46

Nobody spoke for a while, each of them lost in the mess of their own thoughts and feelings. Sister Peregrine, quite understandably, looked very distraught. Hunter didn’t know the specifics, but after that whole encounter with Sister Finch turning into Mother and with Brother Aurochs turning into the world’s saddest minotaur, then back to human again, he wouldn’t exactly fault her.

Fawkes looked lost in her own thoughts, her laconic demeanor more or less unchanged, save from the fact that she suddenly looked a couple of decades older. She’d come a long way to find her friend and she’d gone through a lot, only to find his dead body strung up as a grim trophy. If anything, she was being coolheaded.

And as for himself…

He was still on edge from experiencing virtual murder a second time, but his talk with Grimm and Mortimer had somehow blunted the whole experience, put it into perspective. There was a lot he’d have to process, yes, but it would have to wait.

“So, what now?” he asked the two women.

“I have to get him out of there”, Fawkes said, her voice neutral. “His body. I can’t leave it in there. It’s a Lodge thing.”

“Fair enough. How about you, Sister? I think you’ve got some explaining to do. A mercy-killing was what we signed up for, not dealing with some kind of crazy monster cult. I mean, I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but it turns out you kind of pulled the wool over our eyes in more ways than one.”

“Hunter–” Fawkes started to say, but Sister Peregrine cut her off.

“You are correct. I owe you some explanations. So ask.”

“Uh, how’s he, for starters?”

The woman combed her fingers through her unconscious companion’s dark, short-cropped hair with an affection and intimacy Hunter had never seen her express before.

“Sleeping. Hurt. Alive, though, and in human shape. He will be alright. He is strong.”

“Is he some kind of shapeshifter, then? A lycanthrope?” asked Fawkes.

“It is his duty to bear the mark of an ancient spirit of the land, as is mine” the other woman explained. “Only his own is a disagreeable one. A curse and a burden is what it is, bearing him. A sacrifice.”

“And what about the woman in the Sanctum?” asked Hunter. “Was she Sister Finch?”

“She was not,” Sister Peregrine shook her head. “Only a dark spirit that wore her face. It is as I–as we–feared; Sister Finch has been dead for some time now, the poor woman. She bore the mark of a spirit too, the poor thing. Such was her duty, A thankless duty, but a necessary one. At least she is free of it now.”

“Was she really you–?”

“I will not speak of this.”

“And what of the creature that wear her face now?” asked Fawkes.

“What of it? It dies. If I die too, so be it. But it dies.”

Fawkes gave a short, grim nod and frowned.

“Well said, Sister. Well said. Still more easily said than done, though. So this is what we’ll do; Hunter, you’ll stay here with the Brother. You’ll be safe enough, and once he comes to he’ll be able to guide you out. Find the god-bear, tell him of what transpired here, then make your way to the Brennai folken and tell Hallara, too. She’s the spirit woman, the one in white. She’ll make sure you’re safe and taken care of. Sister and me, we’ll go back to the Inner Sanctum and find a way to silence that thing for good.”

“I ain’t going anywhere” said Hunter. “I’m coming with.”

“Just leave, lad” Fawkes said, and there was a hint of tired finality in her voice. “It’s not your fight.”

“Like hell it isn’t.”

“Grimnir’s beard, fool!” Fawkes suddenly raised her voice in ire. “Do you think this another of your games? Go back to your world, transient, back to your easy living and your stories and your make-believe. Leave this one to us. No one asked you to be here. Hells, no one wants you here.”

Hunter felt like she’d slapped him in the face. In fact, she had slapped them in the face just a few minutes earlier, and her words stung a million times more. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Fawkes had never said anything like that to him before. It came completely out of left field. He just stood there with a numb. slack-jawed expression of surprise. Fawkes was staring daggers at him, looking angry and more than eager to say more. Sister Finch was watching the scene unfold, looking both perplexed and interested.

“Are you kidding me right now?” he said, his temper flaring up just like it had done with Grimm. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“You wanted to know we don’t like your kind? This is why. Nothing is serious to you. There are no stakes, no consequences to your actions. You come and go as you please, do as you please, fuck who you please and kill who you please and be back home in time for dinner, while we’re stuck here dealing with your messes.” Fawkes was furious. “Nothing is real to you, lad. Not really. It’s all fun and games, just until you get bored. You don’t care. You can’t care.”

“I can’t care?” he screamed in her face, not caring what fresh kind of Halls-dwelling horrors the noise would alert. “I can’t care? Is that why I fucking killed myself to buy you enough time to get out of there, because I can’t fucking care?”

“Killed yourself?” Fawkes scoffed. “You barely gave yourself a timeout. You probably had a sandwich, a wank, and a nap, then popped back in to check on us when boredom hit.”

“Is that what you think?”

“What if it is?”

“Fuck you, Fawkes. Just… fuck you. Do you know what I felt when I saw that thing overtake you? Do you know what I felt when those fucking things stabbed me through the chest and raised me in the air like I was a fucking meat skewer? Do you?”

She said nothing. She simply stared at him with clenched jaw and fists.

“EVERYTHING!” he shouted. “I felt fucking everything! Every bit of stress, every bit of fear, every bit of pain, every bit of horror. And you know what? It’s not even the first time. I’ve died again, and it almost drove me nuts. And despite knowing how it feels and how it hurts and how… how it would fuck me up, I went straight on and did it again, I went straight on and fucking died because it was the only way for you not to. And now here I am, ready to go straight on and do it again. And you have the… the… the audacity to tell me I don’t care. Because it’s not permanent.”

Fawkes opened her mouth to say something, but Hunter cut her off. He was past angry. There was no stopping him now, not until he’d said all he wanted to and then some, and he’d stopped seeing red and started deflating on his own.

“And you know what? Yes. I don’t have to do any of this. I can come and go and do as I please and fuck who I please and kill who I please, and them go back to my side of things and–how did you put it?–have a sandwich, a wank, a nap. And then I can wake up and stretch and take a morning shit and pop back in to do it all again from the start. For entertainment. For fun. But do I do that, Fawkes? Do I? Is that what I fucking choose to do?”

“You’re both acting like fools from where I’m standing”, Sister Peregrine scolded them, putting an abrupt stop to the mounting tension. “Each in their own way. This is neither the place nor the time to voice your squabbles. If you are lucky enough–if we are lucky enough–you’ll have all the time in the world to do it later. And if we’re not, you won’t have to do it at all, because it won’t matter anymore.”

She was different, Hunter realized, and it wasn’t just that she’d removed her falcon headdress and openly showed her face–a taboo he hadn’t seen her break before. Something had changed in her. Instead of her usual dry and reserved behavior, it was as if she’d gone full nihilist. That gave him enough pause to let his ire start to evaporate.

“I guess there’s no point in arguing, then”, said Fawkes with a tired sigh. She’d lost her oomph too. Whatever differences she and Hunter had, they’d have to wait. “We’re all going back in there, all three of us.”

“No”, said a man’s voice, a hoarse whisper really, broken and deep. “All four.”