CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: THROUGH THE PANE

The mountain she drove into her throat, stifling the source of her twin’s song.

Barging breathlessly up the path, Bridget couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that oiled her guts, slipping away no matter how hard she tried to get it under control. Her wits barely returned in time to halt her feet seconds before they reached the off-hinged door. An innate, primal fear flashed at the back of her mind, recalling the ghost of a blow that had glanced off her shoulder only a little while ago. Was it only a little while ago? The thought interjected, pulling flashing memories of a bulging, blaming face along with it.

Focus.

Briddy shook free of her hesitation, dropping low into a crouch. Almost immediately, the muscles in her thighs began to tighten, building an uncomfortable heat. Her lips whispered a soundless name as she crept forward, feet as light as the golden mist that hardened beneath her fingers. Across the threshold of Loyalty and its ill-fated architecture she slunk; eyes darting about for glint or movement.

Barely a few paces in, Bridget found herself entrenched in an unoccupied wasteland of what had been the Loyalty Common Area. The comfy assortment of furniture she had spent many an afternoon lounged atop, protecting essays from seeking eyes, lay upended like a child’s dollhouse thrown out the parlor window and crushed under some enormous foot. Furniture was strewn in all directions, and in various states of assembly. From what little she could perceive by moonlight leaking through the many shapes obscuring the hall window, a large amount of the destruction lay at and around the foot of the stairs. Ducking behind a splintered half of a round table top, Bridget skulked in the shadows of splintered posts as she tried to reach the Sleeping Area beyond.

Inside, it was stiflingly quiet, as though someone had stuffed a blanket over the house’s head and plugged out everything else. Bridget could feel her legs beginning to complain, the tops quivering as she took another painstakingly slow step. Shuffling under the shattered arm of the couch leaning up against the wall, absent its cushions and legs, Briddy squatted to rest. Instead of the solid stone she had been creeping across, her knees collapsed into something warm, sticky, and wet. Sucking in a whimper, she recoiled, upsetting the couch’s remains.

With a screech that ended in a clattering thud, the exposed wood scraped against the stone of the wall and smashed to the floor. Cursing, Bridget scampered in the opposite direction, immediately tripping as her feet caught something big and unyielding. Falling forward, she caught her balance on something flabby that gave way underneath the pressure. Her legs slid right back into the thick wetness she had just scrambled out of. Blindly feeling about, Bridget made out not one but at least two unmoving forms, yanking her hand away when it met a thick, meaty fold that had been peeled back.

Everything seemed to rock around her, the world feeling as though its gravity had been knocked off balance. What if that skin had been Gails? She couldn’t risk a light, she knew that but–shaking, Bridget began to reach out again. There had to be some way of knowing if it was them. Revulsion slammed through her. These were corpses, and her hands had no place on them.

Even as she stretched her fingers toward the bodies, there was noise to Bridget’s right. Soft shuffling and thumping began behind a wall, barely audible. On any other night, it could have easily been mistaken for a student, tossing and turning in the fit of a dream. This night, Bridget rose, praying the forms she left on the floor weren’t her friends, and angled Vex’s blade in its direction. Swallowing a dry mouth, she tried to control the ragged breathing that shook her lungs.

Squinting through the dark, she could just make out both of the doorways to the sleeping area, portals thrown wide and yawning into the dark. They looked not unlike the twin, hollowed sockets of an skull, gazing back. Continuing down the room, the thumping continued, sending the pace of Bridget’s heart hightailing to new heights. Whatever had happened here, something was already in the dorms. Were there even survivors here?

She chewed her bottom lip, stomach flipping. The door to Loyalty still stood open and off its hinges behind her, but she was most of the way through the Common Area now. If she turned back, would it be too late? No, it had been too late when she had decided not to follow Niles into the trees. Bridget looked down the hall towards the stairs and the mound that covered its steps. Gail would’ve been on the second floor, since the arrangements for sleeping inverted between houses.

Two tones of a chime sang clearly over her shoulder.

Carefully adjusting her chin without fully moving her head around, Bridget slid her eyes back. Emerging from the right doorway of the Sleeping Area stretched a groping, faceted appendage. Wherever it met sporadic splashes of moonlight leaking through the wreckage, it glittered black. Not shone, as the shell of black breastplate would, but sparked in the sheen like some arcane carapace of metal that contained millions of tiny stars. Sucking up the sour terror in her stomach, Briddy instinctively swayed back. Then, more movement caught her eye. To the left, a pair of hooked points shot out of the darkness, drilling into the stone of the doorway like the grip of spindly black fingers.

Forgetting her purpose, Bridget squinted at the sight, her mind racing to translate the two things her body already understood: The first was that she needed to start moving about ten seconds ago, and the second was shown to her by the matching diamond heads that each appeared in the once-empty doorways.

There were two.

The monstrosities’ featureless faceted faces angled toward hers, still shadowed while their long, sac-like abdomens folded and compressed incessantly beneath them. Bridget was struck with the sudden impression of many bellows in a forge, constantly in motion and different rhythms, only engulfed in one, horrible amalgamation of a body. Their standoff was interrupted by a sudden burst of movement from behind the monstrosities, and the sound of slapping of feet echoing against the stone. Before Bridget could blink, one had vanished from sight. A chime sounded, and then was echoed by the other, as if to welcome her in, too.

Run. Vex urged.

There was a disconnect in her mind, where Bridget knew she needed to flee or hide. Movement of any kind would’ve been preferable, really. Her brain was otherwise occupied. There were two. Or was it three, now? One nightmare made manifest was hard enough to comprehend, but there were more?

Sighing, the chime echoed, as if in bored by her puny realizations. Stone crumbled beneath the points of black limbs, and the Strange monstrosity leaned out, slinking up past the top of the doorway and affixing its limbs to the ceiling.

Vex. Why can’t I feel my legs?

You must go, Bridget. Now. Out the door.

As if it’s any better out there!

Inaction is not a choice.

She knew that, but her legs were flimsy beneath her, flopping fabric barely fit to hold her up.

In the Sleeping Area, a series of crashes rang out, startling her limbs to hardened steel and sprinting before she realized she was moving. She might’ve leapt or slid over a nearby upturned bookcase, but she didn’t remember. It only took a moment, a shaking breath, and a slap of her hand against the wood before she was on the other side. Only, she was running for the stairs, not the door, and instead of sneaking, she was screaming at the top of her lungs for anyone left to get out.

As if to rebuke her noise, the creature lurking over the doorway launched into motion. Bridget saw the black blur and threw herself sideways underneath a table, not stopping as she continued to crawl forward. Seconds later, a triangular leg split the entire thing down the middle cleaner than a surgeon’s scalpel. Surging upwards, Briddy flipped the outer half of the table into the monstrosity’s spindly appendages. It flailed, hacking and dicing at the wood. Ducking low, she scrambled for the stairs, cursing the rubble that largely blocked her path.

Scrambling up the debris, she barely made it partway before the creature smacked the remnants of the table out of the way, swooping around the wreckage. Seconds later, a drilling, seeking arm grazed deep into the back of her calf. Pain shot out in a burning corona that radiated up her leg. Bridget was aware of hot, wet liquid giving a fresh coating to the mess from earlier, but she didn’t slow. She barely dodged another limb, sucking her stomach in and yanking her body back at the last moment by clinging to the bannister. Shoving off the wall, she scampered up the last few steps, avoiding more attacks before gratefully turning to face the hall–and being confronted with a wall of wood in her way.

Groaning, Bridget slapped her hands against it, her fingers splaying wide. There were quite a few choice words she wanted to spew right about now, but she didn’t have the time, which made her want to curse more. She realized rather quick the barrier wasn’t a wall at all, but rather a piece of furniture, which explained the mess at the bottom of the stairs. The boards stretching perpendicular across it in slats suggested to her that a bedframe had been put on its end. With a great shove of her shoulder, she managed to get it forward enough to shimmy around and slid through the crack. No sooner had she squeezed out, turning back to gingerly lift her leg through the gap, than Bridget was yanked up, and crushed into the wall. The wind flattened from her lungs once again. A blow pulverized her midsection, sharp points digging into her stomach.

“Take that scum.” Someone snarled as she slid down, her world a haze of popping bright lights and ringing. “That’ll teach-Briddy!?” Despite still gasping for air, Bridget felt herself being picked up again, this time crushed into a familiar honey-and-spice scented hug. Then she was being tugged forward through a knot of huddled shadows, clustered together in a tang of hot breath and the smell of crusted, coppery blood. Past them, there was a large, broad-shouldered figure with a pale face kneeling next to some prone forms. “Tuck! Tuck! It was her!”

“That thing’s still coming up.” A voice said behind them, low. “What do we do?”

There was a spot of silence before Bridget wheezed: “I don’t know, throw another bed at them?”

Moments later, she was crushed in another quick embrace from Tuck, and able to get a better look at the situation as her breath returned. The remainder of Loyalty was pinned upstairs, using furniture as a deterrent. Drawn faces glanced at each other, backlit by the pale light flooding the long hall.

“It won’t work for long.” Bridget swallowed as Tuck fussed over her leg. “They seemed to be content below for now, but furniture didn’t stop them from getting at me.”

“What were you doing down there?” Gail gave her a small shake, her hands biting into Briddy’s skin. She was the only one fully dressed, gauntlets at the ready. “We got everyone we could out, then we heard you screaming and we were coming for you and–”

“I was coming to get you.” Bridget looked away.

Gail scoffed, hard. “Idiot.”

Studying the window at the end of the hall rather than receive her glare, Briddy muttered: “Yeah, well, you punched me, so…”

Then she was wordlessly enveloped in another hug. An inexplicable cord within her snapped, the relief she had felt at the sight of her friends rushing out. Weakness filled her like lead, and all she wanted was to collapse into a puddle. Then, like grains of sand caught in the ocean’s tides, the realization of what had been happening washed out on the shores of recognition. Visions of what she had just witnessed over the last hour streaked past in her mind, and she swayed deeper into Gail’s arms with a small sob as the words fell out. Argus, the Houseminder, who knew who else. Her body shook, lungs not finding the air.

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“Hey.” Pulling away slightly, Gail snapped her fingers beneath Bridget’s chin until she raised it to look at her. Her large eyes were darker than usual in the shadowed hallway, but even without the night, her face was drawn hard. “I know.”

Bridget began to say something, but Gail cut her off, her thumb over her lip. “I know, but not now.”

Behind them, the bed boomed as it crashed down the stairs. Bridget’s breaths came faster, even as she tried to slow them. They couldn’t slowtheywouldn’tslow. Why wouldn’t tonight just slow down?

“Right now, you have to be ‘fine’, or we’re not going to survive.”

“Gail–” Tuck rose, picking up a piece of debris, his eyes on the stairs.

Voice pitched low, Gail touched her forehead to Briddy’s. “Breathe. Don’t get lost in the glass.”

Bridget’s eyes snapped up. She was right. Everything was being shattered around them, and Briddy had allowed herself to start looking at the pieces. Gulping at the air, Bridget let go of Gail with a nod, even though she wobbled. She still wasn’t calm, but clarity had cut through her panic and given her some reins with which to bridle it. Still breathing hard, she had just turned around to assess the situation when she spotted the hovering shadow looming over them all.

Jointed appendages hooked to the ceiling like heretical ornaments on a Mistletide bough. A diamond head crowded the shadows in the corner of the hall as a pustule body hung, suspended, in the air. Just as Briddy ‘s lips began to cry a warning, two of the airy tones rang first, snapping heads around to face it.

“Crawled over the furniture, did you?” Gail sneered, stepping in front of Bridget and Tuck.

Briddy reached a hand forward to tug her back. Her friend had no idea what she was dealing with.

Others leapt to action.

“Forset!” Several voices cried, and the remaining pieces of furniture began to swerve and swoop.

With claws that unfolded like the tiny folds of an intricate paper envelope into curved scythes, the Strange thing sliced back.

“Out!” Bridget was suddenly seized and yanked into the Loyalty Sleeping Area. Gail had her arm and they were running, streaking past sets of trunks that looked like spots of dull brown rectangles. Skidding to a stop at the other door, Gail let her go.

“Where–what are you…?” Bridget changed her question midway.

Gail had begun to slide out of her uniform. Without answering, she wrapped the diaphanous garment around Briddy’s shoulders and glanced over her head. “All right, Tuck?”

A soft grunt replied from behind them.

“Gail–” Realization dawned. “I’m not taking your Shroud. You need the protections just as much as I do–”

“I don’t care. Wear it.”

She tried to shrug out of it, and Gail grabbed her chin.

“Briddy.” She commanded. “Wear the damn Shroud.” Her breath tickled Bridget’s lips, hot and harsh.

“Go!” Tuck abruptly slammed into them both, propelling the girls toward the open door.

Take the safety. Vex urged.

Left without avenue for argument, Bridget shoved her arms through the short, wide sleeves as they ran. The enchanted silk was no suit of steel, but it was better than nothing. She watched Gail’s bare shoulders dart out into the moonlit hall, and there was nothing she could do but swallow her guilt and try not to trip on the overlong hem while following behind.

“Briddy!”

At first, she thought Tuck was yelling at her to speed up. She was certainly used to his cousin yelling her name that way, and it took her a half-second to register the timber of terror in his voice. Whipping around, she found him toppled to the side. His broad shoulder was soaked dark with blood, still dripping towards the articulated appendage that wrapped around the doorway, dragging him backward. Tuck scrabbled at the ground, his debris from earlier discarded. Dug into his back, the appendage began twisting in clockwise circles, unfolding and mutating while sinking deeper. A scream of pain ripped out of the boy’s mouth.

“No!” Bridget’s hands flew up, Vex shimmering to existence.

Outside, Gail swore, sprinting back in as Briddy began to hack with the golden blade at the limb pinning her friend to the floor.

“Pull him out!” She barked, changing direction toward where a trunk had been discarded near the wall.

Briddy barely glanced at her. She had nearly lost her grip on Vex, the sword striking the limb with an alien ring that traveled up the blade, through her arms, and into the roots of her teeth. They throbbed, sharp and tingling alongside the muscles in her forearms, as she tried to grapple with Gail’s directions.

“What?”

She looked over, but Gail didn’t answer. Without stopping, the tall girl rushed the trunk, launching herself up and at the wall. One, two, three her steps struck whip quick, her braids brushing the ceiling before she turned, pushing off with one foot. Soaring towards them from the side, she collided with the limb with all her weight, slamming her relic-clad fists down.

Tuck cried out again as the leg jerked and fell with the weight, pushing him up in the air.

Sucking her breath in, Bridget sprang into action, ducking her head under his arm. Together, they pulled forward, releasing Tuck with a tearing suck. He staggered into her, grunting and stinking of metallic sweat. Gail appeared on his other side, rubbing her mouth. She scooped his injured shoulder over hers and helped drag him out.

“What are these things?” The gauntlet-clad girl grunted.

Bridget resisted the urge to peer over at her. The question lacked Gail’s usual bloodlust. And she was without her usual answers. In the hall, a knot of students, limping and leaking blood, slowly lost what little ground was left to two the two Strange creatures, as they swatted their defenses aside with lackadaisical effort. Falling in, Bridget and Gail carried Tuck into the back of the group. The space they had left to retreat was rapidly shrinking; their hunters ready for the feast.

Bearing down with two curved claws, the monstrosity flung the last bed being levitated aside. Shooting like long black arrows from the bow, four limbs skewered toward the group from the ceiling. They plummeted into the students with a couple of thunks and screams, a scrape into stone, and then, from behind, an explosion of noise and glittering pain.

Clouds of brittle particles bit into exposed skin, catching moonlight with rainbow flecks as they cascaded around Bridget and the other students. Biting back a scream, Briddy’s legs gave way to the pain. She hit the ground, Tuck and Gail collapsing on top of her. Shrieks of pain rang out all around. The entire back part of Bridget’s neck burned as she lifted her head, shaking it clear of glass. Behind them, the great window was no more. Shattered panes jabbed at all angles around the edges, and a carpet of shards stretched in a shimmering length from the second-story hall to the tiled path outside.

The floor shivered as someone sprinted past, sending the tiny pieces of glass dancing a merry jig. Bridget sucked her teeth, jerking back. Without looking back, the student leapt from the window, and a muffled crunch sounded soon after. Within seconds, the jig turned to a mad whirl, and Gail had to yank Bridget out of the way before she was trampled. Students poured from the window like ink from a well, a pouring of shadows that fell into a huddle of a puddle on the ground before limping away.

Inside, Briddy sprang to her feet, shaking away the rest of the fragments that had collected on the back of Gail’s Shroud. She had been protected from the worst, but by the blood beading down the back of her friend’s bodies, they could hardly say the same. Before she could apply even the most basic Vigni, there were another two chimes.

“Move.” Gail barked, taking a blood-soaked hand away from her back as she stood.

Between them, they grabbed Tuck and turned toward the window. It wasn’t that far, just a step, or two. She could taste the night air creeping in, torturing the tender skin the glass had scraped raw. Just as the girls were about to jump, the shadow of an articulated, pointed arm stretched over their heads. Bridget closed her free fist, ready to summon Vex and spin to meet it. If she could just balance her weight on Gail for a moment–suddenly, she was shoved to the side. Losing her grip on Tuck, she slid into the wall and heard a thud as he landed outside.

“Tuck!” She cried.

“Ugh.” His reply came, assuring her that he was alive, at least.

Scrambling up, Bridget found Gail, or at least her back. The back of her high-collared, sleeveless shirt was shredded, the fragments hanging heavy with beads of dark liquid at the tips. Her legs were no better off, wounds glistening as they dug into the ground. One gauntlet had deflected the appendage striking them from above, but caught between the opposite wall and her other, straining arm, was a rotating, drilling limb Bridget hadn’t seen.

“Go,” Gail ordered, jerking her chin toward the window. The word was halfway between grunt and speech.

Bridget followed the direction and then looked over at her in abject horror. “I’m not leaving you!”

Down the hall, the Strange creatures crowded closer, abominable sacs squeezing in tighter to fit all their appendages in the space. Another limb shot at Bridget, who dashed towards Gail to avoid its moonlike curves.

“Come on!” She urged, grasping Gail’s arm.

The jointed, twisted leg pinned against the wall gave a great shudder, despite now being pinned under both of Gail’s gauntlets. She shook her dark head, braids striking her cheek. “Go now.”

“Not unless you’re coming with.” Bridget glared back.

“Briddy-”

“No!”

Letting go with one hand, Gail snatched a fistful of her top and yanked Briddy over to the edge. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Bridget met her eyes. They both knew she was lying.

Against the wall, the limb bucked, nearly getting free as it bent, trying to bore into Gail’s heart.

Gritting her teeth, she slammed it back down and gave Bridget a tired smile. “Sorry,” she said.

“No.” Bridget choked out. She had a very big problem with this plan, and she needed to tell her–

But before she could manage the words, Gail pushed her out the window, releasing her.

The problem with that was, Gail might have been willing to let go, but Bridget wasn’t.

Flailing all the way, Bridget’s fingers brushed the merest hint of something to grip. Just as her feet left the stone, she was the one with a handful of Gail’s shirt and was pulling her with. Briddy barely remembered wrapping her arms around Gail’s waist while they fell, but after the sickening impact with which they struck the ground, crunching into broken glass, she found herself tightly clutching her all the same.

Annoying, but not piercing, she could feel the dull points of broken window digging into her back through the Shroud. Bridget was more bothered by the intense pain caused by Gail’s elbow landing in her stomach. Whimpering, Bridget sat up. Gail moved with her, looking away.

“Idiot.” She mumbled, running a hand through her hair.

Bridget was suddenly irate. A flash of fire raced through her, and she grabbed Gail’s shirt so that she looked at her. “I’m the idiot?” She gave her a shake “You promised we would never leave each other alone!”

Gail opened her mouth, and Bridget cut her off, her voice partially a sob. “You promised!”

“I know–” Gail sighed. But before she could say more, the tinkling tones of shattering panes interrupted. The girls looked up at the window they had fallen from. Skittering out from the dark, jagged hole like vermin from under an uncovered log were two long, misshapen forms. Curving in meandrous motions, not unlike those made by Carrion Serpents, one skittered down the side of the house while the other went up. As many mutating arms arced against the moon-soaked sky, for the first time that night three chimes rang out.

At once, from all around them, three sets of tones rose in somber response, their metallic echoes hollow, and full of rushing wind. Some seemed close, while others were barely audible in the distance, but the coordination made it hard to tell how many voices made up the chorus.

“What now?” Gail breathed, her voice barely audible in Briddy’s ear.

Swallowing the hard lump that had swollen in her throat, Bridget recalled Vex’s advice from earlier in the night.

“Run.”