The canteshrike unfolded herself from her feathered heap on the floor. She stretched forward a slender arm and pushed herself up, limping on an injured talon, to where Bruce sat.
“I’ve kept my bargain, to his demise. And now it’s time to claim my prize.”
But Bruce processed nothing of what she said. His spirit remained with Gloria. Remained in a place where he saw and believed only what he wanted. Where that belief traveled from him out into his immediate universe.
And he believed that he felt Gloria moving.
He searched her face and her eyes fluttered open.
“Oh my God!”
He laughed, or maybe it was a cough, and he was believing and disbelieving all at once. He didn’t dare hope that what he saw was real.
Gloria bore no stain of blood, no gaping wound where the dagger had been. Her eyes found his, and she reached her hands up to his face. And then she threw her arms around him.
“Gloria, my God!”
They wept, clinging to each other. Their souls once again intertwined and whole.
But an insistent whisper pervaded. “Enough sniveling. Your debt is owed. If you don’t pay, your blood will flow.”
Bruce lifted his head in surprise.
The canteshrike bared her teeth. Her yellow eyes gleamed with no apparent patience for sentiment.
Gloria turned. “Of course. You can have it.” She looked around. “Where did it go?”
Bruce blinked. “What?”
“I promised the dagger to the canteshrike. As I tried to explain before, she stopped me from going to tell Aaron that I wasn’t going to be his prisoner any longer. She told me that he had
actual feelings
for me.”
Bruce felt giddy. “Wow, and I thought I was the one with killer pheromones.”
Gloria patted his face. “She said there was only one way to slow him down. And that if I did, you would get here. She said that in exchange
for this she wanted the dagger when it was over.”
“Yes,” the canteshrike said, and she seemed to regain her sense of humor, if a little on the black side. “A promise made when death is nigh is oft regretted, by and by.”
Bruce had no idea what she meant about regretted promises, but it sent an icy shard of unease through his soul.
“I told you how to bring about the end of that horrid lout.” The canteshrike narrowed her eyes. “Now tell me where the dagger’s about.”
Gloria blinked and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“He’d taken it,” Bruce said. “Just before I killed him, he took it out of Gloria, and then . . .”
Bruce shrugged, remembering the column of dust. His eyes lifted to the space above the chamber. Gloria and the canteshrike followed his gaze up to the red, boiling sky.
The canteshrike sighed, bowing her head.
Then Bruce looked down and saw the dagger, maybe twenty feet away from them. He wrestled with the idea of pointing this out to the canteshrike, but she’d already followed his eyes. With remarkable grace, she leaped toward the dagger and held it to her chest, her expression solemn.
Then she crouched, and vaulted upward, wings outstretched, disappearing over the wall to the sky beyond.
“What does she want with that thing?” Bruce said, looking upward.
“The proper ending,” Gloria said with a touch of sadness. “That’s what she told me.”
Gloria sat up, gathering the tapestry around her, and then Bruce helped her to her feet. Slowly, wall by wall, desk by chair, the stark metal chamber disappeared back to the bedroom in the penthouse. Gloria slipped into her old clothes, kicking the tapestry to a heap on the floor, and they made a dash for the elevator.
As soon as the doors closed, Gloria wrapped her arms around Bruce’s neck and they both held tight, gripping as though they feared letting go meant losing each other forever. When they finally relaxed, tears were streaming down Gloria’s cheeks.
“It must have been an awful shock when you saw me standing there with him like that.”
Bruce furrowed his brow. “Yeah, just a bit. As you can imagine,
your conspiring with the canteshrike wasn’t the first thought that came to my mind.”
The doors opened and they stepped into the lobby.
Jamie, Emily, Forte, and Shannon cheered and embraced Bruce and Gloria. Gloria knew Jamie, but she had never met any of the others. They introduced themselves in exuberant chatter. Bruce had never felt so whole in his life.
“I guess this quest has played itself out, huh?” Forte said when everyone fell quiet.
Bruce tilted his head and looked toward the door. “One part’s never gonna be over, you know.”
Shannon threw her hands up in the air in mock frustration. “Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you let him get away. If we’re reenlisting on this quest, I want a bigger van and spa treatments once a week.”
Bruce leaned over and kissed Shannon on the cheek, which elicited the goofiest smile he’d ever seen on her face. “Enervata’s dust; don’t worry. What I was trying to say is that I think we’re all connected now. With what we’ve been through, that’ll never go away, no matter where we wind up.”
“I know where I’m gonna wind up,” Emily said brightly. “I’m moving in with Jamie.”
Jamie and Emily gave each other a squeeze. “Yeah, we’ll go through the steps, get her enrolled in school here. Emily says she needs someone new to take care of.”
Bruce watched them and saw the sadness beneath their smiles. He thought of Bea. Emily, who’d been abandoned and who was so hungry for maternal love, had latched on to the woman so readily. But she and Jamie would make an unstoppable team.
Forte slipped an arm around Shannon’s waist. “As for me and Shannie, we’re going on a road trip. I guess we’ve kinda gotten used to it after the past couple of weeks.”
“Yeah,” Shannon said, “I’m gonna work on my stand-up and Charlie’s gonna write down all those songs he’s been coming up with while we’ve been out here. Then he’s gonna put ’em together and sit down with those people who’ve been talking to him about a recording contract.”
They all moved out of the lobby, blinking at the bright sunlight as
it washed over them. Bruce tilted his face to the sun and let it shine directly upon each slanted plane.
Gloria put a hand to Jamie’s shoulder and regarded the group. “You’ll all be around for the wedding, right?”
“Wow,” Emily said. “I’ve never been to a wedding.”
Gloria kneeled down to her. “I think I might have a very special job for you to do there.”
Emily’s eyes widened and Jamie laughed at the sight of it.
Gloria stood up and Bruce wrapped her in his arms.
“Yep,” Forte said as he pulled Shannon close, “this was worth saving.”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
“Stairway to Heaven” by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
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The Story Plant
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Copyright © 2008 by The Fiction Studio
eISBN : 978-0-981-60878-5
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First Story Plant Printing: September 2008