(See if you can find me the Sun and the stars and the rest of the Universe while you're at it,) Fred said. He sounded truly miserable, much worse than when he had swallowed the pen. (I don't know how long I can bear this silence.)
Kit stood silent for a moment, staring out at that grim cold cityscape. "There is a spell we can use to find it that doesn't need anything but words," he said. "Good thing. We don't have much in the way of supplies. We'll need your help, though, Fred. Your claudication was connected to the worldgate's when we went through. You can be used to trace it." {Anything to get us out of this place,) Fred said. "Well," Nita said, "let's find a place to get set up."
The faint rattling noise of helicopter rotors interrupted her. She looked westward along the long axis of the roof, toward the dark half-hidden blot that was Central Park, or another version of it. A small flying shape came wheeling around the corner of a skyscraper a few blocks away and cruised steadily toward the roof where they stood, the sharp chatter of its blades ricocheting more and more loudly off the blank dark faces of neighboring skyscrapers. "We better get under cover," Kit said. Nita started for the stairwell, and Kit headed after her, but a bit more slowly. He kept throwing glances over his shoulder at the approaching chopper, both worried by it and interested in it. Nita looked over her shoulder too, to teO him to hurry — and then realized how close the chopper was, how fast it was coming. A standard two-scat helicopter, wiry skeleton, glass bubble protect-ing the seats, oval doors on each side. But the bubble's glass was filmed over except for the doors, which glittered oddly. They had a faceted look. No pilot could see out that, Nita thought, confused. And the skids, the landing skids are wrong somehow. The helicopter came sweeping over their heads, low, too low.
"KIT!" Nita yelled. She spun around and tackled him, knocking him flat, as the skids made a lightning jab at the place where he had been a momem before, and hit the gravel with a screech of metal. The helicopter soared on past them, refolding its skids, not yet able to slow down from the speed of i*5 first attack. The thunderous rattling of its rotors mixed with another sound,z high frustrated shriek like that of a predator that has missed its kill — and almost immediately they heard something else too, an even SO yOU WANTTOBE A WIZARD83 uea]ing, ratchety and metallic, produced by several sources and seeming to come from inside the ruined glass shelter.
Kit and Nita clutched at each other, getting a better look at the helicopter from behind as it swung around for another pass. The "skids" were doubled-back limbs of metal like those of a praying mantis, cruelly clawed. Under what should have been the helicopter's "bubble," sharp dark mandibles worked hungrily — and as the chopper heeled over and came about, those faceted eyes looked at Kit and Nita with the cold, businesslike glare reserved for helpless prey. "We're dead," Nita whispered.
"Not yet." Kit gasped, staggering up again. "The stairwell—" Together he and Nita ran for the stairs as the chopper-creature arrowed across the rooftop at them. Nita was almost blind with terror; she knew now what had torn the door off the stairwell and doubted there was any way to keep that thing from getting them. They fell into the stairwell together. The chopper roared past again, not losing so much time in its turn this time, coming about to hover like a deadly dragonfly while positioning itself for another jab with those steel claws. Kit fell farther down the stairs than Nita did, hit his head against a wall and lay moaning. Nita slid and scrabbled to a stop, then turned to see that huge, horrible face glaring into the stairwell, sighting on her for the jab. It was unreal. None of it could possibly be real; it was all a dream; and with the inane desperation of a dreamer in nightmare, Nita felt for the only thing at hand, the rowan rod, and slashed at the looming face with it.
She was completely unprepared for the result. A whip of silver fire the color of the Moon at full cracked across the bubble-face from the rod, which glowed in her hand. Screaming in pain and rage, the chopper-creature backed up and away, but only a little. The razor-combed claws shot down at her. She slashed at them too, and when the moonfire curled around them, the creature screamed again and pulled them back.
Kit!" she yelled, not daring to turn her back on those raging, ravenous eyes. "Kit! The antenna!" She heard him fumbling around in his pack as the hungry helicopter took another jab at her, and she whipped it again with fire. Quite suddenly some-"»ng fired past her ear — a bright, narrow line of blazing red light the color of metal in the forge, The molten light struck the helicopter in the underbelly, Pattering in bright hot drops, and the answering scream was much more terrible this time.
<('ts a machine," Nita said, gasping. "Your department."
threat," Kit said, crawling up the stairs beside her. "How do you kill alcopter?" But he braced one arm on the step just above his face, laid the enna over it, and fired again. The chopper-creature screeched again and away.
Kit scrambled up to his feet, pressed himself flat against what remained of the crumbling doorway, pointed the antenna again. Red fire lanced out followed by Nita's white as she dove back out into the stinging wind and thunder of rotors and slashed at the horror that hung and grabbed from midair. Gravel flew and stung, the wind lashed her face with her hair, the air was full of that car- tearing metallic scream, but she kept slashing. White fire snapped and curled — and then from around the other side of the chopper-creature there came a sharp crack! as a bolt of Kit's hot light fired upward. The scream that followed made all the preceding ones sound faint. Nita wished she could drop the wand and cover her ears, but she didn't dare — and anyway she was too puzzled by the creature's reaction. That shot hadn't hit anywhere on its body that she could see. Still screaming, it began to spin helplessly in a circle like a toy pinwheel. Kit had shattered the helicopter's tail rotor. It might still be airborne, but it couldn't fly straight, or steer. Nita danced back from another jab of those legs, whipped the eyes again with the silver fire of the rowan wand as they spun past her. From the other side there was another crack! and a shattering sound, and the bubble-head spinning past her again showed one faceted eye now opaque, spiderwebbed with cracks. The helicopter lurched and rose, trying to gain altitude and get away. Across the roof Kit looked up, laid the antenna across his forearm again, took careful aim, fired. This time the molten line of light struck through the blurring main rotors. With a high, anguished, ringing snap, one rotor flew off and went pinwheeling away almost too fast to see. The helicopter gave one last wild screech, bobbled up, then sideways, as if staggering through the air. "Get down!" Kit screamed at Nita, throwing himself on the ground. She did the same, covering her head with her arms and frantically gasping the sylla-bles of the defense-shield spell. The explosion shook everything and sent gravel flying to bounce off the hardened air around her like hail off a car roof, fagged blade shards snapped and rang and shot in all directions. Only when the roaring and the wash of heat that followed it died down to quiet and flickering light did Nita dare to raise her head. The helicopter-creature was a broken-backed wreck with oily flame licking through it. The eye that Kit had shattered stared blindly up a* the dark sky from the edge of the helipad; the tail assembly, twisted and bent, lay half under the creature's body. The only sounds left were the wind and that shrill keening from the little glass building, now much muted. rid herself of the shielding spell and got slowly to her feet. "Fred?" whispered.