingers.
I reached for it, and found only cloth, with brittle bone within. The smell of thick dust filled the air.
“There you go,” he said. “To weaken your enemy, and promote chaos…”
“Corvidae!”
The fourth match or so flickered to life.
It hardly mattered. The opaque cloud of birds was dissipating. We had light, if it could even be called that.
Crone Mara was on the far side of the clearing, sitting on one of the fallen trees, gingerly holding the Hyena.
“Three times, you have disgraced yourself. You have intruded on my territory without due notice. You have stolen that which is mine, without declaration of war. You have refused my offer of safe passage.”
“I call bullshit on all three counts!” I shouted.
“Bullshit!” Roxanne joined the cry. Evan was only a step behind her.
We managed to make Mara look annoyed.
“I have been here for a long time,” Mara said. “My day is a ritual. My existence is ritual. The spirits that dwell here are mine. They will side with me.”
Her face was cloaked in shadow, framed by her hair, shrouded by the canopy, and something told me it was intentional, as if she instinctively knew where the light fell, here. The only light there, in her silhouetted form, was a gleam at one eye, like the edge of a knife.
Shit.
She held out the Hyena, balancing it on one hand, so it teetered slightly. “Enact your judgement. I am life, birth, death. By this token, give the monster a heart, and return his weapon to him, impaling-”
A gunshot rang out. Mara leaned back, swift. The vague light of the moon and the city reached her face, illuminating it.
I could see the darker spot of blood moving, dripping, at her eyebrow, touching her cheekbone. The Hyena had fallen to the snow.
The cavalry.
I wasn’t sure it was a good thing, given what the cavalry entailed.
Rose strode from the woods, butt of a hunting rifle touching one shoulder.
Mara didn’t move an inch.
A shot rang off.
A miss.
Others followed Rose. The remainder of the contingent.
It wasn’t just that it was Rose that had come. That was a problem, considering our dynamic, but it wasn’t a surprise.
No.
Her group outnumbered mine by a significant margin.
That was… annoying. A relief, considering present circumstance, but to have me balance the scales, then go out of her way to unbalance them?
Help had arrived.
The Knights of the Basement, armed with guns, joined Rose, Kathryn, Ellie, the Others, and the Behaims.
She’d called in help. Probably before we’d banded together.
But that wasn’t the focus here.
The crone was. The immortal.
I sensed the glimmer of fear from Rose as she acted. I knew Mara had seen some cue too, because Mara was shifting her weight. Moving.
Before she could, without even glancing to see what I held, I took the object that Corvidae had given me, and I dashed it against a tree.
Rose fired.
Mara moved in the same moment, away from the bullet, simultaneously turning to glance at me. To see a small cloth doll with a weird leathery face being dashed to pieces.
The bullet didn’t strike home, but I was pretty sure that she’d been grazed. Clipped in an ear. One hand went to the side of her head.
“I thought you said this gun made me accurate.”
“Benefits you,” the man I’d nicknamed ‘Shotgun’ spoke, holding his trademark weapon. “Can’t help you if the target can dodge bullets.”
Mara stood straighter, taking us all in, hand still to her ear.
“I have done nothing to warrant tonight’s intrusion.”
“Living as long as you have, I’m sure you’ve done something,” I said.
“Acting directly against you?” Mara asked. “Not so.”
“Well,” Rose said, gun still aimed. “We’re assholes like that. Did she say, Blake? Whether she was involved?”
“No,” I said.
“I won’t,” Mara said.
“And… she made it a promise, in a roundabout way,” Rose said. “Damn it. That makes things complicated.”
“Corvidae can comment,” I said, glancing toward where Corvidae stood. Green Eyes was in a tree, braced against branches, and he was standing clear of her lunging range.
“I can,” Corvidae spoke. “Allow me to consult my notes.”
I’d faced way too many smug motherfuckers to let that slide.
“Shoot him!” I shouted.
But Corvidae was already drawing something from his jacket.
A hand mirror. Bound in paper.
“Don’t shoot him!” I shouted.