cantrip.
Coin stepped back, real shock in its expression now. Something metallic banged, and I got an ankle up over the parapet’s edge and hauled for all I was worth. I felt weak, but it was enough. I landed hard on my side just as I heard the first shotgun blast.
Coin’s back was to me now, one hand pointed as it advanced on the green door that had been closed until now. Ex stepped out onto the roof, Eric’s shotgun held before him, and fired twice more. I heard Coin grunt at the impact. I saw the small figure of Kim in the stairwell behind Ex.
“Run!” I tried to shout, but it hardly came out louder than a groan. “He’ll kill you!”
The concussion wasn’t physical, but it was stunning all the same. A low hum like something electrical gathering a charge, and then the blast like a head blow from a brick. The world smelled like an iron skillet left on the burner by mistake. I forced my eyes open.
Ex lay on his back, blood running from his nose, his eyes wild with fear. Kim was no more than a low shape in the doorway. Coin stood over Ex’s fallen body like a punch-drunk boxer who’d put his opponent down for the count. Who’d killed him. The suit jacket had come open, and Coin’s chest was raw hamburger and blood where the shotgun’s load of iron, salt, and silver had struck. It shook its head, trying to orient itself. Ex tried to say something, his jaw working without sound. The sense of a clockwork universe faded as Kim lost consciousness, and I felt my own strength coming back, at least enough that I could do something more than tremble.
Something glittered at Coin’s feet. There in the stone litter of gravel, something shone brass and blackness. Coin was breathing hard. I shifted, getting my weight under me again. Ex tried to raise the shotgun, the barrel making a hushing sound as it dragged across the rooftop. Coin lifted its foot with slow deliberation and slammed down on Ex’s chest. I imagined that I heard ribs snapping.
I launched.
I hit Coin in the small of the back, shoulder first and all my weight and power behind it. It felt like I’d tackled a concrete post, but Coin stumbled. Ex rolled once, from his back onto his belly, the shotgun underneath him now. Coin swung at me; the back of his hand grazing my cheek was enough to knock my head to the side. I dropped, scrabbling in the gravel for the glimmer I’d seen.
My fingers found the bullet, the weird energy of the sigils dry and mobile as a snake. I clenched a fist around it and jumped back. Coin’s rib cage was falling and rising like a bellows. I stayed in a crouch, the bullet in my left hand, my eyes on the enemy.
As long as it breaks skin, we’re fine.
Coin stepped back, arms spread wide and eyes closed. I felt its will gathering like a high wind full of knives. The shredded flesh of its chest wept blood without drenching it. I had the time it took to draw a breath, and if I failed, we were all dead.
I stepped forward and pressed the bullet to the shotgun wound. Something between my fingers shifted and squirmed. Coin’s eyes opened in shock.
“Tag,” I said. “You’re it.”
Imagine a balloon the size of the world. Touch a pin to it. Coin’s death was that loud and that sudden, and then it was over. The husk of his body fell to the rooftop, took three slow wheezing breaths, and went still. I stood there for what seemed like an hour and wasn’t more than five seconds. Slowly, I crouched down. Coin’s eyes were still moving, looking up at me with horror and despair and then shifting to focus on something in the distance that only it could see. The bullet rested on its ruined sternum, the metal bright and unmarked, the engravings gone. I lay back.
The gravel felt comfortable as a feather bed. When I knew I was going to vomit, I rolled to my side. When I was empty, I rolled back. Far above in the dark sky, an airplane pulsed. There was no sound of traffic. We were too high up for that. There was only the hollow sound of the breeze in my ear, and then unsteady footsteps.
Kim came into view. A streak of blood darkened her cheek. I smiled at her.
“Jayne?” she said. “Are you okay?”
I managed a weak thumbs-up. My voice didn’t seem to be working. She knelt beside me, her hand smoothing back my hair. I had the weird thought that Kim would have been a good mother. A little June Cleaver for my tastes, maybe, but perfect for someone else. There was a scrape, a cough, and a grunted obscenity as Ex started to move. It reminded me of something.
“How?” I managed.
“Your friend, Ex?” Kim said. “He put a GPS tracking device in your backpack. It was how he knew where we were before too.”
I closed my eyes, frowned, opened them again.
“Creepy,” I said.
“Needed to happen,” Ex said. He was sitting up now, his arms around his chest. His face was pale with pain. I raised my hand and pointed a single finger at him.
“Creepy stalker bullshit,” I said. And then, “Thanks.”
“Welcome,” he said.
“Aaron and Candace are downstairs guarding the stairwell,” Kim said. “Can you walk?”
I nodded, sat up, shook my head, and lay back down.
“Give me a minute,” I said.
“I’m going to get the others,” Kim said. “Don’t go anywhere. Either of you. Just stay here.”
I heard her walk away. My body felt like rubber. Like chewing gum that had lost all its flavor. Ex tried to stand up, groaned, and went still.
“GPS tracker?” I said.
“Seven hundred bucks, online,” he said. “Little smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Put it in the side pocket. Took us a while figuring elevation, though.”
“Deeply, deeply creepy.”
I tried to think of something else to say, but there was nothing left in me. Ex and the shell that had been Randolph Coin and I all communed in silence. The last rays of sun glow dimmed in the west. Ex said something about very, very stubborn, but I wasn’t listening closely enough to know whether he meant himself or me. I turned my head to see Coin’s body. With eyes closed and mouth slack, it seemed to be sleeping.
Coin seemed peaceful. I wondered if death was always like that. I wondered whether some part of Eric could see us, wherever he was. If he still was at all. Heaven or the Pleroma or Philadelphia. I wondered if he knew I’d finished the job. Would he have been proud of me? I had screwed everything up from the start, but I’d seen it through. No plan had ever worked the way we’d meant it to, but then Coin’s hadn’t worked out either. I imagined Eric would see that as a win.
I hoped so.
I didn’t sleep, but I wasn’t perfectly conscious either. It surprised me when a man’s broad hands lifted me to sitting. Aaron was beside me, looking concerned. Kim was at my other side, ready to lift me if needed. Candace was helping Ex walk to the stairway.
“We need to go now, okay? Jayne? Can you stand up?”
“I killed Randolph Coin,” I said. “I can do anything.”
Aaron grinned. He looked young when he did that. Like a little boy.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think you can.”
I rose slowly and started toward the open stairway. At the doorway, I stopped.
“Backpack,” I said. “I need my pack. We can’t leave anything here.”
“It’s okay,” Kim said. “We’ve got it covered.”
“Laptop?” I said.
“Yes, we got your laptop too,” Aaron said. “Don’t worry about it. How bad are you? Do we need to go to the hospital?”
“The hospital,” I said. “Aubrey! We need to see Aubrey!”
“It’s okay,” Kim said. “We’ll take care of that once you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m perfect.”
I didn’t remember walking downstairs or out to Candace’s car. A bump in the road brought me back to myself, and we were driving down the highway toward the house, Aaron and Kim in the front, Candace in the back with me and Ex slumped beside her. Ex’s mouth was pinched with pain, but there was a light in his eyes. I thought that
