“I got you, darlin’,” Granny said. She led me back to the rock, and I lay back as she began to remove items from her satchel to mend my cut hand. The last thing I saw before my eyes closed was the squirrel scampering away back toward the tree.
It was getting dark by the time I was well enough to make the walk home. Granny and I descended the mountain quietly for a long time. Finally, I broke the silence.
“Granny, are you mad at me?” I asked.
Granny’s hawklike profile softened in the growing shadow. “No, darlin’, I’m not,” she said, and then laughed. “Always like to go the hard way, don’t you, honey?”
I didn’t reply. Granny stopped. She hugged me tightly and kissed me on the cheek.
“I love you with every breath left in this old body, Laytham. I brought you up here to try to teach you your first lessons as a Wisdom, and I’ll be if you didn’t end up teaching me.”
She checked the bandage on my hand as she continued. “What you did back there, Laytham, it’s beyond me, beyond any worker I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard tell of it, but I’ve never seen anyone who could use, command, the power so fluidly, so instinctually. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, darlin’?”
“You’re not mad, and I did good,” I replied with a smile.
Granny frowned, tightened the bandage, and stood with some help from her walking stick.
“I’m not mad, and I am very, very proud of you, Laytham, but there is something I was trying to teach you today and you didn’t understand it, and now that I know you have the power that you do, I need you to try to understand. It’s going to be even more hard now that you know what you can do, honey.
“Laytham, you must not ever, ever bring anything back like that again, darlin’. Never again. Do you understand me?”
“Why, Granny?” I asked. “I saved it, it’s okay and it was dead. Why is that bad?”
“The world just ain’t that simple, Laytham,” she said. “Everything has a balance, everything has a price, and some prices, baby boy, you can’t afford the debt it brings.”
She nodded at my bandaged hand. “That cut will leave a scar, that scar will never heal. That is the price you pay for that act, and trust me, boy, you got off cheap.”
“I don’t care,” I said, but I was a little freaked out that the cut on my hand would never fully heal. It was my first bite of mortality, and I have to admit it both terrified me and thrilled me.
“When a life ends, and the spirit passes, it is not our place to interfere with the Almighty and his plan,” Granny said, and began walking again. I followed and rubbed at my bandaged hand.
“Doctors save people all the time. Like on Emergency! on TV, Granny. They ain’t interfering with the Almighty, are they?”
Granny sighed. “Dear Lord, we are all in so much trouble when you become a teenager. It’s different, Laytham. This will be hard to understand for you, darlin’, but the power, the gifts you have been given, they are not the same as what doctors do; it’s better, it’s outside of how things work. We are not part of the natural cycle of things, us Wisdoms. We have a responsibility that is hitched to that power.”
It did make sense to me, perfect sense. I had felt it when I first decided to do something about what happened to the squirrel. A sense that nothing was impossible and that I could do anything.
“So, us Wisdoms are like the Almighty, right, Granny?” I said.
Granny spun around. She moved quicker than I had ever seen her move before. She grabbed me by the shoulders hard, before her walking stick had even hit the ground, and had her face up in mine.
“Don’t you ever, ever say that again!” she said, and shook me. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or afraid. “Don’t you dare think that. We are people, Laytham, just people. Our power is a cross, not a crown, you understand me, boy? We serve, we witness, and we protect. We don’t rule. You think you’re above common folk, you start thinkin’ you’re a god, and you will end your days in a place far, far worse than any hell you can imagine, son. You’ll end up alone.”
She scared me, and I trembled and was quiet the rest of the trip home. As the mountain began to gently slope back into the familiar terrain of her gardens and my tire swing and the kitchen door’s porch light, Granny stopped and turned to address me.
“Laytham, darlin’, are you okay? Granny is sorry she got so upset, honey.”
She hugged me tight and I cried a little, and slowly I began to feel better, like I always did in Granny’s arms, in Granny’s love.
“It will make sense in time, darlin’,” Granny said as she held me. “Granny will help you find your way.”
The cicadas hummed, nature’s monks chanting in a hidden cant. I looked up, red eyed, from Granny’s shoulder and saw the squirrel I had raised from the dead perched on Granny’s cement birdbath, watching me. Its eyes were darker than the night.
FIVE
I woke to daylight clawing at my eyes through the broken window and the sound of sirens, car horns, and millions of human rats all going mad in too small a cage. There was also someone pounding relentlessly on Grinner’s apartment door. It sounded like a sledgehammer.
I groaned as I got to my feet. My whole body ached from the beating Baldy had given me the night before. My face was sore, swollen, and cut, and my mouth tasted of copper and decay. I was only wearing my jeans, and someone had covered me with an old wool army blanket. I staggered out into the hall.
“What the hell?” I called out. The door opposite mine opened a little bit and a woman’s face peeked out. She was lovely—long black hair and warm brown eyes. Her complexion was olive. And I saw a flash of skin ink on her bare upper right arm.
“It’s for me,” the woman said in a voice with a strange accent. It was French mixed with something else. “His name is Roman, and he’s here for me.”
“You don’t sound like you want that,” I said.
“No,” she said, “I don’t. It’s kind of a long story.”
“You can tell me all about it after I send … um?” I said, jamming my thumb toward the front door.
“Roman,” she said, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
“Right, Roman. After I send Roman on a little holiday. Get it?”
The smile widened, though it was still guarded. “I do, actually,” she said.
The pounding continued, and I sighed.
“Be right back,” I said. “You just hang back. Any messages for Roman?”
“Tell him I want the pictures he owes me.”
“Pictures, right,” I said, and walked down the hall. I heard her door shut with a click behind me. I walked through Grinner’s apartment. The lights were out, and I was pretty sure if Grinner or Christine was home, one of them would have dealt with the elephant trying to knock down their door by now. For one horrible second, I thought it might be Illuminati bagmen here to collect me, but I knew my white lighter working had been solid, better than solid. I had days before I needed to move on. No, Roman was the kind of pain in the ass I could very much handle.
I unlocked the door, which took a second because of the half dozen locks and bolts Grinner had installed. The pounding stopped as soon as I began.
Before the final lock was snapped and door opened, I placed my palm on my chest.
“Strenuorum quasi lapis,” I said, and opened the door.
Roman looked exactly the way I expected him to. No, strike that, he was about 25 percent more Guido than I expected. He liked a little hair with his product, and his spray tan was so orange it made him look like an Oompa Loompa. His shirt was open to his navel, and there was enough bling around his neck to gold-plate the state of New Jersey. The only thing remotely interesting about him was the hand cannon he had in one of his massive fists that he had been using to pound on the door. Like I said, a rocket scientist.
“Where the fuck is she?” Roman said as he started to push past me into the apartment. I didn’t budge. Literally. The big goombah tried to shove me out of the way with o
ne hand, but he could not move me. He stopped and his mouth hung open in confusion. I smiled.
“She’s washing her hair, Roman,” I said. He backed up a little and ran at me in a classic football tackle. He hit, and I didn’t shift an inch. I did, however, give him an uppercut that closed his mouth pretty solidly. The force of it staggered him, and I felt the satisfying crunch of broken teeth. As he stumbled backward, I relieved him of the gun. I cocked it and aimed it at his bloody face. It seemed Roman only had two facial expressions, rage and confusion. I was getting confusion now.
“What do we need to do to make this not happen again, Roman?” I said. “What does she owe you?”
“Thuck yoth,” Roman said through torn lips and shattered teeth. He sounded like a little boy.
“Now, Roman,” I said, “you still have your kneecaps.” I lowered the pistol to his knees. “One last time, or I cripple you and go back to my Cocoa Puffs? What is your beef with this girl?”
“Da bith owth me twenty K,” he said, backing away from the door, getting ready to bolt with his pristine knees.
“That include the vig?” I asked. “She gives you twenty grand and she is square, no interest, no more visits from you and your mouth guard?”
Roman was slowly shifting back to rage. He nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll have it to you by this afternoon. She have your number?”
Again the nod.
“We will call you and tell you where to meet us, understand? And bring the pictures you owe her, or no deal. You got that?”
“Yeth,” he said. The eyes seethed with hatred.
“Now go get yourself some breakfast through a straw,” I said, and shut the door in his face. I turned around and the girl was standing there, her arms wrapped around her chest, holding herself. She wore a black wife beater and purple panties. The ink I had seen on her shoulder earlier was part of a whole canvas. She had a slogan in Italian running along her left shoulder and collarbone, partly obscured by the sleeveless T-shirt; there was a skull with a bloom of roses behind it on her outer left thigh. With her raven hair, dark eyes, and olive complexion, she looked like she could be Greek, or Italian, or Middle Eastern—maybe all of them. I finally decided on Gypsy. Superman has kryptonite, I have Gypsies. She was small, about a half foot shorter than me, and she had very feminine curves. Her eyes and her body language reminded me of a doe—shy but curious, ready to bolt at the first sign of aggression. The guarded smile returned.
“Thank you,” she said again with the accent that hinted of many places. “He would have hurt me very badly.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that,” I said. “Why are you into him for twenty grand?”
She moved to the couch and settled in a corner, her knees tucked up and a pillow now clutched tightly in both arms. I joined her, dropping Roman’s gun on the coffee table.
“I’m a fool,” she said. “That’s the short version. I have been in the city for about a year now, I came from Canada—Calgary, in Alberta.”
“That where you from originally?” I asked.
“I’m not really from anywhere originally,” she said. Her smile widened for a second, and then she withdrew it.
“Anyway, I work as a model, a fetish model, mostly. I met Roman at a club, and he told me he was connected and could get me a professional photo shoot and some good gigs, he’d pay for it.” She shook her head and chuckled; it was a sound of slight amusement and disgust. “He said I was his ‘investment.’ Yeah. So, the photo shoot was amazing, great stuff, would really enhance my portfolio. The jobs, they were … less amazing. They sucked.”
“Porn,” I said, more than asked.
She nodded. “Nasty, raunchy warehouse porn. I’ve done a lot I’m not proud of, but I’ve never done anything like that, Mr.…”
“Laytham,” I said. “Laytham Ballard.”
She extended a hand, and I saw a tattoo of a boxy little robot on her wrist. I shook her hand. “My model name is Miss Magdalena. My real name is—”
“Megan,” I said, shaking her hand. She looked surprised as she drew her hand back. “I have scary wizard powers,” I said. “And Christine told me last night. We’re roomies. Hi.”
I got the full smile, and it was worth the wait.
“Megan McGilvey,” she said. “I like Magdalena better, though. Hi. Thank you for buying me some time with Roman, but I don’t have the money he says I owe him for the photo shoot and backing out of the pornos.”
“I got it,” I said. “I just got paid for a little job I did in Egypt, and I feel like sharing the wealth.” I could feel her emotionally withdraw. She was wary, had been down this road too many times with men.
“No strings,” I said. “No porno, no sleeping with me, no nothing. Scout’s honor.”
“You,” Magdalena said, “were never a Scout.”
“I was!” I said, feigning insult. “For about two weeks, until there was an incident involving the den mother and my knot-tying merit badge.”
Magdalena laughed. “I like a man who knows his knots,” she said.
A wonderful, unspoken exchange happened then. The acknowledgment of a secret shared and offered. I smiled back.
“Okay, I’m trusting you,” she said. “And I will pay you back, I promise.”
I nodded as I groaned and stood.
“Things tend to balance themselves out,” I said. “Okay, I’ll figure out a good, safe place for us to meet Roman tonight and then get dressed and get some work done.”
“Thank you, Ballard,” she said.
I almost told her not to thank me yet, but then I thought better of it.
* * *
“This,” Grinner said, spinning in his high-backed swivel chair and holding up a thumb drive that looked like Boba Fett, “is everything from every dark, greasy corner of the Net about Dusan Slorzack, who, I might add, sounds like an enormous tool.” He handed the drive to me.
By the time I had showered and changed clothes, Grinner and Christine were home, and Grinner took me into what he lovingly called “the lab.” It was a cold, dark room honeycombed with rows of metal shelves full of server slices, microwave transmitters, satellite jammers and receivers, and shit that I couldn’t begin to guess at its function. They all had little yellow, green, and red lights twinkling like fireflies. Cables and cords flowed everywhere and in every direction. Grinner’s throne and the monoliths of computers and massive flat-screen monitors were islands of light in a sea of shadow. A little blue police call box bobble was bouncing gently on the upper edge of the massive monitor that sat behind him. The monitor currently showed the feed from all of the police traffic cameras in lower Manhattan. Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl,” one of Grinner’s favorites, thrummed over the speakers mounted to the ceiling and hidden in the air-conditioned darkness.
“It’s not sexy,” Grinner said, nodding to the thumb drive. “He’s covered his tracks very well. Elite well. It’s mostly old news reports, a few really decrepit docs from his political days, and a few hints about his connections and hobbies. Some kink stuff and some of the occult stuff, but it’s all old and not really a huge amount of help.
“To summarize, Dusan Slorzack was born in 1945 in Belgrade. His father was a Nazi war criminal, Erich Gebhardt, who incidentally was a member of the SS and the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum. You know them, right?”
“The Thule Society,” I said, nodding. “Occult society that cozied up to the Nazis.” Grinner nodded, then went on.
“His mom was a barmaid, and prostitute on the side. Here’s a tidbit, he was born a zduhać, someone whose birth caul, or placenta, is intac—”
“I’m familiar with that,” I said, interrupting. While it’s pretty much a crap shoot as to who is born to work magic, there are no coincidences when it comes to most magic itself. There is pattern, form, and direction, omens and portents. Sometimes the patterns are so complex, so chaotic, you can’t see them, and sometimes they smack you in the face.
“Anyway,” Gr
inner said, noticing my agitation, “supposed to mean you are born with innate magic powers. Big-league stuff.
“In his twenties, he was a supporter of numerous nationalist groups that opposed Tito’s regime. He also studied mysticism, psychology, and philosophy, and was a disciple and eventual leader of the Black Hand. Ever hear of them?”
“Vaguely,” I said.
“They were founded in 1911, kind of an occult terrorist group,” Grinner said. “They were all about Slavic reunification at any cost. They were responsible for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which started World War One, which eventually led to World War Two.”
“There are a bunch of occult theories about the assassination,” I said. Grinner nodded as he continued to sort through what looked like video files on the monitor.
“Back when I was in the navy, in CYBERFOR,” Grinner said, “I was working in Bosnia. We hacked the Serbian air defense system, spoofed it so they couldn’t shoot down our planes. The Black Hand was still creeping around the region even then. Lots of rumors they were mixed up in the ethnic cleansing going on. Two world wars, mass genocides. Damn. For such an obscure little group, they know how to make a statement.”
“Yeah, resulting in the murder of millions,” I said. “That much death is a hell of a lot of energy for a working, like nitrous in a car. Maybe the ethnic cleansing was the same kind of thing.”
Grinner turned, gave me a hard look. “You think a bunch of occult assclowns started two world wars and practiced genocide just to charge up their Ouija boards? That is pretty fucked-up, man.”
“I’ve seen worse,” I said. “What else you got?”
He shook his head as he turned back to his keyboard.
“Well, by the early ’90s, Slorzack was in Radovan Karadžić’s inner circle and apparently helped push him to become president of the Republika Srpska—the Serbian territory carved out of Bosnia.
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