This fandom really needs to expand.

I mean, how can this awesome series not have a gazillion fans?

I'm still glad there are so many amazing authors on this site, though :D

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

The sky roiled with clouds carrying unshed raindrops. A cutting wind howled through the busy streets, upending baskets of unsold goods and carrying off the occasional hat. The air was filled with the insistent honking of cars starting to populate the streets as the sun showed its first signs over the horizon.

I scratched at my ear, annoyed. Why was this even happening to me? Why did this always happen to me?

The cold rooftops of London is no place for a djinni of my level to be hiding out on. But here I was, hating everything little thing about this wretched situation. I pressed myself lower onto the slick tiles of the apartment I was hiding on, as the curtains of the house across the street flicked to the side.

A small girl peered around from within, almost shyly, with her huge doe eyes. She seemed to have just woken up, since her pretty brown hair was mussed and she still wore nothing but a nightgown. She stretched her pale, vulnerable wrists above her head, yawning as she did so.

I might've bought the show she was putting on if she didn't transformed into a hideous beast on the fifth plane. This foliot was doing a shoddy job as an impersonator. I'd been watching this girl for a week, and she hadn't once opened her window to enjoy the morning view of London's streets until today (1). In fact, I wasn't sure the girl even knew she had a window. The Lily Hollow I'd come to know had a very unhealthy attraction to video games. She spent most of her time glued to her computer, refusing to leave its side- even giving up food, and, more importantly as far as someone who had to follow her around 24/7 was concerned, baths.

(1) Which wasn't her fault, of course. There's nothing to admire in a filthy street full of disgusting little humans scurrying around doing absolutely nothing important.

I groaned as I watched the foliot draw the curtains shut again. Natty boy had been right. I could just imagine that stupid smirk of his at the news.

I quickly used my little claws to climb higher onto the apartment's roof before dropping my guise as a cat for that of a pigeon. I took to the air, already tired of the charge I knew would be next. Obviously, Nat had to show off his amazing skills as the Minister of Security by tackling all the worst cases by himself. And right now, that meant finding out who was replacing the children of London's wealthiest and most powerful humans with demons.

I landed on his windowsill and peered in. He was busy yelling at that poor assistant of his (2) , but I could tell it was more out of impatience than out of any really anger. I grinned maliciously. He must be growing antsy, since he'd promised his beloved PM that he'd have this case solved by the end of this month. I was sorely tempted to not tell him anything for another week so I could see him suffer a bit more, but his charge had bound me to tell him about anything unusual concerning Lily Hollow as soon as I learned of it (3).

(2) She must be quite desperate to put up with such a young and greasy little kid for a boss. I almost felt sorry for her, but then again, I liked how her incompetence grated on little Nat's nerves. The more miserable he was, the more bearable my stay on this world became.

(3) When I'd taken this as cue to go into detail about Lily's brushing habits (or the lack thereof), I'd been threatened with the Stipples. Magicians, I tell you. So fickle.

I pecked at his window until I got his attention. When he looked over at me, he sighed with such tiredness that you'd think he'd just seen the cause of all of his problems. Needless to say, it made my day instantly brighter. He ran a hand through that greasy mop that was his hair, seemingly trying to compose himself before he had to talk to me. Then he crossed his office and flicked the latch of his window off. I took my familiar guise of Ptolemy and pushed the glass pane open before hopping into his office.

"Hey John!" I exclaimed cheerfully. "How has your day been?"

Nathaniel stared at me with deadpan eyes before rubbing a tired hand across his face in frustration. "You didn't just come here to annoy me, did you?"

I grinned and leaned back against his window, watching his assistant take advantage of the situation to scurry out the door. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"

He looked at me with some sort of hope then, and my cheeriness died away. Oh, how I hated delivering magicians good news. "Sometime during the night, Lily Hollow was switched with a foliot taking her appearance as its guise."

He stared at me for a heartbeat, before he slowly grinned. I could already tell that his mind was miles away, thinking up his follow-up plan by the time he rushed to his desk and shoved aside some papers. "I knew it! I knew it! That was the connection between them, after all!"

I crossed my arms, watching him hurry around his room with a renewed sense of energy. "Send me back, Nathaniel."

He was so out of it that he didn't even flinch at hearing his birth name spoken aloud so casually. "Hm?"

I sighed and sat down on his swivel chair, giving up for today. I'd badgered him to send me back to the OtherPlace too many times, and I was starting to see that there was no point in pursuing the matter. I spun myself around and around on his chair, lost in thoughts of the Other Place's soothing embrace. I'd been working for this twerp for a year now, and I wanted out. Staying in this world for so long was doing nothing good for my essence. But he refused to let me go, and I was starting to think the only way home would be to kill him.

It would be a shame, of course, to kill off someone who occasionally reminded me of Ptolemy, but it would have to be done. Magicians were all the same in the end. My world stopped spinning around suddenly, and I realized the little idiot I wanted to kill was standing in front of me, a faraway look on his face as he held the chair back from making another turn.

"Quit your stupid daydreaming, Bartimaeus. I have a new charge for you."

I groaned. Why couldn't I kill him now?

"I charge you to go help Marinda in the basement. She's cleaning out the place so I can use it as a second library."

"Die."

Nathaniel finally focused on me and smiled grimly. "If it were that easy to kill me off, we wouldn't be here right now."

"We're here right now because I saved you too many times to count."

He turned away, obviously not listening anymore. "I command you to go, djinni."

I felt the painful jerk on my essence pulling me away, and stood up. "One day, you're going to wish you'd dismissed me earlier."

Nathaniel waved a hand over his shoulder, the only sign he'd heard what I'd said. I was so going to kill this guy later. No one treated Bartimaeus of Uruk this way and lived! (4) I stalked out of the room and banged the door shut behind me, hoping a few of his creepy paintings of that Whitewell woman fell off from the resulting vibrations.

(4) Well, except that marid I'd met a couple of centuries ago, and that one afrit- you know what? I think that this is besides the point.

He'd been treating me this way ever since he'd summoned me. Never actually seeing me, but always having one mundane errand or another to charge me with. The ungrateful brat would meet his end soon, and I would see to it that it would be by my hands (5).

(5) Or paws. Or claws, talons, tentacles, etcetera, etcetera. It really depended on which guise I had on at the moment.

Miranda was very displeased to see me. The servants in Nathaniel's house didn't know that I was a demon- it would be very unusual for a magician to let his or her demons reveal themselves to commoners. So I just looked like an Egyptian boy that happened to be working for the famous John Mandrake to them.

"Bartimaeus," Miranda said. "If you're here to help, would you stop lounging on the couch?"

I looked up at her, wondering how she'd feel if I suddenly turned into a wolf and mauled her. "I am helping. You told me that I'd be the most help by staying out of the way."

She rolled her eyes at me. Rolled her eyes at me, I tell you!

"That was last time. You were cooking up something grotesque- "

"Just because people around here are unused to eating goat liver, doesn't mean it's grotesque!"

"- for breakfast. Come on, boy, get up."

I wanted to blast her to bits. I stood up anyway- quite sulkily, which made Marinda smirk and call me "Cute," (6) and did as my idiotic master upstairs had commanded. When we left the basement, Marinda swung an arm around my shoulder.

(6) ... and which made me want to re-think my decision to hold back on mauling her.

"That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"

"I think it was pretty hard, considering you dropped a cabinet on my foot."

Marinda laughed. "At least your foot's still fine. Anyway, me and the others are wondering if you'd join us for dinner tonight? We're all meeting up to eat at Hail's. I know you never show up, but some of them do like you, you know."

Humans never fail to amuse me. I was tempted to say yes, just to show up at the dinner and change their opinions on me radically by doing something that'll leave Nathaniel to cover up the deaths of all of his servants, but I shrugged her arm off instead.

"No."

"Come on!"

"No way."

"Look, you need to make friends. A boy your age shouldn't be so shy!"

What I was hearing was so ridiculous that I really didn't know what to say. I stared at her, completely at a loss for words, and she seemed to take that as an affirmative. She grabbed my arm with a stupid smile and led me, dumbfounded, up the stairs and to the front door.

"Hold on, I-" I started, finally finding my voice after processing the full absurdity of the situation.

"Oh, you got him to come! Finally!" Another one said- he goes by the name of Fred, I think- before ruffling my hair. "I was starting to think you were antisocial."

Just as I got a detonation started in my hand, I heard my name: "Bartimaeus."

I spun around, indignant and completely beyond reason as I heard the annoying twerp's voice. He was standing on the stairs, looking all high-and-mighty with his greasy hair and supposedly-fashionable long coat.

"Mr. Mandrake, sir," the other servants said, composing themselves. "We were just about to leave."

"Bartimaeus, stay. The rest of you, I bid you goodnight. I will see you all tomorrow."

I stood back, barely holding in my temper as I watched the others leave. 'Bartimaeus, stay'? What was I, a pet?

I spun on him as soon as the last one of them left. "You. Just you wait, magician. I will destroy you one day. Do you know what I had to put up with just now?"

I finally got a good look of the stupid brat's face, and found him smiling, looking like he was holding back laughter. Then he did laugh, and that was pretty much the last straw.

"You dare laugh at this, you insolent little magician? If I don't burn your precious house to the ground right now, I- "

"Bartimaeus, I have a new charge for you," he cut in, suddenly looking much more somber. "I charge you to impersonate Neville Rolland. We're going to catch these kidnappers in the act."

...Okay, honestly, I told myself that I'd at least have to make the first chapter stay focused and serious... but, come on, it's Bartimaeus!

... and also, my writing style is just random enough to surprise me, too.

Thanks for reading this far!