- Chapter 25

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# CHAPTER TWELVE

The trunk was so hot that riverlets of sweat ran down Lianne's face, back, and chest, stinging in her cuts. The metal handcuffs around her wrists slid up and down her forearms, and every time they did, it felt as if they added another set of bruises. Everything hurt. And what didn't hurt, she greatly feared might not be working anymore.

She squirmed a little, trying to find a more comfortable position. If only her hands were in front of her—wait a moment. Maybe this bitch wasn't used to kidnapping people Lianne's size. Well, she thought, there are a few advantages to being both skinny and flexible.

This might be something the bitch that caught her hadn't reckoned on.

She ignored the pain that movement caused her, and scooted her hands down over her hips, curling her back as she did. That hurt so bad she almost quit—but the promise of not being thrown forward on her face every time the car jolted was more than she could resist. She waited for the worst of the wave of agony to pass, then pulled her knees up to her chest and tucked her feet through the handcuffs as if she were jumping a very short rope.

A very short rope. The cuffs caught on her instep. Better, Lianne thought. I always figured my twenty minutes of yoga at bedtime would come in useful for something. But I never thought it would be for dealing with a kidnapper.

The pressure of her feet on the links of the handcuffs had pressed them halfway down Lianne's sweat-soaked hands. They hurt, but when Lianne experimentally shoved her thumb joint hard into the palm of her left hand, the cuff slipped down further.

The possibility that she might actually get the things off hadn't occurred to her until that moment. I'll be damned! I think I can get out of these things!

She pressed the bones of her left hand together as tightly as she could and pushed with all of her strength. The combination of her sweat, the looseness of the cuff, and her flexible joints worked a minor miracle. The cuff slipped off, scraping skin as it went.

She pulled the foul-tasting rag out of her mouth and reached down to fumble with the knots that tied her ankles. When they came loose, she got to work on the other side of the handcuffs. The right one proved to be more intractable than the left—her captor had shoved it tighter when she put it on.

It doesn't matter, the teacher thought. I can move now. I'll bet that will surprise the hell out of her.

In fact, Lianne realized, it might surprise her enough to save me. That is, if I can get the rest of me to function. . . . She tried to open her eyes again. Although they were badly puffed and swollen, she felt the lids of the left one move apart.

There was nothing but blackness.

Oh, God—I'm blind!

For a moment she felt panic clawing at her.

Then, hard on its heels, dry humor. No, idiot. You're in the trunk of a car.

Lianne considered her situation. She probably wasn't blind. She was within the confines of the trunk, but completely free. She hadn't made any noise that would carry over the road and engine sounds, so the driver wouldn't know this—wouldn't even know whether she was awake or not. She had a length of rope, the handcuffs, one of which was still attached—was there anything else in here she could use as a weapon? She felt around in the trunk and stopped when her fingers wrapped around the smooth metal length of a tire iron. In the darkness, Lianne grinned. Hot damn.

Those were her advantages.

She enumerated her disadvantages. She wasn't likely to have very long to make use of her element of surprise. Her captor, if she ever decided to open the trunk, could do so at any time. The only warning Lianne was likely to get was the click of the key in the lock. Also, she was hurt—the broken ribs were going to be the worst of it. She wouldn't be able to run away. Wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight—though, she thought with wry amusement, the tire iron had the potential to be a great equalizer. And finally, she didn't know where she would end up, while her captor would be on her own chosen ground—possibly with allies.

I've got a damned good chance of getting myself killed if I put up a fight. Lianne considered playing dead, or going along with whatever the woman wanted her to do, and hoping for a chance of escape later on, when she was alone. But her dad had spent a very short time as a P.O.W. in 'Nam—before he'd escaped. He had, in the course of years of later conversations, mentioned a fact about the art of escaping from a P.O.W. camp that Lianne considered applicable now.

"Baby," he'd said, with the air of one imparting the wisdom of the sages, "the sooner you attempt to escape after they've captured you, the less they'll be expecting it, and the better chance you'll have to succeed. When you're first caught, you're usually hurt, and damned confused—and you keep thinking someone is going to come from outside to rescue you. It isn't until later that you realize no one is coming, and you'll have to get out by yourself. So you take care of it while they're thinking you're still too messed up to take off." Then he'd winked at her and grinned his broad, easy grin. "Works in most any situation. You remember that, okay, baby?"

A kid in on her daddy's joke, she'd grinned back and had said, "Sure, Daddy. I'll remember."

Well—I remembered. Okay, Dad, she thought, I'll go for it, first chance I get. Let's hope for baby's sake you knew what the hell you were talking about.

The car bumped wildly, throwing her against the front with a vicious thump that sent every bruise and broken bone into fresh, screaming agonies. Lianne shoved her fist into her mouth to keep from howling. She heard grass and branches dragging on the sides and undercarriage. Shit—we're out in the middle of nowhere, then, I'll bet. Not likely to be anybody friendly around. And no witnesses to see what happens next.

She planned her tactics with that in mind. Readied her weapons. Stilled her racing heart. Positioned herself as best she could in the cramped space.

Waited.

* * *

The Gate appeared with an unnatural shriek as time and space themselves were shredded. Winds raged out of the raw wound that opened in the middle of Elfhame Outremer, whipping the delicate silk hangings and bright pennants into a frenzy. Out of the pocket maelstrom raced a child, tiny, blond, green-eyed, with a fragile beauty obscured by the fear on her face, who ran like one pursued by all the devils of hell.

The elf who reached out and caught her, a patroness of the arts on her way to the premiere of Valyre's production of "Nine Lives of Woldas Toklas," could not imagine how the little human child had arrived nor what could have frightened her so. Her confusion cleared up an instant later, as the first of Amanda-Anne's monsters followed her through the Gate, to be followed by another, and another, and another.

The child wriggled free of the elf's suddenly nerveless grip and darted off among the trees.

The last thing the elven matron heard as the monsters leapt on her was the seldom-sounded attack-alarm, a clarion call that echoed from the top of first one tree, then many.

* * *

When the trunk lock released, Lianne tensed. Wait for it, wait for it, she chanted in a silent mantra. She gripped the tire iron like a sword.

She heard the door open, heard footsteps swishing through the grass.

Wait for it, wait for it.

Her eyes adjusted to the meager light that came through the tiny space between trunk-lid and body, and she discovered she really could see. She watched fingers sliding along the inside of the trunk, feeling for the catch.

Wait for it, wait for it.

"There it is,"—a faint mutter, followed by the click of the latch, and light so bright it hurt.

Now!

Lianne stabbed with the tire iron and hit the woman in the throat, pumped full of adrenalin and with her attention focused someplace where the pain wasn't. The woman gagged, one hand flying to her throat as she staggered back a step, her expression one of shock.

If Lianne had a little more strength, it might have ended then and there. Instead, she only stunned the woman long enough to get the upper hand.

Lianne loosed a banshee scream, the accumulation of her rage and pain and fear tied into that savage howl, and tumbled out of the trunk. Her grip shifted slightly, and she backhanded the tire iron across the woman's face, then with both hands brought it down on the top of her head. The handcuff that dangled from her right wrist swung staccato accompaniment against the metal of the tire iron.

The woman threw her hands over her face and head to protect them, and Lianne staggered toward her, the tire iron held like a quarterstaff in front of her. Then she swung again, overbalanced, and fell forward, catching the woman across the chest with the tire iron. They tumbled to the ground together.

Lianne screamed with the pain of her broken ribs, but she forced herself to sit up, forced herself to hit the other woman until the bitch stopped struggling and her arms dropped to her sides and she lay still.

It was a pity, she reflected, as she sat on the ground and panted with pain, that she was so weak that it had been the weight of the tire iron that had done most of the damage. The woman lay like a lump in the weeds, a red welt rising on her cheek—but she was breathing, Lianne noted, with mingled disappointment and relief. She was still breathing just fine. Lianne poked her in the side once with the pointed end of the tire iron. She didn't move.

"I wish I was the kind of person who could do to you what you did to me. I'd beat your face in with your gun and kick you in the ribs." Lianne was so angry she shook, as conflicting emotions warred within her. Damn, I wish I could do that!

She looked down at the woman, lying unconscious and helpless. Well, I can't. She sighed, her adrenaline fading away. Time to get out of here—wherever here is.

Lianne went through the woman's pockets. She came up with the keys to the car, but none for the handcuffs. She toyed with the idea of taking the gun, then decided against it. At least she could take the clip out of the gun—leave her without bullets. That would work. When the police found the woman, Lianne wanted them to find plenty of evidence that would make it easy for them to throw her into a cell forever.

With the keys in hand, she pushed herself shakily to her feet and surveyed her escape route. She would have to retrace the other woman's path, which would mean backing the car down the long, overgrown drive to the road. She would have to twist around in the seat to back the car, which ought to hurt like hell, considering her broken ribs. She looked at the redhead, lying in the track broken down by the T-Bird, and sighed.

"I ought to just back over you, dammit. I really ought to."

But she didn't. She pulled the woman out of the middle of the drive, swearing with every step. An instant of weakness and the opportunity for revenge overcame her, though, and she dragged the woman over to the edge of a huge blackberry thicket, rolling her as far into it as she could, without getting caught in the vines herself. Limping over to the car, still suffering, Lianne wore the smile of the vindicated on her face.

She shoved the trunk down with difficulty, and leaned against the car itself to keep herself from falling as she stumbled over creepers and vines and fallen branches toward the driver's side door. She opened the door, leaned forward, wheezing; doubled over at the sudden stab of pain in her side, and fell onto the seat. Falling saved her life.

She heard the crack of the other woman's gun, a surprisingly unimpressive noise, at the same time that the driver's side window, in the precise spot where her head had been, flowered into an array of tiny concentric cracks.

Damn! Another clip? That's what I get for not killing you, isn't it! I should have taken the gun, she thought, pulling her legs in quickly, and closing the door as fast as she could.

Better yet, I should have left you where I could run over you. She shoved the keys in the ignition and curled low on the seat. The car started easily, and she slipped it into reverse and pushed lightly on the gas. She sprawled across the bench, as low as she could get and still reach the pedals, facing the rear of the car, her left hand clutching beneath the headrest of the passenger seat for balance, her right steering the car. Thank God the thing's not a stick, anyway.

She curved the car around the side of the house and aimed toward the road, praying like a gift-wrapped nun at the devil's birthday party. The car wallowed over a bump at the same instant that a bullet hole appeared in the front passenger window, and Lianne's foot slid farther down onto the gas pedal. The T-Bird accelerated wildly.

"Shit, shit, shit—oh, shit!" Lianne wailed, as various small trees and other obstacles loomed in the rear window, vanished at high speed and were replaced by others. She swerved and kept right on going. I wish I could close my eyes, she thought. I doubt it would make much difference in my—oh, shit!—she dodged another tree—driving!

She heard two sharp pings in the windshield behind her head. Two more of the bitch's bullets. When is she gonna run out? Lianne didn't dare look back. As long as she was still alive, anything else could wait.

The car bounced again, and a small tree splintered across the rear bumper. Oh hell, Lianne thought for some reason, it's only a rental. She didn't even remember the joke that punchline was from.

There was a crunch of metal and one massive heave—and Lianne felt the smoothness of pavement under the tires, heard the scrape of what must be the entire exhaust system under the car. A quick spin of the wheel, and she backed the rest of the way into the road. To her right were the dilapidated ruins of the house, and the red-haired woman, taking aim yet again. Lianne threw the car into drive and hit the gas. What a persistent snake you are. I hope you enjoy your walk home. She flipped the woman the bird and burned rubber in her acceleration. The rear window blossomed with its own bullet hole.

Well, Dad, she thought. I owe you my life on this one, I think. And if I live long enough to get to a hospital, I'll have a story to tell that rivals even yours.

* * *

When Maclyn heard the alarm through the trees, there was no question of going back to the apartment and waiting for the phone call. Rhellen would have to find him, Lianne would have to fend for herself—he armed himself as he ran toward the center of Elfhame Outremer, from whence the alarm came. Even as he ran, he kept thinking What kind of fool would open a Gate in the heart of an Elfhame?

Beside him, Dierdre on her elvensteed and Hallara on hers launched themselves toward the battle. :This is it!: Dierdre bellowed directly into his brain. :Get Rhellen.:

:I can't! Didn't bring him!:

Dierdre paused long enough to give him a withering look. :Idiot.: She pivoted her mount and leaned down to offer Maclyn an arm up. He took it and swung onto the steed behind Dierdre's saddle.

:I had to leave Rhellen to listen for the phone.:

:Brilliant, oh my son. Riding pillion is not the safest way to go to battle,: his mother said acidly, :but you'd be dead in no time on foot. There's nothing to contain those monsters or slow them down here.:

Dierdre wielded her sword left-handed, Maclyn held his in his right. They charged along the ground paths beneath the singing boughs of the gold-leaved home-trees, past the shimmering curtains of light in the flame-fountains, under the branch-braided arch of the Lover's Trees—and into the melee behind Hallara, who sprayed a broad blanket of machine-gun fire to try to clear them a path. From other sites on the perimeter, reinforcements arrived.

The vortex of a rogue Gate glistened hypnotically from beside the delicate blue-green filigreed sculptures in the Masters' Garden. Three elven mages engaged themselves in battling the Gate itself, trying to close it off. They threw containment spells and reversal spells over the maw that spewed the monsters into their midst—to no avail. Amanda-Anne's hastily-constructed Gate had ripped away part of the spell-formed reality of Elfhame Outremer itself. It fed on the energy of the destruction it caused, creating a direct road from the Unformed Planes to the center of the elves' safe haven. Amanda-Anne's nightmares advanced unchecked.

A horde of giggling, tittering stick-men and multi-legged screamers burst through and launched themselves against the scattered elven forces with bared fangs and razored claws. Initially, there was no strategy to the skirmishing. The elves hacked and slashed and shot, and the monsters failed to die. The grim things pressed forward into the elven ranks, pushed from behind by the larger monsters that moved through the Gate at their backs.

Hallara, Dierdre, and Maclyn joined forces with Felouen and a small phalanx of veteran warriors who were covering an elven spellcaster and one of Outremer's adopted human mages. The mages were mildly successful at individually spelling the nightmare things with the same containment spells that had proven useless on the Gate. But the effort required of them was enormous, while the number of horrors shoving through the Gate far exceeded those being contained.

Then Amanda-Anne's winged creatures arrived in force, lurching through the air like medieval stained glass demons and cathedral gargoyles. They dove on the defenders, howling like the damned, belching fire and dripping acid, diving down to pluck hapless elves from their elvensteeds and ascending far above the trees to fling them back to the ground below.

The defenders of Outremer were forced to retreat beneath the sheltering overhangs of the trees.

Then the trees began to burn.

The entire population of Elfhame Outremer—that part of it, at least, that had managed to survive the initial onslaught—fought back desperately. The few elven children lent their magical energy to parents who cast shielding around Outremer's untouched trees. A contingent of mages battled their way toward the Grove and dug in around the heart-tree. Weapons of every variety, human and magical, were leveled against the invaders. The Oracular Pool, the many fountains, and the Vale River that circled the whole of Elfhame Outremer were drained to feed a storm spell. Rain poured from the smoke-filled sky, and the conflagrations in the tree-homes and shelters of the elven haven began to die. And wet wood did not rekindle as easily.

Maclyn and Dierdre were part of the contingent who fought to protect the Grove. Their losses had been huge—more than half of the Grove's trees were charred stumps, with the bodies of their defenders scattered at their bases like fallen branches. Now, the largest of the monsters seemed to be concentrating on destroying the heart-tree itself. The death of the heart-tree would release the spells of thousands of years that had used it as the focus for maintaining Elfhame Outremer. Without the heart-tree, Elfhame Outremer would disappear back into the nothingness of the Unformed Planes. Mac had seen the movies—the battle to guard the heart-tree was a kind of Masada, an Alamo—there was no question of retreat. If the heart-tree went, there would be nothing to retreat to.

Maclyn had discovered that almost nothing slowed the monsters down, but if he cut off a golem's head, it stopped fighting until it could either locate the missing extremity or grow a new one. He'd passed this information on to the other elves, and the ground around them began to look like a croquet lawn designed by head-hunters.

The monsters became warier, and ground-fighting demons began to time their attacks with those of the airborne gargoyles.

Mac took a two-handed swipe at a winged demon that dove at him. He missed, and the demon sank its claws into a seam in his armor. Maclyn was ripped off of Dierdre's elvensteed, thigh muscles screaming in pain as he struggled vainly to stay horsed. The monster's screech rang in his ears, its breath blasted into his face, burning at his skin and making his eyes water. Then it dropped him. He lay, stunned, while the tides of the fray shifted.

When he was able to stand and wield his sword again, Dierdre was out of sight, and a new horror lurched at him with a grin on its foul face. He had no time to look for allies. His arms felt like lead, but he forced himself to slash again and again as the beast lunged at him. Three times the elven blade bit deep at the monster, yet it continued to giggle maniacally.

Around him, the elves were being herded into a few remaining pockets of resistance, and the toll of the dead mounted.

* * *

Amanda-Anne huddled in the hollow of a great silver elven-elm, shivering and miserable. This was the only safe place she had known of—this retreat far from the evil Father and the uncaring Step-Mother. This was the place she had thought to come and hide, where no one would hurt her, where nothing could frighten her. She had never thought that her own monsters would follow her—

And when they did, she had been sure that the elves would be able to get rid of them.

She had brought hell from her own world and from the Unformed Planes, and visited it here, in the only completely beautiful place she had ever seen. And she had destroyed it, all by herself; ruined it, made it worse than any place she had ever known, worse, even, than the pony barn. She stared out at the devastation that spread before her. Charred and smoking stumps were all that remained of most of the trees; the bodies of elves—so many beautiful, gentle elves—lay bloody and sprawled in the churned mud. The pretty green grass was gone, the sweet music was drowned in the screams of the dying, the bright pennants that had fluttered so briskly in the warm breeze hung in sodden tatters in the pouring rain.

Amanda-Anne, looking at the havoc she had wrought, felt something she had never felt before. She felt pain and guilt for those she had hurt. She felt regret for her actions. She felt responsibility.

She was as bad as the Father.

* * *

Maclyn shouldered aside a flailing arm as he cleaved another creature's fleshy skull. They came, still they came. One of the human mages had just been overcome by the monsters, his body clamped in the eight-armed thing's jaws as it laid into a second mage's defenses.

One of the Sidhe who had lived in the humans' world was doubled over near him, as if injured. Her lips moved as she concentrated on a Summoning-spell, and the air before her turned dark. Then a stack of wooden boxes materialized, and another, and finally a wooden rack of firearms with handwritten price tags on them. She stood straight again, pulling thick gauntlets on.

Maclyn hacked at his creature a few more times until he dismembered it, kicked its pieces far from each other, then turned to the female.

"Need help?"

"Could use it." She expertly undid the latch on a case and began loading a grenade launcher. "We need to buy some distance."

Maclyn winced at the amount of Cold Iron in the weapon, but decided that the time for desperate measures had come. "They'll be picking steel chips out of the Grove for years, but at least there will be a Grove."

* * *

Amanda-Anne huddled in her hidey-hole, and the first tears she had ever cried came to her eyes, scorching her cheeks, etching hot trails down her face.

"I am sorry," she whispered. "Oh, I am . . . so . . . s-s-sorry."

One of her monsters shuffled toward her hiding place, snuffling and casting its head from side to side, following the scent of the living. It looked down into the hollow where she hid, saw her, and chittered in soprano glee. Its bloodstained talons reached in after her.

"G-g-go away," Amanda-Anne whispered through her tears. "I d-d-don't want you here anymore!"

The monster vanished with a soft "pop."

:Make them all go away, Anne,: a quiet voice whispered in her head. Amanda-Anne closed her eyes and found her sisters, her other selves, facing her with angry or unhappy faces. Cethlenn stood before her, and Alice, and Abbey. Only the first-born, the real Amanda, was absent.

:Make them go away,: Cethlenn repeated. :You are the only one who can. Only you have the power. Only you can work the magic—or unwork it.:

:Please,: Abbey said, piteously, her own tears coursing down her cheeks. :Oh, please. They're hurting, they're hurting so much!:

:You must,: Alice added. :You can't leave the people in this place to die. You did it, now you have to undo it. It's all your fault.:

Amanda-Anne felt the hot tears streaking down her cheeks and choking away her breath. :I know.: She hugged her arms tighter around herself, and told the three who watched her, :I'm sorry.:

But "sorry" didn't fix things. She'd have to do that now, before they got worse. Amanda-Anne crawled out of her shelter and stood exposed to the sharp eyes of the monsters, the startled eyes of the elves. "Go away," she screamed, above the roars of explosions and gunfire, above the skin-crawling chittering laughter, above the howls and the prayers and the oaths and the crying. "Go away!" She concentrated on how much she didn't want her monsters, on how much she wished them to disappear. For a moment, there was nothing but silence.

Then the creatures of her imagination vanished, leaving behind only the dead, and the ruin they—she—had caused.

And then, miserable and afraid, fearing what the elves would do to her when they realized what she had done to them, and feeling that she would never deserve safety or beauty again, Amanda-Anne raced for the Gate she'd made. She threw herself through it, pulling it shut behind her.

* * *

In mid-flight, still spouting flames at the remaining treetops, the three-headed flier popped out of existence. The gothic demons flickered slightly and were gone. Maclyn, fighting a losing battle with a many-legged snake, found himself swinging a rifle-butt at an opponent that had suddenly ceased to exist.

All over Elfhame Outremer, cries of surprise became shouts of elation. The survivors fell together, hugging each other in disbelief and hysterical joy at the sheer miracle of it.

Those who were relatively unscathed soon enough began the grim task of sorting dead from dying, of dying from salvageable. They walked from charred body to mangled body, from one still form to the next, struggling to recognize in death some semblance of those they had known in life. Maclyn rid himself of his gloves and heavy armor with a thought and began that dark walk, too, looking into the faces of survivors, hoping to find his own loved ones, and seeing his own disappointment reflected over and over in each face that was not Dierdre, was not Felouen. He knew that for all of those who stared into his eyes and turned away in despair, his own grimed features represented one less chance that the ones they loved still lived.

He worked his way back to the point where he and Dierdre had become separated. All around him, the Mindshouted calls, the agonized cries for help, the screams of those who recognized the ones they had loved in the features of the dead, blotted out any hope of finding Dierdre or Felouen by Mindcall, or by simple shouting. He kept at his steady examination of each passing face, of each sad corpse, praying to all the gods he'd never believed in that he would recognize his loved ones in those who still stood, and not those who would never stand again.

Suddenly, across a muddied clearing, he recognized a familiar toss of the head, a quick brush of hand through hair.

"FELOUEN!" he roared, and was rewarded by a startled jerk of the head in his direction, by a shriek of "Maclyn!" and by the woman's ungraceful two-legged gallop across the field of the dead.

Felouen threw herself into his arms, careless of her wounds or his, and wept. "By the gods, you're alive. When you fell, I knew I'd lost you, oh, gods I knew—"

She pressed a suddenly tear-streaked face to his, and Maclyn found to his surprise that his own eyes were not dry. He held her tightly, breathing in the scent of her hair and savoring the warmth of her, the hard-muscled strength of her lean body pressed tightly against his. "Thank all the gods you're alive," he whispered. Then he loosened his grip and looked in her eyes. "Dierdre?" he asked.

Felouen's face lost its animation. "She sent me to find you."

Maclyn, ignoring her bleak expression, smiled with relief. "Ha! Then she still lives! I knew she was too tough—"

"Barely," Felouen interrupted grimly. "She waits by the last of the beasts, the ones held in the containment spells. They didn't vanish with the rest of the monsters. She is summoning their thoughts to see where they came from—and why."

He sucked in a breath of dismay. "But if she's injured, using magic will only weaken her further."

She bit her lip, shrugged her helplessness. "Perhaps you can convince her to spare herself—I could not."

Felouen's elvensteed reached them, and Maclyn noted its burden for the first time. A body was slung across the saddle face-down. "Who—?"

Felouen's face tightened. "Hallara. She died trying to put out a fire in the heart-tree. She'd run out of ammunition. The pike line around the mages broke, and one of the things took her when she tranced."

He closed his eyes and fought back despair. "Oh, gods."

"There will be time to count the dead later, Mac. Let's tend the living while we can." Felouen turned away from him and broke into a flat-out run, heading back toward the spot where the Gate had opened.

Maclyn followed.

They found Dierdre propped against one of the contained monsters, her body blood-drenched, her face white with impending shock. But her hands pressed against the thing's skull, and her expression was one of tight concentration.

"Mother!" Maclyn exclaimed as he saw what she was doing. "Lie down! Save your strength."

Dierdre opened pale eyes and quelled him with a single glance. "There is a man who must not be allowed to die," she said. Her voice was a hoarse croak, but her speech never faltered. And her expression was one of implacable hate. "These things were made by an aspect of the child, Amanda."

"What—" Mac was puzzled by her choice of words.

"The child was tormented until she shattered," Dierdre explained tersely, "like a fragile crystal, dropped by a careless hand. She is no longer one, but many. One of her number learned how to weave magic from you, all unwitting. To protect herself and her other selves, she wove these, monsters—fragments of her pain. They are constructs of her fear—her fear, Maclyn, fear so great they nearly leveled Elfhame Outremer and the magic of three thousand Sidhe with it. We did not win the battle, son of mine. Amanda released her fear, and when she did, our foes vanished."

He blinked, uncomprehending. "Mother—"

"Quiet." She pierced him with her eyes. "Do you know what she feared, Maclyn?"

How could he? "No," he replied carefully. Dierdre in this mood was not to be contradicted.

"She feared her father—and with reason. He has tortured her," Dierdre said, at last. "He has raped her—yes, you heard aright. For years, he has done unspeakable things to her—he has shattered her into a handful of strange, fragmented children that do not even communicate with each other. The aspect that created these monsters never knew love, or caring, or kindness. It knew only brutality and pain and hatred and fear—until it came here. This was where that aspect of the child thought it could hide and be safe from the horrors it had created—but because no one had ever been good to it, it feared us as well."

Felouen answered for all of them. "Not the child's fault. She had not the experience, could not have known what she did. Fragment or no, she was a child, and to a child, all adults are gods. She must have thought we could banish these creatures as easily as she. It is her father that has brought this upon us, not her—he is the cause that made her create them in the first place. For fear of her father, we have suffered and died."

"I'll kill her father," Maclyn said softly. "For what he has caused here, for what he has done to you—"

Dierdre shook her head. "No, Mac. For my revenge—for her revenge—I want something more." She let herself slip down to the frozen monster's feet. Her skin was the color of snow, waxy and translucent, her lips bloodless. Only her eyes looked alive. Mac stared at her rent armor, at the damage that could not be repaired by the greatest healer of the elves, and covered his face with his hands in grief.

"Listen," she told him.

He knelt and put his ear to her mouth, to hear his mother's dying wish.

* * *

Damn them, Belinda thought. Damn all of them.

She had never suffered so much or been hurt so badly in pursuit of a target. It seemed as if everything—her target, his feeble girlfriend, even his damned car, for crissakes—had conspired to destroy her. She had been foiled at every turn. She had been made to look like a fool.

Belinda had been through enough.

She leaned wearily against the phone booth's wall, searching the out-of-date phone book's battered pages.

There it is—the Prince Charles! She maneuvered a quarter into the slot and dialed.

A mechanical, but not electronic voice, answered. "Prince Charles, this is Sharon speaking. May I help you?"

"Connect me to Mel Tenner's room," she ordered thickly.

"May I ask who's calling, please?" the polite voice inquired.

Officious bitch. "This is Belinda, and it's an emergency."

The voice did not seem impressed. "Hold please, ma'am."

It was just like that miserable S.O.B. to have his calls screened, Belinda thought. He'd better decide to take mine—I'll kill him if he doesn't. I don't need this s—

Sharon returned. "I have Mr. Tenner on the line, ma'am."

"Fine," she said shortly, reining in her temper.

A few clicks, and a moment later Mel drawled, "What is it, Belinda?" He sounded supremely bored.

"Get a pen and some paper," she snarled. "I'm going to give you directions—I want you to come get me. Then we're going to pick up your girl. Bring your gun."

Mel laughed, as if she had made a joke. "I wouldn't leave home without one."

Belinda gave him the directions, tersely, keeping her eyes fixed on the phone.

He made an odd little grunt of surprise. "Belinda, darling, what are you doing at a convenience store out in the middle of nowhere? Slumming?"

"Working. For you," she replied, hoping he might feel a little responsibility. After all, she was still working for him, as he had so pointedly reminded her. "My car got stolen."

"Again?" The laughter in his voice was only too obvious, and he wanted her to hear it. Mel was not going to take on any belated responsibility. Not that she really expected him to. Mel believed that everything that happened to anyone was their own fault—including being caught in earthquakes, high-rise fires, and tornadoes.

She restrained the impulse to scream, and contented herself with shredding the pages of the phone book, one by one. "Sound a little less happy, Mel. I'm having a bad day."

"Why don't you just tell me where to go pick up my little TK," he suggested, with deceptive mildness, "and then you can get a taxi and go home to rest?"

And you can take off with the kid and skip paying me, scumball? I don't think so. "Just come get me, Mel," she growled. "And bring your bankbook."

He sighed, as if with infinite patience. "Fine, sweetheart. If that's what you want. I'll be there in forty-five minutes."

Click.

Belinda slammed the receiver home and glared at a slip of paper. It was the schoolteacher's phone number. Belinda debated calling. Maybe the woman had gone straight back to her apartment, or maybe she had called first, on the chance that her boyfriend had shown up and found the place trashed. If she had, Belinda wouldn't be able to fool the race-driver—but if she hadn't . . .

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say. She dialed, and the phone rang. Once.

Twice.

Three times.

"Come on, shithead," she muttered. "Pick up."

Four times.

Five times.

* * *

Maclyn was alone at the foot of Dierdre's grave beneath the remains of a giant white willow. The tree had protected his mother's Underhill home since she had come over from the Old Country—it was the part of Elfhame Outremer she had missed most when she was in the world of humans. It was now scarred and burned, and its loving inhabitant had come home forever.

I'm going to miss you, Mother, even more than you would have believed. Maclyn stood alone as the last smatterings of warm rain soaked into his clothes and ran down his face. Her death had destroyed a part of him. He felt suddenly old, watching the loose earth over the grave falling in on itself as the raindrops struck. He had never really given her cause to be proud of him. Unlike the rest of his colleagues on the racing team, he had not been motivated by any higher goals. The others, the elves and human mages of SERRA, had been raising money to finance shelters for teenage runaways, kid-rescue operations, any number of altruistic causes. He had been a member of SERRA only because he liked to drive fast cars, and because he liked to win. If the money he won went to "worthy causes," well, frankly, he hadn't wanted to have to hear about it.

In his own way, he was as much an escapist as any of the elves who lived Underhill permanently, as any of the dilettantes who idled away their days with music, dancing, gaming, loveplay.

Maclyn stiffened as he felt Rhellen's sudden presence in the Elfhame. The elvensteed called out in his blunt mind-images as he galloped, searching on the other side of the Gate for his cohort. He answered the elvensteed with a quick whistle, and the golden beast charged to his side. Rhellen saw the fresh dirt beneath the tree and gave a questioning whicker.

Maclyn shook his head. "Later," he said. "I'll tell you everything later." He sensed the elvensteed's horror at the devastation of Outremer, but there was no time to comfort him, and no time to explain.

Mac leapt to the elvensteed's back, and Rhellen charged back through the Gate. He skidded to a stop in the kitchen next to the phone, bumping against the sink top. Mac leapt off of Rhellen's back and answered the phone.

"Hello?" he said, thinking, Please, no more bad news. Please.

"I just about hung up, fella. You took a long time getting to the phone." The voice was the same one he'd talked to earlier—and, in spite of the muffling, he was certain it was Belinda Ciucci he was talking to.

"I was busy," he said. "In the bathroom. I got here as fast as I could."

She snorted. "I don't think calls of nature are as important as my call. Especially since I'm going to let you save your girlfriend's life now."

He spoke carefully, not loosing any of his anger. "What do you want me to do?"

"Meet me out in the woods on the right side of the Bal-A-Shar Stables," she said. "I know you know where. I followed you out there yesterday."

Well, now he had a rendezvous point. "Fine, Belinda. Let me talk to Lianne now."

"Not a chance, buddy—" Then, suddenly, silence.

There was a pause—Maclyn realized from the faint wash of emotions he caught over the phone that he had just tipped the woman to the fact that he knew her real name. Dammit, that was going to make things harder. "You're going to meet me in the woods at five P.M., and then I'll let—ah, Lianne—go," Belinda continued.

"What do you want me to bring?" he asked. "Money?"

There was a bitter, harsh laugh at the other end of the line. "Sure, why not? Write this down."

She paused, and Mac pulled out the pen Lianne kept on the clipboard with the notepad and got ready to write.

Belinda continued. "Bring me a hundred thousand dollars in small, used, non-sequentially marked bills. Pack it all in a little suitcase, drag that with you, and—oh, by the way, don't drive your car. I don't like it. You come in your girlfriend's car—the little yellow Volkswagen convertible. Big racecar stud like you oughta look cute in it. Park in the turn-around next to the dirt road that goes back to the cotton field. Get out of your car, walk along the road until you cross the culvert, and walk across the street and into the woods. I'll have a red ribbon tied around the tree you are to go to. Put the money down beside the tree—when you turn around, you'll see your girlfriend. As long as you follow directions and you're all by yourself, everything will work out fine."

For you or for me? Mac wondered, but he said, "Okay."

The line clicked, and Belinda was gone.

Felouen may come through this Gate, he thought, staring at the dark swirl of energy. She knows about Lianne, and she knows we have to find Amanda—maybe she'll come through in time to help me. She needs to know what I need, and where to meet me.

He took paper and pencil, and in flowing elvish script, wrote a note and drew a map to Bal-A-Shar Stables. Then he created a large, elegant leather case out of thin air and filled it full of very real-looking counterfeit bills. He would hand Belinda one-hundred thousand dollars in used-looking twenties, with only eight serial numbers between them. And as soon as she took the case, he decided, the faces on all the bills would abruptly sport matching maniacal, toothy grins. Maybe the motto would read, "Gotcha."

* * *

Cethlenn woke in Amanda's room, on Amanda's bed. The child's clothes were soaked and filthy. Bits of the elven domain's dirt and greenery still clung to her. In one hand, she found a silver leaf—crumpled and tattered, it was both beautiful and saddening. Inside her, the children huddled in fear and stared out over her shoulders. Poor children—they had been through so much, and a sixth sense told her the worst was yet to come. Downstairs, she could hear Them arguing.

"Don't you talk to me in that tone of voice! I've been out working with the horses," the Step-Mother yelled. "I haven't had time to watch where your weird kid got to—she was in here with you the last I knew!"

"She isn't in here now! I've been all over the house looking for her." The Father sounded truly furious. "The little liar said she was going up to her room. She isn't up there now, let me tell you."

Fury filled the Step-Mother's voice. "I know where my daughter is—and I want to know why the hell she came running out to the barn in tears! What did you do to her, you bastard?"

A pause, and then the Father countered, a hint of something Cethlenn couldn't read in his voice. "I didn't do anything to her—don't change the subject on me!"

The Step-Mother snarled at him, "We agreed when we got married that your kid would be your responsibility, and my kid would be mine. You remember that? Huh? Well, that means if you want your daughter, you find her! My daughter and I are going shopping. And from now on, you keep your hands off her!"

Cethlenn heard the Step-Mother's angry footsteps and Sharon's short, light ones clipping across the floor. She heard the door slam so hard the walls shook. She was alone in the house with the Father.

She heard him storm from the front room back to the den. There was a long, silent pause. Mixin' himself a drink, Cethlenn thought. Goin' to feed his anger with a wee drop of the uisge-beatha, no doubt. And then he'll go ragin' through the house until he finds us—and we're in trouble when he does, and sure.

As if he'd heard her thoughts, the Father bellowed, "I know you're in here somewhere, Amanda! You can come down here right now and spare yourself a lot of trouble. Or I can come find you. I will find you. And when I do, I'll break your skinny, ugly little neck."

:You need to go, Cethlenn,: Alice urged. :You have to do what he says. He's our father and we have to obey him.:

Cethlenn shook her head. :And if I do what he says, he'll break our neck without having to work to find us first.:

Abbey said fearfully, :Daddy wouldn't hurt us, not really. Would he?:

Cethlenn cocked an eyebrow at Abbey. :Why don't you ask Anne about that?:

:I can't,: Abbey replied uncertainly. :Anne's gone.:

:Not back into the Unformed Planes, please all the gods!: Cethlenn felt her pulse race and her breath quicken in dismay at that thought.

Abbey answered slowly. :I don't think so, Cethlenn. We could feel that she was there, before, even though we didn't let ourselves know about each other. But now there is nothing where she was but an empty place. I think after Alice yelled at her, she went away.:

In the pit of Cethlenn's stomach, something twisted. :Alice. What—did you say to her?: the witch asked Alice. Now that she knew to feel for the emptiness, the place where Anne should have been nagged like a newly missing tooth.

Alice donned her most self-righteous expression and said, :I told her the truth—that she was awful and evil and that we didn't need her or want her here.:

And by all the gods, the child had the gall to look smug—as if she'd done something grand. :Oh, no! Alice, Anne is a part of you! You can't just get rid of her! You can't!:

Alice crossed her arms and glowered at Cethlenn. :She did those—things—with our father. Nasty, wicked, sinful things. She was a bad, bad girl. Our father said so, and he is our father so he must be right.:

Cethlenn reacted without thinking. :Your father is a vicious brute who ought to be flayed and drawn and quartered and hung, then burned for good measure,: she snapped.

Alice looked shocked. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Her white cheeks flushed momentarily red, and angry tears filled her eyes. :I'll—I'll—I'll tell on you!: Alice finally sputtered. She flickered out of sight.

:Oh, dear,: Cethlenn told Abbey, with a twinge of guilt. :I shouldn't have said that to her.:

Abbey glared at her. :You shouldn't have said it to me, either. I don't believe he's as bad as you and Anne say. Anne was crazy, and I'm glad she's gone.:

Abbey followed her sister.

Cethlenn heard the Father coming up the stairs. No time left to find the children and retract her ill-thought statements. Apologies would have to take second place to survival. She hurriedly jumped off the bed, and noticed as she did that it was wet and dirty where she had lain on it. A beating would be the least she got if the Father caught her. She frowned and slipped out by her secret window escape. As soon as she pulled the window shut, she dropped to the roof below. Instead of running to the tree and climbing down to the ground this time, though, she stayed put, hugging the side of the house and listening to the Father as he rampaged through her room and then started searching for her through the rest of the house.

There was a drain spout that went right alongside one of the attic windows. Cethlenn was sure she could climb it. It had fastenings about every two feet that would serve as hand and footholds. It connected along the edge of the roof where she stood and soared to the attic window on the third story without going near any other windows.

The attic wasn't the safest place—the Father would certainly check there for her—but he probably wouldn't check more than once. If she climbed up after she heard him moving around in there, she should be able to buy some time. Perhaps the Step-Mother and Sharon would be home by then. He wouldn't do anything really brutal with them home, surely.

Cethlenn wasn't certain, but the attic plan seemed reasonable in theory. So she scooted down next to the spout and sat with her head pressed against the wood siding, listening for the sounds of the Father's footsteps ascending the stairs above her. Finally, she heard him crashing upward.

She stilled, waiting, and at last she was rewarded with his racket as he clattered back down the uncarpeted stairs. Cethlenn wiped her suddenly-damp palms on her shirt, eased her slender frame onto the gutter, and found the first tiny handhold. Almost afraid to breathe, she began the long ascent.

* * *

When Mel picked her up, Belinda flung herself into his car and said, without preamble, "Straight by my hotel—I have something special I need to pick up to finish this job. Then we'll go out and get your kid."

Mel gaped at his employee. Apparently he hadn't thought she'd have sustained any real damage. "You look awful. How did you get all those bruises on your face?"

"I walked into a door." She pulled down the passenger-side visor and looked in the mirror long enough to assess the most recent damage to her appearance, and bit her lip in dismay.

"Not really," he replied, as if he half believed her.

"No," she agreed. "Not really. But I don't want to talk about it." She glanced out at the passing scenery, then over at the speedometer. "Can't you drive any faster? God, you drive like the old coot who used to be my partner."

Mel frowned, disapprovingly. "I'm already going seventy, Belinda. I would just as soon not get pulled over right now. A cop might ask questions, once he gets a look at you, especially if he sees our guns. What are you in such a hurry for?"

She grimaced. "I have an appointment. Move it, okay? If I don't get to my appointment, you won't get your kid."

Neither of them said anything until they arrived at Belinda's hotel. As they pulled into the parking lot, Belinda swore. "Dammit, she took my keys and my fake I.D. I don't think I can get the clerk to give me another key without some identification."

Mel shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Have you done anything to the door or the lock since last night?"

Belinda rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah, Mel. I installed a bomb so that the first person who opened the door would be blown away. The room is probably coated with Maid-Kibbles by now."

He sighed elaborately. "Hey, I was just asking. If you haven't done anything fancy to the locks, I can still get in."

She decided not to employ any more sarcasm on him; it was obviously wasted effort. "I haven't. Lead on, Macduff."

Mel did as promised. Once in the room, Belinda went to the dresser, crouched with her back to it, and lifted a corner of the heavy furniture a few inches off the floor. "Grab the case," she panted.

Mel, eyebrows well into his hairline, pulled the thinline briefcase out of the tiny space. "Nice hiding place. I haven't seen that one."

Belinda twitched her shoulders in dismissal, then nodded at the case. "That's an expensive toy. I didn't want it to walk off without me." She dropped the dresser, grabbed a bright red excuse for a skirt from a hanger, and with that in one hand and her little case in the other, headed for the door.

"May I ask—"

Belinda cut the question off. "It's a gun."

Mel looked puzzled. "To fit in that case, it couldn't be much of a gun."

Belinda climbed back into the passenger seat of the car. Mel slipped in. As they backed out of the parking space, she said, "You want specifics? Fine by me." She briefly opened the case to reveal a long, streamlined handgun and a loose scope packed in padded velvet. "It's an XP-100; a single-shot bolt-action handgun that comes tapped and drilled for scope mounting. I use a 12-power quick-mount scope on mine. It shoots a fifty-grain .221 Remington Fireball with a muzzle velocity of about 2650 feet per second. The velocity is still about 1150 feet per second at 300 yards. It delivers an impact over 400 foot/pounds at a hundred yards, and 130 foot/pounds at three hundred yards. It's machine polished, with a hand-carved conforming rosewood handgrip to make it pretty and easy to hold and not look so obvious on x-rays, and a bull-barrel to limit recoil. Best of all, at three-hundred yards, its point-of-aim is only thirteen inches above its target." She gave him a nasty little smile. "Feel better now?"

He only looked bored. "All of that babble means something to you?"

She snarled. "Yeah. It means this is a real nice gun if you want to kill somebody with one bullet from a long way off, but you don't want to drag a rifle around for everybody to see."

"Oh," Mel said, dismissively. "It's an assassination gun."

"It's an assassination gun," Belinda agreed. "An expensive one. I'm about to get my money's worth out of it."

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Framed

Title: | The Otherworld
Author: | Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon, Mark Shepherd & Holly Lisle
ISBN: | 0-671-57852-9
Copyright: | © 1992 by Mercedes Lackey
Publisher: | Baen Books