“A train?” Rack asked, first to interpret the loose, jittery movement, the low scraping sound of wheels on the track.
“Yes, a bathroom, to your unspoken question, and, yes, a train,” Alice replied. “And a train full of spies, to boot. Crowley’s created a power vacuum in Rome, and enough chaos for almost anyone to operate—so they do. Now shut it and follow me.”
Jonathan, for his part, had not expected the door from the haunted mansion would land them in the men’s bathroom of a moving train, the urinal ripped out to make more space.
All but Alice stumbled, Jonathan’s instinctual need not to touch the floor with his hands losing out to gravity, Danny also recoiling from the grout and the smell. Rack avoided this fate just barely because, out of necessity, he almost always kept his balance—and had brought a walking stick from the mansion to help.
Their only preamble from Alice, irritated at chaperoning not one but three “green gills,” as she put it, was that Crowley had so “rubbished” Rome in magical terms that the doors there either were too unstable or his minions held them, so they could only use a door “to get close,” after which Mamoud would meet up with them. Which had reassured Jonathan at the time, if meaningless to R & D, who had not met the man.
Even with the urinal ripped out, the men’s room might as well have been a phone booth. They bumped asses and shoulders trying to gather up their backpacks full of supplies. Which, for Rack, included two extra of his special shoes, “because with my luck I’ll need at least that many.”
One good spill deserved another, the awkwardness of their arrival carrying over into the corridor, where they were immediately jostled by close-packed strangers, wearing different variations on their own clothes: the dark cold-weather slacks, shirts, and jackets scavenged from the mansion that Alice had said would suit the expedition best. Although Rack had insisted on wearing his standard ensemble, packing away his “emergency duds,” as he put it.
The strangers had the look of being from several different countries, and their ensemble trended more toward ankle-length cloaks and the like. One, who Alice said was from the Democratic Republic of Mali, stared at him with a belligerence he was sure was earned in some general sense; the woman held her head high, shoulders back, and a colorful patterned fabric peeked out from beneath the cowl of her gray hood.
In such close quarters Jonathan almost fell, pinned between the woman from Mali and someone rough and grizzled who glared at him, but Rack clamped onto his hand and kept him up. All while Danny treated it like a scrum and even laughed with delight at being deposited on the floor of the corridor beyond, careful to shield Tee-Tee and keep her bear gun pointed muzzle-down.
Alice watched their ungainly attempts to right the ship with a scorn that wasn’t fair. She no doubt had practice with this particular transit point, but Jonathan found it vanishing strange.
For one thing, the train was too quiet. As Alice led them forward, everyone was as silent as could be, even though so many seats were full—and it was clear from the darkness beyond the window panels that the train was running without exterior lights. At intervals, the moon peered in, framed by ragged branches or the husks of piles of ruined buildings. The only inside lights came from what appeared to be curled-up glowworms in recessed circular ceiling fixtures more like cocoons.
Jonathan decided it was a once-posh train for the upper classes gone to rot and ruin. Cracked art-deco-style glass lampshades crouched on the corners of some of the full-on booths, with green dragonflies on them. Railings were rosewood, or something similar, inlaid with engravings long since plucked out. A rough animal scent rising from the scuffed and gouged rosewood floor made Jonathan wish he were taller.
The trend continued with torn upholstery and some seats missing entirely and—now he saw—the source of some of the cold: Some doors had been removed from their hinges and replaced with makeshift wood or tarp, insufficient to stop the wind from blasting in through cracks and gaps.
“How old is this train?” Jonathan whispered to Alice.
“Old enough,” Alice whispered back. “It’s not the age. It’s that traffic on it has increased since Crowley sacked Rome and it must run at night and as silent as possible to avoid his attention. Some luck—that our enemy’s turned his focus elsewhere for now.”
Then to the group: “Keep up. Keep moving. There’s an empty compartment near the front usually. No one likes to be near the front.” In the tone of a classroom instructor leading a field trip of unruly children.
It was a solemn and subdued little group; Rack and Danny looked properly sober and alert. It was not a small thing to step into another world. Especially given increasing signs of recent violence in how a brace of booths resembled bombed-out parapets. Not to mention the eccentricity of the occupants.
One group of the silent anonymous passengers, this time in black cloaks, sat amid a garden, of all things, complete with small shrubs and trees, but also with some hot stones they huddled around, and ladled water onto so that steam rose in a way that Jonathan envied, given the chill. They had apparently staked a claim to one whole car and decided to seed it with reminders of home.
“Finnish contingent,” Alice whispered. “Including some Laplanders. Ignore them. They’re nature lovers and their ways are mysterious. Never tell a joke to a Finn and never discuss laundry and don’t let them do magic tricks around you. You might find yourself in the wilderness of a sudden, talking to an unsympathetic reindeer, and wondering how you got there. They find that very funny in those parts, but I don’t.”
The example seemed very specific, and Jonathan wondered if this advice came from Alice’s personal experience. He didn’t much care for the generalization about an entire country, but, then, he wondered what Alice would say about the Brits on Aurora. Did they have their characteristic quirks?
Everywhere also people were exchanging what resembled perky green-leaf insects for goods or, perhaps, services. But he didn’t ask Alice about that. It was too strange, and yet also clear: On Aurora, or at least on this train, a green-leaf insect was as good as money. Or perhaps money wasn’t good here. He had yet to see any denominations; the closest thing had been a splayed-out deck of cards on an overturned bucket between two chairs, with—instead of jokers and jacks and kings and queens—a variety of strange animals, including some beast riding a rooster and a stately, well, marmot. Of course.
They reached their seats inside the train just as he was trying to make sense of looking into a hood and seeing first a swirling glimmer of dark lake water and then an owl’s face—which suggested more complex disguises than boring old clothes—and then also what appeared to be a tiny deer flitting through the air, only to disappear the next instant, and where it had been the frowning face of yet another potential spy.
Clearly it must’ve been a hummingbird, but even so, what was a hummingbird doing on a train to Rome?
Thankfully, the compartment Alice led them to only fit four; no room for strangers. But Rack wouldn’t sit next to Danny in the booth, so Jonathan sat with her, and the odd couple of Rack and Alice sat opposite.
Unthankfully, the window had been ripped out along with part of the wall to form a doorway covered by a tarp. Periodically, much to everyone’s horror, people would enter from the corridor and throw themselves through the doorway and out into the night. One in particular Jonathan could have sworn became all limp cloak and then flew off into the trees.
To their credit, they all tried to remain calm. Except Rack.
“What in the hell is this?”
“The train doesn’t make stops,” Alice said. “Too dangerous. It’s on a loop and runs only in the dead of night, and during the day it stops in the most wooded, most remote part of the track. To leave this train, you must throw yourself off.”
“A one-way trip, then,” Jonathan noted.
“Not exactly. You can get on in the woods, too. Find a way back through another door.”
Neither of which was likely. So now Jonathan wondered what their exit point would be.
“How close does it get to Rome?” Danny asked, busy making sure Tee-Tee was settled in.
“Not nearly close enough,” Alice said. “It’ll be a trudge to where we’re going. As I’ve said, Mamoud will meet us at the stop.”
“You mean he’ll be there to watch us fling ourselves out the door and into oblivion,” Rack said.
At least he remembered who Mamoud was, even if Jonathan trying to explain had led to another disbelieving conversation, this time about the Republic and Spain.
Alice turned a sharp stare on Rack. “Just be thankful you’re all still here.” The stare turned into a wicked smile.
“Why wouldn’t we be here?” Rack, defiantly sullen.
“Some fade right away. Poof ! They’re no more.”
“What?” Rack again. They’d been informed about the fade back in the mansion, but Alice had made it seem a remote thing, nothing to worry about unless they stayed in Aurora for many months.
“Well, only a few. Less than a handful can’t hack it. Turn into ghosts like that.” A snap of Alice’s fingers. A roguish look. She enjoyed frightening them, which is why Jonathan decided not to take the bait.
Yet another fellow traveler pushed past them, pulled the tarp aside, and plunged off into the night, with a subdued yell of “Hidey-hidey ho!” This one was pursued by a shimmer of sparks that zipped through the darkness, spiraling tight before disappearing.
“Bloody hell,” Rack said, “bleedin’ bloody double hell.” Reduced to a string of curses aimed more at their general situation than Alice’s withholding of information.
“Is there anything else we should know?” Jonathan asked, although he was certain no matter what she divulged, she’d always keep some secrets. Well, then, he would let parts of Dr. Lambshead’s letter stay hidden for now, too. And keep the Wobble secure in the inside pocket of his jacket. A zipped pocket. If he’d had a small lock, he’d have added that, too.
“Not that I can think of. Just try to rest. We’ve a good hour left.”
Two women, slight and almost elfin, entered the compartment, smiled at Danny and her rat, and stood at the exit doorway. One walked without aid and the other, leading the way with a light step, had a cane with a full cuff around the forearm. They’d taken off their cloaks and beneath wore overcoats, one a gorgeous light blue and the other purple. Their hair was done up and they both wore earrings. Their pockets overflowed with those odd green-leaf stick insects.
“We’re going home,” one said.
The other led her by the hand, and together they dropped off the side with a suddenness that had Jonathan gasping. Had they fallen onto the tracks, fallen under the wheels?
“Don’t mind them,” Alice said. “They’re old forest folk. They shapeshifted the instant they left and burrowed deep. You wouldn’t even recognize them anymore.”
Rack dropped the pack he’d been hugging, slumped in his seat. “It’s snowing now, too,” he said, clearly to change the subject and not think about what they’d just seen. “It is snowing on the way to Rome. Is it that late in the year in this crap version of the world?”
“Yes, it’s snowing!” Danny said with gusto, much to Rack’s obvious disgust.
“Oh, please. If a bird shat on your shoulder, you’d find a way to turn it into a rainbow.”
Even though, officially, Rack wasn’t talking to Danny, Jonathan had noticed he was still sort of talking to Danny because it was difficult not to while on the same mission together.
The snow was the most normal thing about the landscape, to Jonathan. Outside the window it fell with that gentle drift that slowed the world down, that slowed his thoughts down.
“No, the snow’s not normal,” Alice said. “Crowley’s sack of Rome has put a spanner in the natural order of things. It is autumn here, but it shouldn’t be snowing here.”
“And what’re those, decorations?” Danny asked.
Referring to what resembled some prickly half-man creature riding a huge bird. They hung from the ceiling on hooks, like ornaments or deodorant trees.
“It’s the Hedgehog Man, of course,” Alice said. From the bright way she said it, it must be a fond memory. “During the holidays, the Hedgehog Man on a giant rooster delivers presents to all the children and we set off fireworks in thanks, because the rooster loves fireworks.”
Anything that made Alice nicer should be explored further. Besides, he didn’t remember Sarah telling him stories about a hedgehog man. Perhaps he’d been too young.
“Why the rooster?” Jonathan asked.
“That’s your question?” This from Rack.
Alice shrugged. “That’s just how it’s always been. Of course, the Hedgehog Man couldn’t possibly deliver all those presents; it’s just a story that he does. But everyone loves the Hedgehog Man. Except when he’s mad. No one likes it when he’s mad, which is why you plant trees in the spring and dig tunnels in the summer. As payment for the presents. The Hedgehog Man loves trees.”
Rack had blanched a bit, and Jonathan had to admit he felt a tad at sea. It hadn’t quite dawned on Jonathan that Aurora might be very different from Earth in certain regards. Not in this way, at least.
“Imagine on Christmas Eve a bloody great hedgehog created by Dr. Moreau shoves itself down your chimney, eats all the cookies, drinks the milk, craps itself next to the tree. Not sure how children back home would react to that.”
“The Hedgehog Man is not a burglar. The Hedgehog Man is always polite,” Alice said. “He knocks on the front door on New Year’s Eve, and when you answer at midnight he will always be gone, but your presents will be on the front step. Whether you’ve been naughty or nice.” The clipped tone warned Rack not to step all over her holiday cheer.
“What about Santa Claus?” Danny asked in a distracted tone. Tee-Tee was still fussing about, wanting food pellets and extra attention.
“Santa Claus? Oh, I’ve heard of Santa Claus. Some of the Norweegies use him as a boogeyman to scare children into doing their chores. He’s the one who can take away what the Hedgehog Man has given you.”
“Are you joking?” Rack asked. “Please, tell me you’re not joking.”
“I tire of this interrogation,” Alice said, and turned away from Rack.
Interesting. Perhaps Alice didn’t know much about Earth. Shouldn’t she know more? Unless her first trip to the mansion had been her first time on Earth? That would explain her bringing up the fade, which she could have withheld from them. It had been on her mind, or she had begun to fade a little already while on Earth.
Now that Tee-Tee had settled down, Danny roused herself and asked a series of very Danny-like questions.
From which they learned in quick succession that Alice had grown up poor in northern England, had little talent for magic herself, had been recruited for Her Majesty’s secret services at a young age. She’d risen through the ranks through a willingness to take on any “shyte job” as she put it, and do it well. Until she’d been approached by the Order, and welcomed the opportunity to branch out.
All well and good, but when Danny asked about siblings, Alice abruptly shut up, overcome by a moodiness that forestalled any further personal questions.
So Jonathan jumped in with what he hoped was a bland inquiry into the subject of calendars.
“Not at all like on your Earth,” Alice allowed. “We’re not so formal.”
They discovered that many Aurorians—Aurorines? Aurorites?—didn’t much care what year it was, because every country and sometimes individual cities, towns, and villages had their own calendar system. Merchants and magicians were more attuned to seasons, sunup and sundown, and time of year, especially when those elements affected magic or crops. But watches were the same. The length of the days was the same. There was something to hang your hat on.
Circling back to a subject of personal interest, the England of Aurora, Danny asked a question that Alice answered with the surprising news, to say the least, that William the Conqueror had not conquered all, never managed even a fourth of the Doomsday Book. Instead, as a rumored “eel-o-thrope,” William the Partial Conqueror had turned into a giant eel every month at the full moon, complicating his ability to lay waste to things and for people to take him and his rule seriously.
“I would’ve taken a giant eel with a crown seriously indeed!” Danny said.
Less surprising, to Jonathan at least, the Church of England coexisted with a very proper and ancient Pagan Ways & Means Committee.
“Pagans and Christ-eans haven’t always gotten along. It’s been a literal bloody mess at times, but with the wall the pagans built so long ago still defending England on the land bridge, how is any Christian supposed to deny the power of druidic belief? And so long as Christians can make magical little boxy gardens and do parlor-trick-type magic, we’ll be invaluable, too.”
“So you’re Christian?” Danny asked. Last Jonathan had checked, Danny was an agnostic, Rack had an allergy to any organized religion, and Jonathan hadn’t much thought about it, either way.
“I’m not religious,” Alice said. “I just grew up that way.”
“Don’t believe in Christ, then?” Rack asked.
“Christ was likely a decent bloke, but miracles—those happen through magic every day in Aurora. Because of that, we should be a very rich world, if only everyone could get along.”
“Did that Christ business end up the same way here?” Rack asked.
“Cheeky. Best I don’t tell you. Might make you fade faster.”
“Well,” Danny said, “I suppose his followers’ belief means even more here, if you see what I mean. Because it’s just his teachings they’ve got.”
Sarah had been an atheist, but it had become clearer and clearer that she believed in miracles of a sort. Who had created the universe? Who had created parallel worlds? The answer couldn’t just be “the Builders,” or, as in her story, “the Creators.” That seemed a cop-out.
A torrent of something comfortingly familiar ran into the compartment, putting a halt to their conversation whilst side-stepping their massive feet.
Potatoes again. Potatoes with legs and arms and, yes, eyes, headed for the exit, while their leader held the tarp aside wide enough for others to jump out one by one. Plop plop plop.
Following closely behind, and not comforting or familiar, were half a dozen small figures disguised by cowls and robes. Jonathan caught a glimpse of huge bulgy eyes and somber fish mouths, greenish skin or scales, that made him think of mudskippers or salamanders. Then out into the night they went, extinguishing all further inquiry. Plop plop plop.
Just as quickly gone as there.
“What in the name of all that’s holy was that?” Rack asked, but without much outrage this time. Another last straw, until the next last straw.
“Don’t ask,” Alice said. “Let’s just say some get on the train without using a magic door. That lot for sure.”
How quickly Jonathan had become used to the occurrence! A dozen wallabies being ridden by talking carrots and accompanied by an entourage of frogs dancing a waltz and singing show tunes could come through next and he might only be mildly amused.
Which was perhaps a good thing—the acclimation.
For while the potatoes had been plopping, the Swiss Army knife Dr. Lambshead had bequeathed him had begun to stir in his pocket, as if waking from a deep sleep.
Perhaps some other sort of sixteen-year-old would have flinched or half risen from his seat in alarm. But Jonathan was quite used to stragglers and hitchhikers of various sorts while out on trails. Nor wanted the surly carrot from Spain scowling at him for being too easily astonished.
Jonathan delicately removed the knife from his trouser pocket. There, revealed, balancing on his palm: a lively little creature with an animated, friendly face. With its knife and corkscrew, toothpick and can opener, not to mention other appendages at the moment hidden, the creature always had some sort of legs to stand on, even if of uncertain purchase.
It resembled a compact wood-and-metal crab. The thing burbled in an affectionate way and began to sidle up Jonathan’s arm, stopping at the crook of his elbow to send loving glances his way.
“Oh, how delightful!” This from Danny, while Rack recoiled, shook his head, gave Jonathan a stare as if this were all his fault. Which it was.
“Doesn’t this world know a knife is supposed to remain absolutely still at all times?” Rack asked.
“What’s his name?” Danny asked.
“Are you sure it’s not a she?” Rack asked. “Are all knives automatically he?” At least he was closer to sort of talking to Danny now.
“No,” Danny said, both she and the rat giving Rack a withering stare. “But this one is. You should call it Vorpal, Jonathan.”
“Very appropriate,” Jonathan said.
“A good friend for Tee-Tee,” Danny said.
Rather optimistic, Jonathan thought. Especially given the look on the rat’s face at the suggestion. Vorpal and Tee-Tee. Pals for life.
In the meantime, he gave Danny a glance that was meant to convey the uncomplicated message that she had to stop winding Rack up. He was, after all, the aggrieved party. Even if Jonathan really wished he’d snap out of his snit sooner than later.
“Such creatures can be fickle,” Alice said. “Let’s hope you don’t get your throat cut.”
Vorpal had begun to get agitated, so Jonathan cradled him in the crook of his arm, making the creature’s purchase more secure. The little hooks it used tickled through his shirt.
“I’m quite taken with Vorpal,” Jonathan said, lying. He was undecided about Vorpal, to be honest. He could tell its magic no doubt made it love whoever owned it. But, then, would you want an animated whirligig full of blades that didn’t love you?
Alice gave him an appraising stare, as if recalculating his value. “Survives an Emissary. Now has a magic knife. You’re full of surprises.”
Anything further she might have said got lost in her surprise as Vorpal bristled with various esoteric tools, which stood up straight out of the top of its, for lack of a better term, carapace.
The woman from Mali had entered the compartment.
“A sentry, too,” Alice said. “Impressive.” While staring bullets at the intruder.
The woman stopped just short of the gauntlet of their assembled knees, the look on her face as if she were sucking on a lemon. An imperious manner, a simmering disdain.
“Alice. How terrible to see you again. If you could be trusted to take care of your own messes and not make them other people’s, some of us would be home right now, instead of stuck in this malevolent backwater. Thanks for that.” Each word of her English was like a good jab from a boxer—sharp, quick, demoralizing.
Before Alice could reply, the woman was through and past, jumping out the doorway like the others out into the darkness, the snow, the flickering reel of fast-passing trees.
“What was that about?” Jonathan asked Alice.
The reply came through clenched teeth, a refusal to look at him, as if ashamed. “They consider us quite backward, Europeans in general. No magic schools of note. Chaos. Instability. Not to mention our poor handling of the Black Death back when we didn’t believe in bacteria. Now we do, of course, and some even use it in their magic. And it’s true we have our troubles, but we will catch up with the rest of the world. Someday.”
Disconcerting. The shoe on the other foot, or another pair of feet altogether. The tarp-canvas doorway kept flapping now. The Mali woman hadn’t latched it properly. Perhaps on purpose. The cold kept coming in, but none of them felt inclined to get up and fix it.
“But why is she here, so far from home?” It was the other question that bothered Jonathan. If this was a backwater, what did it matter what happened to Europe? From what any number of Poxforth instructors might call “the geopolitical angle.”
Alice looked disinclined to answer at first, but when she did it was clear the answer frightened her.
“The energy Crowley is burning through is quite … immense. He’s using ancient magical equations lost for centuries, which has the potential to change how magic works—forever. The scale of it is bewildering. It could blow up in his face at any time. That’s the hope, anyway. But, of course, the whole world is intently interested in what happens here. Yet also wary of being drawn into the conflict. Thus, spies, insurgents, manipulation from afar.”
“How is that even possible? To change magic forever?”
“I don’t have the patience,” Alice said. “Go read a book on it.”
An intense shuddering came from the tracks, along with a singeing whine. Nothing at all could be seen outside, as if a void, the windows wide blank slabs of speed and indifference. Vorpal tensed up and made a sound like a steam whistle and withdrew every appendage except those he was using as legs.
“It’s soonish, yeah?” Danny asked. “We need to get ready to jump?”
Alice was looking at Vorpal in a puzzled way. “We’re not due to jump for another fifteen minutes.”
A stickery hum and hiccup of the train’s metal wheels. A change in the vibration, a surge in the coldness to the air.
“Are we really going to jump?” Rack asked. “That seems like a good way to lose a foot. Again. Or a head.”
The dread came to Jonathan in the same instant, independent of Vorpal. A feeling. A certainty.
Something was coming down the tracks at them, and he could almost see it in his mind’s eye. Reaching out for them.
“We need to jump—now,” he said.
“It’s not time yet,” Alice said, but she didn’t sound sure.
The train wobbled, wobbled worse.
“Now.” Jonathan shoved Vorpal in his pocket, picked up his backpack.
But it was too late.
Came a monumental crack, farther up the tracks. A shudder that took their feet out from under them.
“Hold on to something!” Alice screamed from the floor.
An oddly hollow impact of crumpling metal, another crushing shudder.
The compartment twisted, buckling. Sent them sprawling, showered them with broken glass, even as it righted itself, clung obstinate to the tracks.
For only a second.
Rack was searching for something to hold on to. Danny lay still on the floor. Jonathan couldn’t see Alice. He looked up from the floor, through the front window, saw with such awful clarity as the car in front of theirs was wrenched into the sky as if by a giant’s hand—upended and tumbling backward over itself.
Jonathan reached out to Rack. So close. So far.
An impact that seemed to smash his bones to jelly.
Then their car was ripped away, into the night, off the tracks, throwing them this way and that—into one another, the floor, the ceiling, the floor, the ceiling. Was that Danny screaming? Or Rack? Or someone else.
He managed a handhold on a railing as the impact sent the car screeching toward the edge of the forest, the burning remains of the upturned car trailing behind them.
The seams at the corners peeled open as the joints popped free.
Rack was sprawled across the ceiling. Danny’s hands around his waist trying to brace him, while Alice hung upside down, caught on something, bleeding from a forehead gash. Blood seeped across the side of Jonathan’s face, and he had no idea how they’d banged heads, gotten close. Their packs had split open, clothes and supplies spilled everywhere.
Holes were forming under their feet. Jagged cracks filling with flames, as if ignited by the friction of their passage. The shrieking sound of distressed metal ripped through his eardrums.
“Enough!” Jonathan roared. “Enough!” He hadn’t come this far to die before things even started.
Blink of an eye.
Trick of the light.
Something rising within Jonathan, something new and something old, out of anger and stubbornness and fear.
The glowworms detached from the cocoons of the light fixtures, drifted up from the floor.
Came a roaring silence.
Came a stillness full of urgency.
Came a dark voice inside, calming him.
The glowworms were still uncurling as if from deep slumber, floating above him in the night sky, through a gash in the floorboards. Cocooned in the warmth of his regard.
Enough.
As the train compartment around them burst apart in a torrent of flame.
Snap of the fingers. Blink of the eye. All the banal ways you could rationalize the impossible …
Just like that, they were all outside the burning train car, skidding and falling through clumps of snow, into a sprawled pile, with their backpacks. Jonathan staring up at the dark sky, the icy points of light beyond, exposed on open ground. The rhythm in his head, the signal that had been underlying everything, had come clear. For a moment, then eluded him again.
As a pop-pop-pop and gushing crackle of flame erupted from the remains of the train, the glinting silver Jonathan had glimpsed came clear: the horrible beaten metal face of Crowley. A deranged battering ram as pitted as the moon, mouth crumpled in by the train’s engine, which had ploughed into that surface and shattered and peeled and crumpled beyond recognition.
That had by chain reaction thrown almost the entire train off the tracks, smashed and broken open the cars as Crowley’s metal face moved forward like a combination destroyer and punisher both. In the most vainglorious form possible.
There was flame everywhere. There were people screaming and others busy darting into the woods to escape whatever terror might come next. Some writhed on the ground, or lay still, most mercifully hidden by smoke, shadows from flame, or the night. A few rough silhouettes trapped within train cars moved not at all, not really, just their heads bobbing and falling with every new jounce and shudder as the wreckage settled.
There was no time to gawp or linger.
“We have to get out of here,” Jonathan said through the ringing in his ears. “Gather as much of your gear as you can and head for the forest.”
He rose, aware he’d hurt his leg, that his leg was bleeding, and pulled Alice up, too. Her face was lacerated, he thought, but although she staggered, she was otherwise unhurt.
“Seconded,” Alice said. She no longer sounded as if she were in charge.
Danny and Rack lay on the ground, hugging each other tight, alive. Perhaps even reconciled for the moment.
Danny managed to get to her knees, pull her bear gun out of the snow. She was looking back toward the train, toward the windows that showed people still trapped inside. Not just the dead, now, Jonathan could see.
“You can’t help them,” Jonathan said. “Not unless you want to be captured.” Or die.
She nodded. “Up, Rack, up.” Danny pulled him to his feet by his jacket collar, held him until he had his balance. Dazed, speechless, still clutching his cane.
From the edges of Crowley’s occluding face now came two lurching mecha-crocodiles, creaky in the snow, ill-suited for the uneven ground and debris-strewn tracks. Behind and around them poured out pale gaunt men in black clothes. Against the night, highlighted by flames, they became floating or bobbing heads with grim, fixed expressions, disembodied arms and hands.
Crowley’s minions.
Trailing wisps of black smoke surrounding both mecha-crocs and demi-mages were unquestionably Emissaries. The ethereal sight of them turned Jonathan’s blood cold. Made the little hairs on the back of his neck rise. Yet, also, an inexplicable sympathy that he could not explain.
“Quick now,” Alice hissed.
The tree line was close, right ahead, and they limped and fast-walked toward it, heads down, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. While behind them the train roared in torment, died a fiery, smoldering death.
What they would have done next, where they would’ve gone, Jonathan had no clue. If not for Mamoud, who, like magic, stole out of the forest’s shadows to greet them.
Jonathan had never been more relieved to see someone he hardly knew.