Incarnate (A Spellmason Chronicle)

by Anton Strout

  Several wizards managed to dissolve it with a blast of eldritch-colored energy, leaving only a surviving tire to bounce up the stairs harmlessly toward us.

  “To me!” the Butcher cried out. The area around and above him swarmed with the pulsing wings of his gargoyles, the streets also filling with those humans who had no doubt been camping at Union Square hoping for the Life Eternal.

  “Please tell me you have notes on this,” I said to Marshall.

  The frantic flipping of pages came from behind me as I watched the remaining witches and warlocks attack the herd of rogue gargoyles.

  “Working on it,” he said, then after what felt like far too long a pause: “Got it!”

  Rory and I both turned to him, but his face was still buried in his notes.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, looking up and pointing to the Butcher. “He’s not flying anywhere with those wings, right?”

  “Doubtful,” I said.

  “You know the expression ‘Pick on someone your own size’?” he said, not waiting for an answer. “Well, screw that. With him grounded, I say we give him something several stories tall to pick on.”

  “Like when we escaped Union Square and you blocked the street with that wave of pavement!” Rory said.

  “Nice thought,” I said, “but I nearly split my head in two doing that. I don’t think I can muster something big enough to go against this assembly.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Marshall said. He slapped his notebook shut and ran down the stairs past me. “Don’t think of a wave or wall. Think more of Bricksley . . . times a million.”

  Rory went back to defending the stairs as I pulled out my great-great-grandfather’s tome and set about in preparation. Arcane gestures and the Slavic words from the language of the old country filled my mouth, and I focused my energy into the streets at the center of Times Square. My will pressed into the pavement, spreading as wide as my mind could go without bursting, and I called the golem into being.

  Cars and debris from the battle fell away as the stone pulled itself from the ground, slowly forming a hulking figure that stood a little over a story tall. I was impressed with my effort, but against the scale of Times Square, my creation looked like a toy.

  Several of the gargoyles rushed it, tearing chunks out of its legs with their sharp little claws, and it was all I could do to hold my creation together, managing the occasional swipe at its foes. But for everyone I knocked away, another fell into place to continue its work of chipping away at my creature.

  Marshall stumbled back out of the crowd all around us, dragging a familiar figure behind him. The heat of battle made the warlock in his tow look more wild-haired than ever, his fists aglow from the rings he wore on every finger.

  “Warren!” I shouted. “Right about now would be a great time for a boost.”

  The rings on Warren’s hands lit up like a Christmas tree, and when he spoke his voice came out like he was speaking through a loudspeaker.

  “Convocation!” he shouted. “Concentrate your energy on me.”

  Flashes of light in every color of the spectrum shot out across Times Square. Almost every witch and warlock lit up as the beams came at Warren. Somehow his body managed to absorb it, although it looked as if it might tear him apart at any moment. Fighting to control himself, he slowly raised his hands out toward me, spreading his fingers wide. A pure white blast of light shot from them out to me, and when it hit, I barely held my spell of the pavement golem.

  I gave in to the power channeling through me, adding it to my own, allowing it to amplify my will. The story-tall figure of stone grew at my command as I pulled more of the streets of New York into its form until it stood a good ten stories high.

  “Now we’ve got a fair fight!” I shouted.

  Much of the battle continued on around me in all directions, but I trusted my allies to hold their own and focused on the main group that had come to make their stand with the Butcher.

  Driven by my wrath—my hatred of everything this monster and his people had brought upon me and my city these past few months—I unleashed the giant golem, leading it into battle against them.

  The gargoyles fought hard to defend their master, but this time it was of little use. Giant fists, feet, and limbs crashed down on them, smashing the creatures into broken piles of stone that flew in all directions across Times Square. They were simply no match against my amplified aggression.

  “This is for Laurien,” I said, driving a blow down on him, taking off one of his wings. “For Fletcher.” Another blow, and the entire left side of the Butcher broke free, crumbling to the ground. “But most of all, this is for making me destroy the work of Alexander Belarus.” I could no longer hold myself in check, raining blow after blow down upon the Butcher, his form shattering until all that was left was a pile of stone dust that was already disappearing on the wind as I let up on my attack.

  I collapsed my creation down, its component parts spreading out in great piles on the streets of Times Square. Despite the boost of power I had been given, I still felt drained and fell to all fours, trying to calm myself. My friends came to me, but I pushed them off, crawling over to where Laurien’s broken human body lay.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, touching her face. “I tried.”

  The witch twitched at my touch and I drew my hand away in surprise.

  “She’s alive!” I shouted out, looking to the gathered witches and warlocks. “Somebody do something!”

  Laurien shook her head and coughed. “Nothing arcane can save me now, I’m afraid,” she said.

  “Why did you do that up there?” I asked, wanting to shout in frustration. “You got in the way of the Butcher’s blow. It should be me lying here.”

  She shook her head and gave me a pained smile. “Have you learned so little of me?” she asked. “All the times you found me to be short with you, it was all for the defense of the Convocation. Years ago I struggled to regain my human form so I could better serve my community, witch and warlock alike. I dedicated my life to defending my people. So how, then, could I let you come into harm’s way up there? You have proven that you are my people, Alexandra. Make no mistake about that.”

  There were no words I could say, no comfort I could give, and in the end, Laurien seemed at peace with meeting her death. There was no pleading, no last gasp for life or begging for more time. Her eyes slid shut, her presence a sudden absence in my arms, and she was gone.

  Silence filled Times Square all around us, the strangest thing to experience in the heart of my city. I gave Laurien over to a group of her people as they gathered in around her, and I stepped away to join my friends, stone and human alike.

  Every last part of me felt drained to the core, and I could do nothing more than stand there silently among those of us who had survived until the sound of Marshall clearing his throat drew my attention.

  Stanis, Caleb, Warren, Rory, and I all looked at him.

  “I don’t want to alarm anyone,” Marshall said, “but the world is watching.”

  I laughed, mostly to keep from crying, the kind of cry that I knew might never stop. I could process everything that had just happened—the insanity of arcana at this scale, that we had probably saved thousands of lives here in Times Square tonight, let alone those the Butcher and his people would have harmed had we not stopped him. All of that seemed like a relatively easy task compared to what we were about to face.

  How do you take on the world?

  Twenty-nine

  Stanis

  More humans than I had ever experienced at once were coming into Times Square. All around us, faces pressed against the glass of all the buildings as people took their phones out and pointed them down at us.

  “Shit,” Detective Rowland said. “I don’t think our brothers and sisters in blue will be able to hold them back much longe
r.”

  “Plus there’s probably a whole precinct or two that would like a word with us, and the lot of you,” Maron added.

  “We should probably take this somewhere a little more private,” Alexandra said.

  I looked around the rapidly filling streets in every direction. “Where would you suggest?” I asked.

  “Up above the giant television monitor,” she said. “You know, where they drop the ball on New Year’s Eve?”

  This I did know, never quite understanding the ritual, but now was not the time to inquire about it. Instead, I scooped Alexandra up in my arms and brought her up to the top of the building while Jonathan and a few other of my grotesques lent a hand transporting the rest of our group there. Several trips later, my people had gathered Detectives Rowland and Maron, Aurora, Warren, Caleb, and several other witches and warlocks that they pointed out.

  “So what now?” Detective Maron asked, brushing himself off.

  “Listen up,” Alexandra said. “All of you. This is our one chance to get this right.”

  Detective Rowland laughed. “I thought we got it right when we kicked the Butcher’s ass,” she said.

  I shook my head. “The end is just the beginning, is it not?” I asked.

  Alexandra smiled. “Exactly,” she said. “From this point forward our three factions—humans, grotesques, and arcanists—we all know of each other now. All of us assembled up here . . . What we do here today matters. What we decide here today matters. We set the tone not just for our future, but for the future of the world.”

  Marshall gave an uneasy laugh. “No pressure or anything,” he said.

  “That’s a pretty big task,” Rowland said. “Where do you see us fitting into this? I can tell you right now that the NYPD is going to take what just happened down there as a sign of gargoyle aggression.”

  “Even though my people fought against them?” I asked.

  Rowland nodded. “New York’s Finest are a little slow-moving against profiling. It’s going to take some time before they run up and hug a gargoyle. Sorry, but it’s true.”

  Alexandra fell silent as she contemplated the detective’s question. The longer it went, the more I felt compelled to speak.

  “While I can only speak for those grotesques who fall within my dominion, I shall try to keep a continued peace among them,” I said. “However, I will admit to a need for a more public presence for policing them to put at ease the common man. My father’s dungeons were used to house the worst of humankind back in Kobryn. Could we not institute some sort of facility here that would hold the worst of my kind?”

  “A super prison?” Marshall asked, his eyes lighting up. The excitement in his voice caused all of us to turn to him. “Sorry. We have these things in the comics I read.”

  “We could convert the old subway station my great-great-grandfather built to our purposes,” Alexandra suggested as she carefully thought it through. “The stone there—while a bit beat up from our battle with the Butcher—is still rich in arcane magic, and I’m sure I could reinforce it.”

  “You,” Caleb started, then stopped. “We should probably make it strong enough to house witches and warlocks, too.”

  “Hold on, now,” Warren said, taking offense. “Are you suggesting we are criminals?”

  “Without giving up anyone under my strict policy of client-freelancer privilege,” Caleb said, “let’s just say I’ve worked for the best and worst among you and leave it at that. Maybe the fear of jail time for the worst offenders out there might solve some of the issues that take up so much time when your Convocation meets.”

  Warren paused to consider it.

  “A fair and thought-provoking point,” he said, then turned to his murmuring assemblage of people.

  “We must discuss this further among ourselves,” a blond woman with them said.

  Warren remained with us, but the rest of the witches and warlocks moved off to the far side of the roof, conferring among themselves.

  “I’m not sure the mayor’s office will go for that,” Rowland said.

  “Then we make them,” Maron said. “Chloe, we just went from being mocked by the department to suddenly handling the largest shift in law enforcement history ever. They’re going to want answers, and fast, before we have a citywide panic. Presenting them with a solution that helps police the situation is a step in the right direction.”

  “And who exactly is going to police it?” Rowland asked.

  “I can help with that,” Aurora said, stepping forward. “I would expect the police to eventually take over such a task, but in the meantime, I have no problem with keeping the peace, and using force on those who would break it.”

  Aurora held up her twin hammers. Rowland looked at her, skepticism in her eyes.

  “Despite the blue hair and glasses,” I said, “Aurora is more than a formidable fighter . . . in case you missed it down below.”

  “I can vouch for her,” Detective Maron said with a smile. “She managed to save me down there, probably more than once.”

  Aurora smiled back at him, her face turning a bright crimson hue. “It’s what I do,” she said with a shrug.

  Marshall walked to the edge of the roof and stared down into Times Square far below. “With that many cameras, maybe I should have worn a T-shirt with my store’s name on it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Aurora said, turning away from the detective. She clapped Marshall on the shoulder, then put her arm around him. “After what you helped pull off here tonight, I think you’ll more than expand your client base among the witches and warlocks alone.”

  “Let’s hope I can make some of them gamers,” he said.

  Aurora gave him a compassionate squeeze, and to my surprise did not mock him for his answer. Instead she kept her arm around him as they stared out over the city in silence.

  I turned to the warlock Warren. “I am sorry about Laurien,” I said.

  He smiled, but it was a grim one. “Thank you,” he said.

  “She died protecting her people,” Alexandra said.

  “It is the way I am sure she wished to go out,” he said, then looked over to the witches and warlocks he had asked me to bring up with us. “If you will excuse me, I should probably join the others of my kind, for there is much for me to discuss concerning her passing.”

  Alexandra and I both nodded our approval, and Warren walked off across the roof to his people.

  For a moment it was just Alexandra and me alone where we stood, the rest of our friends and detectives conferring with one another a short distance away. I looked over the edge of the building, at the people below and the grotesques that filled the open air. Alexandra rested her hands on my arms, her skin cool against my rough stone.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  I thought for a long moment before answering. “I suppose I will be, yes,” I said.

  “You don’t sound so certain,” she said.

  “I thought with the creation of Sanctuary, I would finally make up for the sins of my father,” I said. “That I would be a better leader.”

  “You are a better leader,” she insisted.

  “No,” I said. “I am a less harmful one, less damaging, but I am no leader yet. And even if I were, I would be an incomplete one. I need someone by my side. If I am to be a king to my people, then I wish you to be my queen.”

  Alexandra stepped back, her arms dropping to her side.

  “I cannot rule alone,” I said.

  One moment her face held a smile and the next it was a mask of bewilderment. “Would you be saying that if Emily was still here?” Alexandra asked.

  I fell silent as I thought about it for a moment. “I do not think it is something she ever truly desired,” I said. “It was enough for her to find out who she was. She has her own family to look after.”

  It was hard to read Alexand
ra’s face, but I detected the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, which did my heart good.

  “And what about you?” Alexandra asked. “What about your family?”

  “I am among my own . . . both grotesque and humankind, but as I said, I cannot rule alone. My father did so by his will and his alone, and it was not conducive to leading well. I need a partner in this.”

  Alexandra smiled as Warren came back over to us from his crowd. Aurora, Marshall, and the detectives walked over to us as well.

  “I would understand if you did not wish to commit your life to ruling over creatures of stone,” I said. “You have your art, these witches and warlocks to contend with, not to mention these detectives and the people of Manhattan, who are all more aware of my kind than ever.”

  Alexandra shook her head. “Laurien said I was one of her people,” Alexandra said. “But I’m one of your people, too. Through arcana, I am a witch—a Spellmason—but it also makes your grotesques my people as well.” She looked to Warren, who gave her a nod, then back at me. “Ruling at your side will help bridge the gap between all of us.”

  “Perhaps,” Warren said with a shrug, “but do not look to me for your answer on that.”

  “Well, who should I be looking at?” she asked as she searched the crowd of witches and warlocks.

  “Ask Caleb,” he said.

  All of us turned to Caleb, who had not seemed to register what Warren had said.

  When he noticed all of us staring, his face changed and he turned to Warren. “Excuse me . . . ?”

  “Our kind spend much of our time deliberating,” Warren said.

  “I had not noticed,” I said. “Even among my kind, who find the passage of a decade short, you take forever.”

  “And that is why we came to our decision so quickly,” Warren said. “As you’ve experienced, there is much infighting among our various factions. Everyone was nominating this one and that one in their own self-interests, but there was only one person we agreed on who never took sides: Caleb.”