Peter and the Shadow Thieves (49 page)

“Wish me luck,” he said, his voice a bit muffled by the helmet.

“Good luck,” said Magil .

With that, Aster turned and began carrying the trunk toward the heart of Stonehenge.

The wolf slowly circled the outer edge of the ditch, ears erect, eyes searching, nose sifting the thousands of scents drifting in the night air. As the wolf reached the southwest side of the ditch it stopped. Just ahead, in the moonlight, a dark thing rose from the ditch. The wolf sniffed. The thing had the silhouette of a man, but it did not smel like a man. It did not smel alive.

The thing oozed out of the ditch and toward the wolf. The wolf growled and bared its teeth. It was not so much afraid as puzzled; it could not understand why the thing was not warned off by the growl, the bared teeth.

The thing came straight at the wolf. The wolf lunged, jaws wide. It snapped at the thing. The jaws caught nothing, except a sensation of cold, as though they had tried to bite a winter fog. The wolf stumbled awkwardly, confused, having anticipated resistance, but finding none. It regained its footing and turned to snap its jaws again.

Too late.

Mol y knew the feeling wel .

“It’s wearing off, Peter,” she cal ed.

They had passed over Amesbury and were flying along the road to Stonehenge, now clearly visible ahead. They were stil about two hundred feet in the air, but Mol y could feel the ground pul ing on her, gently but relentlessly. The same was happening to George, but he was happily oblivious, swooping this way and that with a smile the width of his face, occasional y declaring to nobody in particular, “Bril iant!”

“Can you reach Stonehenge?” said Peter.

“I don’t know,” said Mol y, looking ahead. “It’s going to be close.”

“It would be a good thing if you could,” said Peter, pointing at the road.

Mol y looked down and saw three…now four wolves loping directly beneath them, looking up.

They look hungry,
said Tink.

“What did she say?” Mol y asked.

“She said we’re almost there,” said Peter.

Ombra stuffed the scout wolf’s shadow into the burlap sack. The shadowless wolf sat looking up at him, motionless.

Ombra spoke to it, not in a human tongue, but in guttural sounds.

You saw nothing,
he said.
Go.

The wolf trotted off, continuing its circuit of the stones, taking no notice as it passed the group of humans crouching in the ancient ditch. A few moments later the wolf was out of sight. Nerezza and Slank had their eyes on Ombra, who stood with his hood pointing upward as if listening for something.

There was a flutter of wings, a black shape flickering in the dark. A raven landed on Ombra’s shoulder. It leaned its head toward the hood, holding it there for a few seconds, then fluttered into the air and was gone.

Ombra moved close—uncomfortably close—to Nerezza and Slank. He spoke in a low, barely audible groan: “A man in a gold suit—I assume it is Aster—is carrying a trunk toward the center of the circle.”

“Do we take him?” whispered Nerezza.

“We move in,” said Ombra. “But careful y. If he sees us, or hears us, he has the power to destroy us in an instant.” Nerezza and Slank exchanged glances: was there a hint—just a hint—of
fear
in Ombra’s voice?

“Single file,” groaned Ombra. “Riflemen behind me. Be ready to fire on my command. Mister Slank, bring Mrs. Aster. Captain Nerezza, you and your men wil fol ow Mister Slank.
Silently.
”

The men stood. Slank pul ed the limp form of Louise Aster to her feet. Ombra turned and glided across the open area toward the central grouping of stones, moving slightly to his right in order to take a path that kept him hidden from view by one of the massive outer sarsen stones. Reaching this stone, he signaled for the others to halt behind him. Ombra flattened himself against the stone and slid slowly around it, looking less like a living thing than a random moon-cast shadow.

Just ahead, providing excel ent cover, was a smal er standing stone, a remnant of the inner bluestone circle. Ombra oozed back and beckoned the two riflemen forward, positioning one on each side of the bluestone. From here they had a clear view of the central trilithons.

With the riflemen in place, Ombra oozed forward into the bluestone’s shadow, where he became essential y invisible. There he waited.

He would not have to wait long.

Leonard Aster moved slowly, stopping every few feet to sur vey the area. He had seen nothing, and expected to see nothing. Had there been intruders, he was confident that Magil ’s wolves would have detected them. Stil , he was cautious.

He had passed through the outer sarsen circle, then the inner bluestone circle. He was now approaching the central trilithon stones, some towering high above him, others lying on the ground, where they had fal en unknown centuries ago.

Aster’s objective was the Altar Stone, a huge slab of sandstone lying on its side, broken in two, now embedded in the ground and almost entirely covered by fal en pieces of what had once been the tal est trilithon. Reaching this jumble of broken stone, Aster stopped and gently set the trunk down so that its wood touched an exposed corner of the altar stone.

A raven fluttered past, so close that Aster ducked involuntarily. He looked up at the moon. It was now almost ful y engulfed in shadow.

Just a few minutes,
thought Aster.
If that.

He knelt and prepared to unlatch the trunk. At long last, the Return was at hand.

Mol y was not going to make it. Strain as she might, she was losing altitude rapidly; now she was fifteen feet above the wolves—now five of them—trotting directly below her feet,

growling ominously. George, final y aware of the peril, was even lower, flapping his arms in a frantic, fruitless effort to gain altitude. Stonehenge was one hundred yards up the road.

“Peter,” Mol y said. “We can’t—”

“I know,” Peter said, swooping close. “Take my hand. You too, George.”

With Mol y holding one of his hands and George the other, Peter strained upward with al his might. He was able to hold them level for another twenty yards, but then their weight began to overcome his ability to fly. Down they dropped, toward the waiting jaws.

“I’m going to have to put you down,” said Peter, sounding far calmer than he felt. “When I do, you start running toward Stonehenge.”

“But,” said George, looking down, “what about the—”

“Don’t worry about the wolves,” said Peter. “I’l take care of them.”

You will
? said Tink.
How
?

“What did she say?” said Mol y.

“She said not to worry,” said Peter. “Hang on.”

With a grunt and a sudden violent swoop forward, Peter carried the now-heavy forms of Mol y and George ten yards farther on, and set them down just ahead of the approaching wolves.

“RUN!” he shouted, turning to face the oncoming pack.

The first wolf reached him a second later, snarling, lunging. Peter shot upward, leaving it snapping at the air, then dropped straight down, his feet landing hard on the wolf’s back. The wolf howled in pain and fury and turned, but Peter had again launched himself upward; the slashing teeth missed his leg by an inch. The other wolves, responding to the plight of their fel ow pack member, converged on the spot, leaping and snapping at Peter, who danced in the air just above their heads, shouting to keep their attention.