the weapon, surging into the immobilized creature. One moment the cait sith was there; the next, it was reduced to smoldering ash and dust. It didn’t make a sound. All that remained was a large blackened scorch mark on the floor.
Richard probed the surrounding warrens. Sensing nothing else had come through the gateway, he let Arondight and its fire evaporate into nothing.
He turned, feeling decades older than he had fifteen minutes earlier. His left arm ached and, remembering what the cat had done to it, he inspected his slashed checkered shirt. The claws had cut his bicep deep; his arm still bled but it was slowing, the flesh around the wounds angry and hot to the touch. He grimaced. He would take care of it as best he could for the night, and the next day visit the bookstore to have it looked at properly.
Behind him, Al clutched at his abdomen as he lay in the middle of the passage; yards away, Walker rocked back and forth, his arms crossed over his chest, reduced to the timidity of a four-year-old.
“Dat ting,” Al whispered as Richard knelt. “What was—”
“It was nothing,” Richard answered, peeling back the black man’s clothing to view the bloodied shreds of flesh. The cat had sliced him to his ribs but he would live. “That was a brave thing you did, Al,” Richard acknowledged. “I won’t forget it.”
“I won’t evah,” Al said through clenched teeth, beads of sweat gathering on his brow.
“Walker, get over here,” Richard ordered.
The drug user’s eyes refocused suddenly, and with palpable uncertainty he also knelt next to Al, never deviating his gaze from Richard. He kept hugging himself. “What are yeh, Rick?”
“I’m your friend,” Richard said sadly.
Before Al or Walker could say anything more, Richard grabbed their wrists.
Both of the men’s faces slackened; their anguish and dread became Richard’s. He went deep into their minds, where their memory existed. He reduced the last half hour to an alleyway knife fight with drug dealers, ordered Walker to help Al find the nearest police officer for medical attention, and demanded they never enter the underground world of Old Seattle again.
He watched the destitute men slowly leave, Al on his drug-addicted friend’s shoulder, their horrific night erased and their eyes glazed as though they had just been hypnotized.
Richard wished he could be more like them.
With dawn lighting overcast skies and his arm throbbing feverishly, Richard unlocked the door to Old World Tales and entered the bookstore on silent, uninvited feet.
No alarms screamed, no warnings sounded. Instead the old-fashioned bell tinkled in welcome as he closed the door. Richard adjusted to the dark; the store had not changed in his absence. Two windows displayed antique volumes, their wares cloaked behind sable blinds during closed hours. On the right, a counter supported the register; to his left, plush chairs surrounded a table bearing a chessboard. Rows of oak shelves vanished to the rear of the store, holding thousands of books. At the back of the shop, a set of stairs ventured to the owner’s hidden apartment above.
An open cage hung from the ceiling. Within, Arrow Jack rested peacefully upon his perch, the merlin asleep despite the intrusion.
The familiar odor of smoked tobacco lingered, comforting and haunting at the same time.
He suddenly hated how weak he felt in returning once again.
“You should have come earlier,” a familiar dry voice whispered.
Richard froze, suddenly unsure. All but invisible in the darkness, the faint outline of a figure shifted in one of the chairs. White light suddenly flared, blinding for a moment, before the table lamp revealed an old man with a short white beard clinging to a face lined by age. Icy blue eyes bore into Richard’s own, the gaze weighted from a man privy to all, but who shared none himself. In his hand he cradled an unlit pipe carved with swirling runes, an affectation Richard knew was never far from its bearer.
“I couldn’t come earlier, Merle,” Richard stated. “Work to be done.”
“I know,” the other said. “You do realize, though, wounds notwithstanding, the role you fulfill cannot be done if you are dead.”
A wave of intense annoyance crested within Richard.
“Maybe you should stop trying to control the world.”
Myrddin Emrys tamped fresh tobacco from a purse into the bowl of his pipe and lit it. The odor of cherry and vanilla intensified.
“It was genuine care, Richard.”
“You knew I would come here tonight.”
“I suspected,” Merle said, pulling on his pipe and emitting a cloud of smoke. “And I knew I must