5
The Chameleon Cloak
The fuel gauge was only barely below the half line and I was impatient to get to Theo’s, but an intuition from my Lady suggested I should refill before going any further, so I turned onto a local road.
“Hey, where are we going? This looks familiar. Are we there yet?” Mephisto peered out the window.
I sighed. “We’re stopping for gas. As for whether or not we’re there yet . . . you are directing us, remember?”
“Oops! Sorry.”
“You do know where you’re taking us, don’t you?” Mab turned in his seat. “Because if this turns out to be a wild goose chase, I’ll wring your scrawny neck.”
Mephisto cried plaintively, “Miranda, don’t let him talk to me like that!”
I forced my voice to remain calm. “Do you know where we are going?”
“Yes. Of course. I just got confused. Everyone gets confused sometimes. Even sane people.” Mephisto spoke with mock resentfulness, but there was an undertone of genuine bitterness, as if he hated his lack of sanity. Neither Mab nor I answered, and an uncomfortable silence followed.
As we arrived at a service station, however, I happened to glance at my brother in the rearview mirror, and a strange thing happened. For an instant, I had such sympathy for his plight that it was as if I were the one who had lost my sanity, who had felt slip from me my intelligence, my memory, and everything that made me myself. For the first time, I contemplated how the brilliant and talented youthful Mephisto would have felt about his foolish older self. He would have been appalled—much as I might feel were I to come upon an older version of myself who was an imbecile or who had lost the favor of Eurynome.
The experience left me shaken.
Surrounded by forest, the service station stood by itself except for a squat thrift shop across the road. Next to the thrift shop was a huge, sprawling, gravel parking lot, far larger than a store of its type would ever need. Perhaps the building had once been a restaurant.
As Mab pumped the gas, Mephisto rolled down his window and scrambled up until he was sitting in the window of the car door. Crossing his arms, he leaned on the roof, looking around.
“Miranda? Did you ever notice that every gas station off every highway looks like every other gas station off a highway? And, every small town thrift shop is called the Elephant’s Trunk?”
“No,” I murmured.
He was right about the name of the thrift shop. A gray wooden cutout of an elephant hung above the sign. The glass bay windows showed plastic mannequins with painted hair. They were dressed in outfits from the twenties through the fifties. One of the mannequins was missing a hand.
The soft voice of my Lady spoke in my heart.
Go into the store.
Immediately, I left the car and crossed the road to the thrift shop. Behind me, Mephisto had climbed out of his window and leapt down to the pavement. His footsteps echoed behind mine. He caught up with me as I reached the door, and we walked into the tiny shop together.
The musty smell of old clothes nearly caused me to retreat. I stood blinking, my hand over my nose, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. As my vision cleared, the clerk came toward us, smiling simperingly at Mephisto. She was a thin woman in a red knit dress.
“Oops, got to go!” Mephisto spun on his heels. He wrinkled his nose as he left, calling, “Icky smell!”
The clerk hesitated, frowning, before coming to serve me. I refrained from smirking. Middle-aged women pursuing my daffy brother always amused me, though how he managed to impress this one so quickly was mystifying.
“Can I help you? We’re having a special on sequined gowns and flapper hats.” An eager look came over her face as, with her trained eye, she took in my dress, examining its shimmering emerald satin, its high lace collar, its narrow fitted waist, and its puffed shoulders. “That’s a lovely tea gown you’re wearing. A reproduction of a Worth gown, perhaps? Circa 1894? It’s amazingly well preserved! What extraordinary fabric! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Is it for sale?”
I considered saying: “Actually, it’s a Logistilla Original, circa 1910, and as for selling it, can you afford to offer me, oh, say, the moon?” But that would have been impolite. Instead, I settled for the more civil: “No. It was a gift from my sister.”
“A pity. Maybe you came for this?” she asked. She gave the door through which Mephisto had disappeared one last puzzled glance before gesturing toward a display at the center of the shop.
Just in front of the cash register stood a large papier-mâché elephant. An iron rail snaked around the elephant’s feet, and two mannequins moved along the rail with a slow mechanical whirl, revolving around the display like toy trains circling a Christmas tree. The mannequins rotated as they traveled, showing the apparel they displayed to best advantage. An Edwardian wedding gown adorned one of the mannequins. A shapeless poncho or smock covered the other. The smock was the exact shade of gray as the papier-mâché elephant behind it.
I gave the display a cursory examination, wondering bemusedly if my attire had led the clerk to assume I was a collector of vintage Edwardian paraphernalia. As I watched, the mannequin wearing the shapeless garment moved beyond the elephant. As the iron rail curved to the back, the poncho passed a rack holding a fluffy blue and green sweater. Tints of blue and green appeared in the plain smock, spreading rapidly until the entire poncho bore the same blue and green pattern as the sweater.
Was the smock transparent? I leaned closer, watching as the mannequin moved by a red raincoat. Slowly, the red spread through the blue-and-green smock. The smock was changing its color, like a chameleon.
A chameleon . . . a cloak . . .
A cold paralysis gripped my limbs, and the small shop with its musty garments began to spin. I retreated rapidly, seeking fresher air.
Outside, I leaned against the drab side of the thrift shop, trembling like the rail of a trestle when a train passes. Calling to Mab, I shakily drew my wallet from my coat pocket. Mab hurried toward me, looking both ways before he crossed the road. When he reached my side, I thrust the wallet into his hands and managed to speak.
“There’s a chameleon cloak in there. Buy the abomination.”
“A chameleon cloak? As in Unicorn Hunters?” he screwed up his face in disgust. “Thought they were all destroyed long ago?”
“Nonetheless.”
Mab stalked into the store while I crossed the gravel parking lot to sit down on a fallen tree trunk. Breathing deeply, I waited for the wave of fear to ebb. It was a strange sensation, suffering another’s panic, but I felt it worth the price. After all, my Lady calmed my fears daily, while I seldom had an opportunity to calm Hers. Very few things frightened the Bearer of the Lightning Bolt . . . but Unicorn Hunters were one of them.
The Unicorn Hunters began as a band of the nastiest knights in Christendom. Who sponsored them and why I never learned, but they clearly had a supernatural patron. They would appear from time to time bearing magical swords or riding unnaturally swift chargers. They slew Her Handmaidens and put Sibyls to the sword. They kidnapped virgins and staked them out, then laid in wait, hoping to trap Eurynome Herself.
Once, they wounded Her. The blood spilled that day became the source of a kingdom’s woe and eventually brought about its destruction. That is another tale, however, and from before my time. Eventually, the Unicorn Hunters died out or were exterminated.
Then, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they appeared again. Perhaps the same patron made another attempt. Or, perhaps some of the young bloods learned of the existence of the earlier band and wished to imitate them. At first, it was all posturing and show. A few hunts were held, but nothing of substance was accomplished.
Then, Edward Kelly, the young assistant to the royal magician John Dee, became involved, and everything changed. The magical weapons reappeared, and something new: chameleon cloaks. Concealed in chameleon cloaks, the new Unicorn Hunters began to stalk Eurynome. Something about the cloaks, something more than their blending color, kept her from noticing them. With these cloaks and their supernatural weapons, the Unicorn Hunters were able to surprise her. Twice, they wounded her.
At a dance at court, one of them noticed the unicorns embroidered on my dress and remarked upon it. Naïvely, I said too much. After that, they hunted me.
They captured me as I was leaving a royal ball. I had attended without my flute. Bringing me into the country by carriage, they kept me a prisoner in a rustic cottage until the next thunderstorm. When the first lightning bolt arced across the sky, they staked me down spread-eagled on a stone bier in the rain. After the second bolt, Eurynome herself came to free me.
They struck her through with enchanted spears of copper and glass. She killed four men before they subdued her, but there were too many of them. They bound her with a rope made from the breath of fishes, the roots of mountains, and the beards of women, and dragged her into a deep dark pit, where they tied her to a stone slab. They would have killed her, sacrificing her to some dark entity, had it not been for my brothers. Mephisto, Theophrastus, and Erasmus crashed their party and set her free.
My brothers slew the Unicorn Hunters and destroyed their enchanted gear. I thought all the chameleon cloaks were destroyed that night, until today.
I glanced back across the gravel parking lot toward the squat gray shop. Tiny flecks of white danced in the intervening air. Shivering, I was turning up my collar as Mab emerged from the thrift shop. He came crunching across the gravel toward me, carrying a shiny brown paper bag. Mephisto reappeared as well, from wherever he had gotten to, and began hovering about Mab, trying to look in the bag.
Mab gave Mephisto a long look. My brother went pale and threw his hands up in front of him as if warding off an attack.
“I didn’t do it!” he cried.
“Relax, Mephisto. No one is accusing you of anything.”
“They’re not?” He glanced from Mab to me in surprise.
How pathetic my brother’s life had become. He lived in a world where lutes broke for no reason, where people accused him of transgressions he had no recollection of committing. The idea of a son of my father starting with fear because a servant glared at him for looking in a bag! It shamed me to see him reduced to this.
I threw him an encouraging smile, but he had become distracted and was gazing curiously back toward the thrift shop.
The snow began falling more quickly. Mab crossed to stand beside the fallen tree trunk. I stood and pulled my coat closer about me.
“Did you get it?” I asked, my voice low.
“Yeah, I got it,” Mab replied glumly. “I’d like to find out where it came from, but the clerk would not answer any questions. Apparently, they have a policy against saying anything about who drops off what.”
Mab hesitated, then continued, “Look, ma’am, I know you never listen to me, but I’m begging you, listen now. Just this once. We are being hunted by the Powers of Hell. They can sniff out the stuff of the arcane like a bloodhound sniffs out fresh blood. It’s bad enough us carrying the accursed flute around with us. Not to mention your green dress and whatever else you carry in your purse. I’d guess, at the very least, the razor fan of Amatsumaru, your crystal vial of the Water of Life, and a chip of unicorn horn. Am I right?”
I inclined my head. Mab knew my habits well. The vial of Water and the chip of horn were mine by right of my station of Handmaiden. The war fan had been forged by the Japanese smith god himself and given to me during our first visit to Japan in 1792, when we sneaked into the country to bind up the oni responsible for the eruption of Mt. Unzen. The fan was a gift of thanks from the tengu who serve my Lady in Her aspect as the Kirin. Its razor edge had been folded and refolded over a thousand times, like a katana. The blade was sharp enough to slice through sheet metal.
Mab continued. “I don’t know what plans you have for this god-awful garment. But I’m begging you. Cast it aside and let me destroy it. It’s our only hope. If you want to warn your family, we’ve got to get to them before the Three Shadowed Ones get to us. That won’t happen if we carry around enough magic to alert even a deaf and toothless demi-sprite with cataracts and one bum leg. Please. I’m begging you, ma’am.”
“Very well, Mab. You may destroy it.”
Mab’s jaw dropped. He glanced hurriedly back and forth between me and the bag, then held it up before me and made the throat-slitting gesture. I nodded. Certain now that he had heard me correctly, Mab grinned with vicious delight. He began rummaging through his pockets as quickly as he could, drawing out the chalk and holy water he needed to unmake the horrible thing, as if he were afraid I might suddenly change my mind. As he did so, he chuckled to himself and shook his head in wonder.
Suddenly, he froze, eyeing me suspiciously. “Exactly what were you planning to do with the thing when you asked me to buy it?”
“Have you destroy it,” I admitted.
“Ah. I see. Should have known it was too good to be true,” he said, deflated. He continued to pull the bag of chalk from his pocket, but his actions had lost their enthusiastic bounce.
“Don’t you want to destroy it?” I asked innocently.
“Sure . . . it’s just that for one sweet moment, I suffered from the cruel delusion that for the first time in our nearly seventy years of association, you had actually listened to me,” Mab grumbled.
I chuckled, “Oh, Mab. You poor, unappreciated soul.”
Mab chose a place in the wide parking lot and began tracing the lines for his warding circles. The gravel crunched as he pushed it with his booted toe. The delay reaching Theo’s worried me, but my impatience was tempered by my discomfort at the thought of traveling with the chameleon cloak in the car. Besides, Theo, who had renounced magic, would hardly welcome us if we showed up carrying an accursed talisman.
The snow was coming more quickly now, its soft flakes melting against my face. The air had grown quite cold. A little cloud formed every time I exhaled. Behind us, the bag crinkled. Swirling about, I saw Mephisto leaning over the paper bag, pulling out the chameleon cloak. It rippled and shifted, its weave revealing black birch trunks and powdery flurries of snow.
Mephisto’s lips parted, forming a perfect “O.”
“Oh, Miranda, this is pretty! Please don’t destroy it. Please? Let me have it,” He tilted his head and smiled at me. As he held the garment against his chest, it shifted to show the embroidery of his black Russian shirt and the brilliant blue of his surcoat.
“Cur! Put that back in the bag!” Mab shouted, “Do you want to send off a beacon to alert every supernatural creature this side of the Mississippi? If a Walker-Behind jumps out of the bushes and devours your sister whole, pausing only to spit out her bones, it will be on your head!”
At that very moment, a rustle came from the bushes. Mephisto jumped with fright and thrust the chameleon cloak back into the brown paper bag, wrapping it up tightly. Taking a careful step backward, he bent and gathered up a handful of gravel. Mab pulled out the trusty length of lead pipe he carried as a weapon. I ran back to the car, returning moments later with my flute; my other hand crept toward the handle of the Japanese fighting fan that lay nestled in my coat pocket. Thus armed, the three of us warily faced the rustling laurel bushes.
The snow-sprinkled leaves trembled and parted. A black nose emerged followed by a long red snout. Then, an Irish Setter came bursting out of the laurel bushes. His long pink tongue hung out, his plume-like tail was wagging.
“Awh,” muttered Mab.
He mopped his brow and returned to drawing his circles. Mephisto’s face had gone slack with fear. Now, a high, weak giggle escaped his lips. Feeling almost queasy with relief, I smiled and dropped to sit upon the tree trunk, stretching my hand out toward the dog, who trotted toward me, panting happily, little white flecks of snow caught in his thick red coat.
Mephisto cocked his head and watched the animal as it stopped to smell an old cardboard box someone had discarded by the side of the parking lot.
“Remember that guy who took my staff—the one you wanted to know what he looked like? His hair was exactly the color of this dog.”
Without hesitating, Mab drew his lead pipe from his trench coat and threw it at the dog. The spinning length of lead grazed its head. The big red setter yelped and leapt backwards, cowering down with its tail between its legs.
“Mab! How could you!” I cried, hurrying over to comfort the cowering creature, “You might have hurt him!”
“Get back, ma’am! That’s no ordinary dog,” Mab warned, but his voice wavered.
The dog whined and licked my hand.
“You’re losing your touch, Mab,” I laughed. “You’ve gotten so you think everything is a threat. It’s just a dog.”
Mab frowned uncertainly as if not quite able to credit what he saw.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he grumbled finally.
Reluctantly, he returned to his preparations while I squatted down and petted the animal, feeling its thick damp fur. It licked my hand, its tongue warm and wet against my skin. Its big brown eyes gazed up at me as it pushed against me in friendly exuberance, wagging its tail fiercely.
A strange cold chill traveled down the back of my neck. Turning, I saw the dog’s parted white fangs gently closing over the polished haft of my flute.
I grabbed the flute, shouting. The dog leapt into the air, its teeth closing on my arm. There was a sharp ripping as the white canvas of my trench coat tore, followed by a slithering sound as its teeth slid along the enchanted material of my dress, unable to penetrate it. Losing its grip, the creature dropped back to the ground.
Mab stared helplessly from the growling dog to his lead pipe, which lay behind the dog, resting against a snowy rock.
“Dang!” he said.
“Bodyguard, do something,” Mephisto yelled at Mab. He scattered his handful of gravel randomly, pelting the dog, who cringed, but then leapt again. His paws struck me full on the chest, and we tumbled backwards.
I managed to twist so as to land with my body covering my flute, but without damaging it. The setter growled and snapped, its teeth still unable to penetrate the fabric of my enchanted gown. It was only a matter of time before it realized that my head and hands were unprotected.
As the dog attempted to maul me, Mab used the opportunity to retrieve his pipe. He brought it down hard on the creature’s head. The dog cried out with a horrible yowl. Blood matted the fur by its left ear. It cowered back, snarling at Mab. Mab swung again.
The Irish Setter shivered and shrank, its body twisting and changing. Its fur grew feathery and deepened to a true red. Mab’s pipe swung through empty air. Near his right elbow hovered a red cardinal, which quickly flew up and away.
“Holy Croesus! A blasted shapechanger!” Mab swore, swinging at the red bird and missing. “More than one shape, too! That rules out skin-changer.” He swung his pipe back and forth rapidly where the dog had been. “Can’t be just fairy glamour, or the perp would still be here for me to pound. No, that sucker flew away for real!”
“Pooka?” asked Mephisto. “Some of them can do more than one shape.”
“Maybe, but they’re usually black in color. There are a lot of spirits native to the Americas that change shape . . . but an Irish Setter?” Mab shrugged, his hand shading his eyes as he surveyed the sky overhead for any sign of our assailant. “My call is cacodemon, or maybe a lesser deity. Deities change shape big time, but most of them wouldn’t bother with subtlety now that the jig is up . . . they’d just blast us.”
While the two men talked, I scrambled to my feet and pulled the fighting fan from my coat. The silver segments slid open silently, reflecting the falling snow like a gleaming mirror.
Mab stood silently, head half-cocked, as if listening. Mephisto stood on his tiptoes staring up into the sky. Both hands were pressed against his face, cupping his eyes like blinders. I looked up as well. All was a vast whirling whiteness.
Out of the whiteness, a rapid red speck approached. It flew toward Mab, who attempted to swat it with his pipe. Just above Mab’s head, the creature swelled immensely, becoming an ugly gray rhinoceros with tiny russet eyes. Mab looked up, mouth gaping. The rhino fell heavily to the ground, its descent broken only by the mass of Mab’s body.
“Mab!” I cried, stricken. “Mephisto! You said you would help! Do something!”
My cry broke Mephisto out of some kind of reverie. He lurched forward and seized the other end of my flute. Startled, I let go. With my heart in my mouth, I watched him run away, waving my precious instrument before the rhino’s tiny red eyes.
“Hey, you big old beast,” he cried out, flinging his arms wide. His head was flung back. The sunlight shimmered off the flute in his outstretched hand. “Don’t you recognize me?”
The rhino lowered its head and charged at Mephisto, thundering across the wide gravel parking lot. Unlike the Irish Setter, I could never have mistaken this beast for the real thing. It was hideous, lacking the beauty and symmetry of its natural counterpart. An aura of malice surrounded it, something sinister and seething that turned my stomach.
As it thundered forward, Mab’s crumpled and flat form emerged, sprawled upon the ground. I gasped in horror, running to his side. As I did so, Mab’s lead pipe rose into the air, accompanied by a loud whooshing noise.
“It’s all right, ma’am. I’m here.” To my great relief, Mab’s voice spoke from somewhere above my ear. His voice sounded reedy, as if an oboe gave voice. “Saw the thing was going to squash me and abandoned my body before the rhino landed on it. If I’d waited a second longer to bail, I’d have been a goner! Body looks pretty crumpled. Hope you’ll be willing to spare a drop or two of Water of Life, ma’am, so we can fix it up.”
As the rhino charged, Mab’s lead pipe flew toward it. Mab reached the rhino just as the rhino reached Mephisto. The lead pipe, seemingly on its own, slammed down on the beast’s head . . . and bounced off. The foul creature was not even distracted.
As I circled the rhino, desperately searching for an opening to strike, the monster lowered its head to gore my brother. Mephisto was not the least dismayed. Leaping into the air, he vaulted one-handedly across its back as lithe as any gymnast, still holding my flute in his other hand. Twisting in mid-air, he landed on his feet behind the rhino, facing his foe with his arms spread victoriously. From the air above, Mab whistled in appreciation.
“Come on, boy! Try it again!” Mephisto called, waving my flute wildly above his head. It whistled as the air whipped through it. I bit my lip. If my brother kept that up, he might accidentally call up a tornado. The beast charged again, bellowing a horrible noise reminiscent of a manic bull.
After the third time Mephisto leapt over the creature’s back, it slowed and pawed the ground, swinging its great head from side to side. A gleam came into its tiny red eye. Lowering its horn, it charged. Mephisto smiled cockily. He bowed, sweeping his arms to either side, and vaulted. As Mephisto flew through the air, the beast shivered and shrank, transforming into a hideous porcupine with bright red eyes. Instead of leathery hide, Mephisto’s hand came down on needle-like quills.
Mephisto yelped in pain and fell sideways. He tossed the flute into the air and hit the ground with a roll. Sitting up again, he began pulling at the barbed quills stuck in his hand.
My precious flute spun end over end, twirling like a parade marshal’s baton. It arced through the snow-specked sky, and then stopped, dangling, frozen in mid-air.
I stood, gawking, and then hurried forward to grab it, thanking the invisible Mab loudly. No point in tempting him beyond his means. Reluctantly, the air released the flute to my grasp. I hugged it to me.
From behind me, Mephisto shouted, “No! Get back!”
He had jumped to his feet, his face a mask of horror. Coiled about his arm was a deadly copperhead. Its slitted gray eyes stared hypnotically into his. Its tongue flickered rapidly. It hissed. Before Mab or I could act, the vile creature struck, sinking sharp fangs into the soft flesh of Mephisto’s inner wrist.
Horrified, I ran to my brother. The snake’s slitted pupils fixed upon me. Slithering to the ground, it expanded into the rhino again. The great malformed beast lowered its head and charged toward me.
I had never seen a real rhino up close. The creature was enormous, a living tank with gray armored hide covering four tons of meat and muscle. It came thundering toward me, moving astonishingly swiftly despite its short stubby legs. Its loud bellow formed a white cloud in the frosty air. Its curving gray-brown horn, a mockery of my Lady’s graceful spiral, pointed at my heart. The earth beneath my feet shook.
Terrified, I longed to break and flee, but that would mean abandoning Mephisto. Taking a stand for my brother, my flute, and my beloved Aerie Ones, I gripped the engraved handle of the moon-silver fan and faced the monster. Surrendering my will to my Lady, I waited for Her to tell me when to strike. As the beast bore down upon me at the speed of an automobile, the answer came like a soft breath on the back of my neck.
Now.
Stepping nimbly aside, I swung my war fan, severing the rhinoceros’s horn from the creature’s snout as cleanly as a kitchen knife slices butter. Apparently the shapechanger had nerves where a real rhino would not because it roared in pain. Its gray hide rippled, became reddish and furry as it reared back, and I found myself confronting an enormous grizzly bear.
The rust-colored bear was as ugly and unnatural as the rhino had been, yet as large and powerful as a real grizzly! Its monstrous head alone was broader than my shoulders. Sticky black ichor streamed down its jaws from its missing nose. The fetid smell of the ooze was overpowering as it mingled with the pungent bear-musk emanating from the creature’s thick, matted fur. The repulsive beast towered over me, a good eight feet tall, eager to crush me in its embrace of death.
I swung the fan, but the beast’s looming bulk closed with me too quickly. The slats of the fan folded, collapsing harmlessly and doing no damage. I leapt backwards, hoping to escape the bear’s embrace. With a jerk of its enormous paw, the bear swatted me, sending me sprawling. Its sharp claws slashed through my trench coat as if it were wet paper but scraped harmlessly against my enchanted gown.
Flying through the air, I hugged my flute, hoping to cushion its fall. Only the ground never approached. Instead, a wind buoyed me upward, and the earth fell away beneath me. I felt myself yanked toward where Mephisto lay crumpled on the gravel. Mab’s human body hung in the air beside me, motionless and empty.
“Can’t believe I’m saying this,” Mab’s reedy voice blew in my ear, “but you might want to play that accursed instrument. We’ve got to get out of here. Your brother has been poisoned. I don’t think I can carry the two of you and my body without some help.”
As Mab swooped to grab my brother, I raised my precious flute to my lips and played “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” The music swelled around us, buoying us upward, and cold yet friendly winds whistled about our ears. Quick as swallows, we soared away from the grizzly, who roared with anger.
As we circled through the white flurries of falling snow, Mab’s oboe-like voice sang in my ear.
“He’ll probably turn into a condor next or a golden eagle. He might even try a raven and swoop at our eyes. Might want to have a few songs ready.”
I nodded tensely, watching the grizzly and anticipating another metamorphosis at any moment. None came. Turning, the beast lumbered though the falling snow toward the road, growling menacingly. In the distance, I could hear the dim roar of an engine.
“What’s he doing? Giving up? Seems strange, since we know he can do birds,” Mab muttered. “Oh, no! Miss Miranda! He’s after the car!”
Sure enough, the giant bear crossed the road, heading toward the gas station. The thin teenager behind the counter must have had a view of our entire battle. He hurried to lock the door of the convenience store. The grizzly never so much as glanced in his direction. It headed directly for the far side of the station where our rental car was parked.
Still playing, I increased the tempo, requesting more speed. We were heavily weighed down, however, by myself, my listless brother, and Mab’s fleshly body. We moved rapidly across the distance, but not rapidly enough. The beast would reach our vehicle first.
Looming over our car, the horrifying bear raised its great paw with five razor-sharp claws. Just then, a white pickup truck rounded the bend in the road. A loud crack rang out across the countryside. The terrible grizzly bear fell silently backwards, ichor spurting from its left eye, and lay as if dead.
The pickup truck drew up beside us and slowed to a stop. A man in a buff coat climbed from the passenger side and came slowly around the car toward us, carrying his still-smoking Winchester. He was an older man with white hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His brown eyes were keen and deeply set. He had a strong Roman nose. I knew his face almost as well as my own.
“Father!” I shouted with joy. He looked older than I had remembered. This fight with the Three Shadowed Ones must be sapping his strength. “You trimmed your beard.”
From under Mab’s other arm, Mephisto said weakly, “That’s not Father. That’s Theo.”