Shadowland

Rose jerked in pain or surprise beside him, and he thought it was because of Collins. But she was looking in the wrong direction for that — behind him, in the direction of the living room and front door.

    'You're going to need a little help, Red,' came a velvety voice. In the same moment, Tom whirled around and the scarred receptacle from which he had pulled Skeleton Ridpath shuddered to its feet.

    Climb in, boy? Or do I have to push you?

'Just remember you got a great big battery,' Bud Copeland said. 'You found out a lot of things about yourself today, but you got to forget about that now. You have to think about the job, son.'

    The Collector dangled, in the hall, knocking itself against the blistered and discolored walls. Its empty head swiveled toward Tom; toward Rose; back to Tom.

    Bud moved up beside them, and there was the shock of seeing right through him again, to the blisters on the wall. They looked like stains on the fabric of his suit.

    'I'll give you a big, big shove. You'll have a real good time. Way way way way down in the dump.'

Tom's mind felt a sudden wrench, followed by an enormous flaring pain.

    'Remember what you heard, Red. Anybody can be collected at any time.'

    Collins went fishing in his mind again, and the hook snagged on the picture he had of himself and Skeleton down in there, trapped inside the Collector. He stepped back, more afraid of that picture than he'd been of anything at Shadowland; more afraid of that than death.

    'You don't want to run, do you, Red? You want to stay near where you got to stay.'

    Yes, he thought. Where I got to stay. He felt Collins jerking him like a fish, and he blasted, Out!

'I'm what you know, Red,' Bud told him. 'That's all I am now. You brought me here — so I could tell you. I'm just your shadow. That's your battery working, Red. Crank it up as high as it can get.'

    But I don't know how to crank it up, Tom thought despairingly: sometimes things just come.

    'Like you did on the wall with nails through your hands,' Bud's voice whispered. Or was that his own voice? 'It's not going to be any easier than that. But I helped him long enough — now I'm going to help you.' He vanished, and Tom felt suddenly abandoned.

    Collins appeared at the corner of the hallway, sur­rounded by a prismatic light.

    If I made you come, Tom said inside himself, then come back. I need you. Now.

'Now,' Collins echoed, and the force of his mind jerked Tom forward to him. 'Now, little bird.'

31

It was like being caught in a typhoon. Invisible wind pushed him, tore all but his helplessness from his thoughts — he forgot Bud and Rose as he struggled to stay on his feet. He fought to stay away from Collins and the Collector, but the typhoon swung him irresistibly forward. The wind whipped him sideways, and his head cracked against the wall. Smell of burning: the smell of Carson warping toward destruction. Strong hands were inside his head, a hook was in his brain, tugging and tugging.

    Strong little bird, aren't you?

The glass sparrow in his hand turned glowing red. No! his mind shouted, and the pull of the hands weakened. The typhoon dropped him.

    Collins' face hovered a foot from his own — the sneering mouth, the powerful nose. The Herbie Butter makeup was dripping down his cheeks, streaking away, as if being burned off from within.

    It's work for him too, Tom realized.

    He shot an impulse from his own mind straight into Collins' eyes, aware of Rose screaming back there by the living room — she had been screaming since he had been torn away from her. Collins reared back, and he tried to follow his impulse into the magician's head.

    Revulsion checked him: not the blind, lost feeling when he had probed Rose's mind, but the instinctive holding back of touching something repugnant, a cancer. . . . Collins' mind slammed against his like a crossed sword.

    Not that way, brat. It's your bedtime.

Collins pushed into his mind with terrific force, and he reeled among images of lacquered birds, steaming bodies, one great bird swooping down to carry him off. Circuits in his brain smoked and flamed . . . locked in that room for good, boy, that's where you'll be. . . .

In his hands, the glass sparrow turned black.

    Hands, fishhooks, metal clamps like those that had held the squalling badger — all this poured into Tom and grasped something that seemed like a white bird.

    Bedtime, child.

Collins started to haul him out. The whites of the magician's eyes burned red.

    Tom summoned up Bud Copeland with the last of his nickering energy. Come back, Bud, now . . . now . . .

'You again,' he heard Collins say, and the cruel machinery opened and loosened within him; and for Tom there was a drift of a thought — You betrayed me, bird . . .

'You are the traitor,' he heard Bud say. 'Not the boy. Let him go, Doctor.'

    'You lost! Leave me!' Collins shouted. 'I sent you into insignificance!'

    Tom looked sideways, falling back out of Collins' grasp. The glass sparrow flashed yellow light, and the warmth of it went through his hand, burning a little on the fresh scar tissue.

    'You told the boy everything here came from the meeting of your mind with his,' Bud said. 'And that's all I am. Guess you gave him a weapon, Doctor, without knowing you were doing it.'

    And then a sidling, sly, sidestepping voice in his own mind and nowhere else: a voice he knew was his own, though it came wrapped in Bud's gorgeous rumble. You waitin' for the next train, child?

'NO!' Collins screamed. 'You helped him! Traitor!'

    The wings shook the entire house, reminding Tom of the vastness of the powers just under his tongue and just behind his eyes. 'Look at me, killer,' he said. 'I'm going to feed the owl.'

    He knew the glass bird was gold and red, knew that he was broadcasting an aura to fill the entire house.

    'TRAITOR!' Collins screamed, and his eyes locked into Tom's: but Tom was already pouring in, grasping Collins as he had grasped Skeleton Ridpath, going past pictures of dead men with their faces ripped apart and exploding airplanes, going into the swamp of Collins' being, where nothing could hold him now, going as invincibly as if he wore white armor and feeling Collins melt beneath him. A bolt like lightning shivered him, but he grabbed and held, gripped the stuff of Collins' being and ripped backward. Get those fingers back. The secret did lie in hating well.

    'The pain won't be as bad as you anticipate,' he whispered. He pulled with everything in him, feeling the power blossom out and engulf Collins, feeling it wrapping about a squirming, wriggling, finally helpless force; and broke it; broke free.

    Something invisible and screaming was held suspended in the air: something treacherous and furious, something that would have been pure if it had not been so fouled by misuse.

    Tom groaned, and stuffed it deep down inside the Collector. 'Slam dunk,' he muttered.

    Rose tottered back, mumbling in fright, not knowing what had happened. In front of Tom, Collins' body lay in the corridor in what appeared to be deep coma. Beside it, the Collector, a threat again, whirled toward him with its unappeasable hunger.

    'This time I can remember how to finish it,' he said. Tom stepped to his side, the Collector tracking him brightly, and reached inside the bathroom and slammed the button home.

32

The whole purple body, damaged by the earlier flames, flowed past Tom, howling wordless sounds of disbelieving shock, and was pulled through the door. It grasped the frame with its fingers. The melted eyes found Tom, and the boy saw what he had not wanted to see: Collins far down inside, scrambling for release, still enough himself to think he could escape and trying to fight his way out of that awful room with its pressing horrors, the very