“WHATTHEFUCK!” Avery scrambled backward, accidentally knocking Casey over in his panic. He slammed the cage door open and screamed, “Casey, get out, out, get out!”

  Casey sat up to see the source of Avery’s panic: A man.

  He was small, with long, very pale blond hair and an outlandish outfit of threadbare trousers and rusty chain mail. The man lurched to his feet from where he’d been sprawled on the floor. His nostrils flared while he simultaneously clenched his jaw tight, pressed his lips together to form a thin line, and narrowed his eyes.

  “What the FUCK,” Avery demanded again, with only slightly less volume than before, from outside of the cage. “Casey, get out of there!”

  Casey belatedly realized the man held a battered sword. Tangled, damp hair fell across the exotically sharp and filthy-dirty planes of his face, and he brushed the strands back with a swift gesture of his free hand.

  The man took two swift steps toward Casey, and he found himself with the point of the sword at his throat before he realized that the stranger meant to attack. He gasped and held his hands up in instant surrender. He wasn’t an idiot. He was still seated on the ground, acutely vulnerable.

  His attacker shifted his weight back onto a heel, but before he could lunge forward and skewer Casey, Avery whipped up the pepper spray bottle on his key chain. A thin stream of liquid arced across the room. The man jerked backward, free hand clapping over his face.

  Casey, his own eyes and nose stinging from the fumes, reached behind himself and grabbed the first thing that came to hand, which was the very heavy bucket of keys. Without rising, he swung it by the handle at the swordsman, who deflected the bucket with his sword, then rubbed at his eyes with his free hand and retreated several steps. The keys scattered across the floor, jangling on concrete.

  For the first time, the man said something intelligible, but it wasn’t friendly. “You will die for this!”

  Casey scrambled backward on his butt across the concrete. The swordsman, with unnaturally green eyes narrowed into watery slits, walked calmly after him.

  Then, Avery leaped between Casey and the strange man. With a screeching scream, he swung an old wooden chair overhand. The strange man flung his free hand up, knocking the chair aside, and at the same time, lunged forward ...

  ... in a moment that was somehow both impossibly fast and in slow motion, he skewered Avery with the sword.

  “STOP!” Casey shouted.

  The stranger faltered and sank to one knee.

  Avery staggered backward and slid off the sword, which had gone entirely through his torso. Casey’s brother clapped one hand over his wound, then rallied and swung the chair again with all his strength.

  This time, the strange man was too slow to react. He looked up but did not raise a hand in self-defense. The chair hit his head and shoulder with an audible thud, and the swordsman collapsed to the floor.

  “Avery! Avery, no!” Casey finally made it to his feet. He grabbed Avery, who was somehow still standing, and shoved him toward the door. “Damn it! No!”

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  Avery, quite calmly, picked up the sword as they passed it, then kicked the cage door shut. He handed the weapon to Casey and clicked the padlock on the door shut with that hand — the other was pressed to his chest. Crimson blood was quickly saturating his shirt, both back and front.

  In a tone that sounded almost conversational, Avery said, “You should call 911.”

  “Avery — shit!” Avery’s words jarred Casey back to reality. Avery had just been run through with a sword. How was he still standing?

  Blood seeped out around Avery’s fingers in a steady trickle. For a second, all Casey could do was stare at it in stunned disbelief. Behind him, the strange man struggled to his feet. Casey gave him a long, shocked look.

  He had pointy ears.

  Then, realizing the stranger was contained in the cage and no longer an immediate threat, Casey ducked under Avery’s arm to support him. Avery swayed on his feet, and Casey manhandled him up the stairs and through the set of double doors that led to the Junk Shop’s cash register. There, they startled a few random customers and Shana.

  Shana took one look at the blood and grabbed the shop’s phone. Casey heard her call 911, and while she did, he turned his full attention to Avery.

  Avery had gone pale, and blood surrounded his mouth. He hiccupped, then said, “Call my mom, will you?”

  Shana, the phone still in her hand, darted around the counter. “What happened?”

  Casey had no idea what to say.

  He’d summoned an elf.

  The elf had run Avery through with a sword.

  How did one explain that?

  Avery crumpled to the floor, knees buckling.

  “Casey! Get his legs. Lift them up.” Shana shoved the phone at one of the staring customers and barked, “You, talk to the 911 operator!” She grabbed a random t-shirt off one of the nearby racks of second-hand clothing, dropped to her knees, and pressed it to the wound in Avery’s stomach.

  Casey had heard Shana’s words. They made sense. He couldn’t make himself move.

  Avery focused on Casey and then said, “Hurts.”

  “Lie still,” Shana’s voice was firmer than Casey had ever heard. “Help’s coming.”

  Avery had big feet to match his height. The same shoes that he’d often propped on Casey’s kitchen table just to be obnoxious were now shockingly heavy in Casey’s hands. He mumbled something too low for Casey to hear. Blood soaked the t-shirt in Shana’s hands. One of the customers hurriedly fled outside. The other stood helplessly against the wall, staring, with both hands covering her mouth.

  The air beside Avery seemed to shimmer. Casey had no idea what that was... for a second, he saw an outline of a small child, crouched with both hands outstretched over Avery’s chest. His Gift was shrieking at him to help, but he didn’t know how.

  He blinked, certain he was hallucinating. Was everything here just a bad dream?

  Shana said. “Hon, Aves, stay with me here. C’mon, look at me.”

  Avery whispered, “Take ... care of ... my mother ... she’s a bitch but she means well...”

  "You take care of her!” Casey shouted. “You’re not going anywhere!”

  Avery’s blue eyes were flat and empty, staring at nothing. Shana reached for his wrist, then his throat, searching efficiently for a pulse. When none was found, without hesitation, she started CPR.

  Casey dropped Avery’s feet, hands gone numb. “Avery! Avery, no!”

  Avery was his best friend and a brother in all but DNA. His earliest memories were of Avery. He couldn’t imagine a world without Avery in it.

  No! He thought, then didn’t realize he’d screamed it until Shana snarled something at a man who’d just run into the room. The man, another customer, physically hustled Casey outside. The stranger hugged him. He tried to twist away, to go back inside, but he was stronger.

  He didn’t realize he was crying until a police officer took the customer's place and offered him a tissue. When had the cops arrived? He didn’t know.

  Where was the ambulance? Three sheriff’s department cruisers had appeared, but no paramedics.

  There it was, roaring into the parking lot with lights and sirens.

  Moments later, the cops stopped traffic in the middle of the highway so a chopper could land. It raised a huge cloud of dirt from the shoulders of the road. At a fast trot, with a mask over his face and a paramedic squeezing a bag to force air into his lungs, they emerged from the Junk Shop’s door, rattled across the parking lot, bumped over the curb, and loaded Avery into the chopper.

  It launched with a roar and a gust of wind. It was gone. Silence descended.

  He sank to his knees.

  He’d seen the light go out of Avery’s eyes. He'd felt the echoing absence where Avery's life had once been.

  How could they possibly save him?