“I swear I will do my best to convince the fairy prince to take you,” Bruce added.
“Deal!” Feta clapped his hands. “I will bring the demon here. Then you will take me to Fairy Fairyland.”
“No!” Erin said loudly.
It didn’t matter, because Feta looked at everyone gathered there. “Think very hard!” he ordered. “Think of bringing the demon here for you to see.”
They had no choice now. They had to roll with it for as long as they had the pixie’s agreement. So Laddin thought as hard as he could. He thought about how Wisconsin was dying mile by growing mile, and he thought about ending that disaster once and for all. As did everyone else. A single glance around the field showed him every serious face, jaw tight with determination. But nothing happened until Bruce held out his hand. Laddin took it without conscious thought, but the moment their palms connected, he felt the power surge through him.
Bring the demon here, he thought.
And it came.
Chapter 24
GODZILLA NEEDS TO GET HAPPY
BRUCE HADdressed as the Creature from the Black Lagoon once for a haunted house. That was what he expected to appear. Something a little more than man-sized and black with ickiness.
He’d gotten the icky part right.
First off, the thing was huge—larger than Godzilla—and it sprawled at the edge of the lake like Jabba the Hutt. There were eyes and definitely a maw, but beyond that all he saw was a boiling mass of anxiety. It made his hands sweat and his heart pound triple time. And the sound it made was like a hissing snake. Low, angry, and steadily building until he thought he would go crazy waiting for it to strike.
Someone screamed, and it was probably him. Then he heard the steady rapport of a gun. He whipped around to look.
It was Wiz with the pistol aimed straight up at… it. He emptied his entire clip at the thing.
Normally Bruce would have said it was too far away for a handgun. A bazooka might be too small to score a hit, but looking back at the—the living nightmare—he could see the impact right where it was supposed to go. Puffs of explosions dead center between the eyes. Over and over.
He waited for the thing to die. He prayed for it to shrink, melt, or whatever it would do. He’d be thrilled if it wentpoofin a burst of ashes, but nothing happened.
“Damn it!” Wiz cursed. “It’s changed.”
“What? Why?” Bruce demanded. Hadn’t they said they knew how to kill it? That all Bruce had to do was find it and they’d take care of it?
Josh groaned from beside Wiz. “It’s evolved beyond the story version. It can’t be killed the same way.”
Curses rolled through his mind, but he didn’t have time to let his fury fly because a great deal was happening, and it was all bad. First rule of a firefighter—see what’s happening and breathe. That was all he had to do.
He squinted at the monster as he forced himself to make steady inhales and exhales. He managed to sort out roiling tentacles and bubbling masses that swelled, burst, then collapsed back on themselves. Except it wasn’t collapsing to the same size it was before. Now that he looked with narrowed eyes—and his mind wasn’t busy screaming in terror—he could see little specks of yellow fairy lights all over the thing. They were the pixies, catching something, then pressing it into the demon… which made it grow bigger. In tiny increments, but there were a thousand of those little fairies, each adding a tiny bit over and over.
“You’re making it bigger!” Erin screamed, and she was right.
Just like with the moon, the fairies were catching everyone’s thoughts, their fears, their terror, and making it into more demon.
“Stop that!” Bruce snapped. “Stop them from adding to the thing!”
She glared at him. “It is what we do. We take what you think!”
“And make that,” he realized. Oh God.
“Think happy thoughts!” Laddin bellowed. “Don’t worry!”
Nice idea, but that wasn’t going to work. Not with that demon towering over them.
Then it got worse. Someone cried out, not in fear but in warning. Bruce looked over, and pretty soon he found what they were screaming about.
Kangaroos—a whole herd of them hopping full tilt straight at them. And if he didn’t miss his guess, they were being ridden by gnomes or leprechauns. Who the hell knew? He heard Josh curse and Nero moan, “Not again.”
