Swallowing Darkness   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

How did we explain what had just happened so that the police didn't think exactly that? How do you explain that the giant octopus tentacles are tryingto rescue us, and that the little old lady was the danger?

"You must call off your beast, Sholto," Doyle said.

"They will either try to run out the door and call for reinforcements, or they will try to draw a second gun and kill my beast. They have already wounded him with lead bullets."

Him. He'd called the thing with tentacles bigger than my body a him. Funny, even with growing up with one of the nightflyers as my bodyguard, I still wouldn't have thought of the giant tentacled thing as a "him" or "her." It was an "it," but apparently not. Apparently, it was a "him," which implied a her out there somewhere. I'd assumed that this was the same tentacled creature that Sholto had brought to Los Angeles to fetch me, but maybe that had been the girl? Maybe I was still in shock, but I just couldn't think of what I was looking at as a girl.

"I am sorry that your beast was injured when all you were doing was trying to protect the princess." Doyle walked toward the policemen, staying one side of the tentacles. He spoke to the cops as they dangled.

"Officers, I am sorry that there was a misunderstanding. The tentacles that hold you came to rescue the princess, not to harm her. When the creature saw you with guns, it assumed that you were here to harm Princess Meredith, just as you would have assumed the same if strangers rushed in with pulled guns."

One of the cops looked at the other one. It was hard to tell what expression they shared, with their faces still mottled from being held too long by the tentacles, but it was almost a "do you believe this?" look.

The other cop, a little older, managed to say, "You're saying that this... thing is on your side?"

"I am," Doyle said.

I spoke from the bed. "Gentlemen, it's as if you came into my room and started shooting my dog, because he scared you."

The older cop said, his hands still tugging at the tentacle at his throat, "Lady, Princess, this ain't no dog."

"The hospital wouldn't let my real dogs in," I said.

Dr. Mason spoke from the floor, where she was still crouched behind Galen. "If we let you have your dogs, will this never come inside the building again?"

Doyle nodded at Galen, and it was enough. He helped the doctor to her feet, but her wide eyes remained on the huge tentacles still pinning the policemen, or maybe it was the nightflyers clinging to the ceiling just above them. So many interesting things to look at it, it was hard to tell exactly where her gaze was.