by CW Lynch
"So, what? You turning state's? Is this you asking for help?"
Garrity laughed, a gurgling throaty laugh like someone drowning in a bucket of bile. "Christ, no. This is me offering help."
"Same difference," said Owen flatly, "If things are going south like you say, turning state is a way out for you."
"You think the Kings ain't got people on the inside?" scoffed Garrity. "Trust me, there's plenty of guys doing time right now that would love to know that they were in the Kings' good graces. Kingsmen live a little differently, even in prison, you know what I'm saying?"
"Kingsmen?" asked Owen. "Is that what they call you thugs?"
Garrity tossed his cigarette away and pulled down the collar of jacket and shirt. On the side of his neck, down past his collar line, Owen could see a small blue tattoo of an inverted crown. "We're a lot more than thugs," he said, and Owen couldn't help but hear a note of pride in his voice, even in this place he was proud of his status and the criminality that went with it. "This ink here? You'll find the same on a lot of people. Important people, you understand me?"
"It's all one conspiracy..." said Owen, recalling what the Magpye had said in the back of his car.
"Now you're getting it," said Garrity, pulling his shirt and jacket straight.
"Still doesn't answer why you're telling me this," said Owen. "All you've done is point me in the direction of a guy that no-one in the country and can pin a thing on to. You think nobody knows about him? Get the internet, Garrity, Cane King is conspiracy theory number one and there are people who look into this stuff."
"Crazy people."
"Federal people," replied Owen flatly. "Your guy isn't as untouchable as he might think. Come in, put what you're telling me on record, and we can take him. I know we can."
Garrity turned around and started to walk away. "You're a fucking idealist White, and it's going to get you killed. You really think that if there was anything like real evidence that it wouldn't have surfaced by now? The whole thing is too massive, too organised, and too damn deep. It goes from the street all the way to the top, the real top."
"So your advice is to quit, is that it?" said Owen angrily. "Or get as dirty as you, just shut up and take the money and don't ask any more awkward questions?"
Garrity stopped. "No," he said quietly, "That's not it. I'm trying to tell you your boy was right. You got yourself a war. You got yourself your first casualty, in case you forgot. You guys shot first, now he's shot back. But I'm here to offer you a shot straight at Cane King himself, if you're ready to take it."
"What do you mean?"
"Word on the street is that you've been hitting King's lieutenants off the books as well as on. Got yourself a little pet psycho who gets off his leash every now and then."
Owen swallowed, caught his breath. If this was real, if Garrity was offering what White thought he might be offering, then it was the shot Magpye had been looking for. There was no way that Garrity would put someone like King in the cross-hairs unless it was legit, unless he really was behind all the things he was rumoured to be behind. Unless, of course, Garrity was wearing a wire and this whole conversation was a set up. There were plenty of people who wanted to see the President's initiative fail, plenty of people who didn't like the new police rolling into town. One wrong word, and White would be on the front of the papers for a completely different reason.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't," mocked Garrity. "Or maybe there ain't no guy at all and it's you putting on a gas mask and knocking over King's places, huh?"
"Like I said, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Pity," said Garrity, a sneer in his voice, "A pet psycho is just what you're going to need if you want to take this shot."
"Who says I want to?"
"Your dead guy here, for one. Look, I know how it is. You guys are supposed to be cleaner than clean, but the fight went and got dirty on you anyway. We're more alike than you might like to think, Owen White. I didn't start out dirty, you know."
"No one does."
"Exactly," said Garrity. Suddenly, he closed the distance between him and Owen. "But it's what happens, isn't it? Nobody cleans up without getting a little dirt on themselves, do they, isn't that what you said? Point is, I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking this is trick, that I'm probably wearing a wire, or recording this on a cellphone, or something. You want to take down King but you want to do it the right way and if you can't... and you and I both know you can't... then the last person you're going to tell about your little "side project" is me."
Owen cocked his head to one side. Garrity had nailed it, that was certain. He'd nailed him. There was a little part of him that admired the dirty cop. He wasn't all bluster and muscle and threats after all. This was a guy who listened and watched and waited and learnt. You swim quietly through the murky waters Garrity, thought Owen.
"So here it is, plain and clear," said Garrity, shoving an envelope into White's hand. "Cane's itinerary, travel arrangements, security, everything for the next seven days. Enough time to mobilise your people, pet psycho or no. Take him out, and put the cops back on top in this town once and for all."
"And take the fall for it, while you walk away clean?" said Owen sarcastically.
"Always plenty of guys in this town due a fall, my friend. Cane hides in plain sight, but so can you. Nobody's going to suspect the whiter-than-white super-cop, and I've got a little list of people who are due a little... payback, shall we say? I'll handle it."
Owen White wondered how many bad deals had started with the Garrity saying "I'll deal with it". He looked down at the envelope. If Cane King was everything that people said, he was due a bullet. No trial, no chance to escape on a technicality or a legal loophole. No crooked judge. No bribed jurors. Just pull the trigger and make it final. Owen had never drawn his weapon other than in self defence, but was pointing the Magpye in the right direction really any different to pulling the trigger himself? You couldn't clean up without getting dirty.
"Handle it," said Garrity firmly, closing Owen's hand around the envelope. "For all of us."
THE BALLAD OF ZIP NOLAN
The river of ghosts did not always rage. Even they, from time to time it seemed, got tired. Sated on blood for now, perhaps, the ghosts left Able Quirk's mind in quiet tranquillity. All except one, that was. Zip Nolan: aerialist, pilot, and human cannonball. Quirk liked Zip. He liked *being* Zip, liked slipping down inside him like freshly laundered bedding and losing himself in the cool, still waters of Zip's memories for a while. Zip was calm. You had to be, he said, to spend your life being fired out of a cannon.
Zip also liked to keep busy, which was something Able was incapable of but Marv told him was "just the thing" for his "situation". Perhaps he thought that Able might find a hobby and it would take his mind off the murder of his family and friends, the razing of his home to the ground. You could never tell with Marv, the master of misdirection never gave anything away that he didn't want to.
The particular thing that kept Zip busy more than anything else was fixing the blimp. She dated back to World War Two, a 180ft long leviathan of rusting metal with a rubbery hide that seemed to breathe in and out even when the great beast was dormant. No one could remember when she had come to the circus, but circus lore said that she used to fly over the city to advertise the circus. She was one of the few things that hadn't been burnt in the fire; her old hull looking mortally decrepit which had probably saved her. She hadn't flown in years. Zip dreamed of getting her air-worthy again though and, in lieu of any dreams of his own, Able was happy to turn control of his body over to Zip whenever he could for him to work on her. There was no shortage of scrap metal and spare materials around now, if you didn't mind the smell of smoke and the occasional blood stain and Zip had repaired and restored nearly every inch of her now, working slowly along the grand old cadaver of the thing. It felt good though, even though the movements weren't Able's own, to fee
l tools in his hands rather than weapons, to feel screws and bolts tighten to his touch, rather than bones break and flesh tear. A lot of others had thought Zip was crazy, to calmly do the things he did, but he wasn't. Zip was meticulous and careful. Nothing was left to chance, everything was taken in account. That was the difference, Zip said, between being a cannonball and a stain.
Not that it had done him any good, in the end. Able had found him burnt to death in his trailer, a crowbar shoved under the door handle to stop him from getting out. Able kept that memory pushed down deep, lest it disturb Zip in his work.
"Able?"
Marissa had walked in behind them. The memory river bubbled, but no new flotsam of thought was brought to the surface. Whoever Marissa had been to Able, she was so no longer.
Able, and Zip, turned as one. Marissa was holding a steaming cup of something that smelt like another one of Marv's stews. Able's stomach flipped involuntarily and he considered telling her why he couldn't eat the food she insisted on bringing him. The sacrifice, of course, would be to lose the one person who still looked at him, at least sometimes, like he was human. Marv didn't, the cops certainly didn't, and when he looked in the mirror himself... well, what he saw there was so far from human he couldn't even describe it. But she, Marissa, she looked at him as if he were a person. Just one person.
"I brought you some soup," she said gently, placing the mug down on the floor. "Keep you warmed up, it's freezing out here."
"Thank you, miss. Going to keep working a little longer yet though. She's not far from ready you know."
It was Zip who spoke. The voice was Able's, but the words were Zip's. Able chuckled, somewhere in the deep vaults of his mind where he kept his sense of humour. Given the chance to speak from beyond the grave, Zip talked about his precious blimp.
"I'm sorry," said Marissa. "I was looking for Able?"
She looked at him... him, not Zip and not Magpye but at him. "Are you there, Able?" she asked again.
How did she know? How could she know? Marv must have told her something, of course, to explain his moods, some of his more erratic behaviour. She knew he was somehow different, of course she did. But that didn't explain how she knew, of all the voices in Able's head, all the voices of The Magpye, which she was speaking to.
Able forced himself to the surface, like a sleeper trying to shake off a dream. Zip graciously stepped aside, slipping down into the murky waters. "She's sweet on you son," he said as he faded. "Just try to be nice."
Marissa smiled and, before Able could say anything, took a step closer. "Ah," she said, "There you are."
"How did you know?" said Able, his voice trailing off the end of the sentence. How the hell was he supposed to ask this question?
"Oh, it's obvious," Marissa replied, "You really don't look like you a lot of the time, Able Quirk."
"I'm... not myself... sometimes?" he answered. The whole conversation was surreal, he imagined what it would mean to tell her the whole truth and now here she was and she seemed to know... everything?
In his pocket, Able felt his phone, the Magpye's phone start to vibrate. He placed his hand on it, willing it to stop. But it was too late. The others had heard it to. The vibration in his pocket was like a dinner bell to a pack of hungry dogs. Owen White was calling. They had work to do. Bloody, awful work no doubt. The kind that the dead loved.
Marissa pulled away. "Like now," she said. There was ice cold fear in her voice, and he almost tripped as she pulled quickly away. "You don't look like you now. Who are you? Who are you right now?"
Able didn't answer. He was gone, submerged under the gestalt mind of the angry dead. It was The Magpye in control now. And The Magpye didn't have an answer.
He dug his phone out of his pocket and answered in a voice that was barely Able's at all.
"Where and when?"
TEA AND NO SYMPATHY
The tea shop was, for the benefit of its very particular clientèle, almost devoid of decoration. The walls were bare brick, thinly white washed, the floors were bare boards. Tables and chairs were whitewashed too, and everyone drank from the same featureless white china cups and saucers. The aesthetics of it didn't matter. Neither, in truth, did the tea despite the fact that the tea shop brewed some of the rarest and finest blends there were. What mattered was that this place, this white on white place, was safe.
Magicians were a dying breed, and they took safety very seriously.
Grace Faraway sat and sipped a pale green tea from a white china cup. She wore a high necked black blouse, black skirt, opaque stockings and black leather heels. Her tattoos bristled at her neck and crept up around her ears, hating being confined and hidden from site. Patterns of any sort were banned however, in the white on white neutrality of the tea shop. A magician could easily hide a hex in even the simplest weave. Through a sheer act of will Grace restrained the wild living ink and forced it down away from her face, feeling it writhe beneath her skin. Marv was late, which she was sure was intentional.
She didn't need to meet him. She kept telling herself that. The trap was set, baited, and ready to snap its jaws on the creature that plagued her precious Cane King. The plan was good. Good, except for the fact that Grace Faraway had no idea what, or who, it was she was trying to trap. Magicians took safety very seriously, and safety took planning. Safety required knowledge. No, she didn't need to meet him...
"Good afternoon, Grace," said Marv, sliding into the seat opposite her. He was dressed in white, an old type magician's stage outfit. Ever the purist, ever the king of making an entrance. "I see you've dressed for the occasion."
"Marv," said Grace icily. "Still clinging to the past."
"Says the four hundred year old whore."
Grace's cup clattered onto her saucer. "It's impolite to mention a girl's age."
Marv smirked. "You're no girl, Grace. You never were."
"But I can be a woman," replied the witch, seduction in her voice. She slid her hand across the table, her fingers crawling up onto Marv's hand. "You used to like that."
"That was a long time ago," said Marv, snatching his hand back. "What we were is dead and buried."
"If I believed that, you'd be dead too," she replied. She feigned a wounded note in her voice and dipped her head, hiding her face from Marv behind her cup as she took another sip of her tea.
Marv sighed. He didn't fall for the act, not for a moment, but there was truth to the words nevertheless. Grace had saved his life, and that meant something. No magician wanted to be indebted to another, and Marv was in deep with Grace.
"And I'm supposed to be grateful?" shouted Marv. "You told me they were after me! I left Marissa with the circus to keep her safe, but all I did was put her in the firing line."
"I saved her too, didn't I?" said Grace indignantly.
"You know that. But don't pretend that you didn't get what you wanted."
"Did I? You were supposed to stay gone," Grace replied. "Never come back, those were my exact words."
"I didn't choose this, honestly. I was supposed to be in town for a night, two at most. Here and then gone again, and no one would ever know."
"So what happened?"
Marv took a breath. Magicians were, partly by trade but mostly by necessity, masters of subterfuge. Lying to a magician was hard, even for another magician. "I saw the circus," he replied, sticking to the fringes of the truth to support his deception, "And I realised that I should never have run. I'd been a coward, and my friends had paid the price. If I'd have been there, I could have stopped them."
"Could you?" asked Grace. "You're an escape artist, sweetheart, not a fighter. Not being there is what you do best."
"Well, I'm here now."
"That you are," replied Grace, "And I must admit I'm surprised. I'd heard you'd burnt out, lost your gift. But here you are, as you say, and trouble seems to have followed you home."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Marv, cursing whoever it was who was feeding Grace her information. It wa
s true, Marv hadn't had the power to move a card out of a deck since the night he'd turned his back and run out on the circus. "I've got some... ghosts to put to rest, that's all. Some unfinished business."
"Unfinished business with Cane King, you mean."
"No," said Marv with a chuckle, "I'm not stupid, Grace. I came close enough to run in with the Kings last time I was here, I'm not going back down that road."
"Do you think I'm a fool?" snapped Grace. "You've been hitting King's operation. Your fingerprints are all over it. Impossible break-ins, impossible escapes. The violence... that's new, but you always did like things a little rough, I suppose."
"You're wrong, Grace. Dead wrong," said Marv. He felt a trickle of cold sweat run down his back. If he told her the truth, that he didn't have enough magic in him now to take on King even if he wanted to, he'd be exonerated and it would maybe even take Able out of the frame for a little while. The problem was, you didn't admit to not being a magician anymore in a room full of magicians. The only thing keeping the peace in this room was that there was nobody without power to take anything, especially revenge, on any of the others without consequences. And there was a lot of revenge to go around. Magicians lived a long time, and picked up plenty of grudges along the way.
"For your sake, I hope so." said the witch. "Because Cane King is going after whoever it is that's been hunting him, and things are going to end very badly for whoever it is, and for anyone they're connected with."
"If whoever it is has got you rattled," said Marv, "Perhaps Cane King is the one who needs the warning."
"I've put a lot of time and energy into that family," hissed Grace. "I've watched generations come and go, honing them, forging them. It's not just Cane they'll be up against, it's me too."
"Then it's my turn to tell you to run," said Marv. "Because it isn't me you're up against, but I do know who it is. I'm not sure what it is, but I do know who. I thought I'd seen things, Grace, I thought I knew how the world really worked. What I've seen him do? It's beyond anything either of us ever even attempted."