I lost all power and fell over backward. Dean pounced on top of me. I struggled and tried to kick him, but was too weak. My body felt sticky. My physical strength had drained away with my magic. Gravity pinned my limbs with ever-greater strength, and I tasted blood.
“Jacqueline. Jacqueline, Jacqueline.” Dean smiled, or maybe his face was just so twisted it only looked that way. Grinning like a broken man, tears flowing from both eyes, he put his hand around my neck. “It’s all your fault… You ruined everything!”
I stared down the barrel of a gun, much like I’d done just the other day. But last time, an ugly, ordinary man had taken aim at me. Now it was Dean, and he looked grotesque. Hideous. His face was twisted with hatred, racked with despair. Yet he still smiled—I’d never seen anything so monstrous in all my life.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
“Die,” he said.
Several things happened at once: a gust of wind knocked Dean over; a gunshot echoed; a hot burst of air rushed past my ear.
A moment later, the Central Park night gave way to light and voices. I heard screams. Alchemists dressed in dark suits wrestled with Dean, who struggled in vain.
“Jack! You okay?”
“Are you quite all right, Lady Agent?”
Two voices. A pair of strong arms cradled me. I forced open my heavy lids and found Vince supporting me. Roderick, top hat in hand, peered down at me with concern written on his bony face.
All manner of ghosts were chasing the gangsters, looking like they’d slipped out of a horror movie. Roderick’s ghost army, frightening as could be, waved claws, groaned spookily, showed off the bullet holes in their chests, or cradled their own heads under their arms. A bride in a mud-covered wedding dress revealed a mouthful of rotting teeth and leaned toward a gangster’s throat while laughing maniacally.
“I do apologize. I’d hoped to get here a tad earlier, but that man had cast a very strange spell on the area,” Roderick said.
“It took the alchemists a while to break through it. Yo, you’re bleeding! You okay?”
Vince touched my cheek, and I flinched. His heat and magic slowly seeped into my frozen body.
They must have used some binding spell on Dean, because he was standing in a very odd position. The remaining gangsters had mostly fainted at the sight of the ghost carnival. The alchemists’ leader waved his arms. Those gangsters who were still staggering about collapsed onto the ground. The ghosts all grumbled, deprived of their “dance partners.”
“Jack,” Larry said. He was still stuck halfway between wolf and boy as he walked barefoot across the grass to me. He looked the same as the day he’d first tapped on my window. Blood mingled in the fur on his chest. He had a hand to his neck, a look of pain on his face.
“Larry! You got shot?” I cried.
“It’s okay now. Just haven’t washed off the blood yet.”
He pulled his blood-covered hand away. There was just a faint wound from where the bullet had grazed him.
“Um, Jack? I, uh…”
I took a few unsteady steps and more or less fell on him. “Whoa!” He staggered, but his wolf strength kicked in, and he managed to catch me.
“I’m sorry, Larry,” I whispered. My nose was buried in his pointy wolf-ears. My brother’s hair smelled faintly of the forest. “I’m sorry…”
Larry put his arms around me and gave me a comforting pat on the back. “Don’t worry about it. We’re twins. Changelings. But…”
“But?”
“I’d really like the money to buy another jacket.”
Vince and I both busted up laughing. Roderick looked back and forth at us, confused. He quickly summoned the most mischievous look his skull allowed and clapped his hands dramatically.
“Jack the Flash,” said one of the approaching alchemists. He seemed like the leader. Didn’t look any different from your average human, but he’d clearly been dragged out of bed and was both sleepy and grumpy. “One of our number was behind this mess. Based on the contract in place, our college and the mage Lindel will handle the rest. As for you…”
I just walked away. He gaped after me. I stood in front of Dean, who glared sullenly back.
I swung my arm.
There was a loud thwack. Dean’s head rolled back, his nose bleeding. The alchemists holding him had to adjust their grip.
“Like I said,” I hissed. “You call me Jacqueline again, I’ll knock your head off.”
The sounds around me faded. Warm darkness hovered on my periphery. Vince and Larry ran over as my body sank. I smiled and closed my eyes.
“Jack! Hey!”
“Jack the Flash…at lightning speed.”
Super cool.
10
“Jack!” Larry wailed. “He ate all the sesame seed balls! I only got three!”
“Is that any way for a big brother to talk?”
“I never agreed to be this thing’s brother!”
I sighed. A bundle of crow feathers lay spread out on the desk before me. As I undid the dried grass and waggled my fingers, every feather morphed into a pale, crow-shaped shadow. Sparkling, they flew out the window. Twilight had already come to New York.
Next, I touched my fingers to a stone, one swirled through with blue light and brown storm clouds. The storm was released; a dust-and-dry-leaf-scented wind brushed past my nose, and the stone spoke in a creaky voice.