Orson Card - Magic Street

Yet Mack seemed oblivious. He reached up toward the dragon's mouth, caught hold of it, gripped its lip, and drew it downward toward him.

What is he doing? thought Titania. Volunteering to be eaten?

The dragon's mouth was now wide open, and on the same level as the pillars that still spun madly around Titania.

A shot rang out. And another.

A bloody eruption in the dragon's eye told Titania that her husband had been hit. But by what?

The dragon was spitting out blood.

Titania knew this was her chance. Whatever had hit the dragon, it had its mind on something other than the magic she might be able to bring to bear.

She said the words, sang the notes, did the quick little jig.

The wings of the dragon dropped off and the sluglike body plummeted.

Sprawled on the ground with both the tyrannosaur and Mack Street being crushed or smothered under it, the dragon stirred. But not quickly enough for Titania.

She waved her hand, and the slug was suddenly transformed. No longer a terrifying dragonslug, it was just a man.

Her man.

And Mack Street was gone. In his place was a single plastic grocery bag, rolling like a tumbleweed in a slight breeze coming in from off the ocean.

But Ura Lee did not regret shooting at the chopper. Whoever was flying it was trying to consume her son. What else could she have done?

The helicopter hit the ground and... disappeared.

Mack Street and Word Williams lay sprawled and somewhat entangled with each other on top of the patrol car.

And the helicopter was gone.

The fairy circle slowed down and sank so rapidly that in two revolutions they were on the ground, moving at no more than a brisk walk. The tingling stopped. So did the jigging.

Ura Lee shrugged off the arms of the two people holding on to her and ran toward the body of her son.

Word Williams stirred, slid away from Mack's body. He saw Ura Lee and said, "I'm sorry, Miz Smitcher. I tried to save him."

The others gathered around.

Not far away, a car caught in the traffic jam surrounding the fairy circle let out a blast of its horn.

One of the cops raised his nightstick and approached the offending car. "This is a demonstration!" he shouted. "It has a permit! Didn't you see the signs out on Pico?"

Ura Lee didn't care about the surrounding people. She made sure Mack's neck wasn't broken, then slid her arms under him and lifted him and held his head and shoulders against her like a child.

"Oh, Mack," she said. "Mack, it was supposed to be the other way. You were supposed to hold me while I died."

Yolanda White appeared out of nowhere, standing on the roof of the cop car.

"Say goodbye to him, Ura Lee Smitcher," she said. "He's coming with me."

"He's dead!" said Ura Lee. "Can't I bury him?"

"He's not dead. But his job is done. Say goodbye to him, Miz Smitcher. I've got to get my pathetic loser of a husband back down to hell."

"He's not a loser!" shouted Word. "He's a hero!"

"I didn't mean Mack," said Yolanda. "I know we had that ceremony, but... it's the king of the fairies that I'm married to. Only now he's the king of nothing, not even himself. Thanks to all these fine people, the fairy circle held, and we've got Oberon in chains. Thank you!"

"It's Cecil Tucker's gun," she said numbly.

"I know where he is. I'll give it back to him."

Ura Lee took the gun out of the pocket of her jacket and handed it to the fairy queen.

Titania smiled at her. "It will be all right, Miz Smitcher." Then she bent over, took Mack Street's limp hands, and pulled him up from his mother's lap.

"Come on, Mack," she said. "You're going home."

She held him close to her, and then unfolded her wings. The people gasped. They hadn't seen them, folded as they were on her back. "Better clear the road and let the traffic through," she said.

Word Williams helped a weeping Ura Lee away from the patrol car and over to the sidewalk.

The cops stepped out into the road and started directing traffic.

Ura Lee looked over the rim of the overpass and saw several people doing CPR on Ebby.

"Sweet Jesus," she said. "Let her live."

"I wish," said Word Williams beside her, "I wish I had the power to heal her."

"No wishing," said Ura Lee. "I don't want any wishing around me. Just doing or shutting up.

Help me down there to look at that girl and see if I can do anything before the paramedics get here."

"Yes ma'am," said Word.

Then she burst into tears again. "Oh, Mack, my son, my sweet beautiful baby! Why couldn't I be the one to die!"

"You'll see him again, Miz Smitcher, I'm sure of it," said Word. "In the loving arms of his Savior.

He'll be waiting for you."

"I know that," said Ura Lee. "I know it, but I can't help wishing. Wishing! Why can't we stop wishing and leave things alone!"

CHANGELING Titania flew with Mack Street in her arms, soaring over the buildings and streets of Los Angeles.

The Santa Monica Freeway like a river flowing with cars. Hills that in her own country were thick with forest, but here were thick with houses.

Still, the glory of Fairyland peeked through here and there. In the lush gardens tended by the hands of Mexican laborers. In the jacaranda that was just coming into fragrant bloom. In the moist wind off the Pacific, carrying cooler air inland, though not very far. Just to Baldwin Hills, where Titania landed on the sidewalk between two houses, with a cop car and a motorcycle at the curb.

She carried his light, almost empty body into the gap between the houses and, as far as any observer on the street could have seen, disappeared.

Inside the house, Ceese heard the door open and called out, "Who's there!"

"Bill Clinton, the first black President, what do you think?"

It was Yolanda. Ceese picked up the golden cage wrapped in a copy of his leather jacket and walked into the living room.

She was laying Mack Street down on the floor. His shirt was open and a terrible wound was seeping blood.

Ceese cried out, a terrible groan, and flung aside the cage. He ran to Mack's body and embraced it, covering himself with blood. "Mack," he cried.

"He's not dead," said Titania.

"Do you think I don't know death?" said Ceese. "He's cold, and he has no heartbeat."

"He's not dead," she said. "He's just empty."

"What do you mean?"

"In our battle, Oberon used him up. Emptied all the wishes out of him. So in the end, the old monster had nothing left to draw on. A couple of bullets from your gun took my dear husband right in the mouth and he had no strength to turn them into anything but what they were. Bullets."

"Oberon's dead?"

"He's bound. While he was lying there gasping with pain like he had never felt before, I bound him. I stripped him of that hideous shape. I sent him back down, and this time he didn't have the power to bind me in return." She walked over to the corner behind the front door, where the golden cage had rolled after it fell out of the jacket. Puck was glaring at her.

"It's over, Puck," she said.

"I could have helped. I could have saved the boy." and you would have done it."

"Let me out."

"No revenge," she said. "I'll set you free—of this cage, of Oberon—but only if I have your solemn vow. No revenge on me or any of the people who helped bring Oberon down today."

"So now I'm your slave," said Puck.

"I'm offering you parole," said Titania. "As long as you don't try to hurt me or any of these mortals, you're free. So say it. Give me your oath."

After a moment's hesitation, Puck launched into a stream of some language Ceese had never heard before.

"What's he saying?"

"What I told him to. Only he's saying it in Sumerian, so you can't witness his humiliation."