Wondrous Strange

they did seem to be the only living souls around.

“Most of your kind avoid this place like it’s plague ridden at times like this!” Sonny snarled. “Why did I have to get the one nutcase mortal who thinks it’s somehow fun to fling herself repeatedly into the midst of dire peril?”

Kelley stared at him, openmouthed in her astonishment. “I’m not even going to pretend I know what you’re talking about.” She stabbed a finger at her chest. “And I am clearly not the ‘nutcase mortal’-Wait a minute! What the hell does that even mean?”

“What-nutcase?”

“No! Mortal!”

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course I am!”

Sonny shrugged and muttered, “It’s getting harder and harder to tell.”

Kelley took a deep breath and said, “Okay. Okay, I’m going home now.” She took a few steps and then turned back. “Do I even need to tell you not to follow me again?”

“No.” Sonny wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He looked upset and relieved at the same time. “I promised the first time I wouldn’t, and I haven’t.”

“So what is this then?” Kelley cried. It made no sense to her-she barely knew him- but this hurt her. “What is this constantly running into you? Coincidence? It’s a big park, Mr. Flannery. It’s a big city! And yet, somehow, you just happen to find me here. Just like you managed to track me down at the Avalon-”

“That was planned. I told you; I went looking for you. And this was not coincidence because there is no such thing as coincidence,” he said bitterly. “This is your stubbornness and my sheer, bloody-minded bad luck. The Fates have it in for me. What did I ever do to them?”

“Why do you hate me?” Kelley’s voice was very quiet in the still air. “I don’t even know you!”

And there it was. That look. The look from her dreams, the one that broke her heart. Sonny’s face became open, wounded, his expression wide with longing and a strange anguish.

“Oh, Kelley,” he said. “I am so very far from hating you that I think it would be a great deal safer if I did. For both of us-Get down!”

Suddenly he launched himself in a running dive through the air, knocking Kelley off the path toward the Wonderland statue. Her head bounced off the cap of the Caterpillar’s mushroom, and all the breath was driven from her lungs. Kelley fell to the ground, gasping, head swimming from hitting solid bronze.

The howling creature charging out of the night’s thin air had barely missed her-thanks to Sonny’s shove. The enormous thing spun with an agility that belied its size and sprang at Sonny, slamming him to the earth about ten feet away from her with such force that Kelley was sure his spine must be broken.

Sonny lay on the gravel path, unmoving, as the rabid thing swung its buffalo-sized head in her direction, fastening red eyes upon her. Its slavering jaws opened impossibly wide.

Kelley stared in utter disbelief at its huge, hairy paws. They didn’t seem to be touching the ground…

Through a fog of paralyzing terror, Kelley heard Sonny shout something that sounded like, “Turn, hell-hound!”

She thought to herself, That’s the wrong play.…

That’s from Macbeth, not Midsummer…

I’m in the wrong play…

As the beast lunged at her, the dull ache in her head suddenly flared into blinding agony.

XVI

From outside his immediate sphere of concentration, Sonny saw that Kelley had blacked out, and was grateful for that. He didn’t want her to see what happened next-whatever the outcome.

As the creature lunged for Kelley, Sonny leaped and locked his arms around its massive torso. He threw his weight sideways, rolling with the wolflike animal, taking it as far away as possible from the unconscious girl. The roll ended with Sonny on his back. He threw his forearms up in front of his face as the thing snapped at his trachea.

Its fetid breath poured over him like swamp fog, its sharp-toothed jaws straining to close on his flesh. With his arms crossed in a defensive shield, Sonny reached for both of the creature’s ragged ears. He grabbed, pulling hard in opposing directions. The thing yelped in a disturbingly doglike fashion and flung itself onto its back. Sonny leaped to his feet and aimed a kick at the thing’s ribs. It grunted in pain and lurched to its feet, where it hovered several inches above the ground and gathered itself, swinging its head to and fro. Backing up on its raised hindquarters, it hunched in preparation for another attack, growling hideously deep in its throat.

Before Sonny had a chance to draw a weapon, it leaped again. Arching its heavy body in midair, it twisted past Sonny and went again for Kelley. Sonny flung himself in another tackle, one-armed, grabbing frantically with his free hand at the small of his back, where he carried a sharp dagger in a sheath on his belt. The move left the right side of his chest unprotected for an instant, and Sonny felt the bloom of searing pain.

Losing his bearing, he collapsed. Face pressed to the ground, he heard the sound of running feet and more snarling. Dimly he heard fighting and then silence.

After a moment, Sonny was able to raise his head.

Maddox stood above him, holding out a hand to help him stand. A heavy mace dangled from a thong at his other wrist.

“Bellamy and Camina must have sensed you needed help at just about the same time I did, I guess,” he said, gesturing down the deserted path. “They’ve gone after-”

Sonny cut him short. “You didn’t kill it? Did you?”

Maddox wiped his brow. “Nah-wounded maybe, not sure…”

“Where did it go?”

“Yonder. I’ll go help them. You can stay with-”

“No! It has to be me.”

Maddox’s head snapped up at the tone of Sonny’s voice. “That was a Black Shuck! It didn’t tag you, did it?”

Sonny pulled aside his coat and watched as his friend’s eyes went wide with alarm. He looked down and saw the dark red lines of blood through the slashes in his T-shirt. He could feel the poison of the shuck’s claws seeping, a terrible numbing cold growing slowly, spreading up toward his shoulder.

“Go,” Maddox urged him, near panicked. “Go! I’ll take care of the girl.”

“Get her home. Find out where that is.”

“Don’t worry about that right now-”

“She has a horse in her bathtub, Madd,” Sonny said urgently.

“Ah.” Maddox blinked, understanding. “Well then.”

“Be careful, Maddox. That shuck? It had a purpose and it didn’t come after me. It went straight for her. Ignored me like I was a stone. It was tracking her.”

“Seven hells. Tracking her for whom?”

“Dunno…”

Sonny staggered a bit and almost fell to one knee. Maddox put out a hand to steady him. In the distance, they heard baying.

“Go now, Sonny,” Maddox said. “I’ll try to signal Bell and Camina-tell them to hold off on killing the damned thing. But even still, you’ve only got till midnight if they don’t take it out first.”

Sonny nodded and took one last glance at where Kelley lay on the ground. Then he pushed all thoughts of pain from his mind and took off at a run down the path, hoping desperately that he would not be too late.

The Black Shuck had given the Janus twins one hell of a merry chase up and down the park. When Sonny finally found them, Camina and Bellamy had the thing cornered on the terrace of Belvedere Castle. By that time Sonny was