Demon

Few spectacles are as colorful. The matador's costume was not called a suit of lights for nothing.

She had watched in fascination as the men on horseback rode up to the mighty bull and drove their lances into his back. She remembered the bright red blood dripping down the sides of the bull. By the time the matador made his appearance, the bull was a pitiful sight: dazed, confused, and angry enough to charge at anything that moved.

So then the little pissant matador moved in. With stu

But it didn't turn out that way. The bad guy won. The stinking little prick faced the half-dead bull and plunged his sword into its heart. Then he strutted away to deafening applause, and if Cirocco had possessed a rifle and the know-how to use it, he would have been a dead little prick. Instead, she threw up.

And now, she proposed to be the matador.

There were a couple of things to keep in mind, before she drowned in self-disgust. For one, Gaea was not some dumb toro. She was not helpless, not i

To the person who knew nothing about bullfighting, it would seem at first glance that the bull had all the advantages, too. Analyzing it, watching the preparations and comparing the minds of the bull and the matador, one soon realized that only the most idiotic matador was in any danger at all. He had his moment of sport with the tired beast, killed it ... and fooled everyone into thinking he had done something glorious instead of craven and cowardly.

But the principle was the same. Cirocco intended to keep her distracted, in pain, always watching the bright red cape, never understanding why her horns failed to do any good ... and slipping the sword in when Gaea was mentally and emotionally exhausted.

So. The first part of the show was done. The words in the sky, the loud music. Gaea had helped out with fireworks.

"Remember," Gaby had said, when last they met. "In many ways, Gaea has regressed mentally to about the age of five. She loves spectacle. It's what attracted her to movies in the first place. It's the basic reason she started the war, god help us all. Give her a good one, Rocky, and I'll take care of the rest. But don't forget, even for a moment, that it's only part of her that's child-like. The rest of her will be alert for a trick. She doesn't know where it will come from. She doesn't suspect we know as much as we do. Both times, when you go for her, it should look like you really mean it."

Bearing all that in mind, Cirocco gestured the camera crew out of her way, stepped forward a little ways, folded her arms across her chest, and summoned Nasu.

The ground buckled under Gaea. She fell a few feet, her arms waving, then turned and watched in amazement as the Twenty-four Carat Highway exploded.

It was a rippling explosion, working its way from a point halfway to Tara to a point just under her feet. Solid gold bricks and clods of dirt flew in every direction-and a mammoth loop of something coiled around her ankle.

She was jerked off her feet and stared up as Nasu, pearly white and scaled, reared three hundred meters above her.

Monty Anaconda, she thought, and rolled away.

Chris and Adam watched from the balcony of Tara.

"King Kong!" Adam screeched.

Chris glanced nervously at him. He seemed to be enjoying it.

The snake quickly looped its massive coils around Gaea. Gaea rolled. She rolled so hard and so fast that she had demolished three soundstages before she was able to struggle to her feet. She killed hundreds of extras during the roll. Those who saw her get up could barely believe their eyes. All that could be seen of Gaea was her feet, and part of one leg.

Then an arm struggled free.

There was the sound of breaking bones. Nobody figured it was the snake that was getting crushed. High above her, the snake looked down impassively on her victim. It had been a long time since she had attacked prey as satisfying as this. Heffalumps were boring. They didn't even run.

Then the other arm was free. The hands groped, found a loop, and started to pull at it.

Snakes don't have any facial expression. About all they can do is open their mouths, blink, and flick their tongues. Nasu's tail began to thrash.

Gaea, still blinded, staggered toward the wall. She hit it, seemed to think that was a good idea, and backed off to hit it again. The top three meters of the wall crumpled. She hit it again.

Some of Nasu's coils loosened. The top of Gaea's head was now visible. There were more crunching sounds. Gaea's bones had sounded like redwoods snapping off at ground level. Nasu's bones were more flexible, and sounded like two-by-fours breaking.

Gaea started groping for the snake's head. Nasu bobbed and weaved, and squeezed even harder. A forest of redwoods cracked beneath the terrible pressure.

Then Gaea was on top of the wall. And she was peeling the snake away from her, ten meters at a time. Those parts she pulled away didn't move.

Nasu opened her mouth. It was all she could do.

Gaea fell backwards, and the Universal globe was knocked from its turntable and went rolling down the far side of the wall. She struggled up again ... and finally she had the snake's head. She opened its mouth, kept opening it and opening it.

Nasu's head cracked. Gaea pounded it against the wall over and over, until it was a limp mass. She stood, winded and confused, holding the head of the dead snake. Then she tossed it and a hundred meters of coils over the side of the wall, down into the moat. Sharks quickly converged on it and began a feeding frenzy.

Gaea was ... bent. None of her joints looked right. Her head was a squashed melon, her back took a series of horrible turns, like a Swiss mountain road.

Then she started to squirm. She threw one hand up high, and something snapped into place. She moved her hips, and there was another loud cracking sound. She pressed her palms to her face, setting bones back into place. Step by step, she put herself back together until she stood, whole, unmarked, and glaring out at Cirocco, who still stood impassively, arms folded.

"That was a stinking trick, you bitch!" she shouted. Then she turned, leaped down on the inside of the wall, and shouted to the gatekeeper.

"Open this door! Lower that bridge. I'm going out to get her."

One of her military advisors tried to say something. It earned him a kick that dropped his broken body ten miles away, in Warner territory. And the man in charge of the gate was already frantically cranking it open.

Gaea put her foot on the drawbridge as it started to lower. Her weight caused the pulley to turn so fast the rope smoked and caught fire. Then she strode over the bridge and onto the Universal causeway.

She was out of the magic circle.

TWENTY

Chris reached into the cooler beside his chair-Gaea had been quite kind in providing all the coolers and all the beer he needed; an ice-cold bottle was never more than a few steps away-pulled out a bottle, and uncapped it. The encounter with the monster snake had been frightening at first. But as it went on, it became more and more like the hundreds of monster movies he had seen in the last year. It was unreal. It was preordained. One knew the woman was going to kill the snake, and she had done so.