"I know. It's you I wanted to see anyway, if you don't mind. You're not studying or anything?"

"A little. It can wait."

"The branch," Verona said.

Don was puzzled. "The branch?"

'The one you hit Falwick with."

Verona stopped playing with the hat, looked down at one foot tapping on the rug, looked up at Don. His hand slipped a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped it over his face, but Don saw the eyes-they never left him, never blinked.

"This is hard," the man confessed. "I don't know how to say this right, so I'm just going to say it, okay?"

"Sure." Don didn't care; he didn't know what the cop was talking about.

"I keep thinking maybe you didn't do it," the man said rapidly, each word a snap followed by a stare to measure his reaction. "I've had a chance to take a look at the reports, and there's something wrong there, Don. Something wrong I have to get right in my own mind or it's gonna drive me up the wall. You've had that, I'll bet. Something bugs you, and you don't understand it, so you work at it and worry at it until it makes some kind of sense. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

Don did, and didn't; he knew the sensation, was enmeshed in it now, but didn't know the reference.

"Falwick," Verona said. "I'm thinking you didn't hit him with that stick."

Don frowned. "But I did," he said.

Verona nodded as if expecting the answer. "What I'm thinking, you see, is that you were there, all right. I mean, everything points to it, there's no question about it. But I don't think you were alone."

Don gripped the armrests tightly. "I was," he insisted politely. "There was no one else, just me."

226.

"No friends?"

"No friends."

"I wonder, see, if a few of you got together after your friend was killed and decided to take matters into your own hands. It wouldn't be the first time." Verona smiled guilelessly. "It's possible you were sent out there as bait, and when Falwick jumped you, the others came out of the trees."

"No," Don whispered."It's possible that after it was done, after you had beaten that old man to death and saw what it looked like, they left you to take the rap, or the credit."

"No."

Verona mopped his face again and put the handkerchief away, picked up his hat, and flipped it several times as if flipping a coin.

"It's good to protect your friends, Don. But," he said louder, when Don leaned forward to protest, "it's not good to do what you did. It's murder, Don. Planning and executing a scheme like that is murder in the first degree no matter how old you are. That's the law. You're a good kid, a great kid, and there's not a d.a.m.ned thing I can do about it now but tell you that I'm thinking you're a murderer, you and your friends."

"I'll tell my father," was all he could think of to say.

"Do that," Verona said, standing and waving Don back in his seat. "Maybe it'll reopen the case and we'll find out the truth."

He left quickly, quietly, leaving Don in the chair staring at the fireplace, tapping a foot on the floor. He thought maybe he was in trouble, but he didn't know what kind. There was no evidence to implicate anyone else, certainly not the stallion, and he would be laughed into the loony bin if he tried to explain what really had happened.

His eyes fluttered and closed.

There was a sour taste in his mouth.

227.

Then his hands raised in fists high over his head and he slammed them down on his legs, on the armrests, against his forehead and staggered to the hearth where he kicked at the bricks.

They were doing it again.

Jesus Christ, now even the police were trying to take away something that belonged to him. He whirled, his hands grasping for something to throw, found nothing, and jammed into his pockets instead. Stiff-legged, he stalked across the room, heading for the stairs as he tried to decide if it was worth crying over or not. He certainly felt like it, and stabbed the back of his hand against his eyes while he cautioned that he was feeling sorry for himself again. n.o.body was going to take anything away from anybody. Verona sure wasn't, because he had nothing but a stupid suspicion that something smelled wrong about the death of a killer. And Don wasn't stupid-he hadn't been so blinded by the attention that he hadn't noticed how relieved everyone was that Falwick was dead.

They wouldn't want to resurrect him, not even his memory, just because a detective didn't like being upstaged.

The telephone rang as he hit the first step.

He stared at it, wondering if it was a reporter, or someone for his parents. It didn't occur to him until it rang a fourth time that it might be for him.It was.

It was Tracey.

"Are you okay?" was the first thing she said after he'd said h.e.l.lo.

"Sure." He sat crosslegged on the floor, facing the kitchen door. "Why?"

"You sound terrible."

'Thanks, I needed that." A voice in the background made him frown. "Is that Jeff?" he asked flatly. "Is Jeff at your house?"

"No," she said. "I'm here. At his place, I mean."

228.

"Oh."

"Oh," she echoed in quite a different tone. "Why ... why, Donald Boyd, are you jealous?"

The frown became a squint. "Who, me?"

She laughed. "My G.o.d, I don't believe it."

He didn't speak. He supposed she was right, and the way she laughed hinted that perhaps he had nothing to be jealous about; but that still didn't explain why she was over there and not over here. When he asked her, there was a pause and he squinted again, at the door.

Then he blinked slowly. Through the dark in the kitchen he thought he saw faint pinp.r.i.c.ks of green light.

Tracey said something. He blinked again and asked her to repeat it.

"Someone was after me," she said at last.

"What?" He sat up, nearly pulling the cord straight.

"If you want to know the truth, Vet, I was on my way over to your house, when someone started to chase me. I don't know who it was, but he scared the h.e.l.l out of me, and Jeff's was the first place I came to."

Through the panes in the door-a faint glow of white.

"Who was it?" he demanded, hoping he sounded as concerned as he felt as he slowly moved to his knees and stared down the hall.

White light, shifting like fog.

"I told you, I don't know. Jeff went out to look around, but he didn't see anyone." She paused. "I don't know. Maybe it was my imagination.''

"Probably." Oh, my G.o.d, he thought. "Who else is out there but Pratt, y'know?"

Her laugh this time was a bit forced. "I suppose. He's really p.i.s.sed at you, you know.""So I heard."

A m.u.f.fled thump on the door.

"Really?"

229.

"Sure." His voice sounded as if he were speaking from the moon; he was amazed she hadn't noticed. "Chris told me when she came to the hospital."

"Oh?"

Now it was his turn, and he wondered what he had done that rewarded him with two girls at the same time.

Then her voice softened, and he had to strain to hear her say, "I'm proud of you, Don. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't get the chance at the park."

"Yeah, well ..."

Another thump, and in the white glow two green slanted eyes.

"I'd still like to come over, if I can."

"What?" He was on his feet, teeth worrying his lower lip. "I'm sorry, Trace, what did you say."

"Don, I want to come over. I ... I need you."

White light green eyes "I'd like that too," he stammered. "But it'll have to wait, okay? The dragons just came home. I'm supposed to be resting."

"What? Are you all right?"

"I told you I was. I'm just ..." He thought about it then, the chance to talk to someone about what he had seen, what he was believing, what he was hoping wasn't the slipping of his mind.

The door trembled, and he closed his eyes and silently begged Tracey to forgive him.

"Look," he said, "can I see you in school tomorrow?"

"Sure. Lunch?"

"Okay."

"Jeff wants to know if you're going to the game."

Off, he thought then; get the h.e.l.l off the phone!

"I don't know. I guess so. It depends on my mother, I think. I have to-"

He saw the light fading, the green disappear. "s.h.i.t, here they come. I gotta go."

230"Lunch," she said, and he slammed down the receiver before she could say good-bye, and raced into the kitchen.

He wanted to throw open the door, to step out boldly, but he hesitated, hands rubbing his legs, his teeth still at his lip. To go out there, now, would mean he really was crazy; to look into an empty yard would mean ...

His eyes shut. His hands clenched. His breath came in shallow gulps.

And he opened the door.

"Oh Jesus," he whispered. "Oh ... Jesus."

It stood back under the maple tree, mottled by shadow, outlined now and again by the distant flare of lightning. But he couldn't see the whole of it, couldn't see it in detail-it was blacker than the night around it, and only portions of its skin gleamed and rippled when it moved.

He pressed a hand to his head as if checking for a fever, then stepped down off the stoop.

The horse bobbed its head, green eyes watching.

He could barely breathe; the air was too still, and his legs felt ready to collapse as he moved across the gra.s.s.

Green eyes. Watching.

He wanted to smile then, or to scream, but he only held out his hand, palm up, as he walked, hoping the stallion wouldn't smell his fear, would know instead his wonder at the size of it, the breadth of it, the way it turned its head and looked at him with a single flaring eye.

It backed away, snorting, and sending plumes of grey about its head.

"It's me," he said softly. "It's me, fella, it's me."

The horse shifted, and there was greenfire curling around the maple's trunk, greenfire that crackled and scorched a black ribbon in the bark.

Don stopped, swallowed, reached his hand out again and 231.

took a single step forward. He was less than five feet from its nose, and he wanted desperately to feel the velvet, feel the flesh and the bone. But when he moved another foot, it tossed its head and in its throat started a low sustained rumbling.

"All right," he said calmly. "All right, take it easy."

Please, G.o.d, he thought; please, G.o.d, am I crazy?

The horse watched him carefully, greysmoke and greenfire for almost a full minute, then lowered its great head and pushed at Don's arm, pushed him back and followed until Don could reach up and stroke the silk ofits mane, the black satin of its neck. Real flesh warm and cold at the same time; muscles jumping, a foreleg shifting, and he wasn't ashamed when he felt the tears building, felt them spilling, heard them splashing though he knew it couldn't be.

He hadn't killed the Howler; this creature had, this beast that was his friend.