Erich gasped as Razor took him in the shoulder. He backed away, pulling his sword with him—Hannah croaked, collapsing to her knees as blood poured from the hole in her gut—and whirled round to face Jack. His expression was dark and thunderous.

“How?” he said, gripping Razor’s hilt, trembling with pain. “How do you stand?”

Jack smiled mirthlessly, shoulders hunched as he bled, his ruined coat sliding off. “You see, there’s these things called legs...” 

“No matter,” said Erich, yanking Razor from his shoulder in a stream of crimson. He grunted. “You’ll be dead soon enough.”

“Sure about that?”

Screaming, Erich’s back arched as electricity played across him, surging through his bones. He dropped Razor. She dissipated, reappearing in Jack’s hands.

This would be his last chance: his vision faded in and out, and Erich seemed ready to eviscerate him if he failed. He’d always been the kind of Sidhe to murder first, ask questions later.

Agony lancing from his wound, he walked toward the bowing Faerie. Erich straightened, brandishing his sword.

Jack swung.

Their blades met in a shower of sparks, each glaring holes into the other.

“Your fight makes no difference, Scourge!” said Erich. “You can’t stop us. This world has been ours from the moment we set our sights on it—there’s nothing left for you to protect!”

With a push, Jack disengaged—staggering backward—and pointed his sword at him.

“The world?” he said. “Take it—it’s hard enough protecting the things that are right in front of me. But if you’re within reach of this sword, then you’re in my world, where we have a laissez-faire immigration policy…” He surged forward, lashing down at Erich. “And zero tolerance for messing with my people!”

The Faerie blocked, sneering. “Death already lurks within your shadow. What do you think you can do?” Shoving, he grit his teeth and yelled. 

Jack blanched. The force buckled his arms; damn Sidhe was too strong, and he was right.

He couldn’t win. That sword, bearing down on him. That frenzied expression painting his opponent’s face.

That coughing vampire somewhere behind him, helpless against the ancient creature.

He gave way, dropping Razor. The other blade homed in on his throat. His stomach jumped.

He dodged.

With a microscopic margin, he slipped to the side. Pain lashed at his every nerve.

Erich’s eyes bulged as he turned to Jack, disbelieving. He probably didn’t believe a human could move like that—he’d obviously forgotten their previous meetings.

Jack reached into his waistband, levelling his gun on the Faerie’s temple, whose face lit up with surprise. Almost as if he was asking for mercy. The kind he’d never shown.

He fired.

The bullet carved through Erich’s head, the barrel roaring. A metallic smell pervaded, and the Sidhe fell, light fading from his eyes, silver skin losing its luster.

Jack soon followed him, lying on his back and staring at the stars. Everything hurt.

“You know,” said Razor, sulking “You’re supposed to use me to cut things. Everybody knows you need a sword to destroy evil properly.”

Shut up, you dumbass sword. I’m too tired to deal with your Awakened act right now.

“Try not to die. Do you know how hard it was to find a master so dedicated to destroying—”

What part of ‘shut up’ do you not understand?! What’s next, you start shitting smoke?

Thankfully, she obeyed, humming to herself in… was that contentment? Yet still, she complained.

To the side, he heard Hannah muttering, so he craned his neck to look over. She kneeled next to Derren’s unmoving body, features painted by reflection. Blood still trickled from her gut, but the wound was starting to scab. In a few minutes, it would be gone; why did she heal quicker than Derren had?

“I wasn’t the one who cut her.”

He didn’t reply, but took note anyway. Yet another feature he hadn’t known about.

“I didn’t even get to know him,” said Hannah.

“Based on tonight’s evidence,” said Jack, gasping, “would you want to?”

Shaking her head, she pressed her lips together. “I don’t know. I saw good in him, Jack, just… buried under a pile of resentment.”

He coughed, sitting up and shuffling over. She noted him, chewing her lip.

“Welcome to self-awareness.” He rested a bloody hand on her shoulder, more for balance than reassurance. “Everyone’s got good and bad in them, and everyone has it in them to do better. But they have to… choose…”

His arm slipped down and he slumped backward, breaths ragged. Cold tarmac pressed into his skin, making him wince—which inflamed the gash down his torso. He grit his teeth, suppressing a scream. Consciousness was slipping. Thoughts became blurred.

“Jack!” Hannah scrambled over, hovering above him, tears threatening their escape. “You can’t die, you’re my first real friend!”

Blood slipped from his mouth as he smiled. The copper taste filled his nose, making him gag. “When you say real…” Exhaling, he groaned. “Do you mean true, or just not imaginary?”

She laughed softly, almost hysteric. Her eyes overflowed. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

She opened her mouth to answer.

And then a warehouse exploded.

The air filled with crackling embers as a raucous boom rang across the dockyard—almost deafening him—a plume of fire rising to the sky and illuminating the night. A smell of smoke and burning overtook him, and he cringed.

Ow.

“Pretty,” he said, weak eyes regarding the blossoming flames. These stayed in the area of the devastated warehouse, almost as if by magic.

“Please don’t die,” said Hannah again, hands bunching the front of his tattered shirt.

“Don’t think… I have a choice.”

Just then, heavy footfalls crunched off to the right, approaching from the container Hannah had emerged from. She turned, flinching.

“You’ve been busy,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “Sorry to interrupt your feast, but your bloodletting ends tonight.”

Feast? What was the voice talking about?

Wait…

Hannah simmered. “I’m not—”

“Shut up!” A click, and Hannah tensed. “Whatever happened here, you can tell Satan on your way down.”

“I didn’t do this! Look at them, those are sword wounds!”

“I see a sword a few feet away.”

She spluttered. He’d dropped Razor, hadn’t he? Was that why he didn’t hear her voice? He could bring her back, right? He tried to call her.

He was too weak.

“You,” said Jack, voice loud enough to grate his chest, “you’re Edwin van Hellsong, right? I’ve been looking for you.”

“Then rejoice,” he said, “for I am about to save your life.”

Something hot surged through him. No. Having saved her from one killer, he wouldn’t lose her to another.

“You’re not,” he said, ignoring his body’s wails of protest as he struggled to his feet. Rising, he could take in the figure of the vampire hunter—he looked frazzled, but still determined as he pointed his massive pistol at Hannah. “I was already dead. For a long time, I was just a ghost, walking around without meaning or direction.”

He finally stood, cutting in front of Hannah and stumbling as his head swam through syrup. “Sorry, but you’re too late.” Glancing back, he carved the sight of her into his memory. Jaw hanging and eyes wide in fright, yes, but still facing down the barrel. Still trying to make this idiot understand.

“I’ve already been saved.” Now facing van Hellsong, he felt a familiar weight appear and settle in his hand. Cool, salty breeze wafted into his wound, and pain bloomed.

“This one is mine to cut, yes?”

I’m not sure I could even lift you right now.

He panted, glaring at the vampire hunter. “So if you hurt her, then I’ll hunt you all the way to the end of the Earth and back.”

Scoffing, van Hellsong stepped forward. His jaw set, he aimed square between Jack’s eyes, nose twitching.

“If you would take the side of the monsters,” he said, “then I will treat you like one.”

“Yep. Seems about right.” His heart grasped his uvula, but he didn’t look away.

“No!” Hannah clawed at his back, but he used the last of his strength to keep her behind him. Someone. Anyone.

Please save her.

Van Hellsong flew to the side, yelling as he careened through the air. With a crash, he impacted the side of a container, leaving a dent as he bounced off and rolled along the ground. He moaned. Then, he fell still.

Jack goggled. Had his plea been answered by Heaven?

“Well,” said a familiar voice from the side. “You’ve made a mess, haven’t you?”

Oh. More like Hell, then.

Lydia strode toward them, her coat slightly charred and a sunny beam across her cheeks.

“You can talk,” said Hannah, giddy and giggling as relief claimed her. “What was that explosion for?”

She looked away with a wry expression. “You see, I was trying to preserve the evidence, so I thought I’d freeze it all.”

“Bullshit!” snapped Jack, regretting it when his wound howled at him. “How does ice lead to an explosion?”

With a chuckle, she looked him up and down. “Well, the heat has to go somewhere. I suppose it was a little too close. More to the point, how are you standing up? You look like you lost a fight with a lawnmower.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong—he felt it too. His mind, satisfied it had completed its objective, slipped into darkness.

***

A sterile smell drifted up his nose.

“Anyway,” said a feminine voice with a clipped accent next to him, “that’s how I ended up there. I think the drugs were grown on the Faerie planet, or something like that, and van Hellsong wanted to kill them all.”

“That’s really confusing,” said another voice, softer.

“Yes, think how the readers must feel.”

He opened his eyes, thoughts fluffy and barely coherent. Around him were white walls, a white monitor, white bedclothes. His companions were even sitting in white chairs beside the white bed.

Mercifully, they weren’t dressed in white.

The hospital. Again. At least he wasn’t dead, but still he felt his nose wrinkle at the thought of being trapped here.

“Jack!” said Lydia, half-smiling. “It’s been six days; you’re far too weak. Do better.”

Sputtering, he glowered at her, chest clenching as she snickered behind her hand. Where did she get off? He’d only just woken up, fresh from a brush with death, and that was how she greeted him?

He laughed, warmth filling him. “Actually, I was trying to run into the void, away from you.”

“Seems as though you failed, then. There is no escaping from me, peasant.”

With a chuckle, Hannah shook her head. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

“Me too,” he said, eying them with relief. 

“Yes,” said Lydia, sniffing, “and do know that if you worry us like that again, I will personally boil you alive in truffle oil.”

“Do I look like a lizard to you?”

Brushing his hand with her own, Hannah caught his gaze. “What’s going on, Jack? What was all this?”

He shook his head, trying to grasp a thought. “You know as much as I do, kid.”

“That Sidhe said they were gonna take our world.”

She looked worried, though she tried to hide it behind intense eyes and clenched fists. He still noticed when she swallowed.

“They do that,” he said, digging into memories he’d rather forget. They were hazy—as were all his current thoughts—but he remembered anyway. “The Unseelie… their world is like if you took the ecology of an ocean trench and made a planet out of it.”

Lydia nodded. “I’ve heard of it. Smaller than the Seelie world, and behind it, but with the same orbit—stuck in its shadow.”

Furrowing her brow, Hannah said, “how did they survive?”

Jack tried to shrug, but ended up with a weak twitch. “Life finds a way, I guess. But it’s a harsh life; you don’t tend to see many nice Unseelie.”

He thought of Lea. At one point, she had been kind, optimistic, and full of love. But he knew as well as anyone that once you became someone else, the old you was dead.

His heart ached.

“He called you Scourge,” she noted. “What did you do to them?”

“Did Detective What’s-his-name ever come by?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Lydia, crossing one leg over the other. “He’s paid you, apparently, and wanted to give you a lecture about recklessness. He asked me to repeat it to you, but I didn’t bother remembering it. I can’t be expected to perform such drudgery.”

He laughed again, sides splitting as his wound rubbed against the bandages covering his torso. It drained him, and he felt heavy, like the bed was dragging him toward its centre.

“Please don’t dodge the question,” said Hannah with a hard stare.

“Now’s not the best time,” he said, eyelids growing leaden. “Too much morphine.”

“I’ll write it down, then. Every single one.”

As he drifted away, he couldn’t help but smile, their faces being the last things he saw before sliding into sleep.

“So,” said Razor, chirpy, “when can I cut somebody else?”

He groaned, inside and out.