Who Ya Gonna Owl?

Who Ya Gonna Owl?

Chapter 2

It was a bright, warm, sunny day in New York City. The sun was shining, the traffic snarling, and there wasn't an active spirit, spook or ghost anywhere on the island of Manhattan. At least, if there was, no one had phoned the firehouse at the corner of Varick and North Moore about it. Which explained, perhaps, why Peter Venkman was able to lug himself down the stairs into the kitchen, mumble, "G'morning," and get a curtly snapped, "Afternoon" from Egon by way of reply.

"Is it?" He squinted at the clock on the microwave. "Huh. Sure feels like morning."

"It was morning when you got in, too."

"Pssh. It's not morning until the sun's up."

"Which it almost was. Where were you last night, anyway?"

"Long, boring story. You wouldn't be interested." He yawned again; Egon muttered something, shook his head, and ducked out of the kitchen. The slow weeks, as far as he was concerned, were research weeks. How Peter could waste them so casually, he'd never know. He had three different experiments in various stages of progress laid out in the lab, and there was a copy of Semiconductor Spintronics and Quantum Entanglement waiting-

"RAY!" came Peter's yell from upstairs. "Why's the kitchen all weird?"

Ray poked his head out of the small room next to the lab; reorganizing his research library was his pet project for the month. "I finally got your mess cleaned up, that's why!" he answered, equally loudly. He glanced down the hall and winced apologetically. "Sorry, Egon."

Egon waved a hand in a vague it's-all-right gesture; upstairs there was silence for a moment, followed by, "Oh."

Ray shook his head. "He just got up, I'm guessing?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Have you seen my-"

"RAY! I can't find the bread!"

With a sigh, Ray called back, "In the breadbox!"

"Which is where?"

"Under the cabinet next to the microwave!"

"Oh."

"Remind me to see about rigging him up with an IV caffeine infusion," Egon murmured. "That ought to-"

"RAY! I can't find the mayo!"

"It's in the fridge, where it belongs! You left it in the pantry!"

"Oh."

Ray shook his head. "Never mind the caffeine. What he needs is a good stiff dose of synthetic amphetamines. Too bad they're illegal."

Egon smiled faintly. "No argument here-"

"RAY!"

"I'm busy, Peter!" Ray snapped back. "Find it yourself!"

There was a moment's quiet.

"EGON!"

"Sorry, buddy," said Ray sympathetically as he turned back into the library. "This one's all yours."

Egon snorted and went to the stairs. "WHAT?"

"We've got an owl! What do you want me to do with it?"

There was a muffled clatter and a sudden 'ow!' from behind him, as of a man whose head has collided with the bottom of a bookshelf. "Uh... what sort of owl?" Egon asked warily.

"What do you mean, what sort of owl? An owl owl!"

"Peter, you're going to have to be more specific-"

"Hang on a second, I think it's gonna land. It's got something in its claws..."

Egon spared a quick glance over his shoulder; Ray had scrabbled to his feet and was leaning out of the library again. "Peter?"

There was no answer, only the sound of feet on the stairs. Moments later Peter appeared, scowling and wiping ineffectually at the blood rolling down his forehead from gashes raked at the edge of his scalp. "One of you has a letter," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder and up the stairs. "In the kitchen."

Leaving Peter with the lab's first aid kit, Egon and Ray headed up the stairs. "I doubt it's for me," Egon said dryly.

"Why? You know more people in Europe than I do."

"And I'm persona non grata in more wizarding jurisdictions than you are. I very much doubt there's anyone in the world willing to communicate with me who still uses owl post, Ray."

"Oh, come on. You can't have alienated everyone."

"Wizard culture in Europe is a lot less forgiving than it is in the States. There were a couple of teachers at Durmstrang who wanted me burned at the stake."

"That's pretty impressive. How'd you manage that?"

"They didn't appreciate the idea that a solid grasp of arithmantic number theory and magical principles could be used to strip the traditional wizardly trappings and pseudoscientific influences from everything they did and turn magic into something properly systematically testable. Said the very existence of the idea was a violation of the International Statute of Secrecy, never mind the fact that it still didn't work for people without properly expressed mana-manipulating genetic markers."

"That doesn't sound like grounds for burning at the stake to me."

"It had more to do with the presentation," Egon conceded. "I got a pretty hostile reception and a poor grade when I turned that essay in. Calling the instructor a walking anachronism who'd left both his frontal lobes in the care of the Sorcerer of Trois Freres Cave may not have been the most diplomatic way of handling the appeal."

"Ouch."

"Well, it was true."

At first glance the kitchen seemed just the same as always. It took a moment to spot the telltales: the open window here, the half-made sandwich there. And, of course, the staring contest at the table, between a wary-looking Winston and a bedraggled tawny owl with an envelope clutched in its talons. "Don't make any sudden moves," Winston said as the kitchen door opened. His eyes didn't leave the owl's for a second. "One of you just ease over and close the window-"

"It's all right, Winston," said Egon. The owl's head suddenly swiveled in his direction. "He didn't steal it, he's delivering it." He held out a forearm, fist clenched; the bird hooted and leapt up from the table, dropping the envelope into Egon's other hand. It wrapped its claws around his arm and settled to preening its feathers with an affronted air. "Ray? Would you mind opening this while I see to our friend here?"

Winston shook his head, settling back into his chair. "Who keeps owls in New York City? I mean, pigeons, yeah, but owls?"

"He's not from New York," said Ray absently. He'd sat down in one of the other chairs and was skimming over the bird's letter rapidly, a small pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. "This species is native to Great Britain and Ireland. The letter's from England, dated yesterday. He must've come down the Floo Network through Canada. There's no way a bird his size could make it to Manhattan that fast on his own."

The owl hooted, hopping up and down briefly on Egon's shoulder. "Sounds affirmative to me," the man said, his voice muffled; he was rooting through the back of the freezer. "Did you get rid of that Baggie full of mice when you defrosted last, Ray?"

"No, but I vacuum-sealed them and wrapped the packet in foil. They're behind the durian ice cream."

"Whose idea was that, anyway?"

"Jeanine's, I think." Ray turned his attention back to the letter. "Says here-"

"Uh- question." Winston held up one hand. "What's a Floo Network?"

Egon popped the microwave open. Over his shoulder he said, "A network of supernaturally connected fires, both active and dormant, stretching across most of the Commonwealth countries and into parts of the United States. Extremely inefficient as a means of transport, since it depends on-"

"Uh- Egon-" Ray set the letter down, turning all of his attention to Winston, who looked as if he didn't know whether to believe Egon or not. "Winston hasn't been briefed on that, remember?"

"Oh. Right." There was a quiet ding! from the microwave. "Well-"

"Tell you what," said Peter, who had successfully bandaged his scalp wounds and returned to the kitchen. "Why don't I tell him-"

Egon straightened up immediately, his back to the microwave oven.

"-and you promise me you'll never, ever, ever heat up dead mice in the same microwave I use for my lunch again."

"I'm not heating up dead mi - ow!"

"Yeah? Then why's the owl biting your ear off?"

". . . jet lag?" Egon winced, and tried to push the owl aside with one hand. It bit him again. "Ow."

Peter shook his head and pulled out one of the chairs. "Egon, you're a brilliant scientist, but you're a terrible liar," he said as he straddled the chair back-to-front. "Winston, it's like this. Ray and Egon here have a long and glorious history of not putting stuff on their CV's. Number one item on the list is that they are, in fact, wizards."

"No offense, Peter, but I kind of figured that out for myself that time we went to New Orleans."

"Yeah, well, there's more. What they haven't told you is that there's a lot of other wizards out there, pretty much world-wide, and that they don't trust us mundanes to know about them and not go ballistic."

"The International Statute of Secrecy was passed in response to real persecution-"

"I know, Ray, but it's been a couple hundred years, hasn't it? When was the last time I tried to set you on fire? On purpose, I mean?"

"Well-"

"Anyway." Peter turned back to Winston. "Wizards have this secrecy thing, like I said. Most of 'em don't live in close contact with normal people, so if they're going to travel or send messages, they have to do it by magical means. Or by means of small, vicious birds of prey that are stinking up my kitchen with their lunch-"

"All right, all right, I promise I won't put any more mice in the microwave."

"Thank you, Egon." He grinned and drew a tally-mark in the air with one finger. "Score one for our side."

Winston glanced over at Egon, who'd put the owl's plate on the windowsill. "How come we haven't had an owl turn up before this, then? I mean, if there's as many wizards as you say-"

"They don't want to talk to us, mostly," said Ray.

"They don't want to talk to me, you mean." Egon looked up from the owl's lunch-in-progress. "Ray's isolation from the rest of the 'wizarding community' is an unfortunate side effect of our association. Most of the world's born mana manipulators-"

"English, Egon. We speak English in this firehouse."

"I am speaking English, Peter. Considering the variety of ways the human race has found to manipulate universal forces, it pays to be precise. The people who call themselves the 'wizarding world' or 'wizarding community' are born with a certain capacity to affect the physical world through magic, and sometimes the spirit world as well. I haven't isolated the genes involved yet, but-"

"What Egon is saying is that most wizards aren't very fond of mundane science," Ray interjected.

"Mundane?" Winston raised an eyebrow. "The stuff we do?"

"All right, poor choice of words." Ray shrugged. "I think you know what I mean, though."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Okay, then. They don't want to talk to us because we spend so much time trying to unify science and magic, basically."

"They consider us a threat," said Egon. "Always have."

"And they figure Egon is more dangerous than I am. At least I have the decency to treat magic like magic most of the time, and science like science, is how they see it."

"Uh-huh." Winston leaned back in his chair. "So... if wizards aren't supposed to let people who aren't wizards know that they exist..." He trailed off, looking inquiringly at Peter.

"It's amazing how much people in Scotland will tell you when they're too drunk to hold onto the floor." Peter snickered.

"What does Scotland have to do with it?"

"Uh, hello? Ph. D. in parapsychology? The one hanging next to my Caddyshack poster? They didn't start handing those out in the States until Columbia got a parapsych department. I had to go to the University of Edinburgh for that."

"But you said-"

"He ran into a student from the biggest school of magic in Europe during an end-of-term pub crawl," muttered Egon, covering his face with one hand. "Potter told him everything. I throw up just thinking about it."

Ray cleared his throat loudly and adjusted his glasses. "Can we get back to the subject at hand, guys? This-" He held up the letter. "-says the British Ministry of Magic has a nationwide ghost situation even their Spirit Division can't handle."

"Wait," said Winston. "Ministry of Magic?"

"Told you there were a lot of wizards," Peter said. "Got their own governments and everything. Egon, I'm going to reach into that refrigerator in a minute and finish making my lunch. Please tell me I'm not going to find any more dead rodents."

"Of course not."

"Oh good."

"They're in the freezer."

"Thank you, Egon. That makes me feel so much better. Ray? Are they going to pay us?"

"Yep," said Ray, scanning the text of the letter. "Pretty well, too, and cover our room and board while we're there."

"In real money or moon-man money?"

"Probably the latter, but I know where we can change that for pounds sterling."

"All right. England, here we come."

Winston just shook his head. "Good thing I just got my passport renewed, huh?"

"Passport?" Egon laughed. "Where we're going, we don't need passports."