Wondrous Strange (3 page)

When he reached the grove where his “firecracker” had come to a stop, Sonny slowed and approached warily. Drawing upon the magic that Auberon had gifted him, he called up a subtle veil to shield himself in case his quarry had the ability to sense him. He did not yet know what he was dealing with.

He crept close enough to catch a glimpse and still he wasn’t sure he knew. It was a girl. That much he could tell.
Even from a distance, he could see that she was fairly young—seventeen, maybe. His age—his
mortal
age—eighteen, at the most…

He could also see that she was beautiful. Her hair had the sheen of antique, burnished copper, and her wide-set eyes were green. Intrigued, Sonny moved soundlessly through the dry leaves to crouch in the deep shadows of a yew tree. He watched through the branches of his hiding place as the girl moved restlessly, pacing to and fro in the little grassy square, one fingernail tapping on her front teeth.

Then she began to mutter to herself and gesture to the empty air.

Oh
. Sonny sighed.
Just another Central Park crazy
.

The off-kilter mortals—the ones not quite right in the head—sometimes showed up differently on Sonny’s radar. That’s what must have happened with this girl, he thought. Still…he found himself surprisingly disappointed as he turned to leave.

The girl’s voice rang out suddenly. “Out of this wood do not desire to go!”

Startled, Sonny looked back to see her pointing in his direction. He froze, his breath stopped in his throat. There should have been
no
way that the girl could have known he was there. He was too well hidden—both by the foliage and by the veil he’d conjured.

“Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no,” she said clearly, her voice compelling.

Looking at her, Sonny noticed that she shimmered. Hair; skin; those long, graceful hands—every inch of her seemed to sparkle.

“I am a spirit of no common rate,” the shining girl continued, the corners of her mouth turning up in a playful, gently superior smile.

Spirit
? Sonny thought, suddenly alarmed.

“The summer still doth tend upon my state,” she said, and took a step toward him, her expression dreamy, eyes unfocused.

Summer
…Sonny felt creeping panic inching up his throat.
Please, no—not one of Titania’s creatures
…He stood, prepared to bolt.

“And I do love thee.”

What?

“Therefore go with me.”

Without realizing what he was doing, Sonny had begun to reach out a hand through the yew branches in response to the summoning. He drew his hand back sharply. What exactly had he stumbled upon here? He noticed suddenly the shirt she wore beneath her open jacket with its sparkling pony and rainbow…and the word
Princess
…. Sonny could feel his heart beating faster than it had any right to.

“I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee.” Her voice, honey-sweet, tempted him with its music, holding him captive in a moment of thrall. “And they shall fetch thee jewels
from the deep…and sing while thou on pressèd flowers dost sleep….”

The rhyming finally tipped him off.

Her words had started to sound terribly familiar, and understanding descended upon Sonny like a hammer blow.

Oh, seven hells!
He cursed himself, grinding his teeth. His friend Maddox would laugh himself sick if Sonny were to tell him about this. Which, of course, he wouldn’t! He glowered angrily at the girl, even though he now knew that she couldn’t see him.

Smiling her enchanting smile, she said, “And I will purge thy mortal grossness so that thou shalt like an airy spirit go!” Then she turned away, glancing coquettishly over her shoulder, seeming to beckon with her eyes.

Except it wasn’t really
him
she beckoned. Sonny felt a strange twinge of regret.

Then, quite abruptly, the girl stopped in her tracks, and her entire mood shifted. Clenching her fists, she whirled in a frustrated little dance. Sonny watched silently as the girl snatched up a sheaf of paper that had lain on the bench next to her bag. She slapped the words on the page, cursing. “Dammit dammit dammit! See? You
see
? You
know
the lines, idiot! Now why on earth couldn’t you do
that
at rehearsal? Why? Dammit!” She kicked angrily at the ground, stubbing her toe on a moss-covered rock. “Ow!”

Sonny let his breath out slowly, grimly amused.

A script. An actress.

The fact that this slightly ridiculous girl had actually made him think that perhaps she was—Sonny stopped short before even pursuing that avenue of thought. He was a Janus. He, more than anyone, should be able to tell the difference. Poised to leave, he turned back for one last second to watch the girl.

She hobbled over to a bench and sat down heavily. Without warning, she crumpled forward, her face buried in her hands. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

Sonny felt his jaw drop.

He should go. He should leave the pathetic creature to indulge her sorrow in private. Definitely, he should go….

Instead, Sonny glanced around, looking for something in the weathered remnants of the garden that he could make use of. He spotted a rosebush with one last, withered bloom. The petals clung to the flower head in a desiccated clump, and the leaves on the stem were brittle almost to the point of dust.

It would do nicely, he thought, plucking the flower. As he touched the blown rose, it quivered and shimmered beneath his fingertips, slowly regaining its color; the petals unfurled in a deep, creamy shade of peach, and the leaves turned a vibrant green once more. Sonny took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing.

“Excuse me…miss?”

The girl’s head snapped up, and a little cloud of glitter burst from her hair. Her hand flew toward her enormous shoulder
bag, her arm disappearing up to the elbow into its depths.

Fool
, Sonny thought silently, although he carefully kept it from showing on his face.
If I’d wanted to hurt you, I could have done so easily by now
.

There was a hint of fear in her eyes. But just a hint. That impressed him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He glanced at her purse. “Please. If you’re looking for mace, you don’t need to. I…I only wanted to give you this.” He held out the rose. “You looked as though you could use something…nice.”

The girl’s face changed from wariness to wonder.

“Wow,” she said softly. She reached for the flower, hesitantly, looking up at him. He took another careful step forward and placed the rose gently in her hand.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, gazing down at the perfect rose in her palm. The heady scent of the flower filled the little clearing with its perfume, and the girl inhaled deeply, her face softening into a smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.

But by the time she looked back up, he was already gone.

K
elley looked around the clearing, astonished, but the mysterious—and good-looking—guy had vanished without a sound. She sat on the bench awhile longer, holding the rose and listening.

Nothing.

At last, gathering her stuff, she picked up one of the footpaths that would lead her out of the garden and toward Bethesda Terrace. It was time she headed home.

Maybe he’s still around here somewhere
, she thought as she strolled leisurely.
I should at least make an effort to find him.
Thank him properly for trying to cheer me up
. Kelley toyed with the tempting idea, playing with the green-amber pendant that hung from a silver chain around her neck. It was a gift from Aunt Emma—a four-leaf clover, for luck.

Unfortunately, though she kept her eyes peeled, it seemed that she was
out
of luck, at least where Handsome Stranger was concerned.

She sighed, remembering the way he had looked at her with those extraordinary silver-gray eyes. His face was regal. High cheekbones. Straight, firm mouth. Unsmiling, but not harsh—although Kelley had a sense that his expression could turn that way, easily.

“Oh, come on!” Kelley said aloud. “How ridiculous can you get? You saw the guy for all of twelve seconds!” Walking south, she skirted the edge of the Ramble until she got to the northern shore of the Lake, opposite the rocky outcropping of Hernshead.

Somehow, it had become dusk. Kelley had never really felt unsafe in Central Park—but on the other hand, she’d never gone traipsing about in it after dark. Nervously, she squinted up into a sky that had gone from deep blue to indigo with startling swiftness. It was eerily still in the park, she realized. Utterly silent. A thin veil of ground mist swirled, sweeping across the path in front of her. Kelley quickened her pace almost to a jog.

The surface of the Lake on her right was like a vast black
pool of oil and so still that it reflected everything like a perfect mirror. She planned to skirt along the shore until she came to the eastern edge, near to where she could cross over and exit the park around Seventy-second Street. Then it was only about a ten-minute walk to home.

She hadn’t gotten very far when the sounds of screaming split the night air.

The raw noise shattered the stillness, chilling and horrific. Kelley froze, listening to the high-pitched cries. They sounded as if they were coming from the middle of the Lake.

“Hey!” Kelley called, frightened. “Hey! Do you need help?”

A cacophony of frantic splashing reached her ears as if in answer. Kelley started running toward the source of the sound. Mingling with the horrid screams that had first caught her attention was a deeper huffing sound, punctuated by the frenzied splashing—as though someone was flailing around in a panic. Drowning.

Make that some
thing
. Kelley stopped at the edge of the Lake, realizing with a start that there was a distinctly nonhuman quality to the noise. She squinted and could only just make out where the water in the middle of the Lake frothed white. Suddenly something rose from the center of the disturbance, bucking and rearing violently. Heart pounding, Kelley saw a
horse’s
head thrashing in the darkness.

The animal’s front hooves churned at the water, as though it was trying to climb the air. Then it sank deeper. The water closed over the drowning creature’s head again, choking off
the sounds of its panicked whinnying. Kelley glanced around frantically.

“Help!” she called, but her voice sounded flat and small in the night. There wasn’t anyone around to hear her.

She turned back to the Lake desperately and saw the horse breach the surface again, floundering, losing strength.

The thought of an animal drowning while she stood there watching was more than Kelley could bear. She dropped her bag, shrugged out of her jacket, and kicked off her shoes. Then she dove into the Lake in a shallow arc.

The chill in the October air was nothing compared to the temperature of the pond. As she hit the water, Kelley thought for a brief, horrible moment that her heart would stop beating in shock. When she surfaced seconds later, she gasped painfully and faltered.

The horse whinnied again, sounding much weaker. Kelley pushed the needle-sharp cold from her thoughts and began swimming with strong, purposeful strokes. Six feet from the panicked creature, she treaded water, wary of the flailing, deadly hammers of its hooves.

“Shh, shhh.” Kelley tried to keep her teeth from chattering as she gentled it with her voice. “Nice horsie…good horse…easy there, fella.”

The animal bobbed its head wildly, its dark eyes rolling white at the edges and its nostrils flaring wide.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Kelley reached out a hand as she moved a little closer, treading water that was so cold it almost
felt slushy. If she couldn’t succeed in helping the poor creature out of the Lake soon, Kelley knew that she would have to abandon the attempt. Her toes were already numb. “You’re okay. I’m here. I’ll help.”

She stretched her hand out farther, the tips of her fingers just barely touching the velvety skin of the horse’s muzzle.

Please don’t bite me
, she thought desperately.

But instead, the animal pushed its nose into her hand, butting gently at her fingers and blowing out warm air.

“Okay.
Good
horsie. Okay.” Kelley swam closer, still careful to avoid the horse’s churning front legs. “Let’s get you out of here.”

She ran her hands along the animal’s flank below the waterline to see if she could determine what was wrong. The horse seemed uninjured, from the little she could tell, but its powerful hindquarters weren’t moving in the way they should to keep the creature afloat. She reached farther around under the surface of the water toward the horse’s rump, and for a second she thought that she could feel something cold and rough…almost
slimy
—like fish scales.

Kelley jerked her hand back.

You’re not a horse!
she thought wildly.

Of course, that was ridiculous.
The cold is affecting your brain, stupid. You’re imagining things
.

She reached out again and, feeling with her hands, realized there was a tangled net of slippery lake weed that had become wound around the back end of the animal—what
she must have mistaken for fishiness.

Kelley tugged at the strands of ropy vegetation, but the fibrous stuff was strong and she couldn’t get much of a grip. It kept slipping through her fingers, which were already stiff from the cold. Groaning in frustration, Kelley looked back to see that the horse wasn’t even struggling anymore. It just stared at her with one mournful eye. Its flaring nostrils were barely above the waterline.

It was going to drown.

Determination took hold. Kelley kicked herself back a little way from the horse’s flank to gather what strength she had left. She took three deep breaths, filling her lungs to capacity with biting cold air, and then dove beneath the surface of the water.

Swimming down as far as she could, she grasped at the massed strands of weedy vegetation where they were rooted into the mud of the lake bed. Kelley swung her legs underneath her, planted bare feet in the mud, and wrapped the strands around her hands. Then she hauled on them for all she was worth.

The slimy weeds went taut, but refused to break or uproot.

Pull
…once more.

Pull, damn it
. Lungs aching, she heaved again.

Pull!

As her strength began to fade, Kelley tugged weakly on the waterweeds one last time. Starbursts bloomed in front of her eyes as her brain began to starve for oxygen. Kelley shook her head. A cloud of bubbles escaped her mouth and nose—the
last of her air. She heard music, faint and far off, and thought she could see a weird, glowing light dancing through the water, swirling and coalescing all around her. She felt warm. One very last, feeble try…and Kelley felt the ropy stems give just a bit. Suddenly a sharp tug on the weeds jerked her painfully forward, wrenching her arms and shoulders.

And then everything around her went completely black.