Spells of the City by Jean Rabe

Author:Jean Rabe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW

A steady rainfall started in the morning of the night we planned to mobilize against the Butcher. By evening, the wind had picked up, and the rain had morphed into a torrential gushing that soaked through slickers, put holes in umbrellas, and beat a steady tattoo on many of the buildings downtown that still had flat tin roofs.

Despite the rain, we knew we had to go ahead. All of us felt it—me, Jody, Digby, and, most of all, Rose. Unlike the rest of us, who tried our best not to project anxiety, Rose could hardly contain her excitement. At one point I tried to calm her by holding her face and looking into her eyes. She opened her mouth wide in that goofy smile that makes me think that pit bulls had some wide-mouth frog in their ancestry. Her tail thrashed ecstatically behind her, and she pranced, moving from side to side, paw to paw, like a boxer warming up before a championship fight.

Jody showed me his prize of the day, a small vial of clear liquid. “I got it from the basilica at the top of the hill,” he signed. “Blessed by the pope, too!”

“Which one?” I asked, “the saint or the scholar?”

Jody shook his head and gave the sign for six of one, half a dozen of the other. “We can use either,” he said. “I just have to get close enough to break the vial over whatever manifests to grab its sacrifice.” Jody’s face was pale, and I could see tiny beads of sweat near his hairline. I was still feeling pretty surreal about the whole thing. Intellectually, I knew we were going out to fight monsters, human and—other. My gut hadn’t quite caught up with my head, though. When it did, I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy the sensation.

I worried about Rose. I’d had her for less than a week, and she was still too skinny; but her pelvic bones no longer stuck up like flagpoles, and her ribs, while still visible, no longer looked as though they were going to break through the skin. Prissy’s medicinal tongue had apparently restored some energy to Rose as well.

We piled into Jody’s pick-up truck, an orange and white 1978 Ford that had seen better days but probably would keep running until the economy collapsed and fossil fuels were no longer available. Digby sandwiched his bulk between me and Jody so he could alert him to anything like police sirens or railroad warning bells. Rose sat on my lap, her front paws braced against the dashboard.

As we turned off the main streets and headed toward the river district, the road became a water-covered nightmare. I was glad the truck was built high off the ground because that meant we had a little more time before we had to worry seriously about flooding the engine and getting trapped in rising waters. But we were headed toward the river, toward the warehouse where I first saw Rose.

About an eighth of a mile before our destination, Jody cut the engine.

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