Precinct 13 (8 page)

I tried not to make the gagging sound that came out of my mouth.

Jack smiled slightly again, but wagged a finger at me exaggeratedly. “Don’t be a speciesist. Not all demons are unnatural, and even the unnatural can fall in love. I mean, look at Spenser. He turned out okay, didn’t he?”

“What’s his deal?”

“Oh, you can’t tell? He’s half-fairy.”

“Fabulous!” I said with a smile. “But don’t the kids just call that bisexual these days?”

Jack gave me a frustrated grimace. “You’re just being intentionally dense. Spense is half-Scots Seelie fairy. I know you saw it in his eyes and pretended not to notice.”

I started to deny it, but gave up. “So what are you?”

He pointed to the Wi-Fi symbol on his chest. “Technomage.” At my confused look, he simplified, “A technology-using witch.”

“Not a warlock?”

His nose crinkled like I’d insulted him. “ ‘Witch’ is a title, not a gender,” he said. “You can be either a natural or unnatural witch. Sometimes there are other titles that people use to define their allegiance to magic—unnatural tend to prefer titles like ‘necromancer,’ ‘warlock’…that sort of thing.”

“So the unnatural are like the ‘Evil League of Evil’ or something?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” he said, sounding startled. “I guess I should’ve explained all that first. I’m a terrible teacher.”

“No, you’re not.” I reached out and patted him on the leg, and I felt my snake tattoo twinge slightly.

We both stared at my right arm and the ugly black thing that spiraled up my shoulder.

“It’s not my usual style,” I said. “I mean, if I was going to get something big, it’d be a dragon or something.”

“A dragon?” Jack repeated absently. “You can’t bind dragons with ink. And a black dragon…oak and ash, that’d be a familiar from hell.”

“You can have a dragon familiar?” I asked, even though I really wanted to question whether or not he was kidding about dragons being real in the first place.

“I couldn’t,” he said. “There have been historically, of course, witches who have had, but I don’t know if there’s a witch alive today powerful enough to attract one, frankly. Holding a dragon’s interest for terribly long would be tough as well. You see, the more intelligent an animal is, the more difficult they are to…Well, a witch never quite ‘tames’ their familiar, but there’s a certain amount of bonding that happens. Dragons don’t bond easily.” His voice drifted into a mutter. With a shake of his head, Jack must have decided
he’d run the course of that conversation, because he switched tracks. “We need to see if we can get rid of that thing.”

“You can do that?” I asked, hopefully.

“Yeah, though I’ll need some help,” he said. “Let me call Sarah Jane.”

Instead of taking a phone out of his pocket or asking to borrow mine, Jack took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. The koi, which had never stopped hopefully nibbling at the air near our toes, suddenly flashed to the other side of the pool with a splash. I jumped. Before I could ask what happened, Jack opened his eyes.

“She’s on her way. I think. I mean, well, she does what she likes most of the time, so hopefully she’ll come.”

I was beginning to think we were talking about a cat rather than a person. Given everything I’d seen today, I thought I’d better ask. “Sarah Jane is…?”

“My familiar, right,” he said. “While we wait to see if she comes, I should quickly explain the whole natural/unnatural division.”

I kept my eye on the door to the courtyard, watchful for the slinky movements of a cat. I had to admit I was pretty curious to meet Jack’s familiar, especially since he seemed so certain I should have one. Would she be like something out of a bad TV show about witches, with a fancy, diamond-studded collar and the ability to talk?

Jack, too, watched the window as he spoke. “About the whole natural and unnatural thing—the distinction is really very straightforward. If you think of power as a river, natural magic uses the existing currents. If you go against the flow, you’re tapping into the unnatural.”

“So, what, it’s like the Force?”

His eyes twinkled at my reference. “I suppose in a way,
in that the energy itself is neutral and what matters is how you use it. But it’s actually quite possible for a practitioner to use natural magic for evil purposes, and vice versa. That’s why we avoid labels like ‘dark’ or ‘light’ or ‘chaotic’ or ‘order.’ And, er, why we try not to judge a demon until we meet her, as it were.”

The frightened koi returned tentatively, cautiously. I was about to tell Jack that I had no doubt my stepmom was evil when my eyes caught the flap of large, black-and-white wings outside. A magpie hopped onto the frozen fountain and looked at us expectantly.

“Oh, there she is.” Jack waved out the window. “Coming, Sarah Jane!”

The bird fluttered to the courtyard door to meet him as he opened it.

“Sarah Jane Smith,” he said. “Meet Alex Connor.”

I had to guess this beautiful black-and-white bird was his familiar. It had a pearly white vest and silky black wings and a long, graceful tail. In the sunlight, some of the dark feathers shimmered almost metallic blue. I waved in what I hoped was a pleasant manner. I didn’t have a lot of experience talking to animals.

“You named your familiar after a Dr. Who character?” I asked Jack, as he closed the door to keep out the cold.

“Well”—he smiled sheepishly—“she is my companion.”

The bird made a noise not unlike a rueful laugh, and then took flight. She closed the distance between us in a flash. Perching on the stone step above me, her presence sent the poor koi skittering across the pond again. She cocked her head, first at the snake on my arm, and then catching my eye. Her beady gaze seemed to see right through me,
and I had the very distinct impression of being observed by something highly intelligent. I half expected she would just open her beak and say, “Hello.” But, instead, she dipped her head in greeting.

“Isn’t she brilliant?” Jack asked, proudly, as he sat back down beside me.

The bird hopped down and peered at my arm. I held it out for her. She pecked at it softly, and I resisted the urge to pull away.

“So, what do you think, Sarah Jane?”

The bird very distinctly shook her head.

Jack sat back, obviously irritated with her response. “Well, why did you come, then?”

She made a lot of racket, and the poor fish had apoplexy as she flapped and hopped around.

Jack took all this in stride. “Well, all right, but you know how I feel about you hanging out with that gang. I don’t think they’re very good for you. The last time I let you talk me into letting them inside, they trashed the place.”

The bird didn’t respond; instead, she flew back over to the courtyard door and hung on one of the ivy branches overhead. It bobbed under her weight.

Jack sighed. “I suppose we need them,” he said to her. Then, to me, he added, “You’re about to meet the Outlaws. Prepare yourself.”

“Outlaws? That sounds like a biker gang.”

“Worse. A gang of magpies,” he said. When he opened the door again about ten magpies flew in, all flashing pinfeathers and raucous calls. They swooped and soared around. Two of them dive-bombed my head, making me duck and cower.

“Ah, settle down,” Jack yelled. “You’re worse than a bunch of footballers.”

All the magpies seemed to find this hilarious as the room erupted in a cacophony of barking caws. However, they listened to him…eventually. They began to find places around the room to settle. The couple that had been dive-bombing me dropped down near my seat and gave my knee a nudge as if to say, “Just kidding around.”

One flapped onto my knee. Even through the fabric of my jeans, I felt the scrabble of its knobby, taloned feet. When I pushed it off lightly, I noticed that it had one of those metal tracking bands wrapped around its ankle. A quick survey revealed they all did, except Sarah Jane. It was, in fact, the only way that I could tell her from the others.

Jack came back with Sarah Jane perched like a hawk on his crooked arm. “Thing is,” he said to me, “I might be able to pull the snake out on my own, but Sarah needs her gang to kill it. Normally, magpies aren’t much for taking out large prey, see?”

I nodded, still marveling at all the magpies hopping and flapping around the room. A threesome sidled up to the koi pond and seemed to be eyeing up the fish. I waved my foot at them, trying to shoo them off. The look I got was pure wickedness, and I had a very bad feeling that I’d be finding a whole lot of bird shit on my car later, at the very least.

When Jack lowered Sarah Jane to the step, I asked, “So she hasn’t passed initiation yet, huh?”

His eyebrow jumped at that. “How do you mean?”

“No anklet yet,” I said, gesturing at the leg of a nearby bird.

“Oh right.” Jack nodded. “The colors. Apparently, they’re
all being tracked by the same ornithologist. He or she must be going mad looking at the places these guys go.”

One of the birds dived into the pool, harassing the fish.

“The natives are getting restless,” Jack noted. “It’s time for magic.”

At Jack’s words, the magpie gang noticeably shushed. They gathered in a close circle around us with hops and flaps. Their eyes flicked between me and my arm. The room seemed to dim as a cloud passed in front of the sun just outside the window.

“How does this work?” I found myself whispering in anticipation.

“A series of shifts,” he said, as though that explained something. “Starting now.”

I felt it in my stomach, like a kind of lurch, though nothing had actually moved. There was sudden brightness behind my eyes, a brightness not unlike the flash of a camera. I looked down at the snake on my arm. Its head shifted. The closest magpie—Sarah Jane?—snapped a beak at my hand, nipping skin.

I pulled my hand away protectively. “Ow!”

“Not yet,” Jack told the birds. “Watch the tail.”

I’d rolled up my sleeve and tucked it over my shoulder in a way that exposed the entire tattoo. Before I could ask Jack what he meant, I felt the shift again. This time my stomach dropped in free fall. I gasped a little when the brightness came, and louder when I saw a black tail protruding from the tip of my shoulder. A magpie cawed in excitement. Another jumped on my head, its talons scraping my scalp as it bobbed for the wiggling bit of snake. Magpies crowded me, nearly pushing me over as they snapped at my shoulder. The room erupted in echoing calls.

One of them must have caught hold because I felt a tug deep under my skin.

“He’s got it,” Jack said happily, backing up a step to give the gang of birds more room. I could hardly see him through the flopping feathers and feet. I had to put my other arm up to protect my eyes from wings and claws.

Meanwhile, the tugging grew more painful. I could feel the snake resisting, wiggling under my skin. The snake’s fangs pressed deeper into the flesh of the back of my hand.

Despite all the noisy pulling, not another inch emerged from my shoulder. After one heroic heave, a beak sliced through the finger’s-length of tail, sending the bird tumbling backward with its prize.

The rest of the snake quickly buried itself under my skin and became flat and two-dimensional again.

“We almost had it,” Jack said, as the birds awkwardly clambered off me.

“Do that shifting thing again,” I suggested, craning my head to inspect the tat. The tip was clearly sliced now, and smears of snake guts formed yellowish stains under my skin. “Maybe more will come.”

Jack shook his head. I noticed his face was pale and dotted
with beads of sweat. “Twice was hard enough. Besides, magic isn’t free. Shifting, in particular, causes big ripples. Who knows what new deviltry I’ve unleashed somewhere else?”

“But…I thought you said that you used magic to make the precinct seem abandoned,” I started. “Are you paying for that?”

“A little,” he admitted. “That’s why we encourage people to bring in their own natural magic. All the potted plants and such…”

“So you drain the energy of the plants?”

“Well, that sounds rather Machiavellian,” he said, clearly offended. “It’s not like that, not exactly. Plants are renewable sources of natural energy, particularly any that are tended—houseplants, gardens, crops. What the magic takes out, people put back in.”

I nodded. “What about all this green?” I lifted my hands to indicate all the plants that covered the room.

“They help,” he said. “But the kind of direct magic that I just performed, it’s…well, bigger.”

My hand ached so I flexed it experimentally. I could feel the stab of the snake’s fangs like muscle tightness. Meanwhile, the birds had gone back to their mischief. A group was fighting over the severed length of snake tail. The splash of water behind us let me know that one magpie had returned to harassing the fish.

Sarah Jane tucked herself into Jack’s lap, as though she were settling on a nest. Jack stroked her head and back lightly. “I think you may be stuck with that for a while,” he said, with a jerk of his chin in the direction of my arm. “Hannah was right. It’s much deeper than I thought. Also, I got a sense that it…well, liked you.”

We both looked at the inky blackness spiraling up the length of my arm. My hand twinged painfully again. “Likes me?” I repeated, horrified.

“Remember what I said about not judging? The spell had an original, evil intent, but you changed it when you cursed it. It may be becoming something else. Something a bit more positive.”

“You’re not suggesting I keep it, are you?”

Jack raked his fingers through his hair, and Sarah Jane fluffed herself in obvious displeasure at the slight displacement his gesture caused. “You may not have much choice. I wonder…the quick bonding, the ease with which you stopped its intent…Maybe your familiar is a reptile, like a—”

There was a loud splash behind us and a magpie hauled a flopping fish onto the stone lip of the pond. Jack twisted around to see, dumping Sarah Jane. “Hey, put that back!” he admonished the bird.

Sarah Jane scolded the guilty bird as well, and pretty soon there was pandemonium as more birds joined in, picking sides. I noticed a few trying to sneak out another fish during the distraction. When I pointed that out to Jack, he stood up and shouted, “That’s it! That’s it! Get out!!”