"I'm a mage, not a miracle worker!"
"You what? What does that mean?"
I rubbed my temples under my cap. "It means, like I keep telling you, I can't just bring back the dead!"
"But why not?"
"I keep telling you - "
"No, you don't. You keep giving me this bullshit about rules and regulations. Which doesn't tell me you can't do it, it tells me you won't do it. Cos you're just chickenshit."
"I'm not chickenshit, you asshole - there are rules and -"
He shakes his head with disgust. "You are so full of it. You're afraid the big evil magic cops are going to be watching your every move, oooh, scary. You expect me to believe that shit?"
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as a train rattled by above us. It was like talking to a brick wall. A stupid brick wall. And it was getting cold out. I had to get home.
"Look, this...it's like…it's like doing an abortion, you know, " I tried. "It's not just that I could get busted and lose my licence, but you could also wind up dead, if people find out." I don't actually have a licence, but he doesn't need to know that.
He was really pissed now. "What the fu - "
"And, dammit, cos like an abortion, some people think it's bad mojo, right? Like forces you shouldn't be messing with?"
"You want something you shouldn't be messing with, mofo?" he said, pushing me
backwards and raising his bat. "I'll show you a fucking force to be reckoned with, you gutless piece of shit."
"Woah," I said, shuffling back under the bridge, trying to keep my balance. You never want to fall down in front of a psychotic with a baseball bat in his hand - the temptation to just smack your head in since you're already down is far too strong. "No need for blood, Dre!"
He didn't drop the bat. "So you gonna help me, or what?"
Feeling the flames already lapping at my feet, I sighed and dropped my head.
"Sure, Dre. We're set. Come round tonight."
Christ, if you ever want to know why mages aren't out there, making millions of bucks on the Psychic Friends Network or running the country, it's because of morons like Dre - and there's millions of them. First whiff they get that you're a mage and every damn person you've ever met becomes your best friend, knocking down your door, tramping all over you and calling in favours any which way they can. And it's always the same old song - raising the dead, living forever, and - the biggest of all - love potions.
Which is probably why most mages go mad, I thought to myself as I started walking home. Or become hermits, living off in some crazy tower somewhere with six million steps to get to the top. People are probably a lot less keen to pass the buck for their shitty lives onto you if they have to climb six million stairs to do it.
Of course, some mages haven't gone for that whole Prime Directive-type approach. And those are the guys that tend to be famous for being burned at the stake. Nobody likes it when people go sticking their nose into your stuff - except when you need someone to blame. And there's always a need for that, when it's personal. Because it's not about the magic, it's about your own bullshit and how you can't deal with it. So you call the wizard in, he screws it all up, then you get to burn him. I guess that was what they had instead of therapy, back then.
Anyway, point is, I shouldn't be getting into this. I mean, Dre probably wouldn't have hit me, or not more than once. He just carries that bat for show, mostly. Either way, I should have just taken the beating and walked away. Better that than getting in, and then getting the beating anyway at the end, when the shit all goes down. But I didn't. And why? Because I'm an idiot. I'm a first-class moron, who's a sucker for a grade school sob story.
And because, well, because I had a dog too, once.
Dre's a completely different guy when he comes down into my room in my parents' basement that night - all nervous and careful, and carrying this totally obvious bundle under his jacket. His big sister walks down the stairs behind, so I give Dre a look. He just nods - she's cool. Brothers and sisters are all on the same side when it comes to the dog.
As soon as they're down, he slides her out from under as gently as he can. She's a brown and black cocker spaniel, blinking in the bright fluoro lights, but happy with all the attention. Her curly hair is dry and matted in too many places, and her eyes are full of pain, but he can't see that.
"Her name's Lady" he says, laying her on the pool table with care. "She's fifteen." It's an apology, I guess, but I'm not sure for what. Maybe for the tears I can hear in his voice.
Lady looks around, confused about the cool, felt surface, and the new person looking down at her. I scratch her neck reassuringly and she twists back and licks my hand. And that's it: if I ever was going to back out, I wasn't now. There are a lot of things out there not worth selling your soul for, but the trusting lick of a dying dog isn't one of them.
The plan is simple, really. Lady's in pain. Her spine is screwed, and she's basically crippled unless she stays on her meds. But she's now at the point where she needs so much dope to stay active that the dose itself would kill her. Nothing left to do, says the vet, says Dre's parents. So he comes to me, for a second opinion. He injects her with the morphine (which he nicked, of course), and it kills her. Then I bring her back, drugs still in her system, and she gets to spend the last few weeks of her life living on an opium high that would have made Coleridge jealous.
But just a few weeks, that's all. That was the deal. Just so she could end her life happy, and not in pain. I was not, absolutely not, bringing back the dead.
Dre's sister's doing nursing at the college, so she does the injection. She knows her stuff. First, a little needle to numb the area and calm her down, then the stuff itself. The drugs get into her system, her lungs slow down and she gently rests her head on her paws. And then she's gone; all quiet and still on my pool table.
OK, I think, rolling up my sleeves, my turn. Time to get to work and make the magic happen.
Resurrection is really not that hard, not when it's this recent. They just tell you that it's hard so you don't screw around with it before you're ready (which just means you screw around with it a few years later instead). It's just a matter of keeping the mind going, and telling it what you want it to think. If the brain doesn't know it's dead, the body must follow. Simple.
Humans are easier than dogs, though, because you know vaguely what a human's brain is going to feel like. A dog brain is all smell smell smell and more smell, and then a lot more smell and hear and hunt and run and kill and pack pack pack, and in this case, a massive amount of pain as well. So I manage to pop my fluoro again, and burst about a dozen veins in my face and arms before it's done.
And it's done. Nothing left to do then but tidy up the knife cuts and toss the blood and the candles. As long as I get the bowls back clean to my mom, and replace the light tomorrow, my parents will never have a clue. I put on a CD (Nick Cave is always a good choice for a funeral, I think) and we just have to wait.
Twenty minutes later, we hear a sniff, and there she is, sitting up, looking around, confused. Then her mouth opens into a happy pant, and the tail wags and even I start crying. And there's a litany of high-pitched coos and aren't-you-a-good-girls and tummy rubs, only broken by a gasp of wonder as she actually stands up and dances with them for a moment - dances, dammit, on legs that for the last five years could just barely hold her own weight. The little voice at the back of my mind which is screaming that this is just unnatural and wrong doesn't even make a dent.
And then Lady just bounds off the table, steps into her collar, and the proud parents walk her out my door, grinning like total, utter freaks. Maybe I should change my job title to vet. It's certainly more rewarding than working on humans.
Not that I'll ever be doing business around here again. My parents are going to go psycho, but I'm not a kid any more and I just really don't want to be burnt at the stake. It only takes me a few minutes to chuck my clothes, some cash and my discman in my backpack and crawl out the window - I guess I really don't own that much stuff. I take all the books, of course, but I'll burn most of them once I get to the woods. I don't need them any more, and they're way too heavy to carry. I think I'll head up to Chicago - I've got a friend on the net there who can put me up for a bit. And it's not like a guy with my skills can't find a way to make some quick cash. Except, of course, when you go too far, like I did tonight.
Because what Dre didn't understand, what nobody ever understands, and what you can never, ever make them understand is that everything has its price. You never get something for nothing. Even if I hadn't guessed, Lady already knew - she'd already smelled the rotting cancer swelling in Dre's sister's belly, eating her from the inside out.
She doesn't have long. Maybe a few weeks.