By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.

—William Shakespeare

In the chill air, Nightwing scrabbled across the sky. The stars rode through the heavens above, while dark forests seethed below. He could still sense Amber's spell. After-fires from it could be seen in the west, a glowing column of magical purple flame. As he flew, he sang:

Hear the tolling of the bells—

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monopoly compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!—"

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"Quiet," Darwin screamed. "Not that poem again!" He buried his head deep in the flesh of Nightwing's armpit and tried to shut the sound out by wrapping all eight legs over his ears. "Do any poem but that one. My head is ringing. I can't take it anymore." He went from pleading to a more dangerous tone. "One more verse, and I swear by my mother's proboscis, I'll sever your jugular!"

"You palavering parasite," Nightwing said. "You can no more appreciate the genius of poetry than a sow can appreciate a Van Gogh. Edgar Allen Poe was the greatest human poet of all time. Compared to him, Dante Alighieri spouted drivel, and Shakespeare's verses are but the scribblings of a hack."

Nightwing fluttered toward a house, squeaking in his loudest voice,

And the people—ah, the people—

They that dwell up in the steeple,

All alone,

Darwin gouged his proboscis into Nightwing's side, and threatened, "I smell a gizzard!"

"Look," Nightwing shouted. "The source of the spells, spells, spells! Keeping time, time, time, in a sort of runic rhyme!"

He wheeled gleefully above a house in a dark neighborhood at the edge of a town. The streetlight below glowed forlornly, and only a few cars crawled upon the road. But the light from magic spells sputtered below with an eerie purple gleam, pulsing on and off, like a candle that gutters from lack of air as it suffocates.

Nightwing dropped low, searching for animals that had a magical aura. A pair of cats hunted behind the house, but they were nothing special. In front of the house, a police car was parked, its lights flashing

The residue of the magical spell was centered within the house.

Nightwing dipped toward the source, circling. His enormous ears picked up human voices in an upper chamber. "We came up here, and found Ben's clothes draped across the floor," (a man said)

"It's like he popped," (a woman's voice insisted.) Ben's mother added. " Like he was a big balloon, and he just popped, and all of his clothes dropped to the floor."

The police officer said in a bored tone, "We'll, if he'd popped, his skin would be here, too. I think he just ran off."

"But," the woman asked, "where would he go without his clothes?"

"Skinny-dipping?" the cop suggested.

Nightwing dived toward the roof. He was an instant from death, when he cast a tiny spell. As he hit the wooden shingles, the roof shattered.

He found himself in a room where bright lights blinded him. He dropped to the floor. With a thought, he dimmed the lights to a softer hue. The humans stood at him, looking back and forth between him and the hole in the roof.

"A bat," the woman screamed frantically. "Shoot it!"

The police officer stood staring at Nightwing in shock as the Mona woman grabbed for his gun. She fumbled with the holster strap for half a second, until the officer realized what she was doing, and tried to knock her hand away.

Nightwing glared at the humans. He was a wise bat, capable of understanding human speech, for he had spent long decades in its study. So in a loud voice, a voice of hissing and thunder that shook the ceiling and made paint flake from the walls, he commanded, "Leave us—unless you want me to stuff you into the microwave and pop you like corn!"

Mona screamed, babbling, "It talked to us. That bat talked to us." Her husband staggered back as if he'd been slapped.

"Vampire," the cop muttered, trembling in fear. He drew his revolver and tried to steady his hand to take aim.

With a thought, Nightwing magically knocked the gun from his hand. It bounced on the floor and discharged. The bullet slammed into a Pooh bear, and fluff exploded all through the room. Nightwing smiled evilly at the bear, and cast a small spell. Blood began gushing from its wound, and it cried in a horrified voice: "Help! He'll kill us all!"

The humans stood staring in shock, so Nightwing growled, "If you don't get out of here, I'll see to it that you spend an eternity in charge of stacking the folding chairs for my master's weekly rallies—

The humans fled, stumbling over and clawing each other in their hurry. The cop shoved the others aside and went out first, tripping and tumbling downstairs, then Mona and her husband rushed through the door.

Nightwing sent a thought that slammed the door tight. Suddenly, roots grew out of the wooden door panels and burrowed deep into the walls, fusing the walls and doors together.

"That ought to hold them for a while," Darwin said.

The magical glow came from the lizard's terrarium. Nightwing turned his attention to Imhotep. The Nile monitor stood regally in his cage, just beneath his sun lamp, eyeing Nightwing stalwartly.

He'll pay for his pride, Nightwing thought, studying the lizard's fine pelt.

But he took a soft tone with the lizard. "A powerful wizard cast a spell here not more than an hour ago. Tell me about it."

Imhotep had no choice in the matter. He told about Ben and Amber. And when the lizard finished, Nightwing drew close to the lizard's cage, and whispered, "You have a cruel heart, lizard. I think that you should never let it beat again."

Imhotep looked fearfully at the bat, then gasped, and sank to the floor of the cage, dead from a heart attack.

Certain that the lizard would never speak again, Nightwing flew up through the hole in the roof.

"So a mouse who has never cast a spell performed a transmogrification on a human," he mused. "That's a spell that most sorcerers wouldn't dare attempt after a lifetime of study. . . . This girl has talent."

"She sounds dangerous," Darwin said. "What are you going to do about her?"

That question weighed heavily on Nightwing's mind as he circled the house. By now, the police officer was in his car, frantically calling for backup in order to handle the vampire. As soon as he noticed Nightwing, he ran to his trunk and pulled out a shotgun. Nightwing was tempted to teach the mortal a lesson, but he didn't want the man's dying screams to alert Amber and Ben.

Darwin urged, "As you've often said, only the strongest can be permitted to survive."

Nightwing shot back, "And you're the one who is always saying, 'Just because you want to take over the world, you don't have to be so mean about it.'"

"I was just hoping . . ." Darwin began.

"For what?"

"For a little bloodshed."

Nightwing snickered. "In good time." He was a powerful sorcerer, the greatest in the west. But he had been hiding now for decades, since the Great War, slowly regrowing his power. He didn't dare let this young wizardess stay alive, lest she interfere with his plans.

So he winged back up into the top of the big pine behind the house. He could feel Amber's power. He didn't know what rock she was hiding under, but he knew that she was near.

He took a position in one of the lower boughs.

"What are we doing here?" Darwin asked.

Nightwing cast a magic spell to boost his sensitive hearing, and perked up his ears. He had to move them back and forth a bit in order to avoid picking up radio signals from the local radio station. "Quiet." Nightwing scrunched forward. "I hear mice. . . ."

#

Back in the burrow, Ben's confession had had a chilling effect on the voles. For a bit, they seemed distant and quiet, and Ben sulked in embarrassment at being forced to admit what humans did to mice.

Indeed, the voles all fell silent until young Bushmaster shouted, "Hey, let's have some fun." He began to sing:

When your fur gets dirty

Let it be your cue—

Don't stink up your burrow,

Go run through the dew!

"When the morning grass is wet,

You can sure have fun,

Scrubbing off your belly,

If you do it on the run!

Go on and leave your odor.

Don't let it follow you!

Find yourself a meadow

and run through the dew!"

The song was obviously a favorite with the younger voles, who scampered about, hopping madly, as if forging through the grass in order to bathe in the morning dew.

From then on, the voles seemed to almost forget Ben. All night long they told stories and sang and danced around Amber's light. It was a joyous celebration, unlike anything that Ben had ever witnessed. The voles played games, chasing each other's tails, and when they tired, they feasted again, and the whole party started over.

Ben had a merry time but soon began feeling drowsy. Lest he fall asleep without his nightly prayer, he found a quiet corner and prayed softly but fervently, "Thank you for all of my blessings." He had to stop to think of things that he was thankful for. "Thank you for this burrow, with its roots and warm leaves. Thank you for the . . . the trail mix of . . . ugh . . . dried fungus, even if it did smell questionable and have lots of vole spit on it."

Now that he felt had expressed appropriate thanks, he felt free to beg. Sniffling, he pleaded, "Please, please, I really hate being a mouse. If this was supposed to teach me something—like you shouldn't feed your friends to lizards—then I've learned my lesson. So will you please, please turn me back?"

He sat for a moment hoping that God would answer, but nothing happened. No burning bush, no angel. Not even a strong hunch as to what to do.

What if I can never turn back into a human? Ben wondered. Would it be so bad to live here, in the backyard, under a pine tree with some friendly voles? He'd still be close to his mom and dad, he imagined, and that might make him feel sort of safe when he went to sleep—even though he wouldn't have his football helmet on, or a baseball bat hidden with him under the covers.

But now Ben could hear the voles whispering to Amber, holding a council. Vervane and Bushmaster warned of nearby dangers. There were local cats and dogs, which Ben had known about, but there were other predators, too—like a crotchety old opossum, crows, an owl, a pair of grey foxes that came down from the hills in winter, a mink that sometimes wandered from the mill pond, pine snakes that slithered into burrows and ate whole families, and even a tarantula that hid under Ben's own house.

If Ben had known of all these carnivores, he'd have been afraid to cross his own backyard.

I've got to find a weapon in the morning, Ben thought.

With that, he lay with his eyes closed, as if asleep, lulled by Vervane's tales of narrow escapes from predators that he spun with the expertness of an orb spider.

#

Nightwing smiled and chuckled evilly.

"What did they say," Darwin shouted, leaping up and down with excitement.

"There's trouble in paradise," Nightwing snickered. "And I didn't even have to stir it up myself. The boy doesn't like being a mouse, it seems."

Nightwing glanced down at the tick, and considered. "Darwin, what do you do when someone hands you a lemon?"

The tick thought, then answered, "Run like the wind before it squishes me?"

"No, you gluttonous little gob sucker," Nightwing said. "You smash the lemon against his face and rub his snout in it until it turns to lemonade."

"Oh, I get it," the tick said, completely baffled.

"Quiet," Nightwing hissed. "They're speaking again. . . ."

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