Several things happened at once. The cockroach-man stepped forward with a loud rustling sound and shouted "No!" just as water splashed into Demise's face forcefully enough to knock him over and then another voice, incredibly loud, bellowed, "THIS IS THE GREAT AND
POWERFUL TURTLE! YOU WILL ALL COME OUT PEACEFULLY, WE HAVE THIS PLACE
SURROUNDED AND NO ONE NEEDS TO GET HURT!" And then, impossibly, Jane thought she heard something that sounded like the old theme from the Mighty Mouse cartoons: Here I come to save the daaaaaaaay! This was followed by an ungodly caterwauling that went from extreme bass to an earsplitting high, shaking the entire building. There was a crash as the cage topped to the floor, spilling the boy out. Jane fought to keep her balance and reach the boy in the general chaos of people trying to run in every direction. He turned into another dinosaur barely two feet high, this one very slender and agile-looking, with slim, clawed fingers. She forced herself to grab the fingers as it scuttled over to her.
"We've got to get out of here!" she said breathlessly and more than a little unnecessarily, and looked around. Demise and the Astronomer had vanished. The little dinosaur pulled her across the room and into a shadowy gallery under the archways. Holding hands with a dinosaur, she thought as they fled down the gallery. Only in New York.
She didn't notice Kafka struggling after them.
It was really a hell of a beautiful sight, the Great and Powerful Turtle said later. Aces of every variety rising up out of the trees around the Cloisters, swooping down on the Masons that spilled out of the building onto the brick paths and into the ruined gardens. He had seen just about everything during the battle. One of the things he missed, however, was Jane and the boy-dinosaur creeping along part of a columned arcade surrounding an outdoor area now overgrown with weeds. They saw the Turtle sailing overhead with several colorfully costumed aces clinging to his shell. One of the aces pointed down at something; in the next moment, he was floating gently to earth, lowered by the Turtle's power. Jane heard the little dinosaur hiss alarmingly. When she turned to see what was the matter, he had changed back into a boy, his nudity covered by shadows.
"That's the Turtle!" he whispered to Jane. "If we could just get his attention, he could get you out of here!"
"What about you?"
For answer, he reverted to dinosaur again, this one wellmuscled and almost as ferocious-looking as the tyrannosaur. It looked vaguely familiar to Jane, who couldn't tell a crocodile from an alligator. She tried to remember the name. An Alicesomething-or-other. Alice or perhaps alas, for as mean-looking as it was, it was also no bigger than a German shepherd. It growled and pushed her along with its three-clawed hands, hustling her onto the stone path surrounding the weed-choked garden. There was another one of those grotesque howls; Jane felt it shudder clear through her and the little dinosaurallosaurus, she remembered suddenly, for no reason-roared in response, clawing at its head painfully. She bent, meaning to embrace it or comfort it, when there was a flurry of feathers, a glint of metal, and then an extraordinarily beautiful woman lit on a low marble wall.
"Peregrine!" Jane breathed.
The allosaurus made a small, excited sound, looking the winged woman over with wild eyes.
"Better get out," Peregrine said good-naturedly. "The Howler is going to shout this place down. Can you manage, you and your, uh, pet lizard there?"
"It's a boy. I mean, he's really a little boy, an ace-" The allosaurus bellowed, either in agreement or in protest at being called a little boy.
"Vicious, really vicious." Peregrine smiled at Jane as she launched herself upward, her great wings beating the air.
"Best you get out now. I mean it," she called and soared away, the famed titanium talons up and ready.
Jane and the allosaurus ran around the ruined garden and tore down another arcade. She heard the little dinosaur fall behind, and paused, squinting in the darkness. "What's wrong?"
She could just make out a human silhouette. "Gotta change. Need a fast runner, I'm getting tired. Hypsilophodon's better than an allosaurus for running."
A moment later she felt long claws grab her gently and tug her along. This one was about the size of a large kangaroo. "I don't think we're going the right way to get out of here," she huffed as they came to a dimly lit area and a staircase leading down. The dinosaur melted into boy briefly before he reshaped as a pterodactyl and glided down the stairs. IJane could only gallop after him. At the foot of the stairs, the pterodactyl suddenly swooped around and came back toward her. Reflexively, she ducked, stumbled, and hit the bottom just in time to come face to face with a man even handsomer than Roman. He wore a navy-blue jumpsuit and a tight-fitting skullcap and there were guns seemingly attached directly to his shoulders.
"Hi," he said. "Didn't I see you at the ape-escape?" Jane blinked, shaking her head dazedly. "What-I don't-" And then, as the man's guns swung up to track the pterodactyl circling around them, "No! He's just a little boy, he's a good guy!"
"Oh, all right, then," said the man, smiling at her. "You two better get going." Jane ran past him, the pterodactyl gliding over her head. "Are you sure I didn't see you at the ape-escape?" he called after her.
She wouldn't have had the breath to answer him even if she'd wanted to. The pterodactyl sailed ahead of her as she felt her legs beginning to weaken. Panting, she stumbled along, watching as the gap between herself and the pterodactyl began to widen.
The pterodactyl banked sharply to round a corner in the hall and disappeared. Half a moment later there was a flash of blue light, a screech, and. a thump. Jane thudded to a stop, hanging onto the stone wall. Please, she prayed. Not the little boy. Don't let them hurt the little boy and they can do anything they want with me. She forced herself to move forward, holding the wall for support, and peeked around the corner.
He had changed-back into a boy again when he'd hit the floor, but she could see his bare chest rising and falling as he breathed. The roach-man was standing over him with a nastylooking weapon that looked like a stinger.
"I had to stop him," the roach-man said, looking up at her. "He's not really hurt, though. He'll come out of it in a few minutes. Honest. I need your help." He held out his free hand to Jane. She took a step forward. The face was inhuman but the eyes were not. Just before she would have taken his hand, he snatched it back.
"I meant that just as a gesture. Don't touch me. Rouse him and come with me."
Jane knelt beside the unconscious boy.
Judas stood by the tomb with his hands over his ears, unable to clear his head long enough to decide what he should do. Every time he tried to think, another one of those awful howls would shiver through him. He swore his ears were bleeding.
The chaos was beyond believable. The Astronomer's people had been running in and out of the large room like the bunch of chickenshit losers they all really were. He'd known they were all chickenshits in the beginning, he'd been a cop long enough to recognize the breed. It was enough to make a person want to change sides and start wiping them out himself, and maybe that wasn't such a bad idea, what with aces storming the place; sure, he had his badge, he had his gun, he could claim he'd been undercover, who would bother checking, at least for tonight. Sure.
He looked around and saw Red and Kim Toy making their way toward one of the darkened galleries, searching for a way out. Might as well start with them as anyone else, he thought, and drew his gun.
"Halt! Halt or I'll shoot!"
Kim Toy's head snapped around, her long straight dark hair flying with the movement.
Judas switched his aim from her face to Red's. "I told you not to move!"
Red threw a hand up in front of his head as Judas was about to pull the trigger and then, suddenly, he was in love. Birds were singing, making nests in his brain, and the whole world was beautiful, especially Kim Toy, most exciting and exotic of women. He flung his gun away and staggered toward her, loving her too much to feel hurt when she fled from him with Red.