[18] Without Love

The sedan, unremarkable save for its freshly-dented bumper, dented its bumper again when it drove too far into the parking space and struck the wall with a terrifying shriek that caused the driver to shriek herself. Only by coinflip luck did she stomp the brake instead of the accelerator, and she held her position tautened to the snapping point for the next fifteen seconds—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—until she finally put the car into reverse, backed away from the wall and off the parking block, and put the car into park.

This was the twelfth time she had parked in this parking structure in the past two days. On the stereo—because she was physically incapable of driving unless music played on the stereo, without music she became carsick—played Shania Twain's "That Don't Impress Me Much." The driver remained seated in the motionless car, staring ahead at the painted sector on the concrete wall, and only when the music cut out for Shania to say "Okay, so you're Brad Pitt" did Avery Fenster Waringcrane wake up and fumble for the door.

She opened the door, tried to get up, got stopped by her seatbelt, tried to undo her seatbelt but it was stuck, sank back into her seat, fiddled with the belt, finally the button worked and the seatbelt snapped back into place, and then she got up again, feeling something was wrong, not sure what, back into her seat, patted the steering wheel, what was wrong, everything was wrong, but what was wrong about the car specifically—the keys. She left the keys in the ignition. She claimed the keys—bye bye Shania Twain—dropped them into her purse, strung the strap of the purse over her shoulder, got out of the car, and closed the door behind her. She remembered she needed to lock the car. Into her purse her hand sifted, over unlimited junk, sifting and sifting, bumping the key, not quite grabbing it, grabbing it, dropping it, stooping, fingertips scraping concrete, the keys bouncing but not—entering—her hand, got it, rising, finger on the button to the lock the car, and then the car doors locked automatically as they always did when the key was out of the ignition for thirty seconds.

Everything was wrong.

Was this even the address Shan-bear gave her? For the twelfth time she prepared to haunt the corridors of this ordinary office building, knocking on doors only for nobody to be anywhere, a stray janitor or secretary sometimes but often not even that, and why not? It was Thanksgiving. Well not anymore. It was Black Friday. Still the Thanksgiving holiday. But they sold things on Black Friday didn't they?

I will bring Jay back. I promise you that. I promise you, he'll be home for Thanksgiving.

Shan-bear... You wouldn't leave too. You wouldn't. Why wouldn't you answer your phone? Dalt wouldn't either... what happened?

She stopped. To her side was something. A big stone archway. It spanned a single parking space and reached to the layer of pipes lining the ceiling. It was peppered with papers: "PLEASE MOVE THIS." "THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING." "I WILL CALL SECURITY." "YOU ARE INTRUDING ONTO MY PARKING SPACE." "WHAT EVEN IS THIS?"

Had she not noticed it before? She came here eleven times before, in and out, staying as long as she could before she became certain she was wrong about the address and left to explore some neighboring office building instead. She stopped and stared at the arch and wondered. It had to mean something. But what? She didn't know. She didn't know!

One of the papers on the arch read: "YOU'RE THE LADY IN 307. DON'T THINK I DON'T KNOW. I'LL REPORT YOU!"

307...

A powerful feeling swept over her. She didn't know what or why. 307.

The directory in the lobby said Office 307 was on the third floor. So were all the other offices that started with a 3. Avery supposed that made sense. People had such sensible ways of doing things, it always surprised her, and perpetually surprised she climbed the stairs (no need to use an elevator if you could help it...), exited onto what she thought was the third floor, realized all the offices started with a 4, and went back down a floor to the third.

301. 302. 303. They were in a very nice order. 304. 305. 306. 307.

307.

Avery stared at the door. It looked like a normal door. The directory said it belonged to "Bal Berith Contracts." What was that? A law office? She knocked on the door. She had knocked on every single door in this building at least twice during her previous trips, and only about three or four doors answered. The people who had answered were nice, but they didn't know anything.

307. A strange arch in the parking lot.

What if they both just hated her. What if they both just never wanted to see her again and ran away and didn't tell her. Avery slumped to her knees and seized her mouth with both hands and held in a sob. They just wanted to hurt her? Make her cry? She tried her best. She tried her best for them. This was planned? Two faces smiling, smiling, smiling in a swirl? This was her fault. She made so many mistakes. So, so many. But why? What did she do wrong? What was happening? What was happening what was happening what was happening what was happening what was happening—

Voice arose from the direction of the stairwell.

Avery looked up, her eyes drooping, her head still spinning spinning and only a glimmer of hope that it was them, Shan-bear and Jay too, she knew already it wasn't their voices though, why was she trying to trick herself when she couldn't handle any more tricks?

Then she saw Dalton.

She saw him, it was impossible not to see him, even among the crowd of people he stood out, it was undeniably him, but then she thought: This is a trick. This is your mind playing tricks and she so thoroughly believed what she was telling herself tears beaded in her eyes and she thought she would die. But the more she kept staring the more Dalton remained Dalton and the closer he came the less she could muddle herself into thinking otherwise.

"Dalton," she said rising. "Dalton. Oh Dalton!" Flying down the hall to him. "Dalton Dalton it's you? It's really you... Dalton. Oh Dalton. Please. Where's Shan-bear. Where's Shannon. Please. You got my text messages didn't you? Dalton?"

A wall of people put themselves between Avery and Dalton, or rather the people had always been there, conversing, led by a black man in striking religious clothing: A black frock over a collared shirt and tie, a violet sash draped over the shoulders with an ornate golden cross embroidered onto each side. When Avery swept her eyes over the throng, though, the person who stood out most was somehow the smallest, the one most hidden behind those in front of her. A young girl, a very pretty one, in fresh and clean black clothes. Avery could not say exactly what caught her attention about the girl, something just felt—important, unique?—about her, but Avery couldn't get distracted by whims like normal, she needed to focus.

"Dalton, please," she said again, while the black priest moved to block her.

"Well hello now," he said. His horn-rimmed glasses gave him a bookish, learned appearance, but his voice was much less deep than his plumpness made seem appropriate. "You appear to be in some distress there, ma'am. Is something the matter?"

The animated conversation died down as Avery nodded fervently. "Yes, please, I'm sorry to bother you, um... reverend?"

"Pastor is fine. Or Dwight, or Mr. Styles. Pastor Dwight J. Styles of the Cuyahoga Baptist Church, at your service."

He seemed to be in a good mood, and his niceness was the kind of niceness of someone in a good mood—not permanent. "I'm sorry to bother you, um, oh I'm so sorry. I just need to speak to Dalton there. Dalton, hi, Dalton? You remember me Dalton? It's Mrs. Waringcrane. Shannon's mother?"

Normally she wouldn't have asked if he remembered her. Avery operated on the logic that if she remembered someone, then they certainly remembered her... Her memory was just so spotty. But something about the blank look in Dalton's eyes unsettled her. Something was off about him, like he wasn't all there. When his blank eyes peered down at her it caused a jolt to rise up her spine and she stepped back, suddenly feeling very unsafe, very threatened, even though the pastor wore such a good mood smile.

The little girl jolted the same time Avery did. Jolted—and then quickly averted eye contact.

Dalton opened his mouth and words came out: "I apologize, Lady Waringcrane. I have decided to break off my engagement with Shannon. I have not seen her in the past two days. That is all I know."

That was not Dalton. That was not the man her daughter was dating.

"Please," Avery said.

Pastor... Pastor Whatever-His-Name-Was (sorry!) was in her path again. "Apologies, missus, but if the man doesn't know, the man doesn't know. Now why don't you move aside and let us through, we've got some important papers to pick up."

He shuffled her to the wall and passed on his way to Office 307, followed by the other people, followed by the little girl...

Avery dropped to her knees and placed her hands on the girl's shoulders. "Please. Please. I'm only looking for my children. For my son and daughter! If you know anything, anything at all, please... I only want to know!"

Instantly four sets of hands were on her, including the pastor's. Faces pushed into her view, she could no longer see the little girl, but she knew—she knew—she felt the guilt emanating, she knew, she knew, she didn't know how she knew but she knew. She knew!

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said the pastor as the hands pried her away. "You do not touch Miss Mayfair. That girl is—that girl is special, okay? She's not like you or me, got it? She's something else. She's a miracle worker. A prophet! A bona fide prophet, in this day and age, you hear me?"

"A prophet?"

"That's right. That's right!" The flow of bodies churned Avery efficiently to the back of the group, with the entire group—and the Dalton who wasn't Dalton—between her and the little girl. Miss Mayfair. "A prophet in this day and age, a prophet when we need it most. When we got divisions tearing this nation apart, I tell you! When the faith in the Lord is at its lowest. He has seen fit to bestow upon us one who will bring us once more to have faith in Christ and His love for us. Do you know what that girl did, that girl you just threw your hands on? Do you know?"

Avery felt like she did not want to know, that knowing was what she wanted least and most in equal measure.

"That girl. That prophet. She..." The pastor paused, directed his gaze downward at nothing, shook his head in wonder. "She brought a dead man back to life. I saw it with my own two eyes. All of these people saw it. You all saw it, did you not?"

A chorus: Yes, we did, we saw it, it's true. The only ones who did not chime in: Mayfair, Dalton, and another man, an old man.

"She brought that man there back to life! Just like Jesus Christ did to Lazarus!"

The old man, she knew at even a glance, was as cold and empty as Dalton. A horrified sob rose in her throat that she suppressed with a hand clamped to her lips. Did they not see? Did they not feel it? It cut into Avery clean as a blade.

Or did they see only what they wanted to see?

"Go out," the pastor said. "Spread the word. I want everyone to know. Every man, woman, and child in this country should know. God is speaking to us once more just as in Biblical times. Go now!"

She stumbled back, her head a whirr, thoughts no more distinct than clouds, an ankle twisting as she dropped and struggled to catch herself, rising, propping herself against the wall, her heart bludgeoning its way out of her chest.

"Wait," said a voice.

The crowd parted. The girl, Mayfair, stood there, one fist balled at her side, the other clenching the cane she carried. The balled fist rose and opened to rub the white bandage on her forehead. She refused all eye contact.

"You—seem like a good mother," Mayfair said.

"Please," Avery managed to whisper. "If you know anything. Anything..."

"Your son and daughter are alive. Unhurt." She spat out the words as though if she didn't say them they would melt a hole through her esophagus. "More than that... I don't know. I'm sorry. I can't say."

That wasn't true. Tears were beading in the corners of her eyes. It wasn't true, she knew more, and Avery despite the palpable horror emanating every inch of her skin rose and ran, no idea why, just hoping, believing some action would wrench more out of this little girl, but instantly the hole in the crowd closed and bodies rose to block her.

"Miss Mayfair is a wise girl, wise beyond her years," said the pastor. "Take the knowledge she's given you on faith. Your children are well. Let that soothe your soul." He motioned to two of the group, two men. "Guide her down to the exit, okay? Be good to the poor woman, she's clearly been through a lot. Remember, Mrs. Waringcrane. God is with you. Christ is with you. Believe in God and Christ and they will see you through your time of strife. Believe, because a new era of miracles is on hand!"

The passage of time that led Avery back down to the parking garage did not register within her mind. It was as though it did not exist. She was simply there once more, surrounded by concrete and metal pipes and that one weird archway. Dazed.

That little girl. That poor little girl. Did she even understand what she was doing? Maybe Avery didn't understand. It was all so confusing, so overwhelming, she could only think: Is this my fault? Somehow, she couldn't understand how, she had done something wrong, something to drive them away, she didn't get it.

But that wasn't true. Avery knew. She knew what she did. Shannon never forgave her for it either. Never forgave her father... Avery had just been too young. Eighteen. College freshman. Taking a general ed class on English literature and there he was, Professor Daniel Waringcrane, a recent divorcee at thirty-four years of age. He was looking to rebound from his ex-wife, and Avery was—she was eighteen, she made a mistake. Shannon always hated her father because of it, but she didn't know him really, she was only eleven when he... when he... and even then he had been so distant for years before the end, Shan-bear never really knew her father and Jay even less so, although Avery never knew if Jay had an opinion on him one way or another, he was always so quiet. But they didn't know. He wasn't a bad man. He took responsibility for what he did. He could've thrust a few dollars in her hand and never talked to her again. But he took responsibility instead. He married her and for a time, although both their families disowned them, for a time they were happy together...

Why did he do it then. He left no note. Why did he do it. For a time Avery thought... just a thought—a thought she hated herself for having... for a time she thought he did it because of the way Shannon looked at him. She was always so smart for her age, even in elementary school she knew something was wrong, wondered why her father was so much older than her mother. For a time Avery thought it was the look Shannon gave her father, that look of hate, that pushed him. For a time Avery even hated Shannon for it.

Now she wondered. With Jay gone, with Shannon gone. Maybe it was never Shannon. Maybe it was her—Avery Fenster Waringcrane—maybe something about her was fundamentally broken, maybe she pushed everyone close to her away. Her husband, her parents, her sister, her children.

The archway over the parking space, the one with all the papers asking it to be removed, opened.

It happened in the corner of an eye too red to loose more tears. Her head lolled idly, involuntarily, following an animal urge to focus on any change in an otherwise-static environment. Without particular interest she confirmed: A ripple effect now filled the interior of the archway.

How odd, she thought.

A figure manifested from thin air and stepped out of the archway.

A woman. Tall, thin. Everything about her thin—gaunt. Narrow and mud-splattered boots laced to her knees took steps like a deer onto the concrete, steps that seemed about to snap in half under the weight of the body they supported. But what Avery stared at was the face. It looked like it had been sewn together in patches, although no sign of any seams. The patches instead bled into one another by degrees, dark and light, splotches in abstract pattern through which facial features emerged with a terrifying sense of blankness. Two long and pointed ears extended from her head.

The gateway closed behind her. She stepped into the parking garage, the sound of her footsteps the only sound even though there was also the sound of the pipes, the sound of traffic above. Only her footsteps, delicate despite the mud-caked intensity of the rest of her: Tap, tap.

Her eyes, black-irised, landed upon Avery, who remained kneeling on the concrete despite the sudden awareness of soreness after kneeling so long.

"Where is Mayfair," said the elf.

In those three words alone menace emanated. The elf stood calmly but nothing was calm about her. A broiling hate seethed under that surface, hate and sorrow together and interconnected the exact same way Avery's sorrow over her husband's end could not be easily nor cleanly extricated from that frothing bead of hate toward her own daughter, her own Shan-bear.

Fear, however, took precedent over any other emotion Avery might have felt. Her arm raised slowly without her considering any potential ramifications. Her trembling hand pointed toward the stairs.

"Take me to her," said the elf.

Avery nodded, first no more than a twitch, then full and exuberantly when the elf took a single subsequent step toward her. Her groan got butchered as she hastily tried to heft herself off her sore knees and stumbled into an unbalanced tilt that bounced her off a nearby car that instantly blared an alarm and equally as instantly prompted the elf to lunge and seize her by the throat.

"What is that?!" the elf shrieked. "What's that sound, what is that, what have you done?!" Her eyes flicked from Avery to the caterwauling car.

"Car alarm. Car alarm...!"

"What?! What!" The elf pulled Avery tight, gripped her close, using her—Avery realized belatedly—as a shield from any would-be attacker.

The alarm ended. Avery felt the pulse of the elf's chest against her back. Despite her coldness of expression her body was warm to the point of feverishness, a searing heat that seeped through clothes.

"Just a car alarm," Avery said. "It won't, it won't hurt you. Just an alarm...!"

"Get me out of here. Get me to Mayfair. Now!"

Avery nodded. The strength in those fingers that seized her throat crushed any thoughts otherwise. Tepid, careful, giving wide berth to the parked cars, she led the way to the stairs and then up the stairs.

En route some sense of coherent thought returned to her, she remembered the way the elf entered the world, she remembered that the elf was in fact an elf, or at least she had long pointy ears like elves did and a type of grace in even her most frantic movements the exuded a feeling of "elf," and swallowing a dull lump she asked: "How did you... how did you get here?"

"Through the Door," the elf said, back to cold simplicity after the car alarm scare.

Yeah, that was about what Avery expected, and although she didn't quite know what the Door was or how it worked or anything like that, a kind of vague understanding crept into her and she remembered one of the questions she frequently asked herself during her twelve trips to and from this seemingly unimportant office building in downtown Cleveland: Why here? Did Jay and Shannon really come here and disappear? Where would they disappear to? It was Cleveland on all sides. All except the lake, at least, but nothing was in the lake.

Now she thought she might know where they disappeared.

She gulped again as she rounded a bend in the stairwell, reaching the second floor—only one left to the third, and a bad feeling seeped into her, a bad feeling about what would happen when this elf and Mayfair met. Her parched lips expelled on a dry breath: "Do you—do you know my children. Do you know Jay and Shannon Waringcrane."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The elf stopped. Avery stopped. She did not dare turn to face her. She closed her eyes and awaited the response she sensed building in the back of the elf's throat until it finally manifested:

"I do."

Nothing more. The elf started moving again and gave Avery a push to make her move too. No further questions would receive an answer. Avery understood that without any words spoken.

The door to the third floor corridor stood in front of her. Avery reached out and pushed it open.

A long, straight, yellowed space stretched beyond, rhythmic in its timely repetition of doors and plaques and lights. Until seven doors down, where the men and women from earlier were busy hoisting large cardboard boxes overflowing with rolls of parchment and plopping them in neat stacks against the wall, dispelling plumes of dust in the process. They were all, Avery noticed for the first time, dressed so nicely, in such neat and orderly suits and dresses, the men with ties and jackets draped over their shoulders and the women smoothing out folds of fabric to stop the dust from collecting there. The black pastor directed them beside the open door of 307, motions of his hands so smooth and oratorial even if nothing left his mouth beyond terse orders of "Over there" or "Yes right on top of that one."

There was a word. Avery remembered where she learned it but didn't remember the word. The title of a movie, it starred Sandra Bullock, she saw it on TV once, or at least the back half of it, and Jay walked past and told her she'd seen it before, even though she'd certainly never seen it before. Sandra Bullock's husband died—in a car accident. But not yet. And Sandra Bullock knew even though it hadn't happened yet, she knew he was going to die, she knew about the accident, and she was desperate to stop him, trying everything she could to stop him, the name of the movie was, what was the name of the movie? It made her cry on the living room couch, and Jay said she saw it before, the name was. The name of the movie was—

Premonition.

Everything was going to go very badly.

The pastor turned his head first. His glasses were a gleam in the humming yellow light and he stood motionless as Avery swayed to the side and leaned herself against the wall to let the elf walk past.

"Who—are you," the pastor asked, his voice carrying across the long expanse of the hallway without him raising it. The three people in the hall carrying boxes put theirs down and looked. A head tilted out of 307 and looked, then dipped back inside. Whispers.

When would she have ever seen that movie before?

"Wait," she whispered. "Wait."

More people filed out of the office. They organized two abreast shoulder-to-shoulder with their shoulders scraping the yellowed walls. Ten of them, and then the pastor, and then lastly the old dead man and the new dead Dalton. The girl, Mayfair, did not emerge. Only the corner of her head peeped past the frame.

Dalton said:

"So Shannon had a second key. I knew it."

Shannon? Shannon?

The elf kept walking. Past 301.

"What's your name again?" Dalton said. "Sansadore? Sansaime. Sansaime, that's it. What exactly did those dukes promise you for killing—for killing Lady Mayfair?"

Past 302.

"Money? Rather a lot of trouble for you to follow us here simply for money. Was supplying Astrophicus and DeWint and whoever else with materials for their heretical experiments not lucrative enough business?"

The elf, Sansaime, stopped beside the door to 303. The group of Mayfair's followers extended their lines to 306. Two empty doors stood between them. And Avery's knees buckled, the emanation of something awful constricting her, premonition, a vision of future death useless because she possessed no power to stop it. But who was dead? Who? Shannon had a second key? Key to what. Key to where. Did she no longer have it? A premonition was like watching a movie you saw before but you couldn't remember the first time you saw it. Or was that the opposite.

"You should know before you continue, Sansaime," Dalton said, "that Lady Mayfair possesses the power that revived Lazarus. Strike down these humble followers and they shall arise stronger than before. And any attempts at violence shall be met with appropriate measure."

The people in Mayfair's group, even the pastor, watched the elf with uncertain eyes, with trembling forms and furtive glances at one another as if to derive strength from the weakness of their companions. But it was seeing the dead old man who they all believed wasn't dead that caused them to turn back their faces with renewed determination. The pastor mumbled: "God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power..."

"It's simply not worth it, Sansaime. Please see that. Mayfair has left Whitecrosse. She shall not return to it. The dukes may proceed with whatever machinations they like; they are irrelevant to her plans and she is now irrelevant to theirs. Return safely to them, tell them the task is done, and never shall they have cause or need to doubt you. To kill another is to sin, and in this realm of God our sins shall weigh so much heavier on our souls."

In a voice like rocks grinding together Sansaime whispered.

"Tell it to me yourself."

"Pardon?"

"I said. Tell it to me yourself. Not through him."

A quiet. The faces of the people flitted, a murmur among them tightly bound to the hum of the heating system that flowed unseen through the hallway's walls.

Mayfair stepped out of the room. Keeping behind Dalton, visible only through the space between his arm and his side, she turned, straightened her dress around the shoulders, and composed herself into a rigid, imperious stance, a commanding stance despite her uncommanding stature and uncommanding position tucked neatly behind her followers.

"Mayfair," said the pastor. "Mayfair, what exactly are we dealing with here? Is this thing—is this thing some kind of devil—"

"No. Please allow me to handle this, Pastor Styles." Her voice was tinier and did not carry as far as Dalton's or the pastor's. She addressed Sansaime: "I know you are—"

"Tell me what you just had him say to me. Tell it to me yourself."

"As you wish. There is no further reason for you to pursue me—"

"NO," said Sansaime, a shrill rise in her voice that cut through Avery and made her stumble onto a knee, a cracking pitch Avery understood at once, in which she heard sadness and heartbreak and tragedy boiled into useless, unstoppable anger. "The other thing. About sin. Tell me about sin! What's a sin, Mayfair? Killing another? I shouldn't commit a sin now Mayfair? Is that so? Killing another? You say this to me? To me? Killing another is a sin? You? You smashed his bones to pieces. You smashed him to pieces. So tell it to me again. I want to hear you say it with your own mouth. What's a sin?"

Mayfair hesitated. Her composure shuffled. For an instant her gaze spanned the whole breadth of the corridor and she caught the eye of Avery and Avery shuddered because it grew even stronger, the word that Avery already forgot from the movie she was already forgetting beyond the fact that Sandra Bullock was in it, a memory lost as though grasping it caused it to crumble to dust so that she would once again sit on the couch and watch the movie and Jay would tell her she'd seen it before except Jay was gone. Jay was gone, Shannon was gone, and these two knew it. These two knew why and where. The archway. The second key—

"Shannon had the second key," Mayfair said as though reading Avery's mind. "But she's not with you now, is she Sansaime. You killed her for it, didn't you. You killed Shannon Waringcrane!"

And that was the moment Avery foresaw, foresaw so strongly that the millisecond before the words left Mayfair's mouth intense déjà vu overcame her, a horrifying disorientation that caused the yellow hallway to revolve while the faces spread in a circular pattern like the numbers on a rotary phone.

It was spinning because Avery was moving. She was also screaming phantom words she didn't understand: "You killed her?!" Sansaime twisted to watch her staggering drunkenly toward her and something shiny and metal whipped out of her sleeves to appear in each hand and Avery knew they were knives but kept running anyway thinking: Killed her? Killed her? Killed her?

The knives flashed, Avery twirled into a fall, expecting to be dead, feeling no pain, feeling nothing because the knives did not strike her, were held stayed in the hands of Sansaime whose eyes shifted away from her toward the direction of her true target. A cry arose among the believers, a flurry at the far end of the room, and then a harsh echoing crack that corresponded with an eruption of yellow crumbs in a streak off the wall right beside Sansaime's head.

A second crack followed the first as Avery hit the floor out of her aimless, poorly-footed charge and sprawled rolling. Thinking: What is happening? Not thinking it for long. A moment later one harsh tug around her midsection hoisted her upright. The hallway righted itself, slowly completing its final spin (or rather her mind completed its final spin) and the situation returned to normal.

Sansaime held Avery tight in front of her, held her like a shield to face Mayfair's end of the hall. She did that because Dalton had stepped ahead of the other followers and aimed a handgun down the corridor at her. Most of the followers had fallen to their knees, grasping their heads, even the pastor grasped while he shouted a prayer, an invocation to remain steadfast in the faith for God would deliver them.

Sansaime's hands were frantic and the face that pushed over Avery's shoulder twisted in boggling animation. "Clever plot there, girl. Use the woman to trick my attention. I see I see! Quite clever. And if I'd killed the woman, she'd be your puppet. But won't you use that weapon again? The loud one. I'm standing right here in the hallway. Simply strike us both through with one blow, will you not?"

With Dalton forward, Mayfair was somewhat more visible, but still only disconnected parts of her past the crouched forms of her followers and the thin frame of the old dead man who moved despite being dead. There was enough, though, to see that pretty face grimace, to turn its head so its eyes would not meet another's.

"Why will you not strike us both, girl? Is the weapon not powerful enough for it? Then simply dispatch the woman so she may return to attack me. No? Is that not the best strategy? I don't mean to tell you your business girl but you've rather perplexed me! Still no? Whatever could the reason be? You don't—No! You don't mean to say? It's true? You won't kill another? How holy and pious of you! How faithfully devoted!"

"This is the world of God and in His world I shall abide by His rules..."

"But you'd still kill me. Or did you miss twice on purpose?"

"Lady Mayfair," said the pastor, "what should we do? Give us the word. Give us the word and we—we'll fight to defend you! Yes! We will, won't we?"

His words, delivered haltingly, constructed in Mayfair a frame, and she straightened, and she managed to tilt her face past the arm of the dead old man to put Sansaime and Avery in her general periphery.

"Sansaime," she said, "you aren't human. You aren't even a candidate to be human. You're fae. You slaughter your own kind to appease humanity but you will never—never—be human. No matter what my brother told you."

A wheezing, horrible laughter clawed out Sansaime's throat, she tilted back her head and shook, everything inside her unraveling, undone. Then she snapped back to attention. "The rules are whatever you wish them to be, is that so? To be expected! That's how it always is with those in power. But you're only a murderer. Only a fratricide!"

"Stay your tongue." Mayfair was strengthening herself word by word, the words themselves a power. "I have killed nobody that God would consider human. Unlike you. You killed Shannon Waringcrane—"

"I didn't! That's the damnable hilarity of it, isn't it? I didn't kill her. Didn't even hurt the girl. I could've. Indeed I felt like it. I saw her, heard her and her arse of a brother speaking, and with Mack dead in the mud I wanted nothing more than to disembowel the lot of them. But I didn't!"

She didn't. She didn't kill Shannon. Or Jay. They were still alive. Avery's head tilted back and her eyeballs strained against their sockets to blind themselves in the lightbulb overhead.

"But," Sansaime continued, "you assumed I did. As you thought what you would do. Hm? Am I incorrect, girl?"

Steel coldness crept back across the span of the corridor. Sansaime's question lingered in empty air, empty air except for the mumble of Mayfair's followers, what did they think about all these words being bandied back and forth? Did they not realize even now something was wrong about that poor little girl they thought was a prophet? The pastor called Sansaime a devil, so maybe that meant they could simply disregard anything she had to say, or at least the things she said that disagreed with their view of the world... People were like that, though, weren't they? Avery was like that too. What was her world, where she thought Jay and Shannon would never leave and yet they did? What did she never see because she did not want to see it?

"Dalton, move forward," said Mayfair.

Dalton moved forward. He kept the gun raised as he lumbered along the hallway. The looseness of Sansaime's limber body went taut at once as she shifted from the wild, almost manic character of her speech to the instinctual readiness of a predator species, or a prey, Avery once more reminded of deer, frozen staring until the least twitch of movement sent them bounding into the woods.

And what? Would it remain like that until the fake, not real, not-Dalton Dalton got close enough to press the barrel of the gun against Sansaime's forehead and fire? Avery didn't want that to happen, didn't want to see it, didn't want to hear it, and didn't even want this elf to die, this elf who didn't kill Shannon, this elf who knew where Shannon and Jay were and might even have a key to lead her to them. Dalton moved slowly, all Sansaime had to do was back up to keep away from him, but she couldn't, she didn't want to, she held her eyes fixed on Mayfair beyond all the bodies and the only direction she wanted to move was forward. Never backward. In just the clenching of her fingers against Avery's shoulders Avery felt everything, a drive to fulfill a task even if it killed her. A drive to die trying.

Mayfair killed someone close to Sansaime, a man who was Mayfair's brother and whose relationship to Sansaime nobody ever said, but Avery knew that too, she knew who that unseen dead man was to Sansaime, she knew because she was once Sansaime herself, staring blankly at the precocious girl who killed him, whether that girl knew or admitted it or not.

He.

Avery's hand, which nobody was watching, nobody cared about her at all, that was fine, that was the way that was best, caring about Avery apparently sentenced you to die or disappear, anyway her hand fell into her purse. Her fingers rustled, rustled. Where was it. A small item, given her as a birthday gift from—of course—from Shannon: "You need something like this Mother. To protect yourself. What if a dog attacked you?" Happy birthday Shannon. Why don't we go to the zoo? Do you want to see the elephants?

Dalton coming closer, closer. One door away. The gun raised.

Her fingers closed around the gift. A small cylindrical device a little bigger than a AA battery. It had a button at one end. Avery pressed it.

A sharp, shrill, rapidly repeating alarm went off: WEOWEOWEOWEOWEO! The sound blasted so loud it made Avery flinch and she was the one who made it happen, which was loud enough to make Mayfair flinch too, even behind all her bodies. Avery took the device out and tossed it down the hall as far as she could.

Maybe if you were Avery and saw someone throw a screaming alarm at you, you'd be afraid anyway because you thought it was a bomb. But most people in the modern world would probably figure out what the device was pretty quickly: Just loud and annoying. To scare dogs away, like Shannon said. But Mayfair, same as Sansaime, came from some other world. They didn't have alarms like this.

Mayfair thought the device was dangerous. That meant not-Dalton thought it was too.

Dalton turned and sprinted back down the hall after the device as it bounced and rolled closer to Mayfair—sprinting to protect her. And Sansaime? Sansaime heard an alarm before, in the garage. She knew it was just a sound. All its shrillness did was pull her out of her daze, make her realize Dalton no longer trained the gun on her.

She let go of Avery and sprinted. Although sprinted was not really the right word for it. Somehow, despite the clear emotion that seized her, despite the quivering and twitching of her tensed hands and fingers as she held Avery, when her opportunity arose Sansaime glided. Just by being let go Avery herself was collapsing against the nearest wall but Sansaime seemed to soar, no, she didn't seem to, she did, because the instant she passed Dalton she rose into the air, slid against one wall to cause the most gentle and soundless redirection of her momentum, and then landed on the heads of Mayfair's followers, tapping the soles of her boots against their skulls one by one. The heads barely bobbed, their nonplussed faces registered no reaction, and Sansaime somehow managed it all without her own head even scraping the ceiling, as she was already tucking forward into a rolling dive that carried her over the head of the last thing in her way: the dead old man. Over his head and down toward that poor little girl Mayfair with both blades drawn.

Avery helped her do it. She didn't simply blunder into it either. She made a conscious decision—her alarm continued to scream. Why? She'd wanted to help Sansaime in that moment, she hadn't been thinking what helping her entailed, what the outcome of that would be, not thinking ahead that far, or was that true? Was that even true? Did some part of her know, of course she knew but knowing and remembering what she knew were two different things, did some part of her still know, like the part of her watching that Sandra Bullock film and being faintly sure what would happen next one moment before it happened?

Of all the jumbled people, the one who reacted in time was the pastor. As Sansaime dove from the old man's head, he hurled his body at Mayfair as if some giant unseen hand threw him. His big body in his black robes tackled Mayfair aside, which put him in the path of Sansaime's downward arc, but Sansaime did not lose her target. She swept her blades to the side, at Mayfair, before landing headfirst into the pastor, bowling him over, and rolling off him to her feet with a single elegant motion.

A thin line of blood shone on the yellow wall beside the open door of 307 and Mayfair staggered, clutching her chest. She still stood, though, using her staff as support, and as the moment of Sansaime's daredevil plunge ended the assorted people who clogged the hall finally reacted and turned as a mass to put themselves between them. Two went for Mayfair herself, pulling her away while the dead old man and an alive young man rushed past the groaning pastor and kept Sansaime occupied. "Get her out of here," the pastor howled as he pulled himself up, his glasses and sash askew, straining the thick veiny cords of his throat to be heard over the alarm and the commotion. "Quick, quick, protect her with your very lives!"

Out of the last few words of this command arose a screech. It was Sansaime. The dead old man, two daggers embedded in his body but moving all the same, had her by one arm while a pair of young men—the same two who escorted Avery to the garage earlier—grabbed the other. Together they forced her against the wall, while Dalton swept his arm around Mayfair and ushered her away from the action. The rest buzzed to her, asking if she was okay, the pastor bringing up the rear limping, and none of them even looked at Avery as they passed, none of them except Mayfair herself.

A long straight line ran down her chest, splitting her fresh clean clothes and darkening them with blood. She held a hand to herself, wincing, streaking tears, but the wound seemed shallow. Through those bleary eyes her look of pain was aimed straight at Avery. Sharp, accusatory, and all Avery could do was avert her gaze. She helped Sansaime. Helped Sansaime try to kill the poor little girl. Why? Why did she do that? Was she just stupid?

She wanted to disappear back in a dark space somewhere. She couldn't. Mayfair and her train passed by. Her alarm finally shut off the same time the last of them—the pastor—vanished into the stairwell.

That made it quiet enough for Avery to hear bone cracking. Sansaime shrieked as the dead old man twisted and twisted and twisted and twisted her arm. One of the young men punched her in the side, although it didn't seem like a particularly strong punch. Her long legs spread out and kicked at the carpet but the old man kept twisting and twisting and the cracking sound spread...

The first young man pulled his fist back to punch again and Sansaime wrenched her arm free. Her hand lashed out with the fingers straight and jabbed the first man in the throat. Quick, efficient. The man fell back clutching his neck and gurgling and by the time the second man recovered Sansaime brought her leg straight up into a kick that launched him back trailing blood. From the old man's body she retracted a knife and swiped it lightning-quick through the air, the old man's hand dropped from a stump that did not bleed and Sansaime was free, hurrying down the hall after Mayfair with one arm limp at her side and nothing in her face suggesting she cared whatsoever.

Avery got up and followed her. The handless old man moved too slow to follow, and the two young men moaned and groaned.

It was hard to descend the stairs, her feet kept slipping or folding under her ankles, and she lost sight of Sansaime immediately, but she expected she knew where everyone was going. Down to the lobby, down even further, down into the parking garage.

She was out of breath by the time she reached it, her hand went to her heart, it ached from all the pounding. Tires squealed in the echoey space and as she stumbled to grip a nearby pipe it rounded the swatch of pavement in front of her, a bluish and oldish SUV missing parts of its paint and with a good ten or so heads crammed inside to give off a distinct clown car aesthetic that filled Avery with an unstoppable urge to giggle. The pastor drove, a Christian fish symbol dangling from the rearview mirror he kept checking frantically, while Mayfair slumped in the passenger seat. Some of her followers reached forward from the back, trying to press cloth or paper to her, although they had to contort themselves around Dalton, who took up most of the space.

Swerving, the SUV hit a straightaway and shot forward. In its wake Sansaime sprinted, this time it was fine to say she sprinted because with her right arm limp she lacked most of her previous grace.

She still moved quickly. But not quick enough. The SUV rocketed up the ramp leading out of the garage and left Sansaime far, far behind. She made it halfway across the garage before she stopped, tossed back her head, and growled ferociously enough to make Avery jump, then wheeled on Avery as though she knew she was there the whole time.

"These things, these carriage things. How do you pilot one?" Her functional arm fanned to indicate the few cars parked around them.

"Ah, um," said Avery.

"Tell me!"

"You need, you need a key."

"Give me your key!"

"You uh, you can't drive with your arm like that..."

"Then you'll drive!"

She advanced on Avery scarily and Avery tossed her hands over her head either to protect herself or surrender and said, "Okay okay! Okay!"

Sansaime breathed down her neck as Avery crossed the full span of the parking garage, rifling through her purse—oh no she forgot to pick up her alarm—trying to find her keys again, reaching her car and still not being able to find her keys, searching and searching and searching (of course this would happen) with Sansaime's eyes lasering her to ash, searching and finally there it was, the keys, which she yanked out too quickly and dropped only for Sansaime to catch them before they hit the pavement.

"Hurry!" Sansaime said, handing the keys over.

"Thanks," Avery mumbled. She jabbed the car door with the key twice before slotting into the keyhole and turning.

Sansaime tried to climb into the car by crawling over Avery the moment she sat in the driver's seat and rather than tell her to go around and use the door she just flattened herself against the seat and let it happen, only saying "Oof" or "Oh no" two or three times before Sansaime with dexterous aplomb slid into the passenger seat.

"Make it move!" Sansaime said.

"Um, yes," said Avery, "but please buckle your seatbelt." She pointed, Sansaime didn't know at what, they exchanged a lot of glances with Sansaime's growing angrier and angrier and Avery finally realized the best way would be to demonstrate by buckling her own seatbelt, which she did with a lot of difficulty because she couldn't get the seatbelt into the slot fast enough, and it ended with Sansaime buckled up faster than Avery herself.

The car started and Shania Twain started belting: "That don't impress me much, oh-oh-oh, so you got the looks, but have you got the touch?"

"What is this! What is this!" Sansaime shouted, waving her hand at the stereo in a frenzy.

"Now don't get me wrong, yeah, I think you're all right, but that won't keep me warm in the middle of the night."

"Who's singing? Who's making this music?!"

Avery turned the stereo off. "Uh, I'll just drive." She was going to be sick...

Of course by then the pastor's bluish SUV was long gone. Avery drove onto the street and it was just cars and lights, cars and lights, and then Avery got flustered because Sansaime kept screaming at her and accidentally turned the wrong way onto a one-way street and twenty cars honked at her in unison while she waved her hands to say sorry and underwent a ridiculous maneuver to revolve around and start going the right way. By the end of it, after Sansaime figured out what was happening and started yelling at Avery about it too, Avery was crying again.

"So where did they go? Where?" Sansaime asked once they turned onto a main road.

"I don't know."

Sansaime expelled harsh air, thought for a second, and said, "Then back to where we began. We'll ask those two men she left behind."

Avery didn't really want to do that, mainly because the dead old man would be there too and he was in many ways more frightening even than the dead Dalton, but what else could she do? Her fears were unfounded, though. By the time they arrived (which took even more maneuvering of the byzantine downtown Cleveland road network), parked, and clambered back up to 307, the men were gone. The old man was gone. And so were the big boxes full of papers that had been stacked outside the office.

That was the end. Sansaime finally slid down into a seated position, her back against the wall, and instead of a frantic screech she only expelled a long and exhausted sigh.

"I've gone and blundered it." She reached into a pocket and withdrew a pipe, which she stuck into her mouth and spent a long time lighting with only one hand. She did not seem to mind any pain caused by her other arm. "Oh, what am I even doing here."

Avery picked up her discarded alarm and hid it back in her purse. Somehow, everything turned out... okay. Her little gambit stopped anyone new from dying, so she should feel good about herself, and then she should find the first opportunity to sidle out of Sansaime's view and run for it.

But she needed Sansaime, didn't she. Sansaime knew where Jay and Shannon were. She also knew how to reach them.

So she steeled herself and tiptoed closer while wafting away smoke. "So, um—" She stopped the second Sansaime's face, which did not look anything close to happy, turned toward her. Obviously it would be a bad idea to make any demands of Sansaime right now, when her mood was bad. It'd just get Avery yelled at.

"You look hungry... And tired... and, uh, hurt. Why don't I take you to my place and get you some food and rest? Wouldn't that be nice?"

That unfortunate, scarred face frowned at Avery, forcing her two steps back, even though the face was not consumed in immediate anger, and was in fact fairly neutral. It even, after a few seconds, donned a smile, although Avery wasn't sure how she felt about that smile, it was a strange smile.

"Very well," Sansaime said. "Mayhap it shall be nice after all."