Parian’s fingers went to her throat. Gesturing. I couldn’t even see her eyes because her mask had been pulled ajar. I couldn’t use a hand to move, because I barely had a grip on the fleshy growth as it was.

Braided and branching umbilical cords. Parian gagged as Foil and I pulled.

“I can cut it,” Foil said.

“Don’t. What’s left inside will set root,” I told her.

The gagging got worse. Parian’s fingers at her own throat curled into claws, and the efforts to pull were getting harder.

There was blood. We were tearing her throat.

The grub we pulled out had to be four pounds. Proportioned like a baby.

The others came easier. A string, seemingly endless. The children apparently set to grow to size in turn, to emerge in a steady cycle. Once we had the three largest free, Parian could breathe again.

There was a heavy thud outside.

Lord of Loss.

The tiny hand at Parian’s nostril tried to maintain a grip before it was pulled backward, inside. Down through sinuses, to the back of her mouth, and out the mouth. One of the last parts to come out.

Parian flopped over, so her face was aimed at the ground. Foil held her, fumbling for a short bit of bandage from her belt that Parian could hold to her nose—blood was streaming out. Every breath came with gags.

She was breathing, but I could barely bring myself to.

“We’d better leave,” Aroa said, weirdly casual and disconnected.

“I can carry her,” I said.

Foil shook her head. She got in position, and with me giving her a helping hand, lifted up Parian, holding her in both hands.

Around us, the area was filling with the dusky rose gas. Intense, now. More than I’d seen it before.

She’d sensed us cutting it up.

Chastity and Precipice hefted bags. Money and drugs.

“Drop them if they slow us down,” I said.

Precipice nodded.

We hurried to the back door. We stopped as Lord of Loss touched a limb of overlapping white strips down by the surface.

Other door.

An impact marked him touching down there too. It was followed by him clawing at the door, pulling it free of the frame.

We backed away, past the closet door. Toward the center of the house.

“She’s not paying you, you know,” I said. “Matter of principle for a mercenary, not to work for free.”

He smiled, not giving me a response. Nothing in him faltered or showed any sign he was second-guessing things. There was only resolve. Professionalism.

His parahuman allies, that were standing in the background? From Earth N? They would follow him. Nothing there would hesitate.