Devon looked up fiercely through his eyelashes at her, determined not to lose the moment’s impetus. “I—”
But what words might have followed, he’d never know for sure.I want you?I’m in love with you?I’m so impressed you won the Audubon Award for Academic Excellence three years in a row? The truth was lost as another scream broke out, chilling his blood. It was not a human sound, after all. He straightened; Beth turned to him, her face white. They stared at each other in stunned silence as the air began to shake with percussive magic.
“Whopper swan,” they identified in unison.
And then they began to run.
Chapter Fifteen
Faint heart never won fair lady, nor fabulous bird either.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
Down the stairsand through the Arctic birds display chamber they raced, their boots thudding on the stone floor, Beth’s hat tumbling unnoticed from her head. Outraged museum patrons scattered before them with cries ofEgad! How rude!andGood heavens, Agnes, did you see the thighs on that man?!In the courtyard outside, they found several people huddled on the grass, moaning and weeping, while others staggered about aimlessly, clutching their ears. A loud, thumping bass note of avian magic assaulted the air, but no bird was to be seen.
“Which way?” Devon shouted to a nearby woman. She stared at him dazedly, her face streaked with tears of blood.
“North!” called out a dark-suited man, waving his bowler hat.
“The park!” Beth said, seeing it in her mind’s eye: sunlit grass, gentle tree-lined paths, occupied by dozens of picnickers and pedestrians at this noon hour.
They ran from the courtyard and along the footpath, barely noticing people cowering behind trees and in doorways asscreams echoed from the park ahead. Arriving in moments, they discovered a large black swan circling the field. It was shrieking intermittently and exuding a booming magic that sounded like an orchestra’s drum section had jammed itself into a tin box. Several groups of picnickers huddled beneath large umbrellas or blankets, clutching their cushions and hampers, unable to flee without risking attack.
“Major cygnus malleus,”Beth identified as she came to a halt beneath an elm tree.
“This one, you can’t touch,” Devon warned. “Its magic will break your bones.”
Beth abstained from rolling her eyes due to the urgency of the moment. Maybe later she would commission a badge showing her qualifications so that men would stop advising her on the basics of her job. “If we can get it to land,” she said, “we can use one of those umbrellas to pin it down.”
“It’s attracted to shiny metal objects,” Devon added, looking around as if expecting a mobile jewelry vendor to be in operation nearby.
“Hm. Perhaps if we—”
“FEAR NOT, GOOD PEOPLE! I SHALL SAVE YOU!”
Startled, they turned to see a young man emerge from the trees nearby, waving both hands in general greeting as he jogged onto the field. His shoulder-length hair and cheap, oversized suit fluttered in the breeze. Overhead, the whopper swan screeched.
“Who the hell is that?” Devon said.
Before Beth could supply a response, the man held up a coil of thin braided leather and, with a flick of his wrist, sent it unfurling dramatically. Then he whistled in three short, loud bursts to the bird.
“Oh my God,” Beth gasped.
“Jesus,” Devon muttered at the same time.
Eeeeeeeee!the swan added in a distinctly more pagan tone.
“STIFFEN YOUR SINEWS and STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” the young man urged the picnickers, none of whom appeared to require such instruction. “I’LL CATCH THE BIRD!”
He whistled again, and the whopper swan shrieked with aggravation. Soaring high, its wings rapping the air with every beat, it reached a pinnacle and began to turn…
“It’s going to dive,” Beth and Devon said in unison.
Crack!went the young man’s whip.
Boom!responded the swan’s magic.
The air shattered into a thousand discordant splinters. Beth and Devon clamped their hands over their ears, to little effect. Thaumaturgic noise slammed through every cell of their bodies, making them stagger in pain. People screamed, leaves exploded through the flashing sunlight, and the young man hollered as he cracked the whip again. The whopper swan tucked in its wings and began to plummet.
