Tactical

[Note: Lucy’s Implement allows her to hear quiet sounds]

“Heads up.  The bitch marches.”

Lucy, unable to hear the whisper, walked over to the window, while Verona took the sink closest to the end, pulling out paper towels and running the sink, so she could get the ink stain that had spread where her pen had leaked into her pocket.

Lucy, hearing the whisper, paused, while Verona kept walking.  She glanced at the cluster of girls who’d gathered around one sink, not doing anything except talking.  Some of them glanced at her, smirking.

“What?” that Verona asked, looking back.  She turned the sink on.

There were two Lucys.  One that didn’t hear, and one that did.  The world peeled into two overlapping sequences of events.  In some, the actions like Aubrey scratching at the little soap-shelf between sink and mirror were almost identical.  In others, there were differences like Verona being slower to act.

*

It was just the one Verona and Lucy in the washroom, now.  Delayed by a conversation, which was spurred by a whispered insult.  In the wake of it, they were reaffirming their friendship and keeping each other upright.  The two of them against a vaguely hostile, busy, uncaring world.

“This wet spot on my pants is annoying.  I’m going to go grab my gym shorts.”

“It’s cold for shorts.  Want my sweatpants?”

“Sure!  Yeah.  Let me just clean this up-”

“I will,” Lucy said, grabbing the sink as she straightened up.  She put her paper towel with the paper towels Verona had been using, all in the sink, and gathered them up.  “Go grab my pants from my bag.”

“Catch up with you in a minute then,” Verona said.  “Thanks.”

Then there was only Lucy, in seventh grade, wearing an earring she hadn’t owned then.  She gathered up the paper towels, then wiped at the sink to clean up the dribbles of faintly inky water, before they could stain anything.  She dumped it in the trash, then washed her hands.

Only when that was done did she face herself in the mirror, and the Earring personified stared back at her, holding up one finger.

“What?”

The Earring touched one finger to her lips, indicating silence, then touched the ear with the earring.

Lucy listened.

“…should stop hanging out with her.”

“She’s getting a reputation as a bitch.  Nobody likes having her around.”

“I do.  She’s my best friend.”

“Maybe reconsider?  If she goes around calling us all jerks and stuff, people are going to start reacting to that.  It’ll hit you too.”

“I can deal.”

“Everyone on the dance team thought you had natural talent, before.  I think you’d kick ass if you joined.”

“And abandon Luce?  Nah.”

“Not abandon.  Just… hang with us too.  Do some dancing.”

“It’s a little bit tempting, but the more I get nagged about it, the less I like the idea.”

“Do you actually like how she’s acting?  You know she’s changed.”

“No, I- sure, she’s changed a bit.  Deep down, she’s the same Lucy.”

“If you say so.”

“Do you want to be the person who hears these things?” the Earring asked, through the mirror.

“Yes.”

- Cutting Class 6.8

_______


It didn't take much to wake her. An un-Dog Tag sort of rustling that her earring picked up woke her.

Lucy didn't turn on the light. She pushed her sleeping bag down instead of unzipping it, rolled over, and, on hands and knees, ground alternately lumpy and mushy beneath the tent's floor, she crawled across. Sleep clothes still on, she stepped into her boots, and quickly laced them up. She got her coat on. Then her mask and cape. She pulled her backpack on.

Silence rune for the tent flap. The zipper made no noise.

The fire had died down to a dull orange glow. The moon didn't do a very good job of penetrating the leafless foliage.

Horseman was partway to her.

"I was coming to you to wake you up," he whispered, barely audible. Trusting her earring to work. "Seems you're on it."

She nodded.

"Don't know what it is," Horseman whispered.

Lucy could hear it move. Its footsteps through snow were as quiet as footsteps through snow could be. Here and there, a piece of fabric scraped bark or branch- not even scraped, a tenth of a scrape, a whisking past.

Lucy pointed, identifying the direction.

"Alone?"

Lucy walked past Horseman, arm still out. Some Dog Tags who were up and alert took notice and nodded.

"Seems so," she murmured to Horseman, as she passed him.

"Good."

Lucy saw movement, but it didn't fit the sound. She used Sight, and saw Footspur, moving, agitated.

Crossing the campsite to that end of things, Lucy kept eyes open.

"Blood in the snow," Grandfather whispered, as she got closer to him.

She could see now. Footspur's work. Every few steps the intruder took, they got gouged. She could almost hear the sucking sound, as a foot was impaled, pulled away from the spike of bone, wood, glass, or metal, blood suctioning between wound and material.

Corresponding with another rustle, faint. A hand going out to brush against bark, maybe. For balance, but with a scary quietness.

Step. Step step step, fast, running silently.

Branches rustled. Lucy could see the corresponding movement of branches, pushed by Boughbreak to bar the way-

And the figure. Skinny, hair messy, mostly dressed in black, forced to stop, pause.

The figure turned, looking directly at Lucy.

Eyelids had been removed and the places eyelids had been cut were scabby. It made the orbs of the eyes seem overlarge. Black cracks or veins ran across their body, mostly starting at their left hand, running up the arm, across the body, up neck and face. She let her eyes adjust a bit more. It was a man, maybe a bit older than Booker. Black stuff was sticking out of the veins or cracks in the man's hand and arm.

"Hold up!" Grandfather shouted.

The figure darted to one side.

Disappearing from view like Avery did, passing behind a tree at a full-tilt run, blood gouting from the multiple wounds in foot and ankle as feet were picked up off snow and moved forward. Except this Other, like Avery, didn't emerge from the far side, like the eye and physics seemed to suggest they should.

But she could hear noise. Hand rustling on bark.

"Still there," she pointed.

Her hand moved, tracking the ascent. Climbing the tree, silently, fast.

- Go for the Throat 23.4

_______

She walked up the shore for a bit, until she couldn't be sure which direction John had gone. She paused, found a vantage point on a hill at the edge of a neighborhood that had once had grass and was now being torn up and turned into sloped brick for some reason, then she took the dog tag necklace in hand, and whispered, "John Stiles".

She sensed the connection. She found it with her Sight and with her eyes, she traced that trail of watercolor that stabbed through the air, faint as smoke.

She followed it.

She came up on the Arena. It was bounded on two sides by trees, and two more sides by parking lots, one large one at the front and one smaller one at the back, with more trees and sometimes a rink there.

She kept close to the trees, peering around to see if she could see John.

She pulled cards out from her bag and scribbled out a silence rune, trusting her earring implement to help turn the scribble into something intelligible. She tucked a card with a rune into each sock, hugging her ankles.

On one side there was enough space for cars to pass single-file, more for employees, sports teams who'd be around a while, and extreme overflow for events, too exposed for her to use for the approach, unless she waded into denser trees. She took the other route, a footpath with branches bristling with dense pine needles sticking out at face and chest level. The branches were primed to smack any faces of passerbys, or to transfer spiderwebs and spiders to the unwitting. She made a face and was very careful to avoid them, but she could still feel the faint touch of the trailing webs. Cigarette butts littered the ground, as did stray bits of trash.

She spotted John in the trees, holding a gun pointed in her general direction, finger off the trigger.

He moved the gun away and turned his back on her, his focus on other things.

She approached, and squeezed by until she was between him and the building, her arm touching his. She reached down and penned a simple connection block beween them and Musser's group. To help, even though low branches already helped to hide them, as they crouched in the trees, in the shadows, at the edge of the building.

She pricked the back of her finger, and let blood drop onto the connection block. "For Kennet, we need this to work, so… be power hungry, keep this glyph secure, even against someone as strong as Musser, please. Take of my power, take of Kennet's, but… hold."

The white chalk became red, taking on a heat shimmer.

"That should help. I thought it was you," he said, quiet. "You called my name earlier?"

"Once, to find you."

He nodded.

Musser was out there in the back parking lot. Four of his more human-looking familiars were with him.

"His three other familiars remained back with his child and niece," John murmured. "These four serve as bodyguards. How is your ability to identify Others?"

"I… don't know."

"Okay. Middle of the group, black hair, pale skin."

Lucy nodded. The woman was beautiful, wearing a top that sparkled like diamonds.

"She doesn't sweat, her skin isn't red even though she's pale and standing in the summer sun. Virtually anyone else with skin like that would burn in a matter of minutes."

"Notice how she stands in the middle of the group. Even as they wander and take in details, the others surround her, protecting her."

"She's vulnerable?"

"I think she's more vulnerable than they are. She moves with confidence." John's voice was so much a whisper there was a hoarse quality to it. "She doesn't move as if she's scared of being attacked."

"Because she doesn't care?" Lucy asked.

"If you'll trust my expertise, I've seen people who didn't care if they died. I don't believe that's the case with her. Do you remember Sol Ferguson? The boy who could put his arms together and make explosions?"

"Yeah. I remember his mom, too."

"We saw him that last night I was at the Blue Heron. I think this woman would be something similar to him. Her confidence comes with bearing a lot of power, even if she's reluctant or unsure about using it. I'd think they protect her so that even as the situation turns, she'll be able to use that power. Whatever it may look like."

"Okay, sure. Makes some sense."

"I don't know this for sure, I only know what instinct and experience tell me. But instinct and experience have given me a puzzle piece and it does fit with other things I see around her. How they treat her, how they move."

Lucy used her Sight.

"She has small knives in her. The flesh around the wounds is cracked, not bleeding."

"Hmmm."

"Manufactured, not natural?"

"Perhaps."

The cracks were surrounded by dark stains. To Lucy's Sight, the woman was forced to bend over a bit because of the blades set between bones.

"Do you see the old woman, at the back?" John asked. "Hideous?"

Lucy looked, with Sight and without.

"No," she replied.

He paused, looking at her, then said, "Describe who you see."

"A man in a tight black shirt and pants, smiling wickedly, looks like a musician…"

"Yes."

"Uhhh…" She assessed one figure, who was taller than the rest, Musser included, and stood at an odd angle, stooped, as if her back was a bit broken, arms hanging limp at her sides. Her hair hung down on either side of her face, masking her features, and she wore a long black raincoat, black apron with leather strings, and a surgical mask. With the Sight, she saw… different things. The figure was heavily stained, making the black of the raincoat swirl like black water had blacker ink in it- and the way she stood was a little bit clearer, especially with knives and broken blades stuck into the raincoat, making it sit in a different way. She could see the outline of heads and shoulders, a quarter of the way down and then halfway down. She could guess, based on proportion and how short the legs seemed beneath that coat. "I think four child sized Others wearing a raincoat and aprons. Possibly Abyssal?"

"Abyssal, yes."

"Bogeyman?" Lucy asked.

"I don't know. I've been wondering. I don't know enough about labels. Bogeymen lean aggressive, feeding on fear and anger. They're often restless. If she's a bogeyman, she's the most docile, least aggressive one I've ever seen."

Lucy watched the figure walk closer to Musser, as he pointed a finger at one corner of the lot.

Where the rink had been. The boards had been picked up and were leaning against trees, covered in tarp. They'd been painted and would be painted again as the new season started, but even paint didn't cover up the weathering of the wood. It was dried and frayed even when slathered in fresh white and red.

"Something else of the Abyss, maybe," Lucy whispered.

"Perhaps. And the last one?"

The last one stood apart, far end of the parking lot, watching Musser and watching the lot.

"There's a woman. Older teens or twenty. Old clothes, well worn, plaid-print shawl or cape or something swept around her shoulders, even in this heat. White, blonde, badly taken care of hair, looks almost like straw, tied into a braid."

"Older teens or twenty?"

"I think?"

"To me, she's aged, moles growing out of moles, stretch marks on loose skin, which ranges from dry and flaking at the parts most exposed, to overly moist in the folds. Her hair is caked with fluids. Knobby limbs, long. You could mistake her for human, but it would be hard."

"Hm." Lucy turned on her Sight. She described what she saw, "Watercolor bleeding out around her. Very bright colors."

"You'd know better than I what that means."

"Tied into the environment? Or a leaky power? I tend to only see danger, pain, hurt, and whatever she's got is bright enough to push into my way of seeing. Like colors bold enough to make a colorblind person see…"

She trailed off as Musser spoke, voice low.

"I want Hans' knowledge of blood."

They shrank back into cover as the Abyssal Other looked around, then fell forward, arms catching it as the woman nearly faceplanted.

The coat and apron came undone, and the Others practically crawled over one another to rearrange. One shook out a coat, while others bundled up the raincoat and apron.

The girl, about four feet tall, eyes so shadowed by a deep brow that they couldn't be made out, took the spot on the ground, rolled up apron and coat at her shoulders to cushion the weight as another sat on her shoulders, another on top of him. A boy with a strong jaw and messy dark hair took the spot on the top before pulling the long suitcoat on. Hands buttoned it up.

None of them had had arms long enough to fill the long sleeves, but arms nonetheless did fill the sleeves of the coat, a large set of man's hands extending out the ends.

One held a knife, scuffed and rusty, which it played with for a second, the other a battered and crumpled bowler hat, which it shook out to fullness and firmly set on his dark-haired head.

"What do you see, Hans?"

"It's everywhere," the boy replied, with a voice deeper than Bluntmunch's. "Washed away by rain and time, but I see it. Death by five thousand bites."

"I think that would be the Devouring Song they wanted me to help with."

"They're bound."

"Alexander and Raymond managed the binding."

"They're talking about the Choir being partially responsible, being bound. This Other can apparently figure out a lot from looking at old blood patterns."

"Each 'head' with a different capability, perhaps," John said. "I think that may be the most dangerous of the four, even if you ignore how versatile they are."

"Instinct?"

"Informed instinct. The way they're treated, the way they move…"

"The fact they're kinda ugly and he seems to like pretty and neat looking Others?"

"Yes. I didn't dwell on that point."

"So they're apparently the most powerful-"

"Dangerous, out of this quartet, possibly excepting the practitioner."

"-most dangerous of this quartet, possibly outside of the practitioner, sure. The woman who looks young to me and old to you is a puzzle. The pale woman with the nice shirt is a really heavy hitter, but not necessarily in a way that makes her most dangerous…"

"Yes."

She looked at the 'musician' type with the black top.

"Look at how he moves."

The guy paced, looking around.

He walked over to the woman with the nice top.

"Hoping for a fight to liven things up, Nova?"

"No. There's no need for any liveliness, and I'm used to long waits."

"Looking for a fight to liven things up, he says. She says she's used to long waits," Lucy repeated. "Her name is Nova."

"Hm."

When Nova didn't engage with him more, the guy walked away, walking over to the stacked sections of wood that would bound the rink in the wintertime.

"Describe him."

"Agitated, restless."

"What's his plan? What orders has he been given?" John asked.

The guy lifted up tarp.

"I… don't know?"

"N-O-V-A waits, keeping to the center of the group. As the man wearing black walks away, she moves to stay closer to the center, but she avoids intruding too close to the practitioner who owns her."

Lucy winced.

"The Abyssal Other follows instructions. He's still analyzing the blood?"

"Drip, drip, head lowering slowly, look at the timing… she wasn't here that long."

"Muttering to himself, but it's about blood," Lucy told John.

"And the young-old woman?" he asked.

"Standing at the back, keeping watch. It's… Verona-ish? Kinda?"

"I don't know if the orders were given as they got here, or if they're instructions and roles they default to, but let's turn our attention back at the skinny man with the black shirt."

"Right."

The man moved some boards, kicking one.

"One waits and watches, but she's not so good at watching that she can see us, or if she is, she's staying quiet for other reasons. One holds to the middle, a lot of power at the ready. Another, more aggressive and immediately dangerous, acts as his right hand. And the last?"

"Investigative? I really don't know, John."

"Not investigative. I'm not trying to trick or pressure you, but to get you thinking about what the enemy might do before we know much else about them. The fact he has no clear role is important. The practitioner that heads that family and the Blue Heron is a commander with a firm grip over those under him. Yet he allows one to roam more free than the others."

Lucy nodded.

Something animal fled from amid the pallets as he moved them. It looked like a family of raccoons. They ran for the woods, crossing a section of parking lot – two larger ones, two pups.

Trees bowed and flexed out of the way as they ran into the cover of the woods. The skinny young man with black hair, black shirt, and black jeans reached out a hand, and his shadow lunged out in four or five segments, diagonally across the lot, a section for the head, for the reaching arm and fingers, for the bend of his leg.

One of the larger, plump raccoons was tossed into the air as the shadow lanced beneath it. Shadows rippled, arched off the pavement lot, and manifested teeth, reaching up.

The raccoon was bitten in half. The raccoon's upper half bounced once on ground before hitting shadow, falling into the darkness as if there was no ground there, only a hole.

Shadows withdrew like elastic bands snapping. The second of the large raccoons was hauled to him with such speed and force that limbs bent the wrong way, back snapping audibly from where Lucy crouched, the length of a skating rink away. The head went straight into the man's mouth, even though it was too large to rightly fit inside his mouth. He beheaded it, tearing with a jerk of his head.

The pups were already in hand, one dead, the other fighting.

Lucy itched to do something, because they were just animals trying to get by, but-

Before she could he killed the survivor, biting around head to the neck and tearing head from body. He took the head of the other, then stood there at the end of the lot, blood coating chin to throat to the neckline of his shirt, a beheaded adult raccoon in one hand, two beheaded pups between the fingers of his other.

The second adult raccoon was gone, the only mark it had been there a single 'splat' of blood on the end of the parking lot. Nova, the one with the nice top, had turned away, not watching the man eat.

"Chaos. Being orderly means being predictable," John said. "He keeps one agent of chaos in his group. Someone who pokes at bears, who peers behind curtains, and who upsets patterns, so they can't fall into a routine with routine weaknesses."

The man dropped the headless bodies to the ground. They fell through his shadow. Fresh skin folded over the blood on his face, then smoothed out.

"What's the plan here, John?" Lucy whispered.

"If they notice us, run."

"Okay. I can get behind that." Lucy looked down at the glyph she'd put down. "But why are you here?"

"Sometimes there are opportunities. I'd like to watch for one. Whatever you're fighting, if you watch and wait, they'll almost always give you a chance."

"Pretty high risk."

"That practitioner is the strongest immediate threat. With several Witch Hunters dead, he holds a position of power at the moment. The loss of his son hasn't slowed him down, and he's devoted very little time to visiting the hospital, or to the cabin, now that his son has been moved."

*

Musser finished the circle and stood back from it.

"Do we interfere?" Lucy asked.

"Can you interpret the circle?"

"I think it's augury," Lucy told John.

"He's trying to solve the Carmine murder?"

"Or figure out Kennet's involvement in it."

*

Musser was talking on the phone. The crooked, slumping Other that was four children with a long coat and a bowler hat barely managing to stay upright took pictures of the diagram with a smartphone.

"John-" she started.

"If it's augury, we have an opportunity," he said. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I may act soon. You should run when I do. I'll go after him, then cut through the building. Augury has weaknesses. You can see past, future, present, but when your gaze is turned to other things, you often have a blind spot. It was how I killed Alexander."

*

"Your glyph is breaking, he's distracted, as is his most dangerous, blood-lusted Other. I'd like to act while the opportunity is there."