Laughter in the Purple Rain (176)

PSI-5

Hyacinth was sitting on the dining room step, because the cots were uncomfortable. She had slipped both feet out of her shoes, but since she didn’t have anywhere better to put her feet she had left them on top of the shoes, just outside. A few people were using the cots to lie down and rest, if not sleep. The party was winding down and everyone was making their best effort to amuse themselves quietly, if only to give their own brains a respite. Sustained insanity was exhausting.

Sustained management of insanity was no picnic either, but Hyacinth had done it for eight years in a row and Barnaby even longer, so twenty-four to thirty-six hours wasn’t too bad by comparison. Just a little while longer and it would be over, with enough time to regroup for the next assault and get some sleep. In the meantime, the quiet moments functioned like coffee breaks.

Hyacinth did have some coffee, but she wasn’t feeling the ‘break’ part. She was a hundred feet of coiled wire tightly compressed in a little box and if there was any breakage she wouldn’t be able to power the phonograph anymore. She wasn’t liable to unwind until someone slotted in a cylinder and set the needle.

The baby mice were largish pink jelly beans, too small even to feed with an eyedropper, so she had given them to Barnaby and told him he could have the corpses later when he might get some use out of them. He performed the requisite murders politely out of her view, and all the rest of the mice which were going to starve or eat each other would likewise be unseen and out of her hands.

Milo and Calliope still hadn’t come down and she suspected they had fallen asleep. Lucy was in her bassinet in room 102, behind a closed door where Bethany, Pablo, Ted and Maria were also trying to get some rest. This was less than ideal — if Lucy or Pablo woke up and needed attention there was going to be collateral damage — but it was all right for the moment and she didn’t have the energy to rearrange them.

Chris and Kitty, of all people, had decided to give the double bed a try. She had shyly offered him a smashed flowered hat that he might like to glue to the ceiling and they seemed to have made friends on that basis. Hyacinth could only hope it would last the rest of the storm, then afterwards they were free to be embarrassed or start hating each other again.

Sanaam was playing cards, the General was teaching the Dove Cot ladies how to play Conquest, and Maggie was upstairs — either trying to nap or up to no good with Soup. That could go either way. Cerise had gone into the basement with tea and a chocolate cheesecake and was either taking care of or annoying Seth and Erik. That could also go either way, but if it went south at least it wouldn’t be quiet, unlike Maggie and Soup, who knew how to cover their tracks.

And Mordecai was in Room 101.

She had made several attempts but it had been over three hours and she hadn’t got him out of there.

She licked her thumb and rubbed her forehead. There was still an ink smear on her forehead. She either needed more time in the bathroom or better soap.

He and Tommy had been playing together. As far as she could tell they’d been having a lovely time. He had bowed after finishing a song, now she couldn’t remember which one, but he’d said, “And for my next number — pardon me, Hyacinth — a disappearing act! Pay no attention to the curtain or the man!” He rapped on the door to Room 101, it opened and he went in and shut it behind him.

After a moment’s gape-mouthed shock, Hyacinth tried to follow him, found the door locked, and pounded on it until it opened.

She went in. Obviously she went in. They saw her go in. When she found herself outside again, with the door closed and no Mordecai, they also told her someone had written GO AWAY on her forehead in ink.

“Is it his handwriting?” she asked the room at large.

They weren’t sure.

So she banged on the door and went back in.

When she came back out he had signed it and dated it.

So what could she do? Every once in a while she knocked and looked in or rattled the knob and yelled, “Don’t eat my friend!” But he hadn’t come out or done anything except vandalize her head. In laundry marker, apparently.

I bet it’s not even in there, she was trying to tell herself. Whatever it is. During magic storms it evaporates or goes out the window or something. I barely remember to feed it. It doesn’t complain. It’s gone somewhere and he’s sitting in an empty room with its nest or its shed skin or whatever it leaves and he’s screwing with me.

Three hours was a long time to keep quiet just to be screwing with her, especially during a magic storm, but maybe he had a novel in there or something.

About two hours ago she had gone in with a peanut butter sandwich and come out wearing a peanut butter hat, so either he wasn’t hungry or it had enough to eat already.

“It’s never eaten anyone before,” she muttered against her hand.

…That I am aware of, she thought.

She didn’t know what she was going to tell Erik.

The mage lights flickered. The decoys were holding up quite well. She could count the number of times magic had nailed the rod on one hand. Just as she was congratulating herself on a job well done, the front window lit up solid purple, the mage lights snapped out, and a taxidermied raccoon fell off the ceiling. She heard it hit the ground but she couldn’t make out what happened to it.

Bianca Taube sat up and clutched her birdcage.

“A double…?” said Hyacinth. But she doubted it even as she said it. It didn’t feel like a double strike, it was too slow.

Outside, a car horn blared and was twisted off as if strangled. There was a jagged sound, not thunder, too near. An explosion. The glass in the front window shuddered and cracked, but held.

Hyacinth stood on her shoes. She slipped into one, then the other. “Barnaby…”

He was already peeking out of the kitchen with a bagel in his mouth. Reluctantly, he removed it. “Walker?” he said.

“You don’t have to,” she said. There were folded blankets on the cots and she picked up two.

He smiled at her and stepped lightly over the baby gate. “We’ve been doing this together since you were twelve. You can’t expect me to stop now. I’m set in my ways.”

There was another explosion and the truncated howl of a dog. Ted opened the door of Room 102 and looked out, blinking. Tania fixed one of the mage lights. It had a bluish glow that did not seem entirely stable.

“We’ve got someone outside,” Hyacinth said. “General, Sanaam, do what you can to get ready. Keep everyone away from the windows! Barnaby, come on. If you’re going to help me, move fast!”

———

Some years they didn’t get any walkers at all. Hyacinth kept saying one of these storms someone would whiz by on a broomstick, or in a car — that was just the kind of luck she had — but they never seemed to pull themselves together enough to manage more than walking at a brisk pace.

In the summer of 1373 a very nice woman named Yvette had somehow stolen a police horse. Hyacinth still couldn’t figure that one out, and of course poor Yvette had no idea, once they’d calmed her down and found her some clothes to wear.

Those spare clothes Kitty thought they ought to throw out or give to the poor did come in handy sometimes!

Once they got onto the porch, the round purple glow emanating from the vicinity of Eddows Lane and reflecting off the low-hanging clouds was obvious. The rain and the puddles had just enough pseudo-electric lambency to make out the cobbles — the lamplighters had neglected Violena Street again this evening — but the light in the distance was obviously a person. Objects hit by magic lit up and went out.

As if to underscore the fact, a horizontal blue lightning bolt raced down Violena, turned the corner at Swan’s Neck and blew up a trash can. The dented lid flew into the gutter, glowed briefly purple, and faded into shadow.

“Ah, we’re under fire,” Barnaby noted. Some of the luckier ones managed to aim up, but it wasn’t a matter of choice. He recalled that Jean-Paul in the spring of 1375 had appeared to be mad at the clouds. They had three that year! He shooed an absent hand at the decoys. The plywood board they used for a gate had already fallen over and he stepped on it.

“I’m good at finding cover,” Hyacinth said. She ducked onto the street, hunched over with an anti-magic blanket drawn over her head, aiming for the nearest post box.

Barnaby followed her a few paces behind, he had the other blanket. Not that it did much to protect his suit. “I vividly remember him nailing you in the head with a Fourth Dynasty vase,” he said, dripping. “Don’t you? He bought you two dozen roses for your black eye, and you put them in the vase to annoy him.”

“I’ve been through an actual war since then, Barnaby!” she replied. She ran from him and hid behind the nearest building, a barbershop with a painted sign in the window offering dental extractions.

He caught up to her in short order, as she was still surveying the glow and the potential pathways to reach it. “Well, so have I,” he said breathlessly. “But this has always been rather more like talking David down from the roof. After all, he didn’t mean to hurt us and he couldn’t kill us.”

She decided to hide behind a trash can a few yards away, and she removed the lid for use as a shield. A gaslamp exploded across the street and she raised it in the direction of the flying glass, but she couldn’t tell the sound of shrapnel from the sound of rain. “That poor bastard won’t kill us if they hit us, but if they hit something else all bets are off. This part is like trying to drag a wounded soldier out of no man’s land.” She regarded him. “Not that you’d know.”

“Our Alice and her fanatical devotion to the sanctity of life!” cried Barnaby. He dumped out the trash can itself and took it with him, leaving a pile of sodden garbage in the street. “Who decided she’d like to help fight a war for some reason!” He snatched Hyacinth by the back of her dress and dragged her behind the can, just as another bolt zigzagged down the street and took out the front window of the nail salon. “Can you see our wounded soldier yet, my dear?”

“Barely, but we have to get closer to talk to him,” she said, squinting. She could make out a human figure in trousers, wreathed in painful light like a movie villain who is just about to go mad with arcane power and explode from the overload, teaching us all a valuable lesson about moderation. He was clutching his head and she thought she could detect screaming underneath the crackling sound of another gathering bolt. This one flew up towards Strawberry Square and destroyed something conveniently distant. The human figure slumped but the light did not dim.

Hyacinth dragged Barnaby by the lapel, tearing the brittle fabric. “Come on. Now. Now!”

———

It didn’t know. It didn’t know who it was or where, or what was happening to it. Or even if it was happening. There was just this existence in confusion and pain. Maybe it was a nightmare about being filled up with a god, pushed aside and out of control, but still able to see and feel everything! And it couldn’t wake up. Maybe waking up wasn’t real.

There was light and a sensation of burning, and of being stretched, of being too full, of cracking in every fiber and seeking some kind of release but there was none.

It couldn’t even scream when it wanted. Screaming just happened to it, but screaming didn’t help. There were things inside that wouldn’t come out with a scream. Too many.

Its heart was hammering and seemed about to explode. It couldn’t breathe — there was no room for breathing. It was pretty sure it was dying, but not if dying would help.

Probably not. Maybe it was already dead. Maybe this was the feeling of death and every dead thing in the world felt like this and it never knew. Maybe dying was like being thrown out of an airship and you just kept falling forever, in terror with no way to stop.

Sometimes there were hard things that hurt and impeded it. It couldn’t identify those things and didn’t want to hurt them, but it didn’t have any choice.

Oh, gods, please make it stop. I can’t take much more…

I? Me? Was it a person? Maybe, but the idea of person-ness just caused it more pain. A person… might have friends and family that it had hurt. A person… might wake up and have to live with that forever.

I’m sorry…

There were two vague shapes coming nearer to it. Something. Motion. Hands. Two hands it didn’t own or control came up in front of it and light poured out of them in the direction of the shapes.

A scream. And then words. “Get away from me, don’t fucking touch me! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” Words it couldn’t understand but which at least didn’t seem to contradict its desire not to hurt the shapes with the light. Then laughter. Gasping, wild laughter like sobs.

“Not like that you won’t,” said one of the shapes. This was an older voice, and it suspected a parent, then a doctor, then one of the aliens that had shot it with whatever fucked up raygun had done this to it. It turned away, not wanting more pain but unable to run or hide.

The other shape was in the way. It folded back its hood and there was a human face with glowing ghost eyes and a smile under there. “Hi. I’m Hyacinth. This is Barnaby. You seem like you’re having some trouble just now.” A woman’s voice.

It wanted to rape her. Hold her down and force whatever this was out of itself and into her body with sex or violence, and it didn’t care if it killed her.

Oh, gods, no, please don’t…

“I killed all my friends!” it shrieked. And it wasn’t sure if it had, or if it just wanted her to go away so she wouldn’t be hurt. Either seemed possible. Maybe both.

The older voice chuckled politely. “I highly doubt it.”

“Yeah, we had a heck of a time just killing one of ours,” said the woman.

“Huh?” it said. And that sounded so normal and human that it was startled. “Are… Are you gonna kill me?” Not that it would necessarily object…

It laughed again weakly. Couldn’t help laughing. The sound was low and crazy, like a growling dog.

“That’s not in our job description,” said the older voice.

“We find hurt people and we put them back together,” said the woman.

“…Really, it’s more volunteer work. I haven’t been paid in ages. Are you being paid, Alice?”

“Did they pay you to come get me?” it cried, staggering backwards. The government. Or the asylum. Men in white coats. Aliens. It was an experiment and it had escaped. It didn’t even belong on this painful planet…

“Nah, we just noticed the light and came over,” said the woman. “We help a lot of people like you. I think you make an even dozen. Haven’t lost one yet.” In a much lower voice she said, “Barnaby, you are as comforting as a beanbag chair full of porcupines.”

“I’ve been unemployed for some time,” said the older voice, conversationally.

“It’s this darn postwar economy,” said the woman. “What’s your name, mister?”

“I… I… I’m Fred,” he said.

Yes. No. Was he?

Freddie, go home, your mamma’s callin’!

That… That seemed like a reasonable thing to have happened to him. At some point before the Prokovian government kidnapped him and put a radio receiver in his head to turn him into an assassin.

Now, hang on, Freddie-boy, that don’t seem right.

He clutched his head. “Will you shut up, Dad? You have no idea what I’m dealing with here! I probably killed the Prime Minister!”

“I don’t think anyone would be too put out if you did,” said… someone. Someone else. Not on the radio in his head. He blinked and looked up. The light was so bright, he was going to go blind…

“I’m pleased to meet you, Fred,” someone else said. A woman. Had he been talking to a woman? Why was he chatting up girls when his brain was melting and the aliens were after him?

“I’m Hyacinth, but Barnaby can never remember it,” she said, “so I don’t mind if you can’t either. We’d really like to help you, but we won’t come any closer if that’s not okay.”

“We’ll just hang around and stop everybody else from bothering you,” said the other person. The older person in the blanket.

Dee had been sitting on a cot wrapped in a blanket and he picked this little spot of green mold off the sandwich… Off the bread, it had been on the crust of the bread. He said, I think these are from last magic season…

“I… I said this shelter is shit. This shelter is shit. That rhymes. No it doesn’t… What’s that called? Alliteration. Dissociation. Mental aberration. Oh, god, I left Dee and they shot him!”

“That sounds really awful and maybe if you let us help you, we’ll be able to help Dee too,” said the woman. “Can I come help you?”

His hands wanted to come up again and he forced them back down. He felt himself cracking. He couldn’t turn off the radio in his brain. “I want to hurt you! I want to hurt you!”

The woman shook her head. Her pale hair was plastered to her face and she was wearing a set of goggles that made her eyes look like searchlights. They were dripping with rain. Purple rain, like the song. “If you wanted to hurt me you would just do it instead of warning me about it. I know you don’t want to hurt me. I’m over here because you’re scared and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“This isn’t your fault,” said the older gentleman. “It’s not your responsibility. You can’t control what’s happening to you right now. You’ve taken a shot of raw magic to the brain and it is incredibly obvious, if you don’t mind my saying. That’s why two strangers have put themselves in charge of you. But we’re experienced. We can keep ourselves safe and you too, worry not.”

“I can’t… I can’t…”

“Barnaby, he…”

“I know, Alice. Fred, you’re holding it in because we’re standing here talking to you and you don’t want to hurt us, but you’ve got to let some of it go. Like a magic rod discharging, right? You’re not going to hurt us.”

“I can’t…”

He was going to kill himself. He wanted to. Find some hard object within the light and beat his brains out against it. Darkness then. No more pressure. This pressure, this pressure that made him want to kill them because he knew they weren’t going to let him kill himself…

Tear them. Bite them. Bring his hands up and let the light go at them.

Oh, gods, make them let me die because I can’t…

Fred, seriously, you’re not going to hurt us…

Fred. Are you hearing me? Fred! Go ahead and kill us!

Fred, listen to me, Barnaby is an unredeemable monster and he will not be missed.

Hyacinth is a serial heartbreaker and mutilator of boys with fast cars and I know for a FACT that she hasn’t filed her taxes since 1367!

I deserted the army during a war and that’s basically TREASON!

“Oh, gods!”

He didn’t know if he moved or was moved. The light just came. Like being caught in a bomb blast, like existing within the bomb, like being the bomb.

A very sorry, unwilling bomb with a human heart that wanted to stop beating but couldn’t.

And then nothing but fire and pain and white blindness branded over his eyes that went suddenly dark.

“Tastes like pennies,” the woman said.

“Well, you do have that plate in your head,” said the old man.

He was on the ground. He felt hard, wet cobbles under his ass and there were arms around him. The rain was cold, he was shaking, and he thought he’d hit his head on something because it really hurt and his ears were ringing, but they were holding him and warm.

He began to sob. He wasn’t even sure if he was crying tears, he just moaned and made noises.

“That’s all right, Fred.”

“We’re sorry if this hurts, but you need someone to hold the blankets.”

“Just give it some time.”

“I’m sorry I killed us,” he said. “I’m so sorry I killed us. Are we going to hell?”

“Oh, eventually,” Barnaby said.

Hyacinth swatted him. “Stop being a bag of porcupines! Fred, it’s okay. You didn’t hurt us. You’re okay.”

“I can’t see you! I can’t see!”

“Give it a minute,” Hyacinth said. She lifted her goggles back to her forehead, he had reminded her. “You were lit up so bright we could see you a block away. It’s night and the lamplighters abandoned us again.”

He blinked at her blindly. She could make out close-cropped white hair and a bloody nose, but not his color. Everything was black and blue and purple, like a bruise. “How are you not dead?”

“We’re not very conductive,” Barnaby said.

“Milo’s anti-magic blankets are ridiculously overbuilt,” Hyacinth said. She bundled him a little tighter. “But I still taste pennies. Every time.”

“You broke the radio in my head,” he said.

She shrugged. “Eh. Yeah. More or less. I break a lot of things.”

“I can still hear it but I know it’s not real.” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “This isn’t me. I’m not crazy.”

Barnaby sat back and folded his arms across his chest indignantly. “Of course you’re not! I’m crazy and I’ve never seen you at the meetings!”

Fred swiveled drunkenly to stare at him. Hyacinth thought she caught a flash of white teeth but she wasn’t sure if it was a grimace or a smile. “Who are you people?”

“I’m Hyacinth and he’s Barnaby,” she told him. “We find hurt people and put them back together. It’s going to take a little while, but I think we’ve got all the pieces of you. Do you think you can stand if we help you?”

“I… I don’t know.” He shut his eyes and bowed his head. “I don’t think they really did shoot Dee. Not right now. The aliens are at La Stella. What’s it called…” He was slurring his words.

She gave him a shake and his head came back up. “Hey, Fred. I know you’re tired, but you can’t sleep here. We’ve got to walk a little way. Barnaby, help me…”

“Clash of the… Nerian World War,” muttered the soaking wet colored person under the blankets. He sagged against them but they managed to keep him standing. “I don’t know. They had rayguns. Pew-pew.” He made a gun with one limp hand.

“Tell us about the movie,” Hyacinth said. “Should I go see it? I don’t think I’ve seen it.” When she took a step forward he came with her, if shakily.

“I wouldn’t because then they might shoot you, and you can’t remember you’re a person,” Fred said blearily. “I can’t remember if it’s aliens or the government.”

“The government always sticks its nose in,” Barnaby said. He put an arm around Fred and helped hold him up. He was quite used to walking wasted people home, or being a wasted person and trying to walk home. Compared to David, people hit by magic were friendly and easy to deal with. Sometimes David just stood there, at the very edge, threatening to jump and refusing to even turn and look at them. If you didn’t throw a bedsheet over him and drag him inside he could go hours. People hit by magic were always quite chatty! Even if they weren’t making any sense.

“Are they good aliens or bad aliens, Fred?” Hyacinth said.

“Aliens aren’t real,” Fred said, blinking.

“No, I know. In the movie.”

“Oh, gods, let me think. I think they were pissed off because we wouldn’t stop killing the whales. Or the snails. Or the elephants. It was some damn thing. Aliens are always losing their goddamn minds for no reason! What does blowing up the Earth do to solve race prejudice? Who does that? Aliens need to get their shit together!”

They talked, it didn’t matter about what. It kept him awake and responsive and they got him back to the house.

———

The front room was empty and only the single mage light Tania had fixed came on when they opened the front door. There were some cracks in the window but Hyacinth was pleased to see it hadn’t ruptured and made a mess on the floor. Milo’s safety glass knew how to sweep itself up ordinarily, but there were no guarantees during a storm.

A few of the things from the ceiling had fallen and the taxidermied raccoon was missing its head, but nothing important seemed damaged.

She raised her voice, not too much as Fred couldn’t help but have a headache, “Hey, you guys! I know you’re in here somewhere! We got him, it’s okay!”

Hyacinth and Barnaby let Fred down on the nearest cot. There was an electric snap, the fabric pulled free of the supports and the whole thing collapsed, spilling the man onto the floor. He was soaking wet, wearing a plaid shirt and khaki trousers, one shoe, and purple socks with stars embroidered on them. He was purple himself, which Hyacinth might’ve guessed by the color of the flames, but raw magic tended to glow bluish-purple in any case and it had hidden him.

He also had rather a broad nose and kinky-curly hair, features which Hyacinth had never seen in a colored person before, but she supposed it made no difference. It was like Steven’s eyes. Colored people could look like anything, but the colored part always came first.

Especially during a storm.

“Woo!” Fred said. He clapped his hands and began to laugh. “Oh! This isn’t funny! That really hurt! Ha-ha! Ow!”

Hyacinth knocked a hand on her head. “Gods, I’ve gotten so used to Erik I forgot it happens to other people. Context, Alice, you ass! I’m sorry, Fred. Try not to touch anything. We use a lot of magic in this house and I don’t remember where all of it is. We have a kludge for this…”

Calliope appeared in the basement doorway. “Are we okay to come out, Cin? I don’t wanna bug you, but Seth can’t pretend it’s Yule with that many people in the basement and Bethany won’t leave him alone. We even tried singing carols.”

“You can come up, but you have to keep Bethany and Pablo on a leash,” Hyacinth said. “Fred’s like Erik, magic stuff gives him shocks. Nobody touch him.”

“Hi, Fred,” Calliope said.

“Huh-huh-hi,” Fred said, shivering. Barnaby had spread a fire blanket over another cot and they let him down on it cautiously. There was no snap and it supported his weight. He put his elbows in his lap and his head in his hands. “Oh, man. Just… ow. Shit. I can’t remember how I got here, it’s like they put the wrong reel in the projector. I was outside…”

People of various shades and colors were filing out of the basement and staring at Fred. Some of them appeared annoyed. Hyacinth moved to block him partially from view. “You guys, this isn’t his fault. Even if he thought it would be fun to get hit by magic and he climbed up on the roof and told the gods to smite him, that is not his fault today. I can’t protect him from angry people and take care of him at the same time, okay? Don’t make me pick.”

“Fred, you were outside and a magic strike got you,” Barnaby said. He sat down on the cot and began to unbutton the man’s wet plaid shirt. He’d already taken off his own suit jacket but it was hopeless. He was going to have to excuse himself and change back into his robe and pajamas. His cute little sign that said he was out of service was ruined. “It’s a very human thing to want to make sense of what’s going on, but you are not going to have that ability for some time. You’ll have to operate on trust for a while, but it will pass. In the meantime, we’ll look after you.”

“Thank you. I can’t remember your name.”

“Oh, there’s no point in trying,” Barnaby said. “Wrap up. I’ll see if I can’t find you something dry to wear.”

Maria was speaking rapid-fire words in Iliodarian and stabbing Sanaam in the chest with her finger. He was trying to calm her down, but he didn’t have enough of the language to validate her emotions. It didn’t seem to occur to him to just speak Anglais. He was holding Bethany against his shoulder and Ted was holding Pablo.

“Hi, stupid man!” Bethany said, waving.

“Hi, cute little girl,” Fred said weakly.

“I’m Bethany Toussaint.”

“I’m Fred… Fred… Oh, shit. That’s terrible.” He dropped his head into his hands again. “I can’t remember my job! Do I have a job?” he asked of the room at large. “Am I supposed to be somewhere?” He shot to his feet. “Fred Halsey! That’s my high score on the pinball machine at Papillon Island! The one with the robots! Their eyes light up! Oh, fuck, no, I left Dee at the shelter, oh man, oh man…” He began to pace back and forth.

Hyacinth caught his arm and shook her head. “Fred, if Dee is at a shelter they are okay.”

Fred turned to look at her and then pointed at random. “You know, you would think so! But I decided I wanted to go get kebabs and they let my dumb ass out of there!”

Hyacinth’s hands fell to her sides. “Kebabs.”

“I’m impulsive and I make bad decisions. Frederick is impulsive and he makes bad decisions. I got it on a postcard. No, a — whaddyacallit? Tiny letters. I can see the damn thing… Report card! Dee had it framed… What if he decides to come look for me? Nobody’s watching the back door! Do you guys have a phone?”

Hyacinth shook her head some more and waved both hands in front of her. “No-no-no. If you don’t straighten this out for me I’m not going to be able to think about anything else for the rest of my life. You left a shelter in the middle of a magic storm to go get Hassan’s Kebabs?”

“I think they weren’t open.” He sat down again, puzzled. “Is it Tiw’s Day? They’re not open on Tiw’s Day.” He looked aside. “I can’t remember my job but I remember Hassan’s isn’t open on Tiw’s Day… Where am I?”

“Irresponsable!” Maria hollered. “El burro sabe más que tú! Idiota!”

“Calma tú, señora,” Chris said meekly.

“Tu acento es estúpido!”

The blue man sighed. “Yeah.”

Ann turned from Calliope and put her arm around his shoulders. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and she didn’t have a corset on under her dress but it was definitely Ann. When Sam knocked on the door to get Milo up she knew they would need her. Besides, Milo had to put something on. Why not a dress? “Oh, it’s cute, Chris. It’s very cute. Milo and I like it. Calliope likes it. Cin, you like Chris’s accent, don’t you? Oh, she’s busy. But of course she likes it. You’re bilingual!”

“He’s not even lingual,” Maria muttered.

Ted hugged her. He had to put his arms around the outside because she refused to open up when she saw him coming. “Querida, don’t. It’s all right now…”

Mordecai put a hand on Hyacinth’s shoulder and peered past her. “Wow, I guess we do get hair like that. I’ve never seen…” He reached out to touch and before Hyacinth could swat him away, a purple spark jumped the distance between them and Mordecai’s hand lit up red like a cartoon injury. “Ow!” He stuck his fingers in his mouth.

“Wow!” said Fred. He began laughing again. “Can you fix it so that happens every time? That’s great!” Come to think of it, that was another reason the shelter on Pine was shit. Moldy sandwiches, no kebabs, and a bunch of no-impulse-control magical people trying to touch his hair. He patted it with a hand.

Hyacinth shoved her unhelpful friend away and snarled at him. “What the hell are you doing? Where did you come from? Where were you?”

Mordecai staggered and sat down on a cot. “The… basement?” He pointed. “Because of the window?”

“You don’t seem chewed,” she said suspiciously.

“What?” he said.

“What?” she said. She rubbed her hand on her forehead — she wasn’t sure why, maybe her wet hair itched — and then pushed at him again. “Go away. Cook if you have to. Make coffee! I have a patient here.”

“I found you a pair of trousers, Mr. Halsey!” Barnaby called down from upstairs. He led up an indeterminate article of stained clothing. “Well, I think they’re trousers, but at least…”

The front window shattered.

A green glass bottle with liquid inside hung suspended in midair among glittering multicolored shards of window.

Multicolored shades of magic were also glowing in the air like a fog lit with stage lights.

There was a flaming rag stuffed down the bottle’s neck. It tipped sideways. Somebody gave a little gasp. Somebody, maybe the same person, caught it and tipped it upright before the liquid could spill out. It smelled like gasoline.

“Fucking magicians, go home!” shrieked a voice outside.

Bethany began to cry.