"Well, you done with your little hearts and flowers?"
"Just hearts," said Mack.
"Are you done?" she said impatiently.
"One on every pillar."
"All right. Stand here in the middle. And... how can I put this... when he gets here..."
"Keep myself between you and him," said Mack.
"That would be so very helpful," she said.
She went from pillar to pillar, kissing the hearts. "They ought to be feeling that now."
She ran back to the center of the circle.
The flying slug let out a cry of such rage that the pillars seemed to tremble.
"Get in front of me, Mack! Don't leave me out here alone!"
Mack ran to put himself between the Queen and her husband.
Is this the fulfilment of her dream?
In the dream she didn't even know I was there. But in reality, she needs me.
It made him feel good.
"Dammit, Mack, what's going on there? We're not connected yet."
"Maybe it took some of them longer to get up from Ralph's than they expected," said Mack. "It's not that long since I started drawing the hearts."
"What is this, a bad cellphone system?" said Titania. "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me effing now?"
"Please," said Mack. "Don't get angry."
"You're right," she said.
The slugdragon circled at a distance, reconnoitering. Mack sidled around her, as she pointed at each pillar in turn. "I'm not filling up, Mack. This is going to be a short fight if he's got you to draw on and I don't have anybody."
"I can't, Mack, and you know why," she said. And then: "Oh, praise the Lord. They finished it."
Immediately Titania pointed at each pillar, but this time she sang a low note as she did it, and the pillars began to glow.
"Oh, he sees that," she murmured—on the note. "He knows now. Watch out, Mack. Stand up for me."
Mack could hardly think about the dragon, because he was watching the pillars. They were starting to move, sliding around the circle. Clockwise.
"I thought you said counterclockwise," said Mack.
"If the circle moved the same on both sides," said Titania impatiently, "there wouldn't be any friction, now, would there?"
"Silly me," murmured Mack.
"You do know that I love you, don't you, Mack?"
"What are you doing, kissing my ass goodbye?" he said.
"Here he comes, the son-of-a-bitch!"
The flying slug swooped down at them and a talon caught Mack a glancing blow. But it tore open his chest diagonally from waist to shoulder. Mack screamed with the pain and dropped to his knees.
"Stand up, Mack!" she cried. "He can't do that again, he can't afford to weaken you!"
"Once was enough," Mack whispered. "God help me!"
"I can't help you!" she said. "I've got to get this circle moving!"
Mack tore off his shirt to see the wound. It was deep in places—the skin gaped wide. But it hadn't opened his belly. His guts were still safely inside. "Just a flesh wound," he said.
"Well, ain't you brave."
"We'll see what you think when I poop my pants," said Mack. "He's coming back."
"I'm getting stronger, Mack. It's working. You'll see."
The dragon swooped down again, but this time a bright yellow Cadillac suddenly rose straight up from a point inside the circle and smacked into the slug and threw it off course. A moment later, before the Caddy could come back to earth, it blew up into smithereens.
A thousand golf balls were pelting them.
"Damn," she said. "You got a lot of strength in you, baby. Those should have been ping-pong balls."
"Ain't I cool," said Mack, nursing a welt that was rising on his head where a golf ball had smacked him.
"Let me out of this cage," shouted Puck. "She needs me, don't you understand? She thinks I'm his slave, but I'm not, I love her! She's the love of my life! I'd never hurt her! Let me out!"
Ceese knelt by the cage. "I don't even know how," he said.
"Tear it open. Get back in there where you're a giant and rip this sucker open with your teeth!"
"No," Ceese said.
All of a sudden the globe began to roll. It wasn't magic. Puck was moving it like a hamster, running inside the ball and making it move across the floor toward the kitchen.
"You're not getting out of here!"
"Try and stop me!"
Ceese stopped him.
Puck stared at Ceese's foot, which was holding the cage in place.
"Police brutality!" shouted Puck.
"Oh, shut up, nobody's hurting you."
"Rodney King!"
"Nobody can hear you, Puck. And even if they could, they can't even see this house."
"She needs me!"
"She needs you here, with me," said Ceese.
Puck reared back and let out such a piercing scream that one of the panes blew out of the window. It gave Ceese such a pain in his ears that he picked up the globe and ran back to the back of the house, intending to duck it in the toilet or stick it in the shower.
"Damn," said Puck. "What is this, the Village People's dressing room?"
"I'm getting dressed," said Ceese. "But before I do..."
Ceese took one of the leather jackets—the one that was still dripping from having been ducked in water—and wrapped it completely around the globe.
From inside it, Ceese could hear Puck's muffled voice. "It's dark."
Ceese shook the wet jacket.
"It's raining," said Puck.
The chopper swooped in low over the fairy circle. When it was exactly in the middle, a big dollop of red splashed down in the direct center of the circle, spattering everyone with it.
"What is it, paint?" called someone.
"Shut up and keep dancing!" cried Grand.
"It's blood," said Ebby.
"Keep dancing, sweetie," said Ura Lee.
Then, to Ura Lee's amazement, her feet were no longer touching the ground. Still dancing, she rose into the air and the circle began to move even faster.
The chopper returned, but this time as it passed, the red paint peeled off the pavement—and off everybody it had hit—and formed itself back into a ball of paint... or blood, or whatever it was...
which then rose straight up and splashed right across the windshield of the chopper.
The helicopter immediately veered upward and away.
"Blinded him. Good," said Ura Lee.
"What's that chopper doing?" asked Ebby.
"That ain't no chopper, sweetie," said Ura Lee. "It's the devil. And that paint—that was Mack and Yolanda, over in Fairyland, doing something bad to him and making him go away."
"Not for long," said Ebby. "He's coming back."
"Dance faster."
And she did.
The chopper came in close again, and seemed to be heading straight for the flying, dancing, spinning fairy circle. But at the last moment, what looked like a giant frog's tongue shot up from beyond the overpass and stuck to the chopper and flung it away.
"That was close," said Ura Lee.
"It was cool," said Ebby.
That happened a couple more times before the LAPD cruiser slowly coasted along the bridge and slid in under the fairy circle. Ura Lee looked down at the officers who got out of the car and thought it was rather charming the way they took off their caps and scratched their heads and spent a long time discussing whether they dared to report what they were seeing.
Suddenly the metal pipe that made up the guardrail on the overpass tore loose from the concrete and flew upward.
It hit Sondra Brown and knocked her out of the circle. She dropped like a rock onto the road below.
"Oh God help her!" cried Ura Lee. The prayer was echoed by many others.
Whatever God might be doing about Sondra Brown, the guardrail pipe was now standing on end in the middle of the circle, poised to strike at another of them.
And where Son
dra had been, it took a moment for the two whose hands she had been holding to get together and close up the gap. During that moment, the circle slowed down noticeably, and sank a little toward the ground, and the tingling that gave them such pleasure as they danced began to fade.
The pipe struck again. This time Ura Lee thought it was aiming at her. But of course it couldn't aim at all—the circle was moving too fast. It hit Ebby DeVries and she flew out from the circle, over Olympic Avenue, and dropped down out of sight.
"Oh, God," cried Ura Lee. "Not Ebby!"
The cop car suddenly sprang into action. The lights came on, the engine gunned, and the cops began to run back toward it, trying to get the doors open.
The car rose up in the exact center of the circle and the guardrail wrapped itself around the car, coiled itself like a snake.
"This is getting fun," said Titania.
But now Mack and Titania were in the air, too, and Mack looked out frantically to see where the dragon was flying now.
Only when a huge tree suddenly rose up into the air in the center of the circle did Mack realize that the dragonslug had stopped flying and had slipped in under the wall of flying pillars. It was now directly underneath them, holding a huge tree in its talons.
It swing it like a cudgel. Incredibly, the tree passed between two pillars, so they weren't disturbed at all.
But Titania gasped as if she had been struck, and the whole circle slowed down. They also sank closer to the ground, and when Mack looked down he could see the slug opening its huge, toothless, sluglike mouth to swallow them up.
The tree swung again, and again it passed between columns, seemingly without harm. But again the circle staggered in its movement and Titania and Mack sank closer to the dragon's mouth.
"Can't you do something?" demanded Mack.
"As soon as they get the circle back together," she said.
"They never will if he keeps breaking it," said Mack.
"Just hold on to me and you'll be fine!" she shouted.
Mack looked down and saw that the reason the mouth stayed directly under him was because it was catching the blood that dripped off his foot. There was a steady trickle of it. He was strengthening the monster. His own blood was being used against Titania.
Mack knew that his moment had come. In the dream he raced up to fight the dragon. Now, in reality, he'd be dropping down onto it. So it was different. But that didn't matter. The most important thing was that the dragon was gaining strength from him. He had to keep it from getting worse. If he was going to save Titania.
Only when he had shoved himself away from her and was dropping downward did it occur to him that maybe the impulse to let go and drop hadn't come from his own mind, but rather from Oberon's.
The treetrunk dropped to the ground and the slug leapt upward. Mack thought he'd simply be swallowed whole, but instead the beast leaned back and caught him in its talons. Then it began to rise up past Titania.
"No!" she howled. "Mack, baby, fight him! Don't let him take you!"
Fight him with what?
Then, suddenly, everything changed. There was no talon holding him. Instead, he was hanging from something by his hands, and the pain in his chest was unbearable as his body strained and stretched.
Suddenly, everything changed. The guardrail unwrapped itself and dropped to the ground; the patrol car fell after it, landing with such force that it blew out all four tires.
The chopper appeared in the middle of the air, the blades seeming to be only inches from the fairy circle as they spun. And hanging from the bottom skid of the chopper was... Mack Street.
His shirt was open and his chest was bleeding from a terrible wound from hip to shoulder. Ura Lee was relieved that no bowel was exposed, but he was losing blood steadily. And the chopper was trying to rise up and carry him away.
The circle spun faster and faster.
"No!" cried Ura Lee. "I have to get out! I have to help him!"
But Mack couldn't hear her. He grimaced and swung on the skid and pulled himself up so he was standing on the skid and holding on to the door of the chopper.
"Stay away from the door!" Ura Lee cried. For she knew—somehow—that if that door opened and Mack went inside, he would be lost. "Don't go in!" she shouted.
Mack seemed to hear her. He looked toward the rapidly spinning circle and hesitated.
At that moment, a Mercedes coasted along the bridge underneath the chopper. It stopped and Word Williams got out.
"Mack!" he shouted. "Jump! I'll catch you!"
That was about the stupidest thing Ura Lee ever heard. Mack was half a head taller than Word.
Word wasn't catching anything tonight.
The door of the chopper swung open. Mack lost his balance, veered, and then, in catching his balance, swung back toward the open door. He was going to fall into the mouth of the beast.
Word jumped straight up into the air and caught the skid of the chopper and hung on. It was an incredible jump—it would have set the record in any Olympics—but more important to Ura Lee was the fact that he overbalanced the chopper, causing it to lurch and swing Mack back out of the door, which promptly slammed shut behind him.
The chopper tipped on its side.
And suddenly Ura Lee knew what she had to do.
of the chopper, and fired.
The bullet ricocheted off.
"Open the door, Mack!" cried Ura Lee.
"Don't do it!" shouted Word.
"Mack, this is your mother! This is Mom! Open the door!"
Mack hung on to the handle beside the door, completely baffled by what was happening. Where had this helicopter come from? Where were the pillars? Where was Titania?
Only gradually did he realize where he was—in the air above the bridge over Olympic. And the chopper must be...
The manifestation of Oberon in this world. The dragonslug might not be able to cross over between worlds, but like the debris that Mack had left in Fairyland, Oberon himself caused things to happen in this world, and there was a figure here that represented him. A news chopper.
Mack had almost crawled into Oberon's mouth of his own free will.
"Open the door!" he heard someone cry.
"Don't do it!" He knew both voices. The man was Word Williams. The same voice whose sermon he had listened to just last night. Or had he? Hadn't he fallen asleep?
"Mack, this is your mother! This is Mom! Open the door!"
It was Miz Smitcher. But she called herself his mother. And she wanted him to...
To open the door.
She understood. She wanted him to make the sacrifice. She knew it was what he had been born for. He was dragon food all along.
She had called herself Mom.
"I will, Mom," said Mack. He reached out and flung open the door.
Suddenly a shot rang out. Another.
The door slammed shut.
Even with the ice and snow, the dragon somehow managed to stay in the air. But it was staggering, reeling.
One lurch brought the dragon's mouth close to Mack's head. It probably would have bitten down and swallowed the boy in two bites, but something made the dragon lurch yet again, and Mack was pulled back out of its mouth.
Titania looked down and saw a tyrannosaur, with its enormous jaws clamped down on the dragon's other leg. The weight was more than the dragon could bear. It was sinking toward the ground.
Yet Mack seemed oblivious. He reached up toward the dragon's mouth, caught hold of it, gripped its lip, and drew it downward toward him.
What is he doing? thought Titania. Volunteering to be eaten?
The dragon's mouth was now wide open, and on the same level as the pillars that still spun madly around Titania.
A shot rang out. And another.
A bloody eruption in the dragon's eye told Titania that her husband had been hit. But by what?
The dragon was spitting out blood.
Titania knew this was her chance. Whatever had hit the dragon, it had its min
d on something other than the magic she might be able to bring to bear.
She said the words, sang the notes, did the quick little jig.
The wings of the dragon dropped off and the sluglike body plummeted.
Sprawled on the ground with both the tyrannosaur and Mack Street being crushed or smothered under it, the dragon stirred. But not quickly enough for Titania.
She waved her hand, and the slug was suddenly transformed. No longer a terrifying dragonslug, it was just a man.
Her man.
And Mack Street was gone. In his place was a single plastic grocery bag, rolling like a tumbleweed in a slight breeze coming in from off the ocean.
But Ura Lee did not regret shooting at the chopper. Whoever was flying it was trying to consume her son. What else could she have done?
The helicopter hit the ground and... disappeared.
Mack Street and Word Williams lay sprawled and somewhat entangled with each other on top of the patrol car.
And the helicopter was gone.
The fairy circle slowed down and sank so rapidly that in two revolutions they were on the ground, moving at no more than a brisk walk. The tingling stopped. So did the jigging.
Ura Lee shrugged off the arms of the two people holding on to her and ran toward the body of her son.
Word Williams stirred, slid away from Mack's body. He saw Ura Lee and said, "I'm sorry, Miz Smitcher. I tried to save him."
The others gathered around.
Not far away, a car caught in the traffic jam surrounding the fairy circle let out a blast of its horn.
One of the cops raised his nightstick and approached the offending car. "This is a demonstration!" he shouted. "It has a permit! Didn't you see the signs out on Pico?"
Ura Lee didn't care about the surrounding people. She made sure Mack's neck wasn't broken, then slid her arms under him and lifted him and held his head and shoulders against her like a child.
"Oh, Mack," she said. "Mack, it was supposed to be the other way. You were supposed to hold me while I died."
Yolanda White appeared out of nowhere, standing on the roof of the cop car.
"Say goodbye to him, Ura Lee Smitcher," she said. "He's coming with me."
"He's dead!" said Ura Lee. "Can't I bury him?"
"He's not dead. But his job is done. Say goodbye to him, Miz Smitcher. I've got to get my pathetic loser of a husband back down to hell."
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