by Holly Lisle
But she heard her voice squeaking, “I am the universes’ champion, and I challenge you to battle.”
“Battle?” he asked. “To the death?”
She thought, Honestly, I’d rather play poker for tiddlywinks — and the winner gets to confine the loser to a really huge shopping mall forever.
But her stupid, big mouth was going on without her. “Not to the death. To the utter destruction, to the complete annihilation, to total abrogation, to nullification, to absolute nonexistence throughout eternity — you universe-sucking abomination!”
The universe-sucking abomination started to laugh — a very large, hollow, scary laugh.
Minerva thought, That’s pretty much the way I see it, too. She pulled a magic wand out of somewhere, and started waving it around and uttering incantations. She looked silly, she thought.
The Unweaver just stood and watched her. She got to the end of her song-and-dance routine, and wound up with her big double whammy, and shot it off at the unmoving form.
Nothing happened.
The Unweaver continued to stand and watch her. His laughter crescendoed around her, growing louder and more terrible. Then, without doing anything that she could see, he promptly stomped her flat.
* * *
Minerva caught up to Talleos, where he stood waiting under the first sheltering branches of the little trees. She was breathing hard, and she had a stitch in her left side that stabbed and burned with every inhalation.
“For the record,” she told him between gasps, “ ‘the very existence of the universes depends upon you — and you’re a screw-up,’ — is not the best thing anybody — ever said to me on — a Tuesday morning.”
“For the record, that isn’t exactly what I said.”
Minerva gave him a sidelong glance. “It’s what you — meant, isn’t it?”
“Well — yes.”
“Then my comment stands.”
* * *
Darryl had been drinking beer with a dragon long enough, he decided. He’d heard the whole save-the-world story, and it was crap. All of it. This dragon was a hallucination — had to be. In spite of the fact that he really could see it, it just wasn’t there. He was a little off the edge — no doubt about it. But he’d bet anything that as long as he realized it, he wasn’t beyond hope. All he had to do was convince his subconscious mind to sober up.
I’ll inform the apparition that it isn’t real. That will do it.
He stood up and wove his way toward the connecting bathroom. When he reached the door, he leaned against it and turned back toward the dragon. He pointed a finger and said, “When I get back out here, I want you gone.”
He avoided looking in the mirror the whole time he was in the bathroom. Think things will be back to normal. Believe it. Make yourself believe it.
The dragon was still on the bed when he went back to the bedroom.
The dragon gave him a hurt look. “Don’t you like me?”
“I don’t believe in you. It’s bullshit. All bullshit.” Darryl slipped the ring off his finger. “There is nothing — nothing — special about this ring.” He threw it at Birkwelch.
The braided circle of yellow gold flew across the room, smacked him on the nose, bounced off the ceiling, landed on the very edge of the mattress, fell onto the floor, and finally rolled across the carpet. It came to rest at Darryl’s feet. He looked down at it lying there. Coincidence. He shrugged and turned his attention back to the dragon. “It’s — just — a — stupid — ring.”
Birkwelch sighed — smoke swirled from his nose and mouth, and Darryl thought he might have seen just the slightest flicker of flame. “Fine. It’s all fake. So where are your children? Why is your wife in the mirror instead of here?”
“I don’t have all the answers,” Darryl said. “I can’t explain why I think I’m seeing the things I am. Guilt probably—” He ran his fingers back through his hair. “I — don’t — know.” He ground the words out with as much force as he could muster. “But I do know there is a sensible explanation somewhere. In the meantime, I want you gone. As long as you’re here, I’m going to keep thinking I’ve lost my mind.”
The wedding band floated up from the floor, hovered for a moment in front of his face, then slipped itself back on his finger.
Darryl would have reacted in exactly the same manner if a snake had materialized out of thin air and slithered into his jockey shorts. He jumped straight up, screamed, and immediately began a wild attempt to remove the offending item.
No dice. It was stuck on his finger as if it had been welded there. He yelled. He swore. He pled. He tugged at the ring until the finger swelled and turned a nasty shade of red. He slammed his fist against the doorframe, then howled with pain.
Downstairs, the phone began to ring.
“Got it,” the dragon yelled, and leapt for the stairs.
“It’s my phone!” Darryl snarled, and tried to shove him out of the way.
Birkwelch grabbed Darryl by his shirtfront and lifted him off the floor. “Yes,” the dragon said, suddenly menacing. “But I’ve got it.”
Birkwelch dropped him and ran like hell. Darryl followed. He got to the kitchen half a step behind the dragon — fast enough to see the bright blue apparition pick up the phone—
Fast enough to see the explosion that occurred when he did. Smoke billowed out all around Birkwelch, and black lightning crackled, and the air suddenly reeked of ozone.
The dragon cocked an eye-ridge at him. The expression said, See, asshole. Aren’t you glad you didn’t get that? He smiled and handed the smoking receiver to Darryl. “It’s for you,” he said. “The hospital.”
Oh, God — she’s at work, Darryl thought, and felt sudden relief. Other explanations could come later—
He let out a deep breath, and shouted into the receiver, “Minerva, what are you doing at the hospital? Are the kids at the sitters? I’ve been worried out of my mind—”
“Mr. Kiakra — this is Ilene McDougald in the emergency room. There’s been an accident. We need you to come to the hospital.”
Darryl knew Ilene’s voice. She was an ER nurse, and one of Minerva’s friends. She sounded rushed and frantic.
“What kind of accident?” he asked.
“We don’t know what happened. The ambulance just came in — Please call your family though—” Someone in the background yelled for Ilene to hurry, that they were calling a code.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” He could feel that it was from her voice, but he wanted confirmation.
“I don’t know—” The voice in the background shouted for her again. “I’ve got to run, Darryl. Be careful driving,” she added. “The roads are awful.”
He hung up, feeling suddenly very sober. He stared at the telephone, then quickly dialed his folks’ number. He passed the little information he had on to them, and then to Minerva’s family. Then he ran for the door.
He stopped on the way to grab the station wagon keys — the LTD was a heavier vehicle and it had new tires on it — but the keys were gone. He didn’t know where the spare set was. Odd. Minerva always hangs her keys on the board.
She hadn’t though. He took his car.
One of the boys must have been hurt when the window blew out, he thought. Minerva must have called an ambulance to come to the house to get them. It had to have been pretty bad — she hadn’t been able to break away to call him— But what could have taken them so long to arrive?
It only registered with Darryl halfway to the hospital that the dragon had disappeared after the phone call. So now I’m sane again, huh? he thought. Damned good thing. He wished he hadn’t drunk so much beer. It was the sort of thing his father would notice at eight-thirty on a Tuesday morning.
He got to the ER before any of the relatives and ran through the automatic doors reserved for ambulances. He caught a glimpse of Ilene as she ran from one cubicle into another. The ER was packed, and people kept running past him. He didn’t see anyone else he recognized.
; He stood there in the doorway for a moment, and Ilene hurried past — her face pale and drawn. Behind her, someone yelled, “Another amp of epi, goddammit — and push it!”
“I’m going to let you wait in the nurses’ lounge.” Ilene rested her hand on his arm. “I’ll send your family in when they get here — we’ll be with you as soon as we can. We’re still working on her.”
“Ilene — I need you in here!” the voice yelled. Then— “That did nothing! Fuck it! Defibrillate at three-sixty!”
Ilene pointed to a doorway. “Go in there. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.” Her voice shook slightly — her eyes were red-rimmed and bright with unshed tears.
He nodded, and walked slowly to the door she’d indicated. He felt queasy and helpless, and lost. The noises of the ER — the beeps and rattles and high-pitched whines, the shouting voices, the cries of babies in some of the cubicles and the groans of adults in others were overwhelming. The smells were awful — disinfectant, urine, sweat and feces and fear. Patients in blue gowns sat propped in wheelchairs. Somewhere, someone was vomiting noisily. Out of sight, a woman wept — hopeless, grieving sobs.
Darryl stepped through the door into the nurses’ lounge and closed it behind him. That door provided an insufficient barrier between him and the pain of the rest of the world. We’re still working on her, Ilene had said. Her... Carol? He stared into the nurses’ lounge mirror — and saw a woods, bounding and bouncing, with a goat-legged man just ahead of the runner through whose eyes he saw. Minerva. Running. So I’m still crazy after all.
The ER was swamped, nurses and doctors and technicians thundered past at high speed shouting arcane commands, terrible things were happening. He wanted someone to come talk to him — to tell him what was going on. But they were still working on her. His little girl. The lump in his throat made it hard to swallow. He sat down in one of the ugly blue-vinyl-and-stainless-steel chairs and stared at the half-eaten Hardee’s biscuits that littered the round table. Someone had been reading Cosmopolitan, someone else a book with a dragon on the cover. He was frightened and restless. He picked up the book, thinking that the dragon didn’t look like Birkwelch at all — Slay and Rescue, he read. By John Moore. He didn’t know the author, didn’t recognize the book. But he wasn’t into that kind of stuff, anyway. He put the book back down and stood and began to pace. Things must have been pretty peaceful this morning, if they had time to read, time to get biscuits. They didn’t have time to finish them, though, he noted, and the sick feeling in his stomach got worse. He twisted the ring on his finger.
Maybe it isn’t all that bad, he hoped. A broken arm — or — or something. But the nurses didn’t have any other families waiting apart in the privacy of their lounge. Oh, God. Mom — Dad — hurry, hurry, hurry up!
Minerva’s folks opened the door and came in. They both looked pale and scared.
“Brian — Laura—” He nodded to both of them.
They gave him questioning looks.
“They’re still working on her — Carol, I think. No one has even had the time to tell me.” He shook his head slowly.
Laura said, “We passed your parents out in the parking lot. They were just pulling in.” She stood there, looking at the disarray in the lounge. Then she clasped her hands together, took a deep, resolute breath, and sat down. His father-in-law sat beside her, and rested a hand on her arm.
His own folks walked in, his mother leaning on his father, chattering at an incredible rate — inane stuff. The roads. The ice. The cold. So many trees down in the neighborhood.
So she was scared, too. Normally, his mother was the quietest person on Earth.
He hugged her and his father, and told them what he’d been told.
His father sniffed his breath and frowned. “Why don’t you know what’s going on?” he asked with that hard-eyed look Darryl remembered from his childhood.
Darryl felt the bottom fall out of his stomach — but he didn’t have to come up with a lie.
Ilene McDougald walked in, followed by the doctor. Mike Frankel, Darryl realized. Mike and Darryl and Minerva had gone to school together — they hadn’t been friends really, but acquaintances anyway. Mike had gone on to medical school and had come back home to practice. Everyone said good things about him. He nodded to Darryl, but didn’t smile.
Mike looked around the lounge, found a chair, and sat down. Clasped his hands. Unclasped them. Leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Took a deep breath, and let it out.
Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up! Darryl’s insides screamed.
“I’m sorry. I have bad news.”
Well, yes. They knew that — that was the reason he and his relatives had come racing from all over town. How bad; who did it involve — those were the things Darryl needed to know.
The doctor said, “Minerva’s had an accident.”
Minerva? Darryl’s racing thoughts screeched to a halt, stricken dumb. Minerva? He hadn’t really even considered that something might have happened to her. He’d been sure she was all right — because of the things he’d seen in the mirror. Somehow he thought that meant the accident couldn’t involve her.
Minerva’s mother said, “What kind of accident? Is she going to be okay?”
Mike looked down at his hands, then up and around the room at all of them. He looked shaken, Darryl thought. He remembered suddenly that Minerva and Mike had dated briefly one year. “I don’t really know what happened,” the doctor said. His eyes were unfocused, looking someplace far away from the ER and its horrors. “It doesn’t seem to make any sense. Some kids were out playing in the snow this morning. They went into a wooded lot in the neighborhood, saw something bright, and ran over to investigate. They found Minerva lying there in the snow and leaves. They were bright kids — two stayed with her and the other two ran for help.”
“How is she?” Minerva’s father asked. He was hanging onto his wife’s hand so hard his knuckles were white.
Mike Frankel swallowed hard. He pressed his lips together. “She didn’t make it. I’m very sorry.”
“She’s dead?” Darryl gasped. “Omigod, she can’t be!” He closed his eyes. His guilt pressed on his chest with an elephant’s weight, so that he almost couldn’t breathe. “She can’t be dead. This has to be some sort of mistake.”
Laura had her face pressed into Brian’s chest. She was sobbing. His own mother came over and put her arms around him. “Oh, Darryl — oh, poor Darryl,” she whispered, and stroked his hair. “Oh, Darryl, I’m so sorry.”
“She’s not dead, Mom,” he said. The tears streamed down his cheeks and ran off the tip of his nose. The hair on the back of his neck and on his arms stood up. He couldn’t comprehend the possibility of Minerva dead. That very moment, he could see through her eyes — she was right there in the nurses’ mirror, and she was running. “It has to be some sort of mistake — it can’t be her.”
He shrugged free of his mother and wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. “I want to go in and see her,” he said to the doctor.
Mike nodded. Ilene stood “We’ll both go in with all of you,” she said.
“I want to go in by myself first.” Everyone looked at him. “Alone. Okay?”
“Darryl, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” His mother was looking at him with worried eyes.
“Mom, I have to see her first. I have to be sure it’s really her.”
The rest of them kept their seats. Darryl stood. Ilene waited for him, then led him into one of the ER cubicles that had a curtain pulled around it.
It was a rainbow-striped curtain, he noted. Rainbow. Symbol of hope. How could anything bad happen behind a curtain like that?
“I’ll be right out here if you want me,” Ilene said.
He went around it, came in at the head of the stretcher. The first thing he noticed was a bright splash of purple in the wire basket under the stretcher. Gaudy, awful, loud purple — the infamous tacky purple parka he’d hated ever since the day she’d bought it. He knew tha
t coat, and recognized the sweater and the boots that were with it. He looked at the still form — the brown hair wet and mussed; the shape of the head narrow, familiar; the curved and rounded body under the sheet the right shape and size.
He walked around the stretcher, and for a moment he felt a rush of hope. He had been right. That couldn’t be Minerva. The woman on the stretcher was too pale, waxy and bluish — her face was slack and unfamiliar. She didn’t even look like Minerva. How could they have thought—?
He reached out and touched one hand that rested at her side on top of the sheet — and stiffened. The body’s hand didn’t feel real; it felt like soft, cold, damp rubber stretched over something hard. Minerva’s hands were warm and strong and lively.
But the freckles were her freckles. The short, sharp nose was her nose. The pale, pale lips were still round and full, their shape undeniable, familiar. It was her. She always had looked odd to him without her glasses, and her glasses were gone.
It really was her.
He brushed her bangs back off her forehead. Cold wet, rubbery skin — so hard to believe it was the same skin he’d touched with such passion for so long. Oh, God, it really was her. What was he going to do?
He reached out and took both of her hands in his own. He couldn’t see; his eyes were too full of tears. All he could do was feel — and the hands belonged to a stranger. He felt as if he were going to choke, or stop breathing and die right there. He wished he would.
Her hands felt wrong — wrong in some way other than the cold, other than the stiffness. Something was missing.
He wiped away his tears and stared at her hands.
Her ring was gone.
What? he thought. Minerva never removed her ring. Neither did he. The ER people? Did they take it off, maybe put it with her glasses?
“Ilene,” he said. His voice came out in a croak. “What did you folks do with her glasses and her wedding band?”
Ilene came in. “She wasn’t wearing either of them.”
Darryl froze, and stared at the body on the stretcher. The very air in the tiny cubicle seemed to roar in his ears.
