meant. “It’s my hand again. The claw is gone.”
“Gannon, I’m so sorry,” said Monika, wrapping herself around my waist comfortingly.
At first I didn’t know what she meant, but then I thought I knew. Perhaps I hadn’t needed to chop off my hand. Perhaps I could have just waited, and when the lantern was destroyed my twisted hand would have returned to normal.
“Yes, yes,” said Malkin, crouching so that his tiny, pointed knees stuck out before him. “Sadness.”
I sucked in a breath and began to grow angry. Anger was good, as it kept away the shock from my injury that fogged my mind.
“That’s it?” I demanded, “you show me that I chopped off my hand for nothing and that’s your idea of repayment?”
“Not exactly. If you would be so good as to send your mad henchman away-” said Malkin, pointing at the preacher with fluttering fingers.
I looked at John and he did indeed look half-mad. A silvery thread ran down from his mouth and he stared up at the elf. His unblinking eyes were all but popping from his head. I could tell that with every word the desire grew in him to cut Malkin.
“John,” I said gently. It took a second or two, but he managed to look at me. “Why don’t you take the others away for a few minutes. This creature might be dealt with peaceably.”
The preacher eyed me. “You have forgotten the heads in the pool in its lair so quickly?”
I shook my head. “No. But I understand something of how this elf thinks. I believe he will not harm us today.”
“They are full of nothing but trickery and deceit!” shouted the preacher. “You are a fool to talk to them. Their kind can never be trusted.”
“Still,” I said, “I ask you to take them out.”
So he did it, but not without many a baleful look up at the tiny figure on the roof.
The last remaining was Monika, who would not let go of my waist. I decided to let her stay there, and hoped she wouldn’t pull out a pistol and have another shot at Malkin.
When the others were safely outside, Malkin hopped down and strutted around on top of the broken furniture. He hopped from table to chair as he walked, looking carefully at the colorful shards of crystal at our feet. He tutted and tsked as he walked.
“Well?”
“Not much here. A thorough job of it. But this one,” he said, jumping down and grabbing up a reddish chunk of the crystal. No sooner had he touched it than the tip of my saber touched his chest.
“This is how you greet a friend working to help you?” he sputtered, backing away from the sword. My sword tip followed him as if fastened to his tunic. I marveled that he had let me get my blade in close. In his greed to grab up one of the shards, he had let his guard down. I knew grabbing the shards had been his goal all along.
“What is it you plan?”
Malkin eyed Monika, who had backed away so I could wield my weapon freely. She had her gun out again, but I wasn’t sure it had any bullets in it.
“How will you protect her, and your children, if you have but one hand?” asked Malkin.
“Children?” I asked, bemused. The thought had not crossed my mind. But he was right, I knew in a flash. If we survived long enough, such things would have to happen.
Malkin, in my distraction, had evaded the tip of my sword and grabbed up my severed hand. It was turning gray, I noticed. Looking at it made my lip curl. Somehow, when divorced from my body, it was disgusting.
The elf held up the red shard and the hand. “Red magic is blood magic. It is a chance. But every minute we wait lessens the odds of success.”
I finally understood what he meant. “No,” I said flatly. “I’m finally rid of that thing. It haunted me for days.”
Malkin tutted at me. “Foolish pride. The claw is gone, that spell is broken.”
“Gannon,” said Monika, standing beside me again, “let him try.”
I looked at her. The pistol was no longer aiming at the elf. She licked her pretty lips and pushed her hair from her face.
“I need a man with two hands,” she said.
I sucked in a great breath and let it out slowly. The dawn had cracked over the horizon now, and a new day was born in pink light. The rain had stopped at some point, I noticed.
I ripped the bandage from my wrist with my teeth. Fresh blood flowed and throbbing, intense pain flowed over me to match it.
I looked away, and the elf did his work with the shard and my dead hand. In a few moments, I felt a cold shock go up my arm as my own dead blood ran up into my veins.
“Is my debt repaid?” he asked in a quiet voice.
I flexed my fingers. They moved. Monika laced her fingers over her mouth. She seemed much happier. She had been playing with baby Carlene. I thought about what Malkin said about future children. I looked at him, and his eyes stared back at me like two black buttons.
“Yes,” I said, “a working hand is payment enough. Your debt is repaid.”
Malkin left without a word. He took great bounds, vanishing from the lobby.
I looked around, but the red shard he had used to reknit my hand to my wrist was missing.
Thirty-Nine
My dead hand did not hurt-it had no feeling at all-but it had fused itself to my wrist and the blood had stopped flowing out of me. Inside the hand, I could sense liquid pumping. It was my blood, I supposed, but it felt odd to have it go away into the dead hand and then return into my body. Somehow, the blood that returned felt cooler as it ran up my arm. The hand moved a bit mechanically, but with a glove fitted over it, looked normal enough. At least I had five fingers again.
The preacher used the tip of his axe to prod and scrape the colorful shards into his leather sack. We determined to take the pieces and bury them somewhere far from our ruined town, hopefully somewhere they could do no more harm.
After we had left the wrecked lobby to tend to the dead and search for something to eat, I and had abandoned the spot where the lantern had been destroyed, I noticed something moving around there. I headed back outside and saw the furtive figure of Malkin, sprinting away with the shard of brilliant blue. He must have dug it up from under the dust and bricks, where it had lain unnoticed by the rest of us. He paused and gazed back at me when he had reached our sagging fence.
I could not catch him, and I did not hate him, so I figured ignoring was the best I could do. He waved at me, but I did not wave back. I could not so quickly forget his cave full of severed heads.
He bounded over the fence in a single effortless leap and was gone from sight, carrying off his glowing prize.
I never did see what he did with it.
