They stared at the white cocoon.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Taylor said.
"Can we just break it, or stab it or something?" Sheila suggested.
"I'll get the sword," Daniel said grimly, and jogged back to the garage where they had stabled Goewyn and left her saddle.
"I wonder how long it'll stay in the cocoon," Kelly said, looking up and down the hedgerow at the already-broken black cocoons, their hard shells splintered open in jagged shards. "It's only been a few days..."
"You!" cried Daniel. Kelly and the others turned, but he had already turned the corner around a house about fifty yards away, and was out of view. Concerned, she began jogging in that direction, the others in tow.
"Yeah, me," came a dry, scratchy voice. "What the hell are you doing down here? You're not at Amanda's house, are you?"
Kelly turned the corner to see Daniel and Rachel facing each other. "What the hell do you care about her?" she hissed at Rachel. "You let her die!"
"Oh, not this again," Rachel spat. "Lay off it, will you? She made her decision. You can't keep blaming me for it."
Taylor let out a yelp and stumbled, raising one hand to her forehead. "Oh, God," she moaned, "something's not right..."
Kelly looked wildly around. "Sheila? Where are you going?"
Sheila was heading back for Amanda's house at a dead run, and despite her short legs, was already a house and a half ahead. With a sinking sensation in his gut and a sharp glance at Rachel, Daniel took off after her.
She was fast. By the time Daniel reached the garage, panting, she had already pulled something out of the saddlebag. She looked up at him, tears streaking her face. "They're in my head," she said, her voice shaking.
Outside, a voice screamed, "Get out of my head!"
Daniel turned to look outside, and stared blankly at the street for a moment before realizing that the voice had been Rachel's.
Then a click echoed through the garage.
He spun around. Sheila's entire body was shaking. She was holding the gun, the gun that he had gotten from the crazy guy in the mall.
She was holding it to her own head. Tears were running freely down her cheeks.
"Get out of my head," she whispered.
The gun went off.
The splash hit him much harder than it had when Seamus or Lance had died -- so hard that everything around him went blank, and it was just him and the magic, searing through him, pushing itself through his veins. And this time, there was something else... a roar in the near distance, echoing with Sheila's hoarse whisper, and pulling cold fire out of everything, pulling it swiftly, violently in. The force of that pull hurled Daniel against something solid -- the garage wall? -- with enough force to knock the breath out of him.
And kept pulling. It felt like part of his soul was being stripped away.
It's the cold fire, he realized. The white raptor feeds on it. It's sucking it right out of me.
He tried desperately to lock down, to pull the cold fire back inside himself. Part of him desperately wanted to fight back, but he fought it and closed in on himself.
The thing that worked was imagining that he had his arms around Kelly and Taylor, and was shielding them, pulling them close. The fire flowing out of his body slowed to a trickle, then stopped.
Then he was back in the garage, slumped against the wall, and staring at Sheila's lifeless body.
Very close by, a tremendous cracking noise split the air, followed by a rising roar.
Daniel tore his eyes off of Sheila, staggered drunkenly outside, and threw up in the driveway.
He didn't know how long he knelt there, on his hands and knees, every muscle in his body trembling, sweat dripping off him and mixing with the tears. His stomach was still clenched, and he retched again with dry heaves, finally collapsing on the mercifully cool ground.
The grass rustled, and someone knelt next to him. He heard a whisper: "I'm sorry."
He opened his eyes, and saw Rachel's spiky hair silhouetted against the sky. Still gasping for air, he said nothing.
"It's been going on as long as I can remember," she whispered. "My dad died before I was born, my mom during. They never showed me what it meant to be a Guardian. I think that's why they were able to get to me."
"They?" he panted, between breaths.
"The faeries," she whispered. "The ones who... made me do things." She took a deep breath. "They don't want the Guardians to survive. They have no idea what's going to happen."
"But if you've never been around Guardians," he said, still staring at nothing, "then how did you figure out what would happen?"
"I have been around Guardians," she said. "Briefly. I spent some time talking to Lance about it. Pillow talk." She took a shaky breath. "If that white raptor gets too big, it's going to pull too hard when it pulls out souls on their way to the spirit world. It's going to rip right through that veil, too. It's come so close a couple of times that I could feel it." A shiver passed through her entire body. "Just now? That was one of them. We need to stop that thing now."
"I assume it's too late to stop this by killing you, huh?"
She let out a short, barking laugh. "That little fuck was there the first time I killed a Guardian. It got a taste then. Everything since then has just been moving it faster. It's too late now." She shivered. "That splash just now... broke their control, I think. They think each Guardian that dies makes it that much sooner that they'll be able to come through into our world. They don't know about the white raptor. Or they don't care. But I don't think they'll be able to get me again."
"Let's hope so," he said, "because I really don't want to see any more people die. And right now, I think you know more about raptors than anyone else we know of, so if you can stay in control, then we need you." He took a slow, deep breath to steady himself. "Do you have any idea how we can stop that thing?"
"Fuck no," she said, lowering her head. "It feeds on souls, and from what I've seen so far, it's immune to magic. Even when your girlfriend was swinging your sword at the thing, it just shrugged it off. And Lance told me about your sword."
His eyes were still staring blankly into the sky, but his brain shifted into gear. "What about both at once?" he said. "It took some time to wean it onto its diet. Maybe I could push it back."
"You're not serious."
He rolled over and rose slowly to his feet, stood a moment to catch his balance, and looked around. "Kelly! Get Taylor in here where it's safe!" He pointed into the garage. "Rachel, go help her."
"What? Hey, what the fuck are you doing?" Rachel yelled at him, but he was already disappearing into the garage.
Another crack sounded in the distance, and a roar split the air. There was a whistling of air, and then the ground shook noticeably. And again. And again.
Something big was taking its first steps.
Daniel emerged from the garage, holding the sword. "I'm being a hero," he said grimly.
"Are you crazy?" Rachel screamed.
"I would love to think that we have a better choice."
Kelly staggered up to the garage, supporting Taylor, whose hand was held to her head. "Daniel?" Kelly said. "What's going on? What are you doing?"
He stepped up to her quickly, and kissed her. "You're safe," he whispered.
"Daniel?" she said, a note of panic entering her voice as he turned and began to walk back down the street. "I don't like the sound of that. Daniel? Daniel!"
He paused to look back. "This is my choice," he said quietly. He looked at Rachel. "Help her try to understand."
Then he turned and walked back down the street.
"Daniel!" Kelly screamed hoarsely.
With another earth-pounding shudder, a white head appeared around the corner of a house. It was more than half the size of the black dragon they had already seen, and Kelly yelped.
"Get into the house," he called back to her, stepping toward the dragon. "Keep yourselves safe."
The dragon watched him approach, and roared.
Do I really want to be a hero? he thought to himself as the dragon drew closer.
Yes, he answered. Yes, I do. I want to mean something.
But does Kelly really want me to be a hero?
He swallowed hard. The dragon roared.
Then its claws connected, and the poison slammed into him, searing his veins and the backs of his eyeballs.
And the dragon lowered its head, and inhaled. He could feel his rapidly-ebbing life force being ripped away from his bones.
His muscles were screaming as he pulled. Anna's face danced in front of his eyes, and Kelly's, and Taylor's, and Sheila's.
He felt as though his muscles and veins would both burst, but he moved. The sword clapped onto his stomach, and he felt the magic flood through him. The poison screamed as it died.
Its guard is down, he thought. This is too easy. Some epic battle. Not much more than a human sacrifice.
Then he drove upwards with the blade.
It bit deep into the dragon's chin, and he called all of the magic in the sword and pushed it through. The dragon screamed and flipped its head upward, but the sword stayed embedded, and Daniel held on. The dragon's cold fire raced through him, flickered through the magic in the cold iron, and was forced back out as glittering faerie magic.
The cold fire that was burning behind his own hands flickered and died, as the pure magic built up and out. He could suddenly feel the two veils -- one of faerie, one of death -- and the more he pushed, the weaker the faerie veil became, and the stronger the death veil became. He wished there could be another way; the pathway that the dragons had taken was being opened wider still, and would be harder than hell to ever get closed again.
But this was the best chance he could give.
The spirits he had barely even been aware of, struggling through the veil for release and seething under his skin, were slowly pushed back whence they came. The glistening tear in the spirit veil was covered over, reinforced, healed.
The white dragon screamed madly.
It's not going to be enough, Daniel thought calmly. I can close the veil, for now, but I can't kill the dragon. I don't have enough spirit magic to turn. I don't have enough faerie magic to kill it. Almost... but not quite.
He had known that he wouldn't.
"I love you, Kelly," he whispered.
Then he gripped his own soul, turned it into icy glittering faerie force, and pushed --