Page 65 of Looking Grimm

“Papermancy,” I scoffed and ventured onward.

In the entry, the broken front door stood agape. Avery’smutilated corpse sprawled in a puddle of red and, beside him, the self-proclaimed papermancer had dressed for the occasion in a striped blue polo and slacks. He was the least criminal-looking criminal I’d ever seen, and I’d grown up watching Avery parade around in ascot ties and double-breasted vests.

The papermancer pulled handfuls of origami critters from his slacks pockets and tossed them into the air, where a short, squat woman flicked sparks to set them ablaze. She wasn’t a proper pyromancer, but she wouldn’t be around long enough for that to matter.

“Teamwork,” I muttered, drawing their attention. “How inspiring.”

“Marionette?” the papermancer asked. Even surprised, his voice was a drone.

My lips curled in a sneer. “Surprise, fuckers.”

Two more invaders charged down the staircase, rattling the wrought iron. A glance at the second-floor railing found flames surging out of Nash’s bedroom, and my stomach bottomed out. Thick, gray smoke billowed toward the ceiling where it swirled around the entry’s chandelier like storm clouds.

“It’s caught!” one of them called out. “Time to clear out!”

His buddy had other concerns, apparently involving me. “What the fuck is he doing here?”

My heart thrashed in my chest, its pulse painfully fast. My blood rushed as I threw out roping strands of thought and grabbed the men descending the stairs. The telekinetic tethers cinched around their waists and pulled them off-course. They flew over the handrail, thrown headfirst likejavelins into the far wall. They shrieked in unison, but their cries were cut short by the crashing collision. Skulls crunched, splotching the white paint with blossoms of red. They tumbled to the floor, landing limp in a two-man pile.

The papermancer and his Bic lighter buddy gaped at me as two more figures darkened the front doorway.

The clock in my chest ticked with thudding beats that seemed to rattle my insides. My lungs begged for air that no amount of panting could satisfy while darkness teased the edges of my vision.

I needed more time.

Without my hands to add precision, I made a mad mental grab. I missed the closest assailant, the human torch, who barreled into me at full speed and knocked me flat. Pain spiked from my shoulder as it struck the floorboards. My vision blanked black.

It pulled at me, a slow thing amidst all the fast. Inky nothing like weights draped over me, pinning me to the ground. I stayed down when I should have gotten up, sucking sharply at the smoky air.

Inches away, Avery’s battered body remained a harbinger of what was to come. I cringed back from his mangled face as one of the invaders shouted, “Back off, shitheads! Puppet boy’s mine!”

I couldn’t see well enough to know who spoke while I blinked back the darkness set on consuming me. It took a mammoth effort to roll onto my side and fix the four Hex newbies in my view.

They formed a wall across from me, holding everything from a candle-sized flame to a matte black .45 pistol. It might have been intimidating if I hadn’t ended on the papermancer,who wielded an origami ninja star that I could not bring myself to take seriously.

I caught them up—one, two, three, four—wrapping mental threads around necks and spines. With cinching tugs and jerks, bones broke and vertebrae separated. They toppled like a line of dominoes.

Sweat slicked my body as I slumped onto my back and injured shoulder. It was warm, then terribly cold, fueling the chills that shook me like I was caught in an earthquake’s aftershock.

Smoke thickened the air and burned my eyes. I told myself that was why I was crying again. Always crying, always angry or sad. But this time I was afraid.

Fast.

The room spun.

My blood pumped.

Fire spread.

All too fast.

I didn’t feel enough. Didn’t feel anything. Didn’t see anything but heavy gray clouds and the flashes of yellow-orange fire eating up the building. Then a figure emerged from the haze.

No doubt it was the Hex member who would get the honor of claiming my life since I had no hope of fending them off in this state. I stared, squinting through tears until a shock of copper red hair and a wonderfully familiar bearded face came clear.

He swiped through the air with one hand while coughing and ducking under the cloud of smoke. When he spotted me, he bolted forward and knelt at my side.

“Thought I was too late,” he said. I couldn’t tell if it wasemotion or the fire that strained his voice.

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