We reached a point near Green Eyes, and I shifted things around. Focusing on gripping. I found the Hyena directly between Rose’s shoulder blades and passed it along the wing to her right hand. Wood served to form a gauntlet so the spikes wouldn’t impale her.
“The Welder,” she whispered. She scratched a circle into the wall, then a name. “Once known as Gunter Veit. I name you and I call you. You’ll find few fires hotter than these. Follow the orders my allies give you. Fight the dragon, distract the man with the black-scarred face.”
The circle shimmered, then became a gate. Rose held out a hand, ready to catch him.
He didn’t need it. Scarred from head to toe, the scar tissue had integrated with a welding mask he wore. He had a heavy tank on his back.
Won’t he explode? I wondered.
But he found a handhold, and he swung himself around a break in the wall, onto the rooftop, into flames taller than he was.
I watched as Rose started on the next diagram, my eye swiveling around.
Her flesh was too pale. Almost artificial. Her hair was lighter than before, but it made her look severe. The scratches and cuts that remained looked as though they’d been placed there on purpose, a bad makeup artist’s work.
“The Nurse of Darnby,” Rose said. “You wanted to put others out of their misery so badly you made your way out of the Abyss to keep doing it. You can stop a lot of misery from happening here. Let this be your crematorium.”
The nurse did need help. She looked more like a snuffed matchstick than a person, but scraps of a charcoaled nurse’s uniform and white teeth in the burned shell marked her general form. Green Eyes gave the woman a hand in swinging over to the same gap the Welder had used.
“Bristles,” Rose said. She scratched out the name. “Here boy.”
The fifty-pound animal that came out snarled and snapped, biting at me on the way out. Once a dog, it was more scar tissue than anything else, from burns to tire treads. Weapons and tools that had apparently been used to try to kill it stuck out of its back, sides, head and shoulders, like spines from a porcupine.
The dog that wouldn’t die, apparently.
“Go. Get ’em!” Rose ordered.
Bristles snorted, then began its climb. It snarled at Green Eyes on the way up.
It didn’t venture into the flames, but ran along the top of the wall.
“Faceless woman,” Rose said. “Resident of Jacob’s Bell. If you’re out there, we need the help.”
“Ah, that’s what you’re doing,” the Barber spoke, his voice still worse for wear.
Rose’s eyes snapped upward.
“Too close to home, that one,” he said. “She’s sworn to stay out of my realm. Cause for me to say no.”
The wall began to undo the word ‘faceless’, the lines melting.
Rose moved, slashing at the word as it disappeared, “Everyone, anyone! Denizens of the Abyss, I carve your names with one of your own! Hyena, Thorburn Bogeyman, Rose Thorburn, novice scourge! Thrice over, we are of the Abyss, and we plead your help! If you are near, if you can hear-”
“Enough,” the Barber said.
One of the lines she’d etched deepened and widened. I wasn’t sure Rose saw it.
I changed my shape, forcing Rose to release her grip on the wall.
I felt her reach for Green Eyes, I tensed the hand, a squeeze, a heartbeat’s pulse.
“Get back!” Rose called out.
The blades erupted from the exterior wall of the building. One for the position Rose had just vacated. One for Green Eyes.
Not technically within the confines of the rooftop. Less of an interference for his ruse of being Johannes.
I saw the spray of blood, I saw Green Eyes’ grip falter. She fell.
Wings.
I formed the wings, stretched out the membrane, the flesh.
Guided Rose to Green Eyes’ falling form.
More blades popped out between us and her. I dodged two. Rose brought her knees to her chest to avoid having her ankles cut by the third.
We didn’t catch Green Eyes so much as we collided with her. I steered us into the wall, shoving Green Eyes against a window.
Please be okay, I thought.
More blades would spring out right there. I knew it.
The question was whether she was capable of moving.
She managed to move at the last second.
“Up,” Rose said. “Leave her. If she can move now, she can move later. Every second counts. This is a chance.”
I took us up. I hated to do it, but I took us up.
It was slow, glacial progress, requiring steady flapping, earning us inches at a time, and it was a progress made worse by the fact that the Barber was still there, and every time we drew close to the building, blades appeared, ten or twenty feet long.
“Dog,” Rose said. “Faysal has to be a dog to be controlled by the pipes. Even if we didn’t see him, he’s a dog somewhere. It’s a weak point, just like Johannes is. I think I know where he is.”
We rose above the tower. A bird’s eye view. Rose’s body, my wings. The heat of the flames made flight easy, though smoke made visibility hard.
I was only wings now. Not enough of me left.
The flames were dying in areas. Oddly enough, it seemed to be Johannes that was quenching them.
I could make out the Welder and the Nurse. They lurked within tall fires much like a lion might lurk in tall grass. They circled the dragon, who already had a torn wing. Little more than a distraction.
The Welder even looked larger than before. He held a spike of metal in one hand, a torch in the other.
“That’s not what I was planning,” Rose murmured. “But it could be worse, Blake. Look. Where isn’t the fire?”
She’d heard the comment earlier. Lola’s stratagem.
The Barber was below us. Watching Rose fly. As we drew nearer, blades sprung from the uppermost portion of the railing-turned-wall.
“Demons function by absence, by destruction. And he’s destroying flames closer to the throne. There’s a reason. Dive. Right there.”
I dove. We completely ignored the Barber, going for the throne.
More blades. But we were too high above, giving the wall a wide berth. Diving toward the middle of the roof, changing course-
“Forward,” Rose said, “Forward…”
The Barber’s voice carried over the crackle of fire.
A flash of light.
And he was right in front of us.
I had to veer off course. I didn’t trust Rose’s movements or my own facility in moving her body.
Our landing was awkward. I heard Rose gasp in pain. She shifted position, intent on landing on all fours, and it was all I could do to keep the wings from being crumpled beneath her.
We were kneeling right where the dragon’s right head had been.
From this vantage point, we could see behind the throne. Faysal’s form, hunched over, strained from head to toe, enclosed within a diagram. One that fed into… all of this.
“I hereby declare that you are not Johannes Lillegard,” Rose called out. “You do not have his face. You do not have his voice. You do not have his rapport with his familiar! You corrupt his demesne and-”
The ground split. Rose threw herself to one side.
A blade had sprouted. From the rooftop.
Oh, fuck.
He was being serious. The ruse of pretending to be Johannes was paper thin, now.
“Be careful!” Rose screamed the words. “The Barber is-”