Hellbender - Dana Cameron Page 0,43

going to make it. Fatima’s eyes had been bright with exertion and her tongue hanging out even before we started to run.

I stopped and Changed back to my skinself.

The shots continued.

If they’re shooting at a wolf, and then keep shooting as it turns into a naked woman, then they’re Order.

I was going to stop them. I hauled back and punched the sky.

A bolt of energy and an explosion, a crash, and flames and fireworks shot from my hand, power coursing through me straight into one of the craft.

One down.

A yelp. I turned my head back and watched Fatima stumble and hit the ground, blood streaming over her pelt.

I ran to her, my bare feet getting torn up by the cold, rocky ground and biting plants.

Quarrel appeared. He announced himself in my head, careful to keep his volume to just below organ-shattering loudness. “Zoe Miller, the Makers would speak with you.”

I stumbled and tried to concentrate on where I was going as I answered. “I can’t—I have to—wait! Quarrel, you must help me heal my friend!”

“The Makers do not wait. They brook no resistance, particularly after your last inspection. We must go!”

“Quarrel, no!” But with a crack that seemed to split the air, we were gone.

Chapter Eight

For a moment, I thought that I’d messed up again, unintentionally transporting myself back to Boston. Boston University, to be precise, just outside the archaeology department. Not at all what was necessary . . .

Until I realized there was no traffic. No cars at all. No trains, no tracks. No people.

Boston without traffic, without pedestrians or half the student population circling like vultures looking for a parking space wasn’t right, not in any dimension. It beggared imagination. And without the MBTA trains clacking along Commonwealth Avenue, clanging their warning bells, it was wholly surreal.

There was a kind of traffic, I realized, as my eyes adjusted and the vertigo passed. There were flashes of green, blue, and purple light about ten feet over my head, as if things were whizzing by in midair, too quickly to be identified. Another meta-realm, perhaps one where I could communicate directly with the Makers.

There was a drabness to the landscape, which, added to the silence, further reassured me that the place wasn’t real. It was a bit like looking at a sepia-toned photograph, with the color of the stones and bricks so washed out as to be practically monotone. The only place that wasn’t washed out, that was nearly as I recognized it, in full Technicolor glory—and then some—was the Castle, which among other things, housed the graduate and faculty pub. A big Tudor-revival mansion with steep roofs, windows of diamond-shaped glass panes bound with lead, and stone walls covered in ivy, it stood on Bay State Road, away from the busyness and traffic of Commonwealth Avenue, and felt like a step back in time. The basement housed the pub, and I’d always found the gloom comforting.

Okay. If the Makers wanted me to go to the pub, I would.

The door was red-painted wood set against aged dark gray stone. The doorknob and knocker glowed gold. No sooner did I put my hand on it than it swung in. I stepped down into the familiar near-dark and paused. Something was wrong. I remembered I had been naked save for a backpack, but looking down in a panic, I saw that I was wearing something approximating my usual street clothes. But the feeling of something wrong persisted.

I sniffed the air and got nothing. I sniffed again and smiled.

When does a bar not smell like a bar? There was no odor of beer and popcorn in the carpet. I couldn’t detect any trace of the cracked leather of the seats or the polish and dust on the dark wainscoting. There was a light at the bar, however, so I went to the other end of the room.

No one was there. There was, however, a small tray. Two beers, my usual brand, in the bottle. Two short, chilled glasses—vodka, no doubt. Two joints, neatly rolled, sat next to a lighter.

Someone knew my tastes. I decided it would be churlish to refuse hospitality, so I took the bottle of beer. After a moment, I pocketed the two joints and the lighter, too. I didn’t think anyone would try to poison me, not when they had such power at their command; I wondered briefly if the “beer” was something to help me adjust to my surroundings, or if the Makers were just being courteous.

I took a