You Must Fall In Love

Chapter Fifty-Three

"Rob!"

He was bleeding. His heel was bright brown. The blood was spreading all over the back of his left shoe, as if his foot had simply turned to liquid. He was standing all crooked on it, but his neck was still bared and his arms were still tensed in wild defiance, as if he didn't even feel the pain.

"I'd move away if I were you, Christine," said a wry and deeply unwanted voice. "That man is much more dangerous than he appears."

"August!" yelped Christine. "What are you doing here?"

"Oho," said Nimrod. "The prince himself."

Yusuke blinked in surprise, then undid the blink by looking straight at August.

"What can I say?" shrugged August. "I just wanted to see the planes."

"Right."

She knew she was supposed to be angry, but she just didn't have it in her. Even though she still didn't want August around, there were more pressing things at hand now.

"C! Are you alright?"

"I guess," said Christine, even though she wasn't. "Oh, and by the way, this is Nimrod Something-Or-Other."

"Weathercock," said Nimrod Weathercock. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," said August, without so much as inclining his head. "It's not every day one gets to meet a member of the Hunters Three."

"And it's not every day that a member of the Hunters Three gets to meet two of his quarries," said Nimrod. "Come along. People are starting to stare."

Christine looked nervously at Rob, then back to Nimrod. Her anxiety level had budded off into two whole anxiety levels of their own, like asexual bits of pond sludge, both of them fighting each other for dominance in her brain.

She was scared of Nimrod, because he smelled like ham and was clearly a huge creep. But she was also scared of Rob, because she hadn't seen him like this, even when his hands had been around August's throat.

"Why should we follow you, Nimrod? What's stopping us from going home?"

She tried to make her voice confident, with its usual smartass edge, but it shook even more, and so at last she put her hands on her hips to stop the rest of her ego from leaking.

"My, my, Christine, you surprise me. Do you not know the First Law of Magic?"

"M...Magic is ritual and sacrifice?"

"Oh, no, not that one. Miss Travers?"

"Um," said Jen. "Never cause a scene?"

"Precisely," said Nimrod. "Now, if you don't follow me, I will most definitely cause a scene, and I'm sure you'd much rather talk this out than use force against this poor short man, right in the middle of Stagport International."

"Force?" spat Rob. August hooked his hand under Rob's bicep, pulling steadily. Jen grew very still and silent. Yusuke drew himself dead straight.

"We should follow him, Miss Lam," he said. "We have no choice."

"Yeah," said Christine. "It's all about choice, isn't it?"

Funnily enough, she wasn't being sarcastic at all. She was tired and scared, but she felt like if she didn't make a choice now, no matter how much she tried, she would fall into a black pit of helplessness, just like the mud that had filled her nose and mouth in her dream, tasting of rice and filth.

"Let's go, Nimrod," she said. "I'm not scared of you."

"Oh, Christine, you're such a flatterer. Why would anyone be afraid of me?"

There was an answer to that question, but Christine knew that if she told the truth, she would lose all the determination that she had spent the last few minutes mustering. So she swallowed her own uncertainty and took a step forwards, trying to lead, if it were possible, from behind.

To her dim surprise, the others followed.