By the time she reached the walled garden, the others had managed to get the sheep rounded up into a tight little group and were herding them toward the open back gate, which led to the velvety meadow where sheep were apparently intended to be. A renegade cut and ran as Willie, following Cormac's example, flapped his arms at it. Baaing wildly, it headed straight for Caitlyn, who had just stepped through the front gate, its sharp little hooves churning the manure-rich, rain-wet furrows into thick black mud as it went.

"You! O'Malley! Stop 'em! T\im 'em!" They were all shouting at her as three other sheep whirled and pounded after the ringleader. Sure enough, the stupid creature in the lead was still heading at a gallop straight toward where Caitlyn stood transfixed just inside the whitewashed pickets of the closed front gate. But this was not a fleecy little white lambkin. It looked enormous, and furious, and it had horns.

Enough was enough. She was not risking life and limb to herd some murderous sheep. As it bore down on her, head lowered and baa-ing louder than Gabriel's horn, she scrambled to get out of the way. Her foot slipped in the mud where the sheep had already apparently churned up the moist earth, and she slid face first into thick ooze. The shock of it as she lay facedown in muck took her breath for a moment. Then what felt like a thousand-ton weight slammed into her left shoulder, and she realized that the bloody stupid sheep had run right over her. Her mouth opened at the pain of it. Black mud immediately filled her mouth.

When she surfaced, spitting mud, it was to find the four would-be sheepherders bent double with laughter. She glared, feeling fury start to heat in her toes before boiling up toward her head. They were laughing at her, Caitlyn O'Malley. Even the bloody sheep, bunched now with its three followers in the bloody corner, seemed to be laughing as it shook its horned head at her.