"The Garuda Bird!" I shouted - with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my might, as the Bible says.

The Bird came on unbelievably fast. Two or three more flaps and it was hovering over the dump. Of course, it didn't need to work its wings the way a merely material creature of flesh and feathers would have. The Other Side suffused it; it was, after all, an avatar of Vishnu. As Matt Arnold had said back at the Loki works, it couldn't have flown - or existed at all - as a material creature; when it hovered above the dump, its wings spanned the entire width of the containment area and more, and cast the ground into shadow almost as deep as night It looked much like the poster in Arnold's office - those incredible wings supporting a huge - chested body that didn't look birdlike at all to my mind. Nor was its head anything like that of a natural bird, but for the hooked beak that took the place of nose and mouth. The rest, especially the eyes, looked more nearly human, and the feathers on top of its head, instead of being peacock - brilliant tike those of the body and wings, were black and soft like hair.

The wings beat again, right over our heads. The blast of wind from a flap like that should have blown walls down, and blown dust motes like us into the next barony, but it didn't After a moment, I realized why: since it flew more by magic than with its wings, their flapping was just a symbolic act, not quite a real one. And thank God for that; it wasn't something I'd worried about when I called Matt Arnold.

The Garuda Bird threw back its anthropomorphic head and let out a bellow that sounded like a tuba about the size of a city block played by a mad giant wfao'd quit halfway through his first tuba lesson. Let me put it like this: by comparison, the squalling cacodemons were quiet and melodious.

One thing, or rather two sets of things, thoroughly ornithomorphic (ah, Greek!) about the Garuda Bird were its talons. In fact, it was the most talented bird I'd ever seen: those enormous gleaming daws could have punctured the Midgard Serpent, by the look of them. I would have paid a good many crowns to watch that fight - from a safe distance, say the surface of the moon.

Now, as the Bird hovered over the Devonshire dump, its left foot closed on the Nothing. The hazmat mages pelted back out of the way. I found I was holding my breath. This was something else I hadn't had figured when I called Arnold: was the Garuda Bird's magic strong enough to penetrate the encystment the Chumash Powers had thrown up around themselves? If not - well, if not, I told myself, we weren't any worse off than we would have been without the Bird.

When the Garuda Bird's talons struck the Nothing, sparks flew, but the talons didn't go in. I was praying and cursing at the same time, both as hard as I could. The Garuda Bird bellowed again, this time in fury. I staggered, wondering if the top of my head would fall off and whether I'd ever hear again.

The muscles in the Garuda Bird's monster drumsticks bunched. That's what I saw, anyhow, though I knew it was only a quasi - physical manifestation like the Bird's flapping wings. What it meant was that, on the Other Side, the Garuda Bird was gathering all its thaumaturgic force.

Its claws closed on the Nothing once more. More sparks flew. The Bird cried out yet again, but its talons still would not penetrate. I thought we were doomed. But then, ever so slowly, the needle tips of those immense claws began sinking into the Chumash Powers' shell of withdrawal.

Tony's mouth was wide open. So were Michael's and Yolanda's and mine. We were all shouting for all we were worth, but I couldn't hear any of us, not even me.

The Garuda Bird's feet disappeared into Nothing. You couldn't see them. They were just-gone. I stopped shouting. My heart went into my mouth. The Garuda Bird wasn't a power that had had to hide itself away to keep from going extinct; the belief of hundreds of millions of people fueled it Never in my most dreadful nightmares had I imagined that it wouldn't be able to overcome the Chumash Powers that hid inside the Nothing if once it broke their shell.

The Bird's next roar carried a note of pain. It flapped its wings again: almost a real flap this time, for dust rose in a choking cloud from the dry dirt of the dump. Through the dust, I saw more of the Garuda Bird's leg than I had before.

"It's coming out!" I cried, coughing.

Another flap, more dust, still another wingbeats Then, with a pop! in my head that felt like the psychic equivalent of the one you'd make by sticking your finger into your mouth against the inside of your cheek, its feet came all the way out of the Nothing. In its daws writhed the Lizard.

Yolanda grabbed me and kissed me on the cheek. A good thing she did, too, because Tony Sudakis slapped my back so hard, I might have staggered off the warded path and into the dump if she hadn't been holding on to me.

No matter how joyful he was, Michael Manstein didn't do things like slapping people on the back. He shouted, "Brilliantly reasoned, David! The similarity between lizards and snakes was enough to touch off the Garuda Bud's instinctive antipathy."

"Yeah," I said, which I admit wasn't a fitting response to praise like that. But I was too busy watching the fight above my head to get out more than the one word.

The Chumash Lizard was an alligator lizard the size of the biggest anaconda you ever saw. If you live in Angels City, you know about alligator lizards. They're the most common kind of lizard around here. The material ones can get more than a foot long, with yellowish bellies and dirt-brown backs striped with black. For critters their size, they have large, sharp teeth. The ones on the Chumash Lizard looked to be a couple of inches long, and it had a whole mouthful of them.

Alligator lizards also have little short legs, which makes them look even more ophidian than most lizards (they're related to glass snakes, which aren't snakes but lizards with no legs at all). My guess - my hope - was that that would just make the Garuda Bird madder.

The Lizard made horrible hissing noises and bit at the Garuda Bird's legs. However huge and fierce it was, though, it had no more chance against the Bird than an ordinary alligator lizard would have against an eagle that decided to have a reptilian lunch. Crunch! With a noise like a monster cleaver biting into a side of beef, the Garuda Bird bit off the Lizard's head and about the front third of its body. Ichor spattered down all over the dump. Luckily, it didn't splash any of us - talk about your hazardous materia magica.

The Chumash Lizard's body convulsed and thrashed even more wildly than before. Even material lizards are hard to kill. Lizards that are also Powers… But all the thrashing didn't stop the Garuda Bird from gulping down the rest of the lizard.

Michael tapped me on the shoulder. "I believe you may now definitively declare one Chumash Power extinct," he yelled.

"You know what?" I yelled back, °I don't miss it a bit.

Dreadful thing for an EPA man to say, isn't it?"

"I find myself less scandalized than I might be under other circumstances," Michael said.

With another earsplitting bellow, the Garuda Bird tried to poke its clawed feet into the Nothing. Again, it was hard work. But the Bird didn't have to back up and make a second effort - slowly but surely, talons, toes, and feet sank into the Chumash Powers' sphere of encyshnent and disappeared.

The Bird let out a pain-filled screech like the one it had made when (I guess) it seized the lizard. It started flapping its wings again in that half-material way it had used to force itself out of the Nothing. Feet, toes, talons reemerged - and then, with another of those psychic popy's, the Garuda Bird was free once more.

It didn't come out of the Nothing empty-footed, either.