back, making sure their shoulders are aligned, that there’s no way for them to be separated without seeing it coming. She’s the better liar. The flipside is that he’s better at telling truth from lies, at least when he hears them coming from other people. He knows what Reed wants.
“We can’t surrender the Doctrine,” he says. “We are the Doctrine. The only way we could let it go is to . . .”
Roger stops as Reed begins smiling the slow, vicious smile of a man who believes he holds all the cards.
“That’s right,” he says. “You’re going to have to die. I’d apologize, but well. You must have seen it coming.”
Dodger laughs.
All the others turn to look at her. Erin is annoyed; Reed bewildered; Roger amused.
“Oh, man, really?” she asks. “We, like, walk in here as the living embodiment of a cosmic force you felt the need to pin down and incarnate, and you think you can just waltz up and kill us? How were you planning to do that?”
“By distracting you,” he purrs.
Leigh drops the Hand of Glory, appearing out of nowhere. The metal rebar in her other hand is long enough to catch them both in the back of the head at the same time. They are still flesh; they are still mortal. They fall. Erin snarls, reaching for the gun in her belt, and stops as the barrel of someone else’s gun is pressed against the base of her skull.
“Please don’t make me,” whispers a young female voice, green as grass, as springtime, as any usurper’s daughter looking at a throne she doesn’t want and never asked for. Erin goes very still. The other math child, the chosen contender for Dodger’s place.
“As you can see, my dear, cosmic power doesn’t make a person clever. It just makes them sloppy. Never count a construct out until you’ve seen the body.” Reed steps daintily over Dodger, kneeling next to Roger. “He has my chin . . . Thank you, Erin, for delivering them to me. Now’s where you try to convince us you’re still loyal. We won’t believe you, of course, but it might be fun to hear what you have to say.”
“I betrayed you both,” says Erin. “What you’re doing, what you’re trying to do—it’s wrong. I won’t be a killer for you anymore.”
“The little girl behind you has no such compunctions.”
The nameless girl makes a small whimpering sound. Erin thinks, but does not say, that she has plenty of compunctions. She just has too much to lose to give them voice.
Leigh drops her rebar with a clatter. Erin’s eyes flick to her.
“How are you alive?” she asks, in an almost conversational tone. Anything to keep them talking and keep herself breathing. Roger doesn’t have the skill to put her back together after she takes a bullet to the brain. He will someday. He’s not there yet.
“You can’t drown a dead woman,” says Leigh. There’s a new rasp in her voice, a deep gurgle that speaks of water in the lungs. She narrows her eyes. “How are you alive?”
“You made me to see the chaotic places in everything. I’m sure the side effect of me hating the world was an accident. Doesn’t matter. I hit the water seeing all the spots where it was wildest and most likely to hurt me. I swam around them.” It was a small way to describe a big, terrifying moment, one that ended, inevitably, with her inhaling a lungful of water and washing up on the shore for Roger and Dodger to find. But she’d done it. She’d made it out of the sea without being battered into pieces on the rocks. Under the circumstances, she can’t see that as anything other than a victory.
Leigh looks, briefly, almost impressed. “I suppose we did an excellent job with you, your betrayal notwithstanding. I’ll make the next one along the same lines. She’ll be loyal.”
“If you wanted loyalty, you shouldn’t have killed Darren.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” says Leigh. She looks to Reed. “Can I kill her now?”
“Kimberley can pull that trigger if you like. I’m sure she’s eager to get down to the business of stripping the Doctrine from these unworthy hosts.”
Leigh frowns. “I want to do it myself.”
“You want to do everything yourself. Learn to delegate.” Reed lets go of Roger’s chin, straightening as the other man’s face hits the floor. “I want them stripped, cleaned, and brought to the lab. It’s time to begin.” Then he walks away, whistling.