Kaye shook her head, horrified.
"You can hardly blame me. It is my nature. And it has been a very long time."
"I'm not going to help you kill people."
"There might be something else that would tempt me, but I can't think what. I'll give you the opportunity to think up something."
Kaye sighed.
"You know where to find me."
With that, the kelpie waded back into the water.
Corny was still sitting stunned on the bank. "That thing wanted to kill me."
Kaye nodded.
"Are you going to try to find something it wants?"
Kaye nodded again. "Yeah."
"I don't know how I feel about that."
"You read the site. You knew it would be like this."
"I guess. It's different to see it… to hear it."
"Do you want us to leave?"
"Hell, no."
"Any ideas what it might want that doesn't walk on two feet?"
"Well," he said, after a moment's consideration, "actually there are a whole lot of people I wouldn't mind feeding to that thing."
She laughed.
"No, really," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that there are a whole lot of people that I wouldn't mind seeing drowned. Really. I think that we should go for it."
Kaye looked up at him. He didn't look particularly fazed by what he had just proposed.
"No way," she said.
Corny shrugged. "Janet's boyfriend, for example. What a prick."
"Kenny?" Kaye squeaked.
"Look, it doesn't have to be him. I could think of a dozen people. The best thing is that they're all so dumb I'm sure I would have no problem convincing them to come down here and ride the horse. I'm thinking that stupidity should have consequences. C'mon, we can do a little weeding of the human race." He waggled his eyebrows.
"No," she said. "Think of something other than people we can give it."
"Oats?" he said vaguely. "A huge box of instant oatmeal? A subscription to Equestrian's Digest? Hay and lots of it?"
"We're not getting people killed, so just give it up, okay?"