Kylus was hunkered down at an intersection where he could see down along both the north side of the Petty Baron's property and the east side where he could just make out Jamilah loitering in the shadow of a doorway mid-block near the entrance to the compound.

He'd acted brave for Jonathan, who had been clearly on edge all morning, but he was nervous. So, as was his wont when he was under pressure, he was constantly communicating with Sandra. He couldn't see her, but she was only at the far corner of the compound; easily within range of their ability to share illusions.

Kylus had never been able to properly explain to anyone exactly how he and his twin communicated. The two of them couldn't send sounds to one another, so it wasn't like talking in the traditional sense. It was more a shared language of images, colors, and patterns that they had developed organically. Kylus wasn't sure when their shared magical ability had manifested itself, but he couldn't remember a time without it. There had been a very brief stint of time—which he still didn't like thinking about—when the two had been separated by enough distance that their ability to reach one another was cut off. Kylus shuddered, and forced his thoughts away from those days. That was exactly why he was here trying to support Jonathan's attempt to get the Petty Baron to leave them alone. He was never going to let that happen again.

Frustratingly enough, the person to get the closest to understanding the magic the twins shared had been Mr. Geiller, and then only after a frustrating afternoon spent with both of them trying to muddle through an explanation of what exactly they were doing, aided somewhat by the art supplies that Jonathan had conjured during a past lesson. According to Mr. Geiller, they might one day be able to share their personal language with other people, but Kylus wasn't holding out much hope. No one yet had been able to find a way to allow the twins to direct their illusions beyond themselves.

Sandra comforted his stream of consciousness foray into the past with a sweep of mauve that settled over the street like a blanket. Through long practice, Kylus' expression didn't change, but he sent a scattering of shapes trickling across her vision that meant something like "thanks, but I'm doing fine."

The colors around him began to shift with her response when suddenly they stilled. At the same moment, Kylus felt a subtle shift; it was almost like an inexplicable change in temperature. He fired off a shape to Sandra that meant "what was that?!" A flurry of movement near the edge of his vision confirmed his own suspicions; she had felt it, too, and thought it had something to do with their contract with Jonathan. She reminded him she'd felt something similar just prior to Ebola showing up for the first time, although no one else had noticed anything of the like.

Kylus looked toward Jamilah, and saw her standing in the street waving at him. She pointed to the front entrance to the compound; the guards were gone. Shit, he had a bad feeling about this.

"I think Ebola is in there," he communicated to Sandra, and received a quick pulse of color in the affirmative. He gave a quick wave to Jamilah to let her know he'd seen, and ran for the center of the block on the north side.

The plan was simple enough. If an afrit ended up in a glass house and Ebola got out for whatever reason, Jonathan wanted to be sure the demon wasn't going to escape into the city. Logically, if the thing ended up getting out of the Petty Baron's headquarters, it would likely take the shortest route to the greater city; in other words, they figured it would go over or through a wall near the center of one of the streets that bounded the compound on its four sides. To try and maximize their odds of catching the cursed thing, they had positioned Kylus and Sandra at opposite corners with views of Jamilah and Ethan, respectively. Chris was at the corner between Ethan and Jamila to facilitate communication between the members who couldn't share illusions across distance, and if it looked like the demon was loosed, Sandra and Kylus would head toward the center of the north and west blocks. That way, as long as one of them saw the demon exit, they would be able to communicate it to at least one other nearby person.

Kylus really, really hoped it was enough, and a pulse of affirmation from Sandra indicated she agreed. He hadn't realized he was communicating that with her. Whoops. He always started unconsciously leaking stuff when he got nervous. Sandra had much better control. She claimed it was because she was the oldest twin, but she was full of it.

Kylus waited tensely in the middle of the street, scanning up and down it. Aside from some strange looks from pedestrians as he'd sprinted along it, not much seemed to be happening.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

A minute passed. Two. Maybe they'd been wrong? What if that feeling had been something else? Sandra didn't think it was, but perhaps—

Before Kylus could complete the thought, the wall of the compound several feet to his left disintegrated and blew outward in a cloud of dust.

Looked like they'd guessed right about where the demon would emerge, after all.

Kylus was running even before he'd fully realized what he was looking at, and as an indistinct shape that looked like Jonathan's silhouette but moved like death on two legs strode out of the dust into the street, Kylus was already launching through the air in a full-body tackle.

It was like tackling a wall. Kylus slammed into the demon and the breath burst from his body. If he hadn't wrapped his arms around its waist on impact he would have bounced right off, but as it was he found himself dangling and gasping like some sort of weird fish, knees screaming where they'd impacted the road.

He hadn't noticed in the impact, but the demon had somehow managed to grab his head on both sides. It wasn't exerting any pressure on it, and possibly had prevented Kylus from slamming his nose into the thing's chest, but the look in its eyes as it stared down at Kylus was disconcerting. It was Jonathan's face, but…not. Shit, Sandra, he was sorry, he hadn't thought this through at all and was probably going to die because he was stupid enough to—

Sandra's response wasn't even proper words, just a vivid splash of color with a barely composed shape that meant "I'm coming!"

The demon stared into his eyes for another moment. "Unfortunate," the thing said at last. "So much fun, over almost before it was properly started." It removed its hands from the sides of his head, placed a finger on his forehead and began to push, pressure ramping up quickly from a light touch to something that was strong enough to force Kylus' head back. "If your stubbornness results in your injury, do you suppose that is my fault? And who would even know to…ah." It stopped increasing the pressure, although it didn't remove its finger.

Kylus winced but didn't let go, and finally managed to get a proper breath.

The demon observed him as more flashes of color washed across Kylus' perception. Sandra was not happy with him.

"Clever trick," the thing muttered. "I will cede primacy once more, child, but know this." Its finger was gone from Kylus' forehead and it grabbed him under the arms so fast he couldn't track the movement, tugging him upwards so that their faces were inches from one another. "I won't forget." Its voice dropped to barely a whisper. "And perhaps next time, you will be truly alone."

Kylus didn't have a chance to try to adjust his grip or really do anything but start to pull back in horror before the thing collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut and Kylus tumbled with it to the ground.

----------------------------------------

"Jonathan, wake up!"

Jonathan jolted to consciousness, and immediately groaned. For a disorienting moment he wasn't sure what was going on, but he was lying on something extremely uncomfortable and Ethan was leaning over him with a panicked look on his—

Shit, the Petty Baron! He was pretty sure he'd pulled Ebola into the driver's seat. He shoved himself to a sitting position, ignoring the way his muscles screamed at him, and looked around wildly. Sandra and Kylus off to the side, the latter looking shell-shocked and for some reason covered in what looked like rock dust. Ethan standing back up from where he'd been leaning over Jonathan. Jamilah and Chris nearby, both eyeing the street around them warily.

Thank goodness, all five kids were still here and unhurt.

"Jonathan, we have to go!" Ethan pulled at his upper arm, and Jonathan obligingly tried to stand up. He felt like he was 90 years old and had just fallen down three flights of stairs.

"What's wrong? Is the Petty Baron—"

Ethan didn't let go once he was up but immediately started tugging him down the street, the other kids falling in behind them. "I don't know what happened inside; none of us were willing to go check. But you just disintegrated a good chunk of the Baron's outer wall in front of a bunch of strangers, so we need to go now."

"Alright, alright, I'm coming. Ugh, I feel like crap." Jonathan tried to run, but the best he could manage was a shuffling jog.

Ethan paid him no attention. "Chris, go scout our nearest bolt hole, make sure no one else has taken up residency. Sandra, Kylus—" He paused to shoot a concerned look Kylus' way, then went on. "—I need you on lookout, ahead and behind. Jamilah, do you think you can run interference if need be?"

Jamilah looked pale, but she nodded.

"Good. Good. I'll stick with Jonathan. If we have to scatter, regroup at Filligan's tavern. You all remember? Chris, go."

Chris went. Jonathan watched after his retreating back for a bit as a distraction from the issues he was having just keeping up with Ethan and the others.

Guess he knew now why the kids had done relatively well on their own for so long, despite being hounded by the Petty Baron. On his home turf and with a predictable threat, the kid was excellent in a crisis.

Jonathan just really hoped he hadn't screwed things up for them completely. There had been no way he was going to get out of there under his own power, but had dropping a murderous demon on their heads really been the right move?

He really hoped he was going to be able to live with himself the next morning.