Epilogue

Epilogue 3.12

---Crawford---

     First the owl monsters swarm us, and then everything goes up in flames of the literal variety. I grab Mya and tackle her to the ground, shielding her from the blaze. The searing heat eats away at my skin. I try to cry out in pain, but my throat's so dry that the walls stick together. Something smells like barbeque. That makes my mouth water—problem solved. Hang on... that's not me is it?

     Funny. There's no pain. Just Mya squirming underneath me. I roll over onto my side, expecting to cry out as my burnt flesh presses against the hard ground.

     "Crawford." Mya nudges me. "Get up."

     I groan. "I'm burnt like bootleg CD."

     "No, you're not."

     I open my eyes and tentatively assess the situation. Well, what do you know? "It's a miracle."

     "No," says the last person whose voice I want to hear right now. Tendrils of smoke snake out of Edgar's fingertips and billow in the wind. The very air is scorched around him. "But it's about time someone lit a fire under your ass."

     Not going to let him egg me on. Not now. Heart's still having a seizure. We're not in the clear—not yet. I take a quick look around. The bone trees surrounding us a charred black. The birdmen have backed off, for now. But they butchered us first. God, it's like something out of a slasher flick. I can barely tell which blood-soaked body is which. But no casualties. Not yet.

     "We need to get moving," says Ace, tapping his arm cannon. The barrel hums, emitting an electric blue light. He glances at Liluye. "Can you feel a rip nearby?"

     She leans against a tree, smearing her blood along the blackened bone bark. She shakes her head, her blood-streaked ringlets spilling around her shoulders. "Not close enough. We'll have to make a dash for—"

     Jewel screams. It all happens so fast: one second she and Jun are fending off a strix, the next second we're all staring at Jun's half-eaten corpse. I hear somebody shout something, but everything's a blur. Somebody pushes past me. It's just one bloodied-up face after the next. Can't tell who's who.

     Only Mya. She grabs my hand. Pulls. But I'm frozen in place. The strixes descend.

     A fire under my ass, huh? I grit my teeth and ready my ice pick. And when the strixes get close enough, I stab. Stab repeatedly. Ignore the pain as the talons claw at my back. Stab some more. Satisfying sound of ice pick sinking into feathered flesh.

     There's no fear. It's like Tahj said: everybody dies horribly.

     Question is: is today the day I die horribly?

     My lips curl into a smile.

     Blood splatters.

     Not today.

---Gail/Miu-sama---

     It's chaos. Pure, unadulterated chaos. But I ain't about to buckle under the pressure. I take a deep breath. The shikigami nudges me from the inside.

     Let me take over.

     No ma'am. I know this feeling. This smothering, suffocating aura of emptiness. You pick up a few things every now and then working at an occult shop. There are presences—incorporeal presences—that linger in dusty old attics. That cling to objects like parasites. And I know this one; it smells like chocolate and onion skins mixed with morning dew on a Tuesday. It's death.