fishy jowls; they tasted over sashes and drip caps. The creatures had ringed the Elesh’Ox with wards. All exits were sealed from the outside, with fish-blood holomorphy; with puissant ancient skill.
“They’re everywhere,” said Autumn. “We have to get out.”
“They’ve sealed the corners,” said Miriam. Even with the Sisterhood’s own blood, which Miriam was not prepared to spill, moving in the absence of the starlines—as her qloin had done in the desert—was not possible. In order to attempt it, they would need to get out of the hotel, out of the streets, out of the damping holomorphy that the Willin Droul had draped over everything.
Miriam didn’t feel like she should have to explain all this—especially to Autumn—so all she said was, “Put a qloin above the delivery door.”
“Already done.”
“Good,” said Miriam. Even that single word had to be forced with great effort past her teeth. She wasn’t going to try and run. In some ways, she was grateful that the Willin Droul had sealed them in. The Sisterhood had already seen too much failure and death; too much running. Tonight would be different.
As the Willin Droul surrounded the building, Miriam took comfort in the idea that Sena might have orchestrated this ambush. That, at least, would be better than being outwitted by fish. She wondered if it had always been Sena’s aim to destroy the organization that had burned her mother.
If so, there was something to admire there in the ruthlessness of the planning. In light of what the Sslia was
Huge bodies threw themselves against the hotel’s outer walls. Miriam heard windows breaking in the back.
As the clamor rose, there was no doubt that Sena would not show up for this finale. The Sslia had more important things to do. Giganalee had been right. Who else but Sienae Iilool could claim the mantle of the Eighth House? And the Eighth House did not use its hands. It used its minions to get things done.
“What if we jump?” asked Autumn. “We can go roof to roof. We can use their blood to fuel an escape.”
“You don’t think they’re on every rooftop for a quarter mile in every direction? Waiting for us? Have you counted them?”
Autumn licked her lips.
It was fitting, thought Miriam, that the girl from the isles, who had arrived out of Greenwick so long ago would have hands like these. The fingers of the Eighth House were silver, slippery and ichthyic.
“We have to try,” said Autumn. “We can’t give up.”
“All right.” Miriam made the southern hand sign for yes. “But I’m not going to run like I did in the desert. Tonight I’m going to stay here. Take half the cohort and tell them to try and escape across the roofs. The other half will lead a distraction—with me. We’ll try to hold them in the street. The rest of you are free to go.”
“I’m staying with you.” Autumn’s eyes told of disappointment. She wanted for Miriam and herself to be in the half that fled: that escaped.
“All right,” said Miriam. “Go and get them sorted.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Autumn did as she was told.
This was how the world would end, thought Miriam. Amid the gluttony and screams of those insensitive to the miracle that they were still alive. Amid the chaos of disease and universal pandemonium, those that represented the last vestige of intelligent life would squander their advantage in this avenue, on this city block.
She chuckled bitterly as she hustled down the hotel’s main staircase, conspicuously unafraid, incapable of changing what was going to happen.
The hotel was dark. Miriam had ordered all the lights put out. Witches covered its rooftop, crouched on dormer peaks, ledges and cornices like gargoyles. Their sweat unfurled from waxed cotton and drifted, tantalizing the crooning horde below. The horde began to hop and lurch excitedly, cracking paving stones with their collective mass.
Miriam waited for Autumn in the foyer. She peered out through a jalousie while the building’s foundations shook. The panes of glass rattled in their frames. She sensed the Sisterhood shift within the hotel, anxious. Sisters appeared in the stairwells.
Autumn squeezed her way through them, down the wood and tile steps. When she reached Miriam, she spoke in Withil. “We’re ready.”
“All right.”
Miriam ordered the doors thrown open.
At the front of the building, a wide porch cupped the curvature of the facade. From it, a flight of stairs ran directly to the street. Miriam walked out, kyru in hand. She stood at the head of the steps and gazed down hatefully into the multitude. Sickly fingerlings, thin and newly changed, mewled below her as if waiting for some sign.
Although their insatiable hunger had pulled them close to the Grand Elesh’Ox, Miriam decided there was no real order to the ranks. The flawless of Ulung stood shrouded in black canopies, surrounded by their spawn, paws like pink cake batter dripped from their sleeves.
Other flawless had also arrived. She recognized their diverse forms from Sandren, Iycestoke and the White Marshes of Pandragor. They did not represent a uniform horror. They took many different shapes. Similarity was sparse but a turgid opaline sheen marked them as one.
In the avenue, Bablemumish sculptures of black marble, pewter and beryllium found new uses. They allowed the Willin Droul to coil their limbs around sculpted legs and arms and thereby support their grotesque fatness. They had modified the air so that gills could breathe. They had changed gravity so that huge bodies could have some relief—but it was not complete and they were still heavy and this was not the same as swimming.
For a while, the Lua’groc held back, perhaps savoring the moment. Miriam noticed Autumn come out of the hotel and stand beside her. Her sweet ancilla. She did not regret the moments when they had been just that: cephal’matris and ancilla—when she had been forced to give orders, and Autumn had been obligated to carry them out. The hierarchy had never been an impediment for them. For them, the protocols had only ever allowed them additional ways to show each other respect. To love each other. She had never ordered Autumn around like a subordinate. Ever. There had always been that understanding between them, that they were partners. That they were a team.
Other sisters came out onto the porch, kyrus glittering.
Miriam was almost ready to give the command when Autumn smiled as if for an ambrotypist, modeling the perfect young athletic face of the north. The lean sweat-dappled cheeks and arms. Then she drew back and pitched her kyru into the horde.
The blade landed in a white forehead and blood like lake water rolled out. The windows and peaks of the Grand Elesh’Ox began to mumble with voices. Witches pulled at currents of holojoules in the Unknown Tongue and threaded the power of the Willin Droul’s blood into divergent equations. A bubble of humid dreams surrounded the hotel and sealed the witches in, but they could still use hemofurtum to fight.
An orgy of self-mutilation began among the fingerlings who, under the numbers of the witches, started clawing off their own skins. Their blood fueled other deceptions as some of the flawless turned their long striped talons on one another. Bodies flew. Limbs and organs cartwheeled through sultry blood-flecked air.
Then chirrups and barks and groans welled from the numberless congregation and endless ranks surged at the Elesh’Ox.
Miriam watched the heavy bodies stampede toward her as she talked. With every few words another of the Lua’groc died. But they were without number and without fear.
Lacking a final moment of glory, Autumn disappeared less than ten feet in front of her, swallowed up at the base of the steps. When that happened, Miriam did not scream and throw herself into desperate battle. Instead she dropped her kyru and stopped talking. She looked up at the cloudy sky, hinting at more rain, away from the abortive ancient things that floundered up the staircase and trampled her under claw and limb. The rough brush of their hides, the slapping wetness of their bindings, the stink of their gasses was gagging.
