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  Then, just as her vision started to get dark around the edges, suddenly, she was able to gasp in a breath. She cradled her left arm in her right, kneeling, crouched over, just concentrating on breathing.

  It couldn’t have taken longer than ten seconds, from being kicked to being able to breathe again; it had felt like an eternity. Still forcing air in and out of her lungs one gulp at a time, she looked up. Sean was still watching her, his sneer of disgust and puzzlement marring his face so that he looked like some sort of medieval gargoyle. Dylan chose that moment to act.

  The light within him just amped up over the course of a few seconds until Staci could scarcely look at him. Then he thrust out his right hand, palm facing Sean, as if he was shoving at Sean’s chest. And even though Sean was several feet away from him, at that moment, it looked as if he had been hit by a hurricane-force wind. He staggered back a pace or two, his pupils dilating then contracting again. He looked shocked, then his face set into a fierce glare as he tried to fight against whatever it was that Dylan was throwing at him.

  But even though he set his feet, he was pushed back, his feet plowing two furrows in the earth. Dylan’s power began to pulse, and with each pulsation, Sean was forced back a little more.

  And then, as Dylan let loose with a final pulse of power; his “light” cut off abruptly. Sean staggered back a few more paces, then stumbled forward as the force cut off.

  Sean was far enough away from Dylan, now. Reaching into a jacket pocket first, Dylan threw something at the gazebo.

  It looked like a gilded starfish, or some type of ninja throwing star encrusted with jewels. Even though Dylan had thrown the object with deadly accuracy and speed, it changed constantly, or so it seemed to her vision. It was made specifically to not just close the Gate, but destroy it, permanently. She held her breath as it sailed end over end, changing constantly—

  —and then exploded to pieces as the edge of Sean’s sword cleft through it, releasing the magic within in a small pyrotechnic display.

  Sean leaned on his sword, panting a little, but grinning nastily. “That was it? That was your big play? A black market relic? How anticlimactic. It’s even going to be disappointing to kill you.”

  Dylan, clearly deflated from his failure, regained some of his composure. He settled into a defensive stance, sword and shield up and at the ready. She saw something in his eyes, a kind of surety and resolve. Oh, no. No, no, no. He’s ready to die fighting. Her mind scrambled for some solution, any way she could prevent the inevitable. Sean stalked towards Dylan, his sword raised high above his head; there was no fear or hesitation there, as if the coming strike was a foregone conclusion. And it probably was; with all of the power that Sean was drawing from the Gate, he was more than a match for the more experienced Dylan. She couldn’t attack him again; she probably would die if she attempted that again, with how hurt she already was—and she already knew she wouldn’t succeed in doing anything but distract him briefly. She innately knew that if she tried to hit him with magic, the result would be the same; he was too supercharged.

  Supercharged. Like my sword was. Like my chainmail shirt.

  Every little movement pained her, but she pulled one of her last daggers from her belt. Biting down on the blade, she undid the leather belt and threw it, along with the rest of her iron weaponry, to the side. Her left arm was tucked against her breast; it seemed to throb with her every heartbeat, but she ignored the intense pain. She readied her dagger in her one good hand, awkwardly shuffling the grip around until she was holding it in a reverse grip, with the point down. She moved as quickly as she could towards the Gate, her whole body aching.

  As she neared the Gate, she was met by a wall of crackling, blue-white energy that rose up around her, as if she was on the inside of one of those lightning globes her mom had had until a stoned boyfriend broke it. The tendrils of lightning converged on her, making her eyes water with pain where they hit her and danced across the surface of her skin. Her hair stood out all over her head as if she was holding an electrode, and she whimpered as the crackling tendrils continued to lash her. But she pushed forward anyway.

  Every step was agony, and it felt as if she was barely in control of her own body. Through the haze of pain, she saw that she was close to the Gate. The same dark magical energy that was flowing to Sean trickled from the Gate and licked at her in dark eddies of current, caressing her skin. With a fierce yell, she raised the dagger above her head, bringing it down as hard as she could into the post nearest her.

  Whatever sort of energy field she had stepped into immediately faded away. Her dagger, however, had taken on the same sort of look that her sword had. This time the energy seeping through the cracks was dark. Instinctively, Staci knew she had to add energy to it, otherwise the dagger would be destroyed. She knew that she couldn’t suffer through trying to get another piece of iron stuck into the Gate. She focused everything she had felt and experienced since she had come to Silence—all of the fear, the anger, the acceptance, even the love—into the blade, pouring her own magical energy into it. In starts, the energy coming through the blade started to turn light, then golden, until it blazed through, banishing the dark energy in the surrounding area.

  It’s working!

  Staci was almost startled enough to let go of the knife when she felt not just the energy she was pouring into it pass through her, but also even more energy being drawn from her. The Gate and the iron of the dagger were sucking her energy, even her very life-force, away from her. Everything was going dark for her. She was aware of Dylan and Sean, still fighting, in the periphery of her vision. Dylan’s shield was completely gone, and he was clearly injured. Sean was readying a final downward thrust that Dylan couldn’t possibly defend against.

  Staci screamed. The last of her energy, all of her emotion and magic bundled up into one final exclamation, thrust into the blade, and then the Gate, in a burst. There was a shock wave that threw all three of them to the ground. Staci tumbled backwards bonelessly before landing on her back. The angle she had landed at allowed her to see the Gate, her head lolling to the side. The dark energy had been completely dispelled, and the entire structure of the Gate looked as her sword had; great seams and cracks ran along its structure, with golden light pouring out of it, illuminating the entire clearing. With a deafening roar, the Gate exploded, gold and black flames dancing out in all directions. Her dagger and the post that she had stabbed it into were the only parts left standing of the Gate. Both had turned charcoal black, carbonized and smoking in place.

  Slowly, her gaze tracked to Sean and Dylan. Sean was on his knees; his sword was in pieces; he was still grasping the hilt, the barest sliver of the blade planted in the grass. His armor was ruined; it was cracked in much the same way her sword and the Gate had been, with smoke seeping through the cracks. His once perfect hair and skin were burnt and smudged, and his eyes were vacant and unseeing. He looked hollow.

  Dylan, who had been laid out facedown, raised himself up. He took in the scene for a moment as he came to his feet. Deliberately, he bent down, retrieving his sword. Without uttering a word, he limped up to Sean, placing his left hand on the dark elf’s shoulder. Then, while looking him in the eyes, Dylan slowly pushed his sword through Sean’s breastbone and out his back. Sean could only offer a single gasp before he slid off of the sword and onto the ground, dead.

  Staci couldn’t move; she was fighting for every breath. Everything hurt, and what didn’t hurt, felt as if it didn’t work anymore. Dylan sheathed his sword, and limped over to her, looking down at her impassively. “Well,” he said finally. “You did it. You really did it. Damn. Well, time for me to go.” He started to turn to leave.

  Staci fought for breath, fought to say something, and couldn’t get anything out. What did he mean, Time for him to go? “But—why?” she choked out.

  He turned back. And for the first time she saw something other than anger or a devil-may-care expression on his face. It looked as if he was fighting with a myr
iad of emotions. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it quickly. Finally, his shoulders sagged; something had changed, and he had made a decision. “I was just going to keep walking. To leave you and let it break like that, hard and clean. But…I owed you more than that. I’m leaving because what you want out of me will never work. It never has, and it never will. Elves and humans…you live and die in less than a couple years, so far as we are concerned. I’ll look like this when you’re a wrinkled old woman. And then what? And what about the years in between, when first people think I’m your boytoy, and then I’m your son, and then your grandson? I already know how you’d take that, because I’ve seen it before. Before it was over, you’d hate me, loathe me, blame me for bringing all this on you. So hey, now I’m just part of Staci’s Big Adventure. Leave it that way, kid. We’re both better off. You don’t want to follow me where I’m going; there’s still more Unseleighe. And I’m not through with them.”

  In that moment, Metalhead pulled up next to him. He threw his leg over the motorcycle…and roared off.

  Staci felt her heart break in that moment. She had saved her friends—she couldn’t hear any more fighting or screaming in the distance—and saved the town. Even saved Dylan from being killed by Sean. In the end…he had deserted her, as if everything they had shared had meant nothing to him. She wanted to curl up into a ball and sob, but she didn’t have the energy to do even that. Instead, she stayed on her back, tears streaming down the side of her face in silence save for the labored breaths she was barely able to manage.

  She didn’t know how long she was there, lying on her back in the clearing. She had closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them…Finn was staring back at her. He was standing over her, grinning horribly. There was a manic look in his eyes, as if he was on the verge of hysteria. The rest of him looked like it had been put through the wringer; half of his face was smeared with blood, his hair matted down by it. There were cuts and burns on the rest of his body, and his right arm hung limp at his side.

  “I knew that Sean wanted you as more than a plaything, you little bitch. I was going to steal you at one point and use all that tasty power of yours for myself, or maim you in ways that would make him not want you anymore, and then claim you anyway. But, no. You shacked up with him”—he huffed out the word, looking up in the direction that Dylan had gone—“and ruined everything. The Gate is closed, Bradan locked in Underhill and no way to open it. The clan is sundered. You helped kill Sean, which I must thank you for…but you have destroyed what was rightfully mine! I’m going to kill you, now. I must say, I’ve been waiting a long time to do this—”

  She sobbed in terror; but then the sobs stuck in her throat, as movement in the air above Finn’s head made her wonder what new horror was coming. The air seemed to solidify into a mesh, like a—net?

  Then, without warning, even as Finn slowly pulled a dagger from his belt, relishing the fear in her face, the mesh fell on him. Before she could blink, it had covered him from head to toe, contracting instantly and holding him imprisoned, with a wider stretch plastered across his mouth like duct tape.

  Somehow, he didn’t fall, but he twitched in place as he struggled against his prison, his movements growing more frantic as the meshes of the net started to glow with power.

  She smelled…burning. Burning hair, burning fabric. And burning flesh. The net was burning Finn, and he first whimpered, then tried to scream, as the burning mesh ate into him, flesh and fabric charring as if the net was made of white-hot strands of metal. And as it burned, it contracted, and the fabric of his clothing began to catch fire.

  A heartbeat later, and where Finn had been standing was a man-shaped tower of flame, still writhing, still trying to scream.

  Then the tower stopped moving and fell over, but it continued burning, burning with the terrible, sweet smell of cooking flesh, until, finally there was nothing on the grass but a smear of greasy char.

  Staci’s vision was starting to contract, going dark at the edges. Whatever was coming, it was powerful; even without the benefit of her vision, she could feel the magic emanating from it. She almost wanted to give up, just let whatever had killed Finn kill her, too. She wouldn’t have to think about Dylan, think about him leaving her. The betrayal. But…there was a tiny voice inside of her that still told her Fight. Feebly, she tried to roll onto her side, the pain in her shattered arm screaming through her all the while; maybe if she could reach a dagger, she would be able to do something.

  She was aware that someone was kneeling next to her. Still she tried to move, do anything, even though her body barely responded. Finally, she was able to bring her right arm up; a final gesture, she thought, before the end came. The figure next to her didn’t kill her, however; instead, it gently took her hand into its hands. There was a pause, and then she felt…light flowing into her through her hand. Not just light, but life. It took her body a moment, but it recognized the energy, and she started when the darkness pushed back from the edges of her vision. The figure was still blurry, but dropped one of its hands to cradle her shoulders, lifting her up.

  “Take it easy, kiddo. You’ve had a rough night.”

  That voice…she knew it, and her mind struggled through memory and the haze of pain to attach meaning to it. Then her vision cleared. The leather jacket. The pale skin from spending too much time indoors. The full beard, full of salt and pepper, surrounding the same understanding smile. The leather jacket. And finally the gray eyes.

  It was Tim.

  * * *

  “Bye, Staci; ’Night, Tim!” “Don’t forget we’re starting the Steampunk game Thursday.”

  The gang filed out of the bookstore, making their farewells as if the fight up at the Blackthorne Estate hadn’t happened, as if Seth wasn’t still favoring his right side, Riley wasn’t limping, as if Staci herself wasn’t walking gingerly with her left arm in a cast and sling, with the cuts and burns on her face and arms.

  Impossible as it seemed, the entire town had accepted the explanation that “multiple propane tanks” on the Blackthorne Estate had exploded, causing a “tragic fire” that had killed everyone there. Certainly, the buildings had burned down; in fact, as Tim had collected Staci and carried her to Wanda’s van where he’d managed to herd up the others, the fires had already started. From the satisfied look on Tim’s face, she suspected he might have personally helped those fires along.

  Tim had taken Staci to the ER himself, once they all got back to town. The doctors had simply taken his word for it that he’d found her at the side of the road when he’d gone up to see if he could help with the fires. “Don’t say anything,” he’d told her. “You’re in shock. You don’t remember anything.”

  That part had been easy enough for her; she genuinely had felt like she was in shock, and not remembering felt much better than remembering. So, she played dumb. The cops that interviewed her, while initially skeptical, soon caved in and took her statement at face value. Besides, there was no one left to argue the point. And it wasn’t as if they were going to think she was some kind of cross between MacGyver and the Girlfriend from Hell and had gone ballistic over something “her boyfriend” Sean had said or done and blown up the place herself. She was the Dumb Chick from New York City, who just happened to be dating the Silence version of Richie Rich. That suited her fine, even though that hadn’t been the truth for a good long while.

  The last couple of weeks had taken on the same surreal feeling she had had when she first started out in Silence. Meeting Sean, meeting Dylan, learning about Red Caps and Hunters and all sorts of other horrors that go bump in the night…and sometimes the day. Her mother was doing better, tapering off on the booze and bad boyfriends, though nowhere near fully recovered. The whole town was much the same way, as if her mother was some sort of barometer; ragged, broken in all sorts of ways, but slowly rebuilding itself, hopefully. Time would tell. All of the industries and businesses involved with the Blackthornes were in legal turmoil, but the general consensus was t
hat it would be sorted out, one way or the other. There was talk of a company from back East that had eyes on Silence--Fairgrove Industries. Tim had cautiously mentioned them, and the name was familiar to her from something Dylan had said. It seemed they didn’t completely fall under his umbrella of “all elves are crap.” And so life marched on, returning to a new sort of normal for Silence.

  Tim came over to her with a steaming cup of coffee; from the smell and the look of it, it was fixed just the way that she liked it, with a liberal dollop of real cream and a spoon of sugar. He set it down in front of her, and she accepted it with a smile; he sat across from her, cradling his own mug in his hands.

  “They seem to be doing well,” he said, throwing his head back slightly towards the door.

  Staci cooled her coffee before taking a sip, smiling and nodding as she swallowed. “I think they are. They will be. It’s weird, but even with all of the awful crap we all went through, all the death, the killing, the sheer screwed-upness of it all, it’s brought them—us—together even more. Not quite like a shared secret, but just…something we’ve gone through together, and that makes it better, somehow.”

  “Burdens and joys shared are lessened and magnified, in turn. In other words, it’s good to have friends.”

  “It is.” Then, after another sip of coffee, she spoke again, with more conviction. “It really is.” She had learned so much about herself, more than she had even thought that she had before the assault on the Blackthorne Estate. And she knew that she couldn’t have done it without the help of the gang, and, at the end, without the help of Tim, whom she had almost written off as a coward. Yet, when she had been abandoned by the one person she thought that she could finally love, it was Tim who had come to help her. From what she had heard from the rest of the gang, he had single-handedly destroyed over a dozen dark elves and other creatures, all on his own. She had witnessed what he had done to Finn, whom she had feared for so long. It surprised her; not only what he was capable of, but that he had actually committed to a decision that she had thought he was opposed to entirely.