by Andy Hyland
“I’m whacked. Too much too soon. Might go and lie down while someone tries to get to the bottom of this.”
“Good idea,” said Julie, taking my hand. “I’ll join you.”
The only cot free upstairs was the one that Ollie had been in. That was nothing to me. Death is just death, and wherever Ollie was now, he certainly wasn’t still hanging around here. I scrunched over near the wall and Julie had just enough room to wiggle in. My eyes closed, and everything went comfortably numb.
Julie was gone when I woke up. Long gone, by the cold feel of her side of the cot. I staggered up and one of the walking wounded was kind enough to pass me some water. Asking about coffee just got me some bemused looks, so I took it supplies were low on certain fronts.
A hefty bald mage had been posted as sentry at the top of the stairs, but he cracked a smile as he saw me and insisted on a fist bump as I passed. “It’s going better out there,” he said, nodding vaguely towards the big wide world outside the door. “Just knowing you’re here with us. Makes a difference. Really does.” I just grunted and headed down.
The space around the central table was taken up by Eric, Zack, Liberty and a woman in her mid-forties with steel grey hair and a slightly hooked nose that I didn’t remember seeing before. She looked up as I entered. “Mr English, I presume. I was wondering when you’d finally show up.”
“How long was I out?”
“A day,” said Zack. “Thought it best to let you sleep. We weren’t getting anywhere for a while.”
“This is Cadence,” said Liberty, introducing the new arrival. “We don’t exactly have a magical creatures department, because, well…we don’t see any. Harpies are just a variety of hellkind, gargoyles are constructs, and everything else just ends up being a twisted mutation, either deliberate or accidental.”
“Can’t believe you’re telling me there are no freaking unicorns,” muttered Arabella, who was sat on the floor over to the side, huddled over something I couldn’t see, and looking quite dejected.
“No unicorns,” said Cadence, with the wearied tone of someone who’s had that particular conversation more than once lately.
“But we can’t say that for certain, can we?” Arabella persisted. “Not for absolute certain.”
Cadence closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “No,” she said quietly. “Not for absolute certain.” She shuddered as Arabella let out a delighted little squeal. “Can we please get on with this?”
“What have you got?” I asked walking up to the table. “Wow.” Only six of the eggs were still intact. The rest lay in pieces around the table. There was no evidence of a yolk, or embryo, or anything else you’d find within an egg. “That’s our stash of whatever they are pretty much gone. Please tell me it was worth it.”
“I hope so,” said Cadence, and tenderly lifted one more egg out of the tray, leaving just five. “We’re running on guesswork here, because human subjects are not available.”
“I said I could get you one,” Zack muttered.
Liberty looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “I assumed you would not be in favor of that particular course of action. Prisoners of war, the Geneva convention, that kind of thing.”
“Doesn’t apply,” said Zack.
“We’re not doing it.” Everyone stared at me for a long second, but I’d closed the argument.
“So it’s guesswork, then,” Cadence nodded. “We’ll use the guinea pig.”
“Sorry, pal,” said Arabella and stood up. She gave the guinea pig she was holding a little kiss on the snout, and put it on the table, where Liberty took it in a firm grip, stopping it scampering off.
“It hasn’t got a name,” said Arabella. “The first five did, but then it got too painful for me.”
“If you please,” said Cadence, holding the egg out to Zack in the palm of her hand. Zack reached out and touched it lightly with the tip of a finger. A spark of magical energy passed across the shell, rendering it, for a moment, translucent. Something squirmed and twisted inside.
“It takes a few seconds,” said Liberty. We stood still, barely breathing, as the egg pulsed and moved. Then a hairline fracture ran from top to bottom.
“Now,” said Cadence, and Zack picked up the egg and held it next to the guinea pig’s snout, as Liberty forced the mouth open. A light shimmer passed from the egg to the creature. For a moment the guinea pig continued to writhe and buck, but then it froze. “And for stage two, quickly now.”
Liberty took up a small syringe and injected the guinea pig. A second later Zack was running a scalpel across its head, and levering off a portion of the skull. It wasn’t pleasant, but the way things were going my tolerance for this kind of thing was being ratcheted up by the hour.
“And there we go,” said Zack, pointing with the screwdriver to a version, in miniature, of what we’d seen during Ollie’s autopsy. A throbbing piece of brain tissue running along the length of the brain before diving to the side.
“So tell me what I’m seeing,” I said.
“Very well, but I remind you that at least half of this is guesswork. Most of what we think comes from what happened to Ollie. Animal testing and a post mortem performed by rank amateurs isn’t the best groundwork for a theory.” Saying this, Cadence glared across at Zack, who didn’t seem remotely bothered. “We think that we’re dealing with some organic, perhaps even semi-sentient version of a veritas charm, with a significant twist. It’s sealed in a dormant state within the egg, which is definitely artificial in nature. When activated by magic, it needs to be ingested within ten minutes at most or it simply fades. You get slightly longer if it’s kept in a liquid. Once inside a host, it attaches itself to the brain, forming strong links with the hippocampus, from where it can interfere with long-term memory.”
“Veritas with a twist,” I said. “What do you mean?” I was sure I knew what was coming but wanted to hear it from her. Wanted everyone to hear it from her.
“It doesn’t draw out long-term memories. It implants them. Given Ollie’s behavior, it also allows certain commands, imperatives, to be driven in to the mind. Not only would Ollie genuinely remember that you had murdered Max, but he would be compelled to testify to that fact, to tell whoever would listen. And short of an autopsy, it’s undetectable. After a few hours, I doubt even cracking open the skull would remove it. Once the magic reserves are gone, it would wither and die.”
“Perfect weapon,” I said.
“And Becky sold it to the Mage-born.”
“We don’t know that. Maybe she traded it with someone, who knew someone, who owed someone a favor, who needed some money…something like that. Seems more likely to me.”
“But you saw the state of Ollie when we found him,” said Julie. “They’d really worked him over.”
“It had to look like he’d been interrogated and broken. That would make it all the more believable.”
“Yes,” said Cadence, “but it’s also possible that the more the implanted truth varies from actual reality, the more the subject would need to be…weakened for it to be effective. The compulsion part would be relatively simple - we know from experience that those casts require far less energy than anything involving the distortion of memory.”
I looked at the guinea pig. “But there’s no way we can -”
“Find all this out from tests on small fluffy things? No,” said Cadence, folding her arms.
“What do you think?” asked Zack.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to piece it all together. Julie spoke before I could get the words out, but we were thinking along the same lines. “I think that it’s a hell of a lot of guessing,” she said. “How are these things made?”
“No idea,” said Cadence. “The Union have no record of anything like it. I would have liked to meet Becky, I think.”
“She was fun,” agreed Zack.
“No, you misunderstand me. I would have liked to meet her so that I could slap her around and tell her not to be so fucking stupid. Look
what this has done.”
Nobody came back at her about that. We loved Becky, she was like a sister. But Cadence had a point.
“This is evidence, right, though?” said Arabella. “We can show them this, we can make it all…stop.”
Zack looked at her with nothing less than absolute pity. It just wasn’t that simple anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was five in the morning on the seventh day of the war between the Mage-born and the Aware. The cops were out in force, and in an effort to put paid to the gang warfare (which I suppose it was, in a way) the subway was closed and everything was locked down. A full moon could occasionally be glimpsed behind fleeting stretches of cloud, and even at ground level the wind beat against your face. It was cold, and we’d been kneeling in the undergrowth in Central Park for nearly half an hour.
What started as a series of skirmishes around ten had developed into pitched battles around eleven, and now about a hundred mages on either side were hunkered down in groups, waiting for the other side to make a move. Or, even better, make a mistake.
I was with Zack, Julie and Arabella, out of necessity. It was a constant reminder that all of this wasn’t even the biggest problem we had. The others, and Liberty back at the Mal-cave, had tried to get out of me what happened with Eliajel at Benny’s, but for now I just needed to keep it to myself, mull it over, without anyone else throwing in their two cents. I was getting close to what he was trying to tell me. Or at least I thought I was. Just needed a bit more time. Which, from the state of things here, could be a problem.
“They’re pulling together over there on the left,” said Arabella.
“Who do we have over there?” I asked.
“Josephine. It’s a staging post for getting the injured back to base,” said Zack.
“And how many are guarding it?” I asked, realizing with a sinking feeling that I already knew the answer.
“None,” said Julie. “Keep it light, don’t draw attention to it. That way they won’t perceive it as a threat and it’ll minimize any problems.”
“Your idea, actually?” said Arabella.
I was really coming out with some total shit these days. My magic was back, even though nowhere near normal levels. But I was constantly tired, rattled. Frayed at the edges. I’d started dreading sleep. Every time I woke up there was a new body on a cot, a new name written on the wall in chalk, our makeshift tribute to the fallen. This had to stop. It all had to stop.
“We can’t lose Josephine,” I said, making my mind up. “Too many people need her. Signal Jake’s posse and tell them to skirt behind those trees. We’ll cut across the front and meet them on the other side.” Zack nodded and got on the phone.
“On three, run.”
We sprinted across the open ground as fast as we could, given that we were bent almost double, trying desperately to move at speed while still remaining undetected. Sure, the brooch prevented magical detection, but all we needed was the moon to pop out at the wrong time, and we could be toast.
We made it over without incident. Ten meters away from where Josephine was crouched over an Aware soldier, eyes closed and hands spread in a healing cast, we ran into the first of the Mage-born. He was arrogant and stupid enough to be walking calmly towards her, spike drawn and ready, shoulders shaking as he laughed silently. Laughing, as he crept up on an unarmed woman. I felt no remorse whatsoever as Zack wrenched his head back and ran a knife across his throat. It was his own stupid fault for thinking that we’d leave one of our own unwatched.
Jake arrived the same time we did, along with six others. One of them was packing a gun, silencer attached, but the majority of us were relying on bladed weapons. There seemed to be an unwritten rule being observed by both sides that it was in everyone’s interests to involve the police as little as possible. Gunshots in the middle of Manhattan would bring their attention down a little too close. The city was skirting on the edge of anarchy as it was. Besides, if you’re going to kill someone you should at least have the guts to do it right to their face, up close and personal. That might be blade or cast, but it wouldn’t be from a window a hundred meters away. Those are my thoughts on the matter, anyway.
Even so, and even with every Mage-born being here of their own free will and intent on drawing the blood of my friends, it still broke my heart a little when one of them died. Because they were here on a lie, pieces in someone else’s game. And nobody should die on those terms.
One by one the Mage-born began to appear, stepping out of nowhere. It was, admittedly, one hell of a cool way to make an entrance. I’d tried getting Max to tell me how it was done once, but he tapped his nose and shook his head. Once you got used to it, you could detect, if you were lucky, a shimmer in the air just before it happened, a telling mark that was even easier to spot at night. With ten of us on the job, there were seven more Mage-born lying dead on the floor in the next three minutes.
The last one to fall got the alarm up. It was Ross, one of Jake’s crew, who misjudged the hit, taking the cheek rather than the throat. His target threw his head back and let out an ear-piercing shriek, a magically-assisted yell. Four of us took him down quickly after that, despite him using a pretty strong ward, but the cat was out of the bag. Soon, so many Mage-born were stepping in that it seemed like the whole area around us was one giant shimmer.
“Pull back,” I shouted. “Get out of here.”
Zack pulled Josephine to her feet. She fought against him, trying to get back down to her patient, but he wasn’t having any of it. Arabella lent some assistance and between them they got moving at a good pace. “Go with them,” I told Julie. She started to argue but nodded.
The retreat would become a slaughter if someone didn’t run a distraction. As the Aware ran north, I sprinted south, flinging casts behind me into the air. I wasn’t trying to hit anyone, I was just giving them a light show, something to follow and attack.
Two blocks down and one over, and I’d lost them. Well, they didn’t have a line of sight on me anymore, which was good enough for now. I found an alley and slumped down between two dumpsters, catching my breath and cracking open a Sylvian knot. Then I jumped as something slammed onto one of the dumpsters, rocking it and sending half-empty takeaway containers showering down onto my head.
All I could do was hold my breath and stay very still. There was no room to maneuver, and with my arse on the ground and back against the wall the scope for defense was limited. Another thud came as whatever it was left the dumpster and landed just out of my line of vision. This was it.
A short gargoyle, two foot tall, waddled around. It was the more grotesque of the two, although I appreciate any comparison is deeply relative. Four eyes, two noses, and no power of speech. After all this time I still didn’t know if it was Gary or Kevin. “Hey, what’s up?”
He cocked his head to one side, looking me up and down, and gestured vaguely in my direction.
“Me, no I’m good. Thanks for checking.”
He pointed at himself, then back to me.
“No, seriously. Go and check on the others. They need to get back safely. And make sure nobody’s tailing them.”
It would have been endearing if he’d stayed a bit longer, maybe even tried to argue with me. But all I got was a quick shrug before he launched himself upwards and, in an act of violence against all the laws of aerodynamics, flew north.
I took my phone out and looked at it for a long time. This was the call I had to make. I didn’t want to, and Julie had begged me a dozen times or more to forget about it, but there was nothing else to do. Nothing else that could bring an end to this madness.
I thumbed the contact and waited for him to pick up.
“Yes?” said the voice on the other end of the line.
“Patrick, it’s me, Malachi. Call off your dogs. I’m coming in.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, but I could feel the cogs in Patrick’s mind whirring furiously.
“You’re looking for
an ambush,” I told him, “but you’re not going to find one. You’ve won, okay? Maybe not tonight, and maybe not for another week or so, but we can’t keep this up. I say we stop the pointless deaths now and get this over with. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, but first you tell all your boys and girls to stand down. Immediately. Then we’ll talk. I’ll call again in ten minutes. That should give you more than enough time.”
I hung up and waited. There was no way for me to know from where I was whether he was doing as I’d asked, but he didn’t know that. Maybe he’d play hardball, but I was making him a really tempting offer, so the odds were in my favor. The ten minutes dragged along slowly.
“Me again,” I said as he picked up.
“It’s done. Now what? Rest assured, if this is a trick -”
“Relax, Patrick. You’re going to be a hero. You’re going to be the big man who got Malachi English to walk in and surrender.”
“Go on,” he said, after a pause.
“Let’s make it the Clover hotel,” I told him. “I liked that place. Fond memories. But this time I don’t get to run out and escape. You bring yourself and four other senior members from the families. I will confess before all of you, and then you do what you want with me. I’d prefer it quick and painless, obviously, but I’m not naive about these things. Been round the block a few too many times for that.”
“That’s it?” he asked, with not a little suspicion in his tone.
“Pretty much. Drinks and nibbles would be nice. It’s been a long night. And no goons, none of your well-dressed little thugs. If the five of you don’t think you can handle me, then there’s no hope for you. I’m not at my best.”
“I’d heard. The first time I’ve heard of anyone successfully navigating their way past a banshee rune. It would be impressive if you weren’t so pointless.”
“Magnanimous in victory, eh Patrick? But you agree?”
“I see no reason not to. But we will be watching you as you approach. At the slightest suspicion -”