Paul stumbled away from Victor’s grasp, reaching for the mansion’s back door. Chills rived through his musculature. Blood seeped out of him. What had the Mask cut through with that knife? Paul knew enough about autopsy reports to know he didn’t have long. If he got lucky, hours. If not…

(Where had the Mask gone?)

He turned back, giving dim and blurry reality another scan. He didn’t see the Mask, he only saw Victor, shotgun loosely gripped, facing the entrance to the hedge labyrinth. “Vic,” he managed, not loudly enough to hear. “Vic,” he repeated.

Victor glanced over his shoulder.

Paul dropped his flashlight, pressing his palm to the scalding red oozing out of him. “Come on.”

“It’s out there.”

“Paul!” Deirdre shouted.

Paul turned back, half-balanced, and limped through the last few strides of his journey. Passing the threshold into the mansion proper, he sagged to his knees. He felt true agony strain against adrenaline and shock, gritted his teeth against a groan. Deirdre appeared above him and he realized he’d rolled onto his back.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, iron collecting at the back of his throat. “Give me a minute.”

She peeled his hand away from his wound and replaced it with her own.

Deirdre had a natural talent for healing. For magic in general, of course, but for healing in particular. A wince of exertion parted her lips and warm-kind something spilled into him. He felt her pull his consciousness clear of dizzy death, felt her will stitch softmeat and flesh back together. She couldn’t repair everything, not on her first attempt, but she could patch enough to get him back on his feet again.

As his vision cleared, he saw her wipe sweat from her brow, take a deep breath, and brace to try again.

“Don’t,” he said.

“Paul—”

“It’s not even inside, yet,” he added. “I’m good enough to move. You save your energy.”

She stared down at him, hesitant.

He pushed himself up, her hand falling away with the movement. Though she’d half-healed the wound, he still felt it sear through his torn muscles as he moved. He did his best to hide the pain but couldn’t stop a grimace from rolling through his features. “See? Besides, this time there’s only one bad guy.”

She stood, mirroring him. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

The year before, he’d almost died twice. Once, she’d saved him; the other time, the Speaker and Its coldly uncaring agent had pulled him back. He remembered those moments every time he heard the dead rasp their refrain to him. 

(you, too, soon)

“The real problem is the stuff never seems stupid until I try it.”

Her jaw tensed. She was not amused.

Before she said anything, Paul turned his focus back to the plan. Lurching through the threshold, he found Victor standing in the midst of bright floodlight, shotgun ready, scanning the dim distance. “Vic,” he said, still limping along his approach, “I don’t think you standing in the light with a shotgun is good bait.”

“Call it an invitation.”

Paul winced. He wanted to press his hand against the half-healed wound in his side but didn’t want Deirdre to see it. “If we can’t get this thing inside tonight, It can come back whenever It wants.”

“It’s running out of time, too. After tonight, there’s going to be no end to the money and manpower they’ll put into finding Robert Robertson Junior.”

“That’s not a sure thing,” Paul said. “We need a sure thing.”

Victor took a deep, long breath. Nodded. “Alright, then. Stay close.”

Before they could move, a crash of glass echoed from around the eastern side of the mansion. Caught mid-stride, the two men froze and hesitated before correcting course. Victor broke into a jog as a second hymn of splinters sounded the night. Paul tried to keep up but couldn’t. The wound in his side oozed blood. His limp worsened, his gait listed. “Wait!”

Wood cracked and broke. Victor reached the corner a dozen strides ahead of Paul.

Paul lost pace. Pain scissored through him. Some of the stitching Deirdre had used to weave him back together came unstitched. Teeth gritted, he groaned and grimaced. He moved to his right, getting close to the side of the Blackwood house. He slowed to a walk. With one palm pressed to the antique siding and the other pressed to a half-healed, scabrous incision, he limped ahead.

Victor’s shotgun bellowed. Sounds of clumsy combat followed.

Paul pushed away from the wall and shouted himself into a run. He tried to ignore his body as he threw himself forward, tried not to curl up around his wound and the damage he’d already done to Deirdre’s work of it. Millimeter by millimeter, it reopened.

The scuffle continued.

Stopped.

(you, too—)

Paul turned the corner just as Victor fired his sidearm into the night. A sweeping cut across the man’s sweater revealed a protective vest beneath; his shotgun laid in bright-lit grass three feet away. Victor didn’t seem to be injured.

“Should’ve used goggles instead of the goddamned floodlights,” Victor muttered.

Paul leaned against the side of the mansion, panting, one hand clutching at a growing crimson trickle. “Shit,” he rasped. “I thought…”

Victor lowered his sidearm. Still facing the boundary between floodlight blaze and midnight dark, he stepped sideways toward the discarded shotgun. “You should get inside,” Victor said without looking. “See if Deirdre can finish patching you up.”

“Nobody outside alone,” Paul replied. “That was the plan.”

“Until you got stabbed.”

“That makes it more important,” Paul managed. “Now we know how fast It can do what It wants to do.”

Victor holstered his pistol and bent to pick up the shotgun. Before he did, he briefly touched the wide slice opening his sweater. “Mm.” He rose re-armed and pumped an emptied shell free of the chamber. Staring at whatever swath of night had cloaked the Mask’s retreat, he said, “You know, usually when there’s a gun fight, the guy who shows up with the knife loses.”

Paul didn’t find the aside very funny, considering the circumstances. But he realized that this represented the longest conversation he might have ever had with Victor Monroe, and he wanted not to waste the opportunity. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of a pithy retort. “Yeah, well…usually the guy with the knife isn’t…super-human.”

Victor nodded. “Usually not.”

The moment passed.

Something noised.

What?

Paul blinked. “Did you hear something?”

“What?”

The noise repeated: more glass breaking. At a distance.

The other side of the mansion? How?

“Go,” Paul said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

As Victor rushed out farther and farther ahead, racing toward the Mask, all Paul could think as he limped behind was nobody outside alone, nobody outside alone, nobody outside alone.

Victor reached the corner at the opposite side of the building before Paul had even reached the back door at its mid-point.

(you, too, soon)