Castle Kidnapped

Fourteen Long Island Expressway

Snowclaw never tired of watching the metal wagons roar up and down the stone road. His head snapped this way and that as they streaked by. Big ones, small ones, middle-sized ones. It was amazing.

He had left Trent’s house after thinking long and hard about what he ought to do. He knew there was such a thing as a telephone. He had heard of a telephone, and theoretically, at least, he knew what you were supposed to do with one. But he hadn’t the foggiest notion of how you actually went about using one. If so, he would have called Halfway House.

Yes, he had thought long and hard. And he came to the conclusion that he simply would have to walk to Halfway House. Of course, he hadn’t the slightest idea where Halfway was from here or how far it was, but he had an inkling its direction was due west, so he had left the house, put his back to the rising sun, and started walking.

He’d found this road and followed it. Human eyes regarded him curiously from the windows of the hurtling metal vehicles.

Distance wasn’t his only problem. Here, on Earth, he was incommunicado. He understood no one, and no one understood him. Trent had whipped up an impromptu translation spell, but that extended no farther than the confines of Trent’s house. Sheila’s shape-changing enchantment was still on him, though. That at least was something. He could imagine the dismay he’d cause if he had to go traipsing about in his natural state.

Gray clouds were gathering ahead. Rain? Snow? Another thing he knew nothing about: the weather of this world. To him it was comfortably warm, but he knew that snow could fall at this temperature.

More metal wagons whizzed by. Where were they all going? And so fast, too! Snowclaw couldn’t get over it. They were tearing up the road.

One of them, a long metallic gray affair with dark windows, abruptly slowed, wheels squealing, and pulled off onto the shoulder ahead. Snowclaw approached it warily. Could be trouble.

Two humans got out, one short, the other chunky. They waited for Snowy to come closer.

The small one spoke. “Look at him, Vinny. Didja ever see a guy that big?”

Vinny shook his head.

Snowclaw stopped and sized them both up. They’d be no problem, as long as they didn’t pull any magic. He’d heard there was powerful magic in this world.

“Hey, pal. What was you, a wrestler? Weight lifter?”

Snowclaw was surprised to discover that he knew more or less what the little human was saying. Gene had told him about this. Inside the castle, the running translation spell kept everyone in communication. But living under its influence for extended periods tended to produce side effects, the chief one being that some actual language learning took place. Snowclaw had heard a lot of English spoken in the last two years.

“Yeah,” Snowclaw said. “Wrestler.” His jaw had to work unnaturally hard to form the words.

“Yeah, where didja work? Professional wrestling?”

“Yeah. Pro-fesh-shunal.”

“Uh-huh.” The small human looked a little older than the big one. “Waddya think, Vinny?”

“I dunno, Nunzio. He got an accent.”

“So what? Hey, fella, what are you? You look like a Swede. You Swedish, or what?”

“Yeah, Swedish.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Did your car break down? You don’t have a coat, neither. It’s cold. Aren’t you cold?”

“Jeez, Nunzio, the guy’s so big, he don’t need nothin’.”

“Yeah, hey. What’s your name, fella?”

Snowclaw thought about it. The only name he knew was the one his English-speaking friends called him.

“Snowy.”

“Snowy. Uh-huh. ’Cause of your hair, huh? It’s white.”

“Jeez, he’s big, Nunzio.”

“Yeah. You lookin’ for a job, fellah? I got one, if y’are. I need a bouncer at my club. The guy I had, one, he was doin’ a number with a waitress of mine — I mean, the little bitch was two-timin’ me, y’know? — two, him and the manager was skimming a thousand a week off the place, bleedin’ me white, and I don’t like that, see. But both of ’em are sleepin’ with the fishes now. You get me? So waddya say, you want the job? You look like you could handle anybody.”

Vinny said, “He looks like he could handle the whole Pascagleone family by hisself.”

The small one laughed. “Yeah. So whaddya say, pal?”

Snowclaw shrugged. “Okay.”

“Good. I’ll start you at — four hundred a week. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Fine. There’s an apartment above the joint, if you need a place to stay.”

“Yeah. Place to stay. Yeah.”

“Good. Get in the car, and we’ll take a spin down the club, show you around.”

Snowclaw got in the front seat. Another human was driving, and this one cringed at the sight of him. Snowclaw smiled at the little fellow.

In the back seat, Vinny whispered, “Jeez, Nunzio, he’s big!”