Guard Dog? (2 page)

 
While I tapped the window and grinned back at the grinning dog, Rock went dashing out in the street and yanked on the door handle.

 
Well, you know how that went, don’t you?

 
Skippy not only managed to hit the car alarm, she’d also stepped on the button that locked the car up tight.

 
Rock howled.

 
“You can smash the window,” I suggested helpfully.

 
He glared at me over the car roof. “Are you insane! This is Darryl’s car! He’d kill me!”

 
As I couldn’t think of any reason to stand around being insulted, especially as I could hear sirens approaching, I turned and headed back toward the alley. As I turned, my toe hit something and I looked down. It was the bank deposit bag. If I left it on the sidewalk next to the car, it could be a few decades before Mudflat got its smash wizard back. I wouldn’t miss him but probably someone would.

 
Besides, if he got tossed in jail, what would happen to Skippy?

 
In one swoop, I picked up the bag and walked quickly away. About the time I was adjacent to the broken door, the siren drowned out the noise of the car alarm, and as carrying stolen stuff seemed a good way to get in trouble, I ducked through the door and into the office and across to the far door and holy gee! It opened to a closet that was mostly filled with a humongous metal safe with its humongous metal door shattered into a mountain of metal bits.

 
I tossed the deposit bag into the yawning cavern of the doorless safe. And then I walked calmly to the broken outer door, stuck out my head, saw the back end of the police car angled on the other side of Darryl’s car, and heard a whole lot of voices, one of them shouting something about, “Stupid dog!”

 
Seconds later I was out of the alley and walking calmly down the next cross street. Rock wasn’t my responsibility, but if he got tossed in jail, I might offer to adopt Skippy.

 
END

 
A Mudflat descendant tries to break the tie. His attempt opens some odd doors.

 
BOOKSTORE GEEK

 
A steep flight of cement stairs edged by a black iron rail led down from the sidewalk to the underground level landing containing only a display window and a shop door. The sign in the window was barely readable beneath the layer of city dust.

 
Zacklin’s Books.

 
"Are you listening, Zack?"

 
The sharpness in her tone caught his attention. He had been watching his fish tank, a really cool tank he had paid way too much for. It was small enough to set on the end of the counter in his bookstore, perfectly filtered and temperature controlled and the right size for the twelve assorted fish, all small, all exotic in shape and coloring.

 
Marcia was frowning at him.

 
As he had no idea what she had just said, he tried to cover by talking rapidly. "I spent hours discussing them with the guy in the pet shop. We looked them all up. I've got several species that are compatible."

 
"What's that mean?"

 
"It means they aren't supposed to eat each other. But yesterday I had fifteen and now all I've got is twelve."

 
The woman sighed. "You weren't listening to me at all, were you? Zack, I am sorry but you and I aren't, uh, compatible, either. We have nothing in common."

 
Now he did look at her, both with his eyes and with his full attention. She had a round-faced softness that he liked, and the first time she'd come down the steps to his basement level used bookstore, she really was that breath of fresh air in the dusty room. She smelled like a bouquet of flowers. And she so was normal, so wonderfully normal.

 
He knew he lacked social skills. He was tall and plain and a whiz in college, but his own mother called him a geek. "Geek" from a wailing witch, and who would know better? His mother had a small house on a large lot, a house a room wide and four stories high topped by a flat roof edged in ornate wrought iron fencing. On stormy nights she stood on that roof and wailed along with the storm, never louder than the storm, her cries pitched to the roll of thunder and the crack of lightning, but mostly to the howling of the wind.

 
He had spent his childhood hiding under the bed during the storms, terrified the wailing would anger the storm and send lightning crashing through the house. His mother insisted the reverse was true, that the storms strengthened her powers and protected their house.

 
When this lovely woman, this Marcia, walked into his store to ask if he had any Regency romances in stock, he'd said, "Is that some kind of fiction? I don't have much fiction. A few classics. Would that be what you mean?"

 
She'd laughed and said, "I have all the Jane Austins. I was hoping you had something newer."

 
"Oh that Regency!" he'd exclaimed, lectures from history courses surfacing in his mind. And because she was already turning away toward the door and he didn't want her to leave, he started sputtering facts at her, explanations of Regents and the genealogy of the English monarchy. His excellent memory was cluttered with facts he'd learned once and never again thought about until someone mentioned a related subject.

 
She had turned back that day and listened wide-eyed. Since then they'd gone out a few times and he thought he was making progress.

 
Now he said, "I like being with you. That's something in common, isn't it?"

 
She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I really am."

 
After she left he wondered if she had met someone else and if he should have asked. Or perhaps there was something she liked to do that she hadn't mentioned. Maybe she wanted to be taken someplace like the ballet, but if so, why hadn't she said so, because he'd be happy to take her anyplace.

 
Was it possible she knew he came from a background of magic? He had moved out of the old neighborhood when he opened his bookstore downtown. Now he only went back for brief visits. Inherited magic lived in all the houses, occasionally missing a generation but always popping up again. His own magic was as weak as a single raindrop compared to his mother's storm.

 
None of which explained the three missing fish. He leaned against a bookshelf and stared at the miniature aquarium and tried not to think about Marcia. Instead he counted the fish again. Was it possible someone broke into the shop the previous night? Who could have done that? Had he left the door unlocked?

 
Thinking carefully, starting from the moment he had turned his key in the lock that morning and entered the shop, he tried to remember. Facts popped up, facts he had noted and then put aside.

 
He always activated the wards on the shop door before leaving for the night. A small room at the back of the shop contained the collected libraries of a mage, a sorcerer and a witch, bought from their estates and priceless to anyone who knew their use. None did, including the estate lawyers who sold him the books at normal scuffed and soiled leather-bound book prices, generally by shelf space in the range of ten dollars a foot.

 
When he'd arrived, he had notice that a small pile of bookmarks he kept by the cash register were out of line and a few were lying scattered on the floor. Had he bumped them on his way out the previous evening? Possibly. And when he hung up his jacket on the hook in the washroom, the sliver of soap was in the sink rather than on the side. He'd never been a good housekeeper, so probably he'd done that, too.

 
But there was something else. Right. When he picked up his receipt book off the counter, he'd noticed it felt damp and had set it back down without thinking any more about it, because he had a routine that always started with opening the cash register and putting the bills in the correct slots. It wasn't until he'd finished all the small opening chores that he stopped by the tank and looked down through the clear water at the beautiful little fish and realized three were missing.

 
He had rented this space four years ago and never had the locks changed. Possibly someone who used to work in the space in the past still had a key.

 
A key would not help them past his wards.

 
Besides, the money was still is the cash register. None of his leather books was missing. Why would anyone steal fish? They were nice fish, several dollars apiece. In value they were nothing compared to the books.

 
Throughout the day Marcia would pop into his mind, the sound of her voice when he phoned to ask her out, the softness of her fingertips when he handed her a menu in the Chinese restaurant, the scent of flowers when he sat beside her on her couch the one evening she invited him in for coffee.

 
He pushed each memory away by thinking about the fish, recounting them, and then walking slowly through the store to see if anything else was missing.

 
His mother phoned at noon to say hello and invite him over to her house for supper. "And Zack, dear, could you bring my scarf? It's a white silk one. I think I must have left it when I was in last week."

 
"You did, Mom. I put it away for you and I'll bring it next time I come over, but I can't come tonight."

 
"Why not?"

 
If he went to supper she would know he was upset. She always did. And she would ask and he would end up telling her about Marcia and then she would do a lot of fussing and sympathizing and he didn't want to have to handle it.

 
"Umm, I have some things here I have to finish up tonight. Can I come another night?"

 
She said of course, she was busy tomorrow but maybe Sunday dinner? "And don't forget to bring my scarf, dear. It was a gift from my friend Nicotiana and I'll be lunching with her next week. I'd like to wear it."

 
"All right."

 
"It is very special. It keeps me warm."

 
He didn't ask if it was magic. Of course it was. Nicotiana was clever with spells.

 
He hung up and went straight to the washroom, where he remembered seeing the scarf on the floor and remembered picking it up and hanging it on the towel rack by the sink and thinking he should call his mother to tell her, in case she was wondering where she'd left it. And then he'd forgotten about it.

 
Standing in the doorway he stared at the empty rack. He peered under the sink and behind the door and even in the corners. The room was the size of a closet. Inspecting it thoroughly took thirty seconds.

 
So after all, there was something missing in addition to the three fish.

 
And Marcia. Wasn't life unfair enough? Losing the chance to work toward a relationship with a really lovely, normal, nonmagic woman was awful. Adding a break-in was that proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. He wasn't a person who angered easily, in fact, almost never, but now he could feel his anger rising. The more he thought about it, the angrier he felt.

 
He went through the motions, managed to look calm with the few customers who came in even though his hands were shaking, checked his email and packed several mail orders, the primary source of his income, but by closing time he knew he absolutely could not bear to lose one more thing. If someone trespassed tonight and took another fish, it would be too much.

 
After closing up for a half hour and running to a nearby deli to buy supper, he returned to the shop, closed the door, turned out the lights and sat down behind the counter in the shadow of a bookcase where he wouldn't be visible from the front window. He clipped a booklight to the top of a book and began reading about the origin of the use of the metric system.

 
An hour later he realized he had forgotten to eat his supper. Reluctantly he stopped reading, noticed the sky outside was black and the streetlights on, stood in the dark shop at the counter and ate half of his sandwich and drank his lukewarm coffee and then returned to his book because it really was fascinating.

 
He was so intent on reading he didn't notice a thing until he heard a small splash. He went dead still, unsure of the sound, and slowly raised his eyes without moving his head.

 
It took him a moment to accept what he was seeing.

 
Balanced on the rim of the fish tank was a thin black cat, its head down, its nose almost touching the surface of the water. A paw shot through the surface, making another small splash.

 
"Hey!"

 
Before Zack could stand up the cat leaped from the rim to the countertop to the floor, leaving a trail of bookmarks in its wake, and was gone.

 
He had no clue where it went. It didn't leave footprints. Systematically he thought it through, took an empty cardboard mailing box from the space below the counter, placed it lightly on top of the tank so as not to completely seal it and disturb the balanced ecology, and then went searching. As soon as he had the time he would check through his back room collection for instructions on how to ward a fish tank.