He and I both headed for Ainsley in the same moment. I spotted the blade meant for me, and held out the Hyena, metal touching metal, sparks flying, the thrust of the blade now pushing me further away from it’s cutting edge.
Green Eyes’ shriek, drawn out in an odd way by the time-slowing effect, was the only thing that warned me of the other blade. From the wall beside me, rather than the ground, a sneak attack.
One for me, one for Rose.
It speared out, right for my throat, changing trajectory slightly as I continued to dodge the first blade.
I ducked low to avoid it, but the process of getting out of the way meant I was no longer en route to help Ainsley.
Peter shoved her, hard, landing on his stomach. The blade sprouted from the base of the building, where it met sidewalk, slicing Ainsley’s hip and elbow, but not cutting deep enough to separate. The two were parted by the blade that sat between them.
It wasn’t over. I knew it wasn’t over.
But we had a moment to reel, to react. Where we’d once had an established clearing, our group was now caught in the midst of a thicket of demon blades, criss-crossing, looming high above us.
Not unscathed, but alive. We’d avoided being Barbered.
Then the first of the blades moved.
What I’d assumed to be blades were only parts of shears or great pairs of scissors.
Now the shears closed, and they closed as the time altering effect was wearing off. It seemed to accelerate the speed at which they moved.
Fast enough that I didn’t have time to turn around, assess the situation, or decide on priorities.
Ainsley was clear. Peter wasn’t. In the position he was in, he couldn’t move fast enough.
I grabbed him with both hands, threw myself forward, and hurled him back, as the blades meant for him and Ainsley both drew together. My forward momentum put me directly in the blades’ path. I put out a hand to stop it, touching the wall.
The blades closed, taking two fingers and a section of both Rose’s left hand and my own. I had to pull and tear at my own hand to free the remnants.
I could feel Rose’s distress.
All around us, the forest of the Barber’s blades had all snapped shut.
Many of the wretches that had been cut several times over were in shapes that barely resembled people. Too flimsy, too bent, broken, pre-existing wounds turned into other features. A break in an arm now a joint, entrails now some mechanism for a glacially slow advance. Too numerous now to simply be a crowd, many climbed and hung off the blades, like monkeys in trees. They were slick with blood, and in the curious light, the blood looked nearly black.
The light in their eyes had been portioned out too many times, and had flickered out. Their expressions were dead, dark.
Peter was staring at me. I had to double check that I hadn’t been cut so deep that there was a double of me.
“Thanks,” he said.
I didn’t have a response for him. I nodded, turning to face the situation.
Wretches were forging their way past the blades and one another. They still fought with each other, but they were so numerous it didn’t matter.
The goblin that had been cut was fighting Mags and its copy. The rest of us were picking ourselves up. Green Eyes was okay, and was perching on a set of shears much as the wretches were. Evan was high enough to be clear of it all, but he was smaller, and the fires were going out.
Don’t go too high, I thought.
Peter was helping Ainsley and wrestling with the block of wood. I seized the block myself, sticking the Hyena through a gap in my midsection to sheath it before bringing the block against the blades that blocked the door.
They weren’t thin, but they bent when struck.
I could remember the vision Rose had shot me. Of her atop Conquest’s tower.
It was a little more energy, to push myself forward, hit harder.
Peter reached my side, and he had a concrete block.
I hit, pulled back, and Peter struck. I timed my swing so I’d hit as he got the block around to the side, readying for his next swing. Not effective swings, not pretty, especially with my damaged hand making gripping hard, but we were hammering at the barricade all the same. An ‘x’ of blades, the blades themselves resting against doorknobs, preventing the doors from being pulled open.
The first blade dropped, and I hurried to catch it before it could casually topple onto the group. I worked to reorient it, blunt end forward, and readied to hit the second blade.
“Hit the door!” Peter shouted. “On the left!”
I did. The wood took far more damage from my narrow battering ram than the blade might have.
Two hits, a kick, and the bottom half of the left door was broken away.
Peter ducked, readying to move under, and the blade moved.
I reached out, too late to be effective, but Peter was already backing away. The blade dropped, sliding down, cutting into the ground at the base of the door, where Peter would have been if he were crawling through. A feint, on his part.
He shot me a grin. “Predictable!”
“Stop being smug and get inside!” Paige screamed.
He looked at Ainsley, but Paige was already there, helping the girl.
I tossed the large blade to one side, drew the Hyena, and joined the front line. By the time I worked my way past the blades that had sprung up, trying to hit us, the rest of the group was already gone, sans goblins and Green Eyes.
And Evan.
“Evan!” I called out.
He descended.
As one, with Evan facilitating, we retreated into the building. The moment Green Eyes, Evan and I were through, the others shifted a desk so it blocked the door.
Claws and other limbs scrabbled at the door.
All of the others around me were panting. Everyone capable of standing was bleeding from existing wounds.
Green Eyes wasn’t one to ‘stand’, but I honestly couldn’t tell how much she was bleeding, with all the gore that she’d covered herself in. Lola, conversely, wasn’t up to standing due to what appeared to be a hit to the head, but there was remarkably little blood.
Ainsley was both bleeding and incapable of supporting her own weight.
I wasn’t in the best shape, either. The holes which I’d opened up in Rose’s torso, arms and legs were raw at the edges, she was bleeding, and I was in pretty poor shape as well. The damage done to my body wasn’t healing. There was no reserve of power to draw on, here. Whole sections of my exterior body had been torn away, and Rose’s body was exposed. More than ever, we were like two very different jigsaw puzzles, pieces hammered and jammed into place in a way that wasn’t meant to be.
Except now, it was very visible on a physical level.
“Okay,” I said. “First question. Is there anyone we need to be worried about?”
“Worried?” Lola asked. She had one hand to her head.
“That might have been cut in two by the Barber,” I said. Someone that might look familiar, but who was out of sight and close enough to the blades that we might have to worry about them being…”
“Not entirely there?” Peter asked. “Not limited to being in one place?”
“Basically,” I said.
“Sorry to jump straight to the obvious, but what about you?” Paige said me. “Before you joined us?”
“Nope, was watching him,” Evan said. “Was going to help, but then he fell into the crowd, but there weren’t any blades near him.”
“Good,” Paige said.
Thank you, Evan, I thought.