Indigo had a bad angle for the uninjured manikin; it was behind him, he was facing the wrong way. I shone my light full on the creature’s face before it could complete its lunge, and the bright light stopped it in its tracks. Creatures of darkness; the light had blinded it. Indigo turned around fully to face it and then, for the very first time, I saw a manikin clearly.

Length of arm and leg and neck, unearthly androgynous features somewhere between appealing and unsettling. Each of the subtly inhuman things that distinguished the Ministers was visible in the manikin, exaggerated from beauty into terror. Indigo cocked his head at the manikin, and she—standing up, I could see she was female—cocked her head back, face-to-face with their own reflection.

The manikins were Ministers.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR:

Some Really Angry Rocks

The manikin bared her blunt, human teeth and lunged at Indigo. He swung his blade and it clashed against her arm, drawing a howl of pain from her. The only reason his blade hadn’t taken her arm off at the elbow was because she had a piece of metal lashed to her forearm, and metal on her hands. Makeshift armor—that had been the rattling, clicking noise I’d heard from them following us.

To my right, Lantern-Eyes was still straddling a writhing, thrashing manikin, slamming her club down wildly and without finesse. The twin light sources of Indigo’s collar and my flashlight illuminated a hairless human face, mouth wide in a snarl.

Not quite Ministers, I realized, taking a slow step back. There was something unrefined about the manikins that was not so in Indigo. The Ministers had been created on the Nameless. It stood to reason that they were not the first of their kind. The manikins were rough-draft Ministers.

Indigo’s collar-light flashed as he spun around, the glow of him eclipsed by one of the wounded manikins as it rose from the floor to lunge, fingers crooked like claws, hatred in the line of its spine driving it forward despite the threat of his blade. The manikin beneath Lantern-Eyes shoved her up and off him. Black blood slicked over his chalk-white skin.

I had the bombs I’d lifted from Lantern-Eyes, but if I used them now, they’d take out my allies as well as my enemies—the smoke would knock out Indigo, and the light would blind them both.

My next step backwards landed my heel on uneven ground, debris beneath my feet. I stumbled, caught myself. My palm landed on a chunk of old pipe.

Kystrom was a garden world, verdant and new. The native flora and fauna were harmless to humans, though the pitka fruit was so sour we used to dare each other to eat it. I knew from experience that to eat more than a bite or two was to spend the rest of the afternoon vomiting and desperately thirsty, but even so, whenever I was dared I would eat the whole fruit just to show I could.