Sazwa opens her front door, lets me in without putting up the hood of her hoodie. Her hair is tangled, she looks like I just interrupted a nap.

  “Hi Sazwa. How are you?”

  She closes the door behind me. “How’d it go?”

  “How’d what- the statue?” Sazwa stares at me like I might be an idiot. “She gave me something like you said, and it wasn’t gross,” I say, and take the skull from my backpack.

  She looks at it, frowns, takes it from me, and her eyes go wide. “Where is this statue?”

  “In some mansion’s gallery. Rich guy’s private collection,” I say. “I heard about Randy”

  “The address.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s important.”

  “Uh,” I look around, Ali isn’t here, I kind of wish he was, Sazwa’s hard stare doesn’t do much to build trust, and suddenly the stakes feel higher. “Yeah, I could drop a pin to it, why?”

  “Air gaps!” She scolds. “I know you’re used to working with Vern and the clown shoes coven, but this is sensitive.”

  “Vern is a monster hunter- a legend-” I say.

  The look in those little black beads she calls irises tells me it is second hand embarrassment that spares me a reply. “Just show me on your phone.”

  “I’ll- ask Vern, actually-” I say, and take a step back towards the door. I wasn’t in any mood to bring this to him ahead of time, and suddenly I regret it.

  She holds a phone in her hand, same scuffed up case as mine, the same stabbed out speaker. “No password? Really?”

  “What- how-” I reach into my pocket and retrieve a clump of black feathers. “What the fuck?”

  Sazwa, unconcerned, mumbles: “Breakins in Lexington? I thought you were a hearth borrower or something.”

  “Give that back-”

  “You could have just made it easy,” Sazwa says, rolling her eyes and offering it in her hand.

  I rip it from her, shove it back in my pocket for all the protection that offers. She’s so casual about this complete abuse of her magic that I struggle to be indignant. “That- what are you going to do?”

  “Bring this to the powers that be.”

  “Can you just talk to me like an adult, for a second, Sazwa? I’m no fucking clown.”

  She stares at me, sighs. “It’s an avatar.”

  “An avatar.”

  “And this is why we need them,” she holds up the bobcat skull.

  I take it back, yanking it out of her grip. She doesn’t look especially concerned as I shove it back in my backpack, between a crowbar and some other tools.

  “You don’t even know what that is.”

  “I know it's mine,” I say. “I know she wanted me to have it.”

  “Heidi, this is important.”

  “What happens now? You pay me? I’m not selling.”

  Sazwa gives me a look like I just said something profoundly stupid. “I need to send a message.”

  She walks through her living room, grabs a piece of paper and scrawls something on it.

  “Who are the powers that be?”

  “It’s just witch politics. You don’t want to be involved. Crow?!” She calls.

  There’s no reply.

  “Is he still at it?” She mumbles, and walks down the hall to another room.

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  “Hey! I’m talking to you! Do I not get a say in this?”

  “Nobody gets a say in this,” Sazwa says. “It is what it is. Leave it alone.” She stops in the doorway, and I see what she’s looking at.

  Ali is in a chair, asleep, wearing a headset riddled with sensors, the wires of which lead to a desktop and then out again, to an identical headset on the head of a young black man on the bed, mossy antlers growing from his temples.

  “What- in the fuck.”

  “You doing okay, Ali?” Sazwa asks. She steps into the room, to the computer, wiggles a mouse, looks at a bunch of complicated graphs and says: “That’s enough for today.”

  “What is any of this?”

  Sazwa doesn’t reply, just begins to type.

  “Is he okay?”

  “He better be,” she says.

  “Can I do something?”

  “You can be quiet,” she snips. “Or leave.”

  I hover in the door for a minute, watching her type. An instinct rises, to threaten her with a crowbar, then pact binding her not to share this. Then I remember she is a witch. For all I know, she could steal my heart from my chest and leave me stuffed with feathers.

  I turn and flee, out of the apartment, back to Vern’s place. The more head start I get the better.

  Vern's band is made up of him, me, and two others. Both are witches. And notably, both are better at playing the part than Vern.

  Mickey still has a black eye from a stunt he pulled last week, following witch hunt enforcers around, megaphone blasting ‘You don’t have to open your door unless they have a judicial warrant,’ and calling them mall cops. A video of him is circulating on the internet where an officer rips the megaphone out of his hand at gunpoint, and as soon as he turns his back Mickey grabs a spare from the glove compartment.

  That clip, and him blasting: “What now, mall cop?” had gained some traction as a meme on the Diameter Corp internet, I didn’t know if it had made it to the other big three in the quarantine, cause I didn’t pay for them. He’s a stocky guy, green highlights in his sandy brown hair, a scraggly beard, hosts an enchanted pirate radio broadcast that plays in the dead of night, and is the keyboard and backup singer.

  Red is the drummer, a freckly, green eyed, lanky lady with hair a vivid orange. She was Mickey’s other half, her work was in the subtle art of digging up corporate dirt for Mickey to blast out loud. I didn’t know if she was corpo herself, or had some other method of loosening lips. I didn’t know much about her at all, actually.

  Vern's contribution to witchcraft, on the other hand, mostly involved six days of the couch and home gym and one afternoon swinging a magical sword at cyberjunkies or monsters or corporate mercs- whoever he was told needed it. He sits on a stool in the elevated part of his garage, in front of the drum kit and behind the recording equipment. “I was getting worried, H-bomb,” he says, undressing me with his eyes.

  “Hey Babe,” I hesitate, look nervously over my shoulder, the open garage door. Mickey is here, the wards have got to be fresh. “What would you do if you found an Avatar?”

  “What would I do?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know. Hold onto it, bargain the seeds?”

  “All the big players are only big players cause they have one in their back pocket,” Mickey says.

  “Bunch of fucking assholes about it, too,” Vern laughs.

  “I have one,” I say.

  Red tilts her head, listening intently, but giving no response. Vern stuffs a slice of pizza into his face, keeps tuning the guitar.

  “Vern?” I ask.

  “I tuned your bass for you,” he says. “Didn’t want you to make practice late. Gonna do our full set from the top- start romantic with Petrified heart and Burn it Down Together, then get angry with Blood in a Mug (with Ice Cubes), Alpha Afterbirth, Fight me in the Sky, then back to the romantic with Contractually Obligated (to Love You).”

  “Vern-”

  “Gonna fade fast from Womb of the sewer to crowbar brain surgery to body fluid fire extinguisher, and then we’re gonna finish it off with the light stuff- in bed with the betrayer, seize the sword with a shotgun, corpse girl wet dream, and finally,” he tears the pizza crust in half with his teeth, speaks mouth full: “unnamed song.”

  “Its called firing squad,” says Red

  “Its called diplomacy” says Mickey. “Its just the word firing squad comes up a lot.”

  “It’s unnamed song till you two agree on something.”

  “Vern!” Red calls. Vern looks to her, then back at me.

  “I said, I have an avatar.”

  “What does that mean, you have- you found one?”

  “Yes!” I laugh at the stupid look on his face. “The statue at the mansion that I’ve been telling you about. And I think Sazwa’s gonna steal it from me.”

  “No she isn’t,” he says, and smiles viciously. He takes the pizza crust, tosses it in the bin half finished, puts his guitar down. “No, no, no, no, H-bomb, she’s not taking it cause we’re taking it first.”