"And you telling us there's no such thing as witches?" said Lamar.

"I'm telling you that there is such a thing as evil, and tonight you are his slaves! Unless you stand up and say no to the devil."

"You say no to the devil!" shouted Lamar. "Get away from the door and let us through."

"Start by killing me, Lamar," said Mack. "Not the whole mob here, just you. Come up here and kill me. Do murder with your own hands. Show everybody how you're the enemy of evil. Kill a kid."

"Nobody going to kill you, Mack," said a woman.

"I been fighting off these dreams of yours for years, ever since I figured out how it worked. If I let the dream finish, then it might come true. So I'd make myself get out of those dreams of yours. I wouldn't let them finish. But tonight, our enemy started making his move. He forced the dreams through to the end. Ophelia McCallister wishing for her husband to be in her arms again. Sabrina Chum wishing she didn't have such a big nose all over her face. Sherita Banks wishing that boys would find her desirable. Professor Williams wishing people would read his poems. The wishes of their heart. Tonight they finished those dreams. I told Ceese and Yo Yo, and they been working all night trying to stop bad things from happening to these decent people. No more like Tamika! We didn't want any more like Deacon Landry! Maybe Ceese got to the others in time. I know that with Grand Harrison's help, me and Yo Yo saved Ophelia McCallister. And now you want to do the devil's work by killing a woman who helped me save Ophelia McCallister from her own terrible wish!"

"He making this shit up," said Lamar.

"Find out if I am. Call the Chums. Call Sherita's house. You check with Grand Harrison."

He didn't tell them to talk to Ophelia McCallister. Not if she was going to still be babbling about Yo Yo being a witch.

Of course, they might all be infected with the same delusion. In which case, what could he do?

He wasn't strong enough to fight them off.

And he couldn't explain to them about the king of the fairies. Not if he wanted anybody to believe anything he said.

right? Isn't that the dream?"

Lamar took a step back. "You stay out of my dreams."

"How many times have I got you out of that dream? Taken you into my dream, riding along in a clunky car through a canyon and water comes down..."

"Stop it!" shouted Lamar.

"I been keeping you all safe from your own dreams. From the wishes that come up out of that pipe in the ground!" He pointed toward where it was. It was just behind the lip of the hill—they couldn't see it from there. "Go look at it!" Mack said. "Go see the place. It flows up out of there, poisoning the street, poisoning the neighborhood. A river of power, a river of magic, taking your dreams, and I have been protecting you."

They began moving away from Yolanda's house. Out of her yard. Toward the edge of the little valley where rainwater collected to flow down the drain.

Mack didn't know what they'd see. Maybe only the drainpipe just like always. Or maybe the red glow he had seen.

Ebby came up to him. "You really have a crush on me?"

"Of course I do," said Mack. "But I didn't expect to tell you standing on a porch yelling at a mob."

"I don't know what got into me," said Ebby. "I just knew she was evil and stealing you away, only it doesn't make sense, and now I can see that she... that you..."

"It's cool," said Mack. "It's all cool now. Nobody going to kill nobody."

"But I was so sure. Like it was the most important thing in the world. To stop her."

"Come on," said Mack. He held out his hand. She took it. They walked up the hill behind the others.

They lined up along the edge of the valley, looking down. It still glowed red, but not as strong.

Could anybody see that except Mack?

If they couldn't see it, why were they still looking at it?

"Anybody else see what I see?" said Lamar. "That thing look hot enough to melt."

The others murmured their assent. "Red," somebody said. "Red hot."

"Red as the devil in hell," somebody else said.

They were silent. Listening to him respectfully, now that he had woken them from the trance of blood lust.

"I tell you what it is," said Mack. "It's the one who made me. The king of... it's going to sound stupid, but it's not. The king of the fairies. The elves. The leprechauns. He's been shut up under the earth. Imprisoned for a long time. He's mad as hell and he's getting ready to make a break for it. He's been sending his power out into the world through that pipe."

Through me, Mack thought but didn't say.

"I feel it more than anybody," said Mack. "Being found by that pipe the way I was. It's inside me. That's why I see your wish dreams. But I got no power of my own. I'm nothing compared to him.

We got to stop him, and I don't know how. Yolanda, she's not a witch. She's good. But she's got a little bit of power. That's all. She used to have more. She used to have so much, she was the one who imprisoned him. Get it? She's his most terrible enemy, so that's why he sent out his power and tried to get you to kill her tonight."

"Through that pipe," said a man.

"He going to give me that Lexus?" asked Lamar, half mocking.

"How about this," said Mack. "How about if you suddenly wake up in that Lexus, going seventy miles an hour and heading right through a guardrail and over the cliff above the Santa Monica pier?"

"Yeah, right," said Lamar.

"Or you wake up in that Lexus and the whole LAPD on your ass going down the freeway like O. J. and you all covered with blood only you don't know whose blood it is. Maybe the owner of that Lexus. Maybe that's how your wish gets fulfilled. Everybody see you in that Lexus, man! On TV!

Only there's a dead Lexus owner back in his garage and your prints all over the golf club that beat his brains in. How about that for getting your wish?"

"Never happen," said Lamar.

"Ophelia McCallister woke up tonight inside her dead husband's coffin," said Mack. "That couldn't happen either."

"I think we ought to talk to these people," said Osie Fleming. "Find out what's true before we believe this bullshit."

They heard the sound of a motorcycle.

They turned and saw a single headlight coming up the hill. Two people on the bike. Had to be Yolanda in front. And behind her, when she got close enough, when she turned into the driveway of her house, was Sherita Banks. Couldn't be anybody else, those hips.

Sherita looked up at all these people watching her from fifty yards away and buried her face in Yo Yo's back. Yo Yo turned and saw them, too. They watched her put down the kickstand and worm her way off the bike without Sherita getting off first. And when she helped Sherita off, they could see that the girl was wearing a blanket wrapped around her like a skirt.

"What's happening, Mack." Yo Yo called out to him.

Mack didn't answer. He got ahead of the pack and turned and faced them. "Not one step closer," he said. Over his shoulder, he called out to Yo Yo. "Some of these folks got to thinking you a witch tonight. Came to pay a visit. Maybe have them a lynching."

"Nobody going to lynch nobody," said Lamar.

"Me? A witch?" said Yo Yo. And she laughed.

It was a glorious laugh, warm and resonant. It seemed to reverberate from the hills on either side. It seemed to make the stars twinkle clearer overhead.

More people were walking up the hill and down the hill to converge at her house.

"Sherita!" called out Ebby. "What happened?"

Sherita burst into tears and hid behind Yo Yo.

"She nearly got raped, that's what," said Yo Yo. "She was asleep in her own bed having this dream, and she woke up at a friend's house and there was her gangbanger brother getting all set to start a train on her. Yeah, that's what! And you know why it didn't happen? Cause Mack saw her dream and told Ceese and he called his buddies on the force and they got there in time. Isn't that right, Sherita?"