“And Alan?” he asked.
She smiled ruefully. “Alan is a little devil— he’s been unusually well behaved since we arrived. Maisie can’t control him now, and I’m terrified of how he’ll grow up under Graham’s influence.”
“Well, it may not be the children who are the problem,” he said. “It could be Killer.”
“Why?” she demanded, frowning.
“Too much power?” he suggested. “Perhaps it is taking too much faerie to keep him alive, so it can’t move us all to Mera.” She bit her lip and was silent, concentrating on the horse; and even to Jerry’s inexpert eye the mare was limping badly now.
If the children were the problem he had burned a bridge, for he could never abandon them in the forest as he had discarded the adults. They would be the first children he had ever seen in Mera, whereas Killer would not be the first living corpse brought back by a field team. Other wands had managed the transference while keeping a badly injured man alive, why not this one? He wished he knew more about the mechanics of the wands, knew whether they could run down like batteries.
He hoped that his first guess had been correct, that either Carlo or Gillis or both had been possessed and so forbidden to enter Mera.
The sun crept slowly around them as the road continued its turn. The clearing and the cottage had disappeared, obviously, for they had gone more than once round the loop and there had been no side roads— unless they were spiraling like a phonograph needle.
Still no change in the scenery. If a major demon could be defeated as easily as Ariadne had trashed Asterios, then why did the demonologists in Mera not know of that technique? Asterios had been inside the cottage. Could one tell if one had been possessed? Maybe they all were.
Ariadne had shrunk back into herself and become the cowering, frightened woman he had first met. Alan and Lacey were unhappily silent. The sun was almost behind the wagon again, which meant almost a complete circle since leaving Carlo and the Gillises.
He remembered the first time he had climbed to the high-diving board as a child and how that had felt. And flying into flak over Cologne. And bailing out and counting before pulling the ripcord. He knew what he was going to do next, and it felt worse than any of those.
“Look,” Ariadne said.
There were three figures ahead, and they had heard the wagon and stopped to look back: a woman in a pink sweater and green pants, a man in a badly mauled blue suit, a slighter man in jeans and a leather jacket.
The wagon stopped.
“It isn’t working.” She looked at him with doubt and fear… and anger and betrayal.
“Turn the wagon,” he barked.
“Would that help?” she asked with a brief glimmer of hope, and then even that had gone.
“Turn it!” he snapped. Gillis shouted and started to run, with Carlo behind him.
There was just room to turn the wagon between the trees which flanked the road.
“Now we get out,” Jerry said. His mouth was dry and his heart pounding. “Down you get, kids!”
“No!” Ariadne screamed. “I won’t leave them.”
“Us too. Come on! Move!” She studied him doubtfully for a moment, then Lacey had jumped down, and Ariadne scrambled down to lift Alan, not wanting to be separated from them. She certainly did not trust Jerry anymore.
He knotted the reins, released the brake, and jumped down also, stumbling in his haste. Gillis was coming puffing up to them with Carlo beside him.
Quickly, before his nerve failed him, Jerry took out the automatic and fired one shot into the air.
The children screamed, Ariadne gasped— and the mare dropped her ears and bolted. The wagon bounced and rattled, and he felt a sudden terror that the wand might be shaken from Killer’s grip— then suddenly there was no noise, just a bolting horse and wagon moving in silence, then neither had a shadow, and before they turned the bend out of sight, horse and wagon faded away into nothing, and the sun shone down on an empty road.
Killer had returned to Mera.
Ten
The road seemed to sway, and the sunlight danced strangely. This was it, then? He sent a last smile towards Ariadne and closed his eyes and waited.
“What is going on?” Gillis roared.
Jerry opened his eyes and blinked. The roadway had steadied, and the light was all right Then he was hit by a wildcat, his arm grabbed and twisted, and he went hurtling to the grass; Carlo had the gun. One of the women squealed.
Jerry sat up and rubbed his shoulder, flexed twisted fingers and looked around the ring of angry and frightened faces. He saw that he was level with Alan and gave him a smile. Alan quickly hid behind Maisie’s leg.
He was alive.
The wand had gone, and he had not rumbled into dust. His hands looked fine, no old man’s liver spots. If his hair had all fallen out and his face collapsed into wrinkles, he thought it likely that someone would be kind enough to mention it. He started to laugh— he was alive.
“I said, ‘what is going on?’ ” Gillis repeated.
“I’m damned if I know,” Jerry said. He also didn’t care at the moment. He had done it, the big one: He had sincerely offered his life for a friend. That the offer had been refused, so that he was still whole, was hardly less welcome than the awareness that he had been able to make it. J. Howard was now one of the good guys. He laughed again at life and sunlight and green trees. Not the same trees. He looked around. This was a forest, but a deciduous forest, hardwoods. Was that a lime? So something had happened, and all the others were too shocked to notice. There were some small and fluffy white clouds in the sky which had not been there before, and the sun seemed higher, yes, the air was much warmer and sweet-scented. Birds were chirping.
Carlo kicked him, and he yelped with pain. “Up!”
Damn, that felt like broken ribs; nothing like a hard kick to bring a man back to reality. Winded and wincing, Jerry scrambled to his feet, no longer the man with the gun. Gillis’ bruised face was registering satisfaction, and Carlo’s puffed mouth was twisted in a smile. Maisie was kneeling to hug the children; Ariadne was standing by herself again, withdrawn and pale.
Now explain!” Gillis said. “Where is that wagon?”
“It went back to Mera,” said Jerry. “Either there were too many of us, or the wand was refusing to take someone— possibly the children.”
“Or me,” Araidne said sadly.
“Or me?” Jerry shrugged. “The one I was most sure of was Killer, and I did not dare take the wand away from him anyway.”
“And the rest of us, what happens?” demanded Carlo in an accent which Jerry could not place.
“Jolly good question,” he said. “Cut out the horse— “
“Wait!” Gillis said. “I don’t think he’s clowning. He’s a limey, and that’s his real voice.” Carlo glowered but did not argue. Probably he could hear a difference in Gillis also.
“It’s another place,” Jerry said. “The firs have gone, see?”
They looked around at a much more open woodland and a narrower, dusty roadway with a slope to it.
“Where are we, then?”
“Not the foggiest,” Jerry confessed. “I don’t know where and I don’t know when. I don’t even know how, because the wand has gone, so there must be something else going on. We’ll just have to wait for Killer to come for us.”
“Why should he?” Gillis snapped. “How can he find us? And even if he wants to, it may be months before he’s well enough.”
Jerry turned his back on the gun to prove to himself that he could do it and walked a few steps to a fallen tree. He sat down and tried to look confident. Suddenly that gun had made him feel very mortal.