by Simon Hawke
Makepeace did not discourage them. He liked to see his students developing their research skills and he enjoyed chuckling at their frustration when they while he held doctoral degrees in metaphysics and occult studies, as well as history and literature, there was no record of his ever having attended a graduate school of thammaturgy. They were mystified when they could find no proof that he had ever formally studied magic anywhere, because he was as proficient at performing magic as any advanced-level adept.
Over the years, his past had become something of a cause celebre among the students of New York University, and not only his students in the History and Metaphysics Departments. They would form byzantine research alliances with graduate students in the School of Thaumaturgy joining students in the Law School and the Department of Criminology in efforts to prove the colorful Professor Makepeace was merely an eccentric, amiable fraud. Except they couldn’t. There was no proof that Makepeace was, in fact, a fairy. However, at the same time, there was no proof that he wasn’t.
In a world where magic was not only alive, but afoot all over the damn place, they couldn’t find a single documented instance of the existence of a fairy, whether it was a diminutive creature with gossamer wings or an apparently middle-aged man with shoulder-length white hair and the build of a linebacker. The general consensus among the students was that Makepeace was self-taught when it came to magic.
While officially discouraged, it was not illegal for people to study magic on their own. It was, however, rather dangerous, as public service announcements sponsored by the Bureau of Thaumaturgy on radio and television reminded people regularly. In some countries, the informal study of magic was a crime, but in the United States, with its constitutional traditions, freedom of information was a sword that cut two ways. The solution was not perfect, but it was typically American. One could study thaumaturgy without the benefit of a formal graduate program administered by licensed adepts, but one was also legally responsible for the potential consequences and it was illegal to practice it without a license. And while Makepeace could and did perform magic, he neither claimed to be an adept nor practiced the art professionally. Consequently, he had never fallen afoul of the Bureau of Thaumaturgy or the ITC.
However, while he found it amusing to have skeptical students trying to research his background and qualifications, having the ITC start looking into his past was something else entirely. Students could be very clever and persistent at doing research, but the ITC was downright scary. They had access to anything and everything. And there were certain things about his past that Makepeace did not want people looking into.
They were the kind of details that students, no matter how persistent, would never be able to unearth, but the ITC certainly could. Details such as his old connections with a certain secret government agency that had conducted the occasional assassination and toppled foreign governments every now and then. And then there were his connections with organized crime, which were rather tenuous at best, but nonetheless the sort of thing that could make academia extremely nervous and jeopardize his tenure.
And if the ITC really started digging, checking way back to his childhood on the Old Sod, there was a possibility they might even discover that Sebastian Makepeace was a name taken from a tombstone in a little country kirk in County Kerry, near St. Finan’s Bay, the grave of a little Irish boy who had died about sixty years ago, at the age of four. And past that point, the trail would stop cold. And that would really bother them.
So Makepeace had always steered well clear of the ITC. A colorful and bombastic university professor who dressed like a stolen car. frequented the rebeat bars in the Village, and claimed to be a fairy was merely a charming and amusing old eccentric not to be taken very seriously. He was a prominent fixture on campus and in the Village arts and social scenes, but outside of those small and relatively insular worlds, no one had ever paid very much attention to him. Except now all that had changed and he was having a hard time getting used to it.
He was now on a first-name basis with the DA and the police commissioner. He could even get the attorney general or the director of the BOT on the phone. He had met the director of the FBI and the head of the NSA, as well as the chief of the Washington office of the ITC, and he had little doubt that by now his past had been researched about as thoroughly as possible. The curious thing was that it didn’t seem to matter anymore, because now they had bigger things to worry about than a man whose paper trail ended at a tombstone.
The limo was passed through the security post at the gates of what used to be the United Nations complex overlooking the East River. It was now the New York headquarters of the International Thaumaturgical Commission. The tall glass Secretariat Building housed the offices of the ITC and the old General Assembly Building was where the Commission held its meetings. The car pulled up in front of the Secretariat Building and gently settled to the ground, then the driver came around to open the door for him.
Makepeace got some curious stares as he came through the revolving doors into the lobby. Though a few high-ranking adepts still wore traditional sorcerer’s robes on occasion, most dressed rather conservatively these days. Retro pinstripes and power ties were the current vogue among the movers and shakers of the corporate world and Makepeace stood out among this crowd like a werewolf at the Vatican. His ankle-length black leather trench coat was open to reveal a suit of crushed black velvet with a black and orange paisley brocade vest, a white Oxford button-down shirt, a bright orange Flemish silk cravat, and a black beret. His rather large feet were shod in black retro All Stars high tops.
He paused as a marine noncom in full dress uniform approached him.
“Dr. Makepeace?” It was spoken as a question, but it wasn’t. The guard knew who he was. “Good afternoon, sir. This way, please.”
Je was escorted to an elevator that differed from the others in the lobby in one significant respect. It had no call buttons. The guard spoke into his radio “This is Sergeant McMullen, in the lobby. Dr. Makepeace has arrived.”
The elevator doors opened
“You may go up now, sir,” the sergeant said.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Makepeace said. He stepped inside the elevator. There were no buttons on the inside, either. The doors closed and without any action on his part, the express elevator quickly took him to the penthouse, at one time the private residence of the UN secretary general. When the ITC took over, it was maintained as a temporary residence for visiting dignitaries. Recently, however, it had acquired new and permanent tenants.
The doors opened onto a small, carpeted lobby with several large plants in glazed ceramic containers on the floor. There were some tasteful abstract paintings hung on the beige-painted walls and the lobby was softly lit with indirect lighting. There was a brown leather upholstered sofa and several matching chairs, as well as a mahogany coffee table. It might have been the waiting room of a Park Avenue psychiatrist of a Fifth Avenue lawyer, except for the security desk with banks of monitors and four U.S. marines on duty in full dress uniform, complete with sidearms. Two of them were posted on either side of the double doors just beyond the security station, one stood by the elevator doors, and one was seated at the desk, behind the monitors. As soon as he saw them, Makepeace started to whistle “The Halls of Montezuma.” The marines didn’t smile.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Makepeace. We’ve been expecting you, sir. You can go right in.”
“Aren’t you going to search me, Master Sergeant:” Makepeace asked, checking the marine’s insignia.
“No need, sir. You were x-rayed and T-scanned coming up in the elevator.”
Makepeace frowned. “T-Scanned?”
“Thaumaturgic trace scan, sir. Designed to check for trace enamations that would reveal magic.”
“You don’t say,” said Makepeace, “And how did your T-scan read?”
“Off the scale, sir. We were warned to expect that in your case. Still, it was a bit unnerving.”
“I didn’t kno
w a marine could be unnerved,” said Makepeace, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise.
The master sergeant grinned. “You never heard it from me.”
The marines by the double doors held them open for him as Makepeace entered the penthouse suite. He came into a small open foyer about ten feet wide. The spacious and airy living room was down three steps, with a kitchen and dining area to the right and bedrooms down a hallway to the left. The entire back wall of the living room was glass, probably bulletproof and spellwarded, with sliders opening out onto a rooftop patio garden. As Makepeace took it all in, an attractive, barefoot young brunette dressed in black jeans and a matching tank top came bounding toward him.
“Sebastian!” Kira said, as she gave him a big hug. “I’m so glad you came! How do you like our new place?”
“It’s very nice,” said Makepeace, “but a bit intimidating out there, with all those armed marines.”
“You should see the gun emplacements on the rooftop,” said John Angelo, formerly of the NYPD. Dark haired and lean, with brown, sleepy-looking eyes, chiseled features, and a slightly drooping lip that gave the impression he was sneering, Angelo looked like a Brooklyn hood and dressed the part in handmade Italian loafers, sild socks, dark designer slacks and sport coat, and an open-necked black silk shirt revealing a gold crucifix on a chain around his neck.
“Gun emplacements?” Makepeace said. “You’re joking.”
“Four fifty-calibers, mounted in towers, one on each corner of the roof,” said Angelo, handing him a cup of black coffee. “The air space is restricted over the entire complex. If a helicopter so much as breezes this joint, it gets shot down. These people are serious.”
“I liked it a lot better when we were unofficial,” Wyrdrune said, from his stretched-out position on the couch. He was dressed in his usual attire, faded jeans, a short brown warlock’s cassock, white athletic socks, and red running shoes. His curly blond hair hung well below his slim shoulders and was held in place by a red bandana rolled up as a headband, which also served to conceal the emerald runestone embedded in the center of his forehead. “Can’t even go out for pizza or a cappuccino anymore without a dozen bodyguards tagging along.”
“Don’t worry about it, kid,” said Angelo. “People probably just think you’re a rock star.”
“Or maybe a major dope dealer,” Kira said with a grin.
“Nah, a drug dealer would be better dressed,” said Angelo.
“Yeah, like you,” Wyrdrune replied.
“Hey, what’s wrong with my clothes?” asked Angelo,
“Nothing, if you’re a loan shark or a bookie,” Wyrdrune replied.
“This from a guy who dresses like a walking thrift shop,” Angelo said.
“I hate to interrupt this mutual admiration society,” said Makepeace, “but can anyone tell me what was so important that I had to be pulled out of a class and brought here?”
“Your guess is as good as ours,” said Kira. “We just got word this morning that a special briefing has been scheduled, but beyond that, we don’t know anything. It’s all very hush-hush.”
“Where’s Billy?” Makepeace asked.
“He went with the district chief to pick up Steve and Natasha,” Kira said. “They should be back anytime. The briefing’s scheduled for noon and it’s about that now.”
“You think perhaps Beladon has surfaced?” Makepeace asked.
“It’s possible,” said Wyrdrune. “If he has, things are going to get nasty real fast.”
The memory of the last time they had encountered Beladon was all too fresh. Makepeace wasn’t there when it began, but he knew all about it. The necromancer had managed to place a BOT agent under his spell and the possessed agent, along with his unsuspecting partner, had staged a massive raid on their penthouse in Sutton Place, only a few blocks away. Angelo, who had been working undercover for the DA’s Organized Crime Task Force, had been commandeered for the raid while he was at the precinct checking through some case files. His role had been to provide a distraction while the SWAT team got into position. However, what neither Angelo nor any of the other cops who took part in the operation knew was that the raid was an elaborate cover for a necromantic bit.
They had been told the purpose of the raid was to take down a renegade adept named Michael Cornwall, who was holed up in the penthouse with his confederates. However, none of them had any way of knowing that “Michael Cornwall” was an alias for the immortal son of the legendary King Arthur and the sorceress Morgan le Fay.
By the time the smoke had cleared, two BOT agents were dead, Wyrdrune was in critical condition, and Angelo was in a coma, his life force almost completely drained. Things took an even stranger turn when Angelo abruptly and inexplicably recovered from his coma, walked right out of the hospital, and disappeared.
Confused and sharing fragments of both his own memories and Modred’s from the runestone which had bonded with him, saving his life in the moments just after the attack, Angelo had been suffering from amnesia. He mistakenly believed his undercover identity from his work with the DA’s special task force was real, but could not reconcile the thought of being a professional killer with his sense of ethics and morality. All the evidence he found—part of his elaborately constructed cover—kept pointing to his being a hit man for the mob. The crime family he had infiltrated as “Johnny Angel” knew there was a police informant in their midst… and they assigned the hit to “Johnny Angel. “ Meanwhile, Beladon was orchestrating a covert takeover of the mob, with an aim to distributing a lethal thaumagenetic drug known as Ambrosia to the city’s population and then expanding nationally.
In time, the others found Angelo and helped him recover his memory completely, but not before Beladon had subverted yet another high-ranking Bureau agent and almost brought the city to its knees. It was only then that the authorities became aware of the threat that they were facing from a race of necromancers who had existed since the dawn of time.
Wyrdrune, Kira, and Billy Slade had up to that point been forced to wage their war against the Dark Ones without any support from the authorities, receiving help only from certain individuals in various police agencies throughout the world, such as Chief Inspector Michael Blood of Scotland Yard, Inspector Armand Renaud of the Paris police, and Captain Rebecca Farrell of the LAPD. Now, all that had changed. Instead of being hunted by the authorities, they were now aided by them. The ITC had provided them with top-security clearances and brand-new quarters in their New York headquarters, complete with around-the-clock protection.
“I know I probably should not complain,” said Wyrdrune, “considering that when all this started, I was a down-and-out dropout from Thaumaturgy School without two cents to rub together, but sometimes I sure do wish that I could get my life back. It wasn’t much… but at least it was mine.”
“If you think we’ve got it tough, imagine what it must be like for Billy,” Angelo said. “He’s gone through a complete physical transformation as a result of merging with the life forces of Gorlois and Merlin. He’s not even the same person anymore and probably never will be.”
At that moment, the object of their conversation came walking through the door, accompanied by ITC district chief Bill McClellan, Police Commissioner Steve McGuire, and Natasha Ouspenskaya, better known as the Gypsy. Of the four, Billy and Natasha looked most striking. Billy Slade looked about nineteen and wore black leather pants with a metal-studded belt, snakeskin boots, and a white cotton shirt that laced up at the throat. He was an albino, with long, snow-white hair that hung down almost to the small of his back. He had not been born that way, however. He was an orphan from London’s East End and had grown up in the streets, ignorant of his roots, which were clearly multi-ethnic. His complexion had been dark enough to give strong evidence of African ancestry, but his eyes looked Asian and there was probably some West Indian and Caucasian in there, too. It was the Caucasian part that proved the most significant, however, for he was descended from none other than the legendary
Merlin Ambrosius, court wizard to King Arthur and father of the Second Thaumaturgic Age.
The flamboyant Natasha “Gypsy” Ouspenskaya rarely looked the same. On this occasion, her long hair was dyed black and silver and she wore a gray silk scarf around her head. Large gold hoops dangled from her ears and about a dozen amulets hung around her neck. She wore a red silk blouse with a black, silver-embroidered vest over it, a calf-length black cotton skirt, and high red leather boots with stacked heels. A profusion of bracelets jangled on her wrists and she wore rings on every finger save the thumbs.
By contrast, Steve McGuire and Bill McClellan looked very sedate. The dark-haired police commissioner stood about five-ten and wore an off-the-rack dark suit, a white button-down shirt, a dark blue tie, and comfortable dress shoes. McClellan, the white-haired ITC district chief, stood over six feet tall and was dressed almost identically, except his suit was custom-made and his tie was a designer original, reminiscent of a painting by Picasso.
“Well, it looks as if everybody’s here,” said Billy as he entered. His accent still betrayed his Cockney roots, though there was a strong trace of Celtic in it, as well. He glanced at McClellan. “Now do we get to find out what this is all about?”
The bespectacled McClellan cleared his throat, but before he could reply, several things happened simultaneously. The doors behind them opened once again and several very serious-looking men in dark suits and headsets entered, quickly glancing all around the room. At the same time, any remarks McClellan might have made were drowned out by the loud, staccato clatter of helicopter blades as a military chopper landed on the roof. Moments later, the sliding doors leading out to the roof were opened by the Secret Service agents and the head of the National Security Agency came in, accompanied by several aides and the President of the United States.
As the whine of the helicopter motor outside on the roof diminished, the Secret Service agents took up position around the room, out of the way, but where they could see and cover everything and everyone. President O’Connor glanced around the room as Brian Wetterman, head of the NSA, performed the introductions. Makepeace and Billy had met Wetterman before, at a briefing arranged by the DA, who had gone to school with the attorney general. The director of the NSA stood six feet tall and weighed about two-fifty, but he was not an imposing-looking man. He wore glasses and his brown hair was cut short and neat. He looked like an engineer, or perhaps a computer technician He had an amiable, casual manner that belied the importance of his position.