wouldn't end up on top of a telephone pole. I would be dead and all my friends would be dead with
me.
I approached the pole and looked at Mrs. McSweeney. «Alright. I'm going to count to three and
then you have to come down.»
She shook her head.
«Mrs. McSweeney! You're making a spectacle out of yourself. Your family is worried about you
and you have bingo tomorrow night. You don't want to miss it, do you?»
She bit her lip.
«We will do it together.» I climbed three steps up the ladder. «On three. One, two, three, step!»
I took a step down and watched her do the same. Thank you, whoever you are upstairs.
«One more. One, two, three, step.»
We took another step, and then she took one by herself. I jumped to the ground. «That's it.»
Mrs. McSweeney paused. Oh no.
She looked at me with her sad eyes and asked, «You won't tell anyone, will you?»
I glanced at the windows of the apartment building. She had wailed loudly enough to wake the
dead and make them call the cops. But in this day and age, people banded together. One couldn't
rely on tech or on magic, only on family and neighbors. They were willing to keep her secret, no
matter how absurd it seemed, and so was I.
«I won't tell anyone,» I promised.
Two minutes later, she was heading to her apartment, and I was wrestling with the ladder, trying
to make it fit back into the space under the stairs, where the super had gotten it from for me.
My day had started at five with a frantic man running through the hallway of the Atlanta chapter
of the Order and screaming that a dragon with a cat head had gotten into New Hope School and was
about to devour the children. The dragon turned out to be a small tatzelwyrm, which I unfortunately
was unable to subdue without cutting its head off. That was the first time I had gotten sprayed with
blood today.
Then I had to help Mauro get a two-headed freshwater serpent out of an artificial pond at the
ruins of One Atlantic Center in Buckhead. The day went downhill from there. It was past midnight
now. I was dirty, tired, hungry, smeared with four different types of blood, and I wanted to go
home. Also my boots stank because the serpent had vomited a half-eaten cat corpse on my feet.
I finally managed to stuff the ladder in its place and left the apartment building for the parking
lot, where my female mule, Marigold, was tied to a metal rack set up there for precisely that
purpose. I had gotten within ten feet of her when I saw a half-finished swastika drawn on her rump
in green paint. The paint stick lay broken on the ground. There was also some blood and what
looked like a tooth. I looked closer. Yep, definitely a tooth.
«Had an adventure, did we?»
Marigold didn't say anything, but I knew from experience that approaching her from behind was
Not a Good Idea. She kicked like a mule, probably because she was one.
If not for the Order's brand on her other butt cheek, Marigold might have been stolen tonight.
Fortunately, the knights of the Order had a nasty habit of magically tracking thieves and coming
down on them like a ton of bricks.
I untied her, mounted, and we braved the night.
Typically technology and magic switched at least once every couple of days, usually more often
than that. But two months ago we had been hit with a flare, a wave so potent, it drowned the city
like a magic tsunami, making impossible things a reality. For three days demons and gods had
walked the streets and human monsters had great difficulty controlling themselves. I had spent the
flare on the battlefield, helping a handful of shapeshifters butcher a demonic horde.
It had been an epic occurrence all around. I still had vivid dreams about it, not exactly
nightmares, but intoxicating, surreal visions of blood and gleaming blades and death.
The flare had burned out, leaving technology firmly in control of the world. For two months, cars
started without fail, electricity held the darkness at bay, and air-conditioning made August blissful.
We even had TV. On Monday night they had shown a movie, Terminator 2, hammering home the
point: it could always be worse.
Then, on Wednesday right around noon, the magic hit and Atlanta went to hell.
I wasn't sure if people had deluded themselves into thinking the magic wouldn't come back or if
they had been caught unprepared, but we'd never had so many calls for help since I had started with
the Order. Unlike the Mercenary Guild, for which I also worked, the knights of the Order of
Knights of Merciful Aid helped anyone and everyone regardless of their ability to pay. They
charged only what you could afford and a lot of times nothing at all. We had been flooded with
pleas. I managed to catch four hours of sleep on Wednesday night and then it was up and running