“How so?” a woman asked.
“When Lich was forced from the Refuge earlier tonight, he took Everson’s staff with him,” Connell said. “I believe that was intentional. The staff’s magic acts as a beacon. He’s taken the staff to where he’s building his portal to Dhuul, a parallel realm, not unlike the Refuge.”
“I’ve been there,” I blurted out. “Lich transported me there earlier tonight, or at least my astral form. He was preparing to claim my soul.” For the benefit of the other magic-users, I described what I had seen.
Connell nodded gravely. “It is Lich’s home. It’s where he’s most potent. And he plans to lure us there to destroy us and complete his work. Perhaps it is his way of getting the last laugh—using the souls of those who resisted him to finish the portal to his master.”
I considered how the power possessed by those in this room would be greater than the remaining magic-users in the world. It wasn’t a stretch to think their souls could accomplish Lich’s objective the instant he claimed them.
“So what do we do?” a young-looking man to my right asked.
“What we must,” Connell said. “We fight him there.”
My body broke out in a sweat as I recalled the nightmare realm. The creatures going up and down the stairway that spiraled into the pit had seemed endless. And the whispers… If we didn’t fall to Lich or the creatures, we’d be seduced by Dhuul’s magic.
“He’s confident,” Connell went on. “Perhaps overconfident. Not only does the staff enable us to track him, he has lowered the defenses to his realm, where he likely keeps his glass pendant. Nothing prevents our passage. This is the first time he’s given us this kind of access. It’s a trap, yes. But we must use that to our advantage somehow. With time running out, we have no other choice.”
I watched Connell as he spoke, the way his hands clasped behind his low back, the fingers of his right hand hooking his left thumb. The same gesture had bothered me days earlier because it was how I clasped my own hands when I lectured.
“But we’ve still no weapon,” an older man said.
Weapon? I thought.
Connell turned to James and me. “Though it may sound like a contradiction, Dhuul requires an organizing force to reduce our world to chaos. Someone to build the portal, harvest the souls, execute certain rites and magic. Lich is the key to Dhuul’s designs, even in these last stages.”
I nodded, understanding he was filling us in on something the others already knew.
“In Lich’s hunger for supremacy, he made a deal with Dhuul and became an undead being. The power that sustains him lives inside a pendant protected by a rare and indestructible enchantment. Your grandfather divined as much. But through his research, he also discovered that the Elders designed a weapon to pierce any magic, no matter how powerful. The Banebrand. It was a fail-safe so that a single magic-user couldn’t become invincible. Your grandfather believed Lich stole the Banebrand and then lost it, which was part of the weapon’s magic: to not end up in the hands of the one wielding the abusive power.”
“That’s why my grandfather was collecting magical artifacts during the war,” I said, remembering what the vampire Arnaud had told me. He claimed that Grandpa had used the Brasov Pact to steal from his fellow magic-users. “He wasn’t stealing. He was searching for the Banebrand.”
“Yes, during the war and for long after,” Connell said. “That was why, while we used Elder magic from here to push back against Lich’s efforts, your grandfather remained in the world. He devoted his life to finding the artifact that would destroy Lich’s glass pendant and deny Dhuul access to the world.”
I thought about the business trips Grandpa would frequently take, allegedly for purposes of insurance.
“I assume he never found it?” I said.
“That’s what we’d like to ask you,” Connell replied.
“Me?”
“There was no description of the Banebrand in the archives,” Arianna said. “Only what it was designed to do. Your grandfather was able to detect and retrieve many artifacts over the centuries, but discovering their true purposes was another challenge. He spent his final years going over and over what he’d amassed. But after Lich sealed us in the Refuge, we lost contact with your grandfather. Though he had taken possession of a familiar, our contact to that creature’s realm became hazy and indistinct. Not like the line we later established to Tabitha.”
I thought about the chilling voice I’d heard in Grandpa’s trunk the time I’d snuck into his study.
“Did he ever say anything to you?” Connell asked.
“Say anything?” I let out an involuntary laugh. “I can probably count the number of actual conversations we had on two hands, and they had nothing to do with magic or magical artifacts.” Looking back, I got the impression he’d wanted to steer me as far from the subject of magic as possible. Probably to keep me off Lich’s radar. “And then he died unexpectedly,” I finished.
Something flickered in Connell’s eyes.
I stiffened. “Wait, it was unexpected, right?”
“We believe it was premeditated,” Connell said.
A chill crawled down my spine. “You mean someone killed him too?” How hard would it have been to manifest a bee in the face of an oncoming driver at the moment Grandpa stepped into the street? Not hard at all. It was something even a junior magic-user could have managed.
“We believe your grandfather killed himself.”
“What? Why?”
“Probably because Lich was closing in,” Arianna said. “For centuries your grandfather’s advantage was Lich’s single-minded obsession with bringing Dhuul into the world and growing his own power. When your grandfather convinced him he could no longer contribute to the Order, Lich’s interest in him faded. It was how your grandfather was able to work unnoticed for so long. It was also how he kept your mother’s presence a secret. He waited until she was much older to train her to control her magic, just as he had planned to do with you. Eve was the one who insisted on acting as the courier between our realms so your grandfather could concentrate on locating the artifact. Not long after, and unbeknownst to us, Lich deduced the source of the magic that was frustrating his efforts to open the portal. He waited for the next passage into the Refuge, when the membrane would be weakest. That happened to be your mother’s. He entered behind her, killing her and several magic-users before we were able to destroy his form. Once reconstituted, Lich set his power obsession aside long enough to look around. He discovered someone had been gathering magical artifacts in secret.”
“And Lich started searching for him,” I said, remembering the visitor Arnaud had spoken of, the man who had come asking about artifacts stolen during the war against the Inquisition.
“Your grandfather persisted in his work for as long as he could,” Connell said, “but when Lich got too close… You see, Lich would have performed a mind flaying, something your grandfather couldn’t have resisted. Any and all information would have passed to Lich. That your grandfather ended his life before that could happen suggests he was protecting something.”
“Maybe just me,” I offered.
“Maybe,” Connell agreed. “But he might also have found the artifact and begun his search for Lich’s glass pendant. Did he say anything to you, anything at all. Think hard now.”
“No,” I replied, “but I do know where he was storing the artifacts.” I told them what Arnaud had shared about Grandpa making periodic visits to Port Gurney and about the basement-level vault in the bar.
Connell nodded. “He moved the artifacts several times during his time in New York. After Lich sealed us in, your grandfather tried to tell us of a new location through his familiar, but as Arianna said, the connection was poor. And the communication only operated in one direction, so we had no way to tell him we never received the information. Very good, Everson.”
“Well, before we get ahead of ourselves, Arnaud’s blood slaves broke into the vault and cleaned it out. Arnaud h
ad a few magical items in his armory, but I turned those all over to Chicory.” Which probably explained Lich’s present confidence, I thought, wanting to kick myself.
“It’s worth investigating, anyway,” Connell said.
“But … can’t you just manifest this Banebrand weapon?” I asked. “You know, think it into being.”
“We can manifest objects,” Arianna explained, “but we must supply the magic. And the kind of magic of which we’re speaking came about through a collective effort by the Elders. It is beyond us.”
I glanced around the table of magic-users. Expecting to be met by the stern, judgmental faces I had long associated with the Order—I had destroyed the Elder book and allowed Lich into their realm twice, after all—I was surprised to find expressions of acceptance.
You’re one of us, they seemed to be saying. Our struggle is mutual.
My gaze returned to Arianna and Connell. “If there’s a way to keep my return to the world from allowing Lich back in,” I said, “I’ll go to the vault and see what I can find. There were some items at the safe house, too. I can bring everything back here for you to examine.”
Arianna looked at Connell, who nodded. “Lich is waiting for us at the pit to Dhuul,” he said. “The passage back should be safe, but you’ll still need to be careful. The world is fast disintegrating.”
James stood and adjusted his hat. “Then what are we waiting for?”
“You’re in?” I asked in surprise.
“Hey, this is exactly the kind of gig I signed up for.”
I nodded, grateful for the company. When I turned back to Connell, something like pride shone in his eyes. “Excellent,” he said. “Before you depart, would you mind if I used your memory of Lich’s realm for a rendering?”
“A rendering?”
As Connell walked around the table, the water began to shift as though trying to assume shape. And then I understood. Connell wanted to create a likeness of the realm for their planning.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, of course,” I said.
I started to stand, but he gestured for me to remain sitting and placed a hand over my brow. His palm was warm with magic. I helped him by remembering the experience, the nightmare pit, the hills of fungal grown, the building opposite me. He extracted the information gently, his other hand extending toward the pool, where a three-dimensional likeness was beginning to take shape.
You know, he said in my thoughts.
Marlow, right? I answered.
That is my birth name, yes. I assumed the name Connell upon coming to the Refuge. I didn’t want to deceive you, but neither could I tell you in those first days. It would have been too much.
Probably a good thing, I agreed.
We’ll talk upon your return, he said, his voice gentle in my thoughts.
I thought about Arianna’s carefully crafted words before my first departure from the Refuge. I’m sure you’ve been wondering about your father, she’d said. He visited your bedside while you slept. He is anxious to meet you and for you to meet him, but only when that is what you desire.
Meet one another as father and son, she’d meant. Well played.
By the time Marlow removed his hand from my brow, the scene in the pool was fully rendered, the pit plunging deep into the water. While the other magic-users leaned toward it, I grasped my father’s retreating hand, a lump growing in my throat. It was all I could do to keep from bawling.
Without realizing I was going to, I said, “I missed you.”
He gave my hand a firm squeeze.
“I missed you, too, Everson.”
23
James and I arrived back in the basement we had fled only hours before. A miasma of death and magic clung to the darkness: the remnants of Lich’s presence. James beat me to a light invocation.
“Illuminare.”
Silver light swelled from his wand and reflected from the sunglasses he’d slipped on. I reached out with my wizard’s senses, scanning the basement and house. “I’m not picking up anything,” I said, “but he’s cloaked his magic before. Every inch of this place could be booby trapped.”
I cast through a wand Marlow had given me as a replacement for my staff and watched the light it emitted harden into a protective shield. From inside his own shield, James shook his head in disbelief.
“Goddamned Chicory,” he muttered.
“Yeah, I’m still getting used to the idea too.”
I held out my sword as we made our way across the littered basement. I was especially wary of the mounds from which Lich-as-Chicory had summoned elementals during my training, ready for them to lumber to life again. James loped past them, apparently unconcerned.
“Hey, mind slowing it down,” I whispered.
“Place is clean.”
“How do you know?”
“Cause it’s not his play.”
“What do you mean, ‘not his play’?”
James trotted up the stairs, his boots clunking loudly on the wooden steps. “You were at the meeting. Lich wins either way, he’s just aiming to win big. He knows we’ve got no choice but to go to him. That’s his play. What we do up here doesn’t mean crap to the man.”
“It will if we find the weapon.”
James turned enough to make a skeptical face. “Really think that’s gonna happen, chief?”
Hot anger flushed over my own face, but I didn’t say anything. James was only voicing the obvious. Lich was acting too damned confident for there to be a weapon out there that could kill him. Meaning he had either destroyed the weapon or made it impossible to find. But what if Grandpa’s suicide had been more than about protecting me? What if he had wanted to hide something?
“Where to?” James asked.
We’d arrived in the main hallway, and I stood in our shifting lights for a moment. The safe house felt anything but. “There’s a trunk in the attic where he stashed some wands and weapons. I can take care of those if you wouldn’t mind searching the other rooms again.”
James nodded and headed off while I climbed the stairs. I readied my sword upon entering the attic, but nothing jumped out at me. My locking spell still held the trunk closed. I dispelled it and lifted the creaking lid. The items remained where and—as far as I could tell—how I had left them. From one of my coat pockets, I drew out an enchanted sack Marlow had given me. One by one, I set the items inside, including the maces I’d used in the battle against the werewolves. If they carried any magic, even the Whisperer variety, the bag would suppress it until the items could be examined in the Refuge.
“Yo, Everson!” James called. “You might want to take a look at this.”
I hurried downstairs and turned down the hallway to find the front door open. James was standing outside, arms leaning on the railing of the small front porch. Beyond him, in the direction of New York City, the sky was an evil-looking brown and orange. The fires that had sprung up in pockets around the city were spreading, just like the influence of the Whisperer.
We were running out of time.
“Did you find anything?” I asked him.
“Nothing interesting,” he said in a way that made me wonder how thoroughly he’d searched. “Guess it’s on to … where, exactly?”
“Port Gurney,” I muttered. “Other side of the city.”
James spun a set of keys around his finger. “Good thing I brought my ride, then.”
James’s ride was a black Trans-Am parked curbside, the firebird emblem spreading its golden wings across the hood. The inside smelled of oil. James barely waited for me to buckle in before gunning the engine and performing a squalling U. Though the car slewed sideways, I sensed he was in control. He threw it into second as the car straightened.
“Port Gurney,” he said, tapping a finger against the steering wheel as though consulting a mental map. “North central Long Island? We could take the interstate up through the Bronx, avoid the city.”
“Yeah, except that the rioting and fires started in the Bronx. There’s no telling wh
at kind of shape the interstate’s in now.” I imagined lanes clogged with piles of burning vehicles and debris. “I think our best bet is to take the Lincoln Tunnel and go straight across to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, hope the chaos hasn’t reached the center of the city yet.”
James chuckled. “Rolling the dice. I like it.”
The car engine rose an octave as he shifted again. Houses blurred past on the empty streets. People had either evacuated the area or locked themselves inside for the night. Before long, we were dropping into the Lincoln Tunnel and then cresting again, emerging into Midtown. Black smoke billowed past the Firebird’s headlights, and I could hear sirens in the distance.
I was in the middle of wondering how Vega was faring when she paged me.
“Hey, would you mind pulling over up there,” I said, pointing out a payphone. “It’s Detective Vega. Probably wants an update, but she can also advise us on the best route through the city.”
“Vega?” James said, easing up to the curb. “You mean that Puerto Rican mamma? Talk about a hot ticket.” He grinned at me in a way that made me wonder whether Vega’s eye roll from earlier had meant more than just James being an arrogant ass. Had he tried to hit on her?
“Hey, let’s keep it professional,” I said, a knot twisting in my gut.
He showed his hands. “I just call ’em like I see ’em.”
“Well, she’s a friend, all right? A … good friend.”
His grin broadened. “How good?”
“Just…” I felt my face warming over. “Just drop it.” Flustered, I got out of the car. Breathing through my shirt collar to filter the acrid smoke, I made my way to the payphone, pushed in two quarters, and punched Vega’s number as a pair of helicopters batted past.
“It’s Everson,” I said when she answered.
“What do you have?”
“The perp is Chicory,” I said. “Not Marlow. Not my father.”
The relief at being able to say that washed through me like a strong surf. I was still adjusting to the idea that Marlow—a good and powerful wizard—was my father. If only the timing had been better.
Death Mage (Prof Croft Book 4) Page 17