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  Then she remembered what Dylan had taught her, the self-defense moves she had practiced for a short time with him. She tried to calm down, control her breathing, but all of her breaths were shallow with her heart feeling like it was thumping in and out of her chest. She vaguely noticed her vision going dark around the corners, narrowing down to what she was focusing on. Her hands were shaking, and her entire body felt cold. But that wasn’t important. What was important, was the guy nearest to her, closing in on her.

  In a fit of desperation, she threw her shoulder bag at the face of the guy on her right, shouting, “Here, leave me alone!” By the time she turned back to the one on her left, he had reached her, clamping his hands on her shoulders. Screaming, she lifted both of her hands up as high as she could, then brought her elbows down on his arms, breaking his hold. Before he could grab her again, she socked him blindly; the punch caught the punk in the throat, causing him to stumble backwards and land on his ass, clutching his throat.

  Holy shit! It worked—

  Then someone grabbed her from behind.

  She wasn’t even thinking now, just moving. She brought her foot down hard on his instep, grateful she was wearing her kicky boots with the Cuban heels, and not, say, her trainers. She actually felt his bones break.

  So did he.

  He screamed like a girl, and let go, flailing wildly. With one foot broken, he had lost his balance, and in the next second he fell off the end of the walkway, still screaming. She heard a splash, but her attention wasn’t on him.

  “Don’t look at me, you morons, grab her, damnit!” One of the thugs moved to respond; so did the leader, while the last one just stood there, not willing to commit. The thug that did move, however, came at her head-on in a full sprint. He had picked up a pipe somewhere along the way, and was carrying it over his head in both hands. She knew that when he hit her, it was going to probably be in her head or shoulders. Panicking, Staci threw her arms up in front of her face, shutting her eyes, and thinking about how she had done nothing to deserve this. In that moment, she felt overcome with anger bordering on rage, and screamed at the thug.

  “Don’t hit me!” She started at the sound of her own voice. It was…loud. Not like, screaming loud, but like echo-chamber loud. With a snarl in it.

  And a glowing dome of light suddenly exploded out of her, covering her like a cupcake dome, ending about an arm’s length away.

  But when the pipe hit it, the dome didn’t act like a glass cupcake dome. It acted like it was made of cement.

  The pipe hit it, and bounced right back into the thug’s face, breaking his nose, splattering blood everywhere as he staggered back about three steps before keeling over backwards.

  Did I do that? Staci looked down at her hands, uncomprehending for a moment.

  The leader stopped short for a second, dumbfounded. His confusion didn’t last long, however; with a bellow of rage, he pressed forward, grabbing Staci and backhanding her. She felt her nose and lip begin to bleed, and the entire left side of her face began to throb immediately. Staci fixed her eyes on the leader; his mouth was curled in a half-snarl, half-grin. He thought he had her cowed, thought that he finally had the upper hand. That only pissed Staci off even more. She hated assholes like this guy. People who thought that because they could beat people up, that they should. That might makes right. That because they had it shitty, they should make it that way for everyone else. Staci felt something building up inside of her, until it felt like it was bursting through her skin, her pores.

  Staci smacked her open palm against the leader’s face, and shouted, “Reodh!”

  There was a burst of light from her hand, and she felt for a moment as if every bit of energy had just drained out of her, and she was going to faint. In fact, her vision went gray for a moment, before it cleared, and she swayed back a step.

  But the leader of the muggers was not so lucky. He stiffened like a board, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell straight back, exactly like a tree being cut down. The back of his head hit the wooden walkway with a sharp crack. Still pissed off, she took a couple of short steps and then kicked him as hard as she could in the crotch, just like Dylan suggested.

  By this time, most of the other thugs had recovered—all but the one that was in the water, anyway. Shouting to each other, they all started running…not towards Staci, but away from her, scrambling out and down the alley. Looking behind her, she didn’t even see the thug that had fallen; he must have decided to bail on his buddies. Or maybe he drowned; she didn’t really care. For a few moments, she considered gathering her purse, running as fast as she could back to her bicycle, and then finding the nearest cop and telling him everything that had just happened. Some small part of her, however, told her to stay.

  The leader of the thugs started to come to; he was groaning, clutching his face and his crotch as he writhed on the ground. Staci still felt the sting on her face from where he had hit her, and the trickles of blood from her nose and the cut on her lip. She walked up next to the thug. On the ground, in pain, he looked far less intimidating; a kid playing at being a gangster, a bad man instead of the real McCoy. The cheap, little, dirty…

  Staci jabbed the toe of her shoes into his ribs. “Why did you attack me, you little jerkwad?”

  “I don—nothin’!” he gasped, and she kicked him again in the side. “Shit! Stoppit ya little psycho-bitch!”

  “Then tell”— kick —“me”— kick —“why”—

  “Shit, shit, shit, okay!” The thug was curled up on his side, trying vainly to protect himself, but all he was getting was bruises in new places. Maybe even a broken rib. She was kicking hard. She stopped for a moment, and he looked up at her through fingers trying to protect his face. “It was the cops!”

  She took a pace back. “What?”

  “It was a cop. The juvie one. Krupke. He told us t’find you an’ rough you up. Said your ma was the slut at the Rusty Bucket and you’d prolly put ou—”

  Enraged, she gave him another kick, and this time there was a little flash of light when she connected and she did hear a bone snap…and again she felt energy drain out of her. He screamed, clutched his side with one hand, and fumbled in his pocket with the other. She got ready to stomp on his hand in case he had a knife, but what he brought out was a handful of glittering gold chains. “Here!” the punk gasped. “He paid us with this! Take it! Just—stop kicking me!”

  She bent down and snatched the jewelry from his hand. Then she stalked over to where her purse was lying and stuffed the chains inside it, turning to glare at him. “Follow me—or come after me again—and you’ll wish you hadn’t,” she snarled, and stalked down the wooden walkway. “And my bike better still be there!” she added as an afterthought.

  When she got out of sight, though, she ran. Now that it was all over…she was sick, and scared, and all she wanted to do was get home and lock the door.

  Thankfully, her bicycle was still where she had left it. Evidently, the thugs had been too preoccupied with chasing her to do anything with it, so it only had a couple of scratches from when she had dropped it and ran. The entire ride home was a blur to her; moments of panic, checking over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed, having to stop when she started to shake from fear and shock, almost getting sick when she remembered the sound of the thugs’ bones breaking—and her being the one that made those bones break.

  When she finally got home, she left her bike on the front porch and marched through the living room and straight upstairs to her room, slamming the door behind her and locking it. If her mother had been home, she didn’t notice or care. Then she fell down on her bed, curling up and fighting back the tears. She had never been in a fight before. She’d never hurt anyone before, especially in such a physical way. She felt sick; she felt as though she couldn’t breathe. More than anything, she felt terrified. How could…that person, the person who had done all that…be inside her?

  And the punk had said it had been a cop who h
ad paid his gang to attack her! If the cops were after her, how could she possibly be safe in this town?

  Was that the same cop that was hassling Dylan the first time I saw him?

  She started to cry, helplessly. I’m only a kid! No one is going to believe me, especially not if the cops are in on this! What am I going to do? Why are they doing this to me? Who is doing this to me?

  Suddenly, the memory of the punk holding out that handful of gold chains struck her and dried up her tears. She reached over the side of the bed and dragged up her purse. The tangle of gold was still on top; she pulled it out and stared at it. She knew good jewelry and this was good stuff, heavy gold chains, several thousand dollars worth.

  And in her mind she could hear Dylan. “It’s called kenning. It’s a magic spell, I can duplicate pretty much anything I care to, as long as I’ve seen and handled it. And don’t start in on duplicating your stupid paper money and serial numbers; we figured that part out a long time ago. When I need money, I duplicate a couple of gold chains or rings and sell them at a pawn shop.”

  An elf had sponsored this attack. An elf had paid for it. Who else in this town would have heavy gold chains with an antique look to them? Silence was the sort of place where anything like that had ended up in a bank vault or a pawn shop a long, long time ago. And certainly no one would be using gold like this to pay off a street punk gang. Staci was absolutely sure of it in that moment. But that surety only brought more questions…and more fear.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She might have thought it was all a nightmare when she woke up the next morning, except for two things. The bruises on her arms, and the fistful of gold chains still in her purse. Strangely, the bruises on her arms were not nearly as bad as they had been last night—and the damage to her face had already healed.

  Last night she hadn’t been able to think. But now she wasn’t full of adrenaline and panic. She reached past the chains to her cell phone, and called Dylan. Dylan would know what this meant…and maybe he’d know who did this.

  He answered on the third ring, sounding sleepy. “Hey, Staci…it’s kinda early…”

  She glanced at the clock, and felt a sense of shock. Six A.M. She was never awake this early. “I know, but something bad happened last night. I need to talk to you right now!”

  “Okay, okay. Not over the phone. It’s not…safe. Meet you on the Hill.”

  Then he hung up and she stared at the phone in her hand. Not safe? What does that mean? Then she shook her head. It didn’t matter. She was wide awake and he had just said he’d meet her. That did matter.

  In a few minutes she was dressed and out the front door, picking up her bike and racing towards Makeout Hill. All the fear that she had shut away yesterday was coming back to her now in full force. Initially, this entire deal seemed like it would be cool. She would get to play the spy in the pretend movie in her mind, going to exclusive parties, hanging off of the arm of the hottest guy in the room, and trading secrets to save the world—well, at least Silence. But yesterday was all too much. People—and monsters, let’s not forget the creepy gnomes-turned-hulking-monsters-with-huge-knives—were after her. The cops were in on it; she felt certain that Finn had to have at least some of them in his pocket. And she was just a kid; how was she supposed to deal with this? She should have been worrying about what to wear, what the latest gossip was, which of her favorite musicians was coming out with a new album. Not whether she was going to live through to the next day.

  All that fear just put more strength in her legs, and she was at the top of the Hill in record time, hardly out of breath at all. And Dylan wasn’t there.

  He still wasn’t there five minutes later, by which time she had punched his contact three times, and gotten no answer.

  She was frantic ten minutes later, when she finally heard the sound of Metalhead approaching. By this point, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to punch him in the nose or cry on his shoulder. She settled for running up to him as he skidded to a halt, yelling, “Where have you been?” as he pulled off his helmet.

  He frowned. “Listen! I got here as fast as I could. I was out and away from town, and Metalhead can’t fly. There’s some things even elvensteeds can’t do. What’s going on?”

  She began babbling, just spilling everything out in no real order, talking as fast as if she was on drugs or something. After only a couple of minutes he held up a hand.

  “Whoa. Stop. You’re not making any sense, kiddo.” He looked around, then back to Staci. “Listen, sit down, catch your breath. I’m going to get something for us real quick. I’m not going anywhere, just over to a saddlebag on Metalhead,” he said, noticing the panic in her eyes at “I’m going.”

  She sat down on a wide root, although she felt so wound up she was ready to jump to her feet at any moment. To try and steady herself she clutched at the top of her purse, reminding herself that if Dylan showed any doubt of her story, she had the evidence right there.

  He came back with something wrapped up in cloth, and two perfectly ordinary water bottles. “Here,” he said, handing the bundle to her. “There’s two in there, I get one. I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

  She unwrapped something that looked like…two giant turnovers, except they were shaped like half-moons, and weren’t flaky. Or calzones, except they weren’t pizza dough. It was more like pie crust. She poked one with a fingernail, dubiously. “What are these?”

  “Cornish pasties,” said Dylan, taking one and biting into it, ravenously.

  Well, that didn’t answer her question, but they looked good, so she bit into hers. The crust was a pie crust, and the inside was chopped meat, potatoes, onions, and something she couldn’t identify. It was good. In fact, it was just what she needed; it brought her back to the moment, helped her to ride the fear down.

  “So,” Dylan said around a mouthful of pasty. “From the beginning, what happened last night?”

  She opened one of the water bottles and took a drink, and a breath. More slowly now, but with no less urgency, she began describing what had happened. Getting ambushed. Getting attacked. Fighting back, and that, she described in detail.

  “You actually manifested a shield?” Dylan looked as if he was going to drop his pasty for a moment. “You…you shouldn’t even be able to do that yet, with no training. That’s…interesting.”

  “I had plenty of motivation!” she said. “He was coming at me with a pipe!”

  “No doubt. Motivation is only part of it, though. What you did was something a novice shouldn’t be able to do, off the cuff, with no training. It’d be like you jumping up on a balance beam for the first time and doing a perfect acrobatic routine.” He looked…perplexed. Well, at least he believed her.

  “Maybe I’m a Jedi,” she retorted, not entirely joking.

  “Maybe…” Dylan looked at her queerly for a moment more, then went back to eating his pasty. “Continue on, young Padawan.”

  “When I got the last one on the ground, I was really, really pissed off. I started yelling at him to tell me why he and his gang-bangers had come after me. And he did…” She gulped. “He said one of the cops had told them to. And he’d paid them off with this—” She dug in her purse and brought out the handful of gold chains, holding them out to him. “It’s elves, right? Or an elf. I don’t know who else would pay off a gang to do a hit in gold chains!”

  “If a cop gave them to the punks, could be stolen chains he picked out of evidence, or confiscated as stolen property from a pawnshop or something. Here,” he said, putting down the remains of his pasty and holding out a hand after wiping it on his jeans. “Let me have a look.” Staci handed Dylan the chains, and his eyes immediately grew wide. “No doubt about it; magic made these. Definitely elven in origin, too.” He handed the chains back to her. “Whoever is in control of the cops, they’re elven. And they want you taken out.”

  Her mind went very still. And all she could do, was wail, “But what do I do?”

  “Well, if someone
wants you out of the picture, it means that you’re a threat to them. It means that what we’re doing? It’s working. I’m still here for you, Staci. We can make this work. You’re clearly a lot stronger than I thought; with some more training, we can make you into a true badass. If you want, that is.” He reached out, taking hold of one of her hands. “Things are dangerous right now; they have been from the beginning. But you have to ask yourself if you want to see this thing through to the end or not. I can’t make that decision for you.”

  She thought about that. Really thought about it. I’ve got nowhere else to go, she told herself. And it was true, of course. She couldn’t go back home; Dad hadn’t accepted her anguished pleas to stay before and he certainly wouldn’t now that the only anguished plea she could make was by text or email. He would never believe her if she told him about the cops being after her. And if she told him something mundane, that he might believe, like the fact that mom’s boyfriends were trying to molest her, he’d—or, more properly, Brenda—would say she was exaggerating and demand proof that she didn’t have.

  So her choice was not whether to stay or not. There was no choice in that. She was stuck here. Her choice was whether to let whoever this was run over her and leave her as road-pizza, or fight.

  Which when it came right down to it, wasn’t much of a “choice” at all. Because she knew how this sort of thing went. If, for whatever reason, “they” couldn’t get to you, they’d come after your friends, your family, or both. So yeah, there was a thought. Go after Mom, throw her in jail, and then let Social Services come get me. And I get put into Child Protective Services, or even into juvie hall as a stop-gap, because allegedly they can’t get hold of Dad, and then…something bad happens to me. Dad being a lawyer and all, she knew all about how kids fell through the cracks all the time, and then the cracks squeezed shut on them. Sure, saving the world sounded great in a movie…but saving yourself was a lot more important.