Essex [the bad familiar]

10: Hit the deck

Sandelene had never seen a person fold in on themselves like that, never seen the light in someone's eyes just switched off like a sconce beside a reader's bed, like a puppet pulled from the dance and dropped into a cruddy wooden box.

And in less than a week's time the mortician might be putting this officer in a box, if she didn't do something quick. She wanted to do something, to rush forward and haul it off him and call the cops, but in that first moment of shock her eyes replayed the seen over and over again. The shadow of a crooked hawk had sailed past the chandelier and the thing just snapped and just like that the poor officer was flat on his face and oh God, that was blood, right? Blood, not brains . . . But the way he had crumpled oh, that stupid chandelier had brained him good.

Better hurry, came a smug little voice on the edge of Neville's terrarium. The bird was balanced on one leg; clenched tight in the other was the prone form of a field mouse. His buddies will come  within the hour and you'll be sitting pretty in a jail cell.  They're a lot more advanced than the ones I've spent time in. I may not be able to spring you.

"Then why the fuck did you kill him?" she hissed, and with the sound of her own voice she found her feet and ran to the man. "Aren't you supposed to be my partner? He's a cop! A fucking officer of the law. I just got the other one laid up in the hospital, and now this."

This is far worse, the bird agreed. Sandelene shoved the chandelier to the floor and tossed the broken chain after it as if it were an iron snake. With a soft flutter of wings, the bird, having abandoned the mouse, landed on the man's chest and tapped its hooked beak against a gleaming badge. It appears he's a captain.

"Great," she muttered. It was instinct that drove her from that moment on. Call for help. Stop the bleeding. That was about as far as her knowledge went. She'd never been trained to render aid in an emergency situation. Until these past few days she'd never been in a situation a couple bandaids couldn't resolve. She scrambled for her phone, swore on the hawk's rotting grave that if he sent so much as a flicker of static through the line, she'd pluck everything up to and including his eyeballs, then dialed 911.

The bird itself seemed oddly content with her snapped reply and settled against the blood-splattered, wobbling glass crystals still attached to the toppled room decor.

He isn't dead.  The bird continued as she dragged the captain against a cabinet and pushed him upright. You cheaped out on quality when you bought this damn thing. Wouldn't even hang this in a dungeon.

She could see he was alive now, too. The little twitch of a finger that clicked like he'd still had the gun, a soft, confused groan in the depths of his throat when she tilted his head for a good and proper assessment. His eyes fluttered to white when she tried to look at him; and when it became apparent to her that he was skating thin ice—thin fucking ice indeed! the bird cawed— threatening to drop into the dark waters of unconsciousness at any second, she slapped his cheek gently.

"Hey," she said, and grimaced at the smear of crimson pearled against her palm. "Can't let you fall asleep." At least, she didn't think so. But hadn't there been a study a few years back about old wives' tales and, shit, the blood! When she'd heaved him up against the cabinet, it was like the wound had been unconscious, too: a nasty seam of color that started far back in his hair and ran past his ear to his cheek. But the gash was awakening now, and the smaller cracks alongside it. The line, which had initially weeped a thin rivulet over the white edge of exposed bone, had grown in the ensuing seconds to a thick line of crimson, like jam in a hot pot about to boil over. And when the edges of that cut had swelled to their glistening maximum, a dark sheet poured over the left side of his face. He'd started to sweat.

"Hey," he said several seconds later. "M'not . . ."

She shushed him.

Sandelene didn't have much: paper towels and a few silky scarves studded with stars. Hers were the customers who wanted to wear a mystical, witchy attire in safe fashion, a little hint of personality in the modern day. Not enough to be noticed far and wide on the street or in the office, but enough for the ones that did look closer to know that there was more to their co-worker or friend or family member. Enough to wonder. Hers were the customers who wanted to bring a little bit of Harry Potter to life, whether it be with a purse-sized wand or a gauzy scarf like the one she was using now to fasten paper towels against Officer Saltz's skull.

Just let him swoon, the bird squawked from its gaudy perch. The bloody crystals shivered as it leaned forward to peer at her handiwork. Steal a little taste. Claim CPR.

"You know damn well that's not the kind of mouth to—" The rest of the sentence snarled in her throat.

Officer—Captain, you idiot— Saltz was blinking up at her through a sheer violet scarf.  His eyes were large and round as an owl's. "Hey," he hooted, smiling through the blood. "You alright?"

"No," she said, watching his eyes move from her to the leering raptor over her shoulder. Brow furrowed, he lifted a hand. She set it back down. "It's over," she continued, patting his knuckles. "Just rest. I got your gun here-nope, no you don't get that now, and . . . "

"You can't have that, " he said, and leaned forward. It took more force than she wanted to admit to push him back against the cabinet.

"No," she said, and when he asked what happened she paused. "You don't know?"

"I wouldn't be asking if I knew," he snapped. "And what the fuck is that bird?"

"There's no bird," she said, and looked over her shoulder without staring into the damned thing's beady red eyes. "You're concussed."

Wailing like a pack of wolves, the sirens had reached the street by then. The bird flew into the backroom. Sandelene glimpsed the orange-red rims of its eyes leering out from the stuffy gloom when the first officer pushed through the front door.