A Mage's Stand: Empire State (Malachi English Book 3)

by Andy Hyland

  “Sorry to move things along,” I said, “but I’d like to know why I’m dying before the gun goes off.”

  He stared at the gun in his hand, as if just remembering that he was holding it. “Oh, this. No, you won’t die from this. I will shoot you if I have to, of course, and it will hurt, but you won’t be allowed to die from the wound. Things have apparently progressed past the point where putting a bullet through your brain and dumping you in the river will suffice. Otherwise I’d have pulled the trigger by now.”

  “Not quite your decision, then, is it? Come on, who’s calling the shots?” I asked. “Who gets to give Max Lamarchand his orders? Do I get three guesses?” Julie shot me a warning look, but I was pretty sure that I was safe at this point.

  He ignored the questions, and refused to meet my eyes. “As I was saying, it was about a year ago that I found out I was dying, and it weighed heavily on my mind. I believe I mentioned to you that leading the Mage-born was like herding cats. That doesn’t, in fact, do the task justice. So many threads. In every family a half-dozen monumentally stupid heirs, striving for dominance. Give a group of people too much money, take away from them the need to provide, to strive, and they turn their minds to any number of silly and inconsequential feuds. Every day for decades I woke knowing that unless I could keep the plates spinning, keep the rogues in check, we would tear ourselves apart. And then, a few months ago, you came.”

  “Me? How did I make things any worse.”

  “You misunderstand me, Malachi. You were hope. You were my hope. You became embroiled in the Lamarchand family’s sordid history, and in the space of a few days the Aware and the Mage-born were fighting side by side. Balam and the ratten horde fell before us.” He leaned forward, letting the gun droop for a moment. Could he raise it again if I moved? I suspected he could. “Through you there could be unity. One of the Aware, trusted by the Union. All that needed to be done was to cement your bonds with the Mage-born. A difficult task, but between us,” he glanced over at Julie, “I thought it could be done. And then, then, Malachi, you let me down.”

  “Yeah,” I told him. “That happens.”

  “I had you followed. Almost constantly. Over the past few months there has barely been a moment when you remained unobserved. All the information I was gathering looked promising. You were starting to gain respect within the Mage-born community. You were loosening your ties with the more undesirable of your friends.” My gut twisted with guilt as I realized he was correctly stating what had started to happen with Zack and Arabella. “But then,” he added, his face finally starting to gain some color, “then, I found out about the fucking vampire!”

  His physical reaction was so severe that I ducked to the side, thinking the gun was going to go off by accident. Max spasmed, spitting blood and gasping for breath. With a monumental effort he regained control by sheer exertion of will. “A vampire,” he repeated. “In direct contravention of the covenant, you let a vampire loose in the city. And look what happened.”

  I fixed him with a stare. “We both know that what happened with that family wasn’t entirely due to me.”

  He waved the accusation away. “It would have happened eventually. And with you demonstrably unfit to govern, there was nobody else. Other parties needed to be brought in. Other plans had to be made.”

  “And you were prepared to have people killed - including me - to get where you wanted to go.”

  “I was out of time,” he snapped. “All my strength was failing. Only the glamours were keeping people from suspecting the truth. If they even sensed weakness on my part, chaos would have ensued. Of course, glamours don’t work on some people.”

  Julie looked over at me. “I didn’t know he was alive, Mal. You have to believe that. I knew about the cancer – promised not to tell. But I didn’t know about this.”

  I nodded and turned my attention back to Max. “Don’t know if you’d noticed this, but chaos is exactly what we’ve had.”

  “But it was orchestrated chaos,” he pointed out, jabbing the gun at me to emphasize the words. “There was a point to it.”

  I sat back working it all through. “You discredited the Union through the revelations about Mercy. Faked your own death, removing all leadership and control from the Mage-born, who promptly engaged in a civil war that has pushed to the limit what we should have been revealing to the world. And if they’d have crushed the Aware, they’d have simply turned on themselves.” It churned over as I sought for the outcome, for the end-game. “Shit, you were pushing the Host to take direct control.”

  He nodded. “We have failed. Utterly failed. Not one strand of the human network was untainted, was useable. It is time we give in, and accept that our only hope, our only protection, must come by direct intervention from the heavenly powers.”

  “You have completely given up on us.”

  He didn’t say anything, but just nodded.

  “And letting me run around New York for the past week -”

  “Nobody let you do anything,” he interrupted. “Horrible nuisance, that’s what you’ve been. And why you couldn’t be found…but no matter. Patrick was efficient. A good man, but his bloodlust disqualified him from any real leadership. It would never have done. But having you around to take the fall for my murder - that worked out quite well in the end. Certainly it ignited the war. Who among the Aware would not rush to defend the honor of Malachi English? And the ruthlessness of the way Patrick cemented the evidence against you…I’d shake his hand, but…there is no time. I am over. Done. So very nearly gone. You have been used well, but the time has come for you to be dealt with before you have a chance to restore order.” He relaxed and sat back. “Now all is said. Now you know everything.”

  “Mate,” I told him, “you are so far away from the truth on that one. Frankly, I doubt you know even half of what you’ve got yourself involved with. Still, let’s go and find out, shall we?”

  The limo stopped and we stepped out. I offered my hand to Max, who was clearly struggling to stand, but he knocked it away. I knew for certain now that if I wanted to take him, I could, gun or not. This was the moment, and everything was now in my favor. But what good would that do? Delay the inevitable for a few hours, a few days longer? And with Julie so far away from Zack and Arabella, they would have already been found and taken by now. No, I was done running. It was time to play this one through to the end.

  “Saint John the Divine,” I said, standing on the sidewalk and gazing up at the fine gothic architecture. Only a block away from Broadway, but it may as well have been a different world. The gray stone of the cathedral, and the immense circular window in the center. Breathtaking. “I’m not quite sure if its apt or not.”

  “We have the place to ourselves,” Max rasped. “Privacy has been assured.”

  “Oh, I bet it has.”

  Julie cleared her throat. “My part is done now, right? That was the deal.”

  Max turned to her and took her shoulders in a tight grip. “Go, girl. Go in peace. There will be more than enough work for you in the coming months. Someone of your quality and talents will always find a place. And I’ll make sure your role in these affairs is known.”

  She nodded, leveled a final stare at me, and turned away. I didn’t watch her go.

  Max, not unkindly, prodded me with the gun. “Don’t think of her as your Judas,” he said. “She did what needed to be done. Everything was complete. Any further deaths would have been quite needless.”

  “Save mine and my friends,” I reminded him.

  “Well, yes,” he admitted. “But those will take place under due process. Now, forwards, if you please. Let’s not delay the inevitable. For either of us.”

  I nodded and walked towards the large doors. Rather than give them a shove, I raised my hand and directed a wave of magical energy. They opened slowly before me. “Sorry,” I said to Max. “Couldn’t resist.”

  “Just get on with it.”

  We walked inside. It truly was a beautiful p
lace. High columns marched forward on either side. The chairs were still in neat rows from an earlier service. The ceiling was usually lit up gloriously, but tonight the electric lights were off, and the only illumination came from endless flickering candles. The stone floor was exquisite. At the very front, the space around the altar was bare apart from some benches off to the side.

  We reached the front row of seats and Max stretched out an arm to steady himself. He looked up at me and gave a grim smile. “This is as far as I go. In so many senses of the phrase.” He sat heavily and let the gun fall to the floor. “I wouldn’t bother,” he said, as he watched my eyes fall to it. “It won’t help you now.”

  “No, I don’t expect it would,” I said, drawing myself up and raising my hands wide, “but I am Malachi English, I am not defenseless, and I am not to be trifled with.” I summoned everything I had and called a gale into the cathedral. The great circular window blew inwards, fragmenting into thousand pieces that fell to the floor like rain. Chairs were blown over and colorful banners ripped from the walls.

  Then there was nothing. If my magic was a candle, someone had reached over and snuffed it out. It was that total. That effortless.

  “Enough.” A figure stepped from the shadows, wrapped in a dark hooded cloak that covered their face and reached to the floor. Max bowed his head and genuflected. I had to stop myself laughing at that. It would be quite unseemly. Besides, tempers were already frayed and I wanted to have a chat with my persecutor first.

  “Good to see you again,” I called out. “Bit of a change of costume for you, isn’t it?”

  “Silence,” Max hissed. “You don’t know who it is you address.”

  “Of course I know,” I told him. “We’re old pals. Isn’t that right, Tabbris?”

  Tabbris lifted an arm and pointed a bony finger at me. “You have no idea how much trouble you have caused.”

  “Coming from you, that’s a bit rich. Come on Tabbris, you’ve got me where you want me, and Max shouldn’t die in ignorance. He’s worth more than that, don’t you think? He really thinks he’s doing the right thing.”

  Tabbris’ face, still hidden beneath the hood, turned towards me. “You have no idea what I have done. You have no idea what I have sacrificed.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Malachi,” said Max, looking up at me in horror.

  I gazed down on him with pity. “Come on, Max, can’t you smell it? Really?”

  “Smell? I haven’t smelt anything in weeks. It’s the drugs.”

  “Ah, that would explain it. Worked out well for you, Tabbris, didn’t it?” Max was still looking at me, confused and shaken. “If you could smell, Max, my friend, you would know that this place reeks of sulphur. She’s fallen.”

  He looked from me to her, and then back again. “No…that’s not. No, I would have known. She is of the Host.”

  “I don’t blame you. She looked fine the last time I saw her. And anyway, I was distracted by the whole imminent death sentence and all that. But tell me, Max, when was the last time you saw her eyes?”

  Tabbris reached up, taking the edge of the hood in one thin hand, and pulled off the cloak. As it fell to the floor it dragged with it the last of her jet-black hair. I’d intended to play it cool, but now I stood there with my mouth hanging open. The last time I’d seen her, she was her usual radiant self, filling out a leather outfit in a way that would make any world-class model proud. Tough, smooth and distant as an ice queen. Now the leather hung off of her, and she looked worse than Max, which a few minutes ago I’d not have believed possible. Her once-porcelain skin hung loosely, and the overall impression was of a skeleton making a break for freedom from the inside. Two of her teeth were missing, and her mouth was fixed in a permanent leer. Most terrible of all were her eyes. No longer a bright, piercing blue, they were now coal-black pits. If you stared too long, you could lose yourself and never hope to find light again.

  She lifted a skeletal arm and pointed straight at me. “Is this what you were expecting, human? Are you happy now?”

  There was a thump from behind me, and I turned to see Max hitting the ground, face frozen, clutching his heart. Of all the things to see as you leave this Earth, this newly-grotesque Tabbris wouldn’t have been my choice. Still, at least, in the end, the cancer hadn’t been the thing to take him. Which was, in my book, a victory to be cherished, because cancer is an unmitigated bastard.

  “He was weak,” Tabbris muttered as I faced her again.

  “He was good,” I countered. “Flawed, but good. Which is the best any of us can hope for.”

  She cackled at that, and at that point her transformation into something depraved and wasted and awful was complete. “You know what did this?” she said, looking down at herself.

  “As a guess I’d say that killing Kushiel did the job. No, I take it back,” I said, holding up a hand in apology. “You never wielded the knife, did you? You just allowed the knife to enter the Library when Stacey was picked up - nice collaboration between you and Eliajel – and gave him the means to slide across and do the deed himself. I take no credit for my wonderful deductions, by the way - I’ve not seen anyone else hand out silver charms on chains to enable that kind of thing. And it would have taken someone really high up to pull the strings the way you have. That knife that the harpy was carrying never would have made its way past the Library security. You had to step in directly and manipulate things. Get it to Eliajel somehow. Maybe hide it behind a candlestick or something.”

  My attempt at levity didn’t go down well. “No,” she roared. “Courage did this. Courage to do what needed to be done, whatever petty constraints were placed in my way.”

  “But I’m right about you being Eliajel’s contact on the inside.”

  “You were never meant to have seen his amulet, or spoken to him of these things,” she said. “You were never meant to have figured in the operation at this stage.”

  “I noticed. Because I’m guessing from that look you gave me in the judgement chamber that you were very surprised to see me alive. I should have died in the pit, right?”

  “You’d done your job by then,” she said, resting a clawed hand on the altar. “The trial was held, Kushiel was summoned to the Library, where he would be vulnerable. If you remained alive, there was a risk that…someone might intercede on your behalf.”

  “Interceding isn’t his style. Which puts his plans for humanity in stark contrast to what you and Max had figured out. Earth as a Host-run world. Safe, but no longer free.”

  “It would have been a price worth paying,” Tabbris spat, black phlegm flying across and landing on the stone between us. “It is a price worth paying. Now, it is time to end you once and for all.”

  “You’re hardly going to deliver me to the Library for judgment yourself, are you?” I asked. “You’re looking…less than your best.”

  “You can be left here, your mind taken. As long as your life ends with a knife across your throat, payment for Kushiel’s death, that will suffice. I can still remain hidden, send the necessary messages. Continue to work as I must.” She reached back and drew one of the swords that still hung on her back, loosely now. The blade, once gleaming silver, was pitted and dappled with decay.

  “Hold on,” I said, stepping back. “If I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go. But not before I understand what’s going on. Why I’ve gone through hell this past week. You’re working with Max, sure, I get that part of the plan. An empire of the angels, and all that. But Eliajel - what were you doing there? What good does Kushiel’s death serve? I’m taking the fall for it, but that was never the point, was it? And whatever you promised Eliajel, he was willing to make damn sure that I found out about you. The clues were there of course. It was just a case of asking the right questions. The little gloating git was right. It was never about who killed Kushiel. It was about how that situation could ever arise in the first place. The planning that had to take place, the doors that had to be opened. Someone on the inside was needed
. Someone who could do whatever they wished, without question. And,” I continued, with a hint of sympathy, but not too much, creeping into my voice, “you’ve been through the wringer lately. Your failure with the Lamarchand family coming back to haunt you. Times like that’ll make anyone start to have doubts. But I need to know, Tabbris, come on: why did you help him? What was it for? None of it makes sense.”

  At this her eyes fell and her bony shoulders slumped. “I…he, Eliajel, told me of his plans. I knew some of it, certainly, but the scope, the magnitude of his undertaking. It intoxicated me. I made oaths, assurances, that he could enter the Library and do what he wished. But then…”

  “Change of mind?” I offered. “His dazzling words ran out of steam? Reality started to set in? But too late, right? Once those assurances were given, they were binding, I’m guessing. And you couldn’t very well tell the others. Tabbris of the Host, bound by oaths to a demon. You were too high. You had too much to lose. And all of a sudden you’re being controlled by pride.”

  She didn’t confirm it, but her silence was telling. When she did speak her voice was cracked, desperate. “But now that it is in place, the dominance of the Host on Earth will thwart Eliajel’s plans and schemes. This is my gift to you. This is the hope I offer that you could never have obtained by yourself.”

  “Oh spare me,” I said, and now it was my turn to raise my voice. “I’m meant to be thankful that you’ve protected us from a demon’s plan that you made possible in the first place? How twisted are you?”

  “I am Tabbris,” she screamed.

  “No. You were once Tabbris. Now you are fallen. Now you are no longer of the Host. You are a sworn enemy of everything they stand for. I saw what you did to the Aware. You slaughtered them all, sticking knives in their chests, killing a healer in cold blood, just to get me to break cover. So you could hunt me down and try to stay hidden a little while longer.”