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 mind 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.