Praise for THE SHADOW SAGA
‘Reading Of Saints and Shadows again, I was amazed how many elements now familiar in the vampire and thriller genres appeared in Saints first. Golden’s imagination and expert plotting wove these elements into a startlingly original book, as exciting to read now as it was when it first appeared on the rack’
Charlaine Harris
‘Christopher Golden has reinvented the vampire myth into nonstop action, suspense, and fascinating dark fantasy. [He’s] an imaginative and prodigious talent who never lets genre boundaries hold him back’
Douglas Clegg, author of the Vampirycon series
‘Filled with tension, breathtaking action . . . and a convincing depiction of worlds existing unseen within our own’
Science Fiction Chronicle
‘Harrowing, humorous, overflowing with characters and plot contortions, abundantly entertaining . . . a portent of great things to come’
Douglas E. Winter, Cemetery Dance
‘Golden combines quiet, dark, subtle mood with Super-Giant monster action. Sort of M.R. James meets Godzilla!’
Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy
‘A breathtaking story that succeeds in marrying gore and romance, sex and sentiment. A brilliant epic’
Dark News (Paris)
‘The most refreshing books in the vampire genre since Anne Rice wrote Interview with a Vampire, [Golden’s novels] are completely in a class by themselves’
Pathway to Darkness
‘Passionate . . . excellent . . . and a surprise explanation for vampires. Brilliant’
LitNews Online
‘Wildly entertaining . . . like mixing Laurell K. Hamilton with the dark ambivalence of an H.P. Lovecraft story. The pacing is always pedal-to-the-floor, the main characters are larger than life and the demons and other assorted monstrosities give Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos a run for their money’
Barnes & Noble Online
The Shadow Saga
Of Saints and Shadows
(July 2010)
Angel Souls and Devil Hearts
(October 2010)
Of Masques and Martyrs
(December 2010)
The Gathering Dark
(February 2011)
Waking Nightmares
(May 2011)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, bestselling author of such novels as The Myth Hunters, Wildwood Road, The Boys Are Back in Town, The Ferryman, Strangewood, and the Peter Octavian series. He has also written books for teens and young adults, including Poison Ink, Soulless, and the upcoming The Secret Journeys of Jack London, co-authored with Tim Lebbon. A lifelong fan of the “team-up,” Golden frequently collaborates with other writers on books, comics, and scripts. He co-wrote the lavishly illustrated novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire with Mike Mignola, and the comic book series spin-off. With Tim Lebbon, he has co-written four novels in the Hidden Cities series, the latest of which, The Shadow Men, hits in 2011. With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the co-author of the book series OutCast and The Menagerie, as well as comic book miniseries such as Talent, currently in development as a feature film. With Amber Benson, Golden co-created the online animated series Ghosts of Albion and co-wrote the book series of the same name.
As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies The New Dead and British Invasion, among others, and has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. The author is also known for his many media tie-in works, including novels, comics, and video games, in the worlds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy, Angel, and X-Men, among others.
Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com
First published in the USA by Ace Books, 2003
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster, 2011
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Christopher Golden, 2003
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Christopher Golden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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www.simonandschuster.co.uk
Simon & Schuster Australia
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A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84739-927-4
eBook ISBN: 978-1-84739-950-2
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by M Rules
Printed in the UK by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading, Berkshire RG1 8EX
For Lily Grace Golden.
Everything I ever dreamed.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, profound gratitude to Ginjer Buchanan, for never losing interest in Octavian and his world. There are still many journeys ahead.
Thanks are also due to all the folks who wrote or e-mailed or badgered me at conventions to return to The Shadow Saga. I hope you’re as pleased as I am.
Special thanks, as always to my wife Connie and our children, with whom all things are possible. And a grateful nod to all of you who’ve lent an ear or an eye or the force of your telepathic encouragement . . . especially Tom Sniegoski, Megan Bibeau, Jose Nieto, Lisa Delissio, Amber Benson, Rick Hautala, Bob Tomko, Jeff Mariotte, Allie Costa, Hank Wagner, Nancy Carlson, and the indefatigable Peter Donaldson. To my family, each and every one, with love.
Prologue
No matter how much the city did to clean up the underground, the subway always stank like piss. New York Transit cops hustled a homeless woman in a rank, stained parka older than its owner up the stairs toward the street. The rattle and roar of a train came up from deep within the crosstown tunnel, followed almost immediately by the hissing hydraulic scream of brakes. Newspapers blew across the tile floor.
In the morning it would be spotless. The night crews would have done their work. The electronic news tickers that ran along the walls and the small screens that carried images from the highest-paying content provider would be sparkling, without a smear or smudge.
Depressing as hell.
Peter Octavian had seen many faces of this city over the years, seen it rise and fall, breathe new life into the world, grow cruel and corrupt and yet somehow also vibrant and joyous. To his mind, the fascistic effort to clean up Manhattan drained the city of its character.
Nights like this, though, he could pretend he was back in another age, a time when he understood more about people. For it was raining up above, the storm clouds heavy and low, the puddles growing, the streets slick. Taxis pretended not to see you in the rain, which meant the subways were flooded not with rain but with people who wished they were safe in the back of a private cab.
Grime from the streets was tracked all through the station. The tile walls dripped with accumulated moisture. The air itself was damp and cold.
A rare smile on his handsome, stubbled features, Octavian pushed through the turnstile, turning up the collar of the heavy canvas jacket he wore. It hung past his knees and seemed to rasp as he walked. All around him,
city people rushed home from working late, or out to meet a date, and never once did any of them meet his gaze. But he watched them. His attention would have been barely noticeable even if someone happened to glance at him, but still he was wary, always on guard.
Some people were not what they appeared to be. It was a dark truth he knew perhaps better than anyone else on Earth.
Sometimes shadows were just shadows and the monsters were right in front of you.
He took the steps two at a time. Even before he emerged from the station, the cold rain sliced down into the shelter of the underground, tiny pinpricks like ice needles jabbing at his face. Defiant, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and lifted his face to the roiling storm above, the night sky dark with layers of black. The winds blew the rain nearly sideways, and his hair, already damp from walking to the station downtown, quickly began to drip streams of water down his face. He paused to orient himself, then turned north and strode quickly across the street.
A cabbie blared his horn. There came the shush of tires through a puddle and the sprinkle of water onto the pavement. The rain itself, each individual drop, seemed to reflect the neon glitter of the city’s electric life. People hurried by in ones and twos, huddled under black umbrellas like mourners.
Half a block later, he heard the music. A Caribbean rhythm, an old Bob Marley tune, though Marley himself was decades dead. This was a new millennium leeching from the last, filled with a dread of the unknown future.
Octavian thought it wise, that dread. As the twenty-first century grew from infant to toddler, humanity could reach higher, touch the sky, open doors perhaps better left closed. Already the human race had learned a great deal that it might have wished never to know. The past brought comfort, memories of safety. Or the illusion of safety. Yet that was enough for most.
The chant of Marley and the Wailers rang sweetly from the open door of a dive bar called The Voodoo Lounge, whose neon sign was only half lit. Just inside the door stood an enormous man with ebony skin and a bald pate that gleamed with reflected neon red. His left eyebrow had two thick rings through it, and a long, rough scar curved from above his right eye, through the brow, and across the bridge of the nose to his left cheek.
When he smiled, a miracle happened. The giant became handsome. His name was Agamemnon. Though Octavian could not imagine a child with such a name today, the man insisted it had been given him at birth by his mother, and he would accept no substitutes, no nicknames nor terms of endearment.
“Peter!” he rasped, voice like distant thunder. “What brings you?”
They shook hands.
“Agamemnon. Good to see you. Had a call from Bradenton.”
“He’s on the bar tonight,” Agamemnon said. “Listen, you don’t have a cigarette, do you?”
“Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s a shitty habit. Just gives my hands something to do.”
Octavian nodded as though he understood, and perhaps he did. Why else did he paint if not to give his hands something to do? He stepped through the open door of The Voodoo Lounge and the music pounded against his eardrums. Despite laws to the contrary, smoke wafted across the air. It had the distinct scent of hashish.
“Hey!” Agamemnon called. “Buy an umbrella!”
A small, uncommon smile creased Octavian’s features. Once upon a time, it would not have been so rare.
The place was packed with people, and now he understood why the door was open. Though it was cold outside, the body heat within was almost infernal. Men and women of every race pushed up to the bar, jostled with one another for position or simply to cop a feel. On the dance floor, bodies gyrated, beads of sweat glimmered on foreheads wrinkled with intensity. Laughter bubbled in the air and the pheremonal musk of sex sought and promised hung heavy as the rain’s own moisture on the room.
Bradenton was at the bar, grinning broadly as a woman removed her top. Her breasts were dark and perfect and she leaned back so that all those around her could get a look.
“That’s worth a double shot!” Bradenton crowed, then poured her three fingers of tequila.
Though he was tall, the bartender was thin and bony, his face edged like granite. He had an inch or so of bristly hair on his head and a well-groomed goatee that made him look almost severe. A Chinese dragon was tattooed on his throat, its tail wrapped around his neck before ending at the base of his skull.
As though he had sensed the attention on him, Bradenton glanced at Octavian. His expression became grim and he excused himself from the press of flesh. Another bartender filled the void almost instantly. The bare-breasted woman never bothered to put her top back on.
“Peter,” Bradenton said when they met up at the far end of the bar.
“You know I don’t do this sort of thing anymore,” Octavian said gravely, eyeing the other man carefully.
“It’s serious, amigo, and I don’t need this crap in my bar.”
Several seconds ticked by as the men stared at one another. At length, Octavian dipped his head and then nodded once.
“Great! Oh, man, thanks so much.”
Bradenton stepped back a bit, grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal, and poured a shot. He slid it across the counter to Octavian, who tossed it back without a word. The glass clinked on the mahogany bar as he set it down.
“Anyway,” the bartender went on, “the stuff in the papers about this magician guy? Calls himself Mr. Nowhere?”
“I’ve read the coverage.” Already, Octavian began to scan the bar for some sign of malevolence, something out of place.
“He’s here,” Bradenton said, voice low.
Octavian gave him a hard look. “So?”
Uncertain, Bradenton poured him another shot. “You’ve read about him. He’s made people disappear in five different bars in the city. Makes a big deal about it, like he’s some old-time stage magician. Makes them disappear in front of crowds of people, and they never come back.”
The man scratched at the dragon’s tail tattooed on the back of his neck. “I’ve seen him do it, Peter. Twice in here in the last week.”
“Why don’t you call the cops?” Octavian asked dismissively.
He left the shot on the table and took a step back, out of the immediate range of the lights above the bar. Something was in here, he felt that now. Something that shouldn’t be. Better to be in the shadows, to watch from the dark.
“You haven’t seen him do it, man. This shit is real. Nothing the cops can do. But you—”
“I helped you once, Bradenton. Doesn’t mean I make a habit of it.”
The bartender stared at him. There was something in his expression, more than disappointment, almost disgust, that made Octavian bristle with both anger and humiliation. Once he would have killed the man for the look in his eyes.
“You know all this shit,” Bradenton said. “Magick.”
Octavian sighed tiredly and turned away from the bar. As an afterthought he turned and tossed back the second shot of Crown Royal after all. Then he closed his eyes and let his senses focus on the dark presence in the room.
After a moment he opened his eyes and strode across The Voodoo Lounge to a far corner. At a round table, a gallant-looking old man with silver hair and a black cane sat encircled by a dozen people or more.
“Indeed,” the man said. “It is among the highest forms of magick. Physical translocation. Most magicians never achieve it. To me, well, not to brag, but it’s little more than a parlor trick. I’ve been at this game for quite some time.”
A chill ran through Octavian; fear like an itch at the back of his brain. Dread swept over him in a crash, then receded like a wave upon the shore. Mr. Nowhere, the media called him. Typical, to give such an unsettling figure a show business name. Yet here he was, bedecked in the image of show business, albeit an image stolen from bygone days, the elegant stage magicians and prestidigitators of nearly a century earlier.
Beneath the magician’s voice was a rasping, angry sound, a swarm of bees, the revving of a racer’s
engine.
Octavian hated to be afraid.
He stepped forward, insinuated himself among the small throng around the magician. They gazed in adoration at the charming old man, as though they could possibly not have heard the stories in the media. But this was a modern age, and nothing on television could be perceived as truly real. Everything seemed somehow contrived, even the worst tragedies, the most heinous crimes. Fiction and reality were almost indistinguishable to these people. They sensed no danger.
Fools.
“Where do you put them?” he asked, voice clipped, cold.
The magician glanced up. His eyes twinkled merrily. “They’re all quite safe, I assure you. All part of the show.”
“That’s not what the authorities think. How long do you think you’ll be able to pretend they’re coming back?”
The smile slipped from the magician’s face as if it had never been there, an illusion no less stunning than levitation or sleight of hand. People began to back away, and Octavian had to revise his opinion of them. Fools they might be, but they could feel the danger now, could sense that a battle had begun.
“Perhaps I ought to show you how the trick works,” the magician suggested.
He had a thin white mustache so fine that Octavian had not noticed it at first, and as he spoke, he stroked his fingers across it like the villain from an old Hollywood serial.
Octavian scraped the back of his hand across the stubble on his chin. He stood like a gunfighter, legs slightly parted, long canvas duster draped across his body.
“Try me.”
With a laugh, the magician glanced at his audience, who had backed away even further. They were anxious, even scared, but they wouldn’t stray so far that they would not be able to witness the outcome. The music in The Voodoo Lounge had changed from reggae to old blues. B. B. King sang “The Thrill Is Gone” on the sound system. Other customers began to move closer, trying to figure out what was going on.
“Excellent,” the old man said. “Pay attention, my young friends. You’ll never see magick like this again in your lives.”
The Gathering Dark Page 1