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He will realize he must bleed himself to escape, and then he will realize he does not have a blade. Because a man of Gottschalk's stature does not cut himself.
I wonder what he will sacrifice of himself. His tongue? A vein, chewed through? It is amusing to picture him gnawing at himself.
Alfonse is smarter. A brute who prefers the frontal assault, yes, but he appreciates a good trap and stands there, irresolute. Many people assume hesitation in battle is a weakness, but the opposite is true. Those who do not pause to contemplate their surroundings, to consider new data, wind up in tiny boxes, like Gottschalk. Alfonse stands and grinds his teeth, hands balled into fists, considering how he will gain entry without being entrapped himself.
I do nothing. Sacrifice is not to be wasted.
When Alfonse decides, he is clever. He sees that teleportation is a trap, so he assumes all such subtleties are traps, and he gestures, his people Bleed, and he quickly casts a brute-force spell that sends an explosive blow against the front door. When the door cracks, he scans the destruction, seeking obvious Wards or other markings that would indicate another trap; then he gestures again, and one of his Bleeders steps forward to test the entry. The Bleeder is older, graying, lucky to have lived this long in Alfonse's employ; yet he's also so typically fleshy because he's lived well in Alfonse's employ. We all feed off each other. Those who condemn our order as parasitic need to see more Bleeders like this plump fellow, his innards awash in fine food and liquor, his memories filled with pleasant afternoons and elegant entertainments, his family left a handsome legacy in cash.
As the Bleeder crosses what's left of my threshold, he catches fire, a green flame, impossible to extinguish. Alfonse studies the entryway as the man dies screaming, leaving quite a mess just when I no longer have an apprentice to clean it up. The fat man isn't eager to join him, and I let him do his sums. If he decides the cost is too dear, that perhaps I am not as defenseless as he hoped, he will be allowed to leave. I can hunt him down and extract my revenge anytime.
Then Alfonse purses his chubby lips and gestures. Behind him, all four of his remaining Bleeders immediately cut, and cut deeply.
The greedy bastard.
I wait. I listen through three sets of ears.
You can always learn something from a man who has lived so well for so long as Alligherti. And, indeed, as I listen to the spell he is casting, peppered with nonsense syllables in order to confuse and obfuscate, I am impressed. Before I can compose a suitable retaliation, he sinks, the pavement and dirt beneath him cracking open and swallowing him.
A moment later, his Bleeders follow, sinking down into the dirt and disappearing.
With a thunderous explosion of expensive marble tiles, they emerge in the foyer, just beyond the fallen Bleeder. Instead of wasting time and effort unraveling my spells and traps, Alfonse has gone under them. Covered in dirt and dust, he wastes no time. He marches off, his tiny feet surprisingly nimble, his bedraggled, weakened Bleeders swanning after him, marching, they now suspect, to their doom.
Alfonse plans to take everything from me. He moves purposefully for the stairs. I feel a drip of anxiety, of worry; it is unfamiliar and exciting, my buried heart lurching in my chest as my body remains still, my eyes closed, my lips in motion. I had not imagined my defenses to be impenetrable, especially against someone of Alligherti's caliber, but I expected them to last a bit longer than this. I do my sums without passion, and the result is clear; it is time to retreat. Using my supply of sacrifice to slow Alfonse's progress is foolish, when I can use it instead to destroy him, no matter the cost.
I begin reciting a new biludha, two of my Glamours singing the ritual, the erin gilleem. It isn't the most powerful or intricate ritual, but it is elegant. My two voices circle each other, a symphony, and as they recite the whole house begins to tremble. Cracks burst the walls. The floors shift, and Alfonse and his Bleeders stagger on the stairs, stopping, holding on to the banister, hesitant. Alfonse is not worried; his confirmation bias tells him that since he has so far escaped the traps and blades of his enemies, he will always manage to do so. But Alfonse makes the mistake of all greedy, fat boys who believe that things are only valuable when you hoard them. Alfonse has worked very hard to collect his possessions, and he cannot imagine that anyone would purposefully destroy theirs. He believes he is safe because he is inside my home, my cherished manse.
My third Glamour begins a second spell. As she speaks, I rise from the bed.
The building is shaking. The grounds outside are shaking. A great sizzling noise fills the air, like endless sand falling on glass. Alfonse continues to advance, certain this is all noise and light, intended to blind him, to frighten him off. He is a veteran of our wars, ustari hurling fireballs and Stringers and hunks of granite at each other with a few Words, and he knows how expensive spells are. So much sacrifice, so much blood. Easier to trick and dissemble. Easier to spend on a Glamour of the building crashing down around you than to actually destroy the whole structure.
My body floats. The windows open, and I am outside. My Glamour floats after me, speaking the spell. The house continues to shake and shudder. My Glamour inside, still speaking the erin gilleem, changes position, blinking out of view in one place and appearing on the shaking stairs, directly in front of Alfonse. So I can see his face as he realizes he has been trapped.
My Glamour appears, smiling down at him, speaking the spell, and he stops short, sweating, hanging on to the railing. He stares at my Glamour, my beautiful face, my terrible expression, and then the lovely moment comes; he blanches. His face twists. Roaring, he spins and snaps a command to his Bleeders, hissing out a new spell as he races down.
It will not avail him. The same Wards and spells that prevented him from entering the house will prevent him from leaving it. He will attempt to tunnel out in the same manner by which he tunneled in, but as my Glamour completes the biludha, the house--my house, built from blood I personally shed, from Words I personally spoke--implodes. Chunks of stone and plaster and wood rain down on Alfonse and his Bleeders, and the taste of new sacrifice tells me the Bleeders are crushed, ground down by my will.
But not Alfonse. Alfonse has used this new sacrifice to protect himself. A piece of marble falls from the upper floors and skitters off an invisible shield he has created.
I choose different Words, and the erin gilleem shifts and alters. Debris rains down on Alfonse. He doggedly makes for the exit--any exit--as the physical walls crumble. Hi
s progress is slow, and every time his spell protects him from the chunks of stone and wood he must reinforce it, using more and more of the sacrifice in the air. And my Glamour speaks the spell and rains more destruction down onto him, this man who dared to invade my home.
I tear that home down. I bury him in it.
The ritual digs a deep trough in the earth as the building collapses, and Alfonse, still inside his protective shell, still speaking his own spell, using the bountiful sacrifice in the air to fuel it, sinks down. Stone and metal and wood rain down over him, and while they do not touch him, his progress slows and then stops, and still the building comes down. My body floats far above now, accompanied by my two Glamours, one speaking the spell that transports me while the other crushes Alligherti. The noise is punishing, buffeting us, making my brittle bones shake. I watch as everything crumbles, my home, my Blood Farm, the glorious Fabrication Evelyn Fallon designed for me, for my immortality spell.
I watch as everything I have is devoured by the erin gilleem, crushing Alfonse beneath its weight. I sense the blood in the air, the sacrifice, fading as my prisoners in the farm are killed and all the spells working simultaneously absorb their suffering. I imagine Alfonse, eyes wide, face red and sweaty, sensing that he will soon be unable to maintain his shell and the weight of my wrath will crush him like an ant under a car wheel. Will he bleed himself? Will he tear at his own wrist in terror, to gain a few more seconds of his spell, a few more seconds of life?
I am not paralyzed, though I appear to be to most. My lips, dry and cracked, thin and old, stretch into a grin. I will have to begin again, but that is no matter.
The world is populous. The herd is eager to be bled.
SIXTY-SIX SECONDS
CRAIG SCHAEFER
Craig Schaefer's interconnected series depict a world mired in crime, black magic, and infernal intrigue. Fontaine (from the Harmony Black series) is a demonic bounty hunter, sworn to uphold hell's cruel laws and drag his targets to eternal damnation. The Redemption Choir (from the Daniel Faust series) is a sect of terrorists determined to tear down the gates of hell at any cost. In "Sixty-Six Seconds," when their paths inevitably cross, it makes for one long and blood-soaked night.
