[13] Mayfair

Shannon opened a black umbrella in the same motion she emerged out the SUV, adroitly shielding herself from every possible raindrop, although she could do nothing about the slowly thickening mud of the mountain path. On the whole her outfit looked like the nuns: dour and modest. Before she even spoke Jay felt pinned by the billion-lumen floodlights pouring out of the SUV. Pinned by the unreality of the situation, the most fantastical thing yet seen in this fantastical world.

Flash of lightning; the giant cross shone at Shannon's back, the dead dragon coiled at its base.

"Get in the car," Shannon said calmly.

The driver's side door of the SUV opened and a man squeezed out, barely able to compress himself through the frame, one gigantic leg followed by another followed by the gargantuan cage of his body. He came with no umbrella.

"Well, well, well. The little buddy himself. The man of the moment. Mr. Jay Waringcrane."

Jay had never seen this man before but knew instantly he was Shannon's boyfriend. Behind the SUV, a vividly orange jeep sat placid and disinterested. Who it contained Jay couldn't fathom.

"Wait, don't tell me!" said Olliebollen. "These aren't heroes too, are they? Buhbuhbut—that makes no sense. No sense at all!"

"Jay, you'll get in the car now," said Shannon.

Mayfair gripped Jay tighter. She said nothing, seemed incapable of speech. Yet when Jay glanced down at her, she was—not exactly watching—something more intense, observing, the pupils of her eyes flitting spasmodically, as though deconstructing and analyzing every minute detail of the alien contraptions and alien humans posed before her.

"Yo!" said Shannon's hulk. "The little buddy's got himself a little girlfriend! I dunno Shannon. Let's not cockblock the man—"

One singular glare bifurcated the light, the rain, the vehicle, and the man. "Only I speak, Dalt," Shannon said. (To which Dalt, tongueless, could only raise both hands in supplication.) To Jay: "I ask politely for the final time. You will get in the car."

"What's a car? Is that a car? That's so interesting!" said Olliebollen. "It's like a carriage without any horses. Care-riage, car-riage. Hm! Does that mean a car-riage is composed of a car—the thing you ride in—and a riage—the horse?"

For a moment the brightly dancing flitting flying powder-puff-expelling thing drew Shannon's attention, and then Shannon reached the conclusion it was not a thing that should exist and thus she refused to acknowledge its existence. Her eyes went back to Jay. "Staying silent, I see. Inactivity has always been your only strength. Rest assured I'll have much to say on the ride home. But I'd rather not stand in the rain. Dalt, seize my brother."

Dalt shambled forward, lifting his shoulders into a convivial shrug as if to say, "Sorry little buddy," speech forbidden by the continual glare of his girlfriend. Jay saw him coming, saw his unstoppably red Ohio State shirt under a camouflage jacket, and the moment he stepped in the headlights and his front became blackened by the aura at his back he transmogrified as if by Flanz-le-Flore's magic into every boyfriend past, every ineffable douchebag, every Makepeace John Gaheris Coke.

Jay thought: This time I have a baseball bat.

He remembered the last time he thought that. What would this boyfriend be? Another wrestler? A football star. Shannon had her type.

Still Jay thought, why not. He glanced over his shoulder at the monastery, enveloped in pillars of flame, and Charm in the gateway watching him. He considered the bargain he made with Perfidia Bal Berith: To make him satisfied. Had she? Was this world satisfactory? He followed Perfidia's plan and went to the monastery. Rescued the princess, got the staff. Everything he wanted and everything she wanted for him. For a moment striding out of the monastery he did really feel like a hero. Maybe same as everything else: only a moment.

Nah. Fuck that. A hero, Olliebollen called him. In the face of his sister, he still believed it. But he had to be wary. One wrestling pin and Olliebollen became worthless.

"Fine. I'll go."

Jay lowered his bat and approached the SUV, a process made difficult by Mayfair's clinging. Olliebollen flitted to the fore.

"I don't get it. Go where? Now that you've overcome the archbishop at the monastery, your next destination should probably, uh, probably be Castle Whitecrosse! Yeah! Is that where you're going?"

"Going home," Dalt said. "Home to beautiful Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States of America. Bye-bye to this place, at least for him."

Olliebollen blanked. A remnant of a giddy smile creased her little mouth, but the eyes were empty. "Cleveland..." she said. "Ohio."

"The other world," said Mayfair.

"The real world," said Shannon. "Where he belongs." She didn't question Jay's quick acquiescence. Of course she wouldn't. Jay knew Shannon. Knew how Shannon thought, knew particularly what Shannon thought of Jay. No secret. She told him whenever she saw him. Lazy, lacking drive, lacking ambition. Useless! Nonproductive! A vestigial part, a component whose mere existence leeched the efficiency of the greater whole.

Great. Underestimate him.

"You'll take me too, won't you?" said Mayfair. "You'll take me to the other world?"

"Of course not. Get off my brother. Jay, she's too young for you anyway."

Mayfair relinquished Jay and became stately instantaneously. "Oh, my apologies. I failed to introduce myself. My name is Mayfair Rachel Lyonesse Coke. I am the princess of Whitecrosse—"

"Don't care. You're nothing. You're not real. You don't exist."

"I beseech you most humbly. I was kidnapped by the malodorous folk who live within that monastery. Your brother, at great peril to himself, rescued me. Please do not let his efforts be in vain. Take me with you."

Shannon stared down—she stood a foot taller—at Mayfair, utterly contemptuous. Words manifested just beyond her lips, she did not say them, she turned sharply on one heel as though the matter were settled by her previous statement.

But Dalt demurred. "We can take her at least as far as that inn we saw can't we? It's on the way after all. Plentya room in the truck too."

Yes. Good. If they stopped the car right on the outskirts of the forest... Jay visualized a plan. They let Mayfair out, Jay runs. Into the woods. With Olliebollen's rejuvenation he could theoretically sprint forever without tiring, and in the woods they couldn't pursue easily via car. Shannon would never give up once she set her mind on something, but at least it'd buy him time for a more long-term solution. He refused to go back to Cleveland. Back to that empty, nothing life.

The door to the jeep opened and a bored-looking Asian guy in a translucent poncho emerged. Gigantic glasses immediately fogged in the rain. At the same time, Jay reached the SUV, opened the back door, and threw up his hands in exasperation.

"Should've fucking known. You're behind this."

Perfidia Bal Berith threw up her hands too. They were zip-tied at the wrists. "Oh yeah? Really? This look like I wanted any of this? That brute your sister's got on a leash, he kicked the shit outta me. I didn't have a choice. But look." She leaned over, checked out the door to ensure Shannon was preoccupied with Dalt (they argued about Mayfair), and whispered: "I can fix this, all of this, real quick. We're both in a bind so I'll give you a special offer, how bout it? Your full Humanity right now—you already pledged it to me anyway—and I make them go home, they forget all about you."

If Jay forked over his Humanity outside of their contract, he fully expected Perfidia to take the money and run. "Not interested."

"Oh no." Shannon clip-clopped (or given the mud, squelched) over. "Oh no you don't. You do not speak to my brother. Jay, you'll ride with Wendell in the jeep." She thought about it, added: "I'll ride with you. Dalt, you can handle Bal Berith by yourself."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa Shannon. We were talking about the little girl, remember? You can't just—you can't just bulldoze me like that. I say we take the girl—Mayfair right? Wendell. Wendell! We can take this girl right? Just to that inn we saw."

The Asian guy, smoking a cigarette, drifted his gaze from the flaming monastery to Dalt. "Why not."

"There you go Shannon, you're outvoted. Two to one. Girl—Mayfair. We'll take you."

"Oh, I'm so glad." Mayfair fluttered her eyelashes like a cartoon character.

"It's not a vote, Dalt. I'm the leader of this operation and my word is final."

"Oh, you're the leader now? News to me Shannon. The cars belong to me and Wendell. We decide who rides in them."

Perfidia hissed: "Just touch my hands Jay. Quick—now!"

Shannon bodied into her line of sight. "Go to the jeep, Jay. Or I'll make Dalt escort you. Dalt. Dalt listen. We're not—we can't—it's not even an option Dalt!"

"There's no logical reason!" Rainwater ran down Dalt's big red face. "We already have the fucking devil on board, what's one more weirdo! No offense Mayfair. You seem nice."

Courtly half-bow of the head. (Mayfair was also soaked, but in a more orderly way.) "No offense taken, Sir... Dalt, was it?"

"Scott Dalton Swaino II actually, but you can call me Dalt. Or Dalton. Either works. People call my dad Scott."

"Unbelievable!" Shannon grabbed Jay's arm and dragged him away from a desperately grasping Perfidia.

"Come on Shannon, we're not gonna take her all the way back to Cleveland, I'm not stupid. We'll just drive her away from—whatever this is." Dalt indicated the monastery.

"Oh, but I truly would like to see your world. It would be such a delight. Please may I come?" Mayfair looked from Dalt to Wendell. Wendell gave only a single shake of the head no. For a moment, Mayfair's features became perceptibly more stony, then loosened. "Oh well. I suppose that is for the best."

Jay didn't trust that acquiescence one instant. He knew because he was also falsely acquiescing.

Olliebollen, mired in rickety silence for the past few minutes, jabbed a finger to point into Dalt's SUV. "You—you're the Master. You're the Master, aren't you."

"W, why would ya think that?" said Perfidia.

"She's the Master," said Jay. "She's the one who sent me here at least."

"Her?" said Mayfair.

"Completely irrelevant. Jay, move!" Shannon tugged hard and Jay's feet dragged through the mud. He responded by wrenching his arm away from her.

"I said I'd go already Shannon, calm down."

"Calm down? Oh. Oh yes. Calm down Shannon. Be reasonable Shannon. As if I'm not the only person present with the slightest shred of reason. You abandon Mother, don't even tell her where you're going—"

"Oh don't act like you care about that. Don't act like you give a shit about what Mother thinks."

"She was inconsolable, Jay. And I had to deal with it!"

"Right, that's why you care. You had to deal with it."

"Of all the naked hypocrisy—"

"Shannon," said Dalt.

"That you could think it a viable option to respond to me rather than take the tongue-lashing you deserve—"

"Shannon!"

"What Dalt?!"

"Come on babe. Let's just get outta here."

Shannon went quiet. She stood there, shielded by her umbrella, having moved to the midpoint between the two vehicles, Jay beside her, Mayfair remaining within Jay's orbit, Olliebollen staring into the SUV at Perfidia, and Dalt beyond that. Wendell retreated back inside his jeep.

The rain came down, and maybe it was Jay's imagination, but the fire in the monastery burned less bright, and the frantic shouts of the nuns organizing their firefighting efforts quieted, so the scene became nothing more than the patter of rain; no thunder either. Along with the water came down ashes, black clumps breaking.

Into this tranquility intruded none other than Makepeace John Gaheris Coke. "Hallo, what'd I miss?"

All eyes went to him. On his shoulder he carried the unconscious form of Sansaime. He sauntered down the path, a shining gleam on the surface of his armor, char marks on his colorful livery that only contributed to a gallant image—the way they could only do in a Hollywood movie.

When nobody spoke, he continued: "Met one of those twins running back into the monastery. You whack her with that bat again Jay my good man?"

Charm. She was missing. Something she saw or heard she felt the need to report. Jay knew what. Same thing that caused Olliebollen to blank, that caused Mayfair to shift tactics and start to speak: The hero was going home.

Whatever tactics Mayfair employed ceased; her pliant courteousness leached away in the rainwater, leaving a certain red rawness. "You didn't kill her. An assassin sent by enemies of all that is righteous and correct in this world, and you refused to kill her. No—you even saved her. I understood you to be a philanderer, but I failed to realize your unseemly impulses would cloud even the most basic sense of judgment and reason."

Under the umbrella, Shannon gawked at her.

"What can I say," said Makepeace, "I'm a piece of shit."

Dalt, who finally half-reentered his SUV, fanned a hand at Shannon and for some reason directed the question toward her: "Who's this chucklefuck?"

A mirror, Jay thought.

"An irrelevance," Shannon said. "Let's go already! Move!"

She tried to grab Jay again, Jay didn't let her, he started walking on his own, Mayfair creeping close and Olliebollen roused from her permanent stare at Perfidia to zip over with her fibrous strands of fur tipped by beaded droplets that shook off with every erratic motion. Makepeace said, "Wait now. Aren't I owed an explanation? Jay, you didn't listen to anything my silly sister said did you now? I warned you she's not to be trusted on certain matters. What has she said?"

"She didn't say anything," Jay muttered. "Give him a ride too, he's with me."

"Not to be trusted. He says I'm not to be trusted." Mayfair spat the words under her breath darkly, a twitch in her fingers, then shook off some water and reverted to a previous pleasant demeanor as she turned sharply and cut Makepeace out of her view.

Shannon was unwilling to entertain more ridiculousness. She ignored Makepeace entirely, she refused to respond to Jay's request to let him ride, and as she exited Dalt's orbit and opened the back door of Wendell's jeep this allowed Dalt free reign to make decisions on his own so the last Jay heard before he came in out of the downpour was Dalt offering Makepeace to let "the lady"—Sansaime—rest in the back of the SUV, although Jay wondered how Makepeace would react once he saw Perfidia there as well. Maybe he wouldn't react at all, he didn't strike Jay as devout.

Didn't matter. Wendell's jeep fit three in the back and Jay made sure to move over so that he was at one end, Shannon at the other, and Mayfair wound up squished in the middle. He did this so that when they let Mayfair out Jay would have to get out too, to let her pass. Then he'd run. Couldn't have worked more perfectly—Dalt in the other car too. Dalt was the problem and the farther away he was the better. This other guy, Wendell, clearly not a Shannon boyfriend type, barely seemed cognizant of or interested in the drama that raged outside, didn't even look at Jay or the others cramming into the back of his car and only muttered a dry, truncated "mess up my upholstery" out the corner of a cigarette-smoking mouth as the doors shut and he started the jeep and set about the process of a twenty-point turn to revolve it so it could head down the trail.

"Christ Wendell, put that thing out," said Shannon.

Wendell did not put the cigarette out. Did not acknowledge Shannon at all. All he did was turn his hands over the wheel, shift to reverse, turn the wheel, shift to drive, turn the wheel, repeat. The jeep inched back and forth, a senseless wriggle, while the three of them sat in the back. Four of them, actually. Olliebollen had managed to slip inside too. She hovered too close to Jay for comfort, mixing her sugary sweet dust with the cigarette smoke. Jay balanced his bat against his thigh and shoved the Staff of Lazarus into the pouch on the back of the passenger seat in front of him, next to an atlas titled Wilderness Areas of Ohio 2012 Edition.

Back and forth, back and forth. Inch by inch the jeep revolved. Through the wiper-whipping windshield the giant cross and the dragon drifted detached in the dark air.

"Thank you so very much for allowing me to ride with you, Lady Shannon," Mayfair said. "Are you absolutely certain you wouldn't allow me to accompany you back to your world—"

"Shut up."

"How about you, Sir Wendell? I—"

"I said shut up," said Shannon.

"It might be in your best interest to allow me this one minor request."

"I'm already 'allowing a request' by letting you exist in my sphere at all." But Shannon reverted to a semblance of calm, smoothing down her jacket, her closed umbrella in the same position relative her as the bat to Jay. "Now let me speak." She cleared her throat. She began her lecture.

"This is the final straw, Jay. I'm sorry but it is time for an intervention in your waste of a life. We live in a world of endless cornucopia, a world free from fear and hunger, but that world was earned at a price, and the price is the cooperation and contribution of every human soul who calls that world home. You have dwelt in fantasy long enough, Jay. You have entertained delusions and our helpless Mother has allowed you to entertain them long past the point you ought to have been demanded to grow up. I was eleven years old when I had to grow up."

She stared forward, at the back of Wendell's seat, Wendell still spinning the wheel, shifting the gear, spinning the wheel, shifting the gear.

"I was like you then. I didn't take things seriously. I played around and all I wanted was to play around. For a child, that's normal. But children grow up, Jay. You are nineteen years old. You have to get a life. You have to learn to support yourself. Have you ever read the novel Don Quixote, Jay? Of course not. You read nothing. But I, among other pursuits, have endeavored to familiarize myself with the basics of our common culture, and so I perused a few excerpts. You are Don Quixote, a man so enamored of stories that he wants nothing except to be in one. As far as I'm concerned, Don Quixote is the greatest novel humankind ever produced: It exposes the frivolity of the entire medium. Don't you dare open your mouth. You don't get to speak right now. I do. Shut up and let me speak. You need to wake up, Quixote. Our world is windmills, not giants. It's industry. It's economy. It's production. You think otherwise only because the goodwill of your family has insulated you from this truth. You have lived in a cocoon your entire life. A cocoon."

A cocoon. Falling over, bloody, torn at by a ring of wolves.

"You persist in a state of suspended growth, Jay. A perpetual child. It's not your fault. I feel some empathy for your plight, having once been you, having been in your situation. Mother never pushed you. She never pushed me. The only reason I got pushed was because at eleven I saw our dad's blasted-open head and his brains smeared all over the wall and I could never be a child again after that. You were lucky. You were at daycare. You saw nothing, maybe you would've been too young then anyway. But I saw it Jay, and that was the impetus for me. You never had an impetus, a reason. Parents are supposed to shape their children and our Mother was cruel, she never shaped anything, she never forbade anything, she only ever said it was okay. You had a cruel Mother. But it's time to wake up, Jay. If dad's headless corpse isn't there for you, then I have to be. I will."

Her voice trailed and Jay looked past Mayfair—idle, inoperative—at Shannon, surprised by the direction this lecture turned, surprised by the trembling spreading along Shannon's hands balanced on her knees, surprised in the void as her last words dispersed in this cramped space that to Shannon must seem empty and devoid of life because she refused to recognize the lives within it.

"I will make you into something, Jay."

In that void Jay supposed he was expected to speak. The jeep righted itself and began a slow forward rumbling down the mountain trail. But Jay had nothing to say, nothing against this bare and almost bestial evocation of a dead father he never remembered, a funeral on a windy day when a six-year-old version of himself spread his arms wide in the cemetery and said "Look Mother, I'm a sail!" as his jacket fluttered all across him.

In that void it was not Jay who spoke.

"Jay is something."

It was Olliebollen.

"Jay is something. Jay is a hero. He is. I've seen it. I've watched him fight monsters, I've seen him risk his own life. He's set his mind on things and done them. He can command life and death now. Yeah! He can. He'll bring back my court. He'll revive them all. And he'll wreak vengeance on our enemies. Nothing will stop him. The Master maybe helped him before, but for the past six hours the Master hasn't been here. She's been tied up in the back of your 'car,' I guess! So he did everything by himself. Flanz-le-Flore, the monastery, all by himself. You understand? He's not nothing, he's not worthless. He's saving this world!"

Shannon stared ahead as though not a word was spoken.

"This is your final warning, I am afraid," said Mayfair. "I must go to your world. The salvation of this one depends on it."

Jay stared ahead, thinking: I'm a sail! I'm a sail! The wind is gonna blow me away! Bye-bye Mother, bye-bye Shannon, bye-bye everyone! Bye-bye Daddy!

"LOOK AT ME," Olliebollen shrieked. She buzzed at the edge of Jay's periphery, brightly dancing. "LOOK AT ME, LISTEN TO ME. YOU WON'T TAKE HIM. YOU WON'T. YOU WON'T."

"I apologize," said Mayfair. "I warned you all."

Olliebollen extended her arm straight at Shannon's placid face. "YOU WON'T TAKE HIM. YOU WON'T TAKE THE HERO. YOU WON'T. YOU CAN HEAR ME. DON'T ACT LIKE YOU CAN'T. YOU CAN HEAR ME. YOU WON'T TAKE THE HERO! HE'S GONNA MAKE ME WHOLE AGAIN. HE'S GONNA MAKE ME WHOLE!"

Mayfair's mouth dropped open. A row of immaculate teeth shone. She brought her head forward and bit down on Olliebollen's outstretched arm.

One tug of her head and the arm ripped off and sparkling blood burst from the stump as Olliebollen reared back screaming through the space between the front seats until she smacked against the windshield spurting blood in a fan and Wendell said, "What the fuck?" Shannon and Jay turned in unison at the girl sitting between them, Shannon's horrified face a mirror of Jay's, a stupor broken only seconds later when the pieces fell together and it all made sense:

The animus.

He seized his bat and when he tried to swing it bounced worthlessly against the confines of the jeep and by then it was too late. Mayfair's horrible crunch-crunch chewing ended in a gulp as blood ran down her chin. She flung out her arms and a bright blast of light emitted from her body.

The whole jeep became nothing but a single white blare, neither line nor distinction made, only a sonic coil of shouts and the crackle of a walkie-talkie somewhere going: "Wendell? Wendell the fuck's going on you got the sun in your car!"

As quick as it came the sun subsided, although the white sear remained on the surface of their throbbing eyeballs, pupils rotoscoping wildly in brutal adjustment rendering parceled and echoey an image of Mayfair outstretching her arm between the front seats and pointing at or past the shrieking bleeding Olliebollen rolling against the windshield, pointing at the giant white cross still aglow with the remaining luster of that light, and in her hand she gripped the Staff of Lazarus.

She did not point at Olliebollen. She did not point at the cross.

She pointed at the dragon.

"I am the resurrection," she screeched in her pleasantly courteous voice, "and the life! Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die! Devereux, come forth!"

A tremor rocked the ground. The slopes reverberated with its force; rocks dislodged and rolled, some small, some larger, a boulder bounding from above and smashing not far ahead to bounce and roll into a rain-faded abyss. A jagged crack slashed through the giant white cross, another, and then the cross creaked and came down in a crumbling mess, the crossbeam crashing, belching a forceful geyser of dust.

Everything inside the jeep fell silent—except Olliebollen's shrieks subsumed into the earthquake—as at the base of what remained of the cross uncoiling came a creature of prehistory, of nonhistory, although cultures across the world collectively and unconsciously cobbled their own iterations in seeming isolation, a Jungian nightmare from which humanity had tried to awake or perhaps its most perfect daydream. What did Don Quixote think about dragons. Into the black sky unfolded black wings curving downward as though to grip and tear off the peak on which the dragon dwelled.

Two yellow eyes cracked open. Cracked open and stared straight at them. Nostrils flared orange; twin pillars of smoke rose against the rainfall.

The walkie-talkie crackled. "Everything all right?"

Jay flung his arms around Mayfair, first failing to pry the staff from her, then kicking open the door and simply dragging her bodily and flinging her onto the mud. He grabbed his bat, he stood over her, he drew back to swing with only her pitiless or even pitying gaze piercing him before Shannon yelled:

"Jay what the fuck are you doing?!"

He paused and in that pause glanced over his shoulder at the boom-boom-boom thundering streaking over the valley as the big black yellow-eyed monstrosity bounded over the slopes at them. At him.

Shannon was stumbling across the backseat in a crawl poised to topple out as she reached for Jay. Wendell slammed the gas and the jeep lurched forward out of the dragon's path, not fast enough to avoid the dangling wing that clipped across the roof and sent the jeep spinning as Shannon's scream pealed from inside.

That left only the dragon itself before Jay. Jaw wide to reveal a jagged line of fangs, harsh blast of hot sulfuric smell. Jay toppled to his knees and did the only thing he could think—he grabbed Mayfair, hefted her tiny body, and held her squirming before him. She called it back. It wouldn't hurt her. If he held her, it couldn't hurt him.

In the jeep Shannon tried to comprehend the shape of the thing peering down at her brother and could not. It was too black in too black a night, an obscure outline where the rain splattered its hard surface. It was a null in her view, an emptiness, and yet straight through her heart it lanced a fear she never felt before. The jeep's windows were shattered where the wing struck it and glass shards bounced on the cushion, cutting her palms and knees. "What the fuck, what the fuck, Wendell what the fuck," the walkie-talkie was saying. Dalt was saying. Wendell in the front seat was lifting a hand to the side of his head where blood ran from small bits of glass embedded there. He gripped his forehead, he shifted the gear into park. He opened the driver's side door. Shannon didn't understand. They needed to leave. To leave now. But he was unbuckling his seatbelt, slow and methodical in his motions, ignoring the shrieking insectoid thing writhing on the dashboard with one arm gone.

"Wendell. Wendell what are you doing."

Wendell unclipped the walkie-talkie from a hook inside the jeep and clipped it to a strap on his shoulder. "What I came to do," he said.

He stepped into the rain. His hat shielded his glasses from the worst of the droplets. Unfortunately impossible to stop the fogging. Damn prescriptions. He kept wiping the lenses as he felt his way along the side of the jeep until he reached the back. His hand found the latch and he pulled and the back swung open. In the trunk was his gun, in its case, beside its can of ammunition: .700 Nitro Express.

Holland & Holland. London clothier and gunmaker. Founded 1835, still possessed of a certain Victorianism: propriety beyond sound business sense. They made big guns for sportsmen of big game, elephant rifles, and their caliber went up to .600, largest in the world at the time. Except in 1975 they sold their last .600 and certified they would never make another. To ensure that final one's value as a collector's item.

It was an American, a Beverly Hills magnate, a man emerging from that Sargasso Sea of culture—one William Feldstein—who came to Holland & Holland in 1985 and demanded they build for him a .600, a request they flatly refused on account of their previous certification. That final one would be their last. They gave their word—British propriety. Social order even over economic. The British way. Manners and fairness.

So Feldstein, trampler over all, said: "Make me a .700."

It was fictitious. Imaginary. A dream only. A gun birthed out the split skull of Hollywood. A fantasy rifle. It was what Wendell Noh removed from its case and held in his hands, cold metal kept perfectly clean, as he took the first hundred dollar, thousand grain bullet from its ammo box.

But even the most fantastical of guns can exist only in reality. An ingenious device of too many small and particular parts, a machine where every element is designed to slot together toward a singular purpose. This was no fiction no matter the outrageousness of its caliber. The creature crawling before him was fiction. Wendell Noh initiated the process.

* He snapped open the double-barreled rifle.

* He fed the first thousand grain soft point into the right barrel.

* He removed a second thousand grain soft point from the ammo box.

* He fed the second thousand grain soft point into the left barrel.

* He snapped the rifle closed.

* He disengaged the safety.

He already wore earplugs. They did well to drown out the nonsense everyone was speaking. Problem was his damn glasses. Blind without them though.

Fogged or not, his target hard to miss. There it was. A "dragon." Just as Dalt said. Dalt had his Kirk Cousins, so Wendell had his dragon. They always said Wendell was the more successful one. Dalt's dad did at least. Da-rae too. College friends. One an academic and one on sports scholarship. Well don't worry. They said that. Don't worry, he's at his peak now. He can't play football forever. Then what will he do.

But Dalt had his Kirk Cousins.

Wendell Noh aimed at the dragon.

The crack came out like thunder except somehow louder than the actual thunder, the actual earthquake that shook them prior, a crack loud enough to buckle Jay's knees and lurch the dragon's head to the side as the whizzing chunk of metal blasted through thick scale into the throat's flesh.

Black ooze instead of blood seeped through the wound as the dragon insensible to pain turned its head toward Wendell within a rising plume of gunsmoke. Jay knew he needed to act now, without hesitation. He wrapped his hands around Mayfair's throat, small and delicate, and squeezed.

"Oh damn it all to Hell!"

Makepeace. He was sprinting from the other vehicle, across the barren stretch of pathway, his gait made ridiculous by his heavy shield and sword.

"What's killing her supposed to do Jay? What's the point of—"

Another crack of thunder rocketed the air as the dragon staggered again with a dully incensed roar gurgling out the hole in its throat while Wendell slowly walking sideways snapped his gun open and removed one then another gigantic spent cartridge still spilling smoke. The golden cylinders fell heavy against the ground.

Jay stared into the face of the young girl, pretty and blue-eyed, and his hands loosened, and she fell from his grasp to slump inert into mud, first onto her knees and then onto her side.

He thought: Wait. If I kill her I can just bring her back anyway. He thought afterward: Does that staff revive or does it only reanimate—

Makepeace dove in front of him and raised the shield as the dragon's tail lashed out. The sweep lifted Makepeace and Jay off the ground, into the air, and back into the mud. Jay's knees slashed on rocks while his arms went up to protect his head. Meanwhile Mayfair was already getting up and scurrying to the legs of her dragon and Jay realized he got fucking duped, he should've snapped her neck and what was Makepeace trying to do here anyway? But Makepeace, hoisting himself to his feet with his shield as support, wasn't even looking at Jay.

He was, like Wendell, looking at the dragon. Seeing in its black form reflected the image of John Coke the original, John Coke who slew every dragon so that not a single one was left alive in this world for any others to test their mettle. Wasn't this the dream, old Makepeace? The fantasy entertained nights reading that dusty old memoir, the knight in shining armor facing the wicked wyrm? All those years trying to escape the castle, to live a dream like this, and now here it reared up live and well before him. Well then! Best not waste the opportunity, hm? In the modern era a man only gets one chance at greatness, if at all. One shot at glory! Let us sally forth or die a romantically bloody death, hm?

Across the way, out the side of the jeep, that lovely woman Makepeace assumed was Jay's sister was screeching. "Jay, Jay, get in the car Jay!" Screeching it straight through the dragon like it didn't exist. Jay looked down at his torn-up knees and shouted back:

"Shannon. Shannon! Make sure that fairy doesn't die! We're gonna need her. She can heal! Shannon!"

Oh, that dreaded faerie. A nauseating bother. Wounds ought to remain open and bloody, badges of battle won or lost. If death is to come, it must come fantastically, not a pale sleep in an old man's rest bed. The faerie ruined everything. Crush the little pest to jelly.

Crushing it in his mind, Makepeace charged the dragon.

Everything, all of this, Dalt watched through the window of the Land Rover. Shannon's in trouble, he thought. He kept thinking it. She's in trouble, she's in danger. Words tumbling out every crevice of his brain. He could see her, screaming from the side of the jeep, dwarfed under the wing of the dragon. But that was all Dalt could do: think. He remained rooted to his seat, hands gripping the steering wheel. Watching it like a movie, the wiper-whipping windshield his somewhat crackled screen. Watching Wendell winding sideways step-by-step away from the orange jeep snapping his Nitro Express closed as he lifted, took aim, and seared open the sky with another crack corresponding to a brilliant black chunk of the creature's broad shoulder blasting away. The black dragon bellowed a roar and in its throat built a hot orange light with a strained set of veins as it opened wide its maw and Wendell lowered his gun and ran before a great gluttonous belch of flame sprayed out in a cone.

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Wendell!

Dalt jerked upright. His hand left the steering wheel and reached to the passenger seat where the tactical shotgun rested. He grabbed it, held it uselessly unsure what exactly he intended to do, remembered the walkie-talkie, screamed into it:

"Wendell!"

While everything on the downward incline off the path between the cars burned, sparse shrubs and bushes gone up in an instant while the dragon whirled around and drove its piercing gaze onto the knightly guy with the shield who in the brief time he spent depositing the unconscious girl into the Land Rover introduced himself as Makepeace John Something Coke, or Mack for short. But which of those burning clumps on the ground was Wendell? Dalt couldn't keep watching. He held the shotgun. Had to—do something—

"I'm fine," Wendell said over the walkie-talkie. "Don't distract me."

The clear shimmer of his poncho emerged from behind a boulder, a sleeve flickering flame swiftly patted out as he scampered toward a less-burning bit of cover. That was a relief and the relief broke Dalt's rapt attention. He remembered the devil girl.

"What do you know?!" He wheeled on her, aimed the shotgun over the prone form of the unconscious elf at Perfidia Bal Berith's nose. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything, I've been here the whole time! Calm down, calm down and point that somewhere else!" Perfidia screamed, eyes fixated on the barrel, but Dalt wasn't listening. Out the back window of the Land Rover the path rose up to the gates of that big burning building atop the mountain and down the path were streaming like ants women in white nun habits.

Somehow he still couldn't move out of his seat. Inactive. Useless. His dad saying it over and over: "Useless, useless! This sports crap's got no point. Extracurriculars are just that, Scottie. Extra. It's good to have one or two to show you're well-rounded, but you're making it your whole life. What will you do after college, huh? Piss poor grade point average and probably cerebral trauma to boot. Humph!" And his mom: "At least he's applying himself to something." "Applying yourself to something worthless is the same as applying yourself to nothing at all!"

Dalt opened the door and shoved himself into the rain with the shotgun on his shoulder, thinking: It wasn't worthless. Undefeated at Ohio State. That meant something. It had to. That stadium thousands full of howling fans and you say it meant nothing? He sacked Kirk Cousins. NFL quarterback. Redskins. Pro Bowler. Dalt could've gone pro. He could've made it mean something—if only you believed!

"Ladies, ladies," he shouted at the approaching nuns. "Ladies it's not safe. Ladies you gotta go home."

It was something. It wasn't what he should be doing. He needed to fight that dragon the way everyone else was, the way a fourth hard crack made him flinch and duck and dart his eyes over his shoulder to see another chunk of the creature blown away, black gore striking the road and sizzling. He turned back to the nuns. He could keep them out of it, that was something. "You ladies gotta go—"

He stopped. They weren't ladies. They were monsters.

Ugly bodies, half-human, half-animal. Claws, fur, feathers, scales, wings, teeth. Somewhere between ten and twenty total. Rabid eyes. Coming to kill them!

The Mossberg 590 Tactical Pump-Action Shotgun contained nine rounds.

Dalt pumped the shotgun, raised it, and fired into the torso of the dead-eyed reptilian at the fore of the pack. The body jerked, dropped while Dalt pumped the shotgun, adjusted his aim, and blasted away something with curved tusks and bristled fur. A spurt of bloody chunks slapped the beaked face of the monster behind it and by that point either the sound or the effect registered because in a panic the creatures backpedaled frantically to get away.

With each pump he expelled a spent and smoking shell and readied to fire anew. Into the back of a fleeing rhinoceros. Into a thing with webbed frog fingers. A unified shriek pealed under the clap of the fifth shot that clipped an eight-legged crab's claw and sailed through to lurch back the head of a human torso on a centipede's body. The sixth shot finished off the crab.

That left three and by then the crowd had cleared. Last traces scampering behind rocks, ledges, or even around the other side of the Land Rover. Six bodies lay strewn before him. The frog still twitched, the reptile tried to crawl. He considered wiping out the reptile but conserved his ammo. Eyes peeped out at him, someone was bawling tears, another someone screamed, but it was all lost in a smorgasbord of sound that rendered everything utterly alien and remote, a dragon roaring somewhere, a violent eruption of Wendell's elephant rifle, yelling, a bland buzz in Dalt's own head as he tried to remember how many times he fired and could think only: One, two, three, four. No that's—One, two, three—Wait did I—

"In the form of thunder and lightning He delivers His judgment upon us damned unruly souls," a rattling voice said clearly out of the confusion, "for now all is come undone, and the symbol of His salvation shattered and fallen, and these are surely now the end times, the apocalypse foretold of John. Revelation! The Book of Revelation! Oh, uohhhhh!"

Some sort of sobbing thing clutched to a rock, rising with its feathery wings spreading. Red eyes squirting black tears and two of its fellow nun creatures holding its legs and trying to pull it back into cover, but it heard saw and felt nothing in its transformation to some sort of Antichrist's angel, dark and inverted and unholy.

Dalt pumped the shotgun and aimed and the moment he pulled the trigger the harpy snapped her wings shut around her. The scattershot sent feathers flying and the harpy staggered back into the arms of the two attendants bleeding but not dead—

Then something flickered in his periphery and he revolved his body to face the thing scrambling over the top of the Land Rover and darting at him with a talon shining in what light remained. For a moment Dalt saw its face and failed to understand, because it was the same face of the crying harpy he just shot.

He pumped the shotgun but before he could aim the claws dragged deep into the flesh of his forearm, skin peeled back with the consistency of cottage cheese. The shotgun hurtled out of his hand as he yowled in pain and before he could even react to this unfamiliar hurt the harpy lashed out legs each tipped with claws and drove them into his hips. He felt the talons strike bone and with an oddly graceful twirl toppled to the mud.

"Charm. Charm dammit! Are you okay? Charm?" The harpy that cut him forgot about him the moment he fell and turned to her twin sister. Charm swayed, blood dripping from her wings, supported by two other nuns, but lifted a delicate hand skyward and nodded.

"Aye. I yet live upon this wretched sphere. O Charisma, have you slain that man? In refutation of His hallowed Sixth Commandment? It is our duty to most meekly turn the other cheek—"

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up Charm! I saved your worthless life didn't I? Am I not worthy of at least the slightest praise for that? Is it always such doom and gloom? Not a single word of love? I have done so much for you Charm, I have committed sins not even that awful book of yours knows of, and it was all for you! Where do you think that bread came from? Before we came here? Where? Hm? Hm Charm? So I don't want to hear it! I don't want to hear your proclamations of damnation. I did what this cruel world gave me no choice but to do!"

Dalt rolled, groaned. His blood pooled around him. His blood. Oh god. Was he dying? No. Couldn't be. Not this way. Not here. This was supposed to be—he imagined it, the vehicles rolling through that gate, the men in uniform and hardhats unfolding blueprints against mountain vistas, extraction, logistics, industry and prosperity, that was supposed to be his future, a future of worth and meaning, a future to make them all proud... all of them...

His eyes shut.

November 17, 2012. Chilly night in Madison. Overtime. They're at the brink after the Badgers come back in the second half to tie it. They need to stop Wisconsin in their tracks to give the offense the chance to win. Urban Meyer's there, coach is there. "We have a saying here in Ohio," he tells them as they're about to take the field, "A team that refuses to be beat, won't be beat. Somehow, someway."

Somehow, someway. That was it. That was the moment. They never lost, not that year. They were a team that refused to be beat.

Dalt's eyes opened.

Ahead of him was the fallen shotgun and past that the dragon expelling another blast of hot fire, ripping open more of its throat in the process as the flames burst out the holes Wendell had shot, not seeming to care that dangling from its neck was a black and semi-liquid mass, while that young man in armor and bright colors brought his sword down on the dragon's tail and cut deep. Who was that young man? He looked so gallant, so fair. Although the dragon sagged under the weight of Wendell's gunfire, Wendell himself receded into nowhere, lost among the rain and darkness. That young man, Makepeace, though. He shone brightly—a hero. Dalt wanted to be a hero.

He reached out.

Seized the fallen shotgun.

Rolled over.

And fired.

Fired into the back of the one named Charisma, currently midsentence: "I only ever wanted you to be—" No more.

The full brunt of the shot erupted out her front, flecks of blood glistening in the rain, a staggered and senseless gasp. She stumbled forward, scraped her clawed hand against the Land Rover for support, and slumped to her knees. Head bowed. Exerting all effort, ignoring all pain, Dalt roared and rose. His guts weren't slopping out of him yet at least. He pumped the shotgun for its final shot.

"Charisma!" Charm shrieked. "Charisma, Charisma, Charisma!"

Charisma turned to grip the side of the Land Rover with both hands, and then slid slowly down in an arc, leaving a bloody smear behind, until she hit the mud face first and did not move again.

Charm's eyes turned toward him and Dalt now was an electric thing, an entity without a body, lacking sluggishness, slowness, even thought as with automatic precision he pointed the shotgun at her.

When he fired she was already dragging one of the other nuns in front of her. The final shot went into the screaming flailing form that Charm cast aside the moment it served its purpose as her shield and that was fine because Dalt didn't need the shotgun anyway, he was linebacker for the undefeated 2012 Ohio State team robbed of a postseason by asinine NCAA sanctions, robbed of the reward they reaped, just as Dalt's dad put his foot down and said "You will not go pro, this is the end for you," and somehow it became the end. It would never be the end.

Memory encircled him. He tossed the shotgun aside and charged as she charged him and his reach exceeded hers as he wrapped his arms around her waist and plowed her into the side of the Land Rover. She bounced off with a metal sound before he grabbed her head and drove it into his knee. He was the tank. He was the bulldozer. He was the truck driving through that gate to visit this world. Charm pingponged off him and revolved before falling. Three more nuns emerged from their hiding spaces to attack now that the gun was gone. Without pause Dalt hefted one skyward and slammed it onto the ground, then he seized the next by the neck and burrowed his fist into its face, delicate bone structure shattering, a second punch to seal the deal.

Charm, on the ground, threw out a clawed foot and severed his Achilles tendon, a fact he didn't recognize until his uncooperating legs dropped him to kneeling, a fact that didn't stop him from seizing the third nun running backward at him because long porcupine spines covered her back and, insensible to the needles impaling his palms, threw her down to gore one of the other nuns. He threw himself onto the unprotected front of the porcupine girl and used his skull as a battering ram to smash her jaw off its hinges.

Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins! An apex. A peak! He'd reach those heights again. He'd reach them now. He could not be stopped. His will and his body would overpower all!

That left only Charm, wings full of holes and bloody feathers floating. "Kirk! Cousins," he shouted, a shout that made perfect sense to him as she rolled on her back and scrabbled her legs, but he didn't care when her claws cut his flesh while he crawled on top of her, reaching for her throat to choke the life out, watching his own blood splatter her white habit as his fingers closed and he squeezed, but the squeeze was not as strong as he expected, he couldn't feel the neck crumpling within his grasp. When he tried to breathe he could not.

A wheeze escaped him. So much of his blood pooling down on her, washing away the streaks of black tears from a face consumed solely by fury.

Awareness returned to Scott Dalton Swaino II that he was dying.

That was okay though. The awareness returned not with fear, not with regret. He saw in the eyes under him the answer. Those eyes would never forget him. Those eyes witnessed all that he did, and leaving one witness he left—

A legacy.

Strength failed him. His body gave out.

And that was Perfidia Bal Berith's opportunity.

God! It was not common for her to say His name (in vain or otherwise) but given her situation, given this whole current shitterfuck, she thought she deserved at least a mental exclamation. Her initial plan, based on her then-accurate knowledge that Jay got captured by Flanz-le-Flore, was simple. She'd lead them into the forest, lead them right to where Jay was—exactly as they asked!—and let Flanzy snap-snap-snap her fingers to turn her captors into harmless critters regardless of what guns they brought. Then Perfidia would be free to make her escape, of course.

That didn't happen. Lalum, nearly dead, told them Jay somehow escaped Flanz-le-Flore's court. Did it without Perfidia's guiding hand! What the fuck were the odds? She started to sweat then. But she still had something in her back pocket. An encounter she planned ahead of time, a climactic finale to this first arc of his journey. The dragon Devereux's corpse, the Staff of Lazarus, Mayfair, all of it part of her construction. If Jay followed her script by reaching the monastery, maybe he followed it the rest of the way. Barring some hiccups it seemed he had and halleluiah for that. Halleluiah.

Everything else was shrewdness on her part. She knew Jay wouldn't sign some quick contract with her, but telling him made Shannon move him—and Mayfair—to the other car, which kept Perfidia out of direct danger when the dragon got to rampaging. Smart of her, touch of luck too, but what devil didn't have luck? (About time Perfidia got hers.) Now Dalt was dead and no eyes were on her.

She expended a smidge of Humanity to cut the restraints on her ankles and wrists. She'd worry about her tail later. With these expenditures and the appearance-changing one she made at Wendell's house she still had just enough Humanity to fashion a new key for the Door—assuming she couldn't steal the existing one off Shannon first.

Climbing over Sansaime—still unconscious, another boon—she briefly considered the viability of driving the Land Rover to safety. But the mountain trail was narrow and Devereux clogged most of it. The jeep, though, was on the other side of Devereux. Wendell and Makepeace were distracted by the dragon, no sign of Jay or Shannon, but Perfidia could handle them. Especially with the sidearm Dalt had stupidly left in the cupholder between the front seats.

She kicked off her heels, peeled off her nylons, and ran barefoot into the rain. Her soles slapped the mud as she made rickety progress along the edge of the slope trying to circumnavigate the dragon fully. One toe sliced on a jagged rock; she bit her tongue to stifle a hiss. Didn't matter. Intentionally or not by focusing on the dragon's throat Wendell disabled its ability to breathe fire effectively and that meant it lacked long-range options even if Mayfair wanted to direct its attention to her. Plus it had to stay put to defend Mayfair from Makepeace—where was Jay?—and that left nothing but open if rugged ground ahead, the bright orange jeep a glowing beacon of safety—

She heard footsteps pounding behind her. Her neck bristled fear. Pursued? By whom? There were no other nuns. Charm? With her wounds she'd be down, this thing was fast, what the fuck it was fast, horrified she turned her head and with amazement saw the thing chasing her was, it was—Swaino?

Scott Dalton Swaino II. Six foot something barreling down on her without a wound on him and her first thought as she lifted the handgun was that Olliebollen somehow got to him—which didn't make sense, Swaino was dead, she sensed not an ounce of Humanity on him—and her second thought, after she tugged the trigger and nothing happened because the safety was on, was complete and utter panic.

When his hand seized her and she was beyond fighting back she saw over her shoulder it wasn't solely Swaino, the nuns were rising too, and realized exactly what was happening. Only too late, only too late.

In the jeep, Shannon had ducked down with her hands over her head the moment the dragon breathed its first spurt of flame and she only looked up, only returned to awareness of the world around her, when a fist pounded the door and Jay started screaming: "The fairy dammit! You gotta save the fucking fairy!"

His face bleared in the water-stained window until he wrenched open the door. "The fairy! Help it!"

Spasmic jabbing points directed her attention to the writhing bleeding thing on Wendell's dash, a thing arching its spine and screaming at the top of its lungs and expelling puff after puff of pixie dust that did nothing but make Shannon resist the urge to sneeze. Then her eyes saw the key still in the ignition, and the open road before them, and she galvanized into action as she climbed into the front seat.

"Jay, we're getting out of here. Don't worry about Dalt and Wendell, they have guns, they can handle themselves." Or rather, they got exactly what they wanted.

But Jay wasn't there, he wasn't in the backseat, he moved to the back of the jeep which remained open from when Wendell retrieved his rifle.

"Jay! Get in the fucking car!"

"Is there any more ammo?" Jay hefted a box of bullets for her to see. "You didn't bring only one tin did you?"

"What are you talking about? What does that matter? Get in!"

"Where's the rest of the ammo?"

"It's in the other car!"

"Other car."

"Does it matter? Dalt and Wendell have it handled—Get in!"

Jay wasn't listening. He jostled the junk, picked up a bright red can of gas, and shook it.

"JAY!"

He glanced up. A look of utter disgust crossed his features. He screamed: "This isn't your fucking world Shannon it's mine and if you don't listen to me you're not gonna fucking live got it? Now do something about the fucking fairy!"

Ridiculous. Ridiculous! What was he doing, what was he doing, but Shannon had no way to make him listen, hands jittering and mind racing, and a groan escaped as she turned her attention to his "fairy," allowing this "fairy" to really exist in her mind, one arm a stump pumping blood as she leaned forward and hovered her hands over it. Whatever it was, whether real or not, it was in total agony, oh fucking Christ!

She pinched the stump between her thumb and forefinger and the fairy jerked spasmodically and screeched to such an abominable degree that it pealed over the sudden spate of shotgun blasts ripping the sky from the direction of Dalt's car. Shannon checked over her shoulder, couldn't see Dalt or anything except the dragon, looked back at the fairy to see anything else. Shannon's fingers were now drenched in weird, sweet-smelling blood, applying pressure didn't seem to work. She checked around in case she might find, she didn't know, a bit of string or something to make a tourniquet (ridiculous! Ridiculous! A tourniquet for a bug!) and saw instead the still-flaring butt of Wendell's most recent cigarette, spat out before he exited into the rain.

Another groan. She knew what she had to do. She didn't want to do it, but now that the fairy's blood was on her hands she couldn't pretend it wasn't real. And if it was real she had to "do the right thing."

She plucked the cigarette carefully, held the fairy's stump steady, and pressed the burning edge to it. Steam and screams and the smell of charred candy battered her face and she turned away squinting and suppressed the urge to vomit.

Finally it was done. As the cigarette fell away what remained was a cauterized bead and while it looked horrific at least no more blood was spurting. The fairy's screams stopped too, it fell still and silent, and for a moment Shannon thought—oh no I killed the poor thing—but then she saw its chest heaving exhalations and realized it must have passed out from the pain.

She did it. She saved it! Not bad, she thought. Not bad at all!

"Okay, I stopped the bleeding. Now let's—Jay!"

Jay opened the passenger door and plopped down the box of Wendell's rifle ammo and the gas can. "I need you to carry these. We're going to the other car and I need my hands free to fight."

"Jay. Please. Please, let's get out of here."

"Out of here?" Jay's eyes under the brim of his hat were harder than Shannon ever saw them, harder than she thought possible on her room-bound brother. "Are you stupid?"

"What? Stupid? You're calling me stupid? I'm suggesting the most sensible—"

"Look at that dragon!" He pointed. "It's standing still, it's not trying to kill us all, you know why? It's playing defense for Mayfair. It's following her orders, and right now her orders are to protect her. But she made perfectly clear what she really wants. To make it back to our world. If she gets Perfidia she can do that. Then—"

"Perfidia doesn't matter, I have the key, you think I'd let Perfidia keep the key?" Shannon took the key out of her pocket and showed him.

"That's even worse. Because now if we flee she's gonna get on that dragon and chase us. That thing flies, I don't care how fast this jeep goes it'll fly over the forest and get there before us. We have to deal with that thing now, Shannon. While we've got Makepeace and Wendell distracting it. Listen! Help me or I do it without you anyway!"

How much, Shannon thought, how much of that oh-so-reasonable explanation was true, and how much was the same drive to fight that consumed all these idiots, how much would a dragon even with those advantages be able to outrace a modern vehicle capable of pushing a hundred, a hundred twenty? Even if a gamble, how much more of a gamble compared to whatever insanity Jay was planning?

She couldn't leave without Jay though. As she thought about it, she figured she shouldn't leave without Dalt or Wendell either, no matter how confident they seemed. She knew Dalt. Maybe not Wendell, but Dalt. He tried too much.

Heaving a deep breath, she nodded. "Okay."

"The fairy's not dead right? Put her in your pocket."

"Jay. She's gravely injured, she needs to rest where it's warm at least, taking her into the rain—"

"If we get hurt she can heal us. That's life or death." He muttered: "Can't she heal herself..."

Whatever. Shannon carefully scooped the unconscious fairy in her hands and tucked her into her safest and most spacious inner pocket. She couldn't believe she was doing this as she picked up the gas can and the ammo box—both heavier than she expected—and climbed into the rain while Jay swiftly dove into the backseat and grabbed her umbrella.

Jay led the way onto the rain-drenched mountain road, Shannon at a totter behind him. Crazy, she kept thinking, crazy, a mantra that made it make sense, a way of positioning herself within the madhouse around her: things irrational and absurd, a dragon with its four legs positioned to shield the Mayfair girl beneath them, a man in armor with a sword and shield squaring off against its open jaw and wild eyes, and running toward them was—it was Dalt, carrying what appeared to be Perfidia Bal Berith on his shoulder.

"Dalt! Thank fuck," said Shannon. "Help me with Jay will you? We need to—Dalt? Dalt?"

Dalt just kept walking, passing Jay and Shannon without a word, without even a glance, on a direct route to the jeep they just left. Perfidia was motionless.

"Dalt! Dalt?"

"He's fine," said Jay. "You said he had it handled, didn't you?"

Why would none of them listen to her? What stupid idea did Dalt have in his head? She stumbled on a rock and slid and cut her shin and swore as the rain pelted her, swooping in a heavy wind set to blow her right off the mountainside, and even that horror was preferable to the giant lizard to her right...

"Charisma," a woman on the ground ahead wailed. "Charisma where are you going? Charisma! Charisma!" The woman had large feathery wings and was bleeding and Jay paid her no attention as he squared off with the baseball bat and umbrella against a porcupine in nun's clothes. Shannon refused to look at that, she stared instead at the woman on the ground, at least composed of a little dignity as she reached an arm toward her identical twin soaring into the air, a twin with bat wings who didn't even look back (the same way Dalt didn't look back) as she tilted her aerial angle and divebombed toward—

Wendell, back to a rock, rubbed his shoulder and winced. The kick on the .700 after six shots was killing him. He had to grit his teeth and bear it though, that was the methodology of the professional, no matter what he could not admit fallibility to even himself. A gun was an equation, the man who operated the gun an equation too and only a more complex one. He pried out the two spent casings and with wet shaking fingers loaded two more. Two more. His shots were ripping that dragon to shreds despite its size, his shots were doing the kind of damage only his fantasy caliber could wreak. He'd incapacitated the throat and both forelimbs which eliminated its ability to both breathe fire and move quickly which meant at range he had every advantage and all the wounded beast could do was sit there and die.

(But it wasn't moving even before he took out the limb joints. It remained still despite demonstrating on its initial charge it could move agilely on this precarious terrain. It also still had its wings. Why not move? What was it defending? Its young? Did Wendell miss a juvenile somewhere?)

Two more shots. If he needed two more after, then two more. Man was an equation. A sheet of facts and figures. Pain did not signify a solution, only the approaching—not the reaching—of a limit, an exponential curve upward as it infinitely neared a straight vertical line.

Aching, cut from the rocks he dove over, singed on his jacket, Wendell Noh wheeled out of cover and aimed his rifle.

Instantly from the dark a giant bat dropped at him. In less than a second he processed that fact, redirected his aim, and fired.

Wendell screamed as the butt of the rifle plowed back into his shoulder and everything in that vicinity went a dangerous sort of numb, a weak numb, a numb that caused the heavy rifle to droop with his mind uncertain he could ever raise it again. Still it was enough. Imperfect angle but he blasted away one of the bat's arms at the elbow and the force of impact knocked it off its trajectory so that it smashed headfirst into the rocks five feet in front of him.

Gingerly he backed up and with the hand he could still feel slung the elephant rifle over his shoulder. Panting, rainwater running down his face and his damn glasses so fogged—spectacular he made the shot visibility as it was, utter spectacle—but who was here to see it?—he reached to his hip and pulled out the Glock 17 (bullet point switch to sidearm safety off etc.) unsure if it would do anything against the dragon but it would at least cover him on his way back to the jeep—

The bat woman got up. Shakily he pointed the handgun while without worrying about pain, without worrying about the complete loss of one of its arms (the other sporting a lethal-looking claw), it charged at a sprint.

Stance unsteady, one arm flung out in front of him, Wendell rapidly emptied the clip into the triangle of the upper torso and only after the first six shots realized it wasn't stopping at all and by the time he lowered to try and take out the kneecaps its claw dug its digits into his chest.

Next the bat woman beat her wings and Wendell's feet left the ground. Up—up—airborne. Going to drop him—into the ravine. No hesitation. No sense for his numb arm. He flung both hands around the bat's neck and both legs around its waist and latched on the moment before it let go. A wild scream unrecognized as his own escaped as all strength, all will within his body went into his arms, a death grip desperate as his head tilted back and a chasm of gnashing teeth yawned below.

His hat hurtled into oblivion as the bat creature spiraled in midair.

Had to hold on. Focused on "Had to hold on" his scream desisted. No sound save whoosh of wind and patter of rain. Had to hold on. Here, in the open air, came a kind of solace. Had to hold on.

Had to hold on.

Had to hold on.

The jagged rocks disappeared. Bright bushy trees replaced them. Still spinning, still silent in this dervish dance, Wendell and the other crashed into the forest.

One more out of the picture.

This place once so full of people had dwindled into a sparser stage. For a time only a few sounds splattered the pathway: a plunk of a baseball bat against bone, a swish of a sword, and of course the omnipresent rain. All would be over soon.

The elimination of Wendell meant Mayfair essentially won. Wendell's unexpectedly powerful weapon was their sole collective advantage over her. Who else could harm the dragon Devereux? Her brother and his toy blade? To be certain, the fool was the spitting image of that ancestral Coke who slew Devereux in centuries past, but he did so with relics her brother did not currently possess. The blade was a mortal blade; only the shield allowed him any particular relevance.

Those nuns had done well. Pitiful measure of her own wretchedness that Mayfair could think no happier words for them, several dead and several more currently dying (dying being, again wretchedly, a far less useful state than dead). Half of her told herself: They lacked souls. The other half: It was for their souls she was fighting.

Dalt had a soul. His death was certainly, incontrovertibly a sin, although it was no sin of Mayfair for she had not contributed to or designed his death; her nuns, living then, acted of their own volition, and it was no sin—not one writ in the Bible, at least—to prosper from a death in which you had no hand. Yet Christ himself railed against the letter of his Father's own moral law; He rejected those Pharisees, such learned scholars, who abused that letter to their own ends. He knew what was and was not sin. Yet how was man to know if His Word was unclear? Was one simply to assume that if one felt something was a sin, then it was so? Take then the opposite supposition: Were those lunatics who knew not what they did to be forgiven? Luke 23:24—Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

It made sense, given Genesis, that those with more knowledge were cursed to more sin.

Still, she had not, herself, killed. Nor those she resurrected by the relic's power, who were beholden to her will. With Wendell gone, it was time to depart.

Devereux, no longer defending her from attacks on both sides, lifted his wings and redirected his stance to bear his face toward her brother. The vile lizard's legs and throat were destroyed, its movement staggered, but even so, what would her brother be able to do against it?

From under the dragon she walked, into the rain—she was already soaked—still tasting the faerie's blood on her lips. Ahead Dalt stood beside the open door of the bright orange "car," holding it for her. Jay Waringcrane and his sister had been kind enough to vacate it. That considered, and the Master secured in the backseat, no further impediments remained. The "car," piloted by Dalt, would take her to the Door swiftly. The Master would then open the Door for her, one way or another.

"Mayfair!"

The voice whistled through the wind.

"Mayfair!"

The voice belonged to her brother.

She ought not turn. She ought not. He lacked further relevance. He brought the hero to her and thus served his function. Let him return to his world, with that elf slut of his and all the other sluts with whom he enjoyed sullying his body; Mayfair would not prevent him from that. Devereux need not kill, not on her command, only prevent them from following her until it was too late for them to prevent her aims. If she felt any malice toward him, this ridiculous older brother of hers, shirker of responsibility, flouter of God and duty alike, if she felt any malice at all—let that malice manifest in her consigning him to his due fate: King of Whitecrosse, regent seated upon the throne that, vampire-like, drained the lifeforce from their mother.

Mayfair turned her head and past the coiled form of Devereux he stood shining, glowing with a light that did not exist from any terrestrial source—Makepeace John Gaheris Coke. Beyond him Jay and his sister moved toward the other vehicle. If they followed her in it, it would be trouble, but Devereux prevented all such motion.

That final thought was willful distraction; once consumed, she lacked any other reason not to direct her eyes back toward Makepeace.

Very well. Go on. Excoriate her. She was well aware of her sins; she acted not for her own salvation, after all. But Mayfair supposed as a final token of familial jurisprudence to allow him a final chance to cast righteous stones.

"You can't escape!" he shouted.

No, she thought. She could not.

"There's no way out. None at all! Have I not tried every direction, Mayfair? It doesn't matter how far you run. The road always bends toward Whitecrosse. Always!"

"Their presence has changed everything," Mayfair said simply, soullessly, words liquid in their drip-drop motion from her mouth. "Into our closed world has entered an external life..."

He knew that too. He attached himself to the hero, after all. They all knew it. Why else had the archbishop's cult, so heretical, spread so fast among even those he did not poison with fae blood? (Mayfair herself now having sipped that sweet-yet-foul substance. How would it change her? Or had she already changed.)

"You'll never escape!" Makepeace yelled. "Never, Mayfair! I refuse to allow it. If I'm doomed to die exactly as I am, so are you!"

Unconcerned by the threat of the dragon, he ran at her.

Makepeace John Gaheris Coke. He ran. At his back, Jay and his sister were doing something around the large vehicle where Sansaime rested. Jay said a snatch: "—and bring those ammo boxes here—" Nonsense, of course. Irrelevant, at least.

Before him, by the smaller vehicle, Mayfair stood. Oh what foolish schemes we weave. Everything had gone exactly right, exactly as plotted, and yet it still fell apart. The hero rescued Mayfair, she clung to his body as he exited the monastery, a beautiful storybook tale of a charming knight and the fair lady he saved, standard seeds set to blossom into pure and good romance; then, Makepeace had hoped, once Jay Waringcrane was bound in holy matrimony to the royal lineage, none would deny him the crown of Whitecrosse, nor would any fail to willfully overlook rotten Prince Mack in favor of a far better king. Thus Makepeace would be free, severed from the sanguine bond that moored him to that wretched castle. Finis.

A complication arose. Only a complication. He told himself so, and partially believed it. Thwart Mayfair's ambition to abscond via the Door and she would employ her next best plan to bring herself closer to that God she loved: the hero. Things might be more difficult to smooth over on Jay's side, but men rarely let reason get in the way of romance anyway; Mayfair was quite a pretty sort and growing prettier year by year. Yes. Mere complication. Makepeace need only catch up to her, slay her dragon if need be, and put an end to her foolishness. To become for her what his mother's lovestruck knights were to him: Harbinger of despair, envoy of inseverable strands. To bring her back and so free him. To make her suffer the way he did.

All that stood between him and that modicum of solace was the dread lizard Devereux. It peered with red eyes, its throat a mess of charred gore, its forelimbs stiff and slow. Easy to out-maneuver. His armor clanked as he ran under the imposing shape of its black form.

A thrill shuddered through him.

"Pointless," Mayfair said. "Please cease. There is no reason for me to hurt you, Makepeace."

Pointless? Nonsense. No, as Makepeace ran, as the dragon towered over him, as the thrill built, he realized: This—this moment, this scene—was what he truly longed for, more than anything else, more than any complex plot. This was a tale. This was romance, this was chivalry. Knight versus dragon. Dark storm and fire, warriors and wicked witches, savory ingredients combined into one spectacular soup. He gripped his sword and shield tight, he was breathless, his muscles ached and his lungs crackled with the heat and smoke he inhaled at the monastery. A tale, yes. One he would never find again search as he may his entire life. Whether free or enchained to that throne, this was a moment to cherish, a moment that meant more than the ramifications of victory or defeat. This was his moment of freedom. This was what he fled Whitecrosse to find, wasn't it? A page torn from the memoir of John Coke, souls transmigrated, echoes of a distant past revitalized for his sole pleasure.

None mattered save this. No. Not the hero, not the faerie, not his mother. This was what he came for.

A voice at his back called out: "Mack!" He knew the voice. Sansaime. Finally awoken.

That was the final ingredient: Hero rushing toward an insurmountable foe, his lady's heart stopped in terror. Ah, Sansy. You weren't so bad.

One problem, however. The dragon wasn't doing anything. Not fighting. It simply tried to get in his way while Mayfair climbed into the carriage or car or whatever they called it. How dreadfully dull! Makepeace couldn't have that.

He shifted his step and like a dart angled himself at Mayfair.

The dragon's wing lowered to bar his way and he slashed through the fine leathery skin with a single swipe and barreled through. The large man Dalt or somesuch was emerging from the driver's seat to interfere but he was too big and cumbersome, too slow, and Mayfair knew it too. Makepeace's sword pointed straight at her and her cool composure shattered. He wondered what expression he wore to put the fear of death so sharply inside her, but every muscle on his face was tensed to point of pain so he possessed some slight notion. Now do something! Do it Mayfair! No more making him play around with the dragon's tail or wing, bring him a real threat, a real climax!

The dragon swept its head and struck him from behind. The titanic shifting of its massive body gave him warning nonetheless and with a great big grin he wheeled to defend with his shield. But the turn was awkward, the mud so thick around his ankles, and his momentum already directed another way, so his block was glancing and the strange strike unbalanced him. Somewhat irrelevant, because it gave Makepeace the advantage of bringing the dragon's ruined neck closer to him. Yes, reptile, you were the true target all along, and that man who ravaged your throat with his lightning rod opened the perfect access to your brain.

Stumbling, finding himself bleeding with an odd and muted sting, his feet pattered a dance and he brought his sword into the throat and upward to the brain.

(Pointless! her voice echoed.)

The dragon shoved its head sideways, propelling Makepeace with it, and rammed him against the solid trunk of its left leg. Something inside Makepeace crunched, or rather a lot of somethings, and the air inside him left, leaving a jagged seam running up each side.

When the head moved away and no longer pinned him to the leg Makepeace fell. He continued to grip his sword and shield—refused to let go—but his body plunged him to one knee. Only one knee. The shield dug into the mud as he willed himself upright. Not nearly enough to stop Makepeace John Gaheris Coke, no. Not nearly enough to stop a true hero.

"Mack!"

Sansaime. She was out in the rain, on her side, trying to rise, shifting and vomiting. Sorry Sansy, must still be feeling that slight little bump on the head. Looked like Jay had pushed her out of the car, he was doing something. Some scheme or plan, he always seemed to have one, and they always worked out. Somehow.

Blood ran down Makepeace's face. It was alright. He could keep going. He struck the dragon deep but the angle—not sure enough. Not deep enough. Not yet the brain. Sickly pink mound of wrinkled flesh. Didn't matter whether the thing were alive or simply reanimated, without the brain—without the brain.

A knight errant, wandering the land, free from obligation save to that of chivalry and good deeds. Village to village doffing a hat to the maidens, savior against creatures of the forest and men of the sword, deflowerer, deflowerer.

"Mack! Mack!"

Until one day he picked the wrong fight and died with a dagger in his gut. And his lady sobbed for him. Bloody death, young death, death full of life, how so very romantic.

Mayfair stared at him, frozen, face pale, eyes wide, hand clutched to her chest. He widened his iron-tasting grin for her. She moved closer, as if she wanted to help him. Help him. Oh Mayfair, oh dear sister, help him? Still so young, still so unaware of the world for all your learning.

As she neared he raised his sword and swung at her.

The dragon's claw came down. Slowly, almost gingerly, but for its size enough. Makepeace flattened into the mud and it seeped up to embrace him and anything inside him unbroken broke. A flick and the claw sent him rolling, bouncing, dancing as his sword (but not his shield) finally left his hand and shattered. Bouncing, he saw the big Dalt fellow seize Mayfair from behind and drag her thrashing into the car.

Makepeace rolled to a stop. The pain became clear, but he minded not. He stared at the sky as the rain plunged onto his face. Sansaime swirled into view, bile dribbling from her chin. Not quite the perfect picture, but they always tidied things up in stories didn't they? Never mentioning the guts and vomit and piss and shit, no.

He opened his mouth to laugh but no sound came out. And Jay shouted: "Now!"

The contraption was simple. Jay stacked eleven of the twelve cans of ammunition in the front seat of the SUV. Then he doused the car's interior with gasoline, especially the ammo. It smelled sharp and he had to turn his face away. Some of the gasoline got on his bare hands and more seeped into his clothes but he figured Olliebollen could handle that later. Makepeace got hurt by the dragon, Sansaime was dragging him through the mud back toward the car, and that was more urgent. He directed to Shannon with concise gestures to emphasize his point: "Wake the fairy, have her heal him. Do it now, or he'll die. Go!"

Shannon had finally moved past the point of arguing with him on every point. With only a trace of annoyance she tiptoed toward Makepeace. Credit to the douchebag, but he actually did something of use, stalling the dragon by himself long enough for Jay to rig this death machine. Maybe the man was worth something after all.

Behind the dragon, Dalt shoved a mortified-looking Mayfair into the jeep and slammed the door shut before climbing into the driver's seat. The jeep rumbled to life and rolled down the road soon after. Perfidia was inside, unconscious. Not controlling the situation, Jay thought. Not pulling any secret strings. This was him and nobody else and for the first time he could be sure of that, truly sure.

Jay took out the lighter he filched from Wendell's jeep. It took several snaps to light, he had to keep it away from his gasoline-drenched palms. The moment the fire appeared he tossed the lighter into the passenger seat and pushed the twelfth and heaviest ammo box onto the car's accelerator.

He flung himself backward; the car shot forward. The flame shot through the interior, flaring in the SUV's many windows, and only after a few seconds did Jay realize his sleeve was on fire too. He crammed it into the mud to snuff it and watched. Twelve cans of ammo, thousands of bullets. Cars on fire didn't explode, that was a Hollywood myth, Jay knew that from internet videos. But bullets exploded. They were designed to explode.

The dragon watched as the SUV rumbled toward it. With its legs in shambles it moved too slow to evade, not that it even attempted. It stood exactly where it was, blocking the path while Wendell's jeep disappeared around a bend. That was fine. The dragon was Jay's target, and it was a hard target to miss. The SUV, with nobody gripping the steering wheel, veered to the side, glanced off the dragon's chest, and smashed into the cliff face. That was close enough. Flames spilled out every window. Inside those bullets got hotter and hotter.

Jay waited.

The dragon waited.

The bullets went off.

Not, as Jay expected, in a giant explosion. They popped, like firecrackers. Pop, pop, pop. Pop. Popopopop. They popped fast, there were more and more pops, but they were just pops. No whizzing pieces of metal flying a thousand miles per hour in every direction, no catastrophic blast to eradicate half the dragon's body and immolate the rest. Pop, pop, pop.

[Wendell, if present, could've explained. You see, what causes bullets to travel with so much speed wasn't the gunpowder's ignition, but actually the pressure caused by the tightness and length of the gun barrel. Without this pressure, the explosive force dispersed mostly harmlessly the moment the projectile came out of the case.]

Pop.

The SUV, its accelerator weighted down, still tried to plow forward. It dug into the muddy slope of the cliff. Gigantic, built to haul, to offroad, all four wheels churning, it trudged deeper, deeper. Chunks of mud came off and collapsed in rivers of rainwater. Boulders shifted and creaked. Dalt's SUV dredged a clean swath and then—

The cliff collapsed.

An avalanche came down upon the dragon, which only then twisted to escape but was too hobbled to move with any speed. Its wings beat a singular time before a whole slice of mountaintop—and with it much of the monastery wall that stood atop—dropped as one inexorable weight.

A roar shook the sky as the mountain swallowed up most of the dragon. What remained—a stretched neck and an upraised maw, half of a wing—was swept to the side, off the trail, down the sheer angle of the slope to the ravine below. The SUV resurfaced a moment only to spill its lightning-bright headlights skyward before it disappeared for good.

And so too did the dragon Devereux, its final roar a swirling and dwindling echo as it dropped and was lost.

Jay, seated with his hands splayed for support, watched the landslide until the main surge went still, then continued to watch as part of the monastery wall still standing crumbled and a few more large stones fell with a weightless-seeming thwack into the huge mound of mud that remained.

Then, other than the occasional cascade of dust, all went still. All except the rain. All except the moans from Charm off to the side and the frantic cries from Sansaime somewhere else.

Jay got up. Mud and gas covered him. He wasn't sure how much he liked what just happened. He supposed it meant he won. It wasn't the way he intended, though. It didn't feel like his own, more of the provenance of fate, and he almost blamed the success on Perfidia until he remembered he couldn't.

On the ground, Makepeace was lying. A bloody mess. One arm bent, one leg jutting bone, red pools under four distinct areas, armor crinkled as though made of paper. He was still breathing, though, whispering something to Sansaime, who curled over him.

"Shannon I told you," Jay said, "wake up the fairy and heal him."

Shannon's face, etched with disgust, turned toward him. "Yeah? Well, she won't wake up. Don't blame her either, she lost an arm and most of her blood. Maybe she won't ever wake up."

She held Olliebollen in one hand and shielded her from the rain with the other. No more than a lump of fur. When she twitched Jay thought about how dead bugs still twitch.

Jay thought: Ah.

"No Mack, no," Sansaime said. "No, wait, I didn't want this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your sister. I just had to—what they promised me was—no, no, it doesn't matter. This isn't how it's supposed to be Mack. What about those things you told me? Remember? We were going to leave the kingdom together. What about that, Mack? We would travel the world together, living free, remember you said that to me? That night in the inn, Mack. Remember? Mack. Mack?"

Gloved hands gripped Mack's collar and shook him. Rainwater ran off the face. Jay tried to seize Olliebollen from Shannon and shake her awake, flick her, but Shannon made a protective gesture and Jay yelled at her that she didn't know what she was doing, she never knew half as much as she thought.

But Jay knew. Olliebollen wasn't waking up. Not now. Not fast enough.

Makepeace wore a smile. His eyes shut until Sansaime slapped him hard enough to make him open them a moment, and then he shut them again. His lips moved. Sansaime leaned close and Jay found himself leaning close too. The lips moved again:

"...scape..."

All went still.

Sansaime let out a repugnant sob and pressed her forehead to his chest. Jay blinked. He didn't understand. He looked from the body to what remained of the battlefield, corpses and wreckage and fire and rain. Everyone gone.

Everyone except his sister. "Great. Absolutely great," Shannon said. "Dalt ditched us and you blew up—blew up—the other car. Great! You really are the most colossal fuckup, aren't you?"

Jay lacked anything to say in response.