Stories: All-New Tales - By Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio Page 0,64

this here dog.”

“You crazy, Juvy? You just a kid, man. You cain’t hurt that thing. I shot it point-blank wit’ my twenty-two pistol an’ he hardly even slowed down.”

Lester grabbed my arm and I pushed him away. I’m much stronger than normal men. Lester hit the ground and rolled a few feet. I turned my back on him and kept going.

The thing wailed again. This cry brought on hallucinations. I could see people running from beasts of all sorts. I smelled death and the stars themselves began to cry. I saw men and women being raped then slaughtered—then eaten. Their attackers were vicious beings who looked like children but who were older than the oldest trees in the forest.

When the vision ended I found myself on my knees with a pain like a spike through my brain.

I got up and moved quickly toward the City of Light.

IT WAS LESS THAN even a shantytown in a hollowed-out grotto of stone. There were tents and lean-tos, fire cans and furniture under the electric light that had christened the town of eighty or so. At the far end from the entrance was a huge metal door. No one knew what the vault was for. Now it held the remainder of Lester’s people.

Above it on a natural stone ledge crouched Mahey X. Demola’s pet. He was covered with golden fur except for the snout, which was a striped black and blood red. His paws were nearly hands, and though he squatted down on all fours I believed that he could stand upright and tall.

A growl sounded in my throat. All rational thought fled my mind. A rage, deep and frightening, sang through my muscles, and the beast above me howled.

I saw an eye in the darkness above Mahey’s dog. It stared at me and wondered while the creature leaped from its ledge.

I saw the golden blur coming. I wanted to dive and roll, then grab and rend and bite and tear. But instead I was dazzled by that eye, wondering what it could mean…

Reynard slammed into me and I went flying. He was hard as stone, and I was, for the first time in decades, merely human. Reynard swiped at me, raking his claws first across my face and then on my chest.

I hit him with both fists and had no effect whatever. He bit into my arm then butted me with his high crown. I fell to the ground, senseless but still hating. Reynard hovered above me, his mouth a stench-filled yawn of hunger, hatred, and vicious anticipation.

There came seven small pops. I thought for an instant that it was the sound of Reynard ripping off one of my limbs, but then I heard a gurgling cry. It was my name being spoken.

Juvenal.

The thoughts cascading at that moment didn’t have a linear progression. Lester’s face was there and his .22 pistol—that had made the pops. He used his weapon to try to save me, dooming us both in the process. The small-caliber gun was his only weapon.

The black iron knife, shoved in my belt, was mine.

I didn’t try to unroll the blue velvet. While Reynard looked up to see what was stinging his face, I plunged the blue roll into his chest.

His howl was what I can only call a cacophony of exploding stars. I was falling, careening through an emptiness that was unending. I was impossible and so was the idea of me. I was bleeding and hating, killing…

“Juvy, stop!” Lester yelled. He was trying to pull me off the beast’s corpse. I was plunging the knife into its inert body again and again. I was outraged by the visions he’d shown me. I wanted him to take them back.

“He’s dead, man!” Lester cried and he managed to pull me back.

I was weakened by the wounds and loss of blood, but the rage still filled me.

The knife pulsed in my grip and I turned away.

“Juvenal,” Lester called.

“Not now, man,” I said. “Not now.”

I STAGGERED AWAY DOWN tunnel after tunnel, having no idea where I was going. The iron knife thrummed in my hand. It felt good. It felt diseased. It felt alive and angry, like a bumblebee clenched in your fist.

I came across an abandoned campsite in a recess in a wall. There I pulled out a soiled trench coat. I put it on to hide my bloody wounds and held the blade up in the sleeve of the coat.

I climbed up into the subway and made it to the Twenty-Eighth Street