I’m able to get my bunk back, the shutter’s been replaced and the police are done looking at it, though nobody has taken me in for questioning so far. I wonder vaguely if there’s a warrant for me right now. A man is crying a few bunks over, and still I sleep well. Someone is watching my back, out there. I don’t think I’d be alive if not for Rose. Or at least, maybe I’d have lost my edge, bowed down to their intimidation. Having just one friend, and a friend like that, makes all the difference in the world.

  I wake up to a knocking on the shutter.

  I squirm away from my pillow, in case he decides to take another blind potshot. I hold my breath, stay as still and quiet as I can.

  “It’s Ali,” says Ali.

  I unlock the shutter and say “Oh, thank god, thought someone was-” I stare at him, and he doesn’t look happy to see me. “Yeah. I know. Time to rally the troops.”

  “They’re gathering. None of us, not even the ones not on strike.”

  “Why?”

  “New contracts? New plans? I don’t know,” he sighs. “I just don’t know.”

  “Then lets have a gathering of our own.”

  “Where? How?”

  I pull out Verns spare key. “I have a few ideas about that.”

  Me and my fifty two borrowers, that’s who I wanted, when I sent my message through the grapevine, plucked the threads of the pact for all to hear its reverberation. It spread a good deal further than that.

  Vern’s fed and watered Vivi, and walked him too, since yesterday. I pet the good boy, apologise for the noise, and put him up in Vern’s room.

  And then people start to arrive. Luis is the first, and he looks ten years older, but he’s walking, which is better than when I last saw him.

  “Hi, Heidi,” he says.

  “It’s been a while, you’re better.”

  “Brand new spine,” he says, no life in his voice. “There’s a- uh- Arleen I think is her name, Vern paid her to do some magic that really sped up recovery after the integrated spine Vern got me. So- thank you. They were really just going to mind wipe me and leave me broken.”

  “Fuckers,” I say. I remember Arleen, she healed Ali, but the annoyed sigh before she did so told me everything I needed to know about who she was. “Arleen treating you- well?”

  “Yeah, actually. She was pissed at her current borrower, like dangerously pissed. When this is over, I guess she has a use for me. If Vern’ll pull out the wolf seed, she might give me... sleep magic, or something? Sorry if that makes me a scab, I just- need something to go okay.”

  “Redemption work, nice,” I smile, surprised to find the guilt supersedes my anger, for now. “You get to be part of the witching world, like you wanted.”

  “I lost my job, I broke my back, I got rejection meds, might have hunt officers looking at me, Juan won’t return my calls. I don’t want this,” he says. “I gotta sit down.”

  Rigs filters in next, in a heavy coat. He eyes me, in the open garage, something unreadable in his eyes. He was always the strong silent type, to do what he was told and keep his true thoughts close to his chest. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was dealing with shame over his outbursts at the ball. I had pried that promise from him so easily. I think he was just saying it to satisfy me.

  Whatever’s going on in his head, whatever he was thinking about saying, it passes when he sees Luis is already here. He walks inside without a word.

  More people arrive, some in the pact, and many not. Friends who were conscripted to help end this. I know each name as they come through the garage, try to connect them to the witches they work under. A young, handsome man in expensive athletic gear with a pistol holstered neatly on his hip is named Hayes. I could place him by his manicured nails alone, he’s Bowies pet lawyer. Then there’s Iris, the girl who joined after the strike was announced, and threw her tray of drinks.

  When people stop arriving, the garage is packed, more than I called here. I close the door, walk to the other end of the room, where the instruments are all arrayed.

  I take a deep breath, enjoy knowing I’m under wards for today, at least. “Hey,” I say. “Seeing new faces here today, that’s incredible. How’re we all doing?”

  “Call off the strike,” one yells.

  “It’s too late.” They go quiet. I’m not sure I like what I’m saying, but Rose's words ring true: this isn’t a game of morals anymore, people are scared, people are desperate. It’s a game of power now. “They will come for revenge. Right now they’re all meeting, no borrowers allowed, not a single friend of ours at that table, you know why?”

  The room is silent.

  “New pacts. New plans. Maybe scabs.”

  “Boo scabs!” Yells Iris. I barely know that woman but I could kiss her. She might not be the only one who agrees, but she’s definitely the only one who agrees loud.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Gaylord wants to guarantee no borrower ever gets a pact seed like I did, they’re tightening the leash. Cat is out of the bag, even if this movement fails, they know another will be around the corner, and if we give them the chance they’ll do everything in their power to make that impossible. If we give up now, everything will be worse and they won’t give us another chance.”

  “We can’t win!” someone yells. “There are more of them, we need them to save us, they have all the power here.”

  “They told me at the last meeting how important what we do is, how irreplaceable it is,” I say. I point to Rigs: “What kind of monster are you hunting?”

  He jumps when I point to him, at the edge of the crowd, at the edge of my line of sight. He belatedly says “Like, a ghost type of thing, possesses new mothers, makes them devour their children.”

  “Jesus fucking christ,” I say, lowing my finger, shocked out of my train of thought. “Oh my god what the fuck.”

  “Hunting monsters matters.”

  “Yeah, and are they going to get that monster without your help?”

  “Not as quickly.”

  “Ali,” I point to him in the crowd, calm among the noise. “Antler guy in your bed, Sazwa have any luck fixing him?”

  Ali’s expression is grave. “Mister Freeman, no. Sazwa alone can’t cure him, the coven can barely keep him asleep without the borrowers. Next witching hour we’ll have to kill or release him.”

  “Bleak as fuck, thank you,” I point to Hayes, Bowie’s borrower, who stands front and center, hand a little too close to the gun on his hip. Vern said he’d ward this place up, but after I vanished, did he bother? Or is it just the same old privacy ward that I put on it months ago? “Hayes- you’re suing a witch hunt officer for lynching a journalist. When’s the trial date?”

  “Saturday.”

  “If you join our pact, they have six days, or they lose the chance to pursue that case.”

  “You want them to lose that case?” someone asks. “To have mothers eating babies?”

  “No, I really, really, really want to see that piece of shit face justice of some kind,” I say. “I want that monster handled, I want that borrower to not turn into a monster. But so do they. Every day we do nothing, it’s costing them dearly. That trial especially. They can’t lose that case, it’s too big, too singular. It’s not just a victim here or there, that case is the whole ball game, if that officer can’t be held accountable, it’s open season on anyone who speaks out. It’s the pin holding the future of witchkind together.”

  “If I join the pact,” he repeats, his eyes dart off of me, to somewhere behind. “And since you’re such a fan of hypotheticals, what happens if they don’t buckle? Will you end the strike to allow that case to happen? Or is your personal interest in Kerrigan more important than the witch hunt having an open season?”

  He continues to stare at the wall behind me. His hands are on his hips, nearing the gun holstered at his side. The mood has changed, the accusation sounds in the air, and I can’t bring myself to say he’s wrong. I can’t lie.

  “We’re not going to be intimidated,” I say, looking at his gun. “It’s only us borrowers here. And the witches aren’t as united as you think, I’ve made contact with the elders, one is on our side and the rest will follow or abstain.”

  Ali steps between us, puts a hand on Hayes’ shoulder. “I think it’s time to go,” he says.

  I hear a footstep behind me, flinch, and that’s the moment Hayes picks. He grabs his gun, the red dot sight is already on before it leaves the holster. He pulls it up, under Ali’s armpit, eyes towards me, and takes his shot.

  I hit the deck hard, disorientated, I kick and squirm, everyone is shouting, I don’t know if I’m shot or not, I scramble under the drumkit, and then a body hits the ground beside me. I stare at him.

  Rigs, gun in hand, and a bullet hole in his head.

  Screams ring out as peoples eyes are blocked by roiling shadow, Iris’s nails cut at the skin around her eyes, Luis drops to the ground like a man who forgot he had back surgery a week ago. Hayes wraps his arm around me and roughly pulls me through the blinded crowd. “Come with me.”

  I ball a fist, turn to resist him, and he fires two shots into the floor, the noise of which makes the whole room flinch, makes my ears ring. In that momentary flinch he takes one of my arms around my back, getting a power position as he shoves me through the crowd, towards the door. I swing my arm but I can’t reach him, I kick against him, but he’s tall, has the angle, I can’t get him to budge. I scream, one more voice in the cacophony.

  Luis’s face has become disjointed, a wolf’s snarling muzzle half grown, sniffing at the air for any information it can, the gun that was in Big’s hand disappears from the floor in a puff of crow feathers, now held by someone blind and crushed in the crowd. Some meek, asian looking man named Kewin throws a pocketful of sand at random, and two flailing figures drop unconscious, snoring peacefully. Everywhere, spells run wild, lights flash, shadows reach for shadows, chaos takes the garage.

  And then I see it. A blindfold made of shadow floating in the air, without any eyes to cover. It’s right in front of the stage, and in the panic everyone else has run every other direction. On the floor beneath it, I see a genie’s lamp, brass and shiny, which is named Ali Fathi. It rocks once, and twice, and then-

  Ali spills back out onto the floor, the blindfold gone. He scrambles forwards, gracelessly, and while I doubt the chubby professor is much of a fighter, he’s got mass, and he spears Hayes in the back. The three of us tangle on the ground.

  Shadow clears from everyone’s eyes. Hayes squirms to action, but Ali’s holding him down, and I’m the first up, the one to kick him on the ground. He stops fighting.

  I help Ali up, lock eyes with him. I don’t know what expression is on my face, my heart is in my throat. But Ali? He knows exactly what he has to say about this.

  “Listen up!” He yells, in a voice well practiced at clearing murmurs and drawing focus. For all his talk earlier, this Ali shows no hint of hesitation or second thoughts. “This is how scared they are, this is how badly they want us to stop. It’s been three days of striking, and they’re desperate enough to send hitmen!”

  It’s quiet, panicked, people checking the door to see if the wards contained the sound, a woman named Rosetta is kneeling, holding Rigs head, hands and lap covered in his blood and brains. I watch the bullet tumble from his head, the wound begin to seal- slower, then slower, then stops half done. She pounds her fists on the stage.

  “They’re fucking cowards!” Iris yells. “Always need us to do the dirty work!”

  “We survive together or we die together!” Ali yells, he looks at me, panting. I nod and he continues: “There will never be victory through half measures and capitulation. We need the pact, we need unity, we need to be ready for things to get worse, before they can get better.”

  One by one, people turn to me, understanding I put them here. I’m breathing hard, living in the calm of shock. Luis steps up to me, standing crooked, a new patchy beard on his face from his half hearted transformation.

  “What’s the line?” the would be scab asks Ali, in a whisper. Ali whispers back, then Luis offers me his hand, doomed resignation in his eyes, and says loud and clear: “I promise to strike when the union strikes, to never turn against my fellow borrower.”

  And then another repeats it. And another. And another.

  Eighty three borrowers came to the house. Eighty one borrowers leave in a pact. One captured. One dead. The price of diplomacy.