The Second Summoning

He spoke fluent pigeon, which wasn’t really difficult as the entire pigeon vocabulary pretty much consisted of: “Food!” “Danger!” and “Betcha I can hit that guy in the Armani suit.” but nothing he said made any difference. They were where they felt they ought to be. Case closed. When he started walking again, they lifted off with an indignant flapping of wings. When he stopped, they landed. He kept walking.

At College Street, he flipped a mental coin and turned right.

The sedan traveling southbound missed him by seven centimeters. The pickup traveling north missed him by three. The driver of the pickup taught him a number of new words. The pigeons knew them already.

The east side of Yonge, where College Street became Carlton Street, seemed to lead into a more residential area. That had to be good. People equaled problems and sooner or later, if he was right about being the message not merely the medium, he’d have to fix the problem that would let him go home.

By the time he reached the park across from Home-wood Avenue, he was traveling in a shifting cloud of fat bodies and feathers. Visibility was bad, the footing was getting a little tricky, and the surrounding air had begun to smell strongly of motor oil and old French fries. He clearly had to get rid of his escort.

He flailed his arms.

He used the new words, rearranging them into a number of different patterns.

Nothing worked.

Climbing up and over a snowbank, he brushed off the end of a bench and flopped down onto the cleared spot.

The pigeons settled happily.

His vision slightly impaired by a fan of tail feathers, Samuel watched a police car make a tight U-turn across Carlton Street and pull up more or less in front of him.

The driver’s name was Police Constable Jack Brooks, his partner, Police Constable Marri Margaret Patton. They sat and stared for a full minute. He could feel their mood lightening as they studied him, and he knew he should be glad he’d added a little joy to their day but, preoccupied by the sudden warmth dribbling down behind his left ear, he found he didn’t much care.

Finally, they got out of the car and waded through the snow toward him, valiantly but unsuccessfully attempting to suppress snickers.

“Are you, uh, all right under there?”

Samuel sighed and spat out a feather. “Sure,” he answered shortly.

“Have you tried standing up?”

He stood. Wings flapped. He could see PC Patton’s lips move, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying above the noise. He sat down again. The pigeons settled.

After a moment of near hysterical laughter, the police settled as well.

Fighting to catch his breath, PC Brooks managed to gasp, “Are you feeding them?”

“As if.” If he was feeding them, he could stop. And they’d leave. “They want to be with me ‘cause I’m an angel.”

“An angel?”

“Yeah; I guess it’s that dove thing.”

“These are pigeons.”

“Same old.”

As three birds squabbled over position, PC Brooks got his first unobstructed look at facial features and knocked five years off his original estimate of the young man’s age. “What’s your name, son?”

“Samuel.”

“Samuel what?”

“Just Samuel.”

“And you’re an angel?”

“Yes.”

“If you’re an angel, where are your wings?” Beside him, he heard his partner smother a snort.

Samuel sighed and spit out another feather. “I’m not that kind of angel.” Without much enthusiasm, he added, “But I can make my head light up.”

“Maybe next time.” Frowning slightly, PC Brooks took a closer look, found his gaze met and held, found himself watching the gold flecks in the brown eyes swirl into soft luminescence. He blinked and forced himself to look away. “What are you on, Samuel?”

“Concrete and fiberglass.”

“Uh-huh. Look, son, it’s Christmas Day, why don’t you go home.”

“I can’t!”

The pigeons took flight, circled once, and settled again.

PC Patton took her partner by the sleeve and dragged him a few steps away.

“It’s not against the law to be covered in pigeons,” she reminded him, grinning broadly.

“I know.”

“Neither is it against the law to impersonate an angel.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Whatever he’s on . . .”

“Concrete and fiberglass.”

“. . . he’s not a danger to himself or society, and he’s probably fairly warm under there.”

“But it’s Christmas.”

So it was. She sighed, watched her breath blossom in the frosty air, and turned back toward the bench. “Why don’t you get in the car and we’ll take you somewhere you can get some Christmas dinner.”

“Can the pigeons come?”

“No.”

That was the best news he’d heard in a while.

The pigeons, who recognized the police as Nice Dark Targets, refused to cooperate.

Samuel finally backed up about twenty feet, raced forward, and flung himself into the back of the squad car, giving PC Patton about six seconds to slam the door before the birds caught up. When the first bird hit the window, she almost peed herself, she was laughing so hard.