16.13
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The Abyss was ruthless, and our surroundings were coming to pieces in fast motion. Cascades of dust flowed off of every surface, accompanied by flakes, chips, and fragments, a hundred years of wear and tear occurring over seconds. Where the surfaces were flat, such as the rooftop, the same dust and fragments danced as the surroundings rumbled and vibrated. Were it any lighter it might have risen as thick clouds. Any heavier, and it would have formed an almost liquid pool.
It fell between the two points. Ankle height, a roiling cloud of finer particles.
I was small enough that ‘ankle height’ was enough to obscure me. My view of the others was reduced to vague silhouettes.
“We need something to tie her hands with,” Rose was saying. She was, out of everyone, closest to the ground.
“On it,” Mags said, “Gimme a second… grab her?”
“Grabbed,” Peter said.
There was a sound of chain rattling.
“Here.”
“You’re like a superhero, a tool for every job,” Peter commented. The chains rattled some more as they were wound around the pinned Ms. Lewis.
“Damn straight,” Mags said. “Except I use guns, not some stick.”
“Respect,” Peter said.
“Got her,” Mags said, tugging the chain to tighten the loops around the lawyer’s wrists. “Wish I had my combination lock, but we’re good so long as we watch her. I’d think it was too tight, but it’s not like she can die.”
“I-” Ms. Lewis started.
Mags raised her pipe with one hand.
Ms. Lewis didn’t try to say anything more.
“Use your scarf as a gag?” Peter suggested.
“F that. My scarf is staying with me, thank you very much.”
They seemed to settle on something. Within a few seconds, Ms. Lewis was gagged.
“Alright, well done. Now help me up,” Rose said.
“Try sounding a little less bossy while you ask?” Peter suggested.
“I’ve been clawed open by a hellhound, possessed and hollowed by my inhuman alter ego, my head’s been rearranged and the only reason I’m still conscious is that I’m drawing some power from Conquest. I’m going to be ‘bossy’, so shut the fuck up, Peter.”
“Wow,” was all he said. “Maybe try saying please shut the fuck up?”
“Help me up so we can go. Sooner than later.”
“One of you two better do it,” Peter spoke. “Bending down is not a good thing for me right now. My back doesn’t hurt nearly enough for how fucked up it feels. Besides, I’m not sure I trust Rose not to bite.”
“Got her?” Paige asked.
“Yeah,” Mags said.
There was a pause as Paige bent down by Rose.
“Yeah, that gouge is pretty f’ed up,” Mags observed.
Peter managed to sound pretty casual about it. “Am I going to have a badass scar?”
“Maybe if you don’t bleed out before we can get you help,” Mags said. “You look pretty wobbly.”
He turned his head, but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t see his face.
Whatever he’d done, glaring at Mags or something in that vein, it prompted her to add, “I can’t lie.”
“I like you a little less now.”
Paige finished pulling Rose very carefully to her feet.
“Buttsack!” Mags called. “Get your ass over here! You too, Stumpy, I know you’re playing dead. Come, or you might not get another chance to leave.”
“Uh… you,” Rose said. Her voice wasn’t that strong as she raised it to be heard. “Same thing.”
The man in the ill-fitting suit, I realized.
“And he’s gone over the edge,” Rose said. “Probably easier, if a little hard to get why.”
“We ran into him earlier. I don’t think he’ll have any trouble making his way down.”
“Alright. That just leaves Blake.”
“Blake?”
Heads turned. The Sight, being used to find me.
It was Mags who bent down to collect me.
“He’s alive?” she asked. My eye moved. “Oh! He’s actually alive… in a manner of speaking.”
“I need him,” Rose said. “Let’s go, before the building does.”
My view was a warped one, wobbly. I had little volition, almost no ability to move of my own accord. The group took stairs as fast as they were able, and Mags was toward the front of the group, one arm on Ms. Lewis’ upper arm, periodically jerking her to keep her off balance. Buttsack walked in front of the woman, one hand raised to hold on to her belt loop. Trying to run would have meant hurdling the goblin to reach a lower stair.
Mags’ other arm was cradling what remained of me like she might hold a football. I was a lumpy, crude hand with a thread of flesh running over it, an eyeball, tucked into the crook of her arm.
The walls were bleeding dust, fine cracks spreading and reaching deeper. Every surface was caught in the same state between fluid and vapor, the stairs below almost a waterfall, though it had no force to it. Different colors of different materials pooled together to form layers and patterns as they collected. The sand of a million hourglasses.
We passed the floor the two demons and the chauffeur would have been on with no incident. They would have left with the possessed lawyer, Christopher, I supposed.
With my body being what it was, I could rotate my eyeball to look through the cracks and glimpse the others making their way down the stairs behind Mags.
They were so worn out, but we’d found the light at the end of the tunnel.
There was hope. Only a little bit further, and we won.