a burned-out false key?”
Beside him, Gwen shuddered and everyone else stared at them.
“Dours are the ashes of magic,” he pointed out. “Chaotic and simple. They do not direct, they only sow darkness. This is more like a bleak than a dour, but diminished in power. If a bleak were to take a willing vessel and burn them to nothing, is this not what might result? A dark, bodiless minion which could possess independent direction and purpose, able to slither into a human as a dour can?”
“A reduced bleak,” Gwen said wryly.
“A reduction of bleak,” Heather giggled.
“A redux of bleak,” Daniella added.
Their ladies laughed, clearly near hysterical.
“I like the term superdour better,” Rez said solemnly.
That only made them break into more peals of helpless laughter.
“Okay, look,” Daniella said, rising to her feet. “Henrik’s theory is as good as any, but what we should do is try to get a little more information, and stick together. None of us alone was strong enough to knock it out, but six of us were.” Henrik thought it was kind of her to count him. “We don’t know how many of them there are, or where, but we know they are after us specifically, so we should be careful about going out alone. And I also know that if we starve to death, we won’t be able to save the world.”
“Sorry to break up the war meeting,” Ansel said, standing in the doorway to the kitchen with a rectangle of paper in his hands. “I was going to order some takeout, if you guys are as tired of Thanksgiving leftovers as I am.”
“Pizza!” Henrik said, but the suggestion immediately reminded him of Robin, still missing. Robin would know better than them what this new menace was, and how to counter it, even diminished as they were here.
“Pizza,” Trey agreed mournfully.
“Pizza,” Rez chorused with Heather.
“Geez, guys, don’t sound so excited about it,” Ansel said, but his face suggested that he understood their sadness.
It was the same delivery driver who had delivered their pizzas weeks before at Marie’s cafe, and he looked no more amused than he had the previous time. “Veggie, two pepperoni, meat festival, and chicken fiesta, extra spicy.” He looked them over skeptically. “Nice house.”
“It is Ansel’s,” Rez pointed out politely as he took the steaming boxes. “He is gracious enough to allow us to live and train here.”
“It has a refrigerator,” Henrik added.
The delivery lad nodded slowly. “Sure, man.”
Ansel signed the receipt. “They’re Norwegian,” he said apologetically.
The driver scurried away with suspicious quickness.
26
The second hand store was technically open, but as usual, there were no customers, which was just as well, since everyone was coming to pack up the warehouse and minimize the damage that the coming battle would do.
“I don’t know how you stay in business,” Daniella said, hanging her coat near the door.
“Thanks, nice to see you, too!” Ansel called from the counter. “I’ll remind you that the weeks before Christmas are usually my most brisk sales, and that I’m closing early in the year, for you guys, so that you can save the world without as much collateral damage this time. Hopefully.”
“You’re our hero, Ansel,” Gwen called. “Maybe they’ll write a ballad about your sacrifices.” She took off her coat.
“Will it be a rock ballad?” Henrik wanted to know. Gwen had been introducing him to more styles of music. He’d been alarmed by K-Pop, enthralled by jazz, and bored by classical. Queen remained one of his favorite bands.
“It was just a joke,” Gwen explained. “I was teasing Ansel.”
Henrik looked vaguely disappointed, and since he was standing close enough, bent to give her a kiss that she was perfectly happy to accept.
“Alright,” Daniella said commandingly. “Girls, let’s start with glassware, since that’s the most fragile. The knights can start moving out the furniture. Most of it can go in the storage unit out back. We’ll stack the boxes on the furniture. Clothing and the display racks and shelves last.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Ansel said. “Please label the boxes so that I have some hope of finding things again.”
“We will of course unpack for you once the crisis is past,” Rez assured him. “This is the least we can do.”
“Yes it is,” Ansel agreed with a laugh. “Alright, I’m going to close up and call it a year. I’ll have dinner ready when you guys realize how much you’ve bitten off.”
“It will take us several days I fear,” Trey admitted.
After a few hours, and about a hundred bubble-wrapped glasses and baubles,