Manoj couldn't allow himself to accept that it was all over. He wasn't even entirely convinced that he had survived the tumble down the stairs; every part of him that he wasn't sure was broken, ached. It was only the unnatural coldness of the metal logo in his hand that kept him upright and conscious. Though as still as the air around him, it seemed to hum in his hand, as if the force with which he had jammed it against the Qoloni's horns still resonated within it imperceptibly. In turn, he felt his body was humming as well.
The three of them hovered, still in position over the spot where the Qoloni had dissolved, for much longer than necessary. Dale still knelt on the rug, looking down at the spot he had punched repeatedly, and Kelly still stood nearby, shattered mirror held before her like a shield. The utter silence and stillness after all the violence seemed to make the perfect moment for one final jump scare, just to make them walk away wondering if sleep could really come easy from then on... Manoj vowed to hold as long the others did;
Finally, he felt that he would be unable to keep from collapsing if they waited any longer. "Is it over?" he asked. He finally dared to look over at Bruce's collapsed body, realizing that for the author, it definitely was. The arms and legs were unbroken, but bent at rag-doll angles. Blood flowed in thick streams from clearly-defined holes to form a spreading pool underneath. Its edge had just spilled over the edge of the rug and now sped away along the miniscule cracks between the floorboards.
"Shouldn't something be happening?" Manoj asked, his throat feeling thick and swollen. He was thinking back to the movies he had seen as a child, all those parent-approved G-rated cartoons. In them, the defeat of the enemy almost always resulted in a transformation, usually of the entire environment, a glorious wave of sparkling light that turned everything it touched back to The-Way-It-Was. It was surprising that, after everything life had taught since then, he still expected it, and felt cheated when it didn't come.
His vague question made Dale lift his gaze from the spot on the floor he had been so focused on. The security guard looked around as if emerging from a dream, then lifted his hand. It was still balled tightly into a fist around the curved piece of broken mirror, and blood was forming a much smaller pool where it dropped off the sharp tip and onto the rug. He tossed the shard aside and gave his hand a cursory examination, inspecting the lacerations across the fingers and palm, and shaking it as pain began to creep in with the receding of fury-driven adrenaline.
Manoj took Dale's putting down his weapon to mean that he could, too. He let his arms (so tired, and there was something faintly grating deep within one of them) relax, and straightened his spine. It seemed reluctant to re-align, but it eventually did. Manoj turned toward Kelly, and saw that she hadn't dropped her warrior stance yet, her knuckles still white around the long tines of the mirror frame. He walked over to her, trying to ignore the protesting ligaments of his ankles, and put his hands next to hers on the metal.
"Kelly," he said softly. It took two more repetitions of her name before she looked at him. Her eyes were still in attack mode, but then she swallowed and blinked, and they cleared. She tossed the frame aside -- causing an unbelievable noise in the silent lobby -- and grabbed him with ferocity. He winced in pain, but it was worth it.
"I think it's really gone," she whispered against his neck, as if wary of jinxing the victory. He nodded in response, marveling at how she had stood so strong, even more at how *he* had stood so strong against the enemy. They had taken the darkness on side by side, as true equals.
Their third partner hadn't risen, but he had been looking around the scene. "Guys," Dale murmured, and drew their attention. He was looking at the body of the author.
The blood had been there, Manoj was sure of it. He couldn't have hallucinated the sheer volume of it. Now Bruce Casey's form was clean and ungored, though still in the same position, as if he had tripped and awkwardly fallen there.
"He's healed," Kelly said in wonder.
Dale looked a little longer, then shook his head. "Still dead, though. Maybe the thing took the damage it caused along with it." A long pause, and then, pointing at the body, "I don't think the damage *he* caused will be undone, though." Resigned, he held up his lacerated hand as evidence.
Manoj and Kelly, tightly pressed together, sighed as one. Of course not. They had been able to prevent the Qoloni from physically harming anyone else. The author would not have to pay for his crime against Glenda now. But then again... Manoj tried to give voice to the pure, nonverbal thought that sprang into his mind: "It makes sense, though. If the authorities find him -- provided they're able to get to us after all -- we won't have to explain anything."
Kelly, still pressed tightly against him, backed off a little. "What's that, Noj?"
He reluctantly left her arms, and limped over toward the body. "If the Qoloni was the thing that created this little... universe, or whatever it is we're in, then we might just be reconnected to our own world now. We'll need to look down on the lights of the town to be sure..."
As if on cue, a sound drifted into the lobby, a single tone that at first just seemed like the wind picking up and hitting the wooden eaves at a different angle. But as it rose, it became clear that it was something man-made...
"An alarm!" Kelly exclaimed.
Dale nodded. "Avalanche warning. Better late than never, I guess."
Manoj asked, a cautious tone in his voice, "Dale, where exactly are those horns?"
Dale didn't look up, but thought about it for a moment, then answered, "Down in town."
"So we're back," Manoj said. "Back in the world." It was strange how saying it didn't make him feel as good as he thought it would. The words themselves brought no relief, but then he looked over at Kelly, whose face broke into a grin that seemed to supercharge all his emotions. The sense that he was going to get to return to rational, sane life, and that he was going to do it side by side with Kelly, flooded over him. For a long moment, the two of them just stood there, looking at each other and listening to the most lovely mechanical whine either of them had ever heard.
-15.4-
It was all Dale could do to keep himself from pitching forward onto the rug. There seemed to be no strength left in him. It wasn't that he didn't hear Manoj and Kelly's words of celebration, or couldn't appreciate their joy at seeming to have participated in the vanquishing of the enemy; he just didn't feel able to share it. The stinging in his hand was really the only thing he was able to feel at the moment.
The muscles in his legs, which for now managed to keep him suspended over the spot in the floor where the thing had been, were starting to quiver with fatigue. He didn't know if it were from their prolonged awkward position, or if they were feeling the aftereffects of being twisted out of their usual spatial dimensions, but he had to move. He didn't want to. He wanted to stay right there, until he could be absolutely sure that he wasn't going to see that horrible shape trying to push its way back up through the floorboards.
There was no choice, however. In any event, there was somewhere else he wanted to be, only one other person that he wanted to share the victory with, and she wasn't where he was. To be with her, he had to leave where he was. So he did. He drew his legs underneath him, heaved himself up to a standing position, clenched his still-dripping fist as hard as he was able, and began walking. He may have tangentially kicked the author's body once as he passed by.
He left the couple behind and ascended the wide lobby stairs, one heavy step at a time. Most of the way up, he met Carlos, who was gingerly making his way down, keeping firm hold of the inner railing. He was hailing those below, apparently wanting to see if Benny was still alive. The cook clapped Dale on the shoulder in a solemn, congratulatory fashion as they passed each other. Dale couldn't meet his gaze, but nodded as he walked on.
The relieved laughter and general merriment increased below him as he reached the top of the stairs. What he was going to do next was clearly formed in his mind; He would go back to Glenda, gently pick her up, and climb the storeroom stairs back up to the roof, where he would sit with her in his arms and watch the world below, waiting for the rescue teams to arrive, to catalog the damage, and blame him as they saw fit for failing in his job protecting the inhabitants of the Deertail Lodge. He turned the corner to begin the long hallway plod back to her side --
And ran into a pair of people he barely recognized. They were standing just outside an open room door, around the corner from the top of the stairs. The man was taller, thin, with a long neck that housed a prominent Adam's apple. He looked like the kind of man who wore a fedora, anytime other than the middle of the night. The woman with him was markedly shorter than he, her hair jet black, cut in surgically straight bangs across her forehead.
"What happened?" the man asked Dale, his eyes already registering something dangerously close to panic. "Was there an explosion or something?"
Dale just stared at him for a moment. Then he realized that this was the room that he had been in when Manoj had looked down at the down and realized the full extent of their situation. He had noticed two arched lumps in the bedspread, as if a couple had just slipped out. Dale wondered if, when these two had reappeared, they had exactly refilled the spaces they had vacated.
After taking a moment to carefully consider his words, he said, calmly, "There was an avalanche. We're determining the extent of the damages right now, and the authorities are on their way. Would you mind staying in your room while we try to figure out the status of everyone in the Lodge?"
Dale had no idea if any of what he said was true, but it seemed to be exactly what the couple needed to hear; that the danger was over, and help was coming. They both nodded, thanked him, and retreated into their room. After the door closed, Dale continued to stand there, looking at it.
He sighed, knowing even before he consciously decided, that his plan had changed. It was like he had often heard Glenda say; it was in his nature to help people. And now that it seemed the other inhabitants of the Lodge were back, and unaware that any time had passed without them -- and it very well might be that none had -- the old familiar instincts were beginning to kick in.
Much to his bewilderment, it brought a strange feeling that he couldn't think of in any way other than comfort. Despite the fact that there were most likely people who were injured, or had even been killed, in the rooms around him, he knew that he had the capacity to help them as much as he could. Following close on the heels of this was guilt that actually physically hurt, knowing that he was putting aside the snowy vigil that he felt Glenda deserved, all because he couldn't turn away from others who needed his help.
The pain was dispelled quickly, however, when he realized that Glenda would have understood. Not just that, but she would have watched him go about his job with pride, knowing that she was witnessing what he had been put on Earth to do. If she had been next to him, she would probably even chastise him for standing there, brooding, as long as he had. He silently promised her that, when it was all over, and he had done everything he could for those around him, he would see to it that she went home. He would personally take her back to the family that loved her. He could ask nothing less of himself. And she deserved nothing less.
So, instead of going back to the storeroom, he began knocking on doors.
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