Devil City

by Gestalt Publishing

'What?'

  'Ah, doesn't matter. We going to move on him?'

  'Yeah. You think you can lure him away?'

  '...'

  'Bettina. I have to hit him. Right now. I'm not. I don't think I'm more than ten minutes away.'

  'This can't wait?'

  Here's the thing. I want it to wait.

  'What's he been doing, Bettina? Like the whole day.'

  'He left for a bit. Turns out, he lives, like, a block away.'

  Of course he does.

  'Does he have the blood?'

  'Sure.'

  'Then no.'

  Hang it up. Ignore the music I heard over the phone.

  Jesus Lark. What the fuck are you doing? This is her wedding!

  Take a breath. Think.

  Here's what I gain if I don't go: My ex, who put me in a position to get moved on by scum by Crazy Legs, will get married and I won't be the mad fucker who crashed it.

  Here's what's gained if I do: I remove an enormous risk. The whole point of giving him the blood was that it bought Katanya some safety and, I figured, dictated when Foulstone would come at me. But he's got more control of his ghosts than I figured. He's moving a lot quicker than I figured him capable of.

  This is a bad idea. Just wait. Don't go in, don't showboat. Don't draw attention. Hit Foulstone carefully. Stealthy.

  That's the ticket.

  Stealthy.

  Seventeen

  i

  About a million magicians at the wedding and you can be sure, it'll be warded. Go in too heavy, hit the alarm. Come in too light, any of the old crew will make me straight away. Hide in plain sight.

  Fast food restaurant bathroom. Stare at myself. Look so hard and so long the features disconnect from meaning. Semiotics of your own face get blurred. Is that really the me they see? You should try it. Learn how to dissociate with Gnosis and you'll realise that identity is up for grabs when your body is meaningless.

  Fog up the mirror with breath. Draw on eyes, nose, mouth with one fingertip.

  Let the fog fade.

  Not a new face. Not a stealth spell, discourage people noticing you. Those would get picked up. But even to my own eyes, I'm just that guy whose name you should know but you don't. Grab a good jacket to help the spell. Taxi across town. Stop a block or two away.

  The City rises over the park like teeth. Huge slab of angles up against the sky. Sun overhead but not hot. Lovely weather for it.

  Let's make a mistake.

  Big plaza in the centre of the park, white stone effect. Scrubbed of graffiti and blood stains, rats charmed away. Big tiered fountain in the middle. Chairs set up in a semi-circle. About a hundred with a catering station, attended, by one side. Everyone, and don't they look great, taking seats. Walk like I was taking mine. Dozens of faces of people I should know and some I do. Old Octavio, the Knotting Magician. Khalida Kingu, who Jon and I once stole a powerful urn from, prison for ancient spirits. Cream, in from the Austrian Lodge. High up. Jimmy Boots, a vicious little glad-hander who Jon once kicked in his face. Always knew that little prick would worm his way up into high-society, dragging his wretched little cult with him. Sarowiwa, who I respect. Srub, who I most certainly do not.

  Mully, my old tutor is looking at me, resting his weight on his cane. Looking at me half annoyed, half amused. Eyebrows raise up a question. Fingers to my lips. He nods and sits. Already knew he and Scarlet were still friends. And that he worked for the Library for a long time. Still doesn't sit right but I couldn't say why.

  Elliot and his fucking financial buddies are joking up by the celebrant. Magic lodge wedding and not even a priest...

  Music starts up.

  Jesus fucking Christ is he in a kilt?

  Sit down behind Foulstone. He hasn't made me yet.

  Bettina is close to him. Get her attention. Finally recognises me and her eyes grow wide. What the fuck are you doing here Lark?

  Alright. Here we go.

  Every eye on her.

  Except me and Bettina. Make a gesture to grab Foulstone. Face asks how?

  Fuck I don't know woman just get it done!

  She grins at me. Leans in close to Foulstone. Whispers something to him. He snorts. See the snot fly.

  Her face goes sour. She points to her eye patch. Turns away from him like he offended her.

  Glance around. Scarlet, bridesmaids preparing her for the walk down the aisle. Don't look.

  Foulstone gets up, follows Bettina. Some people look over at them but it's Foulstone. No one wants to say a word to that guy. We make our excuses but no one's looking.

  Bettina turns around and gives him a glance. Jesus Christ, she seduced the evil bastard...

  My girl has moves.

  Follow a moment later. She takes him over by a tree, behind it. Leans in and kisses him.

  Walk up behind him. Wait until she's done. She looks up at me and he turns. 'Fuck!' he says, accent making the vowel go wrong.

  She grabs him by the neck, pulls him further away. Maybe fifty feet from the wedding. Music loud enough to cover the worst of our commotion. Then it cuts out.

  It's started.

  Muscle slams the Brit against the tree, hand clutching his jaw. Works his belly with three good slugs then covers his mouth with her palm. Tree reminds me of Wicked Jack and his crosses.

  'I'll kill you if you scream. You know that.'

  He nods. She moves away the hand and he doubles over. Vomits. She leans in close to him.

  'Talk.'

  Pulls him away from his sick and I walk in close. My body covers the view for the wedding but no one’s looking. Can't risk a spell here to hide us, though. Work quick and be gone quicker.

  'Give me the blood.'

  'I fucking stashed it, didn't I?'

  Nod to Bettina. She doesn't hit his face. He needs to talk and think. Flicks open a blade and slices the webbing between thumb and forefinger. Snaps his jaw shut.

  'Shhh. Shhhh.'

  'His other hand.'

  Two things. One, yeah, it's torture. No time to play. Get the gun on you, see what you'll do to get out of it. Second, don't think Foulstone's less than a lethal fucker because he gave in to pain. Everyone breaks when they're powerless and hurt. Everyone. Bettina moves in slow, giving him time.

  'It's at my flat.'

  'Bettina.'

  Grabs his other wrist, slices over his knuckles. Froggy face swallows the scream.

  'My wallet. It's in my wallet.'

  So it is.

  'Couldn't wait to use it could you? Stupid fuck. Let your viciousness get in the way of doing a professional job.' Set it alight in front of his pig eyes.

  Doesn't say anything. Just concentrates on his breathing. Time to go now.

  But.

  'This next question. You don't answer it straight away, she's going to stick your tongue. See how you like your pies then, fat man.'

  'Ah fuck y-'

  She grabs his throat.

  'Where's Aristide?'

  'My place. Just down the road'.

  'Right. We're going.'

  She goes to frogmarch him but her hand slips on the blood he's splashed on himself. He gets a step away.

  'Help me! It's Lark and his slapper!'

  Every eye on me and Bettina. Bride and groom too.

  She's got her blade out, blood on my face. Foulstone, tougher cat than I thought, crashes into some chairs and guests, blood spattering. 'Fucking fucking get ‘em you stupid cunts!'

  And then. I am not jiving you. You know what part they're up to? This is the straight up truth.

  …reason why this man and this woman cannot be joined in holy matrimony

  Oh yeah.

  Scarlet. In white. Beautiful. Her eyes are fierce. Then she puts a hand up to her mouth and turns away and I tell myself that she's not covering a laugh.

  But, you know, there's two hundred eyes staring at us and even if she is, none of the others are laughing.

  'Just be cool, just be cool.' I mutter to Bettina.

/>   Bettina stands up straight. Takes her knife and salutes them touching blade to forehead.

  'Sup.'

  Me? I can't play it that cool. Put a smoke to my lips. Light it.

  Point into the distance. 'Look over there!'

  No one does.

  Drop the quickest stealth spell I can and we're gone.

  ii

  Back at the bar, we're just laughing.

  'Sup'.

  Not even much point in hiding. Told Bettina the deal. Simple trap. Got Ava, get the mum, got the perfect trap to lure in the Devil. Devil's stopped fucking with me over the small stuff. He'll want the grand entrance when he comes for the soul. So we're drinking the top shelf stuff at my favourite bar, Old Crow. Playing Lavay Smith and Louisville Sluggers on the jukebox.

  Barman, not seen him in a year, knows our names and our drinks and the first one is on the house. First time since this whole mess started cigarettes tasted good.

  No idea how it's gonna play out with the Devil later. Time for a drink before it all goes down. Saved Jon. Can't see my way to pulling off another win like that. Give it back. Damn you. Give it back.

  Think about that another time.

  Never even bothered to look for Aristide. They'll have lammed him out by now and they'd be on us in a minute. No time to get there, help him, then get out. Foulstone's escape fucked that up. Hollow is a problem for another day now.

  Ah, hell.

  One more round, yes please.

  'Shame about Aristide,' she says.

  'Sure. But, here's a thing. Took it more than two years to get Jon that deep under. Pretty wild circumstances too. And Aristide, he isn't like Jon. No one was like Jon. Not saying it'll be easy to help him but be a lot easier.'

  'Sure. But, you know, I'm ever gonna get a man again, probably gonna have to be dead like me or a magician like him. And, don't take this personal, not many magicians look like Aristide.' Bettina laughs that line.

  Yeah. Fair cop. We go silent but it's the okay kind. Listen to the music. Then.

  'Been thinking about Lazlo,' she says. 'What he'd say. He'd hit it all showbiz style.'

  'Showbiz style is his tip. That's what he knows. That's his current. He works with opposition and similarities. He makes the unfunny funny. Lazlo has his way, I have mine.'

  'He seems pretty clued in though. Does what he wants, fucks the haters. Like you. Doesn't make it about getting paid. Doesn't make it about friends or being cool. Reckon he's a version of you at the end.'

  'Christ, I hope not, baby.'

  'Nah,' she says. 'Nah, I think you like him. Not just ‘cause he hid you out from them psychos looking to step. I think you recognise he got game like you. He plays it his own way.'

  Think about it. 'Could be.'

  'So what would he do? Last minute of the show.'

  'Cocaine with Carly Simon?'

  'Ah man, stop playing.'

  'He likes a trick ending. He likes to leave ‘em guessing.'

  'You and me, we're drinking like it's last meal time. Like it's fuckin' Lights Out. But, you know, I think you're just hung up on that ex, still. Sure, it's funny now but tomorrow, you probably find a way to make it another thing you beat yourself up about.'

  'Could be.'

  'I like working with you. I like learning about all the crazy shit you know about. I like how you all, fuck you to everyone who steps to you. I like seeing things most people don't ever see. Seen a girl turn into a city once. Seen the men and women, live under the earth, changing into something new. Seen more besides. Heard the Gods live under the earth, all stirring in the dark. I ain't ready to give that up. So, you, you probably feeling all bad about my eye and shit, right?'

  'I ain't feeling good about it.'

  'Then, you want to let that go? Find a way out of this Devil shit. Leave ‘em guessing. I like our work. I like, sometimes, we even help a motherfucker. That makes us even for the eye.'

  But I lied to you and I made sure you'd never get it back.

  Don't say that. Don't say nothing. Except.

  'Cool.'

  Ice in our glasses moves too quick when we clink ‘em together.

  Don't even know how to tell her about the fear, shooting around my jaw, my fingers. About how I'm so scared there's no way out and I took too big a risk with my soul and how I just don't see this ending well. How I don't want to go in that room and summon the Devil and ambush him with yet another story-spirit I don't understand.

  So. I don't. Just drink. Smoke. Listen to the tunes.

  iii

  Alright. Time.

  God hates a coward. He surely does. Just sitting here, smoking myself sick.

  'Let's move.'

  Bettina looks up at me. Tension eases out of her.

  'Well. Alright.'

  Lazlo's right. There has to be some trick to be pulled. That's what he'd say.

  Just over thinking all this.

  See, the thing about plans is, they fall apart. Account for everyone, everything, it never works. It just doesn't. Get an idea of how you want it to go down, chip it into shape, see as it goes.

  Got a strong desire to kick in the Devil's spokes, no doubt. He wants to kick in mine. Nightfall outside now. Been here for hours. Bettina's bored now, jonesing for some action. She's pulled off her jacket, rolled up her sleeves, hungry to throw some punches, or something else that counts.

  Call up Ava.

  'We're on the way.'

  'Hurry up. I can't hack this - '

  Tell someone who give a goddamn lady. You threw the bones landed me here. You and X.

  No need for the Night or the Black City. No need to hide. In a mood to eat nails. Only way to get through this - fill up my head with badass motherfucker thoughts. Bettina at my side, she's ready to punch through walls.

  Jon? I'll find him. Went through enough to get him back, no place I can't put my hands on him and I'll have done my best by my good friend.

  Foulstone? That fat bastard saw what happens. Lay hands on you at a wedding, think I can't get into your house? Take Aristide off you too while I'm about it and then I'll see to you.

  You're just the kind of prick I liked to deal with when I was Library.

  Elliot? Tell your trust-fund fucking parents what happened on your big day, pal. Tell them who I am. Tell them what you cost me. Then explain to them how easy it was for me to spoil it.

  In my head, bass line thunders up and the guitars start to screech.

  Not a lick of it takes away the terror but it helps. This is magic, the real stuff now. Pretend it's real until it is. Day's worth of drinking has slid glass under my eyes and the booze has filtered belligerence into my blood.

  Walk back to Ava's, through citizentown, dressed in a magician's torture blood like it was a banner. Let ‘em see. Let ‘em know, tonight, something is walking amongst them they can't recognise. Tonight, I'm a fin visible in the water.

  But, you know, I still never put up my stealth ward again. Clear forgot with all that soft laughing shit with Bettina. So busy staring ahead with the focus of an acetylene torch, feeding my own story, that I never notice.

  Car pulls up in front. One behind.

  Doors open. Crowded streets. Spells fire off all around us. Street goes to fog and blur and nothing is seeing this.

  Elliot, out of the passenger door of one of the cars.

  Leg breakers I don't know. Six of ‘em. All in suits. Rings on their fingers, amulets over their ties. I recognise a few. Bottom of the barrel. The very basic initiates. This is who Elliot has rolling as his hit squad? These guys aren't for real.

  Hits me that maybe the Library really is hurting for decent crews. That Elliot bringing in Foulstone was more desperate than I figured.

  Speaking of which. Here's Elliot now, coming at me. Fuck him.

  'Congratulations, motherfucker. I hear it was a beautiful service.' Say it with a grin.

  Walks straight in, arm cocked. Couldn't have telegraphed the punch more.

  Elliot? Meet Bettina. For
real this time.

  Takes him by the wrist, catching it mid-punch and like you spin your dance partner, she whirls him around. Lady leading this time. The hammerlock comes on. Elliot hisses out in pain and I turn to look at him. Christ, Bettina's got half an inch of height on him and his face is panicked. Maybe it's the booze thinking but I get a second of pity for him.

  Comes at me sudden but there it is. Everyone's worst enemy - empathy.

  Elliot, picked for the top job because of the money, not training, talent. Elliot, marrying a woman he can't appreciate. Elliot, in a world where even reality is something you can't trust. Elliot, whose ambitions, whose bullshit business ruthlessness never prepared him for life after dark. Elliot, who turned to a man like Foulstone, or accepted him on behalf of the Library, who have their own hidden agendas. A man he could never understand. Elliot, whose wedding day got spoiled by an ex who he can't even get rid of.

  Then I see the look of rat cunning on his face and the charm bracelet he has wrapped over his fist. Spider, on a thin silver chain. Recognise it. Made it. Documentary on white-tail spiders. Necrotising venom that digs holes out of your skin. Spreads into your immune system. Messes with your DNA. All the chemicals in your body, proteins, like that, they all freak out. And pain.

  Pain.

  Saw that. Communed for a week with the gods who live in spider mouths, spider fangs. Poison spirits. Assassin gods. Drank snake venom and blood straight from their decapitated bodies. Getting toxic widsoms from old guys who live in Little Vietnam, Chinatown, who still hold to the old ways and know about things like Dragon Lines and making rain and reading dreams and the directions luck runs in and the colours to trap it and keep it.

  Put all that into a charm I made. Personal protection. Touch the skin with it, damn thing pours a triple dose of all that pain into whoever it touches. Gift for Scarlet's 25th birthday.

  And he's got it. And he's used it on my friend.

  Throws her head back. Breathes in tight and fast.

  The new blood nothing crew wave their hands around, apotropaic cabalist gestures.

  Bettina, she never lets him go. Stands there, holding him tight while poison and cell-damage enough to melt the skin of three strong men courses through her blood from the contact point between hand and charm.