“Stop!” a high voice called out.
They stopped.
Heads turned.
It was the little girl, Fell’s niece, who had called out.
“They’re on our heels,” the Elder Sister said. “Why are we stopping, Emily?”
“Illusion,” Emily said. “Malcolm. It has to be.”
“Illusion?” Alister asked. “Here?”
“My bird eye superpowers don’t see anything,” Evan said. He’d landed on the girl’s shoulder.
“I- I’m not sure,” Emily said. “I mean, you can keep animals from seeing too, even with the keener senses, and I guess he could. But it is illusion.”
Every set of eyes present, and there were quite a few, roved over the area.
“Paige,” Isadora said. “As we practiced. When we studied the way things were, we used tools, remember?”
Paige had gone still. Stage fright, or something else.
“Remember?” Isadora said, and the word was less coaxing and more pressure. Insistence.
“I do,” Paige said.
“Then hurry,” Isadora said, stern.
Paige nodded. Her eyes briefly met her twin’s.
“I need light,” she said, not looking away from Peter, though he was hardly equipped to fulfill the request.
The Elder Sister produced a flame.
“Brighter,” Paige said, looking away from Peter.
As the light increased in intensity, Paige raised a hand, a short knife held high.
The blade caught the light, and it reflected it, casting a thin triangular beam on the houses around them.
She turned the blade to adjust the direction that the beam was cast, walking backward.
Passing over Laird’s house, the blade cast shadows.
Above the door, perched, was a small figure, feathered wings spread. Below, moving across the front lawn, were two large, adult-sized shadows.
“Show yourself!” the sphinx ordered.
They weren’t given a choice. She’d pushed, and whatever was shrouding them broke, stirring around them as sand, rather than snow.
The figures were still mid-stride as the shroud peeled away, closing the distance.
The Elder Sister used the light she was producing and cast it out, drawing a line of fire to block the two figures from approaching. The light from the flame made their faces clearly visible. Laird and Fell.
The Elder Sister cast out more fire, and Laird gestured, deflecting it, as the pair backed away.
Fell raised a gun, and Ty and Tiff moved simultaneously, Ty with papers in hand, and Tiff with a hand outstretched.
Fell didn’t shoot.
Nobody moved, as they settled into a light standoff, the two constructs on the front steps of the house that was supposed to be a sanctuary, the group on the road outside.
The imp had flown here, brought or resummoned the constructs.
That they had their ability to practice was scary enough.
“Someone please tell me we didn’t kill them, toward the end there,” Nick said.
“That we didn’t?” the Elder Sister asked.
“Because if we did, then that imp can bring them back again and again.”
“We didn’t,” Isadora said, with confidence “I saw. Malcolm Fell disappeared in the confusion, very literally, and I was watching the chronomancer, he retreated. Neither were far enough back to be caught by the explosion. Nobody defeated them.”
“I’m hopeful nobody will,” Laird added his own voice to the conversation, raising it to make himself clearly heard. “I can’t help but note you lost your ring, Alister.”
Alister looked down at his stump.
Laird raised his own hand. The ring was on his finger. No, a ring.
“That’s not real,” Alister said.
Laird took a backward step. He put his hand on the doorknob, “And this house is supposed to be protected against entry from unfamiliar persons, unless you decided to revoke that security measure?”
Alister didn’t answer.
Laird turned the knob, and found it locked.
He raised a hand, and gestured.
The click of the locks shifting was audible.
“It seems my demesne recognizes me,” Laird said.
“It is not your demesne,” Alister said. “You and your ring are forgeries.”
“I’m real,” Laird said. He spread his arms, “Enough to matter.”
The Elder Sister lashed out with more fire. Laird deflected it.
“Enough to stop you if you do that,” Laird said, and it sounded vaguely patronizing.
The Eye lashed out, something far more intense, like the shower of sparks that might fly from an exploding transformer or downed power wires, and Laird threw himself back at the door, passing into the house.
The torrent of sparks and arcs of electricity died at the threshold of the door.
Fell had moved, too. Rose turned to look to the left, where Fell now stood, distant from the house, then reached out to touch the shoulders of Paige and the Elder Sister.
Paige, again, produced the revealing light.
The image of Fell disintegrated into sand. The real Fell was revealed as a shadow, a solid twenty paces away, more to the group’s left than to the front.
Before anyone could break the shroud, he swept one arm at the ground. Snow stirred, a cloud of powder six feet high, blocking the light. When the stirring came to a stop and the light shone through, Fell wasn’t there.
Rose eyed the demon above the door, then the man who stood behind it.
A mockery of a person, turned into a slow burning flame that would slowly destroy all that had tied that person to the world.
“We have trouble approaching from behind us,” Isadora said. “We’re being followed, the group from the house.”
“Should I scout?” Evan asked. “I can keep an eye out.”
“No,” Rose said. “If imps are flying around, I don’t know that we want you getting caught.”
“I won’t get caught!”
“Stay, it’s safer.”
“Blake trusts me!”
Rose hesitated.
“Keep us alive,” Alister jumped in. “Stay close, help. The sphinx will keep us updated, I think?”
“She will,” Isadora said. “They are getting closer. If it reassures anyone, they’re moving more slowly, but let’s not waste time.”
Rose clenched her hands, and was surprised to find that she was already clutching Alister’s one hand, squeezing it painfully hard rather than forming a fist.
They’re taking the city like it’s effortless. They’ve got vestiges like Laird to take these key points, or remove key players, and they’ve got Johannes for the North End.
“We should go,” the High Priest said. “Another sanctuary. It has to be better than getting flanked here. If we reached out to Sandra-”
“That thing has the house,” Alister said, his voice stern. “I have family members in there. A bulk of the family’s texts and tools are in there. Do we really want to let them have that?”
On the other side of Alister, Ainsley stepped a fraction closer to him, and slipped a phone out of her pocket. She began dialing, without looking.
“Do we have a choice?” the Astrologer asked
“He also has a copy of the ring,” Rose said, her voice quiet. “If he uses that to reach out to the entire Behaim family…”
“We lose a number of allies, I take it,” the Elder Sister said.