Ellen's Arc

Chapter 28 of 45

The men slept in the lobby, ready to leave at dawn. Ellen did not sleep. She sat by the stairs with a rifle across her knees and listened. Somewhere above her, on floors she had never cleared, the Mandarin still walked. He was the old enemy who had sent the fire beast to burn her women out. Stark and Thorn had trapped the beast in the cellar. They had not touched the man who sent it. If she left him up there, her home would never be safe. She woke Cade first, then Stark. Thorn rose on his own, hammer already in hand. "He's still here," Ellen said. "We seal the road and he opens a door behind us. I want him gone before you leave." Stark's helmet lit. "Not my hunt." "He came for you too," Ellen said. "Finish it now or he finishes it later." Thorn started up the stairs without a word. Ellen followed. Cade came behind her, shotgun raised. They climbed past the third floor, past the women's windows, into dust and dark. On the sixth floor a door stood open. Yellow light spilled out. The Mandarin waited by the window. He wore rings on both hands. He did not turn when they entered. "You buried my beast," he said. "You think that settles it." "I think you're done," Ellen said. He raised one hand. A ring on it glowed. "This one rewrites what is real," he said. "I could unmake your walls. Unmake you." He said it plain, like a man reading a price. Stark stepped forward. "Then do it." The Mandarin turned the ring toward him. Nothing happened. He stared at his own hand. He tried again. The glow flickered and died. Stark's helmet tilted. "Stabilizer trick," Stark said. "I read your signal on the way up. It's noise. Always was." The Mandarin's face went still. He reached for another ring. Thorn crossed the room in two steps and closed his fist over the man's hand. Bones cracked. The Mandarin folded to his knees. "The beast hurt people I stood for," Thorn said. "You sent it." He did not raise his voice. He lifted the man by the collar and dragged him to the stairs. Ellen watched them go down, floor by floor, the Mandarin's feet scraping each step. At the lobby door Thorn threw him into the dust of the road. Stark walked out after. "We take him," Stark said. "Off your ground. He won't come back." A shape rose in the dark behind the wagon, pale in a black coat, watching. Dracula had not left the plain after all. Ellen stood in the doorway. The upper floors were empty now. No enemy waited above her women. She had cleared her own house at last. But a killer of children still lingered on her road, and he had come for reasons of his own.