"You trying to mess with me?" he asked in disbelief. "With me?Take a look at this."
His eyes weren't cold and emotionless now.Anger was streaming from him like the strong, hot.scent of an animal. And then...
He changed.
It was like nothing Maggie had ever seen. She was staring at his face, trying to look defiant, whenthe features seemed to ripple. The coarse dark hair on his head moved, waves of it spreading downhis face like fungus growing across a log. Maggie'sstomach lurched in horror and she was afraid shewas going to be sick, but she couldn't stop looking.
His eyes got smaller, the brown irises flowing outto cover the white. His nose and mouth thrust forward and his chin collapsed. Two rounded ears uncurled like awful flowers on top of his head. Andwhen Maggie was able to drag her eyes from hisface, she saw that his body had re-formed into ashapeless, hulking lump. His broad shoulders weregone, his waist was gone, his long legs bulging with muscle were squat little appendages close to the ground.
He was still holding Maggie tightly, but not withhands. With coarse paws that had claws on the ends and that were unbelievably strong. He wasn't a person at all anymore, but something huge andvaguely person-shaped. He was a black bear, andhis shiny little pig-eyes stared into hers with animal enjoyment. He had a musky feral smell that got into Maggie's throat and made her gag.
I just saw a shapeshifter shift shape, Maggiethought with an astonishment that seemed dim andfaraway. She was sorry she'd doubted Jeanne.
And sorry she'd blown it for Cady-and Miles. Sylvia had been right. She was just an ordinary girl, only maybe extraordinarily stupid.
Down on the lower boulders, Gavin was laughingmaliciously, watching as if this were a footballgame.
The bear opened his mouth, showing ivory-whiteteeth, darker at the roots, and lots of saliva. Maggiesaw a string of it glisten on the hair of his jowl.She felt the paws flex on her arms, scooping hercloser, and then Lightning hit.
That was what it looked like. A flash that blindedher,as bright as the sun, but blue. It crackled infront of her eyes, seeming to fork again and again,splitting and rejoining the main body of its energy. It seemed alive.
It was electrocuting the bear.
The animal had gone completely rigid, his headthrown back, his mouth open farther than Maggiewould have believed possible. The energy hadstruck him just below what would have been theneck on a man.
Dimly, Maggie was aware of Gavin making a thinsound of terror. His mouth was open as wide as Bern's, his eyes were fixed on the lightning.
But it wasn't lightning. It didn't strike and stop. It kept on crackling into Bern, its form changingevery second. Little electrical flickers darted through his bristling fur, crackling down his chestand belly and up around his muzzle. Maggie almostthought she could see blue flames in the cavern of his mouth.
Gavin gave a keening, inhuman scream and scrambled backward off the rocks, running.
Maggie didn't watch to see where he went. Hermind was suddenly consumed with one thought.
She had to make Bern let go of her.
She had no idea what was happening to him, butshe did know that he was being killed. And thatwhen he was dead he was going to topple off the mountain and take her with him.
She could smell burning now, the stink of smok ing flesh and fur, and she could actually see whitewisps rising from his coat. He was being cooked from the inside out.
I have to do something fast.
She squirmed and kicked, trying to get out of thegrip of the paws that seemed to clutch her reflexively. She pushed and shoved at him, trying to get him to loosen his hold just an inch. It didn't work.
She felt as if she were being smothered by a bearskin rug, a horrible-smelling pelt that was catchingon fire. Why the lightning wasn't killing her, too,she didn't know. All she knew was that she wasbeing crushed by his size and his weight and thatshe was going to die.
And then she gave a violent heave and kicked ashard as she could at the animal's lower belly. Shefelt the shock of solid flesh as her shin connected. And, unbelievably, she felt him recoil, stumblingback, his huge forelegs releasing her.
Maggie fell to the rock, instinctively spreadeagling and grabbing for holds to keep from slidingdown the mountain. Above her, the bear stood andquivered for another second, with that impossibly bright blue energy piercing him like a lance. Then,just as quickly as it had come, the lightning wasgone. The bear swayed for a moment, then fell likea marionette with cut strings.
He toppled backwards off the cliff into thin air.Maggie caught a brief glimpse of him hitting rockand bouncing and falling again, and then sheturned her face away.
Her closed lids were imprinted with a blazingconfusion of yellow and black afterimages. Herbreath was coming so fast that she felt dizzy. Herarms and legs were weak.
What the hell was that?
The lightning had saved her life. But it was stillthe scariest thing she'd ever seen.
Some kind of magic. Pure magic. If I were doinga movie and I needed a special effect for magic, that's what I'd use.
She slowly lifted her head.
It had come from the direction of the ledge.When she looked that way, she saw the boy.
He was standing easily, doing something with hisleft arm-tying a handkerchief aroundaspot ofblood at the wrist, it looked like. His face wasturned partially away from her.
He's not much older than me, Maggie thought,startled. Or-is he? There was something abouthim, an assurance in the way he stood, a grim competence in his movements. It made him seem likean adult.
And he was dressed like somebody at a Renaissance Faire. Maggie had been to one in Oregon two summers ago, where everyone wore costumes fromthe Middle Ages and ate whole roast turkey legsand played jousting games. This boy was wearingboots and a plain dark cape and he could havewalked right in and started sword fighting.