She almost said, “I can’t,” but some instinct told her that wasn’t true, the same instinct that had told her how to kill Obelus when she had reached for it. Enola would not have told her to do it if she wasn’t able. She knelt directly in front of his head, her legs shaking. The orbs sticking out of his back. What are those? They dampen energy, don’t they? The energy going from Enola’s cores is crudely metered by these orbs.

She reached around and, a shaking hand on one of them, ripped it out. It looked like a stake one would drive into the ground with an egg fused to the top of it. It came out with a wretched, meaty popping sound, followed by a spurt of black, viscous fluid. She flung it on the floor, and pulled out another one, then another, and another, flinging them on the floor, her hands now coated in the black, inky substance.

Then she felt the air pressure change, and the restraints holding his hands snapped off. Then another restraint holding his back down crumbled like a brittle cracker, then another holding his legs. Soon all of the restraints had crumbled, the pressure in the air now building, and Cora fell on her back, crab-walking herself away from the harpy she’d just released from its cage.

Enola tore the last few egg sacs out himself and stretched his limbs out like a bird. Then her flashlight went out. The air pressure was building around him like a tornado, seeming to add to the darkness that surrounded him, a black hole that nothing could escape, not even light. She might as well have been a corpse for how rigid she was. Black widow digits wrapped around her as the creature pulled her toward its body, and swirling wisps of darkness surrounded them until it enveloped them both.

Part 3: A Crowd Of People Stood And Stared

PART 3

. . . . . .

A CROWD OF PEOPLE STOOD AND STARED

February 9, 2008

ARTICLE 20.1 Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

26

26

Cora opened her eyes to a sky in the earliest phase of morning, dim like a night-light, with the fingernail sliver of the moon still visible. Her breath turned into a tiny cloud in the cold air, and the ground was coarse and hard like a badly poured sidewalk. She shot to her feet, the ground crunching beneath her shoes as she rose. She was standing on a vast plane rimmed by tall mountains on all sides, but the ground was not flat, rather, it was almost honeycombed, an endless desert of lattice. Each comb was about the size of a tire, rimmed by crystals a few inches tall that looked like tiny ocean waves that crested and then froze. She put a finger to her tongue, confirming that she was standing on a salt flat.