Chapter Four: Belief in the Signs
Chapter Index
It actually took a lot longer to find someone who could do magic than I had originally thought it would. Turns out they DON’T advertise in the phone book, or in the newspaper, and the few ads I found on the internet that weren’t actually for porn sites (oh the things you discover while trying to find other things,) were for either a) traveling magicians who performed ‘magic’ (pulling bunnies out of hats, cutting people up in half, so on and so forth,) or b) were not interested in dealing with the dangerous side of the supernatural, and just wanted to make money off of people looking to have their fortunes told. I was getting frustrated with the search very quickly, because all I wanted at that point was to find someone so I could kill the damn demon and go home to relax for as long as I damn well wanted.
I probably wouldn’t have found out about the Ramones if I hadn’t sent Jared on a mission to find me the coffee with the most amount of caffeine per fluid ounce in the whole city. It turns out if you want a magician? You have to go out and look at those bulletin boards those coffee shops around college campuses have, because that’s where they advertise. Or at least, that’s where this one was. Jared had ripped off the little tabbity thing-I never understood how those worked until he brought the one to me and then had to explain it while I was being crabby about my lack of a caffeinated system-and come RUNNING back to me, handing it over.
The tab said ‘McKay Ramone, magical arts practitioner’, and gave a phone number. I was encouraged by the fact that this McKay spelled magic like the rest of us normal people, though the whole title itself seemed a little cheesy to me. I wasn’t about to judge, if McKay was legit. I couldn’t decide, however, if McKay was a man or a woman, which made it problematic when trying to figure out just who I was going to be dealing with.
There was another small problem in the whole issue. I don’t trust phones. I don’t like them on principle-I prefer to see someone face to face. Some ridiculously high percentage of what you get out of a conversation comes from body language, which is a tad bit difficult to see over the phone because you can’t SEE over the phone. You know you’re either hideously ugly or just too skeevy to deal with if I say I prefer to communicate by phone with you. It’s just the way it goes. I also didn’t want to spill the beans about my job lest someone was listening who shouldn’t have been (that snoopy Doc Roe from next door, for example). So we ended up tracking the number through a database that got us the address of where the Ramones lived-though I didn’t know there was more than one at the time.
The apartment was kind of in a cruddy part of town, and that’s saying something from the woman who LIVES in a cruddy but only slightly less cruddy part of town. A bunch of the apartments didn’t really have doors left, and the whole place reeked of pot and beeswax. I was worried for a second that perhaps, instead of dealing with real magic, I was dealing with some very high college student on a particularly weird trip, but I had come this whole way and done all this research and I wasn’t about to go back now. I knocked on the door three times, not too hard because it really looked like the door might fall in at any minute. It opened a tiny bit with a click, and I could sort of make out the shape of a head with dark hair, and very very blue eyes that glinted in the dim light. “What do you want?” The voice was low and almost crackly, like whoever was behind the door was trying to sound older than he or she really was. Also manlier, but I wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, I looked the person as best I could in the eye, and cleared my throat.
“I’m looking for a McKay Ramone. Is there a person here at this residence with that name?”
I could see the person stiffen in the door frame, and I hoped to God for a second that this McKay person wasn’t dead, because I was not interested in deal with that right now. I just wanted my magical practitioner. “How did you find us?” the person asked roughly.
“Um, there was this advertisement in a coffee shop, I’m not entirely sure which one. My assistant found it, it’s one of those down by the college. Anyway, there was an advertisement. I still have the little rippy-off tab thingy.” I dug into my pocket and produced the tiny bit of paper, which the person opened the door to take. It was then I realized I was in fact dealing with a teenage boy, thin and of medium height, with dark hair longer than most boys his age.
He examined the slip of paper closely, like it would give him all the answers he had ever wanted, and then looked up at me with the most distrustful look I had ever received in my life. “This just has a phone number.”
“Do you know how easy it is to get an address from a phone number? There’s a reason a lot of people don’t have landlines anymore.” I met his gaze coolly, and tried to send off an aura of strength and determination.
He looked away from me and back to the paper, ran his tongue over his front teeth so his lip rolled while he clearly thought. Then he stepped back. “Come on in,” he said. “Close the door behind you.”
I was a little surprised that after the look he had just given me, he was going to let me waltz into his place, but I stepped through anyway. I wasn’t going to give up this opportunity if it was handed to me! And besides, no matter how freakishly strong this kid ended up being, I had a gun, so if he tried any funny business I wouldn’t have to hesitate to kill him. I mean, I probably would have hesitated. I don’t just go around killing people. Unless I’m hired to, in which case it doesn’t matter.
The apartment was small, and mostly clean despite the paint peeling off in large hunks. The tile had yellowed a little bit, but apart from that the place was actually quite clean. They didn’t appear to have a fridge in the kitchen-space-it could hardly be called a kitchen by itself. There was a kind of kitchen-space, and dining-space with a table and only two chairs-a boy and his mother? That would account for the lack of decorating. She probably worked very hard to support her son and herself and she’d come home every night with whatever meager meal she’d been able to scrape up for the both of them.
At least, that was my first thought, until I looked into what must have been the living-space and saw a teenage girl with her back to me, a bunch of blocks orbiting her blonde hair. The boy stood on the threshold of the room and cleared his throat.
“McKay,” he said, then a little louder. “McKay.”
“What is it, Jake?” Well, at least now I had a name for the boy. He looked nervous as hell, from where I was standing.
“There’s someone here to see you, McKay. A woman. She said you posted an ad. She knows about the... thing.”
“A customer?” The whole set of blocks fell to the floor with a dull thud, and the girl turned around to face us. She was smiling, and her bright blue eyes-eyes that matched her brother’s, or who I presumed to be her brother’s-flashed. “I thought I’d never get one!”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d advertised?” The question from the boy was dull, flat, and I bit my tongue. Great. I’d managed to start a family feud. Or something.
“You never asked,” she preened. “I would have told you if you had asked.” The boy sighed and the girl-McKay-giggled. “Come on, Jake. I couldn’t have told you if I’d wanted to. I know you’re scared. It’s okay. You work so hard for us, I just wanted to do what I could to help.”
“But you didn’t TELL me...” ‘Jake’ shook his head. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I just... I don’t want you to get hurt.” He turned to me and indicated with his head that I was supposed to go into the living space. I did, slowly, not wanting to alarm either one of them. There was a weird tension in the room, something which I could only blame on myself. McKay giggled.
“You don’t have to be afraid either,” she said, and I realized she was speaking to me. “I don’t bite, all that often.” I gave her what I suspect was a very not-reassuring smile, and tried to walk with more confidence. She was eerie, or something about her was. It sent shivers down my spine. “You can sit on the couch.” I did, and she turned to face me, still sitting on the floor with her legs crossed. “So,” she said, still smiling. Maybe that was what felt so weird about her. Her smile was massive-it stretched across her face and reminded me in a weird way of the demon I’d fought. “What brings you around here? And why didn’t you call?”
“I hate phones,” I said. “You can tell anything about a person when you call them.”
“Well it’s good you came, anyway. Our phone line’s dead.”
“It’ll be back up as soon as we can scrape enough money together to pay the bill,” came the growl of Jake from the kitchen space. McKay rolled her eyes and I started to relax a bit-maybe she was just a normal girl. And then she opened her mouth again.
“They’re not coming back, Jake. They’re not gonna call-no one is, except the bill companies. So we don’t really need a phone anyway.” I sat back, looked at my hands while I waited for this family drama to be finished. This round, anyway.
“Don’t say things like that. Don’t.”
“I’m just saying the truth.” She rolled her eyes again, and then turned back to me. “So. You still haven’t said what you’re doing here.”
I inhaled. “I came to hire you,” I said.
“Well I sure hope so!” She giggled. I almost winced. I wasn’t used to being on the hiring end of these kinds of deals. It was awkward.
“I have been hired by someone to kill a very dangerous demon. This demon has already killed many, many people. I would bring out the photographic evidence, but it’s pretty graphic, and I’m sure you can imagine just went down. Now normally I would just kill the thing by myself, but given the circumstances-“
“You already tried and failed,” she said suddenly, her voice getting weirdly distant, like she wasn’t exactly talking to me. I looked at her oddly.
“How did you know that?” I asked. She giggled, appearing to come back to the present.
“Magic,” she said slyly. “So you need someone like me-with a way to tap into the supernatural-to help you.”
I nodded. “I think having a supernatural view on things would make the fight easier, or at least give me an idea of how to go about it. I haven’t done a whole lot of research into the subject, but from what I do know, I would think you could help in some way, both in the planning and in the actual battle.”
“Ooo! Fighting demons of great evil, yes, absolutely! A cause worth fighting for.”
“So are you accepting the job?” I asked. “I can pay you, though not very well I’ll admit.”
“No.” The answer came from across the room, where Jake had poked his head out of the kitchen. “Absolutely not, McKay.”
McKay made a pouting face at her brother. “Jaaaaake,” she whined. “You heard her. We can make money!”
“I’m not letting you get killed!” he growled. “No. There is no way you’re fighting a dangerous demon.”
I looked across the room at him, my eyebrow raised. “Let me reassure you, I won’t let her get killed,” I said, my voice flat. I needed this girl to kill the demon, and her overprotective brother wasn’t going to get in my way. “I may not be very experienced in getting a kill off with a team, but I’m not about to let other people die on my watch.”
“Look ma’am-“
“Jules, you can call me Jules.” He looked at me dubiously. I sighed. “Mrs. Shepard, then.”
“Look, Mrs. Shepard. I’m not saying you’re not capable of protecting my sister. But accidents happen. And you said you’ve fought this thing before and failed.
I opened my mouth to lie to him, tell him that fine, I wouldn’t allow her in the field, but she cut in before I could speak. “Jake can fight.”
I looked from her to her brother. Jake seemed embarrassed-he was looking at his feet, although I had gathered by then that he wasn’t big on eye contact in the first place. “Is this true?” I asked.
“No,” Jake mumbled, but McKay nodded her head vigorously.
“She’s not here to turn you in, Jakey,” she said before turning to me. “Jake fights for a living. It’s his job.”
I glanced at Jake. “Boxer?” I asked him, and then shook my head. He was far too skinny to be a boxer. “Kick boxer?”
He shook his head, not looking at me. I glanced at McKay who just looked back at me solemnly. I tapped my foot impatiently. McKay turned back to her brother. “You can tell her,” she said gently. “She’s not gonna turn you in.”
He exhaled heavily, lifted his head to look at me defiantly. It was almost a glare. I street fight,” he half-spat out the word, like it was a bad taste in his mouth. “For cash. To support us.”
I licked my lips, eyeing his face for the first time. “You must do a good job,” I said calmly. “Very good, in fact. I don’t see any bruises.” Behind me, McKay giggled and Jake looked at his feet again. I turned back to look at her-she just smiled at me-and then I looked back at him. He lifted his head but didn’t look at me, and I could see the purplish bruise on his jaw, the split in his lip, the cut underneath his eye. I looked back at McKay, who burst into giggles.
“A charm,” she said, grinning at me. “The only magic he’ll let me do without freaking out. Masks the bruises ‘n stuff.”
I eyed McKay then turned back to Jake. “I’m actually a lot better than it looks,” he told me, eyes focused firmly above my head. “Most of them are old.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, thinking. I knew I needed McKay. I had been positively stupid to go against the supernatural without any knowledge of how to fight them. And McKay seemed to come with Jake, who street fought for a living and was good enough to keep them alive and mostly well-fed (though not good enough to stay on top of the phone bill.) I could use them both. “What about this,” I offered, looking between them both. “You both come work for me. I need McKay’s experience with magic, and Jake, I could always use some back-up, plus you would be able to protect McKay if, for some reason, she went out into the field. I’d pay you both enough to bring the phone back and keep your daily living expenses, and I only call on you when I need you. In the end, I pay you a final lump sum of five hundred dollars and we go on our merry way and I never have to bother you again.” I raised an eyebrow and held my breath. McKay and Jake both looked at each other, clearly doing some psychic sibling communication. Finally Jake looked at me and I smiled, and then got up. “I’ll just pop in when I know I need you. Or to make sure your phone is working again.”
McKay smiled at me. “Well wait to hear from you,” she said. “Oh, and Mrs. Shepard?” I turned back to look at her. “He would want to hear about this.”
I froze, my hand on the door handle. Jake eyed me warily while his sister continued to smile. I gave a half-hearted smile back, then turned around and left.
It actually took a lot longer to find someone who could do magic than I had originally thought it would. Turns out they DON’T advertise in the phone book, or in the newspaper, and the few ads I found on the internet that weren’t actually for porn sites (oh the things you discover while trying to find other things,) were for either a) traveling magicians who performed ‘magic’ (pulling bunnies out of hats, cutting people up in half, so on and so forth,) or b) were not interested in dealing with the dangerous side of the supernatural, and just wanted to make money off of people looking to have their fortunes told. I was getting frustrated with the search very quickly, because all I wanted at that point was to find someone so I could kill the damn demon and go home to relax for as long as I damn well wanted.
I probably wouldn’t have found out about the Ramones if I hadn’t sent Jared on a mission to find me the coffee with the most amount of caffeine per fluid ounce in the whole city. It turns out if you want a magician? You have to go out and look at those bulletin boards those coffee shops around college campuses have, because that’s where they advertise. Or at least, that’s where this one was. Jared had ripped off the little tabbity thing-I never understood how those worked until he brought the one to me and then had to explain it while I was being crabby about my lack of a caffeinated system-and come RUNNING back to me, handing it over.
The tab said ‘McKay Ramone, magical arts practitioner’, and gave a phone number. I was encouraged by the fact that this McKay spelled magic like the rest of us normal people, though the whole title itself seemed a little cheesy to me. I wasn’t about to judge, if McKay was legit. I couldn’t decide, however, if McKay was a man or a woman, which made it problematic when trying to figure out just who I was going to be dealing with.
There was another small problem in the whole issue. I don’t trust phones. I don’t like them on principle-I prefer to see someone face to face. Some ridiculously high percentage of what you get out of a conversation comes from body language, which is a tad bit difficult to see over the phone because you can’t SEE over the phone. You know you’re either hideously ugly or just too skeevy to deal with if I say I prefer to communicate by phone with you. It’s just the way it goes. I also didn’t want to spill the beans about my job lest someone was listening who shouldn’t have been (that snoopy Doc Roe from next door, for example). So we ended up tracking the number through a database that got us the address of where the Ramones lived-though I didn’t know there was more than one at the time.
The apartment was kind of in a cruddy part of town, and that’s saying something from the woman who LIVES in a cruddy but only slightly less cruddy part of town. A bunch of the apartments didn’t really have doors left, and the whole place reeked of pot and beeswax. I was worried for a second that perhaps, instead of dealing with real magic, I was dealing with some very high college student on a particularly weird trip, but I had come this whole way and done all this research and I wasn’t about to go back now. I knocked on the door three times, not too hard because it really looked like the door might fall in at any minute. It opened a tiny bit with a click, and I could sort of make out the shape of a head with dark hair, and very very blue eyes that glinted in the dim light. “What do you want?” The voice was low and almost crackly, like whoever was behind the door was trying to sound older than he or she really was. Also manlier, but I wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, I looked the person as best I could in the eye, and cleared my throat.
“I’m looking for a McKay Ramone. Is there a person here at this residence with that name?”
I could see the person stiffen in the door frame, and I hoped to God for a second that this McKay person wasn’t dead, because I was not interested in deal with that right now. I just wanted my magical practitioner. “How did you find us?” the person asked roughly.
“Um, there was this advertisement in a coffee shop, I’m not entirely sure which one. My assistant found it, it’s one of those down by the college. Anyway, there was an advertisement. I still have the little rippy-off tab thingy.” I dug into my pocket and produced the tiny bit of paper, which the person opened the door to take. It was then I realized I was in fact dealing with a teenage boy, thin and of medium height, with dark hair longer than most boys his age.
He examined the slip of paper closely, like it would give him all the answers he had ever wanted, and then looked up at me with the most distrustful look I had ever received in my life. “This just has a phone number.”
“Do you know how easy it is to get an address from a phone number? There’s a reason a lot of people don’t have landlines anymore.” I met his gaze coolly, and tried to send off an aura of strength and determination.
He looked away from me and back to the paper, ran his tongue over his front teeth so his lip rolled while he clearly thought. Then he stepped back. “Come on in,” he said. “Close the door behind you.”
I was a little surprised that after the look he had just given me, he was going to let me waltz into his place, but I stepped through anyway. I wasn’t going to give up this opportunity if it was handed to me! And besides, no matter how freakishly strong this kid ended up being, I had a gun, so if he tried any funny business I wouldn’t have to hesitate to kill him. I mean, I probably would have hesitated. I don’t just go around killing people. Unless I’m hired to, in which case it doesn’t matter.
The apartment was small, and mostly clean despite the paint peeling off in large hunks. The tile had yellowed a little bit, but apart from that the place was actually quite clean. They didn’t appear to have a fridge in the kitchen-space-it could hardly be called a kitchen by itself. There was a kind of kitchen-space, and dining-space with a table and only two chairs-a boy and his mother? That would account for the lack of decorating. She probably worked very hard to support her son and herself and she’d come home every night with whatever meager meal she’d been able to scrape up for the both of them.
At least, that was my first thought, until I looked into what must have been the living-space and saw a teenage girl with her back to me, a bunch of blocks orbiting her blonde hair. The boy stood on the threshold of the room and cleared his throat.
“McKay,” he said, then a little louder. “McKay.”
“What is it, Jake?” Well, at least now I had a name for the boy. He looked nervous as hell, from where I was standing.
“There’s someone here to see you, McKay. A woman. She said you posted an ad. She knows about the... thing.”
“A customer?” The whole set of blocks fell to the floor with a dull thud, and the girl turned around to face us. She was smiling, and her bright blue eyes-eyes that matched her brother’s, or who I presumed to be her brother’s-flashed. “I thought I’d never get one!”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d advertised?” The question from the boy was dull, flat, and I bit my tongue. Great. I’d managed to start a family feud. Or something.
“You never asked,” she preened. “I would have told you if you had asked.” The boy sighed and the girl-McKay-giggled. “Come on, Jake. I couldn’t have told you if I’d wanted to. I know you’re scared. It’s okay. You work so hard for us, I just wanted to do what I could to help.”
“But you didn’t TELL me...” ‘Jake’ shook his head. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I just... I don’t want you to get hurt.” He turned to me and indicated with his head that I was supposed to go into the living space. I did, slowly, not wanting to alarm either one of them. There was a weird tension in the room, something which I could only blame on myself. McKay giggled.
“You don’t have to be afraid either,” she said, and I realized she was speaking to me. “I don’t bite, all that often.” I gave her what I suspect was a very not-reassuring smile, and tried to walk with more confidence. She was eerie, or something about her was. It sent shivers down my spine. “You can sit on the couch.” I did, and she turned to face me, still sitting on the floor with her legs crossed. “So,” she said, still smiling. Maybe that was what felt so weird about her. Her smile was massive-it stretched across her face and reminded me in a weird way of the demon I’d fought. “What brings you around here? And why didn’t you call?”
“I hate phones,” I said. “You can tell anything about a person when you call them.”
“Well it’s good you came, anyway. Our phone line’s dead.”
“It’ll be back up as soon as we can scrape enough money together to pay the bill,” came the growl of Jake from the kitchen space. McKay rolled her eyes and I started to relax a bit-maybe she was just a normal girl. And then she opened her mouth again.
“They’re not coming back, Jake. They’re not gonna call-no one is, except the bill companies. So we don’t really need a phone anyway.” I sat back, looked at my hands while I waited for this family drama to be finished. This round, anyway.
“Don’t say things like that. Don’t.”
“I’m just saying the truth.” She rolled her eyes again, and then turned back to me. “So. You still haven’t said what you’re doing here.”
I inhaled. “I came to hire you,” I said.
“Well I sure hope so!” She giggled. I almost winced. I wasn’t used to being on the hiring end of these kinds of deals. It was awkward.
“I have been hired by someone to kill a very dangerous demon. This demon has already killed many, many people. I would bring out the photographic evidence, but it’s pretty graphic, and I’m sure you can imagine just went down. Now normally I would just kill the thing by myself, but given the circumstances-“
“You already tried and failed,” she said suddenly, her voice getting weirdly distant, like she wasn’t exactly talking to me. I looked at her oddly.
“How did you know that?” I asked. She giggled, appearing to come back to the present.
“Magic,” she said slyly. “So you need someone like me-with a way to tap into the supernatural-to help you.”
I nodded. “I think having a supernatural view on things would make the fight easier, or at least give me an idea of how to go about it. I haven’t done a whole lot of research into the subject, but from what I do know, I would think you could help in some way, both in the planning and in the actual battle.”
“Ooo! Fighting demons of great evil, yes, absolutely! A cause worth fighting for.”
“So are you accepting the job?” I asked. “I can pay you, though not very well I’ll admit.”
“No.” The answer came from across the room, where Jake had poked his head out of the kitchen. “Absolutely not, McKay.”
McKay made a pouting face at her brother. “Jaaaaake,” she whined. “You heard her. We can make money!”
“I’m not letting you get killed!” he growled. “No. There is no way you’re fighting a dangerous demon.”
I looked across the room at him, my eyebrow raised. “Let me reassure you, I won’t let her get killed,” I said, my voice flat. I needed this girl to kill the demon, and her overprotective brother wasn’t going to get in my way. “I may not be very experienced in getting a kill off with a team, but I’m not about to let other people die on my watch.”
“Look ma’am-“
“Jules, you can call me Jules.” He looked at me dubiously. I sighed. “Mrs. Shepard, then.”
“Look, Mrs. Shepard. I’m not saying you’re not capable of protecting my sister. But accidents happen. And you said you’ve fought this thing before and failed.
I opened my mouth to lie to him, tell him that fine, I wouldn’t allow her in the field, but she cut in before I could speak. “Jake can fight.”
I looked from her to her brother. Jake seemed embarrassed-he was looking at his feet, although I had gathered by then that he wasn’t big on eye contact in the first place. “Is this true?” I asked.
“No,” Jake mumbled, but McKay nodded her head vigorously.
“She’s not here to turn you in, Jakey,” she said before turning to me. “Jake fights for a living. It’s his job.”
I glanced at Jake. “Boxer?” I asked him, and then shook my head. He was far too skinny to be a boxer. “Kick boxer?”
He shook his head, not looking at me. I glanced at McKay who just looked back at me solemnly. I tapped my foot impatiently. McKay turned back to her brother. “You can tell her,” she said gently. “She’s not gonna turn you in.”
He exhaled heavily, lifted his head to look at me defiantly. It was almost a glare. I street fight,” he half-spat out the word, like it was a bad taste in his mouth. “For cash. To support us.”
I licked my lips, eyeing his face for the first time. “You must do a good job,” I said calmly. “Very good, in fact. I don’t see any bruises.” Behind me, McKay giggled and Jake looked at his feet again. I turned back to look at her-she just smiled at me-and then I looked back at him. He lifted his head but didn’t look at me, and I could see the purplish bruise on his jaw, the split in his lip, the cut underneath his eye. I looked back at McKay, who burst into giggles.
“A charm,” she said, grinning at me. “The only magic he’ll let me do without freaking out. Masks the bruises ‘n stuff.”
I eyed McKay then turned back to Jake. “I’m actually a lot better than it looks,” he told me, eyes focused firmly above my head. “Most of them are old.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, thinking. I knew I needed McKay. I had been positively stupid to go against the supernatural without any knowledge of how to fight them. And McKay seemed to come with Jake, who street fought for a living and was good enough to keep them alive and mostly well-fed (though not good enough to stay on top of the phone bill.) I could use them both. “What about this,” I offered, looking between them both. “You both come work for me. I need McKay’s experience with magic, and Jake, I could always use some back-up, plus you would be able to protect McKay if, for some reason, she went out into the field. I’d pay you both enough to bring the phone back and keep your daily living expenses, and I only call on you when I need you. In the end, I pay you a final lump sum of five hundred dollars and we go on our merry way and I never have to bother you again.” I raised an eyebrow and held my breath. McKay and Jake both looked at each other, clearly doing some psychic sibling communication. Finally Jake looked at me and I smiled, and then got up. “I’ll just pop in when I know I need you. Or to make sure your phone is working again.”
McKay smiled at me. “Well wait to hear from you,” she said. “Oh, and Mrs. Shepard?” I turned back to look at her. “He would want to hear about this.”
I froze, my hand on the door handle. Jake eyed me warily while his sister continued to smile. I gave a half-hearted smile back, then turned around and left.