I guess they didn’t want to wait for us to come to them. They came to us.

  Mickey, Caleb, Mother Dora and I stood on the porch of the house and saw hundreds of faceless men lining the property, going so far back that I could barely see the end of the crowd. A few of the dumber ones had already tried to charge right in, and they laid on the walkway, their eyes plucked out of their sockets by Mother Dora’s ravens. The rest of them had taken care of the guards that Mickey had put at the gate, and now hunkered down behind cars, sheet metal, and other makeshift fortifications, trying to figure out what sort of defenses we had set up, plotting their next move.

  Mickey grumbled something into a walkie-talkie, got a staticky, inaudible reply, and a few seconds later a swarm of men flowed in from the back of the house and stood on both sides of us. They went into the trees, obstructing them from view and giving them cover to hide behind, and they watched the enemy. Mickey had a lot of men at his disposal, but it paled in comparison to the horde at our gate, and one marked man could take out a hundred goons at minimum.

  But Mickey and I could take out a few marked men.

  “Caleb, Mother Dora, get to those trees. Help those non-magic motherfuckers the best you can. They’re gonna need it. Mickey — come with me.” I said, and donned a sludge suit, big enough to obscure Mickey, who was a little taller than me. Mickey seemed to understand what he needed to do without me having to tell him much. Caleb and Mother Dora ran into the woods. I walked down the steps, and Mickey followed close behind me.

  I stepped down the walkway, slowly, approaching the horde with no idea what I was getting into. What if every marked man on the planet was here right now? What if Alec had finally decided to show himself? Memories of clayhounds nearly tearing me to pieces clawed their way into my head. But the memories didn’t scare me — they pissed me right the fuck off. This man — these men — had ruined my fucking life. And they had fucked up by letting me get this strong, and letting me get back here to Mickey. He was the biggest douchebag I’d ever known, but together we were powerful. Extremely fucking powerful. With my defenses and ranged coverage, and his speed and raw power to devastate people up close, we were damn near the perfect duo. For a second, I thought we might even be able to fuck up Alec if we fought him two-on-one.

  We were about to show them how badly they’d fucked up by letting us live this long.

  We got closer to the horde, and bullets started to whiz into me. Fucking idiots. They just sank into my shell. I barely even felt them. They really should’ve known better by now. Mickey stood behind me, in no danger of being hit. We kept going until we stood right in the middle of Mother Dora’s hellscape — thank fuck she set them to only attack intruders — and the bullets stopped.

  “Anyone who doesn’t have a tattoo, just go the fuck home!” I yelled. “This will not end well for you!”

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  Nobody moved. I stepped closer, and a couple of bullets whistled by, shooting from some anxious soldiers like premature ejaculate. But still, the horde didn’t thin out, and no marked men showed themselves. We walked up until we were right behind the bars of the gate. I could see the details in the soldier’s faces now. Most of them looked like people who would’ve spit on me if I hit them up for a dollar at the gas station — they were all either bald or had a buzz cut, sunglasses, medium-length beards and scaly white skin.

  “Any marked men out here,” I continued, “Y’all should just come out and show yourselves. Save these poor fucks the pain of being slaughtered to buy you a few extra minutes.”

  Nothing.

  “Really? Nobody’s gonna come out?” I asked. I was pretty annoyed, to tell you the truth. These fuckers were usually champing at the goddamn bit to fight us. Did they finally realize they should be afraid of us? Or was Alec stupid enough to send his army here without any marked men? Neither seemed likely.

  “Alright, motherfuckers. I’m gonna count to three. If no marked men come out before I get to three, I’m just gonna start ripping into you guys. Are you all ready to die?”

  I looked one of the soldiers in the front directly in his eyes. The determined look in his eyes did not waver. What a brave, stupid son of a bitch. I was going to kill him first.

  “One…” I said like a mother whose patience was running thin, holding up my middle finger.

  “Two…” My other middle finger went up. Still, no response.

  I paused. Mickey tapped me on the shoulder. He was ready to fuck some people up.

  “Three.”

  Mickey opened the gate and pressed his back against mine. I swallowed him into the sludge shell, leaving nothing but a couple of air holes near his nose and mouth. I did the same for myself. He lifted his arms, though it seemed to be a bit of a struggle, and extended his pole from his right hand until it stuck out several feet on either side. I ran headfirst into the horde.

  The bullets patted against my shell like rain against a roof, in a soft, soothing rhythm. Then came the heavier, wetter smacks of human body parts flying through the air as Mickey’s pole cut through them and caused them to burst. Their bodies popped with such little resistance that it barely slowed me down. Red, pink, and white cascaded down in front of me and took up almost my entire field of vision. I spun in a circle and a hundred men died.

  God damn, Mickey is a strong son of a bitch.

  The army splintered into two, half running in one direction and half in the other, all as far away from GusMickey as possible.

  Perfect.

  We took out a few stragglers who couldn’t run as fast as the rest of them, but once they were far enough away, I let Mickey out of the sludge suit and took most of it off of myself, just leaving a thin shell on my legs and torso.

  The scene looked eerily similar to the street where I fought the thorny rat man, where Mickey had turned the street into a fucking butcher’s shop. The sight of scattered human parts, entrails, oceans of blood hardly even phased me at this point. It was just the status quo when fighting with Mickey — or against him.

  “Ha! That was fuckin’ incredible!” Mickey laughed. “Can’t believe no marked men came out though.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” I said. “Are they even here?”

  “Alec would have to be dumber than he looks to try to attack our headquarters with no marked men. He tried it a couple of times, before all this shit went down, but I always figured it was just to get information on me.”

  “Maybe that’s what this is,” I said.

  “He ain’t sending thousands of men for a fuckin’ scouting mission,” Mickey said. “Something shady is afoot though, I know that much.”