The high priest clubbed it out of the air.
Again, the imp steered itself to land on the diagram.
“Faysal!” Alister said, joined by his cousin this time.
Others picked up the cry.
Summoning an enemy.
The imps moved toward the gap in the diagram, a failure in the protective symbol.
There was a flash of light, and the imps scattered, retreating a solid twenty feet.
Faysal, wearing his dog form, sat at one side of the circle. Opposite Ms. Lewis, who stood on a shattered section of driveway.
“You can stop,” Faysal said. “I’m here. Hello, Lewis.”
“Faysal Anwar,” Ms. Lewis said. “You don’t mean to interfere, I hope?”
The dog shook his head. “If anything, I’m willing to help, if you’ll agree to dispose of these pests.”
Ms. Lewis smiled.
15.07
“When you say pests, or ‘help’, you wouldn’t mean, say, those imp things being pests and you helping us?” Peter asked.
“No,” Faysal said.
“Then you’re a complete and utter bastard,” Peter said. “What the hell right do you have, calling yourself an angel?”
“That would be a label others applied to me,” Faysal said. “Human invention.”
“I was under the impression that all Others of any given classification were of human invention, to some degree, conscious or unconscious,” Rose said. “Influenced, at the very least.”
The lead imp, Murr, growled at her.
“What?” Rose asked the imp. It was all she could do to keep her voice steady, without the benefit of Conquest. “Don’t like that idea, imp?”
“Did you want something, Rose?” Faysal asked. “At this point, I’m quite prepared to help Lewis wrap this up so these creatures can be put away properly. It’s less damage in the end. You went to considerable trouble summoning me; if you had a reason to do it, this would be the time to share.”
“Right this moment, I’m curious as to why you’re changing the subject from the topic of others being human-made. Or why you’re even asking when you could just help her and be done with it,” Rose said.
Faysal cocked his head to the side. “This isn’t making me more inclined to help you.”
Not thinking straight, Rose admitted to herself. To me.
I maneuvered through memories. It wasn’t hard to find the memories in question, as Rose was calling up the very same ones.
Two minds in one body, two minds free to pore over Rose’s memories and experiences.
I’d given her a portion of myself, an attachment to Tiff, Ty, Alexis, and to Toronto, with the idea that maybe, just maybe, she might be able to engage in actual teamwork. Not simply giving orders, but working with others.
If I had to, if I could figure out what she was striving to do, here, I could give her something else.
I saw grandmother. I saw Rose at the house, reading. Rose talking to the lawyers.
I entered one scene, and I could make out Rose, sitting in the armchair of the living room. It was empty, quiet, tracts of darkness surrounded her, but the scene that unfolded from the window was that of a complete city.
Rose in the mirror. Before I’d been eaten by Ur.
I looked over her shoulder, in a manner of speaking. I peered through her eyes, to read what she was reading.
Grandmother’s diary. One of many. A stack of no less than twenty stood beside her. Where anyone else might be concerned about a stray breeze or bystander knocking over the books, Rose paid it no mind. In her mirror world, reading while I was active in the real world, there were no external influences.
Here, in this memory, she was utterly and completely alone.
It made me wonder. Her new sense of friendship, how did it combine with her ability to hold it together here, without anything resembling human contact?
Or was that why there was so much damage, when two pieces tried to fit together?
She read with a dogged sort of determination. Now and again, she reached over and made a note with her pen. I looked over her notes as she did.
A textual silence, Rose had noted. The text spells it all out, regular updates. Undeniable, safe.
But, she wrote, and she stabbed the paper with the tip of the pen a few times, letting the ink blot out in vaguely circular shapes, it’s too convenient. R.D.T. the good little diabolist. She brings up thoughts of rebellion in abstract, then abandons them. Except they aren’t truly abandoned.
Textual silence. What isn’t written? What subjects, ideas and plans came up, but went unwritten, in case her enemies read her work?
She wages a subversive war against the lawyers. I may have to, if they keep up their pressure.
Who are my enemies? What rules do they operate by?
I turned away. I abandoned the scene. I suspected I could skim the memories, rush through them, pick across several in a fraction of the time that seconds and minutes passed in the real world. All the same, there was little to be gained by reviewing memories where Rose was only just beginning to pull ideas and strategies together.