Lance took in the scene, his brows furrowed. He stopped when he saw the hole in the bars in front of the pawn shop. He shot a strange look at Daniel and Kelly, then went over to the hole and stared at it.
"Dear God," he said, his gaze fixed on a section of bar hanging down from the top of the window frame. Traces of cherry-red flame were licking around the metal.
He reached up and held his hand a few inches away from the flame, then extended his finger toward the flame. The flame guttered and flickered. Then, just as his finger touched it, a small cloud of what looked like snowflakes burst into the air, and the flame was gone.
Lance spun to look at Daniel and Kelly again. "Did the raptors do this?" he said. His manner was suddenly crisp and hard, like a commanding officer in the military.
"Where's Taylor?" Daniel called. His weight on Kelly's shoulders was getting oppressive, and she tried to gather her feet under her again.
"I could ask you the same thing," Lance responded, his eyes narrowing. "I assume that answers your question. Now answer mine. Did the raptors do this?"
Kelly's knees were buckling under her. "I've got to let you down," she whispered. Daniel nodded, and she sunk into a crouch, while Daniel situated himself on one knee. Gratefully, she stood back up unencumbered.
"No, they didn't," Daniel finally said. "I did."
Lance's eyes opened wider, and he looked at the hole again. Then he put his hands together behind his back and began walking toward the two of them. "Do tell," he said. "I've seen people break bars, especially if the metal is old and fatigued. I've seen people bend bars. But melt them?" He stopped about ten feet away, a faint smile on his face. "You have my attention."
"Why do you care?" Daniel said bitterly. "It doesn't have anything to do with you. Go off and rape your little girls, and leave us alone."
Lance stiffened. "I think we have a misunderstanding here. You're referring to Taylor, yes?"
"Well, yeah," Daniel said sarcastically. "I mean, how many other girls have you raped lately?"
Lance looked at him thoughtfully and did not answer.
Daniel shifted uncomfortably in the silence. "Don't tell me there were others."
"Tell me something," Lance said. "Have you done anything since A-day that you wouldn't have done before? Breaking and entering, perhaps? Stealing?" He glanced at the hole in the bars. "Property damage?"
"There aren't exactly any grocery stores still up and running," Daniel said defensively. "We do what we have to."
"Exactly," Lance said, a little sadly. "We do what we have to. Even me."
"What you have to?" Kelly broke in. "How many women have you raped, Lance?"
"Before A-day, none," he said. "The thought still disturbs me, and I would much prefer for it to be less violent. One of the women is willing, and in fact, she can be... a great comfort to me at times. But in the other cases..." He chewed his lip and studied the wall of the nearest building. "It's as I said. I do what I must."
"Lance, what the fuck are you talking about?" Daniel said, a dangerous edge in his voice. He reached out and put his hand on Kelly's rifle.
"Please," Lance said. "Don't do anything you'll regret. Junior is quite a good shot. It's one of the reasons he's still with us."
"He's a hundred yards away," Daniel said levelly. "You're ten feet away. If I want to take a shot, I may get hurt, but you will get hurt. I think maybe you should talk to us for a bit."
Lance sighed and paced the concrete. "You don't get it, do you? You don't have a clue what it is we're doing here. We need Guardians. We need all the Guardians we can get, and we need to get them all together in one place, so that within that place, they pack as much punch as they can. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's an area of effect there, something like an inverse square law. The closer the raptors get to a Guardian, the weaker they are. And in that same vein, the more Guardians there are, the weaker the raptors become."
He gestured back toward the building. "So the logical thing is to make sure that we have as many Guardians as possible, as close together as possible, for maximum effect. If we get enough Guardians together, we might even be able to restore the veil."
"The veil?" Kelly said, frowning, and exchanging a glance with Daniel.
"The veil is what separates our world from the world of --" Lance explained.
"We know what the veil is," Kelly interrupted sharply. "I'm just surprised that you know about it, if you screw your Guardians instead of, oh, I don't know, talking to them."
"Will you stop?" Lance said, losing his cool for the first time. "Will you quit going on about that? Taylor was not the first Guardian we've had here."
"What about Amanda?" Daniel challenged. "Did you rape her?"
Lance took a deep breath, but he was shaking slightly. "Were you aware that not all Guardians are women?" he said. His voice was shaking too, and he paused for a moment, making and releasing fists and obviously trying to get himself under control. "At last count, we have a total of nine Guardians here," he went on, his voice once again even. "If Taylor is gone, then that number is unfortunately down to eight, but I hope that she won't have gone far. That's one reason we keep our new guests here --"
Daniel snorted.
"Have I treated either of you badly?" Lance said sharply. "Have I mistreated you?" He stared at them. Neither one answered. "As I thought," he continued. "I can't hope to gather like minds together if I act like a barbarian. I do what must be done."
"You keep saying that," Daniel said bitterly. "But you haven't told us just what the hell you mean."
Lance shook his head. "I've told you. This is a group of people who are trying to move on with life, to rebuild the world we've known. As part of that effort, we need as many Guardians as we can get. We have a handful here, but they've never been a large part of the population, and they aren't here either. Part of it is going out and finding them, but the world has become a dangerous place, and not all of the Guardians have survived. If our goal is to get enough Guardians together to keep the raptors and the dragons at bay, and possibly even to repair the veil, then we can't rely on finding enough Guardians to keep us safe."
He looked at the sky. The sun was just beginning to peek over the taller buildings. "There's this, as well," he said. "We can't just think about today. We have to think of tomorrow, as well. Of not just making the world safe today, but making it safe tomorrow, and keeping it safe. Do you have children?"
"I did," Kelly said, her voice shaking. "The raptors got her."
Lance turned to look her in the eye. "Would you have that happen again?" he said. "Would you have that happen to others? Would you have that happen to the children of today, when they grow up and have children of their own?"
"Good Lord," Daniel said. "Is that why you're raping them? What the hell are you thinking?"
"The world needs more Guardians, my friend," Lance said firmly. "I do what I must."
"But if Guardians are that rare," Daniel growled, "don't you think there's a reason? If it were a dominant gene, there would be a hell of a lot more of them. Do you think that just randomly getting women Guardians pregnant is going to fill the world with more Guardians?"
Kelly took a sharp breath and stared at Daniel. "He's trying to get them pregnant?" she cried, looking back at Lance. "You're trying to fucking breed them?"
"What other choice do I have?" Lance said quietly. "As to your question," he went on, nodding at Daniel, "if both parents are Guardians, then there's a pretty fair chance."
"Jesus," Kelly said, sinking to her knees beside Daniel. "Jesus."
"Are you telling us that you're a Guardian?" Daniel said, incredulous. "What the fuck?"
"Much as I have been cursing my fate," Lance said, his voice suddenly bitter. "I wish some of this had fallen onto someone else. But as I've said, and as you're probably tired of hearing now... I do what I must. I gather the people together, I gather the Guardians, and I make sure that there will be more Guardians in the future -- and as soon a future as possible. Because nobody else has done any of these things, and they must be done if the human race is to survive."
He turned and paced back a few steps, staring again at the hole in the metal bars. "And another thing that must be done," he continued, "is to find out as much about the raptors as possible, and also about anything we can bring to bear against them. Any powers that people have, that could be of benefit against the raptors, are powers that I must know about." He turned back to look at Daniel. "I need you."
Daniel had begun to sag slightly, but he looked up defiantly. "Lance, you can just go to hell. You can talk noble all day long, but I know better, just as well as you do."
Lance shook his head. "I'm tired of these games, Daniel. The simple truth is that I need you. You may not be a Guardian, but you are something. Whether you help me willingly or not, you're not going to leave here. You will stay, and you will help, whether it's of your own free will or not. If you value your life, you will act appropriately. Now, tell me about those bars, or I will ask Junior to take aim at your ladyfriend."
There was fury in Daniel's face. His fingers curled against the pavement.
Lance stared at Daniel's hands. "Amazing," he breathed.
Daniel looked down, and lifted his hand. There were furrows dug into the concrete where his fingers had been.
"Tell me how," Lance said sharply. "How did you do that?"
Daniel stared at his hands. There was a flicker of blue, but then it was gone, and he wondered if he'd just imagined it. Then he looked back down at the furrows in the pavement, and traced his finger across them. That was not something he'd imagined. Neither was the hole in the iron bars.
"I have no control over you, Lance," he said, still tracing his fingers across the pits in the concrete. "I would ask you to reconsider your breeding strategy, but I don't think it would do any good. But if knowing what I know will help other people, then I think it's worth something. So for now, I'll ask for something that I think you will grant." He looked up, and there was a strange light in his eyes. "Tell me that Kelly and I will be safe, and that we'll be together."
Lance studied him. "Yes," he said at last, "I think I can give you that. If you tell me more about your power, help me with it when reasonable, and don't cross me... then yes. You will be together, and you will be safe." He smiled humorlessly. "And you, Kelly, do not need to worry about me or my men. Both of you, as long as you stay in line, are as safe as I can make you."
Daniel looked up at Kelly. She met his gaze briefly, and then looked away. He bit his lip.
"All right," he said at last. "Here's the deal. Raptors are weak against iron. And steel. That's why I had the sword. It's one of the few things that seems to hurt them." He smiled briefly. "Running them over with a car works, too, but there aren't enough cars to make that too practical."
Lance nodded slowly. "Of course. I should have thought of that. Well done."
"Well, it does more than kill them. It's... it's weird. You know how we told you that the raptors eat car batteries? Near as I can tell, they're actually eating the energy, and turning it into... into another form of energy."
"Magic," Lance whispered.
"Yeah." Daniel watched the shadows slowly withdraw across the street, as the sun rose in the sky. "Magic. And when you kill a raptor, some of that magic soaks into the iron." He glanced down at his stomach. "Just holding that sword up against our cuts... it healed them, in a matter of minutes. It healed the raptors' poison, too."
"Some of it soaks into the iron," Lance repeated softly. "And some of it... soaks into you?"
Daniel nodded, looking away.
"How much do you still have?" Lance asked.
"Not much," Daniel said. "I wouldn't have had enough to do the bars, if there hadn't been raptors just outside the window. I don't know how I knew to do this, but I... I reached out and grabbed them, and... sucked out their magic, or something."
"Without iron?" Lance said sharply.
Daniel looked up. "Yes," he said.
"Are you sure it was their magic you were using?" Lance said, a note of urgency in his voice as he turned back to look at the bars. "Are you sure that it wasn't coming from --"
There was a gunshot.
Lance looked down in surprise. There was a gaping hole in the front of his shirt, and a matching one in his side, just behind his arm. Blood was already spreading quickly through his shirt.
"Fuck," he whispered, and dropped to his knees, then fell.
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