One of the other ones must have been a telekinetic. Alex didn’t actually see it that well, but whatever happened, it knocked Grigori over and sent him skidding across the pavilion, the shifting energetic field that surrounded him tearing a furrow in the old stone of the road, raising sparks and making an awful squealing sound. He hit the wall next to the gate hard, sending chips of stone and dust flying. Fortunately, for Katya and Alex, all of this made so much noise that the Anathema didn’t notice them circling around until they were close enough to do something about it.
Katya was supposed to go first, and he was supposed to hang in reserve, since she could strike multiple times rapidly, and he had only managed to figure out how to do it once, with a long windup. But something about the remains of the post in the ground where the bus stop had been, where Alex had stood with Emily, brought back memories; the sly way she smiled when she was enjoying a private joke, the way she would nestle, comfortably, underneath his arm, the way she looked in a dress that she liked. Now all of these memories were poisoned.
Alex put his arm out in front of him to use as a visual reference. But he didn’t open a pinhole. Instead, he let his anger decide for him, and it went for the walls of reality like a scorpion’s stinger, white-hot at its sharpest point, clawing free of him like a living thing and then tearing through to the Ether like it was frictionless. There was no resistance whatsoever. The hole he opened to the Ether was about the size of a basketball, and expanding rapidly, fueled by his irrational anger.
It was crueler than he expected. The air temperature dropped first, shards of frozen water shattering against the stone with a sound like gentle music. Then the men fell, and that was ugly, as they choked on the frigid air that burned their lungs. Their skin blackened and crackled, frostbite expanding manically across their bodies; but they lived on somehow, not exactly screaming, crawling around and moving spasmodically. Eventually, he supposed, their blood froze or their hearts stopped from the trauma. He didn’t actually see that part, because he kept his eyes firmly closed until he was sure they were dead, and then he closed the rent to the Ether.
Grigori, sheathed in a telekinetic field, and Katya, needles dangling from slack fingers, had both stopped to stare at Alex.
“Alex,” Katya said softly. “You’re going to fall asleep again. You can’t do that sort of thing.”
“I’m past caring,” Alex said curtly. “I have places that I need to be, and no more time for this bullshit. Grigori, who sent you here?”
Grigori rubbed his stubbly chin and looked at Alex with obvious curiosity.
“Maybe I have misjudged you, Alex Warner,” Grigori rumbled thoughtfully. “I did not realize that you were so capable.”
“Whatever,” Alex said irritably. “I want to be done with this. I have other things to worry about, and I couldn’t care less about your opinion. Now, who are you here for, and what do we have to do next?”
“I see,” Grigori said, slowly, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Very well. I’m working for Gaul. He had Choi port me over here when he said the time was right. Vivik had you two tagged a half-mile away.”
“What’s it like inside there?” Alex asked, inclining his head in the direction of the Academy. “How bad is it going to be, getting to the infirmary?”
“Its hit and miss,” Grigori said, nudging one of the dead Anathema with his shoe. “There are some places that are pretty safe, like around the Admin building where Gaul’s got the kids all bunkered up. Some others aren’t. But you don’t need to worry. Gaul sent you a guide.”
“Oh, then you aren’t coming?” Katya said brightly. “Pity.”
“Please, Katya,” Grigori said, walking off. “Do try not to get yourself killed. It would be such a shame.”
Alex shrugged and then he and Katya walked through the gate. Things on the other side looked a little bit better. Then their guide stepped from the shadows, an uneasy smile on his face, and his hands in the pockets of his brown tweed jacket.
“Katya, Alex,” Mr. Windsor said cheerfully. “Either of you two fine young people up for an evening stroll?”
“Therese,” Anastasia called out, stepping carefully through the burning wreckage of the western wing of the house, holding her skirt bunched in front of her, trying vainly to protect the embroidery on the hem. “Come out, come out, wherever you are…”
She peered around the burning remains of one wall, the one destroyed by a telekinetic attack shortly before reinforcements had arrived from the organized combat forces of the Black Sun and driven back their attackers, at a cost that was currently being tallied. She didn’t see anything but darkness and trees moving in the wind behind the wall, so she stepped gingerly around it and continued.
“Oh, come on, Therese,” Anastasia said impatiently. “I have other things that I need to be doing. And your sister doesn’t have the kind of contacts to beg favors from the Anathema. However, you do, Miss Foreign Affairs Liaison. I would have helped her, you know. She would have been a Lady of repute in the Black Sun, and you would have done well for yourself, too. Instead, you let them drown her in a hole in the ground, and now she’s a monster. What did you get for that, Therese? And what have they made of you?”
Anastasia crossed her arms and planted her feet, not worrying for the moment about the velvet in her skirt, no doubt damaged beyond repair by the soot.
“You flooded my island. You destroyed my house and you ruined my dinner. You made my sisters cry, and you failed your own sister, you pitiable thing. You had better show yourself and get it over with. I know you are out there. Renton is telling me so.”
“I am not hiding,” Therese said calmly, walking out into the open, dressed for a day in the office in grey slacks and a white blouse, her hair back in a neat bun. “I was simply waiting to see which of your servants you planned to hide behind.”
“None of them. Not for you, dear,” Anastasia, said, walking toward her. “For you, I’m making an exception. Back when you used to work for the Hegemony, you would have dreamed of having this opportunity. Congratulations are in order. You are about to find out what my protocol can do.”
Therese’s smile was sickly, even in the dark.
“Your mistake, Anastasia. The Outer Dark has been kind to me,” she gloated. “I have heard the rumors of you, the anomaly in the Martynova clan, and your mysterious deviant protocol. Whatever your secret, you are no match for what I have become.”
“Therese,” Anastasia said, her voice suddenly soft. “Tell me you didn’t plan it this way. Tell me this all went horrible awry, that you did not deliberately let them do that to your sister.”
Therese froze, and her expression became muddied, uncertain.
“Why? What does it matter? Because you were ‘friends’ with her? Please. You were trying to play Emily.”
“Of course,” Anastasia acknowledged. “Honestly, I was getting tired of acting the lonely and secretly self-conscious heiress. But that isn’t that point. She is your sister,” Anastasia added, glaring. “That is a responsibility that I take seriously.”
“You have no idea,” Therese barked. “Don’t give me that crap, rich girl. You’ve never had to do anything for your sisters. You have no idea what it was like with Emily. I did everything I could to protect her.”
“You gave her to the Outer Dark, and they made her a walking corpse, a Drown. Don’t bother with the good sister act. We are way past that now. Tell me,” Anastasia said softly, taking one deliberate step toward her, then another, “did they put you in that pool, first? Or did you let them do that to her? She was a really good cook, too. I won’t forgive you for it, whatever your reasons or rationale.”
“I am not a Drown,” Therese hissed, the air around both of her hands smoking and steaming. “They have made me so much more than that. You cannot imagine, Martynova, the scale and the sheer power of the Outer Dark.”