Behold, the noise of the bruit is come,
and a great commotion out of the north country,
to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.—Jeremiah, 10:22-23
Spartanburg turned out to be a lot like Greenville, but bigger. I saw a few people moving in the distance as we walked through what seemed the main drag, and once, on the sidewalk, we passed four men and a woman who stared at us openly, not saying a word. Ariel lectured George as we walked through the north end of town. "Never stand in front of one and swing your sword," she was saying. I kept looking left and right at buildings on both sides of the street—the presence of people made me nervous.
"Why not?" asked George. His low-swung broadsword clinked in time with his walk; the metal sheath hit the pavement each time he stepped forward with his left foot.
"Because it'll eat you. A dragon's main defenses are all oriented toward frontal attack. The front claws can swipe forward quickly, but they have difficulty striking to the side. Same with the head. It's on a long neck and it'll snap forward and strike like a snake, though not quite as fast. It also breathes fire. But the head has difficulty turning far to the side, close in toward its own body."
George took all this in soberly.
"Never try to stab or cut at the head. It's bony and the hide's tough; your sword probably won't go through. That, and it's easy to miss their brains, which are not exactly a vital organ where dragons are concerned anyway."
"Well, what am I supposed to do, then?"
She looked at the broken glass front of Sam & Sons Laundry and Dry Cleaning, then looked back at the road ahead. "Get it low in the side. You have to try to puncture the gasbag. That's what allows it to fly and breathe fire. If it gets airborne you're in trouble."
"Wait a minute," I said. "Gasbag?"
She nodded. "Most of the body is hollow, filled with hydrogen gas produced by chemical reaction within the body, the same way your body produces gas. Hydrogen gives it lift; without it dragons couldn't fly. Their wings aren't large enough. The gas is ignited in the throat and comes out as fiery breath."
I wasn't biting. "Hold on a second. Why the need for complex biochemistry? I thought dragons were magical."
"They are."
"Then don't they fly by magic, or breathe fire by magic?"
She shook her head. The point of her horn flashed as it caught the morning sun. "Magic is a resource, Pete. Waste it and it's gone. Why do you think I use it so rarely? Sure, dragons live by magical means—so do I. But nature isn't wasteful, whether it's labeled 'natural' or 'supernatural.' The magical power required to lift something as big as a dragon during the course of its lifetime would be tremendous. A dragon uses up magic just by existing, same as me. So rather than waste magic by using it up lifting a heavy mass, nature found an easier way."
"I still don't get it. I always thought of magic as unnatural."
"Don't be stupid. If it's unnatural it can't happen within nature. Magic is just a different set of physics laws than the one you're used to." She blinked and struck sparks. "But it still has to be consistent with itself, Pete; otherwise it won't work. There's no such thing as complete chaos."
I nodded, reminded of our first conversation with Malachi. The memory caused a sudden cold tingle at the small of my back.
"Anyway," Ariel said, dipping her horn at George, "you'll probably get off one poke, two if you're lucky. After that your sword will be pretty much useless. Dragon blood is pretty corrosive."
George accepted everything she said as gospel, but since she was in a mood for explanations I demanded to know why that was, also.
"Hydrochloric acid," she said patiently. "It causes the chemical reaction that produces the hydrogen and doubles as a defense mechanism."
"Oh." Until then I'd assumed she was bullshitting George on his dragon-slaying technique and that we were speaking academically; now I realized she was serious as a heart attack. Sometimes it surprised me to hear her speaking knowledgeably about something like biochemistry; she apparently remembered everything she'd read.
"Never look a dragon in the eyes," she continued.
It was George's turn to question. "Why not?"
"Just don't."
A couple hundred yards ahead was a road sign. SPARTANBURG CITY LIMIT. Though the city proper continued a few miles past that, it made me feel better.
I looked up from the road atlas. "We're going to have to pick up our pace. We either walk faster, longer, or both." I had traced our route with a finger, only moderately pleased. Five days out from Atlanta, a little better than a hundred fifty miles. We could do better. I should have brought a skateboard. With my luck, though, it would be as workable as a bicycle.
"Faster," said Ariel.
"Longer," said George.
"It's unanimous, then—faster and longer."
Neither of them seemed too happy with that.
Our projected route would put us in Charlotte in two days. I didn't like that. Small towns were one thing; cities were a whole 'nother mess. I wanted to avoid them but I-85 went straight through Charlotte. Skirting around the city would just take up more time. Damn. But at least Charlotte would have places where I could pick up hiking boots—mine were nearly worn out. I also needed a change of clothes. I'd been wearing my ugly green army shirt and black cords for six days. I tried not to think about what my underwear and socks smelled like by now; I even had to sleep in them. I'd also have to pick up cigarettes. I'd run out that day; I'd be having nicotine fits tomorrow. Peppermint for Ariel, too, to keep her from bitching about my smoking.
Hell, I might even pick up a skateboard. Purely out of curiosity, of course.
* * *
Ariel asked me to rub her right foreleg after we made camp. Nothing felt wrong, but she gasped when my kneading hands circled the ankle joint. "I'm sorry!" I said.
"It isn't you, Pete." She lay on her left side and I was beside her on my knees. George had run behind a group of trees to go to the bathroom. I had told him to be careful; it was dark and something might grab him while he was in an impossible position.
I bent forward, resting my weight on my left arm, and stroked her mane. It looked like moonlit fog in the early morning just before the sun rises. "Is there something I can do?"
She bent her head up and nuzzled my arm. "I'll be okay, Pete. Really. It's remembered pain, that's all. It's in my mind."
I followed the curve round her shoulder, along the length of her once-injured leg with my fingertips. My throat felt full. I wanted to clear it.
Suddenly I was holding her tightly, arms around her neck. My eyes stung; tears slid down my cheeks and onto her hair, beading like dew on a spider web, and somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, God, I look stupid. But I didn't care. I just felt scared, very scared.
"I wish . . . ." I said, sniffling. My nose had plugged up. "It isn't fair!"
"What isn't fair, Pete?" Her voice was gentle; none of the underlying pain that had been there before was present.
I couldn't answer. I just cried harder.
"Tell me."
"I just . . . . I wish so much that you were a woman!"
She was quiet a long time. I think George came back but respectfully kept himself scarce. After a while she spoke, and her voice sounded far away, as it had the time she'd brought me back from death and I hadn't wanted to come.
"So do I, Pete." She sighed. "Sometimes . . . so do I."
I stopped crying soon. Ariel felt like the soft stuffed animal every child should have guarding his sleep, and eventually, lulled by that warm security, I did sleep.
* * *
The dreams again. They grew worse each night. I only remembered fragments, but they became more and more detailed.
Hot breath mingling with mine. Sweat tickling my back, cooled by a light night breeze. A faint groan—mine? Sensations assailing me: infant-soft skin, warmth and wetness, and a persistent sliding . . . . My name, said in a voice all breath—
My eyes snapped open. The lopsided waning moon shone down on Ariel, from whom I'd rolled a few feet during the night. The lumpy shape of George in his sleeping bag snored lightly six feet away, on the other side of Ariel. I realized I was cold. It hits you like that when you wake up. Oh, yeah—I'm cold. I got up quietly. My penis pressed against the fabric of my cords. I looked down at it. Those dreams . . . . I crossed the dark silver ribbon of black-bordered highway, went behind a tree, and unzipped my pants. I tried to urinate but the muscles wouldn't relax. Frustrated, I went back across the road. Fred was lying beside the cocked crossbow atop our piled packs and next to the Aero-mag. I picked it up and unzipped my sleeping bag. George snored on. Ariel's right foreleg jerked. Her head twitched. I crawled into the sleeping bag and zipped it up, left arm out and holding on to Fred. I closed my eyes. Shit—I have to go to the bathroom. Exasperated, I tried to unzip the bag, but the tab caught in the cloth and I had to crawl out. I took Fred along and went behind a tree.
As I zipped my pants backup a cry startled me. I turned around, drawing Fred as I spun. The sword arced out and a shock went through my hand as the blade cut through something. I danced grotesquely when something landed at my feet, and stopped when I realized my trained reflexes had caused me to murder a branch. The cry came again. It sounded like a hungry baby's wail. Some kind of bird. Or a squonk, maybe. I sheathed Fred and returned to my sleeping bag, hearing the eerie cry once more.
Tucked away again and beginning to feel drowsy, I realized that I hadn't had to look to sheathe Fred. Maybe I'd get the hang of this stuff after all.
* * *
NORTH CAROLINA STATE LINE, the sign read. We'd slept a hundred yards south of it.
The day was gloomy and overcast. Ariel, George, and I trudged along in silence. We're embarrassed, I thought, because of what happened last night.
It began raining about eight-thirty, starting off as a light drizzle and ending as a toad-strangler for most of the day. I couldn't read Don Quixote to Ariel and George. I also worried that Fred would rust.
Weary, soaked, hungry, and roadsore, we entered Charlotte by nightfall.
* * *
Sometimes I wish we'd never gone into Charlotte. I play what if? and wonder what would have happened had we avoided the city altogether.
We slept in a Holiday Inn at the outskirts of the city. It was out of the rain and we didn't have to go about setting up even the meager camp that none of us felt like making. We had neighbors in a room down the hall from ours, on the second floor. Three men and two women. They thought Ariel was "really neat." I didn't comment when they told me they'd shoved three beds together in their room. I made polite, noncommittal noises when they left me with an invitation to come over any old time.
I stripped in the room, toweled myself dry, and stumbled into the bed in an exhausted stupor. George was already out on the other bed. Within two minutes I'd joined him in dreamland. I didn't have bad dreams this time. I think I was too tired.
Next thing I knew Ariel was nudging me. Daylight pushed at the curtains. I whipped the covers back and sat up.
"Oh, Pete!" Ariel sounded hurt. My nakedness wasn't what upset her. It didn't bother me, either, but when I looked down I felt sick. My feet were a brownish mess of dirt and dried blood. Blisters on the knuckles of my big and second toes had burst and scabbed over. It looked as if I'd been shot in both heels. All that walking in worn-out boots.
"Wash them off in the bathtub," she ordered. "There might still be some water pressure. Make sure you put a stopper in the tub."
I wondered why my feet didn't hurt as I walked into the bathroom, rubbing sleep from my eyes. Just enough water coughed from the faucet to make a small puddle. I lathered my feet with a miniature bar of hotel soap. The lather turned pink. The water became murky. I swished my feet around to get as much of the soap off as I could, then stepped out and began to towel them dry—and that's when they hurt. I hissed as I drew the towel across the tops of my feet. It felt like an emery board sawing at an open wound.
"You all right, Pete?" asked Ariel from the doorway.
"My feet would probably still feel okay if you hadn't pointed them out to me." I looked up. Her black eyes were concerned. "Yeah, I'm okay. I'll heal, at least. It just hurts like hell."
"Do you think you should walk today?"
"I don't have a choice."
"How about we take it easy and get some things you've been complaining about not having? New hiking boots, for instance."
I wanted to argue and decided not to. It really wasn't a bad idea. Besides, my feet did hurt a lot. "All right. Get George up. We'll see if we can loot some stores."
"George is already up. I'll go knock down the hall and see if they know where we can get clothes and stuff."
I followed her to the front door and opened it for her. "And cigarettes," I called after her.
"And peppermint," she added.
I left the door open partway and got dressed, trying to imagine our neighbors' reaction to having a unicorn bang on their door wanting to know where there was a good shopping center. ("Harry, there's a unicorn at the door—wants to borrow a cup of sugar.")
George lay awake in bed. "Morning," he said.
"Good morning. Feel like going shopping?"
"Well, yeah, I'd like to get some stuff. How're your feet?"
"Lovely, if you like Sam Peckinpah movies." The comment drew a blank look. I'd forgotten he wasn't old enough to remember things like that very well. "They don't look so good," I amended.
"When are we gonna find a dragon?"
"We'll be coming up on the Smokies soon. Ariel thinks there are dragons there. Why the sudden hurry?"
He sat up and I saw that he was already dressed. "'Cause I want to get this stuff over with and go home."
"You miss your family?"
He nodded. Poor kid—he didn't realize his father was nuts. Ariel and I were fairly committed to helping him slay a dragon; he'd never make it on his own. Sure, he wasn't my best friend in the universe, but he was a good kid—I didn't want to see him get mangled. Of course, come to think of it, we might get mangled, too. Oh, yeah.
I looked down at my feet. "Fuck you," I told them. How dare they betray me like this; I wanted to catch up to Malachi. If my feet set us back we'd end up days behind him—if we weren't already.
Ariel nudged the door open with her horn. "They said there's a big shopping mall about three miles down the road. They went by there a few days ago. They don't know if it's occupied but according to them it's in pretty good shape."
"Three miles."
She looked at my feet and nodded.
"I don't care if it's occupied. I want cigarettes. Let's go." I strapped her pack on, put in the Barnett, and looked at George. His broadsword hung ridiculously at his side and he'd shouldered his Boy Scout pack.
I turned the socks bloody-side-out and laced the boots so they were tight about the ankles and loose over my instep. It still hurt. I shouldered my pack and we left.
* * *
Charlotte was about a fourth the size of Atlanta, a little more sparse, less "cosmopolitan," I guess you'd call it. It was hilly but not mountainous. We headed north, walking between the frozen traffic lines on the street. Something I saw tickled me: someone had taken an old, white VW Bug, sawed off the roof even with the doors, dumped in a lot of dirt and rich topsoil, and turned it into a planter. The old Sixties slogan "Flower Power" had been painted on the side.
George had begun to look more and more worried; I knew it would get worse as we neared the Smokies.
The shopping mall was on the right side of the road. We turned beneath a dead stoplight and walked into the entrance. Scores of cars were in a lot. The glass doors were unlocked. I held one open for Ariel. "Ladies first." She walked in with a superior air, nose high. My kick at her ass missed.
"It sure looks empty enough," whispered George.
"Then why are you whispering?" I asked in a normal tone.
He shrugged. We walked from the side wing of shops to the main arcade, our footsteps echoing—mine and George's, anyway; Ariel's never made noise unless she wanted them to.
"Are we gonna split up or stick together?" George asked.
I looked at Ariel. "It looks safe," she said.
I rubbed my chin. I needed a shave. "Split up and get what you need. It'll take less time. I want to get out of here as soon as we can. And be careful." I glanced at the fountain in the center of the mall. Scum had accumulated in the still water along the blue-tiled edges. On the bottom were pennies, dull brown in the murky water, tossed in years ago at wishful random. "We'll meet back at this fountain in an hour."
They agreed, and I headed toward one end of the mall, George the other, and Ariel down a side wing. Looking for a candy shop, I bet myself.
It was very cool in the mall. The sound of my footsteps mingled arrhythmically with the echo of George's retreating ones. I tried to ignore it. I'd rather have silence than just a few sounds in all the quiet.
I drew Fred at the startling shape of several figures standing in a storefront window, then realized they were just mannequins in a dress shop. This place was making me jittery.
The door to Montgomery Ward's was open. I headed toward MEN'S WEAR and picked out two pairs of blue jeans from a rack. I leaned backpack and weapons against a register and took off my black cords, feeling both silly and naked—naked as in vulnerable. I took off hiking boots and socks and left them in the middle of the floor. I wouldn't be needing those again. One look at my underwear made me think twice about trying on the jeans immediately; I went to a display, opened a plastic packet of Joe Boxer, and put on a pair. The other two I rolled up and tossed into my pack. No doubt I'd be needing them later.
The first pair of jeans didn't fit. The second did. I left them on, picked out a new belt, put it on, and returned Fred to a belt-loop. I felt much better. Discarded clothes on floor behind me, I walked barefoot and shirtless through the store, dragging the backpack behind me with top flap opened. I tossed in a razor for later.
Out in the mall I kept jumping at shadows, seeing motion where there was none. Once I saw Ariel up ahead and I waved. She nodded back. Unicorn in a shopping mall. Which way to the gift shop, please?
A stop at Thom McAn yielded new hiking boots and three pairs of white tube socks. At a drugstore I grabbed a carton of Winstons and a half-dozen small packs of peppermint to balance it.
There was a table of iron-on transfer shirts in the center of the store. They'd been on sale about six years now. I picked out a blue shirt in my size and held it in front of me. I'M WITH STUPID, it announced in red letters. Below that was an arrow pointing to the right. I put it on. The arrow now pointed to my left; I'd have to be sure to stay on Ariel's right side.
I imagined Muzak playing over the store's P.A., and a nasal voice over it. "Attention, shoppers . . . ."
There was a commotion in the mall: shouts, breaking glass. I ran to the store entrance and peeked out the door. George was barreling toward me, arms loaded with booty. Every few steps something fell from his double-armed grip. He must have been messing around in one of the clothing stores; he was wearing tight blue dress slacks and a red silk shirt. It was unbuttoned, and as he ran it unfurled behind him like some disco flag. His broadsword screwed up his stride by slapping against his left leg.
Three men were running after him.
Something smacked against the glass door I held propped open with my body. I ducked—it would have been too late, but there was no controlling the reflex—and glanced up. The glass had spiderwebbed. One of the three men was trying to fit another arrow into his bow while running, which couldn't have been very easy. George saw me and veered my way.
"That way!" I yelled, waving toward the wing that led to the mall entrance. "That way!" He cut a corner, leaped over a bench (more things fell from his arms), nearly ran into a fountain but dodged just in time, and picked up speed.
Ariel appeared from the open doorway of a card shop a hundred feet to the left of the wing George had run down. Two men went after George. The third headed toward me. He loosed another arrow, which went ten feet wide of me. I decided you can't be accurate with bow and arrow while running full-out. He wouldn't be able to fit another arrow before he reached me, even though he was still a good seventy-five feet away. I drew the Aero-mag calmly from its backpack sling, fitted a dart, and brought it to my mouth. Deep breath, wait . . . one, two, three, puff! The coat-hanger-wire dart hit him in the left forearm. He dropped his bow and screamed. It echoed down the length of the mall. The point of the dart protruded from his arm. I ran forward and punched him in the jaw. He went straight backward, unconscious. I stopped just long enough to pull another dart from the pouch at my belt and tap it into the Aero-mag with a thumb. "Help George!" I yelled to Ariel. "He took off down there. Two men are after him."
She nodded and sprang forward as if she'd hit warp drive. I went around the bench George had jumped over and trotted toward the main entrance, one hand on Fred and the other on the aluminum shaft of the Aero-mag. The backpack bounced up and down in time. I crouched behind a smooth concrete fixture in the middle of the mall. Dusty odor inside. It held long-dead plants. A cautious peek over the top revealed the two men at either side of the B. Dalton's entrance. They held their bows ready but weren't firing. They must have seen George enter but weren't willing to go in after him; Dalton's was too crowded with full bookshelves to give any working room. They glanced at each other and I ducked to prevent the farther man from seeing me. They were probably waiting for George to freak and make a move. There was no sign of Ariel.
I brought the Aero-mag up and blew. The dart hit the nearer man and bounced off. They were too far away. The nearer whirled around and the farther swung his bow. I ducked and heard an arrow hit the concrete planter. Now, while he's fitting another one: thumb the belt pouch, slap in a dart, swing the blowgun out and pop up quickly—I almost ate an arrow. The other one had fired when he saw me move; the arrow brushed my cheek and buried itself in the backpack. My entire body twitched and I dropped as fast as I'd come up. Fletchings tickled my left cheek. "Why, you son of a bitch," I said aloud. I exposed my head over the top of the planter and ducked again. An arrow hissed above me. Now. I ran from the planter to a water fountain twenty feet to my right, paused, then ran a zigzag pattern to the dusty display automobile by the fountain in the mall's center. I looked through the windows to see the nearer man heading toward me while his partner remained behind at B. Dalton's. I blew him another dart—it missed but made him cautious—and thumbed in another. Only two darts left now. He skittered, hugging close to walls and anything between him and me. I lay down behind a tire and looked beneath the car. Blue tennis shoes trotted toward me in irregular rhythm. It would be hard to get off a shot. His feet kept moving, my backpack kept me at an awkward angle, and that damned arrow was bothering my cheek. I tried pulling it out but the hunting-blade tip kept it firmly embedded. So I broke it off. I brought the blowgun to my lips and tightened them like a trumpet player. He stopped to change direction and l blew as Louis Armstrong never had. The dart hit his left shin and he did a near-complete flip. I ran to him and kicked his bow away.
Ariel jumped from inside B. Dalton's. George was on her back, crossbow aimed. His red silk shirt billowed as Ariel leapt. Her back hooves hit a book display and sent paperbacks flying. The final man had been looking at me when Ariel streaked out. He spun and let fly a fast shot at Ariel. She twitched her neck and snapped the arrow with her horn. George pulled the trigger on the Barnett. The bolt hit the floor twenty feet behind the man, who sprawled backward with a hole through his neck. Ariel hesitated, looking toward me. I yelled for her to go on. She said something to George and he hurriedly returned the crossbow to her pack, leaned forward, and wrapped his arms around her neck. She plunged forward and struck the glass of the mall entrance horn-first. It shattered and she broke into the sunshine amid a diamond shower of glass.
I looked back at the man I'd shot in the leg. There was no need to do anything else to him; he hugged the leg close to his chest and writhed on the floor. His eyes and teeth were clenched and his mouth was drawn back so that the cords on the sides of his neck stood out. Small grunts worked from his throat. I left him and walked out through the jagged hole Ariel had left behind, blinking in the sunshine.
* * *
Ariel made George get off her back. She would only carry him as long as necessary.
George was crying. He walked a little ahead of us in the middle of the highway. Ariel and I spoke in low voices. Her tone was accusing. "Was it worth it, for the things we came away with?"
I felt guilty and looked from her to the road flowing beneath my new boots. My feet still hurt.
"Peppermint candy," she said, "and cigarettes. You only wanted to loot that mall because you figured you'd have a better chance of finding cigarettes there. The clothes and things—you could have found those anywhere."
I didn't think she was right, but I said nothing.
"George found some good things. But about your cigarettes—" She closed her eyes and tossed her head, horn inscribing a brief circle in the late morning air. "There."
"'There' what?"
"I just got rid of them. No more smoking."
"Goddammit—"
"It's bad for you, Pete."
"Bullshit. You keep me healthy and you know it."
"That doesn't mean I should work overtime at it. It's neither my responsibility nor my duty. I'm not your doctor. And I don't want to be around it, either."
"I'm going to have to quit all over again!" Shit—bitten nails, piano-wire nerves, constant craving.
"Too bad. I'm not taking the blame for your addictions, either."
"Oh, for—" I stopped. What was the use?
We walked through the city. George stayed ahead of us, head inclined toward the road. I think he'd stopped crying.
"Ariel, what are we going to do about him?"
"Leave him alone. He'll be okay."
"If you say so." I scratched my cheek. Sweat had begun to pour from me in the morning's growing heat and lessening humidity, and it stung where the arrow had brushed past. My shirt—about which Ariel had said nothing—was soaked in the back, damp as a washrag on my shoulders where the pack straps pressed. I shrugged out of them and turned the pack so the H-frame was braced against my stomach, leaning back and walking with knees bent to offset the weight. Holding it with one hand, I untied the flap and flipped it open. The arrow had dented my small first-aid kit and stopped against a hunting knife. I pulled the diamond-shaped head and broken shaft out and threw it onto the road. There was a nylon patch kit in the top left pocket of my pack; I'd fix the hole later.
The cigarette carton wasn't in the pack.
I reached in and tossed out the peppermint candies one at a time. "Fair's fair," I said.
Ariel snorted but said nothing, though she glanced at the candy on the road behind us.
* * *
George was walking with us again. He seemed all right but wouldn't talk, other than to give perfunctory answers. My feet throbbed and I was unhappy with our progress. Malachi was probably two days ahead of us by now. Maybe three. Shit.
We were out of Charlotte by noon. At the north end of town we came upon a young woman reading a hardcover book on a bus bench in the bright sunlight. She squinted up at us as we drew near.
I'd dug out Don Quixote and was reading it to Ariel. The woman gave a quiet little gasp and folded her book, marking her place with a finger. I followed suit. She looked at Ariel, looked briefly at me, and back to Ariel. She rose from the bench and stood before us, book dangling at her side. The clear plastic over the cover showed it to be a library book. She opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head as if fully expecting us not to be there when she looked again. Her shoulder-length brown hair fanned out as her head turned from left to right. She watched, mouth open, as we passed. I turned and nodded politely to her, but I don't think she even saw me. She was staring, of course, at Ariel. Gawkers, everywhere, gawkers. We walked on.
A few minutes later Ariel said, without looking back, "She's following us."
"Who? That girl on the bench?"
She nodded. I glanced back. She was a quarter mile behind us, walking with the book held absently in her hand. She still stared at Ariel. "Wonder what she wants?"
"Taken with my awe-inspiring magnificence, no doubt." She dragged a hoof on the asphalt. Sparks scattered.
"Hmph." I glanced back again. "Maybe if we ignore her she'll go away."
We tried it. I read from Don Quixote for an hour before looking back again. She was still there. "That's it," I announced, putting the book away. "I'm not being shadowed all the way to New York. Let's wait and find out what she wants."
"Sure. But I can tell you what it is." Her expression was smug. "It's me."
"Why, of course. What else could it be?" I coughed into my hand. We waited as the young woman caught up to us. She looked faintly embarrassed but said nothing, just stood before us.
"Is there something we can do for you?" I asked.
She flushed. "I'd like—I'd like to come with you." She smiled. Bright silver points glittered in her brown eyes.
I raised an eyebrow. "To come with us?"
She nodded.
"Why?"
"Because I've waited a long time for something like this to come my way." She looked longingly at Ariel. "You're a unicorn."
"Heavens," Ariel said dryly. "How astute."
"And you talk."
She snorted. "Good trick, huh? You'd never guess it took two people to operate this thing." She turned sideways. "Look—no seams.
"I've never seen anything like you. I mean, I've seen magical animals before, but never a unicorn, never anything so . . . so . . ."
"Beautiful? Noble, pure, that sort of thing?"
The young woman nodded.
"Okay," I broke in. "So you're both members of the Unicorn Admiration Society. I don't want to seem rude, and I'm glad you've finally seen a unicorn, but we're in a hurry."
"Fine. I don't need anything but what I have with me."
"I don't think you understand. We're traveling together. The three of us."
"Oh, no. I'm not letting an opportunity like this get away. I won't get another chance like this again. I know."
"We're going to New York," I said.
"Fine."
"It's dangerous. You'd slow us down."
"I can take care of myself."
George followed the conversation like an observer at a ping-pong match. I was getting angry. Who the hell was she to come out of the clear blue sky and demand to go with us? "Look," I said. "I'm not even going to argue about it. You can't come with us."
Ariel stepped forward slowly. The sun was just past overhead and her hooves spearpointed the light with polished chrome newness. "Child," she said—the young woman looked surprised at the word; she was at least my age—"you can follow us, but you'll never have me."
Her expression showed she didn't know what Ariel was talking about.
"Try to touch me," said Ariel. "And you'll understand."
She reached toward Ariel's muzzle, a child reaching for the shiny, golden ornament on a high branch of a Christmas tree. Her hand stopped five inches from the side of Ariel's face. She frowned and pushed her elbow, but the hand only trembled and went no farther.
"You can't have your dreams," said Ariel. "You'd only be wishful and frustrated if you came along."
"I don't understand," George said. "I can touch her no problem."
"Yeah, I know," I replied. "So can I."
"But why . . .?" Her round-faced features drew in puzzlement.
"You have to be pure to touch a unicorn," Ariel whispered. She looked intently at the frowning young woman. "I see what you need," she said, "and because of all you desire, I am for the first time in my life sorry this is so." Something seemed to pass between them; Ariel seemed to understand this total stranger as if she'd been inside her head. I didn't follow it too well. But the woman made a cutting motion in the air with her library book and said, "Okay, rules are rules and I can't touch you. But I've waited ever since I can remember for magic—real magic, not this spell stuff or bone throwing by candlelight—and I can't let it walk by without me, not after it's passed right next to me in the middle of the afternoon. I just can't." She jerked her head to me. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm coming on too strong. But you try reading fantasy books all your life—have a Bradbury dream walk by your bus bench on a hot day, with everything you've ever wanted tied up in a neat bundle—and see if you wouldn't do almost anything to have it."
"Ariel is my friend," I said. Something about her tone bothered me; it had that religious-fanatic tinge. "Nobody 'has' her, dreams or not."
Ariel enunciated each word clearly. "I won't be worshiped. Not by anybody, ever."
George's face looked as if he were squinting at a bright light. "How come I can touch her and you can touch her, but she can't? I still don't get it."
"Aah—" I raised a hand, and dropped it quickly. "Because you've never been fucked, and I've never been fucked, and she has."
She flushed deep red. "I'm not ashamed of it. And my name is Shaughnessy, if you'd like to know."
"I wouldn't like to know. Look, this is crazy. We have to go." George still stared at me, open-mouthed.
"I'll follow you," she warned. "You can't keep me from doing that."
I thought about it. Short of violent means, I guess I couldn't. I sighed. Why did I always get the nuts? If we kept collecting people, Malachi would have a caravan strung out behind him from New York to Atlanta.
I frowned at her. "Let's go," I told Ariel and George. George looked uncertain but came along, Ariel cast me a baleful glance. I stared back until she looked away.
I turned my back to Shaughnessy's look and started walking. After a hundred yards I glanced back. She was just behind us, library book in hand. I turned back before she saw me looking and opened the Don Quixote to where I'd left off. I began reading.
"I don't want to hear it right now, Pete," said Ariel. There was something in her tone I couldn't quite read, a flavor between sullenness and melancholy. "Maybe later."
I handed the book to George and he put it in its pocket. After ten minutes I remembered to ask George what he'd got away with from the mall.
He turned away from where he'd been looking back toward Shaughnessy. "Huh?"
I snuck a glance. She was treading along about five hundred feet behind us, book open, eating an apple. I wondered if she'd had it with her, or what? "I said, what did you end up bringing back from the mall?"
"Oh." He grinned, sending large quantities of freckles closer to his forehead. "I got away with some pretty neat stuff. Here—" He opened Ariel's pack, excusing himself to her. An arm went in up to the elbow and came out with a package. "New boot laces," he said. "But you got new boots."
"That's okay. I can always use them when the others wear out. They will before too long, I'm sure." I was conscious of what's-her-name behind us.
George tossed them back into the pack and pulled out a Frisbee. "I thought it'd give us something to do when we got bored," he explained to my heaven-cast gaze.
In went the Frisbee. Out came a wind-up Timex. "I want to put it on but I don't know what time to set it for," he said.
"It's two o'clock," said Ariel.
He brightened and pulled the button with his teeth, then set the dial at two and wound the watch. It made a noise like a lone cricket.
"Didn't you get yourself clothes other than the ones you have on?" I asked while he rummaged again.
"Nope." He had to reach up on tiptoe and pull down on the pocket to get into Ariel's pack. She complained that the straps cut into her side. I made her stop and bend down so George could reach in for more things. She grumbled to herself but complied. George pulled things out and we resumed walking, Ariel dragging a trail of sparks behind front left and back right hooves. I wondered if Shaughnessy saw that. Was Shaughnessy a first name or a last?
George tossed me a brown paper bag. Things inside clinked when I caught it. The paper crackled comfortably. "I looked at your blowgun darts and saw how you made them," he said. "Maybe you can use that stuff."
I looked into the bag. About a dozen pieces of foot-long steel wire. A pair of wirecutters (I already had a pair in the pack, but George didn't know that). A half-dozen strands of heavy plastic-beaded necklaces, the kind that are supposed to look like pearls and don't. "Hey, great stuff. Thanks, George!"
He nodded, pleased I was pleased. "I wasn't sure how big the beads should be, so I got different sizes. I got the wire from an umbrella."
"Good thinking." That had never occurred to me; until then I had used either coathangers or piano wire.
The final item was George's crowning glory: fishing arrows. They were the kind with four thin metal lengths that sweep back from the sharp head. Once embedded they couldn't be pulled loose without leaving a hole the size of a baseball. Nasty things, but efficient. The only bow I had was the Barnett, and the arrows would have been totally useless to me had George not been lucky enough—or wise enough; I didn't ask—to find arrows with screw-on heads. I could remove the heads, throw away the long arrow shafts, and put them on my threaded crossbow-bolt shafts.
I thanked George again, put the bag of blowgun-dart materials in the lower compartment of my pack, and began unscrewing crossbow-bolt heads. Soon I was finished and Ariel asked me to read from Don Quixote.
Shaughnessy followed us all day.
* * *
I read to Ariel until sunset. We traveled a little over an hour into the night, then made camp. George pulled another rabbit from a hat: foil packets of freeze-dried camping foods he'd grabbed from some sporting-goods department. I started a fire and heated water, and George and I ate chili-macaroni, washing it down with the last bit of instant lemonade I'd managed to hoard.
Ariel and George got into another conversation about dragons. Saying I was going to the bathroom in the bushes, I slipped away with the last of the chili mac. I shielded it from view with my body.
Three hundred yards down the road a small campfire burned. She was nowhere in sight, but her library book rested atop a large rock. I picked it up and held it away from the campfire, reading the title in the dim orange-yellow glow. The Little Prince.
I set the book back and put the plate on top of it.
"What took you so long?" asked Ariel when I returned.
"Serious bowel movement." I looked at George, who sat cross-legged a respectful distance from the fire. "How're your feet holding up, George?"
He wriggled his toes. "Okay, I guess. They hurt, but they ain't nowhere near as bad as yours."
"Give 'em time; I've been on the road longer. Actually, though, I think mine are getting better. The new hiking boots will definitely help."
Thumb pinning spoon to aluminum plate, George searched around. "Hey, where's the rest of the chili?"
"Oh, I threw it out already. I'm sorry. I thought you were finished."
Ariel threw me a look.
"Don't worry about it." George set his plate down. "I was just gonna fill up so I wouldn't be hungry tomorrow." He unzipped his sleeping bag. "We getting up earlier tomorrow?"
I nodded. "Five-thirty. You can set your watch by it."
He glanced at his arm and smiled before crawling into his sleeping bag. "See you tomorrow."
"Good night."
"'Night, Ariel."
"Good night, George." She got up and walked around the invisible perimeter of the fire's heat. I stopped in the midst of unzipping my own sleeping bag and looked up at her.
"Threw it away, huh?" she said.
I shrugged. "I thought she might be hungry. Is there something wrong with that?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, there is."
"What?"
"Feeding a dog is no way to make it go away."
"Oh, come on. Even if you don't like her, she's not a dog. She's a person."
"She's following us like a dog. She wants to be blindly faithful to me like a dog. If you help her out she'll follow us all the way to New York."
"I can't let her go hungry."
"If she's lasted this long she isn't going to starve now. But she will turn back if she gets discouraged enough. Besides, she's not your responsibility."
The corners of my mouth tugged. "We seem to have traded places—that doesn't sound like you at all."
"I feel sorry for her," she said, "but I won't have somebody worshiping me, making me something I'm not."
"How do you know it isn't just that she appreciates what you are?"
"Bullshit. You saw how she acted. She was practically dazed. I don't need that."
"Maybe she does."
"I don't understand you. Just this afternoon you were raising hell because you didn't want her to come along, and now you're defending her."
I felt tongue-tied as I tried to sort things out. After deliberating a minute I said, slowly, "It's not her. It's you. You acted very strange today after she saw you. I think you might be letting what you are turn you into an egomaniac."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You've been acting like Miss America getting roses. 'But most of all I'd like to thank myself, because I couldn't do it without me.'"
"I don't even know what a Miss America is."
"That doesn't matter. The point is that, okay, fine, you're beautiful. But you've begun to take it for granted, and you're acting like everybody else should casually acknowledge it, too."
"What else can I do?"
I pointed a finger at her snout. "See what I mean?" I mocked her tone. "'What else can I do?' That's what I mean by egomania. You're taking what you are right in stride."
"And I repeat," she said firmly, "what else can I do? Would you like me to bask in my own glorious radiance and remind myself every day what a wonderful creature I am? Of course I take it in stride; I've lived with it all my life."
"But people like what's-her-name, like Shaughnessy, haven't. Ariel, I've been with you close to two years now. In that time I've seen you grow from the equivalent of a five-year-old human to what you are now. I see what you look like at sunset, at sunrise, and by moonlight—and I'm not used to it. And furthermore, I don't ever want to be. I can't imagine the novelty ever wearing off. No, I don't want her to follow us to New York—she'll probably get killed if she does—but try to realize that she's probably never seen anything like you, and understand why she thinks she needs to go with us. I don't care that you're against her coming with us. Like I said, so am I. But don't be insensitive to why she's doing it."
"I've understood since the second she saw me. Why do you think I told her the things I did?"
"Well, if you understand, then will you please tell me why you're acting like you don't give a shit? Jesus, you've told me she's not my responsibility; you said to let her go hungry to discourage her from following us; you compared her to a dog—"
"And it gets back to what I said before." She spaced her words out. "I do not want to be worshiped." She shook her mane and tossed her head, horn arcing up at the night sky. "Besides, she's not a virgin."
"Ah, the truth emerges."
"That's only part of it. There's more to it than that."
"There must be. You gladly tolerated Malachi and Russ, and they weren't pure by any means." When I said it something dawned on me with the shock of certainty, and I drew in a deep breath before speaking. "She's a threat! That's what it is, isn't it? That's the way you see her—she's a threat to you."
"I never said any such thing."
"I don't give a damn what you've said. It's what you think. I notice you don't deny it."
She said nothing.
"You've looked down your avenues of possibility and haven't liked a few of the potential routes, haven't you?"
"You're faulting me for what I am, Pete. A creature of purity, of innocence—you've said as much yourself. Yet you've also said that I'm just as human as anybody else, and now you re blaming me because I am.
"Oh, you're human, all right, Ariel. Sometimes you're so damned human it amazes me. But jealousy doesn't suit you."
"It's not jealousy, despite what you may think. There's not enough there for it to be. But as you said—" she scratched at the grass "—I can see possibilities. Potential futures."
"The way any human being would who wasn't confident in their relationship—projecting situations, following what-ifs?"
"Maybe. But I'm a woman—that's something else you've said." She stopped scratching the grass and looked into my eyes. "And women fight to keep the things they love."
* * *
That night I dreamed again.
I lay my head back against the sleeping bag and closed my eyes, listening to the eerie silence. The wind, barely sighing among the trees, was all I heard. I felt myself sinking into sleep, and then the dream, worse this time . . . .
I unbutton her shirt with trembling hands.
She is a succubus, a demon lover of the night.
I close my eyes, feeling quickened heartbeat. Etched against the backs of my eyelids in liquid coldness, seen through fogged glass: her face, looking down on her face and seeing her mouth against me. A ring of softest fire cascades down the length of my penis. I moan and rake fingers across her shoulders.
I opened my eyes. The liquid cold pictures were gone; I was looking at Orion's belt in the night sky. Ariel stirred by me, and again I wondered what sort of dreams she had. A cloud went past the moon and her glow muted. I closed my eyes and returned to
the night, the night! And her molten warmth surrounding, succoring, demanding, controlling. Slowly, drawn out in delicate suspense, and then the quickening: of pulse, of breath.
And the day returns too soon.
I awoke once more. My breath was ragged. Again I was compelled to close my eyes and feel
the pinpricks of ivory canines, the warmth . . . . Light kitten-scrapings of fingers cross my thighs, my belly, my chest. Cat's tongue rasps across nipples, neck, earlobes.
In the darkness a wild dog howled. Feral eyes gleamed blood-bright in the depths between the trees.
All the moonlight that has ever been is gathered in my head and exploded all at once. As I come, shock wave after shock wave spreading from mind to groin and back again, I know that she feels my orgasm with all its intensity.
Afterward I hold her for a long time, feeling both vampire and victim, the need and the willingly offered throat.
"Yes," whispers the night. "The day returns too soon."
Dreamless darkness ruled the rest of the night.
* * *
When Ariel nudged me awake next morning I found a plate beside my sleeping bag. On it was untouched chili mac. On the top of that were the remains of a rabbit, neatly skinned and cleaned.
I put on fresh socks and slipped into my hiking boots. Dew had coated the landscape with a light flowershop spray.
Ariel looked at me looking at the plate. "Resourceful, isn't she?"
I said nothing. I looked at George, who was pulling on tennis shoes, having already put on tight blue jeans and by now-dirty red silk shirt.
I carried the plate to the road. "All right!" A few startled birds took off at the sound of my voice. "All right, goddammit! You can come along." I heaved the plate onto the road. Ariel regarded me quietly, tail swishing. "She can come along," I repeated.
Ariel nodded but remained silent.