“Seal?” Rose asked.
“That should shake our bloodhound for exactly two minutes. I just wish my lighter hadn’t been so finnicky.”
“Candles need oxygen to operate,” Lola said. “Maybe this place operates by different rules?”
“We need oxygen too,” Paige added. “What happens if it takes that away?”
“We have oxygen, let’s not set any self-fulfilling prophecies in motion,” Rose said.
There were some nods.
“Green Eyes?”
The mermaid was at the front of the group with Evan, peering forward, head periodically moving to scan the surroundings. When she looked back, Green Eyes’ namesake eyes glowed a pale green with the light from the pseudo-moons above.
“It’s quiet here,” Green Eyes said. “Sound doesn’t carry like it should.”
Rose couldn’t help but notice that voices sounded strange, too. Too sharp around the edges. As if sounds weren’t diffusing or breaking apart enough.
“No danger?”
“Can’t tell, not really. Smells aren’t traveling like they should either. But there’s death, and blood.”
“Blood and darkness,” Mags said.
“Faster we do this, the better,” Rose said. She hadn’t forgotten that the others were dealing with demons. A minute was fine if it meant getting their hands on some goblin cannon fodder or if they were making sure they understood the basic rules of a new landscape, maybe delaying or shaking a pursuer. But waiting for waiting’s sake made her feel like she or someone else might lose their courage and outright lose the ability to press on, or that those precious seconds might cost someone on the outside their life.
She’d anticipated the abyss, or a shifting landscape where buildings themselves barred the path or formed walls. Nothing moved. There was no sound, and this place didn’t steadily wear against them or fight them.
Up a segment of fire escape, onto a rooftop of an adjoining building, then onto a jumble of cars that had been shoved over to one side, each member of Rose’s group walking carefully on the rooftops.
“Is that a genie?” Paige asked.
“Yeah,” Peter answered for her, his voice hushed.
Paige shot him an annoyed look.
They continued along the slanted and sloping rooftops, stepping down onto the ground itself. Peter offered a hand to Ainsley, then Paige, then Lola, in turn, offering them something to steady themselves against in case their feet slipped.
Rose and Mags were already on the ground. They approached the genie.
Eviscerated, the genie was stuck in a standing position. Hollowed out, chest and stomach torn open, its jaw had split at the chin, as if it had opened its mouth too wide, venting from within. Its remains were scattered around the open parking lot. The source of whatever impulse or push had moved the assorted cars. Scorch marks etched the pavement, leaving sections of it glassy. There was no blood, no gore, only the shell of a form and signs of an outpouring of energy.
Not a one minute walk away was a giant. Sitting cross-legged, hands folded in its lap, its shoulders slumped forward, head tilted so it faced the ground. Even sitting, its head reached as high as the roofs of the two stores on either side of it, each one three floors tall. The face had burned away, the skull shattered, revealing just how thick the bone was. Far thicker than a human skull. The interior of his head was only dark. The fragments of the skull and wisps of scorched flesh littered the hands, lap, and surrounding pavement.
“Man,” Evan’s voice cut through the silence. “Why does that bother me so much?”
“Giants are nearly extinct,” Lola said.
“Man,” Evan said, again.
“He’s his own tombstone,” Ainsley said. “In a place like this, he won’t ever change from that. Wind won’t erode him, microbes won’t eat him. He’ll just sit there, until this place is gone.”
“Fucking assholes,” Mags said. “Fuck them. Even clueless idiots like me know you don’t mess with the giants.”
“Cause they step on you,” one of the goblins chimed in.
“Because they’re fucking giants,” Mags said.
Rose shot Mags a curious look.
“What?”
“Wasn’t aware you could swear.”
“I can, but I’ve decided not to. Stay as close to my old identity as possible, even if it means embracing the bad.”
“Ah.”
“Looks like he was a cool dude,” Evan said. “Just sitting and chilling and facing his death like a boss.”
“More likely he just wasn’t fast enough to defend himself,” Lola said.
“Cool dude!” Evan said, and his voice shifted enough from one syllable to the next that he looked to be well under the influence of the drink, still.
“Sure,” Lola said, in the tone of someone who had dealt with belligerent young sisters or cousins before. “Let’s go with that, then.”
They left the giant behind, moving further into the city.
Rose had anticipated a maze, but as hard as the going was, there was little chance to get lost. There were more ups and downs than lefts and rights.
They made their way down from the roof of the gas station, to neatly sorted piles of rubble. Each pile was roughly the same size, and each pile was equidistant to the next.
It was telling, and it got the gears turning in Rose’s head. She stopped, and she turned, looking. How had things been laid out, when she’d been atop the gas station, or on the rooftops, earlier? She tried to draw a mental picture.
“Rose?” Mags asked.
Rose realized the group was threatening to leave her behind, as she looked.
“It’s a diagram,” she said. “He’s laid it out as a diagram.”
The other practitioners turned and looked for themselves. The non-practitioners looked restless, drawing closer to the group. Peter, Green Eyes, and Evan.
The observations and ensuing discussion were interrupted.
“Crush you,” the voice whispered, but it was a deep voice, not unlike Evan’s present one. It was a voice that could have boomed if it wanted to, if this place allowed.
Weapons found hands.
Rose wasn’t surprised. She’d anticipated trouble, and a part of her was glad to find it.
She held the machete that the witch hunter had thrown to one side. Ainsley had her candle, Lola and Mags had knives.
“Break you,” the voice said, closer.
It moved between two piles of rubble. Quick, given how large it was.
It was big, but not giant big. Comfortably in the order of hundreds of pounds. Fat, neckless, not unlike Midge in general proportion, the resemblance stopped there. The mouth was a slash across its face, ragged, filled with misshapen teeth, the eyes dark recesses, filled only with shadow. Rose was suspicious that if she had a light and the opportunity, she might have peered into those recesses to find beady black eyes. Better suited for darkness than light. Textured like callused flesh or a mole rat.
Ogre, Rose thought to herself.
One of the old creatures Johannes was so fond of surrounding himself with.
“We saw what happened to the others,” she called out. “He hollowed them out, tore them to pieces. All the Others that followed him, before.”
“Sacrifices,” the ogre said, a little louder than before.
“To? For?”
“Crack it all to pieces!” the ogre bellowed, spreading his arms wide.