Tarnished and Torn Read Online Free PDF

tablecloth was dragged off of a display table, taking with it necklaces and rings that scattered on the concrete floor. Another scream was nearly drowned out by a babble of shouts and cries.
    Finally the cause of the havoc rounded a corner.
    Oscar
.
    Oscar is my witch’s familiar. Most witches have
familiar
familiars, like owls or frogs . . . or the proverbial black cat. Not me. Mine is a strange, shape-shifting critter.
    At the moment he was in his Vietnamese potbellied-pig form, but as I’d tried to explain to him so many times before—without noticeable effect—this porcine guise was only slightly less disturbing in most crowds than his natural goblin-crossed-with-a-gargoyle appearance. I adore Oscar, but he isn’t what you’d call easy.
    What in the world was he
doing
? And, most important, why was he doing it
here
?
    “
Oscar
!” I called out, but the shouting of the crowd drowned out my voice.
    Bronwyn and Maya joined me at the refreshment stand, their canvas bags bulging with purchases.
    “What in the world . . . ?” Bronwyn asked, as Maya looked on, bewildered. “How’d our little Oscaroo get out of the van?”
    “I, uh . . .” I trailed off, at a loss for words.
    In truth, Oscar was more than capable of letting himself out of the van when he transformed—in his gobgoyle form he had humanlike hands. But neither Bronwyn nor Maya knew that.
    It was rare for him to disobey me so blatantly, however. Though we had an unusual witch-familiar relationship, Oscar generally followed my orders . . . unless there was a powerful reason not to.
    As I looked on, helpless, Oscar careened through the aisles, wild as a June bug on a string. Onlookers screamed and jumped, laughed and chased, and one or two seemed about to cry. Two security guards, radios crackling, tried to trap him by approaching from opposite ends of an aisle. One guard was noticeably overweight; the other small and very young. They looked determined but clueless.
    Oscar evaded the pair by slaloming this way and that, before ducking under a display counter topped with trays of glass and metal beads. In the process he struck one of the supporting legs and the flimsy table folded in on itself, spewing beads every which way. The chubby security guard slipped on the rolling beads and fell flat on his butt, while the younger one, more agile than his partner, tried to cut Oscar off. My familiar ducked under yet another display table, catching the cloth on his little hooves and pulling down racks of necklaces, pearls bouncing thither and yon.
    “Oscar!
Stop
!” I stood on my chair and called again, but I doubted he could hear me over the shouts and cacophony.
    Over the loudspeaker a crackling voice hailed the security force, calling a Code 571.
    “A 571?” Maya murmured. “Suppose that’s the code for ‘out-of-control porker’?”
    Whatever it was code for, it was bad news. The last thing I wanted to deal with was animal control; I wasn’t even sure it was strictly legal to keep a pig in the city limits.
    “Maya, Bronwyn,” I said, “let’s triangulate and catch him.”
    Before we could put our plan into action, Oscar barreled down the wide central aisle, heading straight for the refreshment stand.
    “
Hell’s bells
, Oscar.
Stop!
”
    Oscar stopped.
    •   •   •
    Ten minutes later four rent-a-cops, one sheepish pig, and one fuming, embarrassed witch sat in the windowless security office, which, despite its formal title, looked a whole lot like a converted utility closet. It was outfitted with half a dozen beige folding chairs, a utilitarian metal desk covered with stacks of papers, and a plastic-topped conference table.
    Compared to the law enforcement professionals I had become accustomed to dealing with over the past few months—the San Francisco Police Department—these men were rather hapless. Despite their neat uniforms and shiny badges, I imagined they had been lured into their jobs by the promise of minimum wage