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A soft thump followed by a crying sound, and then a loud thump and cut-off scream. The peephole is now obscured. Checking out the window reveals the bottom edge of a long white dress and a petite foot, clad in a pink ballet slipper sprawled upon the ground.

He was wasting no time, Fiona's sunlight-runes eerie in the dark hotel room, bag already over his shoulder and useless phone stowed away in a pocket.

Taym (being Taym) had apparently decided to pull rank, issuing orders in a whisper: "Grace, you stick to Maebe. Joy, Hope, you stick to me. If we get separated at all and you run into me or Maebe again ask us something about the car trip up here or something and if we can't answer it, run as fast you ******** can in the other direction."

He tucked the knife under his coat. Having it already in his hand when it summoned instantly was stupid and unnecessary and he knew it, but it was comforting, a tangible reminder that he'd gotten through worse than this; that the girls' protectors were more than mere humans and that so far the only threat they'd actually seen was far less (as far as he knew).

He took Maebe aside again (not-so-casually putting himself between the girls and the door), whispering rapidly: "The text to Edith didn't go through. If you get a spare second and it won't break your focus, keep trying. Otherwise give it up for now. We can take the short route through whatever's out there--" he jerked a thumb at the door "--or the long route out the bathroom window and through the courtyard. I'm leaning to the latter. I don't want to leave them here while one of us goes and looks, not with--not with what's out there."

He paused. He was apparently, despite the clipped, urgent orders and his utter lack of respect for her decision-making abilities, awaiting her input.

In the moment that he awaited Maebe's answer he kept half an eye on the girls, watchful. What sort of a life was that--a life so full of urgent whispered orders at 2:00 AM, so full of shifting shadows and lurking horrors that even a ******** trip to summer camp was fraught with constant peril? What kind of life was it, to be absorbed in a ******** cell phone conversation one second and then next running for your lives? To be calmly exchanging encouraging smiles in the midst of unknown danger with people you ached to protect and knew, secretly, that you couldn't, not really? A life of asking an innocent question about a friendly name, unaware that that same name was now registered in a roster of murderous turncoats? What kind of life, here and now, of simply surviving from one moment of fear to the next, propelled from one trauma to another, with exactly enough time between for the nightmares to start?

And just as soon as he thought it, he supplied his own answer, dull and exhausted. What kind of life? Right. Ours.

Another glance over her shoulder at the girls.

She was right, of course: this was everything he was always ranting about, every bit of "arm your people with information" that he'd ever gone to bat for, and here, now, he desperately wished that he could do anything but talk about it. He swallowed, and spoke, again, for her ears only.

"The thing that looks like me isn't--they aren't a problem, as far as I know. If it's what I think it is it's just a sort of golem but I don't know what they're capable of. But the thing that made them--"

He hesitated, trembled. "They came from the Sahara and the one that made them was--it gave orders and they were obeyed--unthinkingly. You remember that b***h on the tower? Not nearly that powerful, but one of her ilk. I don't know where these came from but the labs were really interested in it them so I don't think there's a--a bunch of them. It's not the golem I'm afraid of--it's, it's whatever... made it. Or came with it, even. It didn't just show up here on its own, they aren't that smart. And that," he finished bitterly, "is why I don't want to go 'guns blazing' through the parking lot."

Golems. That meant she could wail on them like dolls, and that lifted her spirits. This lasted for an entire glorious second, before he informed her that it was their master they would have to deal with, and nothing about that sounded easy. She was this close - this close to changing her mind and just agreeing with him, when she heard the sound of the bathroom window breaking. Thaw was summoned in her hand in one motion, and Grace was swept into her arms with another.

"Looks like they just made our decision for us, sweetie." Maebe hissed out through clenched teeth. "Grace, you hang on, and don't let go for anything. Trust me, nobody with a name that pretty is getting hurt tonight."

And that included herself.

The girl from earlier was waiting for them, upright, unharmed, and unhappy. "You would leave such a girl alone to die, yes? I was told," she sneered, "your sort was...heroic ."

From the bathroom, the thing that was both Taym and not at all, emerged. Posture and bearing mimicked that of its original, it gave Taym his own vicious grin.

Maebe had said both the best and worst thing she could to the girl. Eyes wide, she turned her attention from Taym to Maebe and then smiled like a funhouse mirror. "Sasha..." she giggled, all teeth and girlish glee.

"Saaaaaaaa-shaaaa!" The sweet sing-song of her voice turned savage and guttural as she was suddenly upon Maebe, slamming the blonde to the ground. "Where is she? Where is my body?!"

The girls were forgotten, the clone remained impassive, the way through the front door was clear.