The Magicians - Lev Grossman [169]
But before he could act Janet reached carefully behind her back and brought out something small but heavy. Gripping it with both hands, she made a small adjustment and then fired five shots into the creature at close range. The pistol bounced upward with each shot, and each time she carefully re-aimed it. The sound was shattering in the low-ceilinged chamber. One shot struck sparks off the jewel in the grimling’s back. It sank to the floor, shivering and deflating like a parade balloon, still expressionless. It made a high urgent whistling sound. By the fifth shot it was visibly dead.
Nothing and nobody in the room moved. Janet turned around. The tears she had shed earlier were already dry.
She glared at them.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” she said.
It got colder the deeper they went. At six stories underground Quentin was shivering in his heavy sweater and thinking nostalgically about the warm puffy parkas they’d abandoned way back by the sunny little stream. They broke for a rest in a circular room with a beautiful lapis lazuli spiral inlaid in the floor. Dark green ambient light emanated from somewhere, like the light in an aquarium. Dint sat in the lotus position, wrapped his cape around him, and meditated. A gap of about six inches separated him from the floor. Fen did calisthenics. The break was clearly not for their benefit; they were like professional mountaineers impatiently shepherding a herd of rich fat cats up the slopes of Mount Everest. The Brakebills party was a package they were contractually obligated to deliver.
Alice sat by herself on a stone bench, her back against a pillar, looking blankly at a mosaic on the wall depicting a sea monster, a creature like an octopus but much larger and with many more than eight legs. Quentin straddled the bench at the other end, facing her. Her eyes flicked over to his for a long moment. There was not a hint of either contrition or forgiveness in them. He made sure his eyes looked the same.
They watched the mosaic. The little squares that made up the sea creature were moving very slowly, rearranging themselves on the wall. The crude blue waves rolled along very gradually. It was easy decorative magic. There was a bathroom floor at Brakebills that had much the same effect. Alice felt like a black hole that was trying to pull him in, rip the flesh clean off him with its sheer toxic gravity.
Finally she took out her canteen and used it to wet a spare white sock.
“Let’s do something about your nose,” she said.
She reached out to dab at his face, but at the last minute he realized he didn’t want her to touch him. He took the sock himself, carefully. It turned pink as he wiped at his upper lip.
“So what was it like,” Quentin said. “When you let the demon out.”
Now that the high of combat was gone, and she was no longer in danger, his anger came creeping back. The anesthetic was wearing off. It was an effort not to say anything vicious. She hiked her foot up onto the bench and started undoing the laces on her sneakers.
“It felt good,” she said carefully. “I thought it would hurt, but it was kind of a relief. Like sneezing. I never felt like I could really breathe with that thing inside me.”
“Interesting. Did it feel as good as fucking Penny?”
He’d actually thought he was going to be civil, but it was too hard. The words came out of his mouth of their own malevolent volition. He wondered what else he would say. I’ve got all kinds of demons inside of me, he thought. Not just the one.
If he’d managed to hurt Alice, she didn’t let it show. She carefully peeled off a sock. A nasty white blister covered the entire ball of her foot. They watched the mosaic some more. A little boat had floated into the scene, a lifeboat maybe, or a launch from a whaler. It was crowded with tiny people. It looked pretty much like a done deal that the sea creature was going to crush the little boat in its many long green arms.
“That was—” She stopped and started