Word Williams stirred, slid away from Mack's body. He saw Ura Lee and said, "I'm sorry, Miz Smitcher. I tried to save him."
The others gathered around.
Not far away, a car caught in the traffic jam surrounding the fairy circle let out a blast of its horn.
One of the cops raised his nightstick and approached the offending car. "This is a demonstration!" he shouted. "It has a permit! Didn't you see the signs out on Pico?"
Ura Lee didn't care about the surrounding people. She made sure Mack's neck wasn't broken, then slid her arms under him and lifted him and held his head and shoulders against her like a child.
"Oh, Mack," she said. "Mack, it was supposed to be the other way. You were supposed to hold me while I died."
Yolanda White appeared out of nowhere, standing on the roof of the cop car.
"Say goodbye to him, Ura Lee Smitcher," she said. "He's coming with me."
"He's dead!" said Ura Lee. "Can't I bury him?"
"He's not dead. But his job is done. Say goodbye to him, Miz Smitcher. I've got to get my pathetic loser of a husband back down to hell."
"He's not a loser!" shouted Word. "He's a hero!"
"I didn't mean Mack," said Yolanda. "I know we had that ceremony, but... it's the king of the fairies that I'm married to. Only now he's the king of nothing, not even himself. Thanks to all these fine people, the fairy circle held, and we've got Oberon in chains. Thank you!"
"It's Cecil Tucker's gun," she said numbly.
"I know where he is. I'll give it back to him."
Ura Lee took the gun out of the pocket of her jacket and handed it to the fairy queen.
Titania smiled at her. "It will be all right, Miz Smitcher." Then she bent over, took Mack Street's limp hands, and pulled him up from his mother's lap.
"Come on, Mack," she said. "You're going home."
She held him close to her, and then unfolded her wings. The people gasped. They hadn't seen them, folded as they were on her back. "Better clear the road and let the traffic through," she said.
Word Williams helped a weeping Ura Lee away from the patrol car and over to the sidewalk.
The cops stepped out into the road and started directing traffic.
Ura Lee looked over the rim of the overpass and saw several people doing CPR on Ebby.
"Sweet Jesus," she said. "Let her live."
"I wish," said Word Williams beside her, "I wish I had the power to heal her."
"No wishing," said Ura Lee. "I don't want any wishing around me. Just doing or shutting up.
Help me down there to look at that girl and see if I can do anything before the paramedics get here."
"Yes ma'am," said Word.
Then she burst into tears again. "Oh, Mack, my son, my sweet beautiful baby! Why couldn't I be the one to die!"
"You'll see him again, Miz Smitcher, I'm sure of it," said Word. "In the loving arms of his Savior.
He'll be waiting for you."
"I know that," said Ura Lee. "I know it, but I can't help wishing. Wishing! Why can't we stop wishing and leave things alone!"
Chapter 24
CHANGELING Titania flew with Mack Street in her arms, soaring over the buildings and streets of Los Angeles.
The Santa Monica Freeway like a river flowing with cars. Hills that in her own country were thick with forest, but here were thick with houses.
Still, the glory of Fairyland peeked through here and there. In the lush gardens tended by the hands of Mexican laborers. In the jacaranda that was just coming into fragrant bloom. In the moist wind off the Pacific, carrying cooler air inland, though not very far. Just to Baldwin Hills, where Titania landed on the sidewalk between two houses, with a cop car and a motorcycle at the curb.
She carried his light, almost empty body into the gap between the houses and, as far as any observer on the street could have seen, disappeared.
Inside the house, Ceese heard the door open and called out, "Who's there!"
"Bill Clinton, the first black President, what do you think?"
It was Yolanda. Ceese picked up the golden cage wrapped in a copy of his leather jacket and walked into the living room.
She was laying Mack Street down on the floor. His shirt was open and a terrible wound was seeping blood.
Ceese cried out, a terrible groan, and flung aside the cage. He ran to Mack's body and embraced it, covering himself with blood. "Mack," he cried.
"He's not dead," said Titania.
"Do you think I don't know death?" said Ceese. "He's cold, and he has no heartbeat."
"He's not dead," she said. "He's just empty."
"What do you mean?"
"In our battle, Oberon used him up. Emptied all the wishes out of him. So in the end, the old monster had nothing left to draw on. A couple of bullets from your gun took my dear husband right in the mouth and he had no strength to turn them into anything but what they were. Bullets."
"Oberon's dead?"
"He's bound. While he was lying there gasping with pain like he had never felt before, I bound him. I stripped him of that hideous shape. I sent him back down, and this time he didn't have the power to bind me in return." She walked over to the corner behind the front door, where the golden cage had rolled after it fell out of the jacket. Puck was glaring at her.
"It's over, Puck," she said.
"I could have helped. I could have saved the boy." and you would have done it."
"Let me out."
"No revenge," she said. "I'll set you free—of this cage, of Oberon—but only if I have your solemn vow. No revenge on me or any of the people who helped bring Oberon down today."
"So now I'm your slave," said Puck.
"I'm offering you parole," said Titania. "As long as you don't try to hurt me or any of these mortals, you're free. So say it. Give me your oath."
After a moment's hesitation, Puck launched into a stream of some language Ceese had never heard before.
"What's he saying?"
"What I told him to. Only he's saying it in Sumerian, so you can't witness his humiliation."
"Sumerian?"
"It's where we first met. I found him in the wild and loved him until he awoke from his animal stupor and realized he was a man. It took a while longer to persuade him that he was really one of us, and immortal. Isn't that right, Enkidu?"
Puck answered with another stream of incomprehensible words. Titania chuckled. "That'll do."
She passed her hand around the globe. As she did, the wires unwove themselves and skeined themselves around the third finger of her left hand. So fine were the wires that they became a simple gold band.
Released from his prison, Puck squatted down and strained like a dog trying to lay a turd in the grass. As he did, he grew larger and larger until he was his full height. But not the same man. No, not the old homeless guy. He was young and beautiful and seriously pissed off.
"You owe your freedom to me," said Titania.
"Only because you didn't let me help," said Puck.
"Help now. Help me waken the boy. Let him remember who he is."
Puck sighed. "Well, turnabout is fair play. He healed me once." He knelt on the other side of Mack from Ceese and laid a hand on the boy's head. Then he sighed, smiling. "Oh, Mack, it's good to know you."
Mack's eyes fluttered and opened. He took a huge breath. His heart started. Ceese's tears didn't stop, but they changed meaning.
"No," said Ceese.
"I have to," she said. "I have to finish this. He's the last bit of business."
"He's not a bit of business," said Ceese.
"He's the most beautiful of souls," she said, "but he's been too long away from the rest of himself, and he needs to be made whole again."
"You're giving him back to Oberon?" asked Ceese. "To that damned dragon?"
"Dragon no more," said Titania. "I tamed him. He's just an ordinary fairy now, except that he's in chains, and can't find the best parts of himself, and has no idea of why."
Mack sat up under his own power, stood up, looked around. "Did we win?"
"We did, Mack, thanks to you. And to Ceese. And Ura Lee Smitcher, who shot the bastard in the mouth when he wasn't looking. And even Word Williams, who recognized the demon that possessed him and helped keep him from swallowing you up. And all those good people who made my fairy circle and freely gave me their good wishes." She turned to Puck. "Speaking of which, I'd be grateful, my dearest darling Puckaboo, if you'd go find the two people that Oberon smacked out of the circle. A girl named Ebony DeVries and a woman named Sondra Brown. They're the ones who paid the highest price for your freedom. Don't let them die. And no tricks. I want them restored to perfect health and strength with their minds intact. And while you're at it, let's see about undoing some of the other tricks you pulled with Mack's cold dreams. A little girl named Tamika. A man named Tyler. You know the list."