“It would be a step up in his ability to function,” Niko said dryly as the sirens wailed in the distance. “We don’t have long. We’ve taken care of Jack’s miniature and slow-moving mob. It wasn’t even worth the time and had no amusement value at all. Now where is Jack himself?”
“Jack is here, betrayer of the Flock. I will take your skin but I will not save you.”
He was above us by nearly twenty feet, a cloud with shadow tendrils stretching out, a hundred—no, a thousand small storms. I already had the MP7 out and pointed up. “Hear that, Nik? Your skin isn’t worth saving now. No Niko-shaped square in his quilt. Maybe you should loofah more? Is that what they call it? A loofah? You know, one of those scrubbing things?”
I’d already pulled the middle part of the trigger to disarm the safety and now eased the trigger down. No single shots for me. I had a forty-round magazine and I didn’t plan on taking a single round home with me.
Robin and Niko had already spread out. Jack was too far for a sword and they’d proved ineffective anyway, but Niko had scooped up the flamethrower, our third use now since we’d bought it. It was nice to get the bang for your buck. He sprayed an astounding plume of flames, the finger of a fiery god, at Jack. That, combined with my armor-piercing rounds had Jack spinning, a small agitated tornado. The rounds seemed to be pushing him back. He might be made of rock or crystal or God knew what but it wasn’t much stronger than armor because he felt it. I could see it in the shudder as I aimed the blast higher toward the glow of his eyes.
Jack decided that was enough. Robin had gone away from the fire and Nik toward it to cover as much of the bridge as possible. Jack, who apparently disliked the armor piercing rounds more than flames, fell on me with the force of a demolished building. Knocking both of my arms outward, the MP7 almost skittered out of my hand, almost being key. My breath exploded from my lungs from the force of his landing. I thought I felt a rib or two crack as well. It wasn’t a good feeling and unfortunately I was familiar with it. The weight of him was the same as the night in my bedroom, not crushingly heavy but immovable. I started to gate, this time hoping to take something important of his with me—something he couldn’t live without, but then hesitated. Niko had said that wasn’t the way. Fight like an Auphe, become an Auphe, kill my brother like an Auphe. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to be that Auphe even more.
“You are not mine to save, but, if I wish, you can be mine to kill. I protect the Flock from wolves and vermin such as you.” He was skinning humans, but I was the wolf at the door in this scenario. That hurt my feelings. Okay, maybe not so much. He was a dick all the same though.
His breath was cold against my face, the frigid cold of altitudes so high oxygen clung there precariously. Not that I could see his mouth behind the shaded mist. Not that I wanted to. There were probably teeth there, the kind that would make a great white suck his fin and cry for his mommy. That tended to be the kind of teeth that I usually found less than an inch from my face.
“Cal, gate! Gate now!”
That was Nik. Nik was telling me to gate. If Nik said it was okay, I was going with that.
And go I did.
I tried to take half of Jack with me through the gate I built around myself in the span of a thought. It should’ve worked. It would’ve worked . . . if he didn’t disappear in the very same instant as I did. I saw it as I went. He was there. He was gone. I reappeared near Robin as he was the least armed of us. Too old school for our new toys. I wrapped an arm around my ribs and scanned the bridge, the part not burning. He had gated, the son of a bitch had gated. Well, not gated, but he’d done something.
I spotted his form in the air in less than a blink. Literally. I was looking at Nik and there was only flames behind him; I blinked and Jack was behind him, silhouetted against Sodom and Gomorrah or the Towering Inferno, whichever catastrophe-type media you were into.
“Nik! Behind you!” I shouted and gated again.
I shouldn’t have bothered with the warning. Niko had already been turning when I traveled. He could’ve felt the change in temperature—Jack ran ice-cold. But against the flames of the bridge behind him that might not be so. It could be Nik knew because Nik knew these things since he was . . . shit . . . fifteen. Nik knew things humans couldn’t know although he was one. He knew things paien couldn’t know although they thought him a sheep. I didn’t care how he knew as long as he did. He needed to watch his back long enough for me to get there and do it for him.
I gated above Jack’s whirlpool form of smoke and racing electricity, but not too far above him. This wasn’t an action movie, which meant when I appeared in midair, I immediately fell, no hovering, no momentary suspension of gravity or shit like that, convenient though it might be. I simply fucking fell. With Jack, I wanted to fall the least amount I could. I did not want to skewer myself on whatever glassine spears that hid in that dirty dark haze.
Landing on top of him and feeling the skin of my legs split open—not good. I jammed the MP7 into the mass below me and fired at least ten more rounds before he vanished again and I fell to the concrete beneath me. That didn’t do my ribs any good at all. Instantly I saw Jack appear again, this time by Robin. It hit me, a memory close to as fucking freaky as Jack himself.
We had a neighbor once, we had lots of neighbors that we used for, you know . . . reasons. Good reasons. Getting us medicine if we needed it. Calling us in sick to school. Signing flu shot forms—all things Sophia couldn’t be bothered with or was sober to do. Most of them were nice old ladies and one of those nice old ladies had given me a toy when I was five—the same year I’d found out about the Auphe and how I was half one. She meant well. The people who screw up in the most interesting ways mostly do.
She gave me a jack-in-the-box. I’d never seen one before. There I was, an unsuspecting kid, because monsters were lurking outside the window, not in an innocent box a nice lady gave me. I cranked and cranked, the music screeched and played as best as its rusted innards let it and then . . . pop goes the weasel!
A clown came exploding into my face. And this clown, he’d been around a long, long time. His once white teeth were brown, dirt you’d say, but I knew better—it was dried blood. The blue eyes faded to a blind white . . . but the blind that could still inexplicably see you. The carved hands curled into talons from the damp. That’s what Niko had said, the damp. I wanted to believe him, but, shit, I knew better. Five years old and I knew better.
Jack-in-the-boxes were evil. Beginning, middle, and end.
This Jack was no different.
I staggered up with Niko’s hand on my elbow, careful and slow. He could tell by the way I was breathing, shallow and panting, that I’d messed up my ribs. With most people that would’ve bugged me, knowing that much about me with one sweeping observation. With Niko I expected it and I didn’t mind. Again, that’s what Niko did. What he’d always done.
Jack was drifting closer to Goodfellow and I could hear the music in my head. Hear it plain as day. Round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel . . .
Robin had his sword between him and Jack, but would that be enough?