Ceese's gun?"
"Yes. And it's the gun that your mother used to stop Oberon in his tracks."
"And you're going to use it to kill me."
"Not kill. Disrupt the structure of your body and let your immortal parts back down the pipe."
"Oh, cool. Now it's fine."
"Mack," she said. "I have no choice, and neither do you. For the sake of all these people."
"I know that," he said. "That's why you didn't want to marry me, isn't it? Because you knew your victory wouldn't be complete until I was dead."
"Everything has a reason," said Titania. "But until you know all the reasons, you don't really understand any of them."
"Go ahead and shoot."
Titania aimed at him. "Bye, baby." She fired.
Mack felt nothing at all. "You missed."
"I didn't miss," she said. "It went right through your head."
"Didn't feel it."
"Jump down from there."
He did.
It hurt like crazy. Not as bad as the rip in his chest from the dragon's talon, but bad enough.
"Why did you shoot me in the hand! Now you've got to do it again!"
"This is great," said Titania. "I can shoot you just fine down here, but it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. And when you're standing up there, it halfway dematerializes you so bullets pass right through."
"Oh," said Mack. "Standing over the drainpipe does that to me?"
"It's where you came from," she said. "You popped out of there and floated around till Puck sent you up the road to Nadine Williams's womb. It was his job. As it was his job to go fetch Byron Williams and get him home before you were born."
"What about Ceese? Puck fetch him, too?"
"No, baby," said Titania. "Your own goodness called out to him. As it called out to Ura Lee Smitcher. Love and honor and courage know their own kind. Even Word Williams. It was that connection between you that kept Puck from fully erasing his memory. And it was that connection that let Oberon find him and use him as his pony."
"It all comes back to me," said Mack.
"How's your hand?"
"Bloody and painful. How's your conscience?"
"Troubled," said Titania.
"You won't even miss me," said Mack.
"I will," she said, "but only for a little while."
Her words staggered him, but he nodded gravely and said, "Thank you for being honest with me."
"I'll never be anything else."
"As long as we both shall live," he said bitterly.
"How are we going to do this?"
"We aren't going to do anything. I'm going to do it."
"How?"
"If bullets go right through me when I'm over the drainpipe," said Mack, "then why would four sections of rebar stop me from dropping back down to hell?"
Then she backed away and hovered, watching.
"I'll do it," he said impatiently. "You don't have to watch."
"Yes I do," she said.
"Just have to make sure I don't cheat and run away," he said bitterly.
"Every voyager needs someone who loves him to say goodbye."
"Do you love me? Not Oberon, me?"
"I can't answer that," said Titania.
Mack turned away from her.
His feet balanced on the rim of the drainpipe, Mack made one slow turn, drinking in the hills that surrounded the little basin on three sides, and the view to the north, out over the city of Los Angeles.
I wish I'd known yesterday morning that I'd never see any of this again after today. I would have... I would have...
Only then did he realize that he wouldn't have done anything differently. Not yesterday. Not any other day of his life. There wasn't a single choice that he regretted.
Well, that's okay then, he decided. How many people get to leave this world without a single thing in their lives that they'd like to undo? Oh, there's people I wish I could have helped, but no harm that I did myself but what I set it right as quick as I could.
"Titania!" he called out.
She flew into view, a few yards away. Only now she was very small. About the size of a butterfly.
"Titania, I didn't get to tell Ebby goodbye. Will you tell her for me?"
"I will, after Puck fixes her up."
"I think maybe I might have fallen in love with her, if I'd had more time."
"In and out of love. That's what mortals do," said Titania. "Always in love yet never satisfied."
"You and Oberon are so much better?"
She smiled. "Touche, baby."
Chapter 25
ONE
Oberon stood wingless and in chains, guarded by two fairies with swords who never took their gaze from him. Over him vaulted a ceiling of solid rock, though if he had his freedom, the rock would not be solid