“What the fuck, Slim!” Jack enables his comm kneak while rubbing the side of his head. His ears are still ringing from the unmistakable loud pop of a nanobot being set off right next to him. He looks over to Corva and Zeke, concern knitted across their faces. “I’m okay. You just keep an eye out for Wrinkles.”

“Sorry little boss.” Slim’s voice crackles through the comm. “We needed to tell you some—”

“We needed your attention, Pinny.” Lyia’s voice interrupts Slim through the scratchy sound of the kneak. “You and I both know what happens next. There’s not much time. Slim and I are taking the nanobots so we can warn Harris and the rest of the town. We’ll leave one with you so we can track where you are. You and Zeke need to figure out how to stop this.”

Jack sees Zeke point out across the rooftops. He tracks the same direction and catches a glimpse of a dark scythe cutting through a pocket of Umbrati grunts. Then, just as quickly, it disappears. “Yeah. Stop Death. That’s the perfect job for a monkey and a pair of kids.” He catches Corva raising her eyebrows at him. “What? Don’t act like you’re all that much older than I am.”

Lyia breaks in again over the comm, “You and I are the only ones in this town who’ve seen Death attack a town, let alone survived it. The two of us are the ones with the best chance of stopping him.”

“The four of us, actually.” Jack still hasn’t taken his eyes off Corva and Zeke. Corva is still keeping the roof clear, working with her grunt puppets. Zeke keeps a vigil watching across the rest of Bule, pointing out brief sightings of Thegn taking out another group of grunts. It’s not clear if he’s gotten to any of the siege caves, but there’s a chance he hasn’t. The Reaper seems to be working in a slowly shrinking ring, with their happy little trio at the center. That gives them some time, but not much.

“What’s that?” Lyia’s voice sounds confused.

But Jack’s mind is already on a roll. Maybe it was the blast from that nanobot by his head or seeing that Corva and Zeke haven’t given up, but a new plan is starting to form. He’s talking to himself as much as he is to Lyia. “The four of us. We’re the best possible team for taking on Wrinkles. Zeke an’ Corva have tangled with the ol’ fuck before. Maybe even did better than just survivin’. We need a way to get ahead of him, though.”

“I don’t understand, Jack. Slim, he’s not making sense on your comm kneaks. Can you get that bot to track his face better? Maybe I can read his—”

Then it hits him. “Tracking!”

“What?” The question comes from everyone at the same time. Lyia and Slim on the comms. Corva in front of him. Even Zeke stops and points a look of confusion at Jack.

“Corva! Zeke looks like he’s doing more than guessin’ at where Wrinkles is gonna show next. Can he see the spiritual plane? Is that what he’s doing?”

Corva looks at Zeke and then back to Jack. “He says yes, but how do you—”

“I’ve been there. Old Man V said Death passes through there sometimes. That’s gotta be how he’s popping from one crow to the next.”

“Jackspin.” Lyia’s voice scratches over the comm kneak. “You’re talking crazy. What’s going on?”

“I’m still fuzzy on a lot of the details myself, but that’s okay. You go get Harris an’ everyone up to speed. Tell ’em that their best bet is to get away from town. At least push away from where we are. Some of them caves have deeper cuts in the back. Gotta squeeze a bit to get through, but it should be enough to get them from the crows. Anyone still in a building is gonna hafta make a run for it, though. You’ll hafta signal ’em to go once I get started.”

“Jack.” The hesitant voice is Corva’s this time. Jack notices that although Corva’s grunts are still diligently working, her attention—her’s and Zeke’s, actually—is on him. They still have that look of concern etched into each of their faces. However, instead of worrying about something that exploded next to his head, it’s clear that their apprehension is related to what’s going on inside his head.

He lets out a sigh. “Alright. Everything on the table. But this is what we’re doing. You’re all going to hear things you don’t like. There’s no time for debate. Unless you have ideas on how to make this plan work better, I don’t want to hear it.”

It takes a moment, but he gets slow nods from Corva and Zeke. Slim’s voice scrapes across the comms. “Lee’s on board, little boss. She’s just a little tongue-tied.”

Jack shakes his head. “I need to hear her say it.”

“Say what you need to, Pin. I reserve the right to tell you how much I dislike it after your plan works.”

“I can handle that.” An enormous grin stretches its way across Jack’s face and then immediately dissolves as he starts getting into what he has to say next. “Alright. Here’s the deal. Lyia, you should know by now that Wrinkles came here for Corva. She’s a survivor from Fareburne. Yeah, that Fareburne. But that’s not why Wrinkles is after her. You can also probably tell that her little puppet trick isn’t a fixin. Ol’ Wrinkles ain’t exactly the last of the Four. I don’t know how it works, but Corva here, she’s War. And Zeke can apparently talk to her because he’s some kinda amplifier. My guess is that Wrinkles’s rat is the same. And—”

He hesitates. This one is the hardest to share with Lyia.

“And I know how to use the Touch. Old Man V was trainin’ me from a Fold text he’d traded for a long time back. V died before we finished, but I figured out the rest, I think. I used it on Wrinkles. And when I was half dead in the basement of the Red Light, I was able to talk to Old Man V on the spiritual plane.”

Jack waits a beat before continuing. It’s a weird feeling. This is the first time he’s laid out everything he knows about a given situation. In the past, it’s always been more to his advantage if everyone else only sees their part and he’s the only one who can see the whole board, the only one who knows all the angles. It’s easy to tilt things in his favor when he’s the fulcrum that everything balances on. This isn’t the time for that, though. He doesn’t need the better part of a deal. He needs a team—no, he needs friends. Friends that trust him.

No one has said anything yet. Could be that they’re each stuck in their own stunned silence after finding out something they didn’t know before. Doesn’t matter. It’s time to get to the actual plan.

He continues, “Okay. Now that everyone knows what’s up—as best as we can tell—here’s what’s gonna happen. Lyia, you n’ Slim go ahead and find Harris. Tell him everything.”

“Everything?” Lyia’s voice echoes Jack’s own concerns about that idea.

“Yeah. Everything. Ol’ Hairless is a self-serving dick, but he’s smart and he likes this town. With half the picture of what’s goin’ on, he might think he has a play of some sort. Knowin’ everything, he’ll see his choices are either to help out or to bug out. It’ll be tough, getting him to believe you, but you’ll hafta figure that part out.”

Jack turns his attention to Zeke and Corva. “Now you two. Corva, how many of them grunts can you control?”

“I’ve had up to three.”

“Damn. That ain’t much. Can you do more?”

“Merda, Jack, I don’t know. I’m still figuring this out. Zeke says I can, but I’ve never tried. How many do you need?”

“A lot more. As many as you can get. And you’re wrong. If you’re War, then you’ve definitely done this before. You just gotta remember how.”

Corva stares at Jack, unconvinced. “Assuming I can control more grunts, what am I supposed to do with them?”

“Get in Death’s way. Slow him down. Buy some time. Work with Zeke to figure out where Wrinkles is going and make things harder for him.” Jack digs into his pack and pulls out a few sealed cylinders. He hands them to Zeke. “I ain’t entirely sure how, but these might help. Imbued beads. Originally packed them to trade while on the roam, but I think we’re gonna need every toy we can get.”

Corva watches as Zeke unscrews the cap on one of the cylinders and extracts a single bead, glowing a soft blue. “How do they work?”

“Zeke knows, but rule of thumb is, ‘blue adds energy, orange takes away.’ You can use the blue ones on yourself as a kind of booster, but I don’t recommend it unless it’s a last resort. Side effects.”

“What kind of side effects?”

Jack shrugs. “Everything from explosive diarrhea to spontaneous combustion.”

Zeke puts the bead back and scowls at Jack. Corva gives a slow wary nod without removing her gaze from the cylinders. “Yeah. Last resort.” She turns her attention back to Jack. “What about you? What’s your part in this?”

Jack takes a deep breath. “I’m gonna try to blink myself into the spiritual plane. Try to track after Wrinkles there. Slow him down in my own way. Together, we might just buy enough time for everyone to get away safely.”

It takes a second for it all to sink in. Corva is the first one to piece it together. “Your plan doesn’t involve us surviving, does it?”

Jack’s hand goes to the back of his head and rubs, almost embarrassed-like. “It would sure be nice to have a chance of living through this, that’s for sure. Thing is, I don’t think we can do what needs to be done if we’re lookin’ for a way out while we do it.”

He looks hard into Corva’s eyes. “You don’t hafta play along with this if you don’t wanna. He’s after you. You don’t owe this town nothing. I wouldn’t think any less of you if you dropped everything now and got yourself to safety. None of you, really.” He jerks his head in the direction of Slim’s building. “But I’m doin’ this. I’m not gonna stand around and watch another burg turn into an instant ghost town. Maybe the folks here are assholes. Or maybe they think they’ve been carrying weight for me because I ain’t fully grown. Either way, I don’t care. I have a chance to stop this, or slow it at least, and I’m gonna feel like dirt if I live without trying.”

Zeke is the first one to respond. The little monkey hops off Corva’s shoulder and scurries over to climb up to Jack’s. Jack feels Zeke’s tiny paw come to a rest on the side of his head; warmth radiates from the spot.

Corva looks from Jack to Zeke and back to Jack. “He says he’s proud of you. Says Vardin would be, too. Zeke will do everything he can to help you. I will too. I’m not going anywhere. I run now and Thegn is just going to follow me. And he’ll destroy every small town and gray haven where he finds me. War might be somewhere in my head, but these are my hands. I’m responsible for the blood that gets on them.”

“Slim and I are in, too, Pinny.” Lyia’s voice flows over the scratchy signal on Jack’s comm kneak. “I will always have your back.”

“Besides,” Slim’s voice butts in with a lightness that makes it obvious that he’s smiling, “if you’re gone, I won’t have anyone to knowingly guinea pig my—ow!”

“Don’t listen to him, Pinny.” Lyia comes back on the line. “Slim wouldn’t recognize a tender moment if it slapped him in the face.”

“You call that tender? You got me right on my ear!”

The banter relaxes Jack. Reassures him. He can’t help but grin. These are his people. There’s no one else in the world he’d rather have next to him, no matter the odds. He looks around at Bule’s dingy brown skyline, if it could be called that, and regains a feeling of seriousness.

“Alright. We’re all in, then. Let’s do this.”