The goblins lifted Susan up onto the roof. She tried to arch her back to break free, to force a fall down into the roof space, but at least a dozen goblins held her, six on each side. They walked easily despite the slant of the roof, taking her over to the next town house in the row. Coils of cut concertina wire that had previously barred the way had sprung to either side.
Susan kept struggling and managed to work her mouth out of the gag, which had been tied on in a great hurry. But her mouth was dry and she had no breath. The goblins rushed on, swift and sure-footed, over the neighboring roof and onto the next, and the next, all the way to the rooftop of the house at the end of the row. There was a rope ladder there and they swarmed down it to the garden, Susan shutting her eyes as they carried her with them, thinking they would drop her for sure. But the goblins were immensely strong for their size, and dexterous. They gripped the rungs with their four-toothed jaws and one hand, while keeping Susan tightly gripped in the other hand, four of them in a line.
They laid her down in the middle of the garden and stepped back, before suddenly running off in all directions, like cockroaches frightened by a light.
For a moment, Susan thought Merlin must have come to the rescue, before she managed to roll over and look up to see the dark outline of a truly massive wolf. It was the size of a minibus, taking up most of the rear half of the garden. Its eyes, larger than the square’s streetlights, were a dull red like the raked-down coals of a firepit. Its mouth was open and cavernous, its teeth forearm lengths of yellowed ivory, its tongue a writhing length of darkness.
“Merlin!” shrieked Susan, finding her breath. She wriggled away from the massive wolf like an inchworm, but it put one great paw on her and held her in place and bent its head down, huge jaws opening. Susan lifted her bound-together feet and kicked it at the point of the lower jaw. But the attack did not meet fur and flesh. It was more like jumping into cold water from a height, giving but shocking at the same time, and there was a sudden flare of pins and needles through her feet up into her calves.
The wolf lowered its head still more, jaws closing on Susan’s middle, but it pressed down without closing, snout digging into the prize turf of the lawn, positioning its mouth so it could pick up Susan with the least dangerous part of its maw. Susan stopped wriggling as she saw what it was doing, and the wolf slowly worked its nose deep to get a safe grip on her. If it was going to eat her, she thought, it would simply gulp her up, careless of the damage.
Susan was right. The wolf worked its lower jaw under her, and slowly lifted her up, with her head and feet dangling outside its mouth. Again, it didn’t feel like she was in the mouth of a living creature. While she was held securely, it felt very strange, as if the wolf’s teeth weren’t always entirely there or completely present in the real world. Susan had the unpleasant sensation of floating on something like oil, far more buoyant than water, with enough pressure that she could not get free.
She lay still as the wolf slowly angled its head, making her slide a bit farther back to be securely settled directly behind its great canines.
“Susan!”
It was Merlin’s voice. From the sound of it he was on the roof of the house. Susan turned her head and shouted, but the wolf was already moving, spinning about. It tensed to leap, there was a kind of meaty thud, the wolf gave a shuddering whimper that Susan felt as much as heard, then it jumped and it was Susan’s turn to cry out as the landing jarred her, despite the weird cushioning effect of the wolf’s otherworldly jaws.
The jump took them to Waterloo Terrace, fifty or sixty yards away. The wolf accelerated immediately into a swift lope, but it held its head as still as possible so Susan was not hurt. She saw streetlights rushing past and could not guess at their speed, but it felt fast. They overtook a car and then another as the wolf turned north onto Upper Street.
There was a long line of cars and trucks there, but the wolf ignored the steady line of traffic, moving around each slower vehicle, using both sides of the road and even jumping over cars when necessary. The drivers did not see the creature, or react to its presence. There was no swerving or emergency braking. Susan shut her eyes at some of the overtaking procedures, when the wolf almost miscalculated an oncoming vehicle’s speed. Even if the humans couldn’t see the monster, it was avoiding possible collisions, which was some relief to Susan. It might survive a head-on at speed. She knew she wouldn’t.
The wolf didn’t stop for red lights. It ran so fast, and the angle she was held at was so confusing with buildings and lights flashing by, that it was impossible for
