The Last American Wizard

by Edward Irving

  He wasn’t particularly surprised that he didn’t do either maneuver well. His loafers flew out from under him, and the sword, now clutched in his left hand, waved weakly at his opponent. As he fell on his back–sliding on the damp grass with his feet in the air–he heard a hiss and saw the tip of another sword pass over his head. He craned his neck to look back and saw the gentleman with the red muttonchops stumbling, thrown off-balance as his swing failed to meet any resistance.

  To Steve’s great relief, Decatur appeared in front of Muttonchops and, after a careful exchange of flourishes and salutes with their swords, the two began hammering away at each other. Far more significant was the fact that they moved away from where Steve lay on the grass. Looking straight up, he could see Weishaupt’s spiteful face and, without thinking, he extended his arm (and only incidentally the sword) straight up and watched as the tip vanished into the well-tailored Armani crotch.

  At the last second, he wondered whether the Illuminati leader hung to the left or the right.

  With a shriek filled with as much fury as fear, Weishaupt launched himself in a vertical leap and vanished at the highest point. A bit disappointed, Steve pulled back the blade and was surprised to see just a tinge of red staining the very tip. That made him feel much better.

  Sitting up, he surveyed the field of battle. Most of the duelists were lying on the grass and, as he watched, slowly vanishing. Over by the tree, Old Howard and a gentleman, armed with what was either a short sword or an extremely long knife, were dodging back and forth on either side of the trunk. Whenever the blade came darting at him, Howard’s tree branch was either in place to block the thrust or coming around the other side so swiftly that his opponent would have to leap back to avoid being cudgeled.

  “Clearly,” Steve thought, “Old Howard has been hiding his light under a basket. I was beginning to wonder how he ever survived in the Corps.”

  Decatur and his opponent were fencing furiously only a few yards in the other direction. Suddenly, the red-haired man made a violent cut at the Commodore’s midsection. Instead of blocking, Decatur turned to mist for a second, stepped in, solidified, and ran the other man directly through the heart. Turning, he saw Steve watching him and made an elegant bow.

  Steve stood up, only a bit unsteadily, and walked over to the tree where Old Howard continued to hold off the man with the long knife. A moment’s concentration made the gold sword blunt and dense at the tip and then, at a point where the knife fighter paused between lunges, Steve brought what was now a club down squarely on his head.

  Decatur walked up, carefully wiping down his sword with a delicate handkerchief. Old Howard tossed his tree branch off to the side and leaned back against the trunk, slowly sliding down until he was seated next to Ace’s motionless form. Steve made his club vanish and sat down on the other side.

  As he wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve, Steve asked, “Why are you so tired? I mean, I’m freaking exhausted, but I’m alive and I never exercise. What’s your excuse?”

  The marine puffed air for a moment and then answered. “Well, if I’d stayed a damn ghost as I’m supposed to, none of this would have been the slightest effort. Nor the slightest use, unfortunately. I had to become corporeal to fight. I haven’t exerted myself so much since I picked up that bed.”

  Decatur sheathed his sword and smiled. “For my part, I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in decades. Except for the sad lack of salt water, it was damn near a perfect way to spend an afternoon.”

  Steve looked at Ace and said, “Well, the Master Chief here may well kill me when she finds out she missed you, but I certainly appreciate the help.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  Steve pulled out the cell phone–completely undamaged in its armor–and asked, “Barnaby, are you still there?”

  “Yes” came a very subdued voice. “I apologize for missing the data point on Hans’ cell phone use. It won’t happen again.”

  “Well, you were distracted,” Steve said. “Did Hans survive?”

  “Of course. He managed to get a full complement of reactive armor on before the fireball hit. He’d have been here earlier, but he had to go the long way around… Oh, here he comes now.” There was a grinding squeal and Steve looked past Old Howard to see the BMW, still covered in a set of scorched and half-melted armor plates, smash through the chain link gate that separated the park from a small playground.

  Shortly after it passed the gate, all the plates, links, and other bits that had formed the armor exploded off the car like a dog shaking off water, and the factory paint job shone as flawlessly as ever. With a purr, it swept across the grass and stopped in front of Steve.

  Steve stood up and, with the assistance of Old Howard in his solid state, managed to get Ace stretched across the plastic cover Hans had extruded to cover the back seat. The ghost got into the passenger seat, and Steve, who put his muddy shoes in the trunk rather than attempt to clean them, got in behind the wheel.

  He lowered the window. “Commodore, can we give you a lift anywhere?”

  The elegant young man smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s been an excellent day and I don’t want to see it end.” He handed Steve the bloodstained handkerchief. “Please give this to the Master Chief when she recovers.”

  “I don’t know if she’ll appreciate it or not, but I’d certainly like to find out.” Steve said.

  “Well, I wish you all fair winds and speedy travels.” Decatur turned and walked away, vanishing in one of the shafts of sunlight that lanced between the trees.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The iron gates were closed when they pulled up to the Rock Creek Cemetery. Hans advanced until he almost touched the iron railings in case there was a switch under the pavement, but the heavy iron didn’t move. After a short pause, the car backed up about a dozen feet, blew its horn in what Steve could only term a threatening manner, and revved the engine.

  The gates remained adamantly closed.

  Just over the hood, Steve could see two-inch metal beams emerging from the car’s front grill and linking into a very sturdy- looking push bar, easily as big as those on a state police interceptor. The second the last two segments linked, the BMW dropped into first gear, and smoked the rear tires as it headed for the gate.

  The gate split in the center and swung out of the way only inches before the big car.

  “Who is driving this damn car?”

  Steve looked back to see that Ace had opened her eyes. She was still terribly pale. “I’ve given Hans full control,” he said.

  “Good idea. That’s one of the first things you learn in Command School. When someone clearly knows what he’s doing, the best thing is to simply let him do it.” Ace seemed to think for a moment. “I’m continually being pleasantly surprised about what Hans can handle on his own. I thought I was going to have to scramble over the cemetery fence and break both actuator arms.”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “Can I ask why I’m in the back seat?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Nope, but I think I have a couple of hours missing and I see that Hans had to break out the plastic covers to protect against the solid set of mud and grass armor you’ve got on.” She paused. “Did you do something stupid while I wasn’t looking?”

  “Hell no!” Steve answered quickly. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  Ace looked him dubiously and then seemed to capture a memory, “There was something about Commodore Decatur…”

  “Yep. He asked me to give you something.” Steve passed the handkerchief over the back seat.

  Ace examined it. “Well, it does have his coat of arms, but I don’t understand all the bloodstains.”

  “How about we deal with your injury first and I’ll answer questions later?” Steve said quickly. “Is the ‘liquid sunshine’ worse?”

  “No, it’s the same, but it’s now a lot deeper inside than it was at the beginning.”

  “Sounds worse to me.”

  Sh
e shrugged. “Everyone has a different pain threshold. I’m reasonably sure that you, for example, would require hospitalization and morphine to recover from a severe paper cut.”

  “Oh, come on.” Steve scoffed. “That’s just a part of your tough-guy, tough-girl SEAL act.”

  Ace shook her head slowly. “No. I wasn’t one of the real hard- asses. As a matter of fact, I was considered a bit of a baby after I dropped out of a twenty-mile hike at the fifteen-mile mark.”

  “Twenty miles isn’t that bad. Why did you drop out?”

  “Ah.” She shook her head in apparent regret. “I overestimated my own abilities. I wussed out just because I had an injury to my right leg.”

  “What kind of injury?”

  “Compound fracture.” She shook her head and sighed. “It wouldn’t have been a problem but my fibula kept bumping into the Dyneema impact plate of my body armor.”

  Steve could feel his face turn white. “So, the bone had already broken through the skin? Why didn’t the commander take you off the damn march?”

  “Well, I was the commander of that damn march, and the medevac point was only five miles away, so after a couple of minutes of taking it easy, I wrapped the whole mess tight with a battle scarf and got back on the road. Caught up and passed the rest of the unit at the eighteenth mile.”

  “Battle scarf?” Steve shook his head. “You women really know how to accessorize.”

  “Yeah, I have to admit to a weakness for Burberry even while the juice was working, and everyone thought I was one of the boys.” She sat up with some effort and looked to the right. “I think we’ve arrived at our destination.”

  Hans slowed, cruised through a last intersection, and came to a stop against the curb. Steve realized that the entire drive through the cemetery had been quiet and almost reverential–if not significantly slower. The sound of the car’s engine dropped to silence, and as he opened the door, he felt as if there was a hush across the clipped grass and chiseled stones.

  Steve watched as Ace got out of the backseat–apparently without effort–and they walked around a screen of bushes to a small marble enclosure with a bench on one end and a wall on the other. Seated against the wall was a highly stylized copper effigy of a woman, her face almost hidden in the folds of the cape that covered her from head to toe.

  Old Howard spoke softly, as if reluctant to break the soothing silence. “This is Grief. It’s one of the most famous pieces of art in the city. Augustus Saint-Gaudens made it for that grumpy bastard Henry Adams after his wife drank the developer she was supposed to be making photographs with.”

  “Adams always hated that name.” A voice came from behind them. They spun around and saw a young black man with long dreads seated on the marble bench. “People can’t seem to help calling it that but he always said Grief sounded like a brand name. I believe he compared it to ‘Pears Soap.’ He had asked Saint- Gaudens for a statue that was universal–a mixture of Eastern and Western forms. Henry always was a bit of a bastard–I couldn’t hardly blame his poor wife for taking the easy way out. He wanted this called The Mystery of the Hereafter and the Peace of God that Passeth Understanding. I never got the feeling that it had much to do with his wife–far more about what a rich bastard he was.”

  The smartphone vibrated and Steve turned it so the camera faced the young man. He could see translations flashing by on the screen.

  PALESTINIAN ON A ROPE SUPPORTED PEOPLE HANGED MAN

  “I think you can stop there,” Steve said. “Even I’ve heard of the Hanged Man. That is you, right?”

  “I guess.” The young man shrugged. “I was Hamilton Jones, but everything seems to have changed recently. This lady with a storefront psychic shop on Georgia Avenue grabbed me this morning and dragged me in for a ‘reading.’ She laid out all these cards, and I swear she turned as white as a jet-black Jamaican woman can. I thought it was because I told her I wasn’t going to pay, but she waved that off. As a matter of fact, she stopped talking altogether. Just picked up one of the cards off the table, handed it to me, shoved me out the door, and put up the CLOSED sign.”

  He pulled a tarot card out of his shirt pocket and held it up to show a picture of a man hanging by one foot from a tree. He stood and walked over. “The really strange thing was this–”

  He started to give the card to Steve but Ace pulled it out of his hand first. “It’s a black guy,” she said. “Otherwise, it’s pretty much standard–goofy grin and all. The dreads look good.”

  Hamilton smiled–just a little goofily, Steve thought–and nodded. “Thank you, but the good stuff is on the back.”

  Ace turned the card over. Someone had written with a Sharpie in perfect Spenserian cursive: Grief Statue. Rock Creek Cemetery. 3pm.

  Ace said. “But no one could have known we were coming here. We only just decided a few minutes ago.”

  “Yeah.” Hamilton looked around the group. “So, I’ve got three questions in no particular order. Who the hell are you? Who the hell is the Hanged Man? And what the hell is going on?”

  Barnaby’s voice came from the speakerphone. “I suspect that your first question will take far too long to answer, and we’re trying to work out the answer to the third question ourselves, so let me take a shot at your new identity. Does everything look strange?”

  The young man nodded.

  “Well, that’s because you’re metaphorically hanging upside down. You’ve been chosen. No, that’s not right because there isn’t a chooser. You’ve been assigned…no, same problem. Oh, hell. You simply are the earthly avatar of the Hanged Man. You’re hanging from the World Tree with your feet in the heavens and your head is connected to the earth, but you’re not in pain.”

  Hamilton was looking at the phone with a puzzled expression. Steve interrupted and explained. “Barnaby here is a computer program. Or he used to be a computer program. Or something. That’s one of the reasons he didn’t want to get into the ‘Who We Are’ question.”

  “OK.” Jones said. “I totally don’t understand that, but please continue anyway.”

  “As I was saying before I was interrupted,” Barnaby said a bit huffily, “that tree you’re hanging from appears in almost every religion. It’s Yggdrasil in the Norse legends, Ashvattha in the Hindu Vedas, and the Cheyenne believe it’s a Sun Dance pole being chewed on by Grandfather Beaver.”

  Steve touched the button on the smartphone that switched the camera, and aimed the lens at his face. “Hey, we talked about this. The absolute minimum of useless footnotes on explanations, please. He can always read Wikipedia later–maybe he can write his own entry. Let’s get moving. Ace is in pain.”

  “I’m fine,” Ace said firmly.

  “Hey, I can chat with Siri here anytime,” Hamilton said jerking a thumb at the smartphone, “I think you need to worry about your girlfriend right NOW!”

  Steve turned to see Ace toppling forward like a felled tree. Without thinking, he created a golden pillow that kept her head from bouncing on the paving stones. As he bent over, waiting for the shattering pain in his chest to subside, he said, “Dude, you have got to be one of the world’s luckier people. If Ace had been conscious for that ‘girlfriend’ crack, I’m not at all sure you’d still have all your parts attached.”

  “Why?” Hamilton asked as he came over and knelt on Ace’s other side.

  “You think you’re confused about your identity? Ace was a man yesterday and a Navy SEAL at that. She’s a little touchy about her gender identity.”

  “You mean she’s gay? Hell, that’s no prob–”

  Whatever Hamilton was going to say next was lost in a quickly smothered squawk as Ace’s hand shot up, grabbed his shirt collar, and twisted. Steve looked at her face–her eyes were still closed and her head lolled to the side–and guessed she remained at least ‘mostly’ unconscious.

  “I’d just leave the subject alone,” Steve said, and watched helplessly for a few seconds before Ace’s hand relaxed and Hamilton was able to breathe again. “Like I sa
id, she’s touchy.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.” The young man fell back into a seated position and rubbed his neck.

  “She has lots of positive qualities,” Steve said as he picked up the phone he’d dropped in his desperate grab for Ace. “OK, Barnaby. Enough with the explanations. Unless we’re going to start mourning the Master Chief, I can’t see what good Grief here is going to do.”

  “Well, as Howard was explaining, she’s not really Grief. Saint-Gaudens based most of the sculpture on Kannon, sometimes referred to as the Bodhisattva of compassion, so she’s not really a ‘she,’ either.”

  Steve growled warningly.

  “OK. OK.” The computer’s voice sped up. “Guan Yin has taken on the aspect of the Star, and we need to let her work. Place Master Chief Morningstar right at her feet, seat yourselves on the bench over there, and wait.”

  “How long?” Steve said.

  “Who knows? It’s not as if direct communication with semi- divine beings was part of my original programming. And don’t even think of asking me what’s going to happen–if anything–that’s a null data set.”

  Steve and Hamilton moved Ace so that she lay directly at the statue’s feet. After the younger man had glanced at Old Howard a couple of times–apparently wondering why he wasn’t helping– Steve explained. “He’s a ghost. Dealing with material objects tires him out.”

  Hamilton just nodded as if running into a ghost was a perfectly normal event.

  After they had arranged Ace on her back with her hands crossed over her chest, they all took seats on the marble bench. Hamilton Jones swung his legs up into an easy lotus position, hands on his knees with middle finger and thumb touching, eyes open but unfocused. Old Howard was fidgeting and fading in and out. Steve sat in between them with his hands folded in his lap and a growing ache in his gut.