he’d had personal experience of the influence Makepeace had with

certain government agencies. He was also one of Modred’s most

valued agents, one of a legion of contacts and connections that

Morpheus had spread throughout the world. And last, but certainly

not least… he was a fairy.

No, not that kind. The magic kind. As in enchanted sprite, with

gossamer wings and see-through neglige. Like Tinkerbell. Or, at

least, so Makepeace claimed. Exclaimed, more often than not,

usually at the top of his lungs, anytime someone brought up the

incongruity of a six-foot-six, three-hundred-pound fairy. Wyrdrune

had once observed that if Makepeace had wings, he must have

taken them off a pterodactyl, which had launched Makepeace in a

violent tirade against Hans

Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, and especially Walt

Disney, who, he claimed, had foisted upon a gullible public a totally

erroneous image of fairies.

The entire faculty and student body at the university knew of

this peculiarity of his, as did most of the Village bars, restaurants,

and coffee shops that Makepeace frequented, and it was widely

regarded as a harmless and amusing aberration, a mild neurosis of

an aging adept en route to senility. No one took it seriously. And, at

first, Wyrdrune hadn’t either. Except…

There was something very strange about the magic Makepeace

practiced. Wyrdrune had never known an adept to do the dungs

that Makepeace did, the way he did them. And as he and Billy

approached the park bench, they saw Makepeace doing something

that seemed entirely out of character for him. He was sitting on the

bench, with a brown paper bag in his lap, feeding the pigeons.

“Ah, Melvin!” he said, greeting them in a booming voice.

Wyrdrune winced. Makepeace knew he couldn’t stand his true

name, and so he called him by nothing else. “And young William.

You’re just in time. I was about to repair to Lovecraft’s

He emptied out the last of the corn from the bag, crumpled it up,

and tossed it casually, without looking, over his shoulder. It

described a graceful, floating arc in the air and landed in a

wastebasket about twenty-five yards away.