by Andy Hyland
“Be careful. You’re being hunted.”
“Trust me, the people I’m going to call would never dream of talking to the Host.”
I left him to it and started wandering round, opening some boxes at random. There seemed to be a clear order to things - raw materials were over on the left, and currently I was inspecting the prized exhibits in the ready-for-sale section. There were seven whole boxes of whizz-bangs, and next to these a single, small box labelled ‘W.B. - upgraded.’ I’d probably keep these for strictly personal use.
Eric wandered over, lips moving silently before he even reached me, like he was practicing the words. Wouldn’t look me in the eye. “The c-computer system,” he said. “Password protected. Any ideas?”
I thought about it but came up with a blank. “Never saw her use anything other than a phone,” I told him. “She was probably pretty hot on anything that protected this place, so you might have trouble there.”
“No, I don’t think so,” he answered, and walked away again. Odd chap. I could get to like him. Hopefully he wouldn’t die a violent and traumatic death before that happened.
Liberty waved me over. Arabella and Julie joined us in the corner. “Right,” he said when we’d gathered, “there’s something going down. Invitations have apparently gone out. Strictly one representative from each family. A Great Gathering, or so it’s called. They’re going for a consensus vote on unified action.”
“They have those?” asked Arabella.
“All that and more,” I told her. “Trust me, I’ve seen the paperwork.”
“So that’s when they’ll present this confession, get everyone seeing things their way, and put plans in place,” said Julie. “Is it anywhere we can get into?”
“Anyone we can blow up?” said Arabella hopefully.
Liberty frowned at her, then shrugged and looked at me. “We know it’s happening. We don’t know where. They are playing their cards really close to their chest on this one. I can carry on looking, sure, but after your latest stunt with Patrick we haven’t got much time. It’s at six this evening - moved up from tomorrow at noon.”
“That’s something,” I told him. “Darkness works to our advantage in all sorts of ways. We could follow a few people, but by that time security will be way too high and we’ll never get in. We need to know now.”
“So? We grab someone and torture them,” said Arabella.
“Tempting, but no,” said Liberty. “Anyone disappears, anyone gets hurt, the word will spread, alarm bells will sound, and they’ll switch things around or rearrange it altogether. They’re big on detail and they pay attention to small things. We can’t get round them that way. Frankly, I’m stumped.”
“Well it’s good I know a few people,” said Zack, pocketing his phone as he walked over. “A guy I know, he knows another guy, who supplies…certain…things to this Mage-born kid.”
I didn’t ask and I didn’t want to know. Zack had slightly confused but very clear moral principles that he held by. He’d happily sell an assortment of illegal weaponry and any dangerous magical artifacts that he could get his hands on and import, but he didn’t do drugs. Got really sharp about it whenever I asked him. But not all the Aware took this stance, people had bills to pay, and money was money. The Aware lived and worked the streets, and anyone who did that, and survived for long enough, found out how to get their hands on anything you care to mention.
Seeing that nobody was going to dig deeper about this, Zack continued. “The kid’s pissed because he’s finished college and wants to move up in his family pecking order. But his old man’s decided the head of the family will attend. Junior’s got his back up and will happily rant to anyone listening.”
“And the result of all this is?” Liberty asked.
“Limerick City Hotel, Upper West Side.”
“Clover hotel this morning. Limerick this evening. I spot a pattern,” I said. “Never had an Irishman try to kill me before, and now it looks like there’s a strong connection going on somewhere.”
Liberty nodded. “I’ll find out for you. In the meantime, my work here is done. Eric can stay - just point him to some food and drink. He’ll probably forget if the work’s interesting enough, but we should make the effort.”
“We need to move as well,” said Zack. “Check this hotel out. Get in early before they start ramping things up for tonight. Let’s head.”
“Malachi, if I could have a moment?” Liberty said as we headed to the door. I nodded to Julie and the others continued out. I looked back at Eric.
“Oh, he won’t hear us,” said Liberty. “People don’t interest him. He has a straightforward and happy life.”
“So what’s up?”
He pulled a small rectangular package from his coat. “I got a strange call a couple of months ago. Our dearly departed friend Kushiel. Asked me to meet him in the Library among the stacks, at a strange hour. Place was more or less deserted. Anyway, he gave me this, told me it was to be passed to ‘my messenger’ and to be careful. I pondered about it, then things came up, as they do, and it got put to one side. Lately it’s been on my mind, and then I bumped into you again. I should have seen it sooner of course. Malachi.”
“Hebrew for ‘my messenger.’ But I’m not Kushiel’s messenger. Not his anything. I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”
“Kushiel gave it to me, but he wasn’t pulling the strings. This came from further up. I think we both know who from.”
“And he couldn’t give it to me directly. What is it?”
“I didn’t look. I was told to pass it on and stress its importance. Nothing more.”
“You weren’t curious?”
Liberty smiled. “Did you know I’m more than twelve years older than the average age of a Union employee? I didn’t get this far by sticking my nose into things that don’t directly concern me. This has come from you-know-who, via Kushiel, and it’s going straight to you. With that sort of chain, I figure I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“Wise man,” I said, taking the package. Firm, heavy. “It’ll have to wait. No point digging into it if I end up dying tomorrow anyway. Thanks.”
“You’d better find out what it is and why you’ve got it before you go around thanking me. I doubt it’ll bring any joy to you. Stay safe and check in. We’ll speak later, if you make it that far.”
One quick stop-off before we got to our destination. It was a risk, but could well pay off later. Fortunately, the sky was dark and the rain was now starting to come down hard. And there I stood, on top of a building two blocks north of Julie’s, on the east side of Central Park, swinging a dead pigeon round my head on a length of rope. I felt a complete pillock, and Zack insisted on taking pictures, but it got the job done. So there.
The Limerick City Hotel was altogether more impressive than the Clover. Instead of the discreet and tree-lined entrance of that other hotel over on the Upper East Side, the Limerick was grand and august, all Roman columns and high arches. Uniformed footmen stood stiffly by the doors, and from the cut of their overcoats I’d guess they were armed. This was where it would all happen - the grand parade of the arriving delegates from the Mage-born families. The grandstanding and the polite establishing of the social pecking order. That would all be happening about four hours from now, and a big part of me was extremely glad that I was unlikely to ever be a part of this set-up ever again.
Our plan was highly organized as regards the initial stages, but degenerated slightly the further things progressed. In my mind, that’s as it should be. Leaves more room for imagination and improvisation. The last thing you want is for people to be blinkered by what they expect to happen.
There was never going to be a way in through the front doors. Not only would you have the house security, which was inevitably going to be of a high level, but you’d also have very suspicious and paranoid guests scoping everything out. Along with their drivers, probably. Besides, the back door was always more fun. All the best people go in that way
.
Getting in was remarkably straightforward. A couple of hours to get the plans and equipment in place, a reasonable amount of money changing hands, and we were set up and ready to go. Our entry plan depended on the eternal truth that nobody further up the ladder really, truly gives a shit about the manual workers. The Limerick security team thought they were being clever and efficient, but everything they did was undermined by the fact that they did not look at people’s faces, or make any effort to get to know or help the large catering team that was brought in for the event.
The hotel had its own team of course, but that was designed for a regular dinner service and other routine happenings. For larger occasions, any hotel worth its salt went to EMK Banqueting, a highly efficient and utterly reliable and secure firm run by the incorruptible Ed Kenner, a respected city chef who’d closed down his own kitchen years ago and made a fortune by freelancing his team and expertise to the highest bidders. If there was any state function or society wedding going down in Manhattan, or, in extreme cases, up to ten miles away, then you’d find a person of influence throwing money at Ed and begging him to make himself available.
There was good reason for trusting Ed - he truly was a fine and upright citizen, offering his clients the finest food and wine, impeccable service and unquestionable loyalty. You could try to corrupt him, and over the years many, many people had tried, but you wouldn’t be able to do it. He had all he’d ever desired and more, and since he was still a chef at heart all he really wanted these days was to delight hosts and guests with a dazzling assault on their palate.
But like all people, Ed had a weakness, and that weakness was family. Family in this case being Marcus Kenner, his younger brother by five years. While Ed was working his way up from washing dishes, getting screamed at by a sub-par diva who relied more on rep than product, Marcus was frequenting arcades and stacking up the dollars selling weed. Things escalated and then crashed, resulting in him spending five long years in less than pleasant surroundings. He got out, his family came down hard, and things improved, give or take the occasional relapse. As soon as Ed went solo he handed his little brother a cushy job, and lo and behold it turned out that Marcus had some business sense after all. This suited Ed just fine, and he passed over the operational reins a little too quickly. So people in the know, when they needed something underhanded and EMK Banqueting was involved, knew enough to circumvent Ed and go straight to Marcus.
Marcus had his own team within EMK, who had characters far less white and spotless than their uniforms, and arranged everything for us sharpish. The Limerick had a secure loading section at the rear of the hotel, and Ed’s trucks drove in and parked while the hotel security locked the gates behind them. The staff were escorted from the trucks, lined up and counted. Notes were made, and unloading could begin.
It was so, so simple. Eight of the team of thirty-seven were on Marcus’ secret payroll. They carried the food and wine inside, then four stripped off and dumped their uniforms. Three then carried those uniforms out in the now-empty containers while the non-uniformed four holed up in a cupboard. The remaining member kicked off, making unreasonable demands about the meat storage, drawing the head of security and Ed’s trusted manager into the kitchens. Two guards left outside, and they were less than bothered about anything going on around them.
We crawled out from under a fake floor in the second van, put on the spare uniforms, grabbed some boxes and carried on unloading, keeping our heads down and mouths shut. Once inside, the trick was reversed and we handed the uniforms back to the guys they came from. That left us, now dressed in smart pants, shirts and ties (hotel colors, naturally), wandering round freely with security cards cloned from the two genuine ones that Marcus supplied. The whole thing took under five minutes. As far as I’m concerned, the blame for the whole thing lies with the security team. They didn’t check thoroughly, got distracted far too easily, and saw everyone in a white EMK uniform as a faceless drone. Shame on them. You wouldn’t get shit like that happening if I was in charge.
From the daily schedule, pinned to cork-boards in every behind-the-scenes part of the hotel, we identified a small conference room that was out of the way and not booked for anything all day. Then we grabbed enough food and bottles of water to keep us going and put our thinking caps on.
The longer the day went on, the more the chances of us getting caught increased. The key players should be on site already - Patrick Everheart, his mage thugs-in-suits, and probably some of the council members. And if Patrick was here, the evidence, the confession he was speaking of, should be as well. We had to find it, and either steal or destroy it.
“But what is it?” asked Arabella. “And even if we destroyed it, why wouldn’t Patrick just use a copy. He’s bound to have copies.”
“Malachi has a theory,” Zack told her. “He ran over it while you were getting the security cards cloned.”
“There’s a chance he could be right,” added Julie.
“And thanks for the votes of confidence there. Look,” I said to Arabella. “He wants to start a war. That’s what it amounts to. That’s going to take some pretty serious evidence. He’s asking them to get active, and get their hands dirty. They won’t do that without some strong levels of persuasion. Also, if the evidence could be copied, I reckon he’d have distributed it by now, and with Liberty’s ears being everywhere, not to mention Zack’s friends of friends, we’d have heard something, even if we didn’t get the details. So if he’s presenting a confession…”
“Then it’s a live confession,” said Arabella catching on. “The kind that can be questioned and interrogated.”
I nodded. “It’s not something they’ve got. It’s someone.”
“But it’s a false confession, right?” she continued. “If they interrogate with a charm or potion, or some kind of veritas chain, the truth will come out. Which is that they couldn’t possibly hold us responsible for Max’s death. This makes no sense. Do we know who they’ve got?”
“I’ve asked around, but trying to find out who’s gone missing is mission impossible,” said Zack. “At any given time half the Aware have dropped off the grid. That’s if their guy is even one of us. Could be one of them.”
“Needle in a haystack,” Julie muttered.
“Patrick’s the key,” I said. “We find him, follow him, keep our eyes open.”
“This plan of yours. Not what I’d call high in detail,” said Arabella.
“Look, we’re in,” I said. “That was the hard part. Kind of. And we can move around freely, within reason.”
“And we’re so cleverly disguised there’s no possible way anyone can spot us,” said Zack, not without some bitterness in his voice.
Cleverly disguised was indeed a slight overstatement. One of Zack’s old girlfriends (a brunette, which was unusual for him) worked in the make-up department of a TV unit that filmed adverts around New York. She’d grumbled and cursed, and I hate to think what kind of promises Zack had made, but eventually she came through for us. The girls were in wigs, and cunningly-applied makeup had somehow altered the shape of their faces. I was sporting a slick new side parting in my hair and a neatly clipped fake goatee. Zack had suffered the most for his art. Not only was his gray hair now dyed dark brown, but he was clean-shaven for the first time in a decade. Possibly longer. We wouldn’t stand up to careful inspection, but nobody was going to identify us from a quick glance, or by catching us out of the corner of their eye.
“Well, if we’re going to do this,” I said, taking a last swig of water, “let’s do it. Eyes and ears open, people. And if you’re in a position where you have to kill to stop the confession, then do what you have to do. Take the shot.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I’d thrown everything around in my head during the time we spent hiding in the catering van, and decided that we should split up. The Host hadn’t picked up on Zack and Arabella when we got (slightly) separated during our adventures at the Clover hotel in the morning, so cle
arly the field produced by Julie’s brooch wasn’t limited to just a few steps, and could provide at least some protection over a fair distance. Alternatively, they just weren’t looking for us Earth-side yet. Anyway, the real danger to us at the Limerick wasn’t going to come from the Host - not with so many influential members of the Mage-born already considering us public enemies number one, two, three and four. Still, to be safe, we’d all stick to the same part of the hotel and move between areas systematically. If any of us felt the creeping tendrils of someone carrying out an intensive arcane sensing, then we could crack one of our precious Silvian knots, just in case.
The four of us wandering together as a group without a really good reason for doing so would attract far too much attention. Two staff members running errands as a pair, however - that was much more credible. I explained, everyone complained, I told them to stow it, and Julie glared at me. Then we got on with it. I’d settled on boys and girls sticking together. Julie was as capable as they come, and Arabella was more than able to lend some serious magic to the equation if the situation arose.
We began with the girls heading off to check out the catering arrangements in detail while Zack and I grabbed a coffee in the staff canteen. In my experience few people gossip as hard and fast as service personnel taking a well-earned break from the front line. Long may it continue.
For the first ten minutes we had the place to ourselves. Not a bad thing. I made the coffee while Zack kept on apologizing for shutting me out so much over the last few months.
“Forget about it,” I insisted. “It’s done, there was nothing to forgive, and we’re all a bit wiser from the experience. At least I am.”
That didn’t shut him up. The only thing that stopped him was the hurried entrance of two waitresses, halfway through a conversation even as they burst through the door. One tall blonde with a disconcertingly pointed nose, and a shorter redhead. Zack flashed the redhead a smile, because he never can resist them. She gave him the once over and looked away, at which he seemed genuinely hurt. I think he’d forgotten about the hair dye. The silver fox was no longer prowling. Mind you, neither of them so much as glanced at me, so I’m in no position to point fingers and laugh.