“It’s worked, then. If he wants me to be his enemy then he’s got it,” I said, my voice low. I didn’t clench my fists because I was pretty sure that if I did, I wouldn’t unclench them until they were halfway through this sneering asshole’s skull.

“You know Teacher’s doing a whole thing, right? Manipulating information, setting friends against friends, enemies against enemies, to create enough distraction that nobody’s organized enough to work against him? He left stuff around for her to find,” Cryptid told us. “He doesn’t trust me after the years we spent jockeying for power in the Birdcage, I cured some of his thralls, fucked with him a few too many times. He wants to pretend he’s objective and rational but he can hold a grudge. He was fucking with your sis, Victoria, I knew he’d keep doing it until I took that card away from him.”

“By putting me in that room with a monster?”

“You’re more monstrous than she is,” he said. “And Coalbelcher? You’re really fucking slow.”

Coalbelcher was coming down the hallway. Heavy, with a roll of a chin covered in stubble, black smudges all over his face to create the illusion of a three-dimensional skull, drooling thick rivulets of black that disappeared into his top. He wore an outfit of nice Shin fashion that had been stained with black handprints and globs.

“Coalbelcher. We made a deal before,” I tried.

“You got me out of prison in exchange for my help. Or I got out of prison and it happened coincidentally. I’ve made more deals with him, more recently, and that counts for more. I like the current gig.”

“You have nothing,” Cryptid said.

“Guards should be thirty seconds behind me,” Coalbelcher said. “I think I hear ’em.”

I looked to the camera in the stairwell, let the tech in my eye lock on, and looked through it. Sure enough, they were coming down.

“Good. Let’s not give them an excuse to say they did half the work. Blast ’em.”

I saw Coalbelcher draw a breath, rearing back, while Cryptid hopped back, hauling a door open to use the room inside as cover. I flew forward, to act as cover.

Coalbelcher vomited a stream of black at us, a geyser spray.

I saw him clench his fist, punching it forward into the stream he’d just terminated.

It detonated, a rolling explosion that chased the geyser toward us. And with Vista’s space warping, it changed direction and all splashed along one wall, licking it with fire.

Already flying forward to intercept, I kept going. The only way to do this was to execute it quickly and efficiently.

And if need be, kill them and have Ashley annihilate the evidence.