by Andy Hyland
I thought about it. “If I’m right, it would be really helpful if none of your colleagues came this way for a while. I know that’s unlikely given what you’ve just said, but we need to be absolutely sure. We have to get things organized and having corrupt cops driving by wouldn’t help. Make something big happen elsewhere. Bomb threat, maybe?”
“I’ve got a few ideas. Good job. I’ll see you soon.”
I ended the call. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Malachi, they’re not here,” Arabella insisted.
“You’re absolutely right,” I told her. “Get your phones out. This is what we’re going to do.”
Chapter twenty-six
We talked as we worked, phones pinned to our ears, dialing one number after another. “Head on over,” I told the rest of them as we rounded the corner back to the front of the building. “I’ve got a couple of things to do first.” They nodded and carried on, smiling and dialing, cranking out the calls. Not one of them saw me lean against the wall and close my eyes. This had to be the place. Not only because it logistically all made sense, but because the call was so strong. I wanted nothing more than to lay down and sleep and have done with it. And in that instant I would be utterly, irretrievably lost. My eyes snapped back open. No chance. Not while there was still one roll of the dice left.
I knocked on the door. As before with Julie it took more than one attempt, but in time the footsteps sounded and the door opened a crack. Julie was right. The guy was hideous. No wonder they kept him on guard duty, safely behind the four walls – his human guise wouldn’t fool anyone. The skin on his forehead was pocked and distended, the nubs of his horns almost reaching through. His chin was too long, his teeth were sharp as knives and the eyes were slitted like cats. Honestly. No effort. Before he could speak I drove my knife up under his chin, straight into the brain, and shoved him back inside.
Closing the door quietly behind me, I let him drop. Not for a minute did I doubt Arabella or her description, but it was essential that I saw the place for myself. Now that I was within the shield, a quick check with my senses told me no other entities were present. Everything checked out – the large holding area, with a lingering stink of sweat and fear. The food stores, some packets open. Filthy toilets, floors covered with urine and faeces. Exactly what I’d expect, as someone who’d been held before transport in my time.
I paced the floor, getting an idea of the measurements. Took a few photos from various angles with my camera. Headed up the stairs to the office area to see where the best lines of sight were. There were no guarantees all of this would be useful, but some of it would be. I had no doubt about that, not anymore.
Fifteen minutes later I was over in the park, standing in the baseball diamond with the others. The calls had been made. All that remained was to see who showed up.
“You gave them all the details, right?” I asked.
Zack nodded. “Suicide mission. Little chance of success. Absolutely necessary. Word for word what you said.”
“Yeah. Maybe I should have put a little hope in there. What do you think?”
“Hope’s overrated,” said Arabella. “Sometimes what you need is a really good fight.”
“It’ll be a short one if we end up doing this by ourselves,” I muttered.
Five minutes later I was starting to panic. I wasn’t expecting an army, my own personal horde. Maybe it wasn’t even that important to me that they all fought. Perhaps what I really wanted was some sign that this all mattered, that it was worth giving yourself for. That I wasn’t the only one who cared.
The first figure started walking across the field from behind second base. “Matt,” said Zack. “We’re in the same line of business, but we keep it friendly. The sort of guy you need when your back’s to the wall. You can count on him.”
“Hey, it’s Elle,” said Arabella, looking behind us and waving. “We did…some work together once. She doesn’t look much, but she’s fast and she can take the hits. Vicious little hexer as well.”
The trickle became a stream and then a river. The Aware came from every direction, mostly alone but some in groups as large as four or five. A guy I’d never met, huge bloke with a beard that reached all the way down to his gut, barged his way up to me and grabbed my hand. “Mac,” he said. “Mac Devonport. We’ve not met. Wanted to say thanks. Good of you to let us all in on this one.”
“Good of me?” I said out the side of my mouth to Zack as he turned away. “We definitely mentioned the likelihood of dying, right?”
“We spelled it all out, like you said,” Zack nodded. “Thing is, Malachi, you taking down the Aleph was big news. It got people stirred up. Then you go head to head with David and stop the serial killer who was systematically killing us. Hey, don’t blame me – word got out. At the moment, if you lead, they follow. We all do.”
“Head Wizard,” Julie whispered from behind me, but looked away when I span round to tell her to shut up.
“Who are they?” said Arabella, pointing.
“Never seen them before,” Zack said. “I’d say they were trouble.”
Halfway across the field, a group of well-dressed men and women were materializing out of the air, stepping from nowhere out onto the grass. The men were uniformly dressed in black tailored suits and carried long canes with silver studded tops. The women were slim and beautiful, wearing dresses that were both ornate and practical, with loose sleeves and long slits. Julie kicked me from behind. “Mind on the job,” came the instruction.
The crowd of Aware parted as the group moved forward towards me in an arrow formation. Twenty in all, at a quick count. At the head of the arrow was a short man, maybe sixty or seventy years old, with a clipped beard and a top hat. He held up a hand and the group stopped as one, while he continued, stepping right up to me and removing the hat.
“Maximus Lamarchand,” he said. “You may have heard of my sister, Ellen.”
“We never met, but yes,” I said.
“So I understand. Ellen was…distant in her later years. As a family we left her alone with her grief. We should not have done that, but we did. As such, we were not even aware until very recently that David existed. Or had returned home. I tried to speak with him, I put out feelers, but he refused the contact. So we sat back at a distance, watching his Trueflame organization and scratching our heads. You were far more proactive about things.”
“He’s been badly hurt. I don’t know if he’ll ever fully recover. But we’ll do what we can to help him.”
“You have done more than enough. As a family, we feel it is time he came back to us. But I thank you.”
“I did what I could.”
“And I consider ourselves in your debt.” He looked up at me and smiled sadly. “Those of us who are mage-born are perhaps too quick to look down on the Aware. Too often you’re dismissed in our circles as untrustworthy, unscrupulous and ill-disciplined.”
That was actually a pretty good description of over ninety per cent of us, but now seemed like a bad time to tell him.
“We are not perfect ourselves,” he continued. “For too long we’ve let things slide, remaining comfortable and keeping our hands clean. Tonight seemed like a perfect opportunity to put matters right, on all fronts. We are at your service, Mr English. And I took the liberty of making a few calls myself.”
Mutters and gasps came from all sides as more groups started theatrically appearing around the field.
“Completely over the top,” Zack muttered. “Like they haven’t all got perfectly good cars sitting at home in the garage. And drivers to get them here.”
“Thank you,” I said, before someone overheard him. “Thank you, Mr Lamarchand. It’s an honor to have you join us. Quite frankly, we could do with the help.”
“You have a plan, I take it?” he asked. “Point us in the right direction, and leave the rest to us.” He leaned in close. “Better you give the instructions to me and I’ll direct the mage-born. They can be petty little bastards at the best of
times, and some of them aren’t quite up to taking orders from one of the Aware. Yet.” He smiled.
We waited a few more minutes for the stragglers to arrive. Ollie was the last of them, jumping out of a cab a couple of blocks away and jogging over, carrying a large sack behind his back and something long and dark in his hand. “Sorry,” he gasped, sliding to a halt in front of me. “Bloody heavy, this thing.”
“You made it in time,” I assured him. “Who’s with David if you’re here?”
He looked blank and gestured around at the crowd. “Nobody. You wanted everyone, right? Anyway, he’s been stuck in his room for the last day or so. Won’t come out to eat or anything. Not a peep. He’ll be fine for a couple of hours. Where do you want these?”
“Here will do.”
He dumped the sack on the ground, grabbed the bottom, and turned out the contents. Knives of all shapes and sizes glittered in the pale moonlight. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I shouted. “I hope you came armed. But if you didn’t, I present to you the finest range of bladed instruments currently in Manhattan. Take one if you need it, and thank Scorpio every time you slip it into a demon’s gut. If you brought a gun, then stow it. Too many kids around to risk bullets, and they won’t be as useful as you’d think.”
A cheer rang out, and a thick knot of bodies drew together around the pile of weapons. There was some arguing, and a few tough-natured trades occurred, but thankfully nobody resorted to blows. That would have been unhelpful, and also hugely embarrassing in front of our new mage-born friends.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like one?” I asked Maximus. “You won’t find better.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said, looking admiringly at the knives being collected and brandished, “but we brought our own stock.” With a flourish he held up his cane, and pulled it apart, revealing a silver-topped steel spike three feet long. “I’ve trained with this since I was a boy. Never had a proper fight with it. About time, I’d say.”
“Malachi,” said Ollie. “One other reason I was late. Got intercepted by a messenger from Mercy. She said you’d need this.” He handed me the black package he’d been carrying. It was wrapped in soft velvet that I let fall to the ground. Inside was a familiar katana. Red runes danced on the black blade. I held it up. Simeon’s old sword. If I was going to die tonight, I couldn’t ask for any better weapon to go into battle with. “She said she wants it back. Preferably handed to her by you.”
“Now that I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on,” said Maximus, “but it clearly belongs in yours. Are we ready?”
I nodded. Time to get started.
“Heads up,” I called out. “Your attention please.” The talking died down to a murmur, and soon even that stopped. All eyes were on me. Not a particularly comfortable thing to experience. “Thanks for coming. When I put the call out, I expected a handful of you to show up. Enough to keep me company on the job. Enough to give us a chance of getting a few of the kids out before we bought it. Turns out you’re all much, much crazier than I ever gave you credit for.”
A huge cheer rang out round the park.
“We drifted into a strange little world,” I continued. “Shit happens. Regularly. And we accept it as normal. Demons? Yeah, they’re scum. But we drink with them, right? And some of them I get on with. It’s life, and we’re all in it together.”
The mage-born were looking warily at each other. Wondering what they’d got themselves into, no doubt.
“The problem is, I think we’ve gone too far. We’ve accepted too much. And maybe it took something this bad, this shit, to wake us up. Because taking kids on slaving runs is out of order. We’re fighting it now, but how much did we let slide before?”
Julie walked up next to me and put her arm through mine. I fought down the lump in my throat.
“There are two objectives tonight. Firstly, we get as many kids back as possible. If it costs a few of us our lives, then that’s fine. Because we had it coming, and they didn’t. And secondly, as many of us come back as we can manage. It won’t be all of us. We’re not going to get that lucky.”
“Shame,” someone called out.
“The whole operation’s being headed up by Balam. Most of you have never encountered him before. You’ve been bloody lucky. There’s a chance he’s not going to be there, which means we’ve got some precious time before he does turn up to move the kids quickly. When he does show up – and trust me, you’ll know when he does – it’s going to be time to leave. Grab whatever kids you can and move.”
“We are not aiming to defeat Balam then?” Maximus asked.
“Are you cowards?” asked another of the mage-born, from across to my right.
“No,” I shouted, before anyone tried to defend me and we ended up with a fight amongst ourselves before we even got started. “No, we are not cowards. But we’re not idiots either. And to answer your question, Maximus,” I nodded at him, “taking down this operation with enough of a loss to him will defeat Balam even if we don’t touch him personally. Molech will be extremely embarrassed, and Balam will answer to him for that.”
“I suppose that will have to be good enough. It is agreed,” said Maximus.
I wasn’t aware that I was asking for his permission, but decided to let it slide for the moment.
“They’re panicked and they’ve been forced to move before they wanted to. That means they’re disorganized and they’re looking too much at what they’re doing, and not paying enough attention to us. That’s our chance, our way in. We’re going to hit them from every direction at once, in ways they won’t expect. We fight in units of five or ten. Organize yourselves. Balance your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. Then send one of your group over to me and I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. Five minutes. Move.”
“Wow,” said Zack, looking out at the crowd as everyone moved, reorganizing themselves, naturally seeking out those they knew and trusted. “It’s almost like you know what you’re doing.”
“Can I suggest,” I said to Maximus, “that in the interests of unity the mage-born spread themselves out. Mixed groups with the Aware would present certain challenges to the hellspawn, I think.”
A wide grin spread across his face. “Oh, I do believe you’re right. You know, I’m positively looking forward to this.”
“He’s going to die. Quickly,” muttered Arabella as Maximus walked away.
“Don’t you believe it,” said Julie. “Did you see the look in his eyes?”
“Julie,” I cut in. “Get yourself somewhere safe.”
They all looked at me. “Oh, you did not just say that,” said Arabella, before turning her attention to Julie. “Go on. Hit him.”
“Without me,” said Julie slowly, “you wouldn’t know enough to put this plan into action. So why don’t you say thank you, shut the hell up, and give orders to the people who will actually take them from you?”
Zack squeezed my shoulder. “If I were you, I’d do exactly what the lady says.”
“So what do you want us to do?” said Mac, reappearing from my left as the appointed rep from his unit. Others started drifting in. I ended up surrounded by a group of twenty-two men and women, representing one hundred and seventy-five fighters in all. Not bad.
“Pay attention, I said, grabbing a stick and starting to draw in the dirt. “This is how it’s going to go down.”
Chapter twenty-seven
We ended up with three main groups. The largest one, about a hundred fighters in all, was led by Zack. I took the second group, accompanied by Maximus, of about fifty. The smallest group of twenty-five was headed up by Mac, and included Arabella. And also Julie, who wasn’t talking to me at this point.
“Roll out, people,” I shouted, and the well-briefed units moved silently into position. It was time to find out whether I’d guessed correctly about where they’d taken the kids, or if I’d misread things completely and lost them forever.
Zack was first up. He organized his people in a circle around the
block, where they stood, dropped into fighting stances, all facing inwards, knives and casts ready. To a passerby it would have looked like the oddest gang fight ever. At the agreed time, Zack sent out a psychic impulse as the signal, and they slid as one.
Accurate sliding to an identical location in Dark Manhattan was a new thing to almost everyone there, and the results were varied. The majority managed to slide to within a few meters of where they’d started. Some ended up further out, like Ollie, who didn’t like sliding as a rule anyway, and ended up three blocks away.
The ratten horde were camped out around and above the building, as expected. Or rather, as hoped. My guess had held. Panicked by the attack on the grave site, Balam’s operation had simply moved one step on, ahead of schedule, and slid into the Fades. With luck they’d not yet started moving the slaves deeper.
The ratten horde earned its name well. The creatures were in constant motion, writhing and shifting, making it impossible to count their numbers, or guess at them. Even so, there were hundreds, at least. In some places it was hard to see the wall or the ground.
Zack didn’t wait for them to notice what was going on. Without a word he went to work, casting wards and getting in close. The first blood went to us. Zack ran forward, grabbled the tail of a rat facing away from him, and slid his knife along its gut. An easy disemboweling. But in its death throws it let out a piercing shriek. Those who hadn’t seen the humans yet knew all about them now.
As one they turned and attacked. The five and ten-person units cast wards together, making them much stronger than anyone acting alone. And for the most part, for the first few minutes, they held. From within the wards, knives and hexes flashed out. Rats screamed in pain and fury as they pounced on their targets only to be repelled or stabbed. The long caned spikes of the mage-born were particularly effective, skewering the hellspawn from a relatively safe distance. So far so good.
But it couldn’t last. The domed protective wards were under too much pressure, covered with sleek gray bodies. Tails whipped through, catching necks and bursting eyeballs, whirling with deadly accuracy. For every mage that went down, the ward became that much weaker. The first ward collapsed completely two units away from Zack. It was a slaughter. Zack looked over to see Jess, a woman in her thirties he’d known for years, and used to date, getting torn apart. Her eyes fell on him as the light left them.