Part Five
Their driver was understandably uncomfortable with playing host to them as well, though he made no mention again of the brief and furious conversation that had taken place between An and himself. So far as An could see, he was making every effort to pretend that she did not exist at all, addressing his few remarks solely to Alexei and Fideo when he spoke at all. A difficult time for the family, after all. It was selfish when there was so much else at stake, but he wouldn't do it otherwise…
An nodded and folded her hands in front of her, smiling a smile that felt like jagged glass in her mouth as she struggled not to let the civilians see what she had done. Alexei and Fideo knew, of course, but they would say nothing against her in public even if they did disagree. In this instance, she was certain that disagreement was one of the farthest things from their minds. Still, the nosepieces of her glasses were slick with sweat as she bowed her head and murmured that she understood, absolutely, a person had to make sure that their own house was in order before they even thought about tending to anyone else's.
An didn't see Jenny. She would have liked to whisper to her that everything was going to be all right.
The new family had no children and greeted the trio upon their arrival in the manner of people who had spent most of their married lives regretting that fact, with showers of food and affection until An thought that both her head and her stomach would burst beneath the assaults. Affair in '82 always felt badly for it loves her forever that's it third miscarriage give up might be able to get oranges if we play our cards right was the sky really that color yesterday such sweet children please let this work. She caught Fideo wearing a dazed expression within hours and clasped briefly at his hand in commiseration. The basement apartment that the couple shared was built as one large room save for the bathroom, with the kitchen utensils and few rattletrap appliances shoved into one corner and the bedding in another. No place to creep off for secret conferences, then, not unless they wanted to explain to Phillip and Janice why they all needed to slink off to the bathroom at the exact same time. An's lips twisted up at the image independently of her control. No, she thought that they could bide their time and keep their own counsel for little while longer.
There was kindness here. They could make it work. Even without Jonathan; they were smart enough.
Alexei waited until the second morning before he approached An, bearing two bowls of scrambled eggs with what looked like bits of bacon crumbled into them. Eggs and real pork, both of them dear expenses here that An wished Phillip and Janice would not make even as her mouth watered for a return to the food that could still be found beyond the Pacific region's slow-spreading influence. The freighter had been stocked primarily with canned goods, and she was beginning to feel that she would never see anything fresh again. Alexei balanced a smile above the bowls that was about as real as the plastic that he carried in his hands. An's eyes narrowed even as her nose twitched. She sat up from the pallet that had been serving as her bed, pushing the blanket back with one hand and tucking strands of her long black hair behind her ears with her other. And she had forgotten her hairbrush, too, damn. An rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she fumbled about for her sunglasses. When she looked up again, the smile that Alexei always wore when he wanted to be charming was still there. "Good morning."
"It might be," An replied cautiously, taking the bowl that Alexei offered her and swirling the spoon about without actually taking a bite. Alexei, upon seeing the way that An's eyes stayed on his face and away from her bribe, widened his grin even further. An thought, and with no small amount of fondness, that this expression made him look as if he were perpetually two steps away from finding some pigtails to pull. Before she quite paused to realize what she was doing, An had swept her hair back over her shoulders and safely out of reach. "What do you want?"
Rather than seeming hurt by the question, the gleam in Alexei's eyes grew even brighter. "What?" He nudged An's leg out of the way before flopping down beside her on the pallet and taking a bite out of his own breakfast. "I can't bring my sister her share of a lovingly home cooked meal without accusations? Notice please how I didn't mention that said sister seemed determined to sleep all day rather than getting off her butt and doing her job until I, chivalrous and noble young man that I am, offered to wake her."
"You forgot your suit of armor. I think we could find a jester's hat that would fit you, though." The smell was becoming unendurable. An stirred the eggs, took a bite, and nearly moaned. Salt and real butter, too. She could only imagine what this kind of extravagance must be costing. "And we're not siblings."
Someday she was going to learn to keep her mouth shut until she could talk like a civilized person. A vow of silence until about noonish seemed like a good idea. Alexei leaned back a few inches and his body language became noticeably more tense, the hurt that he had failed to register at An's earlier jibe now flashing across his face in bright neon. He placed his spoon back into his bowl, and if An had not already been sitting she would have found a way to kick herself. "Well," Alexei said, flashing An a bright, glittering smile that made him look both older and colder, "maybe not by blood, but I like to think that there's a certain bond between us all the same. I could be long."
An sighed and set her bowl down so that she could rub at the crusts of sleep still clinging to her eyes with one hand and pat at Alexei's leg with the other. He flinched but did not pull away, so An figured that the damage could not be insurmountable. "No, 'Lex, I'm sorry," she said. "You know me. If the numbers on the clock have the letters 'A' and 'M' after them, then I'm not banned from speaking."
A touch of the warmth crept back into Alexei's eyes and into his smile, letting An know that she was forgiven. "Believe me, I know." He picked up his breakfast again, devouring the remainder in three quick bites, and An did the same with her own. From the corner of her eye she saw Fideo hovering near the door and casting Alexei significant looks which grew increasingly irritated when Alexei did not seem inclined to return them. An's lips lifted and she felt some of her early morning temper abate. She loved them, but her boys were so lucky that they weren't considering careers as spies.
"I'm hoping you had some reason for waking me up at this ungodly hour?" An asked, narrowing her eyes in a threat calculated so that Alexei would see right through it. "Please tell me that there's a reason."
Alexei grinned and stole a final piece of bacon from her, poking it into his mouth with his index finger. "It's past ten o' clock."
"Point stands."
Alexei grinned once more before his face turned somber. It didn't look natural on him. He set his bowl to the side and leaned forward, so that their faces were inches apart. If it had been anyone other than Alexei or the boy pacing anxiously across the room trying such a move, An would have leaned back in order to escape the chaotic cinema rushing through her head. With Alexei, though, there was only blessed blankness unless he had something that he wanted her to see. An grinned briefly but decided to let the easy ones go. Alexei threw her a look saying that she was crazy, but it was okay because he loved her anyway. "Look, we've been here for three days already. Phillip and Janice are-" Alexei grimaced and rubbed at his temple. He and An shared a look of commiseration. "Swell, even if they are a little touchy. But we have a job to do, and we're not going to get it done by locking ourselves up in here and eating up all of their food."
An's stomach clenched, working alchemy on those delicious bacon and eggs and turning them into a roiling mess of liquid lead. He would have to spring this on her when it was morning and she was barely awake enough to think. "Jonathan wouldn't want us to rush into anything. 'Recklessness is the greedy cousin of bravery, and only fools or false heroes call it their friend.'" An focused on long ago lessons to push away the voice clamoring for battle rising within her, the one that could scare her sometimes.
The quote brought both a twinge of amusement of amusement and sadness into Alexei's eyes. An could imagine that own were mirroring the expression. "Sweetie," Alexei said in a voice so gentle and different from his ordinary one that it was nearly a weapon, "Jonathan would have wanted us to get a move on."
A line appeared between An's eyes. She was of a mind to ask why this decision was falling to her, why Alexei and Fideo couldn't make it themselves if they were so eager. Ultimately, she sighed and pushed herself to her feet. "Let me grab a shower, and then we can start scoping out the lay of the land."
"Hot water's out," Alexei called cheerfully at her back.
An halted and closed her eyes. "So it will be a very short shower, then." She turned back long enough to pin Alexei with a scrutinizing look. "Why are you the only one telling me this, anyway?" she asked, and gestured to where Fideo was attempting to skulk and not having much luck at it. Single rooms didn't provide much in the way of shadowy corners.
A flash of mirth transformed both Alexei's eyes and his face, making An acutely aware of all the hearts that he was going to break when they put this behind them. They were growing up. Growing apart would not be far behind. An pasted a quick smile on her face so that Alexei could not see the trepidation which rode behind it. If their days as a trio could be coming to an end, then they would just have to go out with the kind of show that was worthy of them. "We made a bet. I lost." An's jaw dropped. "You're not exactly Princess Mary Sunshine when someone wakes you up, okay? I feared dismemberment."
An snapped her mouth closed and tried to gather her dignity back around her. She pointed at Alexei. "You I fully believe would bet on me," she said, making no attempt to sound as if she was seriously angry. The finger swung around to point at Fideo. "But you?"
Fideo grinned and waggled his fingers at her. "Thumb war champion of the universe," he said. "And you can't bust my chops for having a sense of self-preservation, either."
An huffed at them both before turning and stalking off in the direction of the tiny bathroom. She managed not to shriek as the first icy needles of water struck her back, but it was near thing.
---
The city looked different beneath the bright light of the day. An supposed that she ought to be chalking that under 'the sky is blue' and 'the world is going to hell' as far as obvious observations went, but she couldn't stop her lips from parting or her jaw from falling softly open. The realization that Fideo and Alexei were performing the exact same behaviors on either side of her came as a slight comfort. Seeing the carnage on what news broadcasts were allowed to come through to the outside undoctored-An's paranoid inner liberal had plenty to squawk about on that count-made it seem hazy and far away, like actions taking place on a movie set rather than the wide, wide world. The following reality has been sanitized for your protection. An felt her sense of purpose coming back to her, a cloak that soothed and cooled the sweat gathering at her temples in the heat of the day, and she brought her teeth back together with an audible click. If she ever needed a reminder of what their duties were, all she needed to do as keep her eyes open and drink in the bloodshed.
"I'm going to live here someday," Fideo said. An could not tell from his voice alone whether it was hope or a grim determination that had chosen his words for him. When a quick glance at his face yielded no further answers, An mentally checked the box marked 'all of the above'.
She reached out with her hands, felt her boys each take one and give it a squeeze back in response to her own. There was power and then there was Power, and An figured that when you possessed them both at once there was not a lot that you couldn't do. They were Three, and they had a job to do.
The crowds were somewhat thicker than An would have expected on your average post-apocalypse workday, forcing them to release their grips on each other and shoulder through solo more than once. Too thick, not only forcing them to let go but also to collide shoulders with passers-by more than once. An's head was swimming with stolen images and emotions before even a full hour had gone by, and when she managed to catch Fideo's eye she noticed that he had gone green beneath the normally healthy bronze of his tan.
"Not nice," Fideo muttered beneath his breath on one of the occasions when there was a lull in the people and An was able to sidle close. She wasn't sure if he was referring to the experience of being bombarded in the first place or to the nature of the images themselves. If her own bright and shiny vision broadcast was anything to go by, An was willing to bet that it was both of them and then some. The apocalypse was not agreeing with the strengthening of most people's characters, even less so than the readings that And could pick up on back in the real world when she was careless and allowed someone to come close enough to touch. She placed her hand on Fideo's arm in sympathy, only to jerk it back when his dam broke and the images that he normally would have been able to hold at bay began to shuffle through her own brain. Fideo's smile told her that he had appreciated the gesture all the same.
"Seems to be an ongoing theme," An said, tilting her face up to peer at the deceptively innocent expanse of the sky. She could have sworn that she had seen something massive circling overhead earlier. An could feel Fideo's gaze on her, though by the time she had turned her head back he was already looking away. A demon child scuttled between them, forcing them to step away from one another and brushing against An's hand before she could pull away. She shuddered as images of what the picture of scaly innocence planed to do once his third row of adult fangs grew in filled her mind. It was made worse by the fact that a few of the humans that she had collided with didn't seem to be much better. 'Just do the job.' "Have you seen Alexei?"
Fideo shook his head and stepped around the same demon that had separated them as it settled down with a cluster of others in front of a television that had been placed on the sidewalk. He gave a quick double take towards programming that was either a news bulletin or the most tasteless action movie that An had ever seen. "Nope. Kind of starting to worry about him. When Alexei disappears and there's no path of destruction to mark where he's been…"
"It's usually because he's still lighting the fuses," An finished. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and worried at it briefly with her teeth as she swiveled her head, seeking the thatch of familiar brown hair in the crowd. The temptation to reach for Fideo's hand again was returning, and stronger than ever. Without their third member they were weak.
"This is like an episode of Hercules," Fideo stepped close and murmured into her ear, causing a startled giggle to erupt from An's throat. He smiled at her, sweet enough to hold even their cancerous surroundings at bay, and An thought that she felt a little better. He gestured towards the crude bartering centers that had been set up in the empty storefronts and which were occasionally spilling over into the street. All that was missing was dirt instead of concrete and some chickens running around between people's legs. Chicken feed was expensive, after all, and the birds themselves even more so. 'But we're going to make it better.'
"Or a bad science fiction movie," An whispered back, still turning her head this way and that as she sought Alexei. No sign of him. An began to feel the first slow threads of worry curling through her annoyance and turning it sour. Now more than ever, they could not afford to be separated from one another. Irritation finished its transformation into first concern and then total fear as a commotion began further down the block, too far away for her to crane her neck and see over the crowd. The taller Fideo swore beneath his breath, and An asked sharply, "What is it?"
"Demons," Fideo said, fear and disgust blending together and turning his voice into one low growl. An sucked her breath in hard. "I'll find Alexei."
An nodded before her brain had managed to catch up with her, and Fideo was gone before she had a chance to call him back. First two and now one, leaving their power divided worse than ever. An chewed at her lip and didn't even feel the pain until the copper-sweet taste of her own blood was threading through her mouth. More than a little disgusted, she dragged her hand across her mouth and spat onto the pavement before raising herself onto the tips of her toes and trying to see over the crowd. Another growth spurt could come along and hit her any time that it wanted.
Someone elbowed An hard in the back as they rushed to clear the area, nearly knocking her over, and she scowled. Her hand curled into a fist before she realized what she was doing; uncurling it was one of the most difficult things that An had ever had to do. Bits of the man himself, all of his hopes and dreams and the nasty little desires that he would never speak out loud, buzzed about the inside of her skull like flies. The wave of anger that swept over her without warning was strong enough to make her vision go dark about the edges. An took several deep breaths through her nose, deliberately forcing her mind away from thoughts of how terribly easy it would be. 'Not now and not ever.' An shivered and frowned.
The portal, an ugly purple-black thing peek from between the remaining buildings, pulsed and reminded An of a beast giving birth to its horrible children. An narrowed her eyes and felt that same rage, black and terrible and at the same time so right, sweeping back over her. She turned her eyes off of it before it could take her breath away, back towards the approaching horde that was finally close enough for her to see. An ignored the stares of the few people who glanced over at her as they rushed past on their way to safety. Yep, just one lonely little girl trying to play at being the hero in a city that was clearly shaking them off like a bad hangover, nothing to pause and look over with any kind of critical mind.
Well. Maybe not so lonely. An squinted across the street, watching as a man darted into the mouth of an alley and then paused there, safely out of the action but still close enough for one hell of a view. An's current outlook on human nature thought that she was giving him too much credit but what the hell: he might even be able to intervene if he so wanted. Something about him tickled at the back of An's mind, bringing to the surface hazy half-memories of cocoa and the metallic taste of raw adrenaline sliding down the back of her throat. The man was too far away and swallowed by shadows before she could pin the memory down. Anyway, she was running out of time to stand about and contemplate the deep secrets of the universe.
Fideo and Alexei were God only knew where and An was alone and with no resources to draw on save for herself. This was very possibly the stupidest thing that she had ever done or, if the slightest part of it went wrong, would ever do again. She could only imagine the look that Jonathan would turn upon her if he only knew, the dry-as-dust stare which said that what she had just done was too foolish to be expressed in actual words, so he was going to take pity on her and say it through a glare instead. An felt her lips quirking up in spite of everything. Nostalgia. God, she missed him.
The demons themselves were covered by a sheen of slime so faint that An could only see it when they turned precisely the right way beneath the sunlight, as if they had just crawled out from some dark birth canal and had not yet dried off. An's eyes flicked towards the portal again for the barest of seconds and then went back to the demons, making special note of the razor-sharp weaponry that they had scattered across themselves. She certainly hoped that the birthing process had hurt that bitch. And then, before her brain could catch up with the rest of her and tell her that this was a suicidal thing to do, that it was very disappointed in her, and that if she didn't stop this nonsense immediately it was going to jump ship and leave her to her fate, An was stepping out into the street.
She thought that she saw a movement in the alleyway where her mystery man was hiding himself, but it was from the corner of her eye and An did not think that it would be wise at the moment to turn her head and look. There was no white knight coming rushing out of the shadows to save her, at any rate. At this realization An actually caught herself breathing a long sigh of relief as she braced her legs wide apart and tried to clear her mind of clutter. Demons, vampires, and various other forms of unspeakable evil were all things that a person could slide into their worldviews without too much trouble once they were confronted with the cold, hard facts of them. Fairytales might be pushing it.
An hoped that Fideo arrived soon with Alexei in tow, because the demons were close enough now for her to see the beads of sweat that rolled out from beneath their armor as they continued at the same sedate pace towards their unknowable destination. One small girl standing in the way was an object worthy of no more notice than a Barbie doll ground beneath the wheels of a Hummer. Soon, An thought again with something that was as close as she ever came to panic, or they would never be Three again. Another deep breath, less calming than she would have liked, and An would be lying if she had said that the thought of turning tail never entered into her mind. But there were people further down the block, huddled little sheep with nowhere to run because of the deals that had been brokered over this city. An stopped the swift and barely perceptible curl of her lip by reminding herself that there was always more work to be done.
An took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and focused. She was clenching her fists, she realized, and would be unsurprised later to find crescent-shaped bruises etched in blue and purple across her own palms. 'Focus.' Even in memory, Jonathan could manage to sound like the snippiest person alive-that was a bad choice of words. An did her best to obey, shutting down every portion of her mind save for the one, glowing and white-hot, that delighted in being let off of its leash. So much easier if she could touch them, but And did not think that that was a course of action which would do great things for her lifespan. The glowing portion of inside of her stretched out as An loosened her hold on it, extending out amorphous fingers that An could see with perfect clarity in her minds eye and was almost convinced would be visible in the real world in only she opened her eyes. They spun along at their own lazy pace towards the sound of approaching feet. The demons were close enough to smell now; An thought that she would have been able to do without that particular enlightenment. It was too late to run now even if she had wanted to. An willed the tendrils to move faster, and they did so with the sullen, sluggish air of teenagers being ordered to get off the phone and clean their rooms. They reached their targets at long last. An could feel the change which rippled through them as they swirled around the demons, sending a host of images careening back to her, and she underwent a brief battle as she struggled not to be sick across her shoes. Bright points of pain flared up from her palms as she curled her fists even tighter. Fine and dandy but still not good enough; An clamped down and pushed for more. The tendrils within her mind's eye had begun to take on a slightly reddish tinge. She could feel beads of sweat breaking out across her temples, running down her face and eventually into the collar of her shirt. An grit her teeth until she could taste flecks of enamel on her tongue as every neuron in her brain began to throb and beg for mercy. The mental tendrils were blazing a strident, primitive scarlet.
When the sounds of the footsteps failed to so much as pause, no one was more surprised than An. Her eyes flashed back open, replacing the mental images of triumph with the far more depressing physical reality of it. An took a small step back before she was able to halt herself, unclenching her fists and feeling wet trails of blood begin to run down her fingers as panic started hovering close and hungry. An had never been more aware of herself as small and alone, and in the end so fragile.
There was nothing that she could do to stop being small and fragile, but the experience of being alone was thankfully brief. From the very alley where An's unknown observer was watching came her salvation in the form of two sweaty, scruffy adolescent boys that she had never in her life been more glad to see. Alexei dug his elbow into the mystery man's side with his customary zeal as he blew past, forcing him briefly into the light. An thought that the man looked uncomfortable there, and a memory battled to rise to the surface before she forced it back down so that she could prioritize.
The rush of relief that surged through An's body was enough to make all of her nerves tingle and her legs forget their purpose. When she grabbed for Alexei's and Fideo's hands it was as much to hold herself up as it was to draw power from them. Alexei's fingers spasmed back briefly in response to her welcoming squeeze, Fideo was on the verge of outright breaking her hand, and they were ready to work. The beginnings of a crazy-cool grin were trying to spread across An's face, while the fresh adrenaline spiking through her blood was rendering the world into a bright, tinny cinema, overloud and suffused with too much detail for her racing brain to ever hope to catch up with. An closed her eyes to shut out the chaos and instead focused on the faint thrumming beginning to take place between her brothers' fingers and her own. When the tendrils burst from her mind, it was with the speed and force of a train. An could feel herself connected to Alexei and Fideo beyond the small, stupid, fragile fragments of skin with which they were grasping at each other. This was deeper, this was power, and even though An was young yet she knew that this was one of the most glorious things that she would ever experience.
The demons paused. An heard it in the break of their step even as she felt the energy being cast between her boys and herself lurch and ripple. A sound bubbled up in her throat, threatening in a treacherous moment to overwhelm her; An realized later that she had been on the verge of laughing. In that moment when the power was at its apex, in the nanosecond before it began its inevitable decline, An thought that she could have fought the world. More to the point, she thought that if only given the chance she even wanted to.
When that pause became only that and nothing more before the advance continued, the opposite number to that elation was a shock and horror so tremendous that An felt it as if she had been physically slapped. Her eyes flashed open and she staggered back a step, only just retaining the presence of mind to keep her hands linked with those of Alexei and Fideo. The rush, the thrum that had run through them was gone, replaced by nothing more sacred than skin and meat. Worse than a mere failure, because now An was more than a single stupid girl standing in the middle of the street, one more thing to be trampled under and perhaps gathered up to snack on later. In making them pause she had established herself as an explicit threat. She saw the fist coming, disconnected her hands quickly from those of the boys before she could drag them along with her, and then the point of impact occurred and she saw nothing at all.
An's head snapped back with a force that made her neck creak like a rusty hinge and would have brought about worries of a broken neck in other moments. Other moments, An would decide, would from that point forward include any in which her cheek had not been split open and the distillation of pure, screaming agony poured into the underlying bone. There was a disturbing sense that the laws of gravity at best no longer applied and at worst had organized and turned against her. An had only enough non-dazed brain cells left under her control to realize that she was flying, and flying far enough that the landing was unlikely to be pleasant, before she had already begun her descent. She did not impact hard cement but instead hard chest, and arms that wrapped around her and prevented her from sliding right back to the ground. The fall continued as An's weight propelled them both back to the pavement. Instinct took over and An kicked out blindly with her legs, seeking purchase on ground that she could not reach. She scrabbled backwards until her hand found her rescuer's bare flesh with a force that must have hurt, but she was still riding too close to the edge of panic to ease her grip.
From the second after An's skin first made contact with her rescuer's bare skin that line became so whisper-thin as to be nonexistent. Had she the spare breath for it, An thought that she might have cried.
Taste of bile in the back of the throat money makes it better power makes it best slow burn forgetfulness my God they're only kids can't do this show how the world really works blood like rubies show him show him hatred so clear so sharp blond devil in a blue dress not salvation but it'll do open road finally free finally clear the fuck you are no dice I'm done really think you an afford to turn this down-
A thin, strangled sound that may have been an attempt at a scream whistled past An's throat. She scrabbled back from the man on her hands, her eyes wide and her breath coming in short gasps. By some miracle her sunglasses had not fallen from her face. Lindsey, Lindsey, now she remembered that his name was Lindsey-he was more muscular than she remembered, stripped clean of civilized softness and rendered into something feral. An tasted sulphur in the back of her throat and could not say why. Her glimpse had been too brief. It had still been enough.
It didn't matter now, couldn't matter now, as An caught a glimpse of silver from the corner of her eye. She realized with a sick, simultaneous lurching of her heart into her throat and her stomach to about the level of her kneecaps that whatever chance she and her boys might have had at making a difference was gone, if it in fact had ever existed at all. The last part would have been a bitter pill to choke on if An had been forced to swallow it in a moment when her own death wasn't staring so close, when she was not feeling so vulnerable and human.
A hand wrapped itself around An's upper arm and jerked her back so hard that she felt something in her shoulder creak and pop. A clang and a spark, and the sword that had been swinging at her head came down on the cement where An had been a scarce second before. "The hell is wrong with you?" Lindsey was yelling at her, but An was finding it difficult to listen to the words coming out of his mouth while his hand was still wrapped around her upper arm tightly enough to leave deep purple bands etched into the skin.
Fine then give in take the deal know what has to be done wait wait not how-
"Don't touch me!" An screamed at Lindsey. Her voice went into a register higher than any human's was meant to, sending fishhooks into the delicate inner flesh of her throat. She left little bits of herself behind in Lindsey's grip, so fast did she jerk away, and the abraded skin began to sting immediately. Hot droplets of blood came to the surface and then began to crawl across it. If that was all the blood that An shed this day she would call it a good one.
Lindsey's eyes widened at her as he clearly wondered who this crazy, violent girl was and why he had put his own well-being on the line to aid her. He didn't recognize her, An realized. He didn't recognize any of the three of them. So much the better. "All right, okay," he said, holding his hands up in a brief motion of surrender. "Whatever you say." Lindsey shifted his eyes towards the demons, out of reach for a few seconds at best. "But now's really not the time to be getting shy."
Panting, An looked around wildly for Alexei and Fideo, finding them separated from her by a dozen feet and a half-dozen of the short, green uglies, more distance than she could breach even if her pulse was not pounding in her temples like sick cancer. A thick stream of blood that Fideo did not seem to notice was running from his nose and down his lips. His fingers were still twined around Alexei's tightly enough to turn their knuckles into pearls, and An could see the tension that was written in neon letters across their faces. The demons weren't content to passively roll over them any longer, but were actively in the fight now, taking wide swings at the boys that Alexei and Fideo were only barely managing to avoid by scuttling back against the sidewalk. They were swiftly running out of cement. An took a moment to pause and swear inwardly for having never learned how to fight, not even the most basic playground stuff. Their power was supposed to be enough. Bit of a rude awakening, that.
An scrambled back to her feet and cast a wary look at the would-be white knight who had turned out to be a less than inspiring shade of coffee-black before she beelined for her boys. Lindsey was beginning to look as if he were regretting stepping into the whole mess in the first place, and he made no move to halt her or call her back once she was in motion. Her heart jackhammered wildly in her chest, forcing bile up in piston-like bursts as she ran, but the point of no return was several minutes back if it had ever been there at all. An ducked a blade, heard a high, whistling shriek echo past her own lips as it passed so close that she could swear a chunk of her own hair was left behind. Alexei lifted his eyebrows at her as she drew close. An saw the ghost of an approving smile moving across his face before he redirected his attention to the nasties bent on making them hurt. Great, the most reckless of them all was proud of her. Jonathan would be fit to burst. An grabbed at Alexei's hand and felt the blood from her wounded palm squish on the skin between them. Across the street and through the horde, she saw Lindsey duck a sword blow that would have taken his head off with a litheness that said he had done this before, swing his momentum back around, and bring his elbow back into the demon's face with an audible crack. The sword clanged to the ground and glinted in the sun.
An squeezed at Alexei's hand, and even though he returned her grip he could not hide the small gasp of pain. "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing." An did not need to be able to read him. Alexei had lacked the self-control to be a truly accomplished liar even since they were children. "It's not important now." That one, at least, was something that An could not argue with. They staggered back as one unit from a particularly close call that left them all gasping. An's hand spasmed involuntarily around Alexei's hand and he winced.
"Sorry."
Alexei shook his head, throwing a few strands of brown hair into his eyes that he did nto bother to brush away. "Not important," he repeated. Alexei glanced towards Fideo, whose chin and neck had by this point been rendered into a crimson mask. When Alexei looked back towards An, it was with worry written across his face. She knew that he was seeing the same thing on her own. "Don't think that we have all that many good blasts left in us, sweetie."
Still breathing hard, An swiveled her head wildly to take stock of their situation. Not good, not good, not good. There was a commotion happening towards the other side of the street, great arcs of crimson spiraling up through the air and coming back down, but An had seen the inside of Lindsey's mind. Heroism wasn't exactly his strong suit. "Don't think we have a choice."
Alexei tightened his grip on An's hand even further even though he gasped in pain. He gave a quick, shaky nod. An's fingers were wrapped around Fideo's tightly enough to make their knuckles creak, but he never said a word. There was a distant look in his eyes that made all of An's internal organs try to rearrange themselves at once, and there was so much blood. 'You're overreacting,' An told herself. 'And he probably has plenty more where that came from.' But she thought that there was a tremble in her shoulders as she squared them back, and she knew that her hands would be shaking badly if she ever released them from those of her boys. 'One more. Only one more.'
An didn't want to think about what Lindsey could be doing at the back of the pack to be giving them such a valuable lull. She was only glad that it was there. An took a deep breath that whistled in her lungs as it exited, closed her eyes, and squeezed out a quick signal to Alexei and Fideo standing on either side of her.
And they pushed.
The only good thing that An could say about the pain was that tore through her head and poured battery acid into every single one of her nerve endings was that it was thankfully, blissfully brief. She heard herself shriek from a great distance off and thought in a dizzy, disjointed way that she sounded a lot like a train whistle, felt the warm gush of blood pouring down her face from her nose and ears. The pavement tore ragged chunks from both her and the boys' knees as they sank bonelessly down onto it. By that point there wasn't a one of them still alert enough to care.
An's eyes drifted open again an indeterminate amount of time later, though the blood on her face still felt tacky when she probed at it with curious fingers. The sun scored burning circles into her brain until she groaned and turned her face away, noticing that Alexei and Fideo were just beginning to stir on either side of her. They were not alone. Lindsey say on the curb a few feet away from her, watching with hooded eyes and an expression that An knew for a fact he had used on juries before: a bland Ken doll look that allowed An to project any emotions that she wished upon its surface. One of the demon's swords was balanced across his knees. An glanced towards the bits and pieces dotting the blade, most of which she could identify, and quickly turned her eyes away again.
Her group was alive, Lindsey was alive, the demons…most them were very much not. Call it a victory. Lindsey made a slight sound, causing An to turn her eyes back up to meet his. The expression there was becoming more shrewd by the second, and the sun was raising a dull glitter along the gore-streaked blade.
"Well, now," Lindsey said. His eyes bored holes all the way through An's skull. "Why am I getting the feeling that you guys aren't exactly normal kids?"
End Part Five