much to Alistair’s amusement.
“Congratulations, Alex,” Alistair laughed. “That was definitely the most ridiculous way anyone has tried to get away from me. Are we done here?”
“Not quite,” Alex said, dragging himself to his feet, one arm across his chest.
“Give me a break,” Alistair said, snarling and taking a step forward. “This is…”
Alistair never actually gave his opinion. Because he slipped on the ice beneath him and went crashing down, landing on his elbows and backside, and then yelling out in pain and surprise. Alex had realized quickly that he wasn’t going to be able to hit Alistair. So, all he could do, he reasoned, was stand in a puddle and then wait for Alistair to hit him. Even telepaths can slip on ice.
Alex jumped for Alistair, and they scrambled on the splintering ice. It was ugly, and his knees cried out as they cracked against the ice, but Alex came out on top, pinning Alistair’s midsection with his legs while Alistair struggled to find purchase against the slick ground. Alex straightened his back to create distance, and then started to batter Alistair around the head and shoulders with fists and elbows, moving quickly to avoid getting tied up.
It worked. Alistair rolled and made it halfway to his feet, then they slipped from underneath him again. Alex hit him full force with his left elbow, dragging the point across his forehead to break it open. Alistair fell back onto the ice with Alex on top of him, struggling to drive his thumbs into his blood-smeared eyes. Alex leaned forward, putting all of his weight on his thumbs, and then, somehow, he fell right through Alistair, his hands pushing against the frozen ground beneath him, his head surrounded by a cloud of ashes and burning embers.
“What the fuck?”
The ashes and sparks whirled around in a tight knot, defying the wind to collect on the other side of the plaza, coalescing into something that looked like Alistair, but reminded Alex of the ash bodies at Mount Vesuvius. Fire crackled and glowed where the eyes and mouth should have been.
“Not bad, Alex,” Alistair said, his voice emerging from the cloud of sparks. “I underestimated you.”
“No fair,” Alex said, pulling himself up out of the frozen mud. “I had you.”
“You didn’t, actually, but you are better than I expected. I hadn’t planned on showing my new form off so soon. I’d like to make sure you never tell anyone about it. But I’m afraid that I’m needed elsewhere at the moment. Bye for now, Alexander. Don’t think I will forget…”
Like that, where Alistair’s voice had been, there was nothing more than a few flakes of ash carried away by the wind.
“Well, I sure didn’t see that coming,” Katya said, helping Alex’s to his feet. “That was a good idea, though, freezing the ground underneath him. You might actually have some promise after all…”
“What was that he turned into? What is going on with these people?”
“One thing at a time, alright?” Katya said, taking him by the shoulders and leading him gently to the infirmary’s side entrance. “That’s the key to surviving, Alex. One thing at a time.”
Katya had to lead him by hand to the elevator, and he was halfway up before he could see anything other than purple dots. He still needed her help when they got to third floor.
“Man, you are a hassle,” Katya complained, not sounding particularly upset. “You know, in a couple of minutes you are going to have a really big problem.”
“Yeah?” Alex asked, wishing he didn’t have to hold on to her hand to keep from walking into the walls, but in the dim hallway, lit only by the red emergency strip lighting running along the wallboard, he couldn’t see anything at all. “What’s that?”
“Well, we’ll be finished in a minute,” Katya said cheerfully. “That means that shortly you are going to have to either back up all that big talk about going to find Eerie, or you’re going to have to swallow the lot of it. You could maybe just say you were going to, and then go hide somewhere in the woods until it’s all over, instead, but the telepaths would figure it out eventually…”
“Katya, seriously, shut up,” Alex said sternly. “I keep telling you, I’m going to do it. But…”
Katya stopped for a minute to glance over her shoulder. He could just about make out her face now, through the floating colors. He was sure she was smiling at him.
“But, what?”
“But,” Alex said, looking away for some reason, even though he couldn’t really see her, “it would probably work a whole lot better if you came with me. That’s all.”
“Really?” Katya asked, giggling. “You think so, huh?”
“Come on,” Alex urged. “Aren’t you supposed to be my bodyguard?”
Katya laughed and started down the hall, tugging him along with her.
“First of all, I thought you didn’t need a bodyguard. Haven’t you been accusing me of stalking you since I started? Second, my job is keeping you from being killed. It would be much easier to knock you out and stuff you into a closet somewhere until this is over, rather than trying to protect you on some insane quest to preserve your rapidly dwindling Summer Dance options,” Katya said pleasantly. “Third, what’s up with asking me to help you rescue your backup girlfriend? Why would I want to do that?”
“Why not?” Alex demanded. “Why wouldn’t you want to help her?”
Katya sighed and reached for the doorknob with her free hand.
“Maybe because I don’t think helping you get to her actually qualifies as helping her,” Katya said resignedly, letting go of his hand. “You know, Anastasia warned me, but it is really remarkable how fucking dense you can be. You really don’t get girls at all, do you?”
Katya opened the door, and then something very strange happened. Someone spoke from inside, not with Rebecca’s voice.
“He doesn’t actually. He really doesn’t.”
Alex’s vision had cleared most of the way, so when Katya went flying past him, colliding with wall with a sickening thud as her head slammed against it, and then slumped down on the floor, unmoving, soaking wet and collapsed in an expanding pool of water, he was able to make out enough to watch helplessly. Alex looked up from her and into Rebecca’s room. Rebecca was still there, on one of the beds, as composed as Sleeping Beauty waiting for a prince to force his affections on her. Sitting on the edge of a trundle bed set up in front of Rebecca, Emily sat, her folded legs and a casually wrapped hospital sheet the only things preserving what little modesty there was to be preserved. She was working on her nails with an emery board, but she stopped and looked up when he stuck his head in.
“Hi, Alex,” she said, her smile long and slow and ambiguous, her eyes half-lidded and amused. “Come on inside. Let’s try this again.”
Alice touched her head softly, as if reassuring herself that it was still intact. She could see herself reflected in the blue-tinted lenses of Xia’s goggles. They were very close, both pressed up against the stone wall of an alcove as the group walked by them. Xia smelled like sterile rubber and burnt cloth with an undertone of incense, the last scent incongruous but somehow familiar. It was nerve-wracking, watching her enemies walk right by her, but Gaul’s concealment protocol was as good as promised. They noticed nothing.
She watched and counted. A short procession of what seemed to be lumbering corpses. Four Anathema, and then the girl Chris had called Leigh, followed by the vampire in the powdered-sugar suit. Alice felt Xia pat her awkwardly on the back with one gloved hand, and she smiled at him, knowing what the clumsy gesture cost him.
“Don’t worry,” Alice said, smiling in a way that no one else could have found reassuring. “I’m fine.”
The Anathema walked right by them, hearing nothing. They stopped at one of the entrances to the ruins of one of the old buildings, the intact subterranean structure that the Science building had been constructed on top of, a concealed and secret warren of cold stone tunnels that she didn’t remember having ever seen personally. The door had been sealed and cemented over, but their telekinetic, a pretty, dark-haired woman, tore it out and threw it aside with a gesture. They entered the dark space with obvious trepidation.
Alice smiled to herself.
“C’mon, baby, let’s go show them how Auditors settle accounts,” she said cheerfully, Xia falling in next to her. “It’s the least we can do, isn’t it, Xia? After all, we owe them something for their trouble.”
