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  The child has magic!

  Elizabet opened the door and walked into the office. The girl looked up from where she was seated with her elbows propped on the table. She didn’t look like much, just a street kid wearing jeans and a denim jacket over a stained T-shirt, long tangled brown hair, and large green eyes. Those eyes followed Elizabet as she draped her blue suit jacket over the back of the chair and then sat down across from her.

  “I’m Elizabet Winters,” she said. “Elizabet is a mistake on my birth certificate that I’ve lived with all these years. You’re Kayla, right?” She extended her hand. The kid didn’t move, just sat and watched her with those terrified eyes. Elizabet withdrew her hand, wondering how to handle this.

  “Who are you?”

  The girl’s voice was surprisingly soft, Elizabet thought. “I’m a psych therapist working with the police department,” she said. “Usually I help the relatives of victims of crime, or work with people who have been through a traumatic experience. Like what you went through tonight. Do you want to talk about that?”

  Yes, I’d like to talk about it, but I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a padded room, Kayla thought, looking at the woman across from her. Elizabet Winters was a beautiful black woman in her fifties, black and silver hair coiled up in a braid. She sat silently, apparently waiting for Kayla to say something.

  What am I supposed to say? That some guy killed two people in front of me and shot my best friend, and I created this weird light show to get rid of the bullet holes? No way.

  “I’ve—I’ve had a bad night,” she said at last, choosing her words carefully. “I’m okay, but I’d like to go home.”

  The older woman nodded. “That’s a problem, unfortunately. Detective Cable wanted me to lock you up here for the night and maybe send you to Juvenile Hall in the morning, since it’s a little impractical to take you back to the foster home in Orange County in the middle of the night.”

  “What?” Kayla sat upright in shock.

  “I think I have another alternative,” Elizabet continued, “since neither a midnight trip to Orange County or a night at Juvenile Hall seems to be the appropriate answer.”

  “Terrific,” Kayla said, and slumped back down in her chair. “So are you going to send me back to Mr. and Mrs. Davis? I know it doesn’t matter what I think, but I don’t want to go.”

  “Obviously, or you wouldn’t have run away from them.” The black woman smiled. “Kayla, if you could do anything, what would you do?”

  “I—I don’t understand,” she answered uncertainly.

  “I’ll rephrase this. Pretend for a minute that you don’t have to go back to that foster home, or Juvie, or anything like that. If you could choose where you wanted to live, what you wanted to do, what would you choose?”

  Who is this lady? Kayla wondered. She isn’t like any cop or social worker I’ve ever met before. “I don’t know. I guess … if I could have anything, I’d want to live with my parents again. But that won’t ever happen, I know that.” At Elizabet’s questioning look, she added, “They disappeared when I was twelve years old. I was at school, Mom never showed up to take me home.” The memory of that afternoon was still burned into her mind: how she’d waited and waited at the school, then walked home, to find the police at her house. “Nobody knew how to find any of my relatives, so I ended up in a foster home.” She thought about it for a few moments longer. “If I could do anything, I’d want to live with people that understood me. Good people, not like Mr. Davis. People who like to talk about real things, and treat people right, and … and read books. People who do more than sit around drinking beer and watching TV.”

  “You like to read?”

  In spite of herself, Kayla blushed. “I love reading,” she said, looking down at her sneakers. “Sometimes it’s the only way to escape, get away from everything.”

  “Have you thought of going to college?” Elizabet asked.

  “Yeah, sure, but there’s a snowball’s chance of that, you know? You have to graduate high school before they’ll let you go to college.”

  “Maybe I can help you with that.” The woman stood up, pulling on her blue jacket and picking up her briefcase. “Time to go, child.”

  “To Juvie?” Kayla’s voice quavered, and she hated it for that. She clenched her fists, trying to keep her voice steady. “Is that where you’re taking me?”

  Elizabet Winters smiled. “No, I have another idea. I’ll need to find Lieutenant Simmons first, but I doubt he’d have any objections.”

  Curious, Kayla followed Elizabet out of the office. Elizabet led her through the corridors and open office rooms of the police station.

  “The lieutenant’s downstairs with our new psychopath,” one officer told Elizabet, and she led Kayla down a flight of stairs to a brightly lit row of holding cells. A sandy-haired policeman stood a few feet back from the rows of concrete-walled rooms, from which Kayla could hear someone screaming curses and obscenities. There was one small iron-barred cell next to the larger holding cells that had several prisoners in each, men that were mostly sitting around quietly. In the smaller cell was the man from the QuickStart, wearing a stained white shirt and jeans instead of the long black leather coat.

  In spite of herself, she stared at the killer. Another man, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt and seated quietly on a bench in the next cell, was watching her through the open bars. She avoided his curious eyes, looking instead at the man who’d tried to kill her.

  There was something wrong with him, she could tell, even at this distance. Something broken inside that made him crazy this way. Her hands tingled, and she glanced down quickly, making sure that her fingers weren’t glowing again. They weren’t, fortunately. Kayla looked back at the crazy man, wondering just how one would fix something wrong inside somebody’s head; it wouldn’t be like fixing a gunshot wound, that was more like patching things back together. No, this would be like reaching inside and changing something… .

  Elizabet began speaking in a quiet voice to the policeman; with the lunatic screaming at the top of his voice, Kayla couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  “Hey, chickie.” The gunman’s voice suddenly dropped to a whisper. “I know who you are, I know what you did.”

  Kayla moved closer so she could hear him. “What?”

  “It’s magic, did you know that? I’ve seen magic, and that’s what you did.”

  Elizabet spoke sharply from behind her. “Kayla! Get away from—”

  The man reached out and grabbed Kayla’s arm, yanking her toward him with inhuman strength. “Devil!” he screamed. Kayla was pulled hard against the metal bars, struggling to get free. The man’s other hand clamped onto her throat, tightening painfully.

  Elizabet’s hand was on the man’s arm, trying to pull him away from Kayla. A split-second later, Kayla felt a shock of hot fire go through her hands, a sudden pain like a knife. The man yelped and leaped back, falling onto the floor of his cell.

  Elizabet pulled her back from the cell, blocking the lieutenant’s view of Kayla with her own body. Kayla glanced down, and saw why: a handful of blue sparks, flickering like fireflies on a Southern night, were fading from her own fingertips as she watched.

  “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?” Elizabet asked urgently.

  Kayla shook her head. “I’m okay, really.” She looked at the man cowering in his cell, clutching his left arm. “Did he—?” She turned quickly to look at the police officer, hoping he hadn’t seen anything.

  “Good use of pressure points, Elizabet,” Lieutenant Simmons said, motioning for them to stand further back from the cell. “I’ve seen Ms. Winters do things like that before,” the police officer continued. “It’s some Japanese martial art, isn’t it?”

  Elizabet’s eyes never left Kayla’s. “I know a few useful tricks, Jeff,” she said.

  “Yes.” The police officer nodded. “In any case, Elizabet, my answer is yes. I don’t see why you can’t foster this girl for a few days
until a judge figures out what to do for her. Just make sure the correct paperwork ends up on the captain’s desk.”

  “That’s what you were asking about?” Kayla asked, her eyes wide.

  “Only if you don’t mind, child. If you’d rather go elsewhere, we can make other arrangements,” Elizabet said.

  “No, that’s okay by me.” Kayla didn’t know what else to say. She thought about being locked up in Juvie, and decided that it would be a lot easier to get away from this lady than the cops at Juvie. Because all she could think about right now was running away, running as far away from all of everything that had happened tonight, until she didn’t have to think about it anymore.

  Then she thought about a warm bed, and maybe a chance to take a shower, maybe even get some clean clothes. I’ll see what her place is like, Kayla thought, And then I’ll decide. Maybe I’ll want to stay there tonight, maybe I can steal some stuff that I can get some cash for …

  Maybe this lady is all right. I mean, she saw what just happened, and she didn’t freak, or even say anything about it. Maybe she can answer some of these questions … maybe she can explain what in the hell is happening to me.

  She followed Elizabet out of the holding cell area, making a wide berth around the crazy man’s cell. When they were outside the police station, she couldn’t hold back the questions any longer. “You saw, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell the cop? I don’t—”

  “Not here,” Elizabet said. “We’ll talk at my house.” They walked to one of the few cars left in the parking lot next to the station, an old white VW Rabbit convertible. “We can stop by Cedars Sinai Hospital and check on your friend Billy if you’d like,” she offered.

  “We don’t have to. I know he’s okay,” Kayla said without thinking.

  Elizabet smiled at her. “Yes, you would know that, wouldn’t you? All right, then we’ll just go straight to my house.”

  She knows! Kayla thought. She knows exactly what happened!

  “Bitch!” the man screamed as the police lieutenant left the room. “She’s an evil bitch, she’s the Devil’s daughter!”

  Carlos Miguel Hernandez listened to the man’s raving for another few minutes, then uncurled from his position on the jail cell’s wooden bench and moved to the corner of his cell, as close as he could get to the other man. “Why do you say that little puta is the daughter of the Devil?” he asked conversationally. “She’s just a child.”

  “I saw it, kid!” the man shrieked. “I saw it, I saw it!”

  “Please, amigo, calm down. Tell me what you saw.”

  Carlos listened intently to the man’s descriptions of the evening’s events, and nodded thoughtfully. “Can you prove that this happened? Do you have proof?”

  “I’ll show you, kid, but you have to give it back to me, you have to promise!” the other man said shrilly.

  “I promise, I promise,” Carlos snapped impatiently. “And do not call me kid,” he added. “I’m nineteen years old, I’m a man.”

  For an answer, the man’s hand reached out through the bars, holding out his shirt. Carlos pulled it into his cell and looked at it curiously.

  “Look on the right side, you’ll see the mark,” the man said.

  Carlos turned the shirt in his hands and saw the bullet hole. The bloodstains around the hole were fresh, not yet darkened to the red-brown color of old blood. He brought the shirt closer to his face and sniffed. Yes, fresh blood.

  “I have a hole in my jacket, too,” the man said. “But no bullet wound. She healed me, she’s the Devil’s daughter!”

  “I believe you,” Carlos said. “If you were still hurt, you would be in the security ward of a hospital, not here in county jail.” How remarkable, he thought, And how very useful. Though if that child is the Devil’s daughter, it is a kind and gentle Devil who would save the life of someone trying to kill her.

  I want to see this miracle for myself, this child who heals friend and enemy alike.

  “Do you know who she is?” Carlos asked. “Do you know where she lives?”

  The other man mumbled a negative. Carlos pushed the shirt back through the bars of the cell into the other man’s grasp and sat down on the bench to consider what he had learned.

  She could be very useful indeed, this healing child. Tomorrow morning, he would stand in front of the judge and pay his fines to leave this place. After that, he could begin searching for this child. Somehow he did not doubt that he or one of his homeboys, the Tyrone Street Boys, would find her, one girl in all of the city of Los Angeles. He stretched out on the bench and listened in silence to the incoherent words of the man in the cell beside him. Tomorrow, he would find her… .

  “Nice place,” Kayla muttered, looking up at the darkened house. She glanced at Elizabet. “How much does the police department pay you, anyhow?”

  “I also have a private practice,” Elizabet said, unlocking the front door. “Besides, child, I bought this house fifteen years ago, before the rich folks decided that Laurel Canyon was the perfect place to build a fancy house. You’ll see, it’s not much on the inside.”

  Maybe you think so, Kayla thought, walking into the wood-paneled room, But I can sure spot a few things that would get me some good bucks at Mel’s Gun and Pawn. She paused to look at a collection of crystal dolphins on a shelf in the hallway. I wouldn’t even think of hocking those—they’d probably break when I was carrying ‘em out. But the VCR, that looks like it’s new, and it’s one of the better brands … that could be worth something… .

  A moment later, she noticed something else: the house was quiet. Not just from noise, but from the jangling pressure she’d felt for the last months, the sensation that the world was tightening down on her and making her crazy. Her headache faded as she looked around in surprise. Totally weird.

  “I’m getting something to drink from the fridge. Would you like anything?”

  “A glass of milk would be great,” Kayla said, and Elizabet walked away. Kayla studied one of the crystal dolphins; it seemed to float in midair, caught forever in a leap out of the water. Only the tip of its tail touched the cut-glass water, the dolphin sculpture delicately balanced on that point.

  “Do you like that one?” Elizabet asked, walking up behind her with two glasses of milk. “I like to think of it as a representation of life, balanced perfectly at a single moment.”

  Kayla took the offered glass from Elizabet’s hand. “Thanks.” She sipped the milk, then looked wistfully in the direction of Elizabet’s kitchen.

  “Of course, you must be hungry, child. I probably have some sandwich fixings in the fridge. I’ll show you where everything is.”

  Kayla followed her into the kitchen, and as Elizabet took out a plate and silverware from the cupboards, she asked, “Why did you say, ‘of course’?”

  Elizabet was silent for a moment. “Make yourself whatever you’d like to eat, then we’ll sit down and talk.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Kayla decided not to be polite about the fact that she felt like she hadn’t eaten in weeks, and made a huge sandwich out of a whole wheat roll and several different kinds of cheeses. She sat down across from Elizabet at the kitchen table, alternating quick bites of the sandwich with swallows of milk. The older woman watched without speaking as Kayla finished the sandwich. “So, what did you want to talk about?” she asked hesitantly, uncomfortable with Elizabet’s long silence.

  “We have a few things to discuss,” Elizabet said thoughtfully. “Like what happened to you earlier this evening.”

  “You read Officer Cable’s report,” Kayla offered. “It has everything in it. Did you want to know about something else?”

  Elizabet lifted her hand; white-gold light flickered over her fingers, glittering in the cold light of the kitchen.

  “This is what we have to talk about,” Elizabet said, the light brightening around her hand as she spoke. “This is magic.”

  Chapter Three

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Kayla said. Her eyes darted to
the door out of the kitchen; she was certain that Elizabet couldn’t run as fast as she could, especially if Kayla had a head start. Maybe she could get out of this house and away from this crazy woman, make it back to Hollywood before the police could catch up with her.

  “You’re not going to run anywhere, not in your current condition,” the woman said, watching her closely. “I think you nearly killed yourself tonight, and it’ll take time to recover from that.”

  “I didn’t … how did you know about that?” Kayla demanded.

  :Trust me, child, I know.:

  Kayla stood up quickly, and her chair tilted and clattered to the floor. She backed to the door. “Stop that!” she shouted, her voice very loud in the small kitchen.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Elizabet said mildly. She glanced at her hands; as if an afterthought, the sparkling lights faded away. :But you heard me, didn’t you?:

  Kayla whirled, looking around the room for the source of the words. This time she was certain of it; Elizabet’s lips hadn’t moved. “It’s a trick, isn’t it?” she said, her hand reaching behind her for the doorknob. “You’re playing tricks with your voice.”

  :You know I’m not. Why won’t you listen to me?:

  “Get out of my head!” Kayla covered her face with her hands, unable to stop the tears and hating herself for crying. “Stop it!”

  “I’m sorry, Kayla. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Elizabet’s voice was gentle. “But I wanted to prove something to you.”

  “What’s that?” She looked up angrily.

  “That you still have a lot to learn.”

  Carlos breathed deeply of the cool early morning air outside the police station, smiling despite the taint of automobile exhaust and street garbage. “It’s good to be out, Manny,” he said.

  His brother Manuel grinned at him. “I’m glad to see you outside the cárcel. But it was a little expensive, paying for your three speeding tickets.” His grin broadened. “Maybe next time I’ll let you stay longer, until you learn to appreciate me more, eh?”