Magic Street Page 0,133

it hadn't opened his belly. His guts were still safely inside. "Just a flesh wound," he said.

"Well, ain't you brave."

"We'll see what you think when I poop my pants," said Mack. "He's coming back."

"I'm getting stronger, Mack. It's working. You'll see."

The dragon swooped down again, but this time a bright yellow Cadillac suddenly rose straight up from a point inside the circle and smacked into the slug and threw it off course. A moment later, before the Caddy could come back to earth, it blew up into smithereens.

A thousand golf balls were pelting them.

"Damn," she said. "You got a lot of strength in you, baby. Those should have been ping-pong balls."

"Ain't I cool," said Mack, nursing a welt that was rising on his head where a golf ball had smacked him.

"Let me out of this cage," shouted Puck. "She needs me, don't you understand? She thinks I'm his slave, but I'm not, I love her! She's the love of my life! I'd never hurt her! Let me out!"

Ceese knelt by the cage. "I don't even know how," he said.

"Tear it open. Get back in there where you're a giant and rip this sucker open with your teeth!"

"No," Ceese said.

All of a sudden the globe began to roll. It wasn't magic. Puck was moving it like a hamster, running inside the ball and making it move across the floor toward the kitchen.

"You're not getting out of here!"

"Try and stop me!"

Ceese stopped him.

Puck stared at Ceese's foot, which was holding the cage in place.

"Police brutality!" shouted Puck.

"Oh, shut up, nobody's hurting you."

"Rodney King!"

"Nobody can hear you, Puck. And even if they could, they can't even see this house."

"She needs me!"

"She needs you here, with me," said Ceese.

Puck reared back and let out such a piercing scream that one of the panes blew out of the window. It gave Ceese such a pain in his ears that he picked up the globe and ran back to the back of the house, intending to duck it in the toilet or stick it in the shower.

"Damn," said Puck. "What is this, the Village People's dressing room?"

"I'm getting dressed," said Ceese. "But before I do..."

Ceese took one of the leather jackets - the one that was still dripping from having been ducked in water - and wrapped it completely around the globe.

From inside it, Ceese could hear Puck's muffled voice. "It's dark."

Ceese shook the wet jacket.

"It's raining," said Puck.

The chopper swooped in low over the fairy circle. When it was exactly in the middle, a big dollop of red splashed down in the direct center of the circle, spattering everyone with it.

"What is it, paint?" called someone.

"Shut up and keep dancing!" cried Grand.

"It's blood," said Ebby.

"Keep dancing, sweetie," said Ura Lee.

Then, to Ura Lee's amazement, her feet were no longer touching the ground. Still dancing, she rose into the air and the circle began to move even faster.

The chopper returned, but this time as it passed, the red paint peeled off the pavement - and off everybody it had hit - and formed itself back into a ball of paint... or blood, or whatever it was...

which then rose straight up and splashed right across the windshield of the chopper.

The helicopter immediately veered upward and away.

"Blinded him. Good," said Ura Lee.

"What's that chopper doing?" asked Ebby.

"That ain't no chopper, sweetie," said Ura Lee. "It's the devil. And that paint - that was Mack and Yolanda, over in Fairyland, doing something bad to him and making him go away."

"Not for long," said Ebby. "He's coming back."

"Dance faster."

And she did.

The chopper came in close again, and seemed to be heading straight for the flying, dancing, spinning fairy circle. But at the last moment, what looked like a giant frog's tongue shot up from beyond the overpass and stuck to the chopper and flung it away.

"That was close," said Ura Lee.

"It was cool," said Ebby.

That happened a couple more times before the LAPD cruiser slowly coasted along the bridge and slid in under the fairy circle. Ura Lee looked down at the officers who got out of the car and thought it was rather charming the way they took off their caps and scratched their heads and spent a long time discussing whether they dared to report what they were seeing.

Suddenly the metal pipe that made up the guardrail on the overpass tore loose from the concrete and flew upward.

It hit Sondra Brown and knocked her out of the circle. She dropped like a rock onto the road below.

"Oh God