tragically, like Romeo, if I pursue this course of action against Thor?”
“That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all,” I said, “but if that were my intent, I would have chosen to speak as Benvolio rather than Juliet: ‘Part, fools! You know not what you do.’ ”
Leif stared at me, utterly still, the way only vampires and pet rocks can manage. “I’ve always preferred Hamlet,” he finally said. “ ‘Now could I drink hot blood, and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on.’ ” He spun on his heel and moved quickly-perhaps a bit too quickly for a normal human-to the door of his sleek black Jaguar XK convertible parked in the street, where he muttered a sulky “Fare thee well” before leaping in, gunning the engine, and screeching off in an un-dead hissy fit.
‹Dude. If that was a Shakespearean quote duel, he just kicked your ass.›
I know. But I slipped in some T. S. Eliot and he didn’t catch it. Hopefully next time I won’t be recovering from an assassination attempt, and then I’ll do better. I was still hunched over awkwardly, trying to prevent the amulet from falling back to my chest, and I needed to do something about it-but I didn’t want to do anything in front of Mr. Semerdjian, who was doubtless still watching me.
Oberon, I want you to go across the street and park yourself on the edge of his lawn, sort of off to one side, and stare at him.
‹That’s it? Just sit? Because I don’t want to do anything else while he’s watching.›
That’s it. I need you to distract him, is all. Ever since you left him a present that one time, he’s been terrified you’ll do it again. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
It was a shame that Mr. Semerdjian and I didn’t get along. A slightly pudgy Lebanese gentleman on the wrong side of sixty, he tended to get excited quickly and loudly and would probably have been great fun to watch a baseball game with. We might have gotten along famously if he hadn’t been such a jerk from the moment I moved in-which is kind of like saying the drowning victim might have lived if only he had been able to breathe water.
‹All right, but I’d better get a sausage out of this.›
Deal. We’re still going for that run too.
‹Wait. He doesn’t remember any of that business in Papago Park, does he?› Oberon was referring to an unfortunate incident during which a park ranger had died and Mr. Semerdjian had tried to lay the blame at our door.
Nope. Leif took care of all that with his patented vampiric mindwipe. That thought led me to reflect that having a vampire around was pretty handy sometimes; I hoped Leif wouldn’t remain angry with me for long.
‹Okay, I suppose this will be kind of fun.› Oberon trotted across the street, and the space between the blinds abruptly widened as Mr. Semerdjian abandoned all attempts at subterfuge. ‹I can see his eyes now.›
While the two of them were engaged in an ocular tete-a-tete, I drew power from the earth and summoned a thick but very localized fog. Arizona is legendary for its dry air, but in the first week of November with a storm rolling in, it’s not that hard to find some water vapor to bind. While that took time to condense, I shifted my concentration to healing my burned skin and made better progress now that the amulet wasn’t cooking it faster than I could heal.
Since the amulet was still far too hot, I walked hunched over to my garden hose and turned it on, checking to see if the fog had rolled in properly before continuing. I could still see Oberon, who was sitting underneath a streetlight, but not the windows of Mr. Semerdjian’s house, so that was good enough. I held one hand up in front of my face to protect it from steam, then turned the hose on the amulet.
It hissed and spat and the expected steam geysered up, but after a few seconds it noticeably began to cool.
‹Hey, I think he’s coming outside,› Oberon called.
That’s fine. Just stay still and stare at him. Wag your tail if you can manage.
‹I can’t. I really don’t like him.›
I heard Mr. Semerdjian explode out of the house in high dudgeon. “Get out of here, you filthy mutt! Shoo! Go away!”
‹Did he just call me a mutt? That was rude. Hey, he has a rolled-up newspaper in his hand.›
If he comes at you with it, growl at him.
‹Cool. Here he comes.› I heard Oberon growl menacingly, and Mr. Semerdjian’s peremptory commands abruptly changed to shrill pleas a couple of octaves higher.
“Ahhh! Nice doggie! Stay! Good dog!”
‹He must think I’m stupid. He comes at me with a newspaper, intending to slap me upside the head, and then he says “good dog” and expects me to forget all that? I think he deserves a couple of barks.›
Go for it. The amulet was cooling down rapidly now; a few more seconds would allow it to rest on my chest again without doing further damage. Oberon barked viciously, and Mr. Semerdjian’s panicked voice immediately leapt to Mariah Carey territory.
“O’Sullivan! Call off your dog, damn you! O’Sullivan! Get over here! Where did this fucking fog come from?”
Satisfied, I turned off the hose and stood up, letting the amulet fall back against my chest. It wasn’t fully healed, but it was getting better and I had the pain firmly under control. I walked leisurely across the street to where Oberon was still sitting.
“Here now,” I said calmly as I coalesced out of the mist into a wan column of light next to my hound. “What’s all the fuss, Mr. Semerdjian? My dog is simply sitting here, offering you no violence whatsoever.”
“He’s off his leash!” he spluttered.
“So are you,” I observed. “If you hadn’t advanced upon him in a threatening manner, he never would have growled at you, much less barked.”
“Never mind that!” Semerdjian spat. “He’s not supposed to be running around loose! And he definitely shouldn’t be on my property! I should call the police!”
“I believe the last time you called the police on me, you got cited for falsely calling 911, did you not?”
Semerdjian’s face purpled and he shouted, “Just get off my property! Both of you!”
Step backward into the street with me until we disappear from his view, I told Oberon. Now. We retreated, keeping our eyes on Mr. Semerdjian as we let the mist envelop us, and I imagined what it must look like to my neighbor: He watched a man and his dog walk backward in tandem without the man giving the dog any audible command, until they vanished like spectres into vapor.
That should creep him out pretty good, I told Oberon. Sure enough, Mr. Semerdjian called after us as we turned up the street.
“You’re a spooky bastard, O’Sullivan!” he yelled, and I stifled a laugh at the irony of his insult. “You and your dog had better stay away from me!”
‹That was fairly amusing,› Oberon chuffed. ‹What’s that word for when you play a joke on someone?›
A prank, I said, beginning to jog as Oberon trotted beside me. I released the binding on the water vapor, letting the fog disperse. We are like the Merry Pranksters of 1964, giving Mr. Semerdjian his own customized Acid Test without the benefit of any acid.
‹What’s an Acid Test?›
Well, I’ll tell you all about it when we get home. Since you are apparently a filthy mutt-
‹Hey!›
– you need a bath, and while you’re in the bath I’ll tell you all about the Merry Pranksters and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. But now let’s run to the market and get you your promised sausage.
‹Okay! I want one of those succulent chicken-apple ones.›
You mind if I make a call? I need to call Malina and let her know her spell didn’t work. I pulled out my cell phone and began to look up Malina’s number.
‹Sure. But before I forget, I think you should know that Leif was probably lying to you just now.›
How so? I frowned.
‹Well, you remember how I got a nose full of demon four days ago when you rescued me in the Superstition Mountains?›
That was three weeks ago, not four days, but yes, I remember.
‹Well, Leif told you Mr. Semerdjian didn’t smell like demon, but he kind of did. He still does, actually. Shape- shift into a hound if you don’t believe me; that lame human nose isn’t doing you any favors.›
Wait. Hold up, I said, stopping in the middle of the street. Oberon pulled up after a few steps and looked back
