Demon

He was about to start down to the ground floor when he was startled by a loud bang, followed quickly by another. It took him a moment to identify the sounds as sonic booms.

He turned and hurried to the second-floor balcony.

Up in the sky were two medium-sized Dragonflys. They were turning, slowing, coming back after their startling pass over New Pandemonium. Chris was vaguely aware of shouting and scurrying on the ground. The planes were far too high for him to tell who was in them, or even how many people.

Cirocco, he thought. My god, Cirocco, you couldn't be that stupid. You can't think it will do any good to bomb this place...

He watched, open-mouthed, as the two planes, moving quite slowly now, went through an intricate series of turns and twists. They seemed to be lining up for something.

His heart almost stopped when both planes began to smoke. What could have happened to them?

One twisted quickly back and forth, while the other made a long, slow curve. Then they stopped smoking. Once more they were barely visible gnats turning around and moving into position again.

And he realized they had written the letters SU.

They curved up and over, and began to smoke again. This time they made two parallel lines, turned sharply, and added crescents to the tops of the lines. PP. SUPP. What the hell?

With precise, tight turns, two more lines were added.

SURR

"Chris," someone whispered. He almost jumped out of his skin. Then he turned, and very nearly yelled aloud when he found Cirocco standing close enough to touch.

"Cirocco," he whispered, and found himself in her arms, which was a silly way to put it, he thought, since he towered over her. But the strength was all flowing in one direction; he was having a hard time fighting back his tears.

She pulled him back into the shadows within the building.

"Never mind that," she said, quietly, jerking her chin toward the sky. "An amusing diversion ... with a punch line. Gaea's going to love it, right up to the end."

"What are you-"

"I don't have much time," Cirocco said. "Getting in here isn't easy. Can you listen for a while?"

Chris bit back the thousand questions he wanted to ask, and nodded.

"I wanted to ... " Cirocco stopped, and looked away for a moment. Chris had time to notice two things. She was close to tears herself, and she was wearing an outlandish costume. He didn't have time to take it all in.

"How is Adam?" she asked.

"He's well."

"Tell me what's happened."

He did, as quickly and concisely as he could. She nodded from time to time, frowned twice, and once looked as if she might be sick. But at the end she nodded.

"It's about the way Gaby told me to expect," she said. "And don't give me any trouble about Gaby."

"I wasn't going to. Spooks don't bother me anymore."

"Good. You understand what you have to do, then?"

"Pretty much. I ... I don't know if I'll do any good. She is a lot more subtle than I figured her for."

"You can do it," she said, with absolute assurance. "We will do our best to get you out of here. Like I told you last time, his soul isn't in danger yet, and won't be for quite a long time. But, Chris ... it's going to be a long time. Do you realize that?"

"I think so. Uh ... have you any idea how long?"

"It can't be less than a year. It might be two."

He did his best to conceal his dismay, but knew she saw it. She said nothing. He took a deep breath, and tried for a smile.

"Whatever you think is best."

"Chris, it's not just best. It's the only way. I can't tell you much about it. If Gaea thought you knew, she could get it from you."

"I understand that. But ... " He wiped at his forehead, and then looked directly at her. "Cirocco, why don't you just take him right now? Take him, and run like hell?"

"Chris, my old and dear friend, if I could do that, I would do it And leave you to the tender mercies of Gaea... and probably die of shame as soon as I had him in a safe place. But I would You know I'll save you if I can-"

"And if you can't, I accept that."

She hugged him again, and kissed his chin, which was as high as she could reach. Chris felt numb, but it felt good to be holding her.

"Gaea is ... Chris, I don't know how to explain this. But her will is focused on Adam. I let him see me the last time I was here. She knows I was here, and getting in this time was much harder. I can't visit you again. And if I took Adam and ran, she would get both of us. I know that. Can you accept that?"

"I will if I have to."

"That's all I ask. Your job is to stay on good terms with Gaea, however distasteful that might be. And be careful of her. You might find yourself liking her. No, no, don't tell me that's impossible. I liked her at one time. All you can do is be yourself, love Adam, and ... hell, Chris. Trust me."

"I do, Cirocco."

Her eyes were haunted. She kissed him again ... and then left him. It was odd, how she left. She moved back into the shadows, into a place where she couldn't have moved away without him seeing her ... and she was gone.

TEN

"Witch of the South, Witch of the South, this is Witch of the North. The bottom of that last E was pretty ragged, fellow."

Conal spoke into his mike as he sliced through a four-gee turn.

"Tend your own knitting, child," he said. "You got all the easy letters." He pulled back on the stick, looked rapidly to left and right at the vast, flat perspectives of the letters already drawn, and hit the smoke button again. He watched carefully until he was even with the base line, then killed the smoke and turned hard right. They had practiced it for a week, starting with attempts that Cirocco, from the ground, had sworn looked like Chinese, gradually moving on to writing that was almost legible. By now Conal thought he could fly it in his sleep.

It was crazy, of course, but no more crazy than other things they had been doing. They were living on a new and unfamiliar plane, it seemed. An act, in and of itself, was no longer always enough. The way it was done was also important. Certain things had to be done with deliberation, others with something called panache. The skywriting could have been done letter-perfect, with no drill, simply by programming the maneuvers into the planes' autopilots. But Cirocco had vetoed that.

Conal didn't complain. He liked writing challenges in Gaea's clean sky.

"Witch of the North," he called. "You call that an R?"

"I'll stack it up against any R in the sky," Nova shot back.

"Knock it off, children," Robin called, from her vantage point high above. "Move down to the second line."

Cirocco stepped off the golden road just short of the point where it actually became pure gold, and slipped between two towering buildings. She found an alcove out of sight and quickly stripped off her costume.

She had been dressed as an Indian princess when she came through the Columbia gate, and had managed to pass herself off as an extra showing up for work in the horse opera currently shooting on that lot. Getting to Tara had been less a matter of costuming than sheer brass. There was a thing she could do. She didn't know how she did it, and thinking about it too hard could destroy what faculty she had, but she thought of it as making herself small. People would glance at her and glance away. She wasn't worth looking at. It had worked long enough to get to Chris. She hadn't needed it much on her way out, as everyone's attention was on the skywriting.

But the exit had to be different, and called for a different brass.

She do