This room had debris like the rest of the ruins. The interior walls here were made of wood. There were planks. . .
Planks!
She grabbed the longest one she could spy, one end snapped off. She didn’t have time to measure. To plan. She picked it up and thrust it through the window. With a mighty heave, she shoved it across the intervening space, screaming her father’s name.
He grabbed the end and lifted it up. It stretched across between them. It was barely wider than Fingers’s thigh. It had to be enough. She pressed her hands down on her end, anchoring it. Tears beaded her eyes.
“Please!”
He climbed out onto the window and groaned. He didn’t stand but crawled across it. Dust billowed behind him. The automaton still punched. For a wild moment, she thought he would make it. He was somehow crossing the gap, his gaze locked on hers. The board creaked and bowed as he neared the middle. It slipped in her grip, wanting to slide free and fall. Nothing anchored the other end, allowing it to move.
She pressed down with all her weight. Her entire body felt light. Alien. Her vision swam. She felt on the verge of her collapse. The numbness spread up her arms. Her legs. She couldn’t feel the plank shifting beneath her hands any longer.
“Hyurri,” she slurred. “Fyingyers!”
The plank cracked. Fingers growled and threw himself the last few cubits. She grabbed his outstretched arms with numb digits. The board fell away. It slammed into the debris below as she hauled him back.
Her fuzzing feet tripped over each other. She squeaked and crashed to her back, Fingers on top of her. The weight drove the air out of her lungs a second time. Her vision washed black for a moment. She almost lost her body. The connection between thought and action grew tenuous, a slender thread.
The crystalman slammed into something. The wall? She struggled to move. Fingers rolled off of her and shook his head. He snatched up the lantern she’d set down to thrust the plank across. He whirled around as she fought to rise.
“Fyingyers . . .”
He glanced down at her. “Black’s foul piss, it’s happening?”
She nodded and managed to sit up. His right arm swept down and hauled her to her feet. She staggered against him. The world swam about her. She wouldn’t surrender. She wouldn’t give in to the signal loss. She would stay in control of her body.
They staggered forward, the alarm fading behind them. The whispers dwindled. With every step, more and more control returned to her body. She stopped being half-dragged by Fingers. She started placing her feet with strength.
They were leaving the interference behind.
“There are stairs,” she said, the words coming clear.
“You’re getting better,” Fingers said.
“It’s the crystalman,” she said, frowning. The whispers were coming from the automaton. The thing was talking to something else. It was sending strong tones through the immaterial. Was the antenna attached to her brain picking up interference? Was that even possible?
She had no idea. She didn’t understand how half of the hits worked. But she could feel it retreating. The whispers were muted as they descended the stairs. The fuzziness retreated down to her fingers and toes.
“I can detect them,” she said, sparks of excitement bursting through her. “I can tell when they’re close.”
“Yeah, so can I,” muttered Fingers. “Hear that one bellowing? I think it’s bringing help.” He frowned. “Is a second one blaring an alarm?”
Avena shook her head. She couldn’t tell. The awful screeching radiated around them as they moved through the first floor of the building. Everything down here looked strangely preserved, just covered in stains of filth on the wall and a thick layer of dust. Nothing lurked in here. No bones littered the floor.
“Door,” said Fingers, holding the lantern to his right.
She nodded in agreement. They crossed to it. She bit her lip. The whispers echoed through her mind. They were growing stronger again. It was like she was hearing a second voice now. Two of them. Three. Maybe four. It was so hard to tell.
“More coming,” she muttered, a hunch bubbling in her mind. “The controller is directing them at us.”
“Then let’s move,” Fingers growled.
She nodded, the fuzziness creeping up her. Was the presence of more intensifying the interference? She swallowed, unsure. She clung to Fingers as he thrust open the door. Their lantern spilled out onto a street. Large mounds of rubble littered it. One had crushed a demon, its leg thrust out from beneath blackened stone.
“Comying cloyser . . .” She held him, the whispers screaming in her mind. The alarms blared all around them.
“There’s light,” Fingers said, looking to their right.
The unmistakable shine of a swinging lantern illuminated the intersection. Then Ōbhin appeared and turned towards them. He spotted them as he ran at full speed, his resonance blade held in one hand, the lantern in the other.
“Run!” he shouted.
The whispers slammed into Avena’s mind. Her body went limp, unable to fight off the interference. She felt her thoughts plunged into an empty void. The whispers were all around her. But there was something else. Another voice. One that she had followed before. A voice that had called to her the other times she’d blacked out.
She entered a dream.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the dream, she screamed with frantic desperation. Avena didn’t understand the words pouring out of her mouth. She had her hand outstretched before her, diamond light gleaming at her fingertips. Before Avena stood a man. Raya’s lover.
He stood rigid, his arms pinned to his sides. A web of darkness slowly crept over him. Thick tendrils of gleaming obsidian coated him like an invisible spider
