me, Mr. Ferret?” I asked, plucking cartridges off my bandolier and shoving them into the gun’s loading tube. Both my shoulders hurt now, and my fingers were tingling. “Why, I guess I’m feeling a little hostile about this whole situation.”
The murderous rage coursing through my veins was nothing short of exhilarating. I wanted to tear the world open and dance in its guts.
“Stupid girl, it’s affecting you! Keep your head!” Pal snapped.
“Keep your own damn head, weasel.”
He was digging his little pinprick claws into my skin, and I’d have liked nothing better than to pick him up and slam him down on the dinosaur-blood asphalt and see his stinking little brains splatter everywhere—
“Are your fingers going numb? That’s the nerves dying. You let the rage take you, your flesh will turn to cold meat, and he’ll shape you as he pleases.”
I stared down at my fingertips. They had gone pale; the blood had been squeezed right out of them. Fear squelched my anger. I slung the shotgun over my shoulder and rubbed my hands together to try to get the circulation going again.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Because I can’t feel my paws.” Pal took a deep breath. “The demon’s broadcasting rage and hate. If we let ourselves indulge in either of those emotions, we’re gone.”
We started down the Street again.
Be serene, I told myself. Be cool. Be calm and collected as a cow in a field. A cow waiting to be led off, get bashed in the head and carved into steaks.
Images of abattoir carnage filled my mind, and in an instant I pictured myself blasting the heads off chain-saw-wielding slaughterhouse workers.
“This is not very damn easy,” I said, desperately forcing my mass-murder daydream away. “I’ve got to go kill a demon that’s much, much stronger than I am, and I can’t get angry? How am I supposed to get my adrenaline going if I can’t get angry? I’ve got a lot to be angry about right now.”
“Determination doesn’t have to be anger,” Pal replied. “Think about how much you love Cooper and want him back. Keep that love front and center, and know that you will get him back, and nothing will stand in your way.”
Okay, feel the love, I thought, shifting the ever- heavier shotgun to my left hand. Feel the love, feel the love. Bunnies in shining armor. Love love love.
We walked down High Street past the mall. The store windows were eerie in the flat light. A dead sparrow flopped toward us, chirping hatred. When we turned right on West Town, I beheld a sight I was completely unprepared for.
Smoky lay dead on the sidewalk, and a scorched thing was tearing off his scales, gnawing his flesh. My eyes just wouldn’t focus on it.
What is it? I thought to Pal.
The thing sensed me, shrieking as it pulled its jagged head from the corpse and turned on us.
Suddenly I was sitting in a filthy stone-lined pit, staring down at a bloody hacksaw in my left hand and my own sawed-off leg in my right.
“Don’t make me do the second one,” I heard myself plead to someone standing above.
And then the pain hit me.
I screamed and fell to my knees, shutting my eyes as if that could shut out the agony sawing on every nerve. The shotgun clattered to the pavement.
“It’s a Wutganger,” Pal squeaked, his voice thin and shaky. “It’s an illusion! See past it! Fight it!”
How could I stand and fight when my guts were falling out? I tried to gather them up, but something clamped down on my left forearm.
The lance of pain as the Wutganger bit through my ulnar nerve jerked me out of the illusion to a far worse reality. The Wutganger was the very incarnation of Cooper’s blotted-out nightmares. The face was a leathery patchwork of dead cooked flesh stitched together with twisted wire, the teeth broken shards of glass pounded into pustulant gray gums. Its eyes were live coals, steaming hate and sulfur from the dead sockets.
I screamed as it worried my arm, my bones crunching. I scrabbled at
The murderous rage coursing through my veins was nothing short of exhilarating. I wanted to tear the world open and dance in its guts.
“Stupid girl, it’s affecting you! Keep your head!” Pal snapped.
“Keep your own damn head, weasel.”
He was digging his little pinprick claws into my skin, and I’d have liked nothing better than to pick him up and slam him down on the dinosaur-blood asphalt and see his stinking little brains splatter everywhere—
“Are your fingers going numb? That’s the nerves dying. You let the rage take you, your flesh will turn to cold meat, and he’ll shape you as he pleases.”
I stared down at my fingertips. They had gone pale; the blood had been squeezed right out of them. Fear squelched my anger. I slung the shotgun over my shoulder and rubbed my hands together to try to get the circulation going again.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Because I can’t feel my paws.” Pal took a deep breath. “The demon’s broadcasting rage and hate. If we let ourselves indulge in either of those emotions, we’re gone.”
We started down the Street again.
Be serene, I told myself. Be cool. Be calm and collected as a cow in a field. A cow waiting to be led off, get bashed in the head and carved into steaks.
Images of abattoir carnage filled my mind, and in an instant I pictured myself blasting the heads off chain-saw-wielding slaughterhouse workers.
“This is not very damn easy,” I said, desperately forcing my mass-murder daydream away. “I’ve got to go kill a demon that’s much, much stronger than I am, and I can’t get angry? How am I supposed to get my adrenaline going if I can’t get angry? I’ve got a lot to be angry about right now.”
“Determination doesn’t have to be anger,” Pal replied. “Think about how much you love Cooper and want him back. Keep that love front and center, and know that you will get him back, and nothing will stand in your way.”
Okay, feel the love, I thought, shifting the ever- heavier shotgun to my left hand. Feel the love, feel the love. Bunnies in shining armor. Love love love.
We walked down High Street past the mall. The store windows were eerie in the flat light. A dead sparrow flopped toward us, chirping hatred. When we turned right on West Town, I beheld a sight I was completely unprepared for.
Smoky lay dead on the sidewalk, and a scorched thing was tearing off his scales, gnawing his flesh. My eyes just wouldn’t focus on it.
What is it? I thought to Pal.
The thing sensed me, shrieking as it pulled its jagged head from the corpse and turned on us.
Suddenly I was sitting in a filthy stone-lined pit, staring down at a bloody hacksaw in my left hand and my own sawed-off leg in my right.
“Don’t make me do the second one,” I heard myself plead to someone standing above.
And then the pain hit me.
I screamed and fell to my knees, shutting my eyes as if that could shut out the agony sawing on every nerve. The shotgun clattered to the pavement.
“It’s a Wutganger,” Pal squeaked, his voice thin and shaky. “It’s an illusion! See past it! Fight it!”
How could I stand and fight when my guts were falling out? I tried to gather them up, but something clamped down on my left forearm.
The lance of pain as the Wutganger bit through my ulnar nerve jerked me out of the illusion to a far worse reality. The Wutganger was the very incarnation of Cooper’s blotted-out nightmares. The face was a leathery patchwork of dead cooked flesh stitched together with twisted wire, the teeth broken shards of glass pounded into pustulant gray gums. Its eyes were live coals, steaming hate and sulfur from the dead sockets.
I screamed as it worried my arm, my bones crunching. I scrabbled at
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