Joe fought on, making fast progress towards Leo, where Molly continued to wait, watching him with a worrying smile. Then he halted, wrenched a step backwards. Percy saw first the look of fright on Joe’s face, then the glistening spectacle of Waleed’s slithering entrails slipping over Joe’s chest, alive, terrifying, and utterly repulsive.
“Now, Moxie!” Percy shouted, but the kitten did nothing but put her little feet on his cheek.
Giordano was busy with Tareq, who evidently had the use of his arms again; Leo and Althea were all but lost in flashes of pale skin amongst the dust, fighting desperately; and Percy was too far away from Joe to help, his hands desperately pulling at the entrails that tightened around his neck, a sea of writhing bones between them.
More and more skeletons clambered from their broken graves, more and more shapes, luminescent in the distance, closed in, the growling only got louder amidst the cacophony of groans and gasps and scratches and punches, and above it all, Molly stood, lip and cheek bleeding, watching, waiting, looking like someone who had no doubt that her enemies were about to be brutally crushed.
And why not? She had the entire graveyard. Her unable-to-be-killed zombies. Her own immortality. And then who knew? How many other people would she kill and reanimate? The whole city might be at her beck and call.
It was a completely unwinnable situation from where Percy stood, fighting on only to spare those around him a little longer, because if they also realised they were beat, not one of them showed it. But Percy knew. It rarely, very rarely, happened, but he knew when someone had got the better of him.
And he knew he had only one weapon that might work.
Not his dagger.
Not the powers Moxie suddenly seemed reluctant to use.
He had only Moxie herself.
Percy closed his eyes. He took Moxie from his shoulder by the scruff of her tiny neck. He tried to go to his dark and isolated place, the place he could always go before Joe. But Joe was a life so rich and so beautiful. Joe was the light that shone on everything, bathed everything and made it so gorgeous that his place of refuge, of dissociation, would not come. And his hand shook as he raised that dagger. His fingers barely held the fur. He knew and felt what he was going to do and it was a depth of depravity even he had never thought himself capable of.
He raised Moxie higher and higher into the air and shouted, “Molly! Stop it now or the kitten gets it!”
Her head turned sharply with the expression of one deeply perplexed at the unexpected interruption. She focused on the kitten, hard.
“Don’t do it!” Joe yelled, straining at the intestines strangling him.
Percy pressed the sharp end of the dagger to the kitten’s round and fluffy belly. His eyes burned into Molly’s and she, in response, brought up a finger of command that saw everything stop dead. Skeletons clattered to the ground in piles of bones, Waleed’s intestines turned loose and flopped in a foul heap at Joe’s feet, Tareq sat as lifeless and unresponsive as ever. All was silence, every living eye on Percy and his beloved kitten, and the only sound that broke it was Moxie’s purr, so happy was she to be held again by her master.
Molly was the first to speak. “Why do you think I’d care if you kill that kitten?”
“Because…” Percy glanced at Joe, who had absolutely assured him that Molly’s familiar’s presence in the kitten’s body could turn any tide with her. “Because. Look at her. Don’t you recognise her?”
Molly’s head tilted to the side with the effort of her investigation. “It’s a cat.”
“It’s not just any cat. Look at her! Look into her beautiful, big,” his voice began to shake, “loyal, loving eyes.”
Molly did, but she made no sign of recognition. Only seemed to be enjoying the novelty of the drama.
“I’ll gut her,” Percy threatened. “Little kitten entrails spilling out everywhere. I’ll slit her wide open.”
“Go ahead,” she replied with a shrug.
Percy looked at Joe, Joe looked at Percy, and Percy hissed, “You said this would work.”
“She’s bluffing!” Joe declared loudly. “Spill some blood and see how she feels about it.”
“Yeah,” said Percy. He nodded. Firmed his grip on the dagger. “All right. Um…” He loosened his grip. Tightened it. Shifted the dagger around a bit. Then, on a cough, “Joe?”
Joe glanced at the tense and horrified crowd, then back to Percy. “What?”
Percy tilted his head sharply away from Joe. “Could you, uh, come here? Just for a moment.”
“But—”
“Please. Could you?”
Joe took a moment to get moving, then picked his way awkwardly across the clearing, bones crunching with every step, until he finally made it to Percy’s side. Percy whispered, “I actually can’t… um… do this. So, could you?”