Chimes at Midnight

Hide-and-seek spells primarily depend on one thing: the person you’re trying to hide from losing sight of you. We hadn’t exactly been subtle as we stood on Valencia Street and argued about our next move, but we also hadn’t been moving. It was my sincere hope that our sudden action would be confusing enough to give us a few seconds’ head start. That, and I really, really hoped the Queen hadn’t sent any Centaurs. I’m pretty good at running for my life—I’ve had a lot of practice, when you get right down to it—but there’s no way I could outrun someone with four legs and lungs sized to sustain most of a horse’s body. A Silene, maybe. A Centaur, no way.

As I ran, I dug my phone out of my pocket and started scrolling through my contacts with my thumb. Why did I have to know so many people? It was like having a cell phone made people you hadn’t talked to in years come out of the woodwork, demanding you care enough to keep their information handy. I decided I’d delete them all as soon as this was over, and pressed “call” as the list finally reached the name I’d been looking for.

There were cars on the block up ahead. I veered back onto the sidewalk, listening to the phone ringing in my ear. “Come on, pick up,” I gasped, already too winded to do much else. “Come on, come on . . .”

“Hello?”

“May!” I swerved to avoid running into a fire hydrant. “Is Jazz there?”

“Toby? Are you running or something? You sound like you can’t breathe.”

“That’s because I’m running! Is Jazz there?”

“Yeah, she’s—”

“Tell her I need her, and the flock, to mob at Valencia and 16th Street. Now.”

“Toby, what—”

“I’m being chased by an unknown number of people,” I swerved to avoid a bike chained to a bike rack, with no owner in sight, “and I’m not sure how long I can keep running. I need a mob.”

“On it,” said May, and hung up.

That would have to be good enough. Hoping Jazz could actually rouse the rest of the city’s Raven-maids and Raven-men before I had passed the intersection, I put the phone back in my pocket, put my head down, and ran.

This is how it is with me and exercise: I have to exert myself, I get winded, I complain about getting winded, I swear I’m going to get into shape, I get distracted, and it never happens. Developing a supernaturally-enhanced healing talent didn’t help, since it meant I no longer had to worry as much about outrunning gunshots. So I wasn’t in the best shape, endurance-wise, before the goblin fruit caused my body to shift me most of the way back toward human. I was moving on momentum and terror, plain and simple, and as soon as one of them gave out, I was going to be in a world of trouble.

It was a good thing I was semi-invisible at the moment, since I knew how strange I would have looked to anyone who could see me: just a woman, running pell-mell down the empty sidewalk, with no one visibly in pursuit. I wanted to stop. My lungs were burning, and my knees had started to ache—a pain from my more mortal days that I’d been more than happy to forget about. The landscape was on my side for the moment, presenting me with a gentle downward slope, but once I crossed 16th, that would stop. If Jazz and the Ravens didn’t meet me there, I’d be running uphill.

Come on, Jazz, I prayed, as I dug deep for one more burst of short-lived speed. I know you can do this. I believe you can do this. So come on, and prove me right. Please.

My next stride hit the sidewalk just a little bit wrong, and I lost my balance, going head over heels before landing in a painful heap against the base of a nearby wall. Spots danced in front of my eyes. I tried to roll to the side, and found myself looking at a series of koi silhouettes that someone had painted on the sidewalk and building. I laughed, and then groaned as it made my head ache even more.

For the first time, I heard footsteps behind me. I tried squinting in their direction, but there was nothing there, and I realized that the feeling of feather-light feet dancing over my collarbone was gone. I raised a hand and touched my chest, confirming what I already partially knew: the firefly was gone. Either the flight or the fall had dislodged it.

“Then there were seven,” I muttered, pulling myself inch by aching inch to my feet. The knees of my jeans were ripped out, and the smell of blood was thick in the air. Good. I raised one scraped palm to my mouth and ran my tongue across it, borrowing what strength I could from my own blood before I snapped, “Well? What are you assholes waiting for? Come on!”