It was unreal.
It was something happening to someone else in a dream.
It was like … and Don saw himself on the movie theater screen, rising vengefully from the cold water and lunging to the apron, whirling to plant a foot solidly in the man’s chest. A bone snapped. Blood gouted from the man’s scabbed lips. Another foot to the stomach, a lethal fist to the chin, and the Howler fell backward, rigid and unconscious, into the pond.
On the screen.
“Goddamn punk,” the Howler said in disgust. “You’re all the same, you fucking little punks. All the goddamned same. You ain’t got no guts. You’re baby fucks, you don’t deserve to live.”
Don eased himself along until he felt the apron press against his back.
“Good,” Falwick said, nodding. “Very good. You’re trying for a head start.”
A car horn sounded shrilly on the boulevard. The screech of panicked brakes, the prolonged, sickening crunch of metal slamming into metal.
“Well, shit,” Falwick said.
Don looked over his shoulder, not daring to believe it. An accident. The police. He stumbled to his feet, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted. Scrambled to the apron and started to run.
Falwick was in front of him, arms spread, fingers waggling at him to try it.
Don made a feint to the left, to the right, but the Howler only stood there, his hands up and out now, showing him the nails that had grown into claws.
A cry and a wild turn, and he was racing up the path toward the ball field, head high and arms pumping, trying to ignore the agony in his neck and thigh, trying not to listen to the man chasing him and closing ground, wheezing a laugh and snarling like a dog let loose from its leash.
Out of the trees and across the grass, heading for the north exit. There were houses there. He could yell. He could break a window. He would get somebody to come to the door, see what was happening and call the police. He could still be a hero; he could still get home and still be alive, and jesus please don’t let me die I don’t wanna die not like Amanda.
The Howler appeared at his side, pacing him easily and grinning. “Hey, punk, this the best you can do?”
He faltered, and the man bellowed and snapped a clubbed fist into his chest. He fell forward, still running, feeling the fire around his heart while he scrabbled on hands and knees before his elbows gave out and he slammed to the ground. Panting. Crying. Furious at himself for being such an idiot, furious at the Howler for not letting him live, furious at the whole fucking world for all their goddamned rules!
He tensed, waiting for the blow.
He looked up, grass and dirt stuck to his cheeks, and saw the Howler standing over him, hands on his hips.
“You done, punk?”
He sagged, curled, and felt his mouth open slowly.
“Little bastard.”
The Howler looked up at the sky, at the moon, and cocked his head as though listening to instructions from the night. Then he reached down to grab the jacket, and Don wriggled away, twisting until he was crab-walking on his buttocks.
“Christ,” the Howler muttered, reached again, and froze.
The kid’s eyes were open in terror, but he wasn’t looking at him.
Falwick snorted, reached again, and froze again when he heard it behind him Iron striking iron. Hollow. Slow.
“What the fuck?”
Don felt his lips begin to quiver, felt the cold from the ground travel up through his clothes to cling to his skin, but he could neither move away from the man who was turning aside nor could he look somewhere else, to see something, anything, that proved he wasn’t crazy at all.
Iron. Striking iron.
Stones on a hollow log.
Wood against wood.
The hooves of a black horse clopping softly on the earth.
Falwick shook his head, rubbed his eyes, shook his head again and lifted his hands. “What the hell is this?”
The stallion was on the far side of the diamond, more shadow than substance, its sides gleaming black, its mane untouched by the wind that rose from the light of the moon. It moved without moving its head, gliding across the basepath, across the pitcher’s mound, across the grass, and stopping.
Falwick tried to look behind it, to see where the owner was and if he would have to kill more than once tonight; Don pushed himself backward, not daring to believe it.
“Fuck off,” Falwick said then, and turned back to his prey with a this is it, pal grin.
The horse snorted and pawed the ground.
Falwick looked over his shoulder, and Don saw the blood drain from his grimy face.
The horse, moving again, deliberately, more slowly, was half again as big as any Don had ever seen. Its muscles rolled and flexed like black waves over black water; its tail was arched and twitching, its forelock blown back between ears that lay flat along the sides of its massive head; and the eyes were large and slanted, and a dark glowing green.
“You?” the boy whispered.
It paused, and looked at him, and he saw from his vision’s corner the Howler backing away.
“You?”
The horse waited.
Don looked to Tanker Falwick, closed his eyes, and saw Amanda.
I could be a hero, he thought, and who would believe me?
His eyes shut more tightly and saw his empty room, heard his mother call him Sam, heard his father as much as call him a liar. Teachers pushing him. Tracey not calling. Brian and Tar and Fleet and all the others. The rainbow lights behind his eyelids stung like dull needles; his fading black eye felt as if it were bleeding at the edges; and then he saw himself on the park grass, his eyes open and blind, his throat torn and bleeding.
The horse waited.
His eyes opened again, the stinging gone, the images gone, and the animal was still there.
I’m crazy, he thought; and suddenly the nugget in his chest expanded, exploded … and he felt nothing at all.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “Yes. Do it.”
The animal waited a moment longer, then headed straight for the Howler, its gaze fixed on the man’s chest, its legs lifting higher, coming down harder, and striking green sparks from the earth beneath its hooves.
When it was ten yards away, Falwick groaned in terror and whirled to his left, bolting for the trees, and the stallion rose against the moon, forelegs snapping out, mane billowing now as steam flowed like dark smoke from its nostrils.
Then it ran.
And the ground was silent except for the slap of the Howler’s shoes, silent except for the sparks snapping into the dark, green and trailing and dying before landing.
Don rolled to his knees, his right hand closing unconsciously over the branch he’d dropped earlier, and he watched as the Howler veered to the left, swerved to the right, and spun around just as the horse reached him and reared.
Don shouted.
Falwick screamed.
And the stallion came down on him, sparks streaking to green fire.
SEVEN
Don sat up suddenly, eyes wide, mouth open in a scream that never passed his lips. His arms were rigid at his sides, and his head jerked in clockwork degrees side to side until he felt pressure on his right shoulder. His head snapped around. His mouth remained open. There was a woman’s hand, long fingers pale as it tried to ease him back. His gaze traced it warily, found the wrist, found the arm, found his mother’s face puffed and wan.
“Don, it’s all right.”
He saw the lips move (the stallion rearing), heard the words (the Howler shrieking), and after several seconds he let himself be levered back while a dark figure at the foot of the bed cranked up the mattress until he was almost sitting again.
“Don, it’s all right, honey.”