Wild notes flooded outward. There was triumph in the music now. Huge wings beat the air. The Jezbro climbed up above the trees. Held firmly in the extended talons was a fully grown man.
Watching, Johnny Retch felt panic tumble through him, panic that was like a sudden touch of an ice cold hand. They had warned him about the Jezbro. Old Peg-leg had tried to tell him. Gotch had trembled in fear. They had all insisted that there was something here that did not belong in the world as he knew it.
He had laughed at them, he had called them superstitious fools. To him, there was nothing that was not of this world.
Nor was there now, when the moment of wild panic had passed. As the Jezbro swept upward through the air, rising along the face of the cliff, Retch jerked up the Tommy gun.
Smoke and lead blasted from the muzzle. The Jezbro was unharmed. Taking careful aim this time, Retch fired again, a furious blast of rattling sound.
The Jezbro swerved, the harp notes missed a beat.
From the suddenly loosened talons a figure plummeted downward, screamed as it fell, stopped screaming as it crunched against the ground.
The Jezbro circled in the air. It rose upward, swooped. Huge wings flapped, a tail structure was extended. From the gaping, extended mouth, a scream arose. The Jezbro seemed to leap toward the summit of the sky.
A flash of light as brilliant as the explosion of a miniature atom bomb flared for a brief second. Thunder clapped, rolled around the horizon; echoed back. In the distance the veil that circled the island shimmered and twisted as if it was about to collapse. It righted itself.
Except for a puff of swiftly dissipating white vapor, the air was clear. Where wild harp notes had once flooded now was silence. Where a creature that had once looked like a giant bird had flapped through the air now there was nothing.