He looked back to the trees where the workshop had been. But there had never been a workshop, and there had never been any slaughtermen. He felt at least half satisfied with what they had achieved. Even if they had not yet succeeded in putting an end to Brother Albrecht and his hideous traveling carnival, they had at least thwarted his attempt to create even more freaks.
Michael was hugging the golden Labrador puppy in his arms. Dom Magator walked across to him and said, ‘We have to go now, Michael. But we’ll be back, young feller, I promise you, and we’ll get you out of this nightmare, and find you a really happy dream where they give you Cheerios and your mom can come visit you. At least you have your puppy back.’
‘Thank you,’ said Michael. His mouth was turned down and he was trying very hard not to cry. ‘You won’t forget about me, will you?’
Jemexxa hunkered down beside him and stroked the puppy’s head. ‘We won’t forget you, Michael. Ever. When me and my twin brother go on to the stage next time, we’ll sing Michael, Row The Boat Ashore, and we’ll dedicate it especially to you.’
‘Does your puppy have a name?’ asked Xyrena.
Michael nodded. ‘He’s called Froggy.’
‘Froggy? That’s a pretty unusual name for a puppy. Most kids would have called their puppies, like, Doggy.’
Michael rested his cheek against the top of the puppy’s head. ‘That’s what my mom used to call me when I was a baby. She said I looked like a little froggy.’
Dom Magator saw that one of the needles on his seismic sensor had started to tremble. That meant that George Roussos was now rising through the last phases of REM sleep toward consciousness, and that he would soon be awake.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now we really do have to get the hell out of Dodge.’
SEVENTEEN
Flesh Forward
They ran in silence, like six shadows flickering between the tree trunks, their feet making barely any noise at all. They startled a few deer, and as they reached the edge of the trees, half a dozen gray grouse burst out of the undergrowth in alarm, like feathered bombs. But they kept on running. They had to circle around the right-hand side of the hilltop to stay out of sight of the clowns from Brother Albrecht’s circus until the very last moment.
As soon as they were clear of the trees, An-Gryferai started to run even faster, and flap her wings. She lifted off into the drizzle, and rose higher and higher as if she were climbing up one invisible flight of stairs after another. Soon she was almost a hundred feet over their heads, and a hundred yards ahead of them.
Although it was still raining it was gradually beginning to grow lighter, and the mist was shining like a breathed-over mirror. An-Gryferai switched on her green fog-lenses, and, as she beat her wings and rose up to more than two hundred feet, she could see the rabble of clowns and freaks pouring over the hilltop and hurrying down the long grassy slope. The leading clowns were already less than a quarter of a mile away from the Night Warriors’ shimmering octagonal portal — the portal that was their only way back into George Roussos’ bedroom, and the world of reality.
‘Dom Magator—’ she panted. ‘They’ve almost reached the portal already. There’s no way we have any chance of reaching it before they do.’
‘In that case, sweetheart, we’ll have to meet them head on. I still have plenty of fancy ordnance left. But if we’re forced to use the Absence Gun — well, that’s just too bad. I’m worried that I might hit the portal, that’s all. If the portal doesn’t exist any more — we’re Gregged, believe me.’
‘In that case, let’s hustle,’ said Zebenjo’Yxx. ‘It’s not goin’ to do us no good standin’ around discussin’ nothin’, and that’s for sure.’
They ran even faster, with An-Gryferai sweeping and swooping overhead. Inside his helmet, Dom Magator could hear them all panting in chorus. He thought at first that they might have a chance of reaching the portal first. But as they came around the hilltop, however, and ran down the slope together, they saw that the clowns were already waiting for them — hundreds of them. They were standing in a long line, their pointed hats drooping, their make-up streaked by the rain. They weren’t moving. Most of them had their arms folded, and they were simply staring at the Night Warriors with a combination of real and painted hostility.
The white-faced harlequin with the blackberry lips was standing right in front of the portal. It appeared that he was the leader, since all of the other clowns were standing well back. He was holding a curved scimitar which he kept circling around and around, so that it flashed in the mist like a steel propeller. Directly behind him, framing him, was the crackling blue electric portal, and by the expression on his face it looked as if he was challenging the Night Warriors to try to reach it.
Dom Magator stepped up to face him. ‘How about letting us pass, pal?’ he shouted out. ‘We didn’t come here to hurt none of you, believe me.’
‘Oh!’ replied the white-faced harlequin, in a croaky, drawn-out voice. ‘What about the fire breather? I think you hurt him somewhat. And what about Doctor Friendly? Looked like a pincushion by the time you’d finished with that unfortunate fellow, didn’t he?’
‘He deserved it. Trying to sew snakes on to that poor girl’s arms. How sick is that?’
‘Depends on your definition of sick, my friend. Life is sick, from beginning to end. Think how we’re born! Our faces squeezed out of our mothers’ nether regions like rabbits out of a tight pink hat! Only to grow, and suffer, and then to decline, and our teeth to drop out, and finally our hearts to seize up, and our bodies to become a tumbling mass of maggots! Don’t you call that sick?’
‘Listen, bro — are you goin’ to let us through or what?’ Zebenjo’Yyx challenged him, raising his right arm and clicking the elaborate wooden levers that prepared his arrows for firing.
The white-faced harlequin shook his head from side to side and made a tick-tocking sound with his tongue as he did so. ‘The Grand Freak wants you to stay here. The Grand Freak wants you to join his circus. Think of what wonderful attractions you would be! The fat man and the bird woman and the black archer and the glittering twins, not to mention the naked woman who isn’t naked at all!’
Out of the side of his mouth, Jekkalon said to Jemexxa, ‘How much lightning do you have left? We could cremate this idiot in two seconds flat!’
But inside their helmets Dom Magator quickly said, ‘No, Jekkalon! This close to the portal, one of your lightning strikes could short it out. Then we could never get back.’
High above their heads, An-Gryferai was circling and circling through the clouds, sometimes appearing, sometimes disappearing. ‘Hey, D.M. — how about I dive down and grab him?’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t survive a drop of two hundred feet, would he? And then we’d be clear to go.’
But Dom Magator looked at the crowds of clowns assembled on the other side of the portal. If An-Gryferai swooped down and hoisted this white-faced harlequin up into the air, and let him drop, the rest of the clowns would fall on them like a human tsunami, and six Night Warriors wouldn’t stand a chance. For all of their arrow storms and wave-function rifles and intuitive throwing-knives, they would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Brother Albrecht could dream up as many clowns as he wanted to, and they would never be able to kill them all.
‘I’ll make you a deal, OK?’ Dom Magator suggested to the white-faced harlequin. ‘You let us go through that portal, and out of your way, and I won’t use my Absence Gun on you.’