Magic Street Page 0,89

prayer and he will take away the wickedness in your heart and turn your desire back to your wife, and your wife's desire back to you."

He let his hand fall away.

Rev Theo's eyes were wide and full of tears.

"I didn't know you were married," said Word.

"She left me ten years ago," Rev Theo whispered. "A year after I left my fine church and came to this place. She couldn't take the poverty. I couldn't take her materialism. She took my children away from me. I vowed that I could forgive every sinner but I could not forgive her."

"But you do forgive her," said Word.

"As God has forgiven me the pride of my righteousness."

Rev Theo threw his arms around him and wept onto Word's shoulder and Word embraced him as his body heaved with his sobs of relief and gratitude.

"Thank you, O King of Kings," murmured Word. The power to defeat the devil was back in the world again, and it was in his hands.

Chapter 17

WISH FULFILMENT Mack woke up lying on the white couch with Yolanda staring into his eyes. "He's awake," she said.

Ceese was apparently kneeling beside the couch near Mack's head. "I can see that."

"You really ought to speak to me with more respect," said Yolanda. "Or I'll make you fall in love with me."

"I'm already in love with you," Mack said. He hadn't realized it until he said it.

"Of course you are," said Yolanda. "Because Oberon is."

"He locked you up in a glass jar and he loves you?" asked Ceese.

"He locked me up in a glass jar because I was imprisoning him under the earth."

Mack closed his eyes.

"He's gone again," said Ceese.

"No, he's just got his feelings hurt," said Yolanda. "It's something Will Shakespeare taught me to recognize. Mortals get sad when their love doesn't love them in return."

"I had a terrible dream," said Mack. "A cold dream."

"Which would explain the shivering," said Ceese.

"I have these dreams," said Mack.

"I know," said Ceese. "You explained it before."

"I started having this one... a couple of years ago. But it's different from the others. I don't know who it is. And up to now I never let it finish. This time I couldn't stop it."

"What does that mean? That the wish came true?" asked Ceese.

"I don't know. Yes, maybe it does. It always did before."

Yo Yo stroked his face. "Come on, little changeling, tell me what you saw."

"He's not that little," murmured Ceese.

"Hush yo' mouth, child," Yo Yo murmured back.

"I was going on stage. In a huge arena. The first time I thought maybe I was like a gladiator because it felt like some kind of contest and I was very nervous. I was afraid I might lose. But then I realized that I was alone, going out there alone in front of the crowd, and they were chanting but I couldn't hear anything. It's like I'm deaf in the dream."

"Any of your other dreams like that? Deaf I mean?" asked Ceese.

"Don't be such a cop and ask a lot of stupid questions," Yo Yo suggested.

"Don't be a fairy queen and boss people around," said Ceese.

"I can always hear in my dreams, and in this one I could hear too, just not the crowd. What I heard was the beating of wings."

"A bird?" asked Ceese.

"What's the wish?"

"I told you. It's hungry. I go out there and I'm so hungry and I see all these people shouting and chanting and waving only they don't make a sound and I can barely taste them, so they just make me hungrier. I hated this dream. I got out of it as fast as I could. Only this time when I tried, all I did was carry the dream with me. So it combined with my escape dream. It became the same dream. And when I looked out the window of the car in my dream, I saw the crowd from the other dream. So I hadn't gotten away like I usually can. And then I felt something slap the car away, just whooosh and it's gone, and there I am alone on the stage of that arena, and suddenly there's something under me.

Something like a motorcycle seat. Or a horse. It moved me forward and suddenly we were right out over the audience, swooping around them, their faces looking up and filled with love and madness and it was frightening, the way we flew. I could feel the wings beating now, and hear them of course - and that's when I first