Magic Street Page 0,134

help her!" cried Ura Lee. The prayer was echoed by many others.

Whatever God might be doing about Sondra Brown, the guardrail pipe was now standing on end in the middle of the circle, poised to strike at another of them.

And where Sondra had been, it took a moment for the two whose hands she had been holding to get together and close up the gap. During that moment, the circle slowed down noticeably, and sank a little toward the ground, and the tingling that gave them such pleasure as they danced began to fade.

The pipe struck again. This time Ura Lee thought it was aiming at her. But of course it couldn't aim at all - the circle was moving too fast. It hit Ebby DeVries and she flew out from the circle, over Olympic Avenue, and dropped down out of sight.

"Oh, God," cried Ura Lee. "Not Ebby!"

The cop car suddenly sprang into action. The lights came on, the engine gunned, and the cops began to run back toward it, trying to get the doors open.

The car rose up in the exact center of the circle and the guardrail wrapped itself around the car, coiled itself like a snake.

"This is getting fun," said Titania.

But now Mack and Titania were in the air, too, and Mack looked out frantically to see where the dragon was flying now.

Only when a huge tree suddenly rose up into the air in the center of the circle did Mack realize that the dragonslug had stopped flying and had slipped in under the wall of flying pillars. It was now directly underneath them, holding a huge tree in its talons.

It swing it like a cudgel. Incredibly, the tree passed between two pillars, so they weren't disturbed at all.

But Titania gasped as if she had been struck, and the whole circle slowed down. They also sank closer to the ground, and when Mack looked down he could see the slug opening its huge, toothless, sluglike mouth to swallow them up.

The tree swung again, and again it passed between columns, seemingly without harm. But again the circle staggered in its movement and Titania and Mack sank closer to the dragon's mouth.

"Can't you do something?" demanded Mack.

"As soon as they get the circle back together," she said.

"They never will if he keeps breaking it," said Mack.

"Just hold on to me and you'll be fine!" she shouted.

Mack looked down and saw that the reason the mouth stayed directly under him was because it was catching the blood that dripped off his foot. There was a steady trickle of it. He was strengthening the monster. His own blood was being used against Titania.

Mack knew that his moment had come. In the dream he raced up to fight the dragon. Now, in reality, he'd be dropping down onto it. So it was different. But that didn't matter. The most important thing was that the dragon was gaining strength from him. He had to keep it from getting worse. If he was going to save Titania.

Only when he had shoved himself away from her and was dropping downward did it occur to him that maybe the impulse to let go and drop hadn't come from his own mind, but rather from Oberon's.

The treetrunk dropped to the ground and the slug leapt upward. Mack thought he'd simply be swallowed whole, but instead the beast leaned back and caught him in its talons. Then it began to rise up past Titania.

"No!" she howled. "Mack, baby, fight him! Don't let him take you!"

Fight him with what?

Then, suddenly, everything changed. There was no talon holding him. Instead, he was hanging from something by his hands, and the pain in his chest was unbearable as his body strained and stretched.

Suddenly, everything changed. The guardrail unwrapped itself and dropped to the ground; the patrol car fell after it, landing with such force that it blew out all four tires.

The chopper appeared in the middle of the air, the blades seeming to be only inches from the fairy circle as they spun. And hanging from the bottom skid of the chopper was... Mack Street.

His shirt was open and his chest was bleeding from a terrible wound from hip to shoulder. Ura Lee was relieved that no bowel was exposed, but he was losing blood steadily. And the chopper was trying to rise up and carry him away.

The circle spun faster and faster.

"No!" cried Ura Lee. "I have to get out! I have to help him!"

But Mack couldn't hear her. He