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where his first leg had been. She pressed her hands flat against his chest and
felt his heart beat stronger beneath her palms. She felt his chest rise and
fall in a steadier rhythm, felt his breaths get slower and deeper.
But still he didn t open his eyes.
She tried to reach inside of him, to find any damage that might have touched
his mind, but she could find nothing wrong. She crouched over him and shook
him, and he didn t wake up. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, and she
swallowed them.
 Wake up, dammit, she said.
Inside Pete, she felt something click, as if a light had turned on. His eyes
opened, and he whispered,  Molly, and then they focused and he looked up at
her, and said,  Lauren?
She dropped on top of him, hugging him desperately, and heard Jake s muffled
 Hey! Stop it! as her abrupt movements tossed him around.
Pete sat up, and wrapped his arms around her, and hugged her back.
She kissed him, hungrily, desperately, searching for guarantees that she had
not lost this second chance after all. He returned her kisses, tentatively at
first and then with growing passion. When at last they pulled apart, he
touched her cheek and said,  I m not going to question this. Whatever changed
for you, I m just going to accept it. If what you really want is someone to
talk you out of this, it s going to have to be someone else.
 Good, she told him.  Because that s not what I want at all.
Cat Creek
Heyr got the better of Baanraak at last one blow from Mjollnir hit dead-on and
crushed his skull, and he flopped to the ground, twitching. Heyr sent the
thunder away and stilled the lightning after giving it the final task of
blasting Baanraak s corpse to cinders. The body burned, and Heyr fed the fire
with magic. In minutes he had a black pile of ash and one gleaming gold ring
that lay half-buried in the pile. Heyr studied it. He recognized the style it
was Art Deco, Earth-made. He would put its creation date as 1930, but it could
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have been later. One new ring.
Damn.
This, then, had been a minor Baanraak; a raw, green,
most-of-the-pieces-missing Baanraak.
Well, it explained the fighting style, anyway. Fierce, furious, and completely
lacking in guile.
With a sigh, Heyr pocketed the ring and went around the house to see how Pete
was doing.
He stopped as he rounded the corner. An enormous Valkyrie of a woman, split
lengthwise, with a fine silver sword still clutched in one hand and a massive
silver shield in the other, sprawled across the whole of the front yard. On
the porch, an arm, a leg, and pools of blood. Footprints in the blood, and a
bloody handprint on the door, and bloody drag marks that led into the house.
Heyr gripped Mjollnir and took a step toward the house, and suddenly realized
that power poured out of it in a pure stream. Vast power, life rich and sweet
and good enough to feed not just one immortal but an army of immortals. He
anchored himself to it, and for the first time in hundreds of years, he felt
more life than death, more hope than despair. He took a deep breath, and
tipped his head to the heavens, and said,  By the halls of Valhalla, by the
Æsir and the songs of the heroes, by all that is right and just in man, I am
Thor again. And against the tide of darkness, I will stand.
Knowing that he might find the worst, but knowing, too, that the best had
returned, if only in small measure, and that the world and Humankind had
reason again to hope, he headed up the stairs and into the house.
He met Pete, with Lauren and Jake, stepping through the mirror and into the
foyer.
Pete s first words were,  We haven t won yet. Baanraak took Molly.
Heyr stood in the foyer, trying to put that together.  What happened out
front?
 After you went after the Baanraak with Molly s necklace, a third Baanraak
showed up as I was heading to her to heal her, Pete said.  He ripped me
apart, and was going to kill her, but June Bug stepped through a gate 
 June Bug? Lauren and Thor asked at the same time.
 I didn t recognize her until I saw the cigar. But it was June Bug. She
stepped through the gate and just started fighting she was amazing.
 She wasn t immortal, Heyr said.
 I think that was the way she managed to stand against him. She didn t act
like she had any pain, any doubt. She just waded in and tore him apart.
 She killed him?
Pete shook his head.  I don t think so. She hurt him. But after he killed her,
he was strong enough to start toward the house. He was going to kill Molly.
And then something chased him off. I saw him make a gate and dive into it, and
a second later the third Baanraak the man-shaped one that I went drinking
with was up on the porch and kneeling over Molly. And he did something to me,
and the next thing I knew I was in Oria, and Lauren& well& 
 I put Pete back together, Lauren said.
Thor nodded, guessing from the looks of the two of them standing there
together that she had done a bit more than that.
 We have to go after Molly, then, Lauren said.
Pete said,  We have to take care of June Bug first. We can t leave her out
there like that.
Thor said,  No. We ll send her to the gates of Valhalla as she deserves. As a
warrior.
Baanraak s Demesne, Kerras
Molly felt the pain of the gate, and then the nothingness of being without
physical form. She held up a hand, and saw it only as the faintest of shadows;
she looked at the bright sunshine, the tall, vivid grass, the alien wildlife
everywhere, and she wondered where Baanraak had brought her. And why.
Baanraak a human-looking Baanraak, but still the rrôn whose mind she knew so
well stood atop a broad, flat rock. He wasn t a shadow; he was perfectly
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solid. Molly was with him, but not through any choice of her own. She could
not move. Something was very wrong with her, but she felt no pain and no fear.
She had been torn to pieces back on Earth. Was she still? Had she died?
Perhaps this was some dying dream.
Then Baanraak put her down, and she realized that he had been holding her.
Still she could not move. He touched her; she could see him do it though she
could not feel him.
And then, in a rush, sensation returned. The warmth of the sun on her face,
the scent of the breeze, the million and one sounds of a world in motion, full
of life and vibrant. And the pain. The pain returned, too, and in spite of her
determination not to, she cried out.
 Wait, he said.  I had to bring you all the way here before I could heal
you.
And his hands touched her again, but this time she felt them. They were
gentle, and they channeled the green fire that burned her but burned cleanly.
Her wounds healed, and after a moment she could move her arms and her legs,
and turn her head, and sit up on her own. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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