Magic Street (25 page)

Through me, Mack thought but didn't say.

"I feel it more than anybody," said Mack. "Being found by that pipe the way I was. It's inside me. That's why I see your wish dreams. But I got no power of my own. I'm nothing compared to him.

We got to stop him, and I don't know how. Yolanda, she's not a witch. She's good. But she's got a little bit of power. That's all. She used to have more. She used to have so much, she was the one who imprisoned him. Get it? She's his most terrible enemy, so that's why he sent out his power and tried to get you to kill her tonight."

"Through that pipe," said a man.

"He going to give me that Lexus?" asked Lamar, half mocking.

"How about this," said Mack. "How about if you suddenly wake up in that Lexus, going seventy miles an hour and heading right through a guardrail and over the cliff above the Santa Monica pier?"

"Yeah, right," said Lamar.

"Or you wake up in that Lexus and the whole LAPD on your ass going down the freeway like O. J. and you all covered with blood only you don't know whose blood it is. Maybe the owner of that Lexus. Maybe that's how your wish gets fulfilled. Everybody see you in that Lexus, man! On TV!

Only there's a dead Lexus owner back in his garage and your prints all over the golf club that beat his brains in. How about that for getting your wish?"

"Never happen," said Lamar.

"Ophelia McCallister woke up tonight inside her dead husband's coffin," said Mack. "That couldn't happen either."

"I think we ought to talk to these people," said Osie Fleming. "Find out what's true before we believe this bullshit."

They heard the sound of a motorcycle.

They turned and saw a single headlight coming up the hill. Two people on the bike. Had to be Yolanda in front. And behind her, when she got close enough, when she turned into the driveway of her house, was Sherita Banks. Couldn't be anybody else, those hips.

Sherita looked up at all these people watching her from fifty yards away and buried her face in Yo Yo's back. Yo Yo turned and saw them, too. They watched her put down the kickstand and worm her way off the bike without Sherita getting off first. And when she helped Sherita off, they could see that the girl was wearing a blanket wrapped around her like a skirt.

"What's happening, Mack." Yo Yo called out to him.

Mack didn't answer. He got ahead of the pack and turned and faced them. "Not one step closer," he said. Over his shoulder, he called out to Yo Yo. "Some of these folks got to thinking you a witch tonight. Came to pay a visit. Maybe have them a lynching."

"Nobody going to lynch nobody," said Lamar.

"Me? A witch?" said Yo Yo. And she laughed.

It was a glorious laugh, warm and resonant. It seemed to reverberate from the hills on either side. It seemed to make the stars twinkle clearer overhead.

More people were walking up the hill and down the hill to converge at her house.

"Sherita!" called out Ebby. "What happened?"

Sherita burst into tears and hid behind Yo Yo.

"She nearly got raped, that's what," said Yo Yo. "She was asleep in her own bed having this dream, and she woke up at a friend's house and there was her gangbanger brother getting all set to start a train on her. Yeah, that's what! And you know why it didn't happen? Cause Mack saw her dream and told Ceese and he called his buddies on the force and they got there in time. Isn't that right, Sherita?"

They could see that Sherita was nodding.

"What you people want here?" demanded Yo Yo. "Leave this girl alone. I just brought her here to clean up and borrow some clothes before she went home. She didn't want her daddy and mama to see her with nothing on."

Lamar turned to Mack. "All that proves is the two of you got your stories together."

"Give it a rest, Lamar," said Osie Fleming. "The girl isn't denying it. And Mack's right. It's crazy to be going after a witch like this. What were we thinking?"

"He believes in magic, dammit," said Lamar. "It's not like he's saying there's no such thing as a witch!"

"And I'm saying we're crazy to treat this like an emergency," said Osie. "What were we thinking?

Plenty of time to talk about this tomorrow. Find out how much of what Mack Street here told us is the truth. We can talk to Ceese. We can talk to the Chums. We can talk to Byron. Let's go home and go to bed. Witch hunt in the middle of the night. We must be crazy."

Yo Yo called out from the driveway. "Any of you need a ride up the hill, I'll be back outside in a minute!"

Shut up, Yo Yo, Mack thought but did not say. You're not making any friends teasing them like that.

"I heard that, Mack Street," she said to him as he approached.

"You did not."

"Did so."

"What did I say?"

"You said, 'I'm your hero now, Miz Yolanda, cause I kept them from breaking up your house.' "

"I didn't know you wasn't inside," said Mack.

"So you were saving my life."

"Take that girl inside, Yo Yo."

But Sherita didn't go. She turned to face Mack. Now that the crowd was dispersed, she didn't feel so ashamed. "Officer that saved me said it was Ceese Tucker told him to come save me. And Ceese told me it was you saw what I was getting into," she said.

"I know you didn't choose to do it," said Mack.

"Thank you, Mack," she said. "And for what it's worth, I never thought you was crazy."

Behind her, Yo Yo waggled her eyebrows. But Mack didn't laugh. "Thank you, Sherita. Now you go on inside with Yolanda."

It was near three A.M. before Yo Yo got Sherita back to her folks and extricated herself from tears and hugs and thanks. And not long after that, Mack joined her, along with Ceese and Grand Harrison down Cloverdale, between the Snipe and Chandress houses.

"What's he doing here?" asked Ceese. Yolanda was just as suspicious.

Mack smiled. "He was my ride?"

"You walk everywhere, Mack," said Ceese.

"He helped me dig out Miz Ophelia," said Mack. "He knows what he saw. He knows you got powers, but he believes you're not a witch. There's no reason to leave him out now. And we need all the friends we can get."

"If I can," said Mack. "I'll hold on to him and Ceese and get them inside."

"And what about me?" asked Yo Yo.

"You don't need my help."

"You ever seen me inside there?" she asked.

"No."

"Then how do you know I don't need your help?"

"Puck—Mr. Christmas—he gets in and out just fine."

"That's cause it suits my husband's purposes to let him. But me? I don't think so."

"If he's watching everything you do," said Ceese, "then how can you expect to fight him and win?"

"He's not watching," said Yo Yo. "He just made this place so it locks down hard if I come up."

"So what makes you think Mack can get you in?"

"Cause he's such a lucky boy," said Yo Yo.

"That's why I'm so rich," said Mack. "Come on, let's see if we can all go at once, holding on to each other. If we can't, I'll take you one at a time."

COUNCIL OF WAR Puck was waiting for them inside the house. The living room was furnished exactly like Yo Yo's living room. In fact, it was her furniture, right down to having Sherita's blanket tossed on the couch.

"Puck," said Yo Yo, "just keep your hands off my stuff."

"I never know what's going to show up here," said Puck. "The boy comes in bringing you—so your stuff appears. Bingo! Presto! Abracadabra!"

"Bite me," said Yo Yo.

"You always offer, but you're all talk."

"I know what he does to his servants who, uh, bite you."

"We got a situation," said Ceese, "and we got to figure out what to do."

"You?" said Puck. "You don't have a situation, my lady and I have a situation."

"This shit tonight didn't happen to you, it happened to people in our neighborhood, and we're going to do something about it," said Ceese.

"Ceese, he knows that," said Mack.

Puck grinned cheesily.

"Asshole," muttered Ceese.

"Bad language exacerbates the situation," said Puck. "I know they taught you that in cop nursery.

Always stay calm."

"What in the world is going on with you people?" said Grand Harrison. "Tonight I was just minding my own business, and then I get my tools and my SUV borrowed, I dig up a grave, open a coffin, and take my next-door neighbor out. Then I get brought down here into a house that doesn't exist and listen to a bunch of fools argue about nothing. You know what I want? I want to know how you all going to keep this stuff from happening again."

"What stuff?" asked Puck.

"Wishes," said Mack.

"Mack's dreams," said Ceese.

"He's cut loose a big one tonight, Pudding," said Yo Yo.

"That means he's got himself a pony to ride," said Puck—again talking as if Yo Yo were the only person in the room.

"Yes," said Yo Yo.

"A pony?" asked Ceese.

"Some human he can work through. Kind of like the way my lady and I using these two bodies."

Grand didn't like hearing that. "You telling me that you—that these bodies are possessed?"

"Leased," said Puck. "With option."

"This old coot," said Puck, "be eating out of dumpsters and licking sweet roll wrappers and walking around talking to his dead dog named God, cause he figured as long as he knew it wasn't really God, just a dog with God's name, he wasn't actually schizo."

"We don't take bodies somebody actually using," said Yo Yo. "And that's the truth, Mr.

Harrison."

"What did you mean," said Mack, "when you said 'leased with option'?"

"Didn't mean a thing," said Puck.

"You always mean something. Usually about six things."

"He means," said Yo Yo, "that if something happens to these bodies while we using them, then our option's up."

"You die?" asked Mack.

"Not the part of us in those glass jugs," said Yo Yo. "Just the part of us that can move around on its own. Be like living in a wheelchair after that."

"Worse," said Puck. "Be like living as a human."

"So you're not completely immortal," said Mack. "Just partly immortal."

"And that's why Puck couldn't tell you the truth," said Yo Yo. "He's under strict orders. He can never tell a mortal the truth unless he's sure he won't be believed."

"That's not true," said Puck. He grinned.

"Shut up, Puckster," said Yo Yo.

"We got a situation," said Ceese, "and you got a situation. Not the same situation, but they got the same cause. Your husband, your master, the king of the fairies, whatever he is, he's got himself a pony, right? And doing that made all those wishes come true tonight. So to solve your problem, and our problem, what can we do?"

"Nothing," said Puck. "We are absolutely helpless. Go home. Cry into your pillows until your dreams come true."

"He's so funny," said Mack to Grand. "Always joking. You know how Puck is."

"Mack," said Yo Yo. "The thing is, it's a fight you can't fight. You already did all you could. For years you did it, deflecting his power so they never finished their dreams. That was good work, but now it's done. He's got his power out in the world."

"Oberon's pony isn't doing this stuff," said Yo Yo. "In your neighborhood, I mean."

"Who is, then?"

"Puck," said Yo Yo.

Puck elaborately curled himself into a fetal position as if he feared being struck by stones.

"This isn't funny, Puck," said Mack. "You did this?"

"It's in my nature," said Puck.

"That's true enough," said Yo Yo. "He can't help being a trickster. But also he has Oberon's direct command to find these twists. The thing is, Puck can't tell you because it would be the truth, but he's also deflecting them. He can't stop it from happening, but... well, for instance, Ophelia and her husband could have been entwined in a love embrace under the HOLLYWOOD sign. Or halfway to Catalina. And Sherita—it didn't have to be a boy her family knew about, it could have been some rich boy in Beverly Hills or Palos Verdes, and how would you have found her then?"

"So he was helping," said Mack skeptically.

"As best he could," said Yo Yo.

Puck ducked his head in a show of modesty.

"He does what he can," said Yo Yo. "Here's the thing. What he can do, what I can do, it isn't much. The part of us he locked up, it includes most of our powers except persuasion and... pony riding. And the way it works is, we can't get that part out. Because this part of us, the wandering part, the curious part, is walking around free. It makes it so we aren't hungry enough to force anything.

"But him," she went on, "we pushed him all the way under. Didn't divide him. So to do anything he has to squeeze it out of his captivity. Get some part of him to the surface of the earth. But that part is never completely separated from him. He's not divided like we are." She sighed. "Took him a long time, but the force of his wandering part was so great that it worked its way through a channel to the surface of the earth."

"And that's the pony you were talking about," said Mack.

"No, Mack," said Yo Yo. "That was you. Seventeen years ago. You the first thing he squeezed out. We could feel him breaking through like a mother hen watching her chicks jiggle their eggs and then peck a hole. But we couldn't stop him. Puck here couldn't even try—he's bound to Oberon by vows he can't break. All I could do was try to persuade Ceese here to kill you, and he was too strong for me. His love for you too strong."

"Now I just don't understand that saying," said Puck. "A piece of needlework? Or, like, when we call a woman a 'piece,' only she does it for money so she's, you know, working when—"

"Shut up, Puck," said Yo Yo.

"What you're saying," said Mack, "is you want me to break you out of your little glass jars."

"Eventually," said Yo Yo. "But not you. You couldn't do it."

"I couldn't?" asked Mack.

"Impossible," said Puck.

"He lying, right?" Mack asked Yo Yo.

"Do you believe him?"

"No," said Mack.

"Then it doesn't matter if it's true or not, does it?" asked Yo Yo. "Look, Mack, I've tried to tell you several times. You are the part of him that he squeezed out first. You are Oberon."

"Bull," said Mack.

"That's why you can find where this house is hidden," said Ceese. "And why you don't change sizes going into Fairyland."

"I'm me," said Mack. "I don't have any memory of being Oberon. I got no powers."

"Excuse me," said Yo Yo. "You think seeing dreams ain't a power?"

"It's not a power if I can't control it," said Mack.

"But you did control it," said Ceese. "For a long time."

"You wander freely through Fairyland and nothing hurts you," said Yo Yo. "Puck goes twenty feet in and birds pick him up and damn near feed him to their babies."

"Because I'm Oberon."

"You're part of him," said Yo Yo.

"So I'm his spy?"

"No," said Yo Yo. "He probably can't use you for that. Like I said, you're not his pony—he'll see through the eyes and speak through the mouth and hear through the ears of whoever he's inside.

But you—he's about as conscious of you as a mortal normally is of his heartbeat."

"That's right. Under stress, you're more aware. Same with him. Sometimes he notices you but only when you're in trouble."

"I'm in trouble right now," said Mack. "Cause the only fairies I know keep telling me I'm their enemy."

"You're not our—" Yo Yo began.

"We're your enemy," said Puck, "but you're not ours."

"You're not our enemy," Yo Yo said forcefully, shutting Puck up.

"And if he feels like it, he can make me betray you."

"Hasn't yet, though, has he?" asked Yo Yo.

"I'm not some discarded piece of the king of the fairies," said Mack heatedly. "I'm not some appendix or tonsil, I'm me. I was raised by Miz Smitcher and Ceese here. I was trained up on the Bible and I try to be a decent man. I work at whatever I'm supposed to work on. I even work to oppose Oberon, and he doesn't stop me. He's not me, I'm not him."

"You're not the part of him that chooses," said Yo Yo, gently touching his arm to calm him. "See, Mack, here's what happened. He needed a changeling here to store up the power of all these people's wishes. So he sent you. It doesn't matter to him whether the wishes come true or not, except that if they do, he has Puck here assigned to make sure something ugly happens for Oberon's entertainment. That he likes—so when Puck comes back, if he does, Oberon will want a full report."

"So what am I, then? His gas tank?"

"No," said Yo Yo. "No, you're his conscience. That's the part he had to get rid of. That's the part that was stopping him from doing something truly hideous to us and to all the mortals. By taking every good thing out of his own heart, all his decency and honor and hope and joy and love, and putting them in you and shoving you out into the world, he left only pure ambition and pride and vengefulness and power-lust and violence there in his own heart."

"He decided to be evil," said Mack. "And I'm supposed to be all the good he threw away?"

"He would say, all the weakness and softness."

"I'm not weak," said Mack.

"That's his mistake," said Yo Yo. "That's our secret weapon. He thinks you're weak because he always managed to hide his kind heart under a mask of jokery and rages and malice. But it was there, and it kept him from utterly destroying people. Once you were... born, Mack, then there was no restraint on his will to evil. It could grow and grow. Bit by bit. Without you in his heart, he turned himself into the devil."

"Meaning that he is the real devil? Cause Puck lies?"

"He lies," said Yo Yo, "but it doesn't mean that whatever he says is the opposite of the truth, either. That would be just as sure a guide as telling you the truth in the first place."

"Yo Yo," said Mack. "The stuff you're telling me. What difference does it make? I think I'm a free man, you think I'm secretly Oberon. So what?"

"So you can do things that we need. We can use you," said Yo Yo, "to set up the old dragon and—"

"Kill him?" Mack whispered.

"No, but castration and stomach stapling seem appropriate," said Puck.

"Is he fat?" asked Ceese.

"No, I just want him to throw up every time he eats more than three little bites of a meal."

"We got to get out of the jugs," said Yo Yo. "And not just set free. Protected till our... souls are given back."

"Why should we free his soul?" asked Mack, thumbing at Puck.

Puck let out a long, loud fart. Fortunately odorless. In fact, knowing Puck, it probably wasn't a real fart.

"Don't, if you don't want to," said Yo Yo. "Just remember that without me, Puck would belong completely to Oberon. No more attempts to make it possible for you to avoid letting people hurt themselves."

"My head is spinning," said Grand. "I want to go home and go to bed."

"I didn't invite you," Puck said cheerfully. "Feel free to leave any time."

"What exactly is the plan?" asked Mack. "And what can we do to help?"

"Nothing," said Yo Yo. "It's too powerful for you. Thanks for all you did so far, but except for one tiny thing, we don't need you at all and don't intend to put you at risk."

"What's that one tiny thing?" asked Mack.

"Get us out of those jars."

"How?" asked Mack.

counterword. So we do need you to get that. You or somebody."

"Where do I learn this 'counterword'?" asked Mack.

"Oh, you already know it," said Yo Yo. "You just don't know that you know it. In fact, you think you don't know it. But you know it."

"So you do need me."

"Just a little bit. Then we're on our own."

"Okay," said Mack. "I'll help you find that password—"

"Counterword," said Puck with all the smugness of Alex Trebek.

"But you got to help us, too."

"We are helping you," said Yo Yo. "Once we get out of those jars and put back together properly, then we can go find Oberon's pony and shut him down. Put him out of business. Stuff the genie back into the bottle. So to speak."

"Won't he know you're out?"

"Well," said Yo Yo, "probably."

"So won't he come down on you the second you're free?"

"That's the other little thing we need."

"The counterword and something else."

"We need a distraction. We need—"

Grand Harrison interrupted her. "What you need is a fairy circle."

Yolanda looked at him like he was insane. "Do you know how many fairies it takes to make a decent circle?"

"But it's what you need, isn't it?" said Grand.

"We got no fairies to work with," said Puck. "Oberon keeps a tight rein on them. He only lets the ones he absolutely trusts to come out to... um... play. So we can't raise a circle."

"He lying?" Mack asked Yo Yo.

"Do you believe him?" asked Yo Yo in reply.

"Can't get a straight answer into a crooked mind," said Puck.

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Mack.

"I mean the only time you believe me is when I lie."

Grand Harrison spoke up again. "If he can suck our wishes out of us, why can't you use us mortals in your fairy circle?"