17

“No!”

The raw emotion in the shout grabbed Weezy’s attention. Something familiar about the voice too. She looked up and saw a scary-looking guy striding straight for them along the water’s edge. His gaze seemed fixed just over her shoulder—at the Lady.

And then someone ran up behind him carrying a long club—no, a five-foot deadwood branch, thicker than a baseball bat. She didn’t recognize his rage-contorted face at first, then—

“Jack!”

Without a word of warning he swung the branch against the stranger’s back. It landed with a loud thunk! that sent him stumbling ahead.

“Weezy!” Jack shouted. “Get her out of here!”

“Whatever is Jack doing?” the Lady said.

Weezy scrambled to her feet.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure he had a very good reason for attacking that man.”

“What man?”

Weezy turned to her. She was staring at Jack and obviously saw him, but . . .

“The man in the dirty work shirt.” She pointed. “Can’t you see him? He’s right there.”

The Lady shook her head. “No. I see Jack swinging a dead branch.”

The dog sensed something. He was on his three legs, baring his teeth as the fur rose along his back.

Weezy turned back in time to see Jack thrust the branch between the stranger’s legs. The man pitched forward onto his hands and knees. Weezy jumped as she saw the wet ground near the water erupt in steam and seem to dissolve where his palms landed.

“Ohmygod!”

“What just happened there?” the Lady said.

At least she’d seen that. And then Weezy remembered a remark she’d made earlier.

. . . certain doings involving the Otherness are hidden from me . . .

This strange man was somehow connected to the Otherness. That had to be it. Maybe he had something to do with the Fhinntmanchca.

As the man pushed himself back to his feet, Jack swung the branch again, this time at his head, but the end dissolved in a puff of smoke where it made contact. The man seemed oblivious. He straightened and started toward them again.

Weezy tugged the Lady to her feet. “We’ve got to get away!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look,” she said, pointing to the dog who had placed himself between the Lady and the stranger. “He does.”

Weezy couldn’t tell if the dog could see him or simply sensed a threat. She looked around. People had stopped what they were doing and turned to stare. A couple of men were hurrying over, probably coming to help the man Jack was attacking.

She turned back and gasped when she saw the pistol in Jack’s hand.

He’d positioned himself with the man between him and the pond. He raised the pistol in a two-handed grip and fired. People all around began to scream and run. The approaching men did about-faces and ran to join the fleeing crowd.

Weezy held her ears as Jack pumped one bullet after another, at least a dozen, in rapid succession into the stranger. She saw holes appear in his work shirt, but instead of blood, only small gray wisps of smoke puffed out. The man barely seemed to notice. She saw Jack step closer, raise the pistol, and fire twice into the side of the man’s head. The bullets disappeared into two puffs of smoke as soon as they contacted his scalp. The man didn’t even break stride. It seemed whatever contacted his skin dissolved.

With a cry of rage, Jack tossed the pistol aside and picked up the branch again. Holding it like a medieval knight might a lance, he charged the man and rammed it into his side. This knocked him off balance but he did not go down. As Jack kept jabbing the branch into the man’s flank, pushing him toward the water, the dog let out a howl and attacked.

Whether he could see the stranger or not, Weezy couldn’t be sure, but even if not, the way Jack was batting at him gave a pretty clear indication of where the threat lay.

“No!” Weezy screamed as the dog launched himself into the air, jaws agape, ready to bite. “Don’t!”

The dog’s teeth sank into the man’s chest and the front of his head exploded in a red mist just as Jack rammed another blow to the left ribs with the branch. The combination of forces pushed the man off balance and he staggered to his right and tumbled into the pond.

The water exploded into jets of steam, shooting high and wide, its roiling billows blotting out the man and the pond and even the castle.

“Oh, no!” the Lady cried, rushing toward where the dog lay on its side on the grass. “What happened? What happened?”

Weezy grabbed her arm. “You can’t stay here!”

She pulled free and knelt by the dog’s limp form. His jaws were gone, his eyes too. What was left of his head and the base of his tongue weren’t bleeding. It looked as if the flesh had fused. His gullet was still open and his chest rose and fell—still alive but just barely.

“What happened?”

The pond was still billowing steam like a boiling cauldron, enveloping Jack where he stood at the water’s edge.

“The Fhinntmanchca!” he called from within the fog. “That guy was the Fhinntmanchca. He was here to kill you. You’ve got to get as far away as possible.”

“Yes!” Weezy cried. “Listen to Jack.”

“Not without him.” She slipped her arms beneath the dog. “We stay together—always.”

Weezy reached to help her. “Here, then. Let me—”

“No.” The Lady shook her head as she rose with the limp form in her arms. “It can be only me. I—”

She heard Jack shout, “No!” as a figure in tattered clothing lunged from the fog with open arms.

“Mother!”

He threw his arms around the Lady and the dog in a needy embrace and the world exploded into darkness—a silent blast of anti-light that lasted only a heartbeat or two. No blast effect, no shock wave, but Weezy felt it suck the heart and heat out of her.

And then it was gone, letting the daylight return. Weezy blinked in the glare like someone who’d just spent days in a cave. When her eyes adjusted and she could see again, she cried out her loss.

The Lady was gone.