drive. He never walked, unless he really had to.
Come to think of it, neither did I. Sometimes I ran; but I’d been run to ground here, and everybody knew about Jacey. Nobody would be expecting either one of us to venture out on foot. The second Corbie would be watching the garage door in the side-alley, I’d bet my life on that.
Literally, perhaps.
“We’ll still be safer –”
Poor Jacey: I really wasn’t listening to him, and he really wasn’t used to that. Not from me, historically; not from anyone. If he’d seriously stood against me, no, we’re going this way , I could never have shifted him, but this was all outside his experience. Stubborn, determined disagreement. Running away. He didn’t have the resources for either one. So he let himself be bullied, and more; he let himself be bundled, still protesting, out through his own front door and into the exposure of the street.
I was just pulling the door closed when there was a squawk and a flurry, down about ankle-level; a sudden dark streak on the pavement, there and gone.
I stared after, dismayed.
“Oh! Tybalt...!” A Corbie in the flat must just have been too much for him, too much bird.
“Not to worry.” It was Jacey’s turn to take the initiative, and he didn’t waste it. He took the door from my hand and slammed it, punched numbers into the keypad, talking over his shoulder about something else entirely, our cat. “He’ll go down the alley to the Chinese supermarket and be fluffily distressed by their back door, until the Misses Feng have fed him calming giblets. How do you think he got to be so fat? It’s not by hunting pigeons.”
“He’s not fat; he’s just big-boned. What are you doing now? Come on ...!”
Actually, I knew what he was doing now. I could hear strong locks hurling themselves from door to jamb, acting on instruction. He had hundreds of thousands of pounds’-worth of cars and bikes on the garage floor; of course he had protection. With luck, he might have added something more esoteric than magnetic bolts.
Even so, I didn’t really think there’d be anything fit to stand against a man who could walk through armoured glass. We could hope, but we couldn’t take the time to learn. I snatched his hand and hauled him away.
“So are the Misses Feng any relation to the Fengs you bought the building from?”
“Daughters of. That was the deal. It was a quid pro quo; they gave up their warehouse and I bought them a retail business for the kids. Where they could fatten our cat up, apparently. Don’t change the subject. I still say we’d be safer in a car, with a metal lid over us.”
He was watching the sky anxiously, and no blame to him for that. Me, I was more caught up with watching behind, waiting for the moment when a Corbie came busting through the door to chase us down the street.
I could talk and hurry, so long as I had hold of his sleeve, so that I knew he was hurrying too.
“You weren’t with us in poor Asher’s car.”
“No,” he said. “What happened?”
“That was the time we didn’t make it, to meet you in Salomon’s club. Harpies happened. A car was no defence at all. Okay, that was a soft-top, but even so. What are you going to back, against both Corbies with that much oomph behind them, all those birds we saw?”
“Well,” he said judiciously, “not us out in the open, at any rate. And not me barefoot without a jacket or a wallet.”
Oh. Thing is, usually my Aspect makes me hyper-competent, but this time? Apparently not. I hadn’t thought; I hadn’t even noticed.
I didn’t stop moving, but something must have shown. Maybe it was just that I stopped talking. He may have taken that for an OMG-I’m-sorry, I’m-such-a-featherhead moment; at any rate he shrugged easily. “It’s okay, I’m not hurting. My feet can take it. But where are we going ...?”
Initiative: you snatch it when you can. “This way.”
Up to the main road, but only for a minute. Dash between the cars, no
Come to think of it, neither did I. Sometimes I ran; but I’d been run to ground here, and everybody knew about Jacey. Nobody would be expecting either one of us to venture out on foot. The second Corbie would be watching the garage door in the side-alley, I’d bet my life on that.
Literally, perhaps.
“We’ll still be safer –”
Poor Jacey: I really wasn’t listening to him, and he really wasn’t used to that. Not from me, historically; not from anyone. If he’d seriously stood against me, no, we’re going this way , I could never have shifted him, but this was all outside his experience. Stubborn, determined disagreement. Running away. He didn’t have the resources for either one. So he let himself be bullied, and more; he let himself be bundled, still protesting, out through his own front door and into the exposure of the street.
I was just pulling the door closed when there was a squawk and a flurry, down about ankle-level; a sudden dark streak on the pavement, there and gone.
I stared after, dismayed.
“Oh! Tybalt...!” A Corbie in the flat must just have been too much for him, too much bird.
“Not to worry.” It was Jacey’s turn to take the initiative, and he didn’t waste it. He took the door from my hand and slammed it, punched numbers into the keypad, talking over his shoulder about something else entirely, our cat. “He’ll go down the alley to the Chinese supermarket and be fluffily distressed by their back door, until the Misses Feng have fed him calming giblets. How do you think he got to be so fat? It’s not by hunting pigeons.”
“He’s not fat; he’s just big-boned. What are you doing now? Come on ...!”
Actually, I knew what he was doing now. I could hear strong locks hurling themselves from door to jamb, acting on instruction. He had hundreds of thousands of pounds’-worth of cars and bikes on the garage floor; of course he had protection. With luck, he might have added something more esoteric than magnetic bolts.
Even so, I didn’t really think there’d be anything fit to stand against a man who could walk through armoured glass. We could hope, but we couldn’t take the time to learn. I snatched his hand and hauled him away.
“So are the Misses Feng any relation to the Fengs you bought the building from?”
“Daughters of. That was the deal. It was a quid pro quo; they gave up their warehouse and I bought them a retail business for the kids. Where they could fatten our cat up, apparently. Don’t change the subject. I still say we’d be safer in a car, with a metal lid over us.”
He was watching the sky anxiously, and no blame to him for that. Me, I was more caught up with watching behind, waiting for the moment when a Corbie came busting through the door to chase us down the street.
I could talk and hurry, so long as I had hold of his sleeve, so that I knew he was hurrying too.
“You weren’t with us in poor Asher’s car.”
“No,” he said. “What happened?”
“That was the time we didn’t make it, to meet you in Salomon’s club. Harpies happened. A car was no defence at all. Okay, that was a soft-top, but even so. What are you going to back, against both Corbies with that much oomph behind them, all those birds we saw?”
“Well,” he said judiciously, “not us out in the open, at any rate. And not me barefoot without a jacket or a wallet.”
Oh. Thing is, usually my Aspect makes me hyper-competent, but this time? Apparently not. I hadn’t thought; I hadn’t even noticed.
I didn’t stop moving, but something must have shown. Maybe it was just that I stopped talking. He may have taken that for an OMG-I’m-sorry, I’m-such-a-featherhead moment; at any rate he shrugged easily. “It’s okay, I’m not hurting. My feet can take it. But where are we going ...?”
Initiative: you snatch it when you can. “This way.”
Up to the main road, but only for a minute. Dash between the cars, no
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