Chapter 21

A sound from the front room woke Daniel. He stumbled groggily to his feet and went out to check, but nothing seemed out of place. He looked through the window in the door, then through the broken segment of glass at the street just beginning to be illuminated by the morning's sunlight, but everything seemed normal.

He wandered into the bathroom for a pit stop, closing the door quietly since the other two were still asleep. When he was done, he made his way back out behind the counter, found the plaque, and started on the hinges yet again.

He paused. The early-morning sunlight was reflecting off of a window across the street, leaving a foggy glow on the wall just above the register. In that odd light, he caught sight of something he'd missed before: the top hinge was slightly bent out of shape. He dug the plaque into the space between the hinge and the door and pulled gently, trying to bend it back straight. There wasn't space, so he tried again with his hands, bending gently.

Finally, with one hand pressing the hinge together and the other holding the plaque, he managed to start the pin on its way out of the hinge. "Ha!" he said softly, repositioning the plaque as a lever to pull the pin the rest of the way out.

He had to balance the door carefully to line up the bottom hinge well enough that it, too, could be pulled apart, and then the door pivoted around its latch and came off. He set it gently against the back of the counter, staring.

"Holy shit," he said, breaking into a grin.

Then he blinked and shook his head, and went back to wait for the others to wake.


"You're not serious," Kelly said. "Isn't that just in the movies?"

"Evidently not," Daniel said.

Taylor was unimpressed. "Do you even know how to load a shotgun?"

"Don't be silly," he said. "All heroes know how to load shotguns."

She gave him a funny look.

"But they haven't ever come here with less than two people," Kelly pointed out. "Do you really think you could take both of them out before they have a chance to react? And have enough time to get away before thugs start closing in from all directions?"

"I don't know," he said. "I just found the thing fifteen minutes ago. I haven't thought through all the issues yet. Give me a break."

"Is there any way we could find out where Goewyn is?" Kelly asked.

"Who's that?" asked Taylor, puzzled.

"Our horse," Kelly said. "You saw her when they brought us in."

Taylor nodded. "That's right. So she's somewhere around here, but we have no idea where?"

Daniel sat down on the side of the bed. "Yeah," he said. "That's about it."

"She's just an ordinary horse, right?" Taylor said.

Daniel raised his eyebrows. "As far as I know," he said cautiously. "Why do you ask?"

Taylor shrugged uncomfortably. "Well... I was just wondering. I wondered if I might be able to help find her."

"You'd have to be able to get out of here first," Daniel pointed out. "Preferably without a horde of goons following you."

"Maybe," she said. "I just..." She bit her lip, then shook her head. "No, never mind."

Daniel shot a strange look at her. "Why? What is it?"

"Nothing," Taylor said dismissively. "It was nothing."

Daniel looked over at Kelly. "What day of the week is this?"

"What?" Kelly looked back at him, bewildered. "What the hell difference does that make?" He stared at her, and she shook her head and glanced down at her watch. "It's Thursday. Why?"

He nodded, turned back to Taylor, and said, "Tell me more." In response to her bewildered look, he added, "I don't know a lot about women, but one thing I've learned is that when I'm talking to a younger, blonde woman, on a Thursday, I shouldn't ever take 'never mind' for an answer."

She blinked back at him, uncomprehending.

"It's a long story," he explained. "Now tell me what it was that you were going to say."

"It's... it's nothing," she said. "It's crazy."

Kelly began to laugh. "You won't believe how many times Daniel has told me that lately," she said. "I wouldn't worry about it."

Taylor took a deep breath. "Well, it's like this. I... I sometimes know things, without really having any way of knowing them. Sometimes it's like I'm remembering something I dreamed. It's been happening more lately." She grimaced and shook her head. "I wish it had told me something useful, like how to avoid having that woman catch me. But usually it's just stuff about those damn flying things. Or about the dragons." She shuddered. "And... I think it has something to do with things that don't belong here. Magic things. You know, the whole Guardian schtick. It's like --"

There was a sharp rapping on the door to the pawn shop, and then they heard the door squeak open. "Hey back there," came a gruff woman's voice. "I'm here for the girl. Send her on out."

Taylor looked at Kelly in horror, and pressed her knees together. "Oh, shit," she said. "I can't do that again. Oh, shit."

"God damn it," Daniel whispered. "Okay, the shotgun is out there, behind the counter. Let's go, and I'll try to get to it. I'll go first."

The answer was a shaky nod. Her face was pale.

Kelly leaned over and squeezed her hand. "Lance isn't getting you again if we can help it," she said.

"Thanks," Taylor said, rising unsteadily to her feet and taking a deep breath. Then she followed Daniel toward the doorway, with Kelly close behind.

Then Daniel stopped. The woman was already standing in the doorway, her rifle at the ready. "Here now," she growled. "No tricks."

Daniel looked at her for a long moment, took a deep breath, nodded, stepped aside, ducked, grabbed the muzzle of the rifle, and rolled away.

The woman was one step ahead of him. She planted her foot in his ribs, and he gasped. His grip loosened, and she jerked the rifle back away from him.

"You son of a bitch," she said, slowly and clearly. "Lance kinda wants you alive, but don't push your luck. He don't want you alive that bad."

Taylor stumbled back onto the bed, and curled halfway into a ball, trembling.

There was a flapping from outside, and something thudded against the glass of the bedroom window. It shuddered but held. Taylor shrieked and curled up tighter. Kelly stumbled away from the window. The woman stared. The tip of the rifle dipped slightly. Daniel snatched it again and pulled as hard as he could.

"You little shit," she snapped, and pulled the trigger.

The gunshot was deafening.

Taylor screamed. Kelly dropped to her knees in front of Daniel, who was rolling over and groaning.

The woman pointed the barrel of the rifle at Taylor and jerked it toward the doorway. "Move," she snapped. "Now."

Taylor stumbled to her feet and ran through the door. The woman followed.


Red was beginning to spread over the side of Daniel's shirt. Kelly took a deep breath. Okay. She'd dealt with this sort of thing before. First priority was that blood loss.

She looked quickly around the room, then grabbed the sheets and pulled them off the bed. Tearing a strip off the end of the sheet seemed to take an interminable amount of time, but finally she got it.

She hastily folded the rest of the sheet up into a bandage, and turned back to Daniel.

He wasn't there.

"Daniel?" she called, a note of panic entering her voice as she rose and hurried to the doorway, where she could see him stumbling across the front room and toward the door, which was just closing. "Daniel, what the hell are you doing?"

The deadbolt snapped shut just before Daniel reached the door. "You bitch," he said, with so much venom in his voice that Kelly stopped in her tracks. "You're not doing this to her. You're not doing this to me." He raised his foot and kicked hard at the door.

"Daniel, what the hell?" Kelly cried, running forward again and grabbing him by the shoulders, trying to pull him back. He lost his balance, and they both nearly fell. "Will you look at what you're doing?" she panted, when they had both regained their balance. "Look at the door frame. It's made of metal, Daniel! You're not going to be able to kick the god damned door in!"

He looked wildly around the room, and his gaze settled on the windows in the front of the store -- and on the shadows moving across the windows. "Go over the counter," he commanded, giving her a push in that direction. She yelped, but there was an urgency in his tone that reminded her, wrenchingly, of the raptor carrying Mary away.

She glanced at him for a split second, then looked away. His silhouette danced in her eyes as she slid up onto the counter, then back down on the other side. The thought briefly crossed her mind that he hadn't looked quite normal, that she'd almost been able to see the electric feeling she'd felt on his hands after his earlier fights with the raptors.

Not wanting to give the matter any more thought, she went straight to the cabinet and pulled out the shotgun.

"Down here," Daniel said. He had reached the far end of the counter, fifteen feet from the window.

Kelly pulled the shotgun out, set it on the counter, and gave it a shove. It slid partway down the counter, caught on an uneven space between two display cases, tumbled, and landed on the ground not five feet from Daniel. He bent and stretched to pick it up -- grunting painfully as he did so, and flickering slightly (or was that just a trick of her eyes?) -- and then turned to the window, released the safety, and fired.

The center window exploded outward, revealing three raptors just outside. One of them jumped back at the sound and the shattering glass; the other two just looked inside.

Then Daniel was shimmering, and stumbling forward into the bars.

Shouts were coming from the hallway. Kelly stared in disbelief at Daniel's body sliding down against the bars.

Without warning, his hand shot out and grabbed the nearest raptor by the leg. And there was a screech, and a pop, and a gentle pock as the raptor's body exploded in a burst of blue fire.

The deadbolt was sliding back open, and the woman spilled into the room, her rifle aimed at Daniel. Bradley was right behind her, keeping his rifle at the ready, one eye on Kelly, the other on Daniel.

And Daniel was somehow on his feet, and there was another flash of fire, and then he was staggering back as the one remaining raptor leapt through the ragged hole in the bars, and toward the two armed goons in the doorway.


< Chapter 20 Chapter 22 >