there seemed to be in my mortal arms. Ye gods, I had to make this body work! This was only a dog, and I was a strong mortal man!
“Stop, Mojo!” I pleaded with him as he dragged me right out of the chair and painfully onto my knees. “And you, get out of here!” I bellowed. The pain in my knees was dreadful. The voice was puny and opaque. “Get out!” I yelled again.
The creature that had been me danced past me, arms flailing still, and crashed into the back door, shattering the windowpanes, and letting in a cold gust of wind. The dog was maddened and now almost impossible for me to control.
“Get out!” I screamed again, and watched in consternation as the creature backed straight through the door now, shattering wood and all remaining glass, and rose off the porch boards into the snow-filled night.
I saw him for one last instant, suspended in midair above the back steps, a hideous apparition, the snow swirling about him, his limbs moving now in concert as though he were a swimmer in an invisible sea. His blue eyes were still wide and senseless, as if he couldn’t work the preternatural flesh around them into an expression, and glittering like two incandescent gems. His mouth—my old mouth—was spread wide in a meaningless grin.
Then he was gone.
The breath went out of me. The room was freezing as the wind gusted into every corner, knocking about the copper pots on their fancy rack and pushing against the dining room door. And suddenly the dog became quiet.
I realized I was sitting on the floor beside him, and that my right arm was locked around his neck, and my left around his furry chest. Each breath I took hurt me, I was squinting against the snow, which flew right into my eyes, and I was trapped in this strange body padded with lead weights and mattress ticking, and the cold air was stinging my face and my hands.
“Good God, Mojo,” I whispered in his soft pink ear. “Good God, it’s happened. I’m a mortal man.”
ELEVEN
ALL right,” I said stupidly, again amazed at the weak, contained sound of it, low as the voice was. “It’s begun, now get ahold of yourself.” And that idea made me laugh.
The cold wind was the worst part. My teeth were chattering. The stinging pain in my skin was wholly different from the pain I felt as a vampire. Had to repair this door, but I had no idea whatsoever how to do it.
Was there anything left of the door? I couldn’t tell. It was like trying to see through a cloud of noxious smoke. Slowly I climbed to my feet, at once aware of the increase in height and feeling very top-heavy and unsteady.
Every bit of warmth had fled the room. Indeed, I could hear the whole house rattling with the wind that was pouring in. Slowly and carefully, I stepped out on the porch. Ice. My feet went sliding to the right of me, flinging me back against the doorframe. Panic seized me, but I managed to grab hold of the moist wood with these large trembling fingers, and keep myself from going down the steps. Again I strained to see through the darkness, and couldn’t make out anything clearly at all.
“Just calm down,” I said to myself, aware that my fingers were sweating and growing numb at the same time, and that my feet were becoming painfully numb also. “There’s no artificial light here, that’s all, and you’re looking through mortal eyes. Now do something intelligent about all this!” And stepping very carefully, and nearly slipping again, I moved back inside.
I could see the dim outline of Mojo seated there, watching me, panting noisily, and there was a tiny splinter of light in one of his dark eyes. I spoke to him gently.
“It’s me, Mojo Man, okay? It’s me!” And I stroked the soft hair between his ears gently. I reached for the table, and sat down in the chair very awkwardly, astonished again at the sheer thickness of my new flesh, and the sloshiness of it, and I clamped my hand over my mouth.
It really has happened, you fool, I thought. There’s no doubt of it. It’s a lovely miracle, that’s what it is. You are actually free of that preternatural body! You are a human being. You are a human man. Now be done with this panic. Think like the hero you pride yourself on being! There