“A bazooka-style weapon based loosely on an American military shoulder-mounted SMAW—an Mk 153 Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon. But this one is lighter weight, calibrated to hold a single round sufficient to disablea bot and either slow down or put a couple hundred demons into short-term stasis—ten minutes, tops—until they can be collected. Hopefully we can get the C-74 vessel in place in that timeframe. Where do you want me and my big gun?”
I snorted when he waggled his eyebrows at me suggestively. I closed my eyes, trying to pull sense into the visions but they evaporated like mist on a spring day, leaving only shadows of impressions. “Back of the building for the containment vessel? My porch or EJ’s, for the demon-zooka?” We both heard the uncertainty in my voice.
“There are two drawbacks to my equipment’s usefulness,” Villetti said. “I have only the one round and my collection device is too large to be easily portable through three feet of snow. Walter is unconscious and I was hoping to use his superior strength to carry the C-74 into range. Instead, if I hit the bot—I’d give my chances a possible seventy-five percent likelihood of success—and the distance is too great, we will be dependent upon your staff, which will further damage your hands. I am…sorry.” Grief flashed across his face before he shuttered it away.
I ignored the part about my hands. If the runes didn’t work, cyborg hands were better than nothing. “So if you miss with your single round, we move to plan B.”
“What’s plan B?” he asked.
“I wade in under ablood hedge, let the bot attack me, hope I survive the blast, and then suck up all the demons. This bot is likely to be more powerful than the drones. Its containment bomb is too heavy to fly.” With those words an image solidified. A future firm and fixed. “Go to my porch at the back of the apartment building. It’s coming from that way.” I pointed to the back left. “As soon as I’m in position, shoot it if you can.”
“War bots are fast. Why is it so slow? Weather? Or something else?”
I closed my eyes and let my thoughts wander. Nothing came clear. Not for the first time, I wished I had the precog I had as a child, so distinct, so perfect. Now it was like dough—lots of ingredients, all mixed up, rising fast, and opaque except for bright flashes that never showed certainties. “I don’t know. Stuck in a snowdrift? Maybe?” I pointed again toward where I felt the pull of the feelings-futures-bad-things.
His boots in one hand, Villetti opened my apartment door long enough to lean into the hallway and shoulder a weapon. It was loaded with a silver-colored rocket with fins. It was smaller than I expected. I remembered his joke about his big gun, and smiled. Villetti slid into his boots, strode to the windows and outside, into the cold. I followed and gave him my last threehedgeamulets. “Drop thehedgeto fire. Open a new one, the instant you fire. It’ll protect you from smaller demons for a few seconds, and shrapnel for several minutes.”
“Copy that.”
I turned away and closed the porch doors between us. To my armaments, I added my long- and shortsword, both across my back so snow didn’t impede the blades, and a thigh rig with a .45 loaded with demon rounds. The mag held only four. Each round was worth a week’s income. Pricy. Illegal. But I was under the queen’s banner so I figured I could get away with it, and maybe get reimbursed if I had to use them.
To kill someone. Someone who had been possessed and had no way out but death.
Aurora walked to me, leisurely, tail high, the very tip curling back and forth, her green eyes on me. There was intent there. Borealis was right behind her, also holding me in place with her mixed blue and green cat eyes. Their body language said,I want to speak.
“What? I don’t speak cat. And witches don’t have familiars.”Mama did. But KitKit was a twenty-plus-year-old one-off who had been kept alive and healthy by Mama’s earth magic.
Both cats leaped to the back of the couch and sat. Staring.
Letting my angst out with an irritated breath, I walked to the back of the sofa and leaned against it. Neither cat was purring. Neither was asking for food, treats, or play. They stared at me. Unblinking.
“What,” I repeated. When neither moved, a glimmer of knowing snapped into place in my mind. I forced myself to relax, letting the tension flow out of me. “What?” I asked, gently.
Both cats stretched up, placing their forepaws on my thighs. They used their heads and paws to push aside my null cloak and placed their foreheads against my belly armor. They rested there. The synchronicity was unsettling.
They still didn’t purr. This was freaking weird. After a little over half a minute, they both pulled back, and Aurora opened her mouth and began to…talk.
It was cat language, allyooowlsand longkic-kic-kics,androooomowsand other things I couldn’t reproduce. They had spoken to me in cat-talk the day I picked them up from the shelter and never again, though I had heard them talk this way to each other from time to time.Familiars. A shiver went through me at the thought. When Aurora was done, she and her sister leaped to the floor and sauntered away.
“Thatwas unnerving,” I said. “If you were trying to say I should stay alive, so your food supply is safe, I agree. I’ll try to stay alive, so you get fed.”
Neither cat looked back at me.
“Crazy cats.”
EJ entered, and I helped to heft Walter onto his shoulder, making sure the stake stayed in place.
“Don’t be stupid, sis.”
“I’ll try.”
EJ looked at me, the ambiguity in my reply raising a question in his eyes.
“I’ll try to be smart and safe,” I said.
He grunted and left the apartment.
I followed but when he took the elevator, I turned the other way, taking the stairs fast, my mind cataloging and contemplating the ever-changing, smudgy, uncertain potentialities. There were too many. I hit the bottom floor and nodded to the armored guard at the front door, her face hidden behind a smoky-toned military helmet and face shield.
