by Simon Hawke
Panic struck. He lurched toward the wall and tried to climb it, but he couldn’t find any purchase. Desperately, he clawed at it, ruining his fingers on the stuccoed concrete and sobbing as he tried to find a handhold without any success. His breaths came in sharp gasps as he tried to remember which way was the gate they had driven through. He had to pick a direction, any direction. But then he saw a huge form come lumbering through the darkness to his left. And another to his right. They had him boxed in.
“Oh, Jesus,” Julio sobbed. “Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph…”
He could see five of them moving in on him, flicking out their long tongues and hissing, reptilian eyes glaring at him, jaws snapping open and closed with a sickening sound. Hhhhhhhhhh-uppp… Hhhhhhhhhh-upp… They were only several feet away now. He felt a long, sticky tongue lash out and curl around his leg, tightening painfully.
Julio screamed.
Chapter 3
Someone was sitting at his table in the back when Makepeace got to Lovecraft’s Cafe on Friday evening, after classes. Lovecraft’s was his regular place, a rebeat bar popular with students and artists and other Village counterculture types. The atmosphere was sort of “kitsch occult,” with fake skulls on every table in which candles were inserted; black tablecloths; black walls with murals painted in white of graveyards and mausoleums, gargoyles and skeletons; sawdust on the floor; and macrame spiderwebs hanging in the corners. The wait staff all wore black, a retro beatnik look to which some added black eyeshadow, black lipstick, and black-painted fingernails. The look was not as important as the demeanor, however. Most rebeats were anti-fashion and anti-anything that smacked of any sort of enthusiasm. The rebeat style was to cultivate a disaffected, jaded boredom with everything, a world-weary cynicism immune to the blandishments of Madison Avenue ad agencies, image makers, trend-setters, and politicians.
Makepeace lived in an apartment several floors above the bar, which was located in the basement of the building. Some of his students worked here during the evenings and a number of his colleagues dropped in from time to time, notable among them the irrepressible Dr. Morrison Gonzago, the literary lion of the English Department.
Gonzago’s main claim to fame, outside of his literary accomplishments, was that he was the only member of the faculty who was regarded as even more outrageous than Makepeace. An adept of considerable skill, he had degrees in English literature, occult studies, and creative writing, as well as a doctorate in thaumaturgy. He was a hopeless alcoholic who had won the Pulitzer prize for his first novel and had scarcely written anything since, save for the occasional scathing review in the Village Voice or controversial piece of academic criticism in the English Journal. If anyone was sitting at his regular table in the back, it was usually Gonzo, waiting patiently for his colleague to show up and stand him to a drink or two.
However, on this occasion, it wasn’t Gonzago who was seated at his table. Makepeace didn’t immediately recognize the stranger as he came in. The man had close-cropped white hair and was balding. He wore an old tweed jacket in a brown glen plaid and khaki trousers. An old tan raincoat was folded and hung neatly over the back of the chair beside him. Makepeace frowned.
“Elvira…” he said, stopping a waitress as she went past. “Who is that gentleman at my usual table?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t give his name, Dad. Said he was an old friend of yours.”
“Indeed? What is he drinking?”
“Mineral water with a slice of lime.”
It clicked. “Well, bring him another, my dear, and I’ll have my usual,” said Makepeace. He made his way through the bar to the table in the back. As he came around the table, Makepeace looked down at the man seated there. He sat with his hands clasped in front of him, a cigarette hanging from bis lips. He had a high forehead and a close-cropped beard that had once been sandy and was now almost completely white. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, still fit and muscular, but slightly soft around the middle. He looked up and regarded Makepeace with gold-flecked, hazel-colored eyes staring through wire-rimmed glasses.
“Hello, Sebastian.”
“Hello, Victor.”
“Been a long time.”
Makepeace nodded. “At least thirty years or more,” he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down across from him. “I didn’t even recognize you at first. It was the mineral water and lime that did it.”
“Well, we all get older. “ Victor Simko regarded him steadily with his sleepy-looking hazel eyes. “Or at least most of us do. You’re looking remarkably well for a man your age.”
The waitress came over and set the drinks down before them. Makepeace thanked her and she left.
“We’re both still creatures of habit, I see. Bushmills and black coffee, no whipped cream. Or Guinness in a pitcher, if it’s the afternoon. You always could put it away. And you still dress like Oscar Wilde on acid.”
“Whereas you look like a college professor,” Makepeace replied with a faint smile. “Not quite the dapper fashion plate that I recall.”
“Well, I had to give up on my tailor. And a few other things, besides. Retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Things have been a little lean the last few years. But they should be picking up now that I’m back on the company payroll.”
Makepeace raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been reactivated? I thought the old department was disbanded.”
Victor smiled. “Ever since they put us old warhorses out to pasture, there hasn’t been much call for people with our particular talents. The young turks are all a bunch of bureaucrats. Oh, they still have a few bright field agents here and there, but they lack our je ne sais quoi.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Makepeace, remembering.
“So what’s thirty, forty years to a man who’s lived to be two thousand?”
Makepeace pursed his lips and nodded. “I see you’ve been fully briefed. Wetterman?”
“The big man himself,” said Simko. He smiled again. “He told me quite a story. Answered a lot of questions that’ve been troubling me over the years. It’s funny. Wetterman was still in diapers the last time I was active, so of course he wouldn’t remember. I’m just a file to him. But I make for some impressive reading.”
“I have no doubt of that,” said Makepeace. “But then, you’re not as young as you used to be.”
“No, but I’m still just as persistent. Maybe a little more so. Age has a way of giving you perspective. Makes you take things more in stride. But then, I guess you’d know all about that.”
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” said Makepeace.
“That I’ve gotten old and you haven’t?” Victor shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it does, a little. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that it’s taken me a long time to get used to being on the downslide. Retirement didn’t sit too well with me. And now I see you and you look just the same. Hair’s a little longer, you’ve gained some weight, but otherwise you don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you, thirty-five years ago. Makes me feel old.”
“I’m sorry.”
Simko shrugged and took a drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out. “Not your fault. You can’t help it. Just feels strange, that’s all. But I’ll get over it.”
“I think we’re about to have company,” said Makepeace, as he glanced up and saw Gonzago coming toward them.
“I’ll be heading out, then. I’ll be in touch.”
As Simko stood and picked up his coat, Gonzago came sweeping up to them, resplendent in his blue sorcerer’s robes with little moons and crescents and cabalistic symbols on them. His long beard was wild and unkempt, as usual, and he was carrying a battered old leather briefcase.
“I’m not intruding, I trust?” he said.
“It’s all right, I was leaving anyway,” said Simko. He gave Gonzago a quick once-over, sizing him up with a glance.
“Not on my account, I hope?” Gonzago thrust out his hand. “Dr. Morrison Gonzago, at your service, sir.”
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Simko took his hand and shook it in a perfunctory manner. “Nice to meet you. Be seeing you, Sebastian.”
Gonzago watched him leave, then turned to Makepeace with raised eyebrows. “Well, not exactly the outgoing sort, is he?”
Makepeace shook his head. “No. Not exactly.”
“I don’t believe I’ve seen him around before,” said Gonzago, sitting in the chair Simko had vacated. “Friend of yours?”
“He’s someone I used to know a long time ago.”
“What does he do?”
Makepeace watched as Simko went through the bar toward the front door, attracting no attention whatsoever. He looked like a senior faculty member at the university, or perhaps an antiquarian book dealer.
“He works for the government.”
The top floor of the FTC complex was bustling with activity. Additional security cameras and T-scan monitors had been installed, as well as dozens of hack-proof computers with thaumagenetically etched chips and spellwarded phone lines. The ITC had brought in their best and brightest to man the center around the clock and within days they were plugged in to every data bank and communications center in the country. Teams of analysts accessed and scanned financial statements, social security files, vehicle registrations, phone records, police computer files, real estate transactions, everything they could possibly think of in search of any patterns that might emerge to guide them in their investigation. Gypsy was heading up a special section of psychics to help analyze the data.
It was a massive undertaking, but they were aided in their efforts by the extensive resources of the National Security Agency, which had years of experience in accumulating and analyzing billions of pieces of data from every available medium. The thaumaturgically animated computers were capable of learning as they went along and aiding in the decision-making process that guided their analysis of all the data that kept flowing in to them. Telephone conversations throughout the country were being randomly monitored by programs designed to scan for certain key words and phrases. It was the greatest electronic manhunt ever assembled, except the quarry they were hunting wasn’t human.
By contrast, the atmosphere up in the penthouse was far less frenetic. Wyrdrune, Kira, Angelo, and Billy had little else to do but wait and sit through briefings and go through condensed reports that were compiled for them every day. And it was driving them all to distraction. They welcomed the periodic visits from Steve McGuire or the Gypsy or Makepeace, which provided them with the only breaks in an otherwise dull and monotonous routine.
“I don’t like it,” McGuire was saying as he sat on the couch sipping an iced tea. “Bringing in people like Simko is asking for trouble. I tried to run a check on him, but I ran into a wall of security. I even invoked my clearance and it got me nowhere. I didn’t need Natasha’s crystal ball to tell me what kind of operative Simko was or who he worked for. But I don’t like being stonewalled. I thought we were all supposed to be on the same team.”
“We are,” said Wetterman. “But Simko has been assigned to this operation as a senior field agent by my office. I cleared him for it personally. We didn’t go through the regular channels, for reasons of security.”
“I didn’t think we used people like Simko anymore,” McGuire said with a grimace of distaste.
“Well, we don’t. That is to say, we haven’t for quite a while. But this is a rather unusual situation and we’ve had to reactivate some operatives who had retired.”
“I think you’re making a mistake,” McGuire said.
“Who is this guy?” asked Wyrdrune.
“Victor Simko was a covert operative for the CIA, specializing in what they called wetwork, ‘“ Makepeace replied. “In other words, assassination. He was recruited out of the army in the period following the Collapse, when magic was only starting to spread throughout the world. There was a great deal of concern at the time about establishing regulatory agencies and so forth, and certain people in the government were alarmed about ‘thaumaturgic proliferation, ‘ as they called it. It was a confusing time and there was a great deal of paranoia. Not all of it unjustified. There were people in certain foreign governments—and some in ours, as well—who wanted to use magic in ways Merlin never intended.”
“A lot of mistakes were made,” Wetterman added, nodding. “It was before my time, of course. In those days, the NSA and Central Intelligence weren’t always on the same wavelength.”
“There were occasionally certain jobs the CIA was either unable or unwilling to handle directly,” Makepeace said. “They had used freelance operatives in the past and it wasn’t unusual procedure for them. Victor Simko specialized in setting up those kind of jobs and cleaning up after them, if any cleaning up was needed.”
“So he was the agency’s contract man for Morpheus?” said Wyrdrune, referring to Modred’s onetime alias.
Makepeace nodded. “And I was the middleman. The two of them never actually met, but they knew about each other. Simko never knew who Modred really was, of course. The agency had used him on several jobs in the Mideast in the days before the ITC finally started getting things under control. And then they started using their own field agents. The BOT was formed and the CIA was downsized, rendered largely redundant. Simko was taken off active duty and retired. They didn’t really need people like him anymore. Until now, apparently.”
“You should have called me before running a check on him,” Wetterman said to McGuire. “That may have created some problems for us. Nothing very significant, I hope. Officially, Simko is retired. I didn’t want anyone to know he’d been reactivated.”
“Then you should have told us about him first,” said Makepeace. “I tried to get hold of you, but kept getting the runaround from your office. I called Steve because I didn’t know what else to do. Simko said he’d been reactivated, but I wasn’t about to take his word for it. With you being unavailable, I figured Steve’s inquiries would eventually shake something loose. And apparently they did, because you’re here.”
“All right, so we have some kinks to iron out,” said Wetterman. “I’ve been swamped trying to get us up and running and I admit I may have dropped the ball on this one, but from now on, I’ll be available twenty-four hours a day. I’ve moved into my office downstairs and the hot lines are in place. From now on, if you have any questions about any aspect of the operation, you come straight to me.”
“My only question at the moment is how this guy Simko fits in,” said Wyrdrune. “And how many others have you got just like him?”
“It doesn’t matter how many others there are,” said Kira. “They won’t be much use against the Dark Ones unless they happen to get real lucky.”
“That isn’t their intended purpose,” Wetterman replied. “We’ve reactivated a dozen of our old covert operatives, including Simko. Their primary role is twofold. One, to work the field and provide first response to establish for certain what we’re really dealing with. It would be counterproductive to have you running all over the country, responding to every report of possible necromantic activity. Two, to provide backup support and make sure nobody gets in your way if we do have to put out a fire.”
“Put out a fire,” Wyrdrune repeated. “That makes it sound so innocuous.”
“That’s the general idea,” Wetterman said. “We want to avoid panic at all costs.”
“So how are we supposed to know who these people are?” asked Billy. “Is there going to be some sort of code phrase or recognition signal?”
“Yes, there is,” said Wetterman. “They will identify themselves to you by the phrase, ‘I used to be a fireman, but things are warming up again. ‘ The response is, ‘Yes, things are getting hot.”
Kira giggled. “God, that’s so corny!”
“It’s meant to serve a purpose, not provide scintillating repartee,” said Wetterman dryly.
“All right, fine,” said Wyrdrune. “Let’s just hope we come up with something soon. I’m starting to get stir-crazy being cooped up in here.”<
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Maria almost felt bad about Joey. After all, he had come back for her. Too bad he hadn’t listened when she told him she didn’t want to leave. In a way, she liked it that he had come back, because it meant he cared, but in another way, it made her angry because what she wanted didn’t count for anything. So when it came right down to it, how much could he really care?
That was the way it always was with Joey. It was always what Joey wanted that mattered. Joey wanted to make a big score, so he blew it and he went to prison and then she had to go out on the streets again. She hadn’t really minded that so much. It was an easy way of making money and it beat hell out of working. She could have made more money as a stripper, but she wasn’t pretty enough and they didn’t like her scars. The Johns on the street weren’t so particular. Men always wanted it and no matter what they said or how they acted, in the end it always came down to that one thing, so she had decided early on that she might as well get paid for it instead of giving it away and then getting treated lousy.
Joey hadn’t wanted her to work the streets, so when he was around, she hadn’t. She had stayed at home and watched TV, because he didn’t want her going out, and she had started gaining weight. She was doing too much coke, she knew that, but what else was there to do? And then Joey got sent up and the money had started to run out and she went back to work again. But she had gotten sloppy. There were a lot of girls on the street, many of them younger and with better bodies, and the Johns weren’t hitting on her like they used to, so she had gotten desperate and dropped her guard and got busted by an undercover cop. It was the best thing that ever happened to her.
When the public defender set up the plea bargain with the rehab center, she had told herself it was exactly what she needed. Clean up, get straight, make a fresh start. She’d told herself that dozens of times before and each time she had thought she really meant it, but then she’d start climbing the walls and she’d have to score some coke, telling herself it was just to take the edge off, she’d try again tomorrow. Only tomorrow never came. Until she met Brother Talon, who had shown her an entire infinity of tomorrows.