“Ahem,” Paige cut in.
“-tomorrow,” Peter said. “Even if it’s not for ourselves, necessarily, we’re all looking forward. Bumps in the road or no, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think there was something better in general, later on. Right?”
“Right,” Mags said.
Paige was nodding, as was Green Eyes.
“Damn straight,” I said.
The Barber looked us all over with a level gaze.
His eyes met mine.
I reaffirmed my grip on the Hyena.
Was this where he uttered a command to Faysal? Or threw the shears to close the distance? We’d answered his challenge, so to speak.
“You know, don’t you?” he asked, the question abrupt.
Know?
“When all’s said and done, the Abyss will spread, and it will swallow all things. It’s the next step in humanity’s progress. Left untouched, things will advance, progress and change until they tumble over a cliff. That is what waits for humanity as a whole, in the interim. The things you call demons wait beyond even that point.”
“That was about the sense I had of things,” I said, reminded of why I’d suggested that Rose take a bogeyman as part of the group. Take Green Eyes.
“Then-”
“It’s fine,” I cut him off. My own gaze was just as level as his. “I’m not worried. We’ll find a way to make it work. I’ve gone out of my way to reject tradition, the ties of the past that bind us. Why the hell would I let anyone dictate the particulars of the future?”
“Why indeed?” the Barber asked. “The practitioner you’re currently possessing would do well to keep that in mind, when she considers how faithful you are to the promise you made her.”
I felt Rose react. A sharp movement, too fast and violent, as she did the equivalent of snapping her head around, paying full attention. It tore something. Created a schism.
I tried to open my mouth to protest, but there was a disconnect between the parts of this face that were mine, and the parts that were Rose’s.
I’d left him an opening. He took it.
He was backing up. He snapped his fingers, and he pointed with the shears, a sweeping gesture.
The dragon roused. Suddenly alert, hostile.
I could see the energy building up deep within its body, flowing and flaring at points along the length of its torso, around lungs, up the neck, toward the mouth.
Mags was throwing a piece of paper. Paige, Peter and Green Eyes were ducking toward the stairwell.
I tried to follow suit, and I felt the disconnect between my wishes and the body’s actions. The damage done with that pique of doubt on Rose’s part slowed me down, and I knew it was enough of a break that I wouldn’t be able to get to the stairwell. Couldn’t run back to try and use the pillars or railings that ringed the tower top, and didn’t trust them besides.
The Barber’s dark gaze didn’t break, as he faced me down, the energy crackling and spitting out to fill the ‘v’ shaped gap between the two halves of the dragon’s head.
A pillar rose out of the middle of the rooftop, just behind him.
Control over his demesne.
The only option that remained.
It’s because I believe in changing destiny that I’m walking this road, damn you!
Rose got the message, processed it, and seemed to realize she was holding me back. I had control again. I rushed in his direction, Hyena in hand, as the fire reached the dragon’s bisected mouth.
Two focused streams, one to my left, one to my right, the space between them filling with swirling, erratic gouts and curls of superheated flame.
The only piece of cover available was the one the Barber had given himself. With no other choice, I was heading straight for the Barber, even as the flame closed in to my left and right.
I swung the Hyena, because there was no other choice, here. Too close in proximity, and this scant amount of cover from the flames wasn’t enough to be shared.
The shears caught the Hyena. Almost immediately, I realized that I wasn’t strong enough. He twisted the weapon, and twisted me over to one side, at the same time.
Forcing me in the direction of the flames.
My grip was only a one-handed one, my weapon a broken one, while his grip was two-handed, the individual blades each as long as my forearm.
I was losing this contest of strength, perilously close to the fire that now formed a skewed ring around the tower’s roof, curving with the pillars and railing to flow behind me, simultaneously blazing to my left and right.
Still, a one-handed grip meant I had one hand free. My own grip on my weapon was enhanced by the spikes. Still holding the Hyena, I twisted around, my back to the Barber, and moved to his left, driving my elbow back and toward his elbow.
I hit his upper arm instead. The shears were jarred, the blades closed, and the Hyena was forced out the upper end.
Our weapons no longer pressing against one another, I was given an opening, while simultaneously threatened by the fact that the shears were right there, and I had no idea what he was about to do with them.
Someone was screaming, male but still a high pitched, ragged sort of sound. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t the Barber.
I dropped to one knee, anticipating that he’d thrust the shears at me, instinctively knowing I was off balance enough that if he simply threw his body at mine, he could send me stumbling into the fire. Being low to the ground meant I was harder to move.
But he was more deliberate, careful. He didn’t thrust blindly. He had all the time in the world to decide where he’d put the shears. As my knee hit rooftop, he was already poised, shears drawn back, slightly parted, thrusting them at my neck.
I swung the Hyena around, but I didn’t manage to put them in the way of the Barber’s weapon. The shears were knocked up and to one side, instead. They grazed cheekbone, temple, scalp, and ear, carving away wood and bone that marked my claim to that part of Rose’s face.
I cut at him, in turn, a halfhearted backhand slice at his midsection, given how I needed to move my weapon-wielding hand anyhow. I saw the line appear, red, raw.
It closed instantly, knitting together with those black, leech-like masses. Just as the Barber had been damaged but never actually hurt. Never debilitated.
But, as efforts went, it perhaps made him a fraction of a percentage point less Johannes, a bit more Barber.
My damaged hand, cut by the shears earlier, went up to catch at one of his wrists. I seized him, and he didn’t seem to care. His eyes were elsewhere, looking over and past me.
I saw his lips move.
White light consumed him. My hand closed over nothing.
Faysal.
The screaming I’d heard earlier was getting louder.
It was Mags, her goblin in tow. A goblin, short, fat and wrinkled, was clad entirely in armor that looked like it had been made with some sheet metal clippers and liberal time spent in a junkyard. It had a shield that was taller than the goblin was, and both a hunched-over Mags and the goblin were taking shelter behind it.
“Hot!” the goblin screamed. “It’s hot!”
They reached the pillar. The goblin positioned the shield so it added to the cover the pillar provided.
“Where is he!?” Mags shouted, over the goblin’s whining and the roar of the flames.
“Faysal moved him!”
I didn’t catch Mags’ expletive.
“Hot hot fuck me it’s hot!”
“Shut up!”
“Why didn’t you use him earlier!?” I called out.