The jarring warble of the phone woke Deborah from a sound sleep. The red numerals on her clock read 2:14. Nights, in her opinion, were for sleeping — or trying to sleep when the nightmares allowed. The only excuse for calling after 11:00 was dead relatives.

　And all of her relatives were already dead.

　“Who is this and what the fuck are you calling me for at this time of night?”

　“Uh… Debbie? It’s me, Marco. You told me to call you as soon as I found the guy we talked about, remember? Purple? From Bookworm’s thing on hunter-net?”

　“Yeah, during the day. Call me tomorrow. I don’t want to think about that shit when I’m trying to sleep. Good night. By the way, good job. We’ll get on it soon.”

　She hung up and closed her eyes, but the adrenaline had already begun surging through her veins.

　Five miles away, on the other end of the phone in Somerville, in his small studio apartment, Marco smiled. Debbie was pushy, rude, obnoxious and a confirmed psychopath, but he still thought she was hot, and having her congratulate him — even with that sarcastic edge — made the past week’s research and trips into the city all worth it.

　He’d met Debbie online a few weeks ago. She was one of a handful of people on hunter-net in Boston who dared to meet him, and the only one with whom Marco had ever come face to face. They’d met on two separate occasions to deal with ghost business — her first work for the angels. Both times he’d had a buzz for days. That was due in part to Debbie. She had some kind of Dirty Harry fixation, and both times she brought along enough weapons to arm a SWAT team. If she knew her stuff better, she’d be dangerous. What she lacked in knowledge, though, she more than made up for in enthusiasm.

　This thing with Purple would be different, Marco thought. It wasn’t about putting the dead to rest. This time they were going to meet a real, live warlock. He seemed, all things considered, to be a nice enough guy — albeit a little crazy. If things went well, it could even be a good time. Since collecting, comparing and decrypting Bookworm’s veiled geographical references and realizing that Bookworm — and therefore, in all likelihood, Purple — lived in Boston, Marco dedicated his time to finding the old guy. After all, if Purple had been willing to talk to Bookworm, he’d probably be willing to talk to Marco, too, right?

　A smile still on his face, Marco turned off his computers, crawled into bed and fell asleep.

　Marco wasn’t so much horrified by monsters as he was intrigued by them. When the angels opened his eyes several months ago, it was like finding out that he’d been living in the Haunted Mansion at Disney World all his life and never knew it. Who needed Clive Barker or Stephen King when scarier things paraded up and down the street in front of your apartment building? It was disturbing and scary, sure, but the day the angels talked to him was the day that the boredom stopped. And once the boredom stopped, he didn’t need the distraction of the drugs anymore. Since he didn’t need the drugs, he could stop hanging out with Vinnie and his little band of burn-outs and pushers. With the money Marco no longer wasted, he bought the hardware he needed to do data modeling. And with the three-figure hourly rate he now charged, he was looking at moving to a better neighborhood.

　And it was all because of the angels. Marco thanked them every single day.

　For her part, Deborah hated the so-called Messengers. She resented the knowledge they gave her with every breath she took. Her bliss of before may have stemmed from ignorance, but it was better than the nightmare that she lived now.

　Before the invasion, her life had been more than comfortable. She had a lucrative job, an enormous, tastefully appointed condo and a loving and professionally successful boyfriend. The moment the Messengers confronted her with the unnatural shit of the world, every last bit of it became meaningless and hollow.

　Deborah had taken an extended leave from the firm. Trey had left her just over three weeks ago, saying that she needed to get a grip on her priorities. And when Deborah talked to her old friends, they all seemed intolerably blind or self-involved.

　She tried distracting herself with anything: movies, novels, even drugs. None of it worked. Thinking about the monsters caused her stomach to churn out so much acid that she was afraid she was digesting herself from the inside out. And that was after half a bottle of antacids.

　After Marco’s phone call, Deborah lay in bed, clenching and unclenching her jaw, obsessing about the filth with which she shared the city. The bloodsucking corpses that fed on the unwitting. The ghosts that were too arrogant to move on. The warlocks that performed magic to who knew what horrible ends. And all the people who, knowingly or unknowingly, supported them. She perhaps resented the dupes the most, because if they would just wake up and stop doing the monsters’ dirty work, things would be much better. Her heart beat like a pile driver and its echoes throbbed in her temples, throat and wrists. Her guts twisted and clenched until she thought she would vomit.

　The phone had rung at 2:14. The conversation lasted less than 15 seconds. By the time Deborah finally fell back into a fitful, restless sleep, her bedside clock read 5:49.

　Marco woke up at 9:00, feeling great. Hoping that he would be meeting his first wizard gave Marco a keen sense of anticipation that brightened his morning more so than usual.

　While most of Marco’s friends admired his friendly and optimistic approach to life, his enthusiasm didn’t make him many friends on hunter-net. The majority of folks there seemed so busy shooting this creature and blowing up that one that they never really took the time to think of the beings as anything but monsters. While some of the things from the other side (like the vampires and werewolves) were obviously predators, others simply seemed misguided. And in Purple’s case, Marco thought he might even like the old guy.

　It had taken Marco a long time, browsing through the online archives and emailing Bookworm55, to put together enough information to determine that Bookworm had probably talked to the wizard in Boston. Bookworm was good at covering his tracks, but Marco liked to think and he pieced things together quite well.

　Everybody underestimated Marco. He was 23 (but looked 16), brilliant (but sounded dumb because of the way he spoke) and street smart (but he seemed gullible). He had his degree by 21. Employers were happy to have such a prodigy working for them, but Marco couldn’t stand working on any single project for more than a few months. Between that and the drugs, he’d worked his way through — and out of — Boston’s enormous job pool. Luckily, freelancing saved his butt.

　While his brother and friends teased Marco about being a world-class geek and living the life of a monk, he loved what he was doing. He worked only 25 hours a week and still made more than all of them combined. He wouldn’t change a thing.

　In the spare time that his job afforded him, Marco had gone from neighborhood to neighborhood around Boston to find places that could, one way or another, fit the descriptions or landmarks from Bookworm’s posts. It was only the night before that he’d finally known without a doubt that he’d found the places alluded to as Purple’s turf.

　That was the hard part. Once he’d narrowed it down to a section of town, it was just a matter of strolling the streets and looking. It was barely before dusk when he’d found him. The man with the unkempt silver hair was feeding the swans in the Public Gardens — and seemed to be having a lively conversation with them.


　The man was unmistakable: surrounded by an intense violet outline that shimmered brightly even in the full light of midday.

　Marco couldn’t wait for Debbie.

　“Um, hi. You don’t know me, but a… uh… friend of mine knows you and said you were a good guy and that I should buy you lunch. Or something.”

　The old man’s reaction was slow, as if Marco’s words had to be decrypted before a response was possible. After a moment, Purple smiled, shrugged and looked a little confused. “Okay.”

　“And maybe you could tell me about being a wizard.”

　The smile faded. The old man looked over his shoulder and kneaded his hands. “Oh, it’s that sort of arrangement is it?” Marco was all over himself apologizing. “Oh, dude, I mean, I don’t want to be a jerk or anything, and you don’t have to talk about anything or anything. I just thought maybe… you’d want to. Or something.”

　Purple sighed. “Want to? Hmm. It’s hard to want much of anything, really, when one has gone nearly 48 hours without eating.” “But I thought you could….” Purple gestured Marco’s words away. “Keeping a low profile. I was a little, you know, crude last week. So I get to fast for a few days as penance. And on that sorry little topic, nothing more need be said.” The wizard went back to kneading his hands. His eyes lost their focus and wandered back to the swans.

　Marco thought the man was either crazier than Bookworm had let on or was speaking in some kind of code. Since Marco didn’t know how to translate, he thought it best to change to topic completely before his ignorance became uncomfortably obvious. “So where do you want to eat?”

　“Is this a trap?” the old man asked with a mixture of boredom and weariness in his voice.

　“No. I just want to talk to a real wizard and hear what it’s like and stuff. And if I can buy you lunch for your time, it would be my pleasure. End of story.”

　Purple regarded him evenly. “Well, phrased that way, I’d say Metropolis.”

　The Metropolis Café was located in Boston’s South End, which is a neighborhood that only 10 years before could be called nothing but the bad part of town. Whores, dealers and gangstas had owned the streets and infested the once-proud, red-brick Victorians. Then Boston’s gay community took note of the architecture, the location and the sheer potential of the neighborhood and bought the buildings, one after another. They fussed over the old Victorians, refurbished them and gave them new life. Now buildings in the South End were going for 15 times what their owners had paid for them, and the neighborhood was an urban gem with coffee houses, trendy upscale markets and high-end bistros like the Metropolis, where smooth jazz played in the background as diners indulged themselves.

　“That was an exquisite meal,” Purple said when the dessert plates had been cleared.

　“It was pretty good, wasn’t it?” Marco’s stomach felt distended.

　“May I ask you a question?”

　“Shoot.”

　Purple appraised him with a glance. “That’s a lovely golden glow about you. Where did you get it?”

　“What?”

　“Oh, of course, it must be your halo. Are you an angel?” Purple scrutinized the boy again, “No, no, no, you’re no angel, though you might be one of their attack dogs.”

　“What are you talking about?”

　The old man sighed heavily and habitually kneaded his hands. His gaze wandered around the room for a few moments and finally returned to Marco.

　“The aura around you. I can’t hear what you’re thinking. Is it always there or do you make it happen?”

　“You can see that?”

　“When I attune myself to it, I can see… magic. You may not acknowledge it is a form of magic, but it is. And as I am Oz the Great and Terrible, kindly refrain from arguing with me.”

　Marco shrugged. “Uh… okay.”

　“I met another young man with color like yours. Your age, give or take a few years. Black. Bookish, but not arrogant about it. Friend of yours?”

　“Sort of. He’s kind of a virtual friend, or whatever.”

　“How lovely for you. And do you have many of these virtual friends?”

　“Yeah, actually. One of them is this really cool chick who’d really like to meet you. She’s pretty. You’d like her.”

　Marco was disappointed to find that Purple was not as good a conversationalist as he had hoped. The old man kept losing focus and going off on tangents that made no sense. Still, he had just had his first encounter with a warlock — or so it seemed — and when the evening was over and Purple had wandered down Tremont Street, Marco was more excited than ever about doing the angels’ work.

　The next morning’s conversation with Deborah wasn’t as pleasant.

　“I can’t believe you’re that stupid!”

　“What are you talking about?”

　“He’s one of them, Marco. He’s a threat to you, me, your friends, your family and everyone else who doesn’t know what he is. Since they can’t do anything about him, we have to.”

　“C’mon, Debbie, do your thinkin’ here, man. He’s a nice, kinda crazy guy. You should be thrilled to be his friend, not thinking up ways to hurt him. I mean, at the very least, he can lead us to real monsters before they hurt anyone.”

　“You’re missing the point. He’s one of them.”

　“But he’s not. He’s a nice old guy who just happens to know how to use magic. He’s still human, man. Y’know, like us? Give him a break.”

　“He’s a fucking nutcase, maybe with more power than he can be trusted with, and he’s on their side, not ours.”

　“We don’t know which side he’s on, but he seems harmless enough. Maybe he can help us.”

　Deborah paused before she answered. “Sure. If you say so. So, when do I get to meet this guy?”

　Until the Messengers had lifted the scales from her eyes, Deborah had never touched a gun. They frightened her and she thought they did far more harm than good. But that was back then, when she lived in a world populated by kind, liberal-minded, well-educated people who laughed and saw art films and drank over-priced coffee.

　That was a couple months ago.

　Now her cozy little world was infested with vampires, witches and walking corpses, and it was her job to eradicate them. All of the old fun things seemed empty these days. She didn’t do any of them any more, not even the coffee. If she needed to stay up, crystal meth promised much better results.

　Her views on the necessity of guns had changed at least as dramatically. Now she owned three pistols, two of which she wore in shoulder-holsters as she walked to the spot in the Public Gardens where she was supposed to meet Marco and him. It was cool and there weren’t many people out, which suited Deborah’s needs perfectly. Beyond the guns, she carried a knife and law-enforcement-grade pepper spray. She’d tried to track down grenades, but none of the contacts she’d cultivated as an attorney could obtain illegal weapons. It was only a matter of time, though.

　Purple sat on the edge of the fountain, staring into the water, occasionally getting misted when the breeze came up.

　Deborah smiled when she saw Marco standing in the square. She’d practiced this.

　“Hello,” she began, “how are you?”

　Marco smiled. “I’m doing good.”

　“Did he show?”

　“Yeah, this is the guy, man,” Marco walked over to the fountain where Purple was sitting. “Deborah, this is Purple.” The warlock turned his head to look at her, but she wasn’t sure if he was looking through her. It freaked her out. “Purp, this is Debbie. She’s like me.”

　“Yeah,” she said, discreetly pulling one of her guns, “but less gullible.”

　Marco’s eyes widened. “What the fuck? I told you, man, he’s a friend!”

　Marco may as well have not even been there. Deborah aimed at the warlock who, for his part, did nothing but stare down the barrel of the gun.

　Time froze for Marco as he traded his participant role for that of a spectator. He took note of that beautiful mise en scène, crystalline in its terrible clarity. He noticed the rhythmic bobbing of the swan boats, the gentle arc of the necks of the real swans in the pond, and the thick green grass. He saw the unmistakable hint of sadness — or possibly disappointment — in Purple’s eyes. They were focused sharply. Debbie’s face was twisted into a grimace of hatred so sharp that Marco could almost taste the bile.

　And then the moment was over.

　When Deborah pulled the trigger, nothing happened.

　Marco could do nothing but gawk.

　Purple ran.

　The old man had to be in his 50s, at the least. He wasn’t fast. Deborah checked her gun momentarily, trying to figure out why it hadn’t worked. She wasn’t overly concerned about Purple. The gardens offered more open spaces than trees or places to hide. It’s wasn’t like the old man was going to outrun a bullet.

　She holstered her first weapon and pulled her second, giving her a chance to deal with her next order of business. Deborah’s lip arched in a sneer as she turned the gun on Marco. “You’d sell us out for one of them, you fucking turncoat? Why shouldn’t I kill you right here?”

　Marco sighed. He wasn’t afraid and not exactly angry, but he was resolute. His eyes captured hers and he shook his head slowly. “Debbie, you don’t need to kill anyone. You don’t need to shoot Purple and you damn sure don’t need to shoot me. I’m your friend. Remember? Your friend? We work together?”

　Deborah was less than 10 feet away from Marco. It would have been difficult for her to miss. The gun shook in her white-knuckled grip as her rage struck an unexpected vein of compassion. Unable to pull the trigger, she swore and ran after Purple.

　Marco took off after her, ready to dive to the ground if she ever changed her mind and fired.

　Purple had run from the gardens, across Arlington Street (which was strangely deserted) and into the enormous glass-enclosed lobby of a fancy apartment building. The doorman thought he recognized the old man and buzzed him in the front door and through the door to the residents’ quarters.

　Deborah had been a sprinter in college. She was no longer in prime shape, but she was rapidly closing in on the warlock. The doorman did not think he knew her. In fact, he didn’t like the look of her at all. He was quite sure he recognized her from America’s Most Wanted and called 911. He was still making his case to the operator when Deborah took aim at the exterior, magnetically locked glass doors and blew them both out.

　The door to the residents’ quarters wasn’t glass. It was a metal fire door covered with a stately wood veneer. Deborah pointed the gun at the doorman and, between gasps, commanded, “Open it.”

　The doorman buzzed, the door clicked and Deborah resumed the chase.

　Marco was used to spending his days typing on a keyboard. While he was lean, he wasn’t accustomed to running. He had no endurance. If the building had been much further away, he probably would have lost sight of his erstwhile ally.

　He stepped carefully through the shattered glass doors. The doorman was still on the phone.

　Panting for breath, Marco said, “Old guy. Crazy chick. Which way?”

　The doorman scrutinized the boy. “You’re Mr. Matlovich’s grandson, right?”

　Marco nodded.

　The doorman blinked once and buzzed Marco through. Astonished, Marco was certain that had somehow been the old wizard’s doing.

　Purple was at the end of his physical limits and needed to stop, but he could hear Deborah behind him. He rounded a corner, closed his eyes and knocked on a random door in the hallway.

　“Singing telegram for… ” he paused as if thinking, “Miss Muriel Cooper.”

　An elderly woman opened the door, greeted Purple delightedly and gestured him inside. But he was too slow. Deborah saw him enter the apartment.

　Purple locked the door behind him, but he’d no sooner turned the bolt than the knob exploded in splinters and brass shrapnel.

　Debbie stormed in and surveyed the room. No Purple. Enraged, she leveled the gun at the old woman. The vein of compassion that had saved Marco had run dry, leaving only unmitigated hatred.

　“You ancient. Fucking. Bitch! Why do I even help you worthless fucks when you don’t even help yourselves? Don’t you read your God damned Bible? Thou shalt not [Blam] suffer a witch [Blam] to live [Blam]!”

　Blood spattered the wall and the old woman fell to the floor, her face frozen in a final expression of disbelief.

　Deborah headed deeper into the apartment to find Purple.

　Marco heard the shots as he rounded the corner. A door down the thickly carpeted hallway was open. An old woman’s body lay lifeless on the floor. He heard Deborah’s voice.

　“Don’t even try hiding from me you piece of shit. You can’t play your stupid mind games with me.”

　Marco rounded a corner, saw Deborah and tackled her from behind. He wasn’t big, but neither was she. And he was stronger. He couldn’t take the gun from her, but he pinned her hand to the floor. She was struggling like a caged animal.

　“Stop it! I don’t want to hurt you,” Marco yelled.

　Purple walked into the room. “Can you turn off her aura?”

　Marco didn’t understand, so Purple clarified, “Her protection.”

　“No.”

　“Hmm. That’s a shame,” the old man said, narrowing his eyes. “I’d like to play with that one.”

　Marco was about to respond when Debbie stabbed him. She couldn’t reach into her jacket to get her other gun or pepper spray, but she’d pulled the knife from its sheath at her ankle and buried it in Marco’s thigh. The boy screamed. Once he was distracted, she was able to kick him off her. Marco curled up, holding his bleeding leg.

　Deborah rose, checked her gun quickly and aimed at Purple. A smile like a scar twisted her face.

　“Now what, old man? No more tricks. No more games. You can’t mess with my head like everyone else’s. So I’m thinking that you’re dead.”

　Purple smiled.

　Something went bang and Deborah’s head exploded.

　The exit wound took most of the right side of her face off, and she collapsed.

　The officer with the gun stood in the doorway. Looking directly at Purple, he asked, “Are you and the boy okay, ma’am?”

　“Thank heavens you came in time, officer,” the old man said. “She just… went crazy.”

　“Yes, ma’am. We see a lot of that. The doorman seemed to know that she was after you and called us.”

　Purple simply watched as the officer checked Marco’s leg. “It’s bad but not bleeding much. You’re young. You’ll pull through. An ambulance is on its way.”

　Other police entered and collected Debbie’s weapons and covered her body.

　Purple addressed the first officer in an ingratiating tone. “Thank you so much, officer, but now I need to take my son to his piano lesson. We’re late and it’s terribly important to him. He won’t need to go to the hospital for that little scratch. That’ll be all right, won’t it?”

　The officer paused for a moment, blinked, and said, “Of course, ma’am, we’ll take care of the reports later.”

　“Thank you so much.”

　The old wizard and Marco walked by the police and out the door. Neither said a word until they reached the stairwell. Purple helped steady Marco as they walked.

　“Why did he call you ‘ma’am’?”

　“His vision must be going, the poor thing.”

　“Was that magic?” Purple shot an angry glance at Marco. “Only nutcases like your friend back there believe in magic, kid. You saw what happened to her.”

　When they got to the street, Purple looked around. “I trust you don’t have any other friends out here waiting to kill me?”

　“Dude, I’m sorry. I really didn’t know she was that psycho.”

　Purple wiped wisps of wild hair from his eyes and placed his hand on Marco’s shoulder, patting it with a vague, avuncular warmth. Or possibly, Marco thought, with condescension.

　“You know,” the warlock said, “I don’t mean to overstep my bounds, especially after what just happened, but you seem like a nice enough kid. I’ll break one of my rules and offer a little unsolicited advice: I suggest you choose your friends more carefully. Ones like that will get you killed. Know what I mean?”

　Marco was already nodding his head when it registered that Purple’s voice had taken on a threatening edge.

　Purple searched through his pockets expectantly but stopped, looking disappointed. “Oh, dear. I know I had money for dinner tonight. It must have fallen out. I don’t suppose you could lend me something, could you kid? Just until next time?”

　Marco looked blankly, took out his wallet and handed the old man a 20. “Bon appetit.”

　“Thanks.”

　“But at least come clean with me, man.”

　“Come clean?” asked Purple demurely, “about what?”

　“There won’t be a next time, will there?”

　Purple paused. “No,” he said as he put the bill in his pocket, “probably not. Too many questions.” “

　So don’t give me this ‘next time’ bullshit.” Marco turned away, favoring his leg.

　“Kid?” Marco didn’t stop walking or look back. “What?”

　“You’re sweet. Don’t lose that.”

　“Yeah. We’ll see.”