“You’re really ready to die?” said Giles.

“I can’t die. I am part of a greater thing. You wouldn’t understand. I exist only to serve a function. Give me the box, Eddie, and you can have her back. For a while.”

“She’d rather die,” I said, “than become you. She’d die happily, if it meant she could take you and your masters with her.” I slowly raised my right hand to show her the flat silver box with its red button. “If I press this button, this whole place goes away, forever. A second Big Bang, to end a universe. No more here, no more you, no more Hungry Gods. Molly would see her death as a triumph, to bring that about.”

“Are you sure?” said the thing, in a voice so like the real Molly it cut me to the heart.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m pretty sure she came here expecting to die. And I think perhaps I did too. We never really thought we’d find our way back again. And at least this way, we could go out together.”

“And just when were you planning on telling me this?” said Giles.

I looked at him. “You can still get away. Gateway’s still there, still open. You’ve done all that could be asked of you, held Molly and me together long enough so that we can do what’s necessary.”

“No,” said Giles. “There’s a better way. Give me the Deplorable End.”

“What?” I said.

“I’ll do it,” said Giles.

“Excuse me,” said the drone inside Molly. “But I am still holding a very sharp knife to my throat.”

“Take Molly back through the gateway,” said Giles. “I’ll do the business with the button, blow up the Hungry Gods, bring down the curtain. With them destroyed, the Loathly Ones should all perish too, including the one inside your Molly. You can both have a life together, Eddie. My gift to you.” He smiled briefly. “For showing me things I never would have believed possible. For taking me into your family. And because . . . I have never had, never known, what you and Molly have and know.”

“I thought . . . you said something about woman trouble, back in your time?” I said.

“Oh, there were always women,” said Giles Deathstalker. “Comes with the territory, when you’re Warrior Prime. But never anyone special. Never anyone who mattered. So take your Molly and go. I can do this. In fact, I have to do this. Someone has to shut the gateway from this side, to make sure the universe-destroying energies don’t blow back through the opening into your world. I’ve got some energy grenades that should do the trick; disrupt the energy matrix and collapse the hole.”

“I didn’t bring you back all these years just so you could die,” I said.

“Maybe you did,” said Giles. “Who knows? Time plays strange tricks on all of us.”