Chapter 101: Fingers

Albie’s words pounded the last nail into my skull.

We hadn’t been fighting a creature. Even she and Marroll had, at most, been stinging its fingers. Lena and Bernie and I struggled to accomplish even that much.

No more hesitation. No more ill-advised heroics. No more arguing with Albie. Not even any more curiosity.

We ran.

Donica and Zhizhi’s lights looked impossibly far away. The darkness between us seemed to grow thicker, to move, to claw.

My impression of the darkness was just my fear talking, though, and the lights Lena and I wore bobbing as we ran. With each step, the impossible turned plausible. We sprinted past fallen shelves and cracked concrete, beneath flickering fluorescents and gathering shadows.

I saw the swinging door, and the inspection report on the wall, and Donica’s conjured Stone, and a flash of hope in Zhizhi’s wide eyes. I heard the clack of Donica’s boots as she shifted from foot to foot, and the fast-forward crackle of the support team through my headpiece.

Whatever advantage in planning we’d gained from the distorted time had been lost because we couldn’t communicate. They’d become so distorted and pitch-shifted, I couldn’t make out a word they said.

Until Matt’s voice cut through the static, surprisingly slow and clear. “Beware south!”

I didn’t know how he’d managed to get through clearly. Hell, for a minute, I thought he’d actually come in to try to rescue us. I wasn’t stupid enough to waste time dwelling on the whys or hows, though.

All four of us looked the way he’d told us to. With so many shelves knocked over, our lights lanced deep into the warehouse, even to the south wall Donica and I had run along at the end of our first expedition.

We weren’t going to try for it again, though.

Our lights played over what I’d thought of as the creature’s “body.” It resolved from distortions in the air, layering polygons into place until it looked something like human. Zhizhi didn’t shout any challenges to it this time; apparently, she’d decided it either couldn’t understand or didn’t care.

More importantly, our lights failed to illuminate the shadows as they whipped towards the swinging door.

Donica swung the Stone she’d manifested toward the creature. She didn’t seem to have the knack of using Earth to fake movement like Matt and Erin had. Understandable, since this was her first attempt to use a Reactant, but it left her dragging the object she conjured with the same kind of wide, limited motions Lena was stuck with, but with less destructive potential.

Donica had shaped her makeshift Stone shield wide and convex, almost as broad as one of the aisles. It worked, sort of. Even with her awkward control, she slammed it into place before distortions ripped into her and Zhizhi. But, spread too thin, the Stone shattered, and she fumbled with her phone trying to call up more.

Her fingers slipped.

The shadows shot forward.

I whipped a plate of my own forward and smashed it into the wall, pinning almost the entire mass of shadows, along with the invisible distortions that cast them. Lena’s Iron struck behind my cracking Stone. Her Iron, reddened by Fire, burned smoky lines into the pressed board and made whatever was pressed between them pop and sizzle with a noxious stench.

From the way its shadows writhed, the creature didn’t seem to like the experience.

If we refined our technique, or if we got more Reactants to multiply the effects of our attacks, that combo might actually let us do some damage.

In the moment, though, we’d just pissed the creature off –

And it had at least one thrashing limb free. A shadow arced across the space between the creature and Zhizhi.

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“Fuck it,” Donica snarled, and and threw herself in front of it. The blow sent her flying into the wall. Her impact cracked the pressed board and left the door hanging ajar. I just had to hope she had enough HP it hadn’t broken her.

“Go!” I shouted.

Zhizhi gulped, stared wildly – and went. She threw her shoulder into the door. It scraped across the concrete, but once it sprang open, it stayed that way. She dragged Donica to her feet and into the gap.

I skidded to a stop between them and the creature. Lena and I seemed to have hurt it, but we sure hadn’t managed to cut off a finger, or whatever Albie had accomplished. The shadows whipped in my direction and I fell back into the rhythm of blocking them.

Lena tried another Wood explosion in their midst, but it seemed like even with triple Fire, she couldn’t impart enough energy to hurt them. Worse, the creature knew it. It didn’t even bother to twitch out of the way of her attack. She cursed and switched back to Iron, which, heated or not, clumsy or not, at least had enough force and durability to smash the distortions away.

Waves of heat told me Bernie was still trying to fight, too. Every time I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye, he’d changed position.

Behind us, I heard crash after crash as Albie and Marroll fought on, as well as a rumbling I didn’t recognize. Something else they were doing? I had to hope so. If the creature could bring another gear to bear in this fight, Albie might make it out, but the rest of us sure wouldn’t.

Speaking of out, Donica shoved Zhizhi into the hallway. She backed a step after her. Hesitated.

I hardly noticed. Block, try to pin, overextend, block, block, forget offense, defense was already more than I could manage –

Iron lanced into the shadows, clearly shaped by Earth, and for a second I thought Albie had caught up to us. Nope. This object didn’t move with the same smoothness hers had. What it formed looked more like an I-beam than a spear. It swung slower, stabbed more awkwardly.

I realized Donica was trying to help us. I gave her a nod.

Lena didn’t. She shouted, “Just run, dammit! We got this.”

We didn’t. I had to fling my Stone into the path of a blow that would have ripped through the last of Lena’s HP, and it left me open to one that brought me to my knees. How much did I have left? I sure as hell didn’t have time to check.

Donica clearly knew how little we had things in hand, because she snapped, “Do you even listen to yourself?”

“We were stupid, okay?” Lena said. “We shouldn’t have stuck around! Is that what you want to hear?”

A beat.

Then Donica said, “Actually, yeah.”

Despite everything, Lena snorted. “So get into that hallway and make sure nothing kills Zhizhi!”

“Fine.” Donica whipped one last strike into the mass of shadows. It disrupted the creature’s movement enough that Lena and I managed to pin and slam a cluster of shadows again, and again their twitching forms suggested we’d done some damage.

Then Donica turned and dashed into the hallway.

Then she fell.

I saw the shadow that had struck her and brought my Stone down on the concrete between them. The shadow spasmed, but the flailing distortion hit Donica again where she lay.

She screamed.

In pain, not fear.

Which meant she’d run out of HP.

“Go,” I shouted. I bumped my arm into Lena. “Get her out!”

Lena didn’t argue. I heard her dashing to the door, and Donica cry out again as Lena dragged her through it.

The warmth of Bernie’s attacks vanished from beside me, as well. One less thing to worry about.

I backpedaled, whipping my Stone shield back and forth until it shattered, conjuring another.

“Beware north,” Matt said through my headset.

I didn’t glance and I didn’t hesitate. I flung the Stone I’d been using over my shoulder with all the force I could muster, then called up another piece in front of me. I heard the one behind me crash into something. The one in front shattered from a single concentrated blow.

I felt pressed board give against my back. The crack in the wall where Donica had slammed into it. I was at the door!

For just a second, I risked a glance at Albie and Marroll.

They stood right at the edge of my light and didn’t have any of their own. It didn’t seem to impair them any.

Marroll laid about him again and again, impervious to the creature’s attacks, his own devastating whenever he caught it with so much as a glancing blow. I didn’t know if he could kill or disable the creature, but only because I didn’t know what that might take. It sure didn’t seem able to hurt him.

And Albie? Free of needing to worry about anyone as squishy as Lena and Bernie and I, she stood at the center of a tornado of steel. I didn’t know if she could somehow control multiple units of Iron at once, or if she simply orchestrated a symphony of them through her perfect control of Air. Either way, dozens of blades and spears and hammers danced around her. They cut, they stabbed, they smashed; they didn’t block, because they had no need to. Any shadow that dared to approach her was torn apart.

Our eyes met.

She gave a single, quick nod.

I told myself I had to trust her.

If only because I couldn’t do anything else.

I threw myself backwards through the doorway.