By the time I’d showered and changed, Ex and Aubrey were back. I walked into the living room to see three unfamiliar rifles on the coffee table. They weren’t from the stash at the storage facility. Ex, squatting beside them, nodded to me. Aubrey was leaning against the wall. He looked better, I thought. Still tired and bruised, but there was color in his cheeks. The time at his lab seemed to have done him more good than sleeping had, and I remembered what Chogyi Jake had said about using his work to cope with fear. I went to stand beside him.
“Okay,” Ex said. “These are all thirty aught six, and they’re all bolt action. At four hundred yards, the round is going to drop about fifty inches, so these have scopes that I set to take that into account, okay? Don’t try to make the adjustment yourself. It’s already in the equipment.”
Aubrey folded his arms and nodded seriously. I found myself mirroring him without meaning to. Midian breezed in from the backyard, ruined yellow eyes taking us all in with something equally amused and curious.
“Where did you get these?” I asked.
“Wal-Mart,” Chogyi Jake said.
“They’re usually used for elk hunting,” Ex continued. “A couple of standard rounds from one of these can drop a thousand-pound animal. That won’t make a damn bit of difference with Coin. So that’s where the custom ammunition comes in.”
I hadn’t noticed the box until he pulled it out from under the coffee table and put it in between the rifles. It was carved rosewood with a finish so rich and subtle it seemed to reflect the light of a nearby fire. Ex opened it and let the cartridges spill out. The bullets were all black and engraved with script that looked like Arabic. I stepped closer, putting out my hand, but hesitated before I touched them. They were beautiful, but the prospect of holding one made my flesh crawl. They smelled like fire, and I had the uncanny sense that they were aware of me.
“These are the big trick,” Ex said. “They all have the Mark of Ya’la ibn Murah and the sigil of St. Francis of the Desert both. They’re like the wards and alarms that protect this place and the alarms at the apartment. If things go well, they’ll ground out the rider. Now, these are pretty heavy work for a human being to do. Eric put a lot of work into getting them, so it’s not like we can whistle up some more if we run out. We have to make these count.”
“Check,” I said.
“For this to work, these have to break skin. Rubbing them up against him won’t make him happy, but if the round doesn’t penetrate, we might as well not have tried. That means keeping him outside his wards and distracted. Okay?”
We all nodded together, even Midian. Ex looked pleased.
“I’ve arranged some time at the practice range for you two,” he said, nodding at me and Aubrey. “You don’t want the first time you use this to be in the field. That’s tomorrow morning. We’ll leave from here at noon. It’s going to take five or six hours, so don’t plan anything for the afternoon.”
Aubrey’s eyes flickered, recalculating something, but he nodded his agreement.
“Good,” Ex said. He put the engraved bullets back in their box, and I relaxed a little, just having them out of sight. “We’re up to speed, folks. This was Wednesday. Tomorrow’s practice. Friday, we’re making another on-site visit to be sure we all know what the place looks like when you aren’t looking down from orbit. Saturday morning, we end this.”
“Nice work,” Midian said. “All this in place, I think we’ve got half a chance.”
We sat around for a few more minutes. Ex and Midian started talking about occult issues like frat boys talking football. Under Chogyi Jake’s prompting, the rest of us split off into a conversation about Aubrey’s lab and the experiments he was conducting. As Aubrey got into it, I could see his shoulders loosen and the lines of pleasure and laughter start to come out around his eyes. I remembered what it had felt like, kissing him.
Chogyi Jake excused himself for the bathroom and left the two of us alone. Ex and Midian were talking about the wards on the Inca Street apartment and whether the protections on Eric’s house were more effective. I tried not to listen, not wanting to remember any of that. Instead, I focused on Aubrey.
It’s just fear, I told myself. This is only fear. You can deal with it.
“Hey,” I said, heart in throat, “after the practice range tomorrow, can I take you out to dinner?”
“Sure. We should check with the guys and see what they want, but I know a great Indian place that—”
“You singular,” I said. “Ixnay on the uralplay.”
Aubrey turned a little, looking at me square on. He hadn’t shaved today, and the stubble on his cheeks made me think of Sunday mornings and tangled sheets. Aubrey was blushing and pretending that he wasn’t.
“Um, well. I mean, sure.”
“Just to clarify,” I said. “This is a date. I’m asking you on a date. We’re going to do this insanely dangerous thing in three days, and I’d like to carpe some diem before it goes down.”
The blush was rising up from his neck, brightening his cheeks. Even his earlobes were getting in on the action. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Count me in,” he said.
I was quietly thrilled for the rest of the evening. Midian roasted a chicken in lemon and salt that tasted like heaven, we all stayed up talking about things that weren’t ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged parasites that suck your soul out the back of your head. Aubrey sat beside me. When he passed the rice pilaf to me, our fingers touched a fraction of a second longer than strictly necessary, and it felt like an electric jolt. But in a good way.
I went to bed feeling like I’d conquered the world, even though all I’d really managed was to ask Aubrey out. That was, in all fairness, pretty good, given my track record. I spent an hour on the Internet reading what I could find about the uncomforting sigils on Eric’s ammunition, and then fell asleep to the soft sounds of Chogyi Jake and Aubrey talking in the guest room, and beneath that the drone and chuckle of the television in the living room, where Ex and Midian were, I assumed, doing something deep and mystical that only to the uninitiated looked like watching late-night talk shows.
The nightmare was like being assaulted.
I was in darkness. The world around me was a salad of familiar objects—couch, folding chair, desk lamp—and arcane brass sculpture. I was naked, and powerfully aware that there had been a sound just a moment before. Something in the darkness with me. Something that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Something big.
In the logic of dreams, I knew that if I could just get the key to my old dorm room, I could get out before it found me. I started moving through constantly shifting rooms and courtyards, trying to find where I’d hidden it.
The sound came again. A deep rushing, like beating wings the size of mountains. When I looked up, the sky was a single eye, staring back down. The pupil was a terrible blue, and the blood vessels in the white spelled out words and phrases that made me want to scream. The massive eye darted this way and that, searching for me. I huddled under a filthy blanket, trying not to breathe. Slow footsteps, echoing like something from a hospital corridor, came slowly closer and closer. My hands were balled in fists so tightly I knew I was breaking bones, and if he heard them snap, he’d find me. But I couldn’t unclasp them. My hands wouldn’t respond to me.
I woke with a start, still trying not to scream. The clock said it was three in the morning. I was covered with a slick, cold sweat. I got up, opening and closing my hands just to prove to myself that I could. In the dim light of city nighttime, the bed looked gray. I pulled on my robe. I was totally awake, but the dream felt like it had been worked into my skin. I stood there for long minutes, trying to talk myself into going back to sleep, then I scooped up the pillow and threw it in the wastebasket. I thought that if I was quiet, I could make myself some tea without disturbing the others.