The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [170]
Uncle Maxy’s ghostly beige presence came trudging up on the gravel from around the corner of the building’s front lot, through the wrought iron railing in a spectral flicker, before Scratch took notice of him.
“Where have you been?” Scratch scolded him. “You’re supposed to be holding him for me!”
“Hold your tongue, Dreg,” Max said. “I am the vessel of your Beloved One. Besides, why don’t you try getting the hang of instantly transporting yourself across space? There’ll be times when you find your sense of direction to be all fucked up. And I need a cigarette....”
Andrew took an upwards glance at Melony, who was seriously considering a retreat down the dark and grassy slope.
***
Ralston fought against the door’s handle and Scratch’s strong hold from the other side. His left palm was slashed wide open like a loaf of butter-top bread, at the fleshy portion of lower thumb. He cursed himself. It seemed like a good idea to keep Scratch from escaping out the door after Andrew. When he’d made the move for Salvatia’s Dreg, it cost him the stinging incision. His cheek still bled from the first one.
Ralston would later wonder why Scratch never carried a gun, how Simon BoLeve could’ve taken him out without a problem by now if the bastard simply shot him. But Simon was an addict to his weapon in ways where, particularly in the issue of his face, a gun would not at all do.
In the issue of Ralston’s hand, it made it godawful painful to wrestle a door handle.
Bari, remaining a material Watchmaid a dozen paces behind, urged him, “Ralston, get the hell out of here!”
“I’m trying!” he shouted, exasperated.
“I must deal directly with this Magdalene, for only I alone can....”
Salvatia emerged from the rubble her body made of the wall Bari had flung her through. She’d remained physical during the impact, for she’d no time to react to Bari’s maneuver.
And the impact hurt like a sonofabitch.
Beneath the broken plaster and drywall, shards of wood and dust and fallen portraits of the King of Rock n’ Roll, Salvatia dematerialized.
Ralston abdicated his door handle battle to cop a look at Bari, who took a poised and readied position before the cavernous new entrance she’d made of the restroom with Salvatia.
The restroom door flung open suddenly with a resounding tumult of force. Its lower hinge tore loose from its frame as the door itself slammed into what remained of the wall.
From out of the doorway, Salvatia launched an assault upon Bari, and Bari was primed and readied. But she hadn’t prepared for what Salvatia held concealed behind her, nor for the crushing blow to the chops the next instant from a wallop of rectangular porcelain toilet tank top.
The force plummeted Bari backwards and onto a booth table, rendering her incoherent as she spilled onto the leather booth seating, rolling into a position below the table uon the floor.
Salvatia discarded the toilet tank top in a backwards Frisbee throw and smiled a wicked smile. She intently proceeded to the booth under which Bari had fallen, and all that could be seen of Bari was a circular swirling of currents whipping the air like invisible blender blades.
Then, Bari’s voice called out, “Ralston, you out of here yet?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about little Miss Watchmaid,” Salvatia called out to her. “Simon let him out, finally. It’s just you and me, baby. Whether Camelia’s ‘Born lives or dies is, to me, neither here nor there. He’s merely surviving long enough to witness the death of your beloved Andrew. Alas, I can’t say the same thing about Camelia herself, rest her soul....”
Bari arose from beneath the booth table, bringing the table up along with her by a single powerful grip upon its center support leg, uprooting it from its floor mount of bolted steel as easily as tearing off an ear of corn. With equal dexterity, Bari then utilized it as a shield. She struck a corner of it upwards into an effective collision with