The bullet hit square on the black knob in the lizard’s forehead. It didn’t even have time to shriek before it fell over and died.
The world speeded up back to normal, and I felt the not-noticing spells pull back and wrap tight around the pendant once more.
“Got it,” I said, but I pumped the lever to reload, just in case.
This time, nobody lowered their rifles until Professor Torgeson had cast every detection spell she could think of, and at least one that she made up right there on the spot, to make sure there were no more medusa lizards around. Wash stood beside her with his eyes narrowed, and I knew he was pushing his Aphrikan world sense as hard as it would go, checking for the same thing. They both nodded at about the same time, and everyone relaxed at last.
Wash came over to Lan and me. He was frowning and his eyes were still narrowed. “Which of you was playing games with this thing?”
“I — what — how did you —” Lan finally just stopped and stared.
I sighed. “He knows the same way I knew. Aphrikan world-sensing. You should have stopped when I told you to.”
“We needed better bait,” Lan said unrepentantly. “And it worked, didn’t it?”
“After a fashion,” Wash said. “You’ll be the one that overloaded the first one, too, I expect. We’ll talk later, Mr. Rothmer.”
“I — yes, sir.”
Wash gave him a small smile and added, “It was a dreadful chance to take, and I wouldn’t recommend doing anything like it ever again. But I do believe we’d have had a lot more trouble with that first one if you hadn’t done as you did.”
“Thank you,” Lan said.
“Mr. Rothmer, if you have any abilities left after your attempted heroics, I could use your help with a preservation spell,” Professor Torgeson called. “We have to get this back to the college for study.”
“It’s fifteen feet long!” Lan objected, but he headed toward her.
Wash cocked an eyebrow at me. I was pretty sure what he wanted to ask. I put one hand to my chest, over the spot where the pendant lay hidden against my skin. “It was what I needed to know,” I said.
“Ah,” was all he said, but he looked pleased.
With only four horses left and the medusa lizard to haul back, we had to walk back to Big Bear Lake. None of the horses would have the medusa lizard anywhere near them, preservation spell or not. We finally had to rig up a sort of sled for one of them to drag along behind, and tie the dead medusa lizard to that. Between that and walking, it was well past dark when we finally got to the settlement.
The settlers wanted to make much of us for killing the medusa lizards, but Wash wasn’t having it. He went into plenty of detail about the fight, and made an especial point of how fortunate we’d been that the first critter reared back and gave us a shot at his underbelly, and that the second one had gone down to a lucky shot. He didn’t mention Lan lighting himself up like a beacon for bait, or me using Aphrikan world-sensing to help aim, for which I was grateful. He also suggested that the settlers use an express rifle, or at least something a bit more heavy-duty than our repeaters, if they had occasion to hunt medusa lizards in the future.
“In the future?” one of the settlers said. “You mean there are more of those things out there?”
Professor Torgeson snorted. “You think there were only two of them in the whole wide world? Of course there are more!”
“Though hopefully the rest of them are still out in the Far West, where these two came from,” Wash put in.
We stayed on at Big Bear Lake for nearly a week, because Wash wanted to head out with Pierre to see for sure and certain that there weren’t any more medusa lizards around. They found a few petrified animals, but only ever tracks from the pair we’d shot, which went a fair way to reassuring the settlers. By the time we left, Olaf Anderson was on his way to mending, though he and his wife hadn’t gotten so far as to decide whether they’d stay on in the settlement.
On our way back to Mill City, Wash and Lan had a couple of long conversations. I didn’t ask what they said, and Lan didn’t tell me, but I could see that Lan was feeling a lot better.
I spent a lot of time on the ride talking with Professor Torgeson. She was particularly interested in the way I’d felt the first lizard’s magic leeching, and in the way I’d twitched it aside. She and Wash had been so busy concentrating on killing the lizard that they hadn’t had time to pay attention to its magic, and that was going to be important if they were going to figure out a way to add it to the settlement spells.
As soon as we got back, Professor Torgeson disappeared into her lab, along with Professor Jeffries and the carcass of the medusa lizard. That left Wash and Lan and me to explain things to the Settlement Office and everyone else. The newspapers got hold of it, and it was a right circus. A week later, the professors put out a short, dry, extra-scientific summary of what they’d found out so far from examining the dead medusa lizard, and that set the whole thing off again. It would have been even worse if the professors had told them everything.
“The trouble is, the thing was gravid,” Professor Torgeson told Lan and Papa and me. She’d asked us and Professor Jeffries to dinner in order to talk about their findings — Papa, because he would be working on the changes to the settlement spells with them, and Lan and me because we’d been there and they thought we ought to know. They’d have asked Wash, too, but he was back out riding circuit already.
“It’s a good thing we got it when we did, then,” Lan said soberly.
Professor Jeffries nodded. “It was carrying nearly fifty eggs, ready to lay … and the preservation spell worked well enough and fast enough that I believe we could hatch at least some of them, under the right conditions.”
“Why would you want to?” I asked.
“It’s a totally new species,” Professor Jeffries said with a little frown. “Think of how much we could learn from live specimens!”
“Think of the trouble it would cause if someone irresponsible got hold of one of those eggs and hatched out a creature that can absorb more magic than the mirror bugs,” Papa said. “And do it faster than the bugs, and on this side of the Great Barrier Spell. Not to mention turning people and animals to stone.”
“Exactly,” Professor Torgeson said. “That’s why we’re keeping it a secret, for the time being.” She gave Lan and me a pointed look, and we nodded.
Professor Jeffries looked thoughtful. “Yes, but we’ve been intending to open a study crt west of the Mammoth River for some time. Getting live specimens through the Barrier Spell to this side is always a problem, and they generally don’t do as well here. This would be the perfect opportunity.”
“Perhaps,” Papa said. He looked at Professor Torgeson. “How much have you been able to determine from the carcass?”
“Not nearly as much as I’d like,” the professor replied. “It’s clearly not native to the area where we found it.”
“Thank goodness,” Papa murmured.
Professor Torgeson nodded and went on, “Its flesh has a magical affinity for certain kinds of rock, most of which aren’t present on the Western Plains. I’ve a request in for a geologist to assist in making more specific determinations. It appears to absorb magic via a special organ near the brain. Even dead, it is difficult to detect with magic — it resists what it cannot absorb.”
“You were extremely lucky,” Papa said to Lan and me. He looked back at Professor Torgeson, frowning. “How on earth are we to incorporate something like this in the settlement protection spells?”