Three chapters in one day? Someone hold me back!
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Nathaniel
He tossed and turned in his sleep, slipping in and out of consciousness every few minutes. The bed sheets tangled in his legs. It was hot, far too hot in the room.
Moaning in frustration, he kicked the covers off of his sweaty body and sat upright. He'd been trying to sleep for hours, but strange dreams and thoughts kept whirring around his brain until he felt sick and dizzy.
There was only one possible solution to this: a cup of tea.
Stepping into his slippers and making for the door, Nathaniel stumbled downstairs and into the kitchen. He flicked on a small lamp and made some tea. He was still feeling hot from sleep, so he decided to go outside for some fresh air. The garden always was a place of peace and solitude. He flicked on the switch for the outside lamp and opened the back door, tea in hand.
The sight he was met with took the breath from his lips and all plausible thought from his mind.
There, in the middle of his garden was Kitty Jones with Peanut on her back. She was dressed all in black, like a robber, and staring at him like a rabbit in the headlights.
But, Kitty was dead.
Was it Bartimaeus?
But she looked different than the Kitty-Bartimaeus he had spent the afternoon with yesterday.
Her hair was shorter than he remembered; it was wavier now, cropped to a long bob. On wavy strand was tucked behind an ear. She was still pale, but her face was a little thinner, more defined. Her eyes were darker, framed by eyelashes that looked longer... she was far curvier, and definitely not as stick-like as he remembered. It sent a shock wave of an unknown feeling down Nathaniel's spine.
Before his brain even had a chance to figure out what he was seeing, she had legged it down the end of the garden and vaulted the wall, disappearing from his sight.
Nathaniel stood there for a moment, swaying slightly.
Was that a dream?
It can't have been the real Kitty. She died saving him from the Golem, it was impossible. It had to be Bartimaeus.
But why was Peanut on his back? Where was he going?
Nathaniel turned off the light and went back inside, shutting the door behind him. He left the tea forgotten on the countertop.
He hadn't given Bartimaeus new orders. He should still be looking after Peanut in the house. What was he doing gallivanting about in the middle of the night?
Nathaniel climbed to the top of the house. Peanut was nowhere to be seen. A strange mixture of uncertainty and panic arose within him.
"Bartimaeus!" he demanded. His voice came out sounding more desperate than he had intended. There was no answer. He descended downstairs and called again. Still nothing. He went to the ground floor and called a third time, his heart was beating fast. None of this made sense.
A small, muffled voice from the living room answered. "What?" It sounded peeved.
Nathaniel stormed into the living room, expecting to see him in the guise of Kitty, with Peanut on her back. But when he threw open the door, there was only a small Egyptian cat curled up on one of the armchairs. It looked like its nap had been interrupted.
"Where is Peanut?"
The cat looked confused. "...Upstairs?"
Nathaniel felt all the blood rush from his face. He gripped the door handle for support.
"No, no...you just took him, dressed as Kitty, and you leapt over the wall... why isn't he in his cot?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Just now, I went outside and I saw you dressed as Kitty, and you had Peanut on your back and then you ran away. So why isn't he upstairs? Why didn't you put him back?" his voice was rising but he couldn't help it.
The cat looked honestly shocked. He slowly shook his head, hi cat eyebrows furrowed. "That wasn't me...I've been here sitting here for hours."
"Then that was..." he trailed off, a thousand different emotions battered him from all sides. "B-But she's dead! She died three years ago!"
The cat looked emotionless. Before Nathaniel's eyes it shifted into the familiar form of the Egyptian boy. He was wearing trackies and a t-shirt that said 'down with magic'. He wasn't saying anything. Impassive black eyes stared at him from the arm chair.
"You told me she was dead! You said she died saving me!" his voice cracked as he spoke. He didn't want to show emotion in front of the djinn, but it was proving impossible.
"If you saw her then... I guess I was wrong."
"Wrong? You said she was burnt to a crisp! How can you have been wrong?" Nathaniel was beside himself. All those years of grief and guilt washed over him anew with a staggering intensity, but now he knew they had counted for nothing. He was burning hot with rage and embarrassment and distress. She was still alive! The demon had tricked him!
"Look" the boy in the armchair stood up and walked over to stand in front of him. "Leave her alone, if she took Peanut it's her right. The police took him-"
"I will not leave her alone she's stolen the child and she's a wanted criminal! Don't try to defend her!" He seethed; he hadn't felt this angry for years. A dam of pent up emotions broke through his mental walls, swirling through his body. Nathaniel's fitful night of sleep, the swirling questions in his mind. They all blurred together in an irrational rage, tears stung at his eyes.
"I will defend her. She's done no wrong." The djinn said quietly.
"Yes she has!" A thought occurred to him "You were in this together weren't you?!" he gripped the djinn's arms, shaking him a little. His impassiveness was scaring him. He was acting too human.
"Is – Is there affection between the two of you? Is that why?"
"Please, as if she'd feel any affection towards a djinn." Nathaniel detected bitterness in Bartimaeus' voice. "She hates all magic."
"But she always takes exception to you! You always choose her form as well; there must be some attraction between you two." Nathaniel felt a stab of jealousy as he said this. It was true, Bartimaeus liked her a lot. Whether it was admiration or affection, he didn't know. Whether it was one sided, he also didn't know.
The djinn's face remained unreadable, but Nathaniel thought he could see a spark of fire in his dark eyes ignite. "I didn't want her to be hunted down by you. That's all."
"Don't give me that!" Nathaniel pushed the djinn with a force that surprised both of them. Tripping backwards, Bartimaeus fell softly onto the sofa behind. Nathaniel lunged on top of him, straddling the djinn below. "You still used her form to deliberately torment me for years when you knew I suffered! How can you justify that?"
Nathaniel was red in the face and slightly teary, his voice was cracking with the weight of his emotions and his fists were white and shaking as he gripped Bartimaeus' stupid t-shirt like a vice. Although dressed only in his boxers and slippers, Nathaniel had gone past caring.
"I can't, it's just..."
"What?!"
"I thought that the guilt would help you keep your conscience... you had almost lost it by the end of the golem incident. I didn't want you to change into one of them." He finished quietly, averting his eyes. His face looked more tired than he'd ever seen it before. He wasn't even struggling beneath Nathaniel. He was too weak. The tiny fire he'd seen before had gone out.
"I will never be one of them." Nathaniel shook his head, his voice filled with contempt.
"It's hard to tell with you."
"Trust me."
The djinn smirked. "Unlikely."
Nathaniel stood up, wiping at his eyes angrily. Leaving Bartimaeus sprawled on the sofa with a scrunched up shirt.
"We have to get Peanut back." he told the djinn.
"Why can't you leave him alone? He might be back with his family by now."
"Kitty wouldn't do that. If she had any sense she'd be fleeing the country right now with him in tow. The whole of police will be after her."
"Only you and I know she's alive." Bartimaeus said with a slow and particular emphasis. "We don't have to tell anyone it was her."
Nathaniel held his gaze for a while, thinking it all over. "Yes...you're right. I'll tell the police we didn't see the face of the thief. Then, I'll send someone out to get them back without anyone else getting involved."
"Why get them back at all?"
"Because" he ran an exasperated hand through his hair, "Peanut needs to be brought up a magician. If he stays a commoner there'll be trouble. Kitty is a criminal. I can't let her get away with everything she's done."
"She did save your life though Nathaniel."
"Whether she did or not, she's still an enemy of the state. I know I said I won't be like the other magicians. But upholding the law of the country is different. This is different."
"Well, since you're going to be sending some other poor sod out to find them, can I have a break now? I've been on nanny duty all week and I'm about to drop dead."
After another argument, Nathaniel agreed to give Bartimaeus at least a day's rest before summoning him again starting from that moment.
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When the police arrived in the morning, Nathaniel gave a detailed account of what had happened, with the exception of Kitty's involvement.
He said he did not see the thief's face, but he had suspected it had been a man. When they had asked why a spirit had not intervened and killed the intruder, he replied that he was giving his demons a break for the night, but that he did have one servant employed. He claimed that his one djinn on guard had not been aware of the burglary as he had been on patrol around the neighbourhood as well as in the house.
That afternoon, he sat alone at his desk. It was completely silent. Piper was out, Bartimaeus was having a break and Peanut was missing. He realised that he didn't have any friends or relatives or anyone that would actually want to talk to him in the whole world except those three. And two of those were a little dubious anyhow.
With a long, weary sigh he looked at the mountain of paperwork that he had to finish by the end of the day. But he just found himself staring at it instead of doing it. Once again, he felt entirely disconnected. His job felt like a heavy coat he wanted to shrug off.
Alone and waiting for dawn to summon Bartimaeus, he planned out how he was going to bring back Peanut and Kitty.
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Please review and tell me how you think it's going :0
