The Watchmage of Old New York (The Watchmage Chronicles Book 1)

by C. A. Sanders

  He scrambled to his feet like an angry crab and tried to bring the pistol to bear. I knocked it from his hand and backhanded him across the face with the poker. He slammed against the alley wall again and slid down like a splattered egg yolk.

  “That’s enough o’ that nonsense,” came a rough voice from behind. I heard the click of a barker being cocked, and I prayed for a misfire.

  Instead I saw the wrath of God.

  A light flashed past me, and I heard a scream and sizzle from behind. The Redcap convulsed on the ground like a holy roller. The smell of urine mixed with the scent of burning hair.

  I turned. Hendricks stood in the alley, the cross around his neck glowing blue-white. He looked at his hand, where snakes of lightning played along his fingers. The smoldering Redcap moaned. Hendricks waggled his fingers, and lightning erupted from his outstretched hand. The creature bounced into the air and landed on the paving stones. He gave one pitiful whelp and faded into nothingness.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked.

  It took a moment for Hendricks to speak. “He’s too weak to maintain his form on this side of the Veil. It’ll take years before he comes back.” Hendricks stared at his hand. “I didn’t know I could do that.” The poor boy trembled while he took in the scene. The tremble threatened to capsize his stork-like body. He leaned against the wall for support.

  “Pop sent you to follow me. He didn’t think that I could handle this.”

  “You couldn’t. Be thankful your father cares enough to send me after you.”

  “Bah.” I wiped away blood from my nose. “Just because he’s right doesn’t mean he should’ve done it.” I tapped the downed Redcap at my feet. He groaned, but didn’t move. “What do we do with this one?”

  “Master Nathaniel will want to question and judge him. I can bring him back to Turtle House. Arrock is nearby with the carriage. Or should I stay with you?”

  His earnestness annoyed me. He’s a pup, and he’s magicking his way around my kidnapping. He’s ruining the fun. “Go back to Turtle House. Miss Hyde doesn’t know you, and you might frighten her.”

  He retrieved a book from inside of his coat. “You’re right,” he stuttered and fumbled over his tongue. “I think I have a spell in here that’ll keep the Redcap sedate.” He flipped through the pages. “Don’t worry about us,” he said, but I was already walking away.

  Christopher the desk clerk sat behind a pile of papers when I entered the hospital. The butt of a cigar jutted from his mouth, and he ashed in the general vicinity of a tray. He looked up from the work he wasn’t doing. “Afternoon, officer. Looks like someone hit ya’ in the duke. You come here for that? Want the doc to look you over?”

  I put both hands flat on his desk and leaned over. A shot of pain went through my injured arm. “I got anointed ten minutes after I left our lunch. Know anything about it?”

  His face blanched. “Me? No, I didn’t do anything. I don’t know anything.”

  “The three men that dusted my coat sat in the corner while we ate.”

  He squashed the cigar in the ashtray. The muscles in his throat squirmed like pigs in a blanket. “I didn’t notice them. I swear, I didn’t know nothin’. I was hungry. It was the roas’ beef. The great roas’ beef, remember?”

  I relaxed and took my hands off the desk. “If I find out otherwise, I’ll be very put out, you understand.”

  “I didn’t do nothin’. Honor bright.”

  I looked into the main room, where the crisp, white linens and straight lines suggested a parade or muster. Molly’s bed was empty. “Where’s Molly Hyde?”

  “They moved her into the back room. She’s getting better. The docs might even let you talk to ‘er.”

  I walked toward the back room, As an afterthought, I looked back. “It was pretty good roast beef. Too bad it comes with a beating.”

  The back room was much more pleasant than the front, with huge potted plants in the corners and under the large windows. It was a smaller room, and the patients looked less ready to die.

  Three doctors were bent over one bed. They talked in hushed tones. I couldn’t understand them, so I moved in closer.

  I tapped one on the shoulder. “Excuse me, doctor. I’m looking for Molly Hyde.”

  The doctor waved me away as he continued to work. A second doctor cursed and threw his hands up. “It’s over. We can’t help her.”

  “God’s wounds,” said another doctor. “I don’t understand it, Stillwell. This morning she was healthy as a horse. Now…”

  The man I deduced as Doctor Stillwell looked down at the body. “Man will never thwart God’s will. We should find the priest.”

  I tapped Doctor Stillwell again. “I’m looking for Molly Hyde. Police business.”

  He looked at me with moist eyes. “You missed her.” He bumped the bed with his hip. “The poor girl’s dead.”

  Nathaniel

  The Redcap turned cursing into an art form.

  “What a rude little man you are,” I said.

  Jonas, Hendricks, and I stood in my laboratory. The captured Redcap, who I knew as Mo’tok, sneered from inside a summoning circle. The argent runes etched in the circle kept him within. Not that he was much of a threat in his state. His eyesight had returned, but his face was still burned from the salt. A long burn mark from the poker streaked his head.

  He spat onto the floor. “I ain’t scared a-you. You’re a filthy pig like the rest of ‘em.”

  “Perhaps, but one that can send you spiraling across the Veil with hardly a thought,” I said. “Unless you’d prefer a stay in Atlantis instead.”

  He blanched at the mention of Atlantis, but redoubled his attitude. “You git nothin’.”

  His attitude was as expected. Immortal sorts should be wiser. Alas, they are not. “How many did you say attacked you, Officer?” I said to Jonas, sure to make no sign that I knew him.

  Jonas caught my act right away. “There were three the first time, Mister Hood. Two of these beasties and a little one with wings. The second time it was two, and your apprentice turned one to cinders.”

  “Did you hear the good policeman, Mo’tok? It’ll be easier to tell me who your associates are and who hired you.”

  “It’ll be easier if you drink a pint of horse piss,” Mo’tok answered.

  “Just hurt the bastard and be done with it,” Jonas said.

  “I don’t think we’ll have to resort to that,” I looked at Mo’tok. “Will we?”

  “Won’t matter.” He stuck out his chin as if daring a strike. “I’m not afraid. I know you ain’t got da eggs to do nothin’.”

  The Redcap had a point. I did my best to develop a certain reputation among the Dwellers of New York. Many had been abused by wizards—even Watchmages—in the Old Country. Even Master Sol could be cruel to them. Machiavelli says that it’s better for a ruler to be feared than loved, but he was a poet, not a wizard.

  My ways worked in the past, but these new immigrants expect a harsh Watchmage, the devil they know. They mistake my kindness for weakness.

  “Gentlemen, if you would join me.” I walked to the other side of the room and my companions followed.

  “What are you doing?” Said Jonas. “At the station, we would’ve beaten a confession out of him already.”

  “What kind of man would I be if I tortured him?”

  “You’d be a good man that did a bad thing for justice.”

  I looked at my boy’s face. The soft, gentle features that I once knew were gone. I blame the theater.

  I stuttered out the beginnings of an excuse, but I didn’t have a true argument. I hoped that I didn’t regret this.

  My entourage in tow, I walked back to Mo’tok,. He stood with his arms crossed and picked a scab on his face.

  “My associates and I have discussed the situation,” I began. “We’re going to try a different approach.”

  “Ya gonna lightnin’ me?” He laughed, a sound like a hacking cough. “Don’t ya get it? The worst ya ken do is
send me back home.”

  “I will give you a last chance to answer my questions. Who hired you? Who worked with you? Why did you attack Officer Hood? Why did you kill Molly Hyde?”

  “I didn—I’m not tellin’ ya nothin’…Wait, did ya say Officer Hood?” He grinned wickedly, flashing a predator’s teeth. “That’s worth a coup’la favors right there.”

  Sometimes I’m ashamed of my own foolishness. Any qualms I had about hurting him vanished. I drew Air energy inside of me until it filled every vein. I traced a rune and released the power, He doubled over and groaned.

  “You feel that, I presume, and you’re curious as to why. You see, I created a large bubble of air inside of you. It’s pushing out your insides.”

  “I ken take it,” he said through gritted teeth.

  I inflated the bubble, and he folded over again. “No, you can’t. You Redcaps are hard as steel on the outside, but on the inside, you’re as soft as everybody else,” I said. If only he had listened to reason, it would’ve saved him such pain.

  “These are my terms.” I began in an even tone. “When you answer a question, the bubble shrinks. When you refuse or you lie—and I’ll know when you lie—the bubble will expand until you burst like an overripe melon. Do you understand me?”

  Mo’tok spat on the ground again, but his sneer was less confident than before. I funneled more Air energy into the bubble and he screamed like a wounded horse.

  “Why did you attack the officer?”

  He grimaced and resisted. I inflated the bubble. The result was hard to watch. “He was gettin’ too close to th’ hospital. We’re supposed ta keep leather’eads from th’ hospital.” He fell to the floor, and the hard-as-steel Redcap screamed. Coppery froth dripped from his mouth. “Oh god, make it stop!”

  “Because of the girl?”

  “I dunno. He told us ta keep cops away. Din’t say nuttin’ bout no girl. Please…please stop.” His eyes were moist.

  I shrunk the bubble, and he relaxed some.

  Jonas stepped forward. “The bastard’s lying. The doctor said Molly would recover. Sounds like magic fairyland bunkum to me. Put his feet to the fire.”

  “What do you say, Mo’tok? Did you kill the girl?”

  He hesitated, and I raised my arm as if to cast a spell. “No more,” he said gasping. “We din’t croak her. He did.”

  “Good, we’re making progress. Who is ‘he’?”

  “I dunno. Some wizard. He had a funny voice for a human, hard to unda’stand. Ugly too. I liked him.”

  “What do you mean, funny? Like an accent?”

  He scratched his head in thought, a pose not very common among Redcaps. “No accent, just funny.”

  “That could be anything,” said Jonas.

  “It’s a beginning,” I said. “One more question for you, and then I’ll pass your sentence. There were three of you. Who are the other two?”

  “Don’t ask me that,” Mo’tok said.

  I raised my hand, and when he didn’t talk, I followed through. He shrieked and pounded on the floor like he was trying to break through it, then curled into a ball like a pill bug.

  “I’ll ask again.”

  He looked at me from the floor, and despite his burns, the look on his face pulled at my heart. “Don’t ask me ta turn in m’brothers.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I felt bad enough about torturing him, I couldn’t force that kind of betrayal as well. Dwellers live in clans, regardless of race or ancestry. A clan bond is eternal and as tight as anything I ever had with my brothers, God rest them.

  “Agreed. You’ve done well.” I removed the air bubble from inside of him. He continued to gasp, but he stopped his whimpering. I cleared my throat to give my words the impression of substance. “I find you guilty of assaulting a human and attempting to murder him. I sentence you to thirty days in Atlantis.”

  Jonas’s jaw dropped. “Thirty days? The bastard tried to kill me!”

  Mo’tok’s jaw dropped. “Thirty days? Kill me instead!”

  I shook my head to both of them. “No, thirty days is right. Don’t bother to hold your breath.” I waved my hand and chanted a sentence in the Old Tongue. The runes around the circle glowed, and Mo’tok vanished.

  Jonas looked ready to burst. Hendricks pointedly studied a book lying on a table.

  “Why were you so easy on him?” Jonas said. “He almost killed me, and you gave him a damn holiday.”

  “I never told you what Atlantis is?”

  “A city with half-naked mermaids?”

  “My master built it when he first became Watchmage. At the bottom of New York Harbor is a series of iron cells. The bars are set with runes that prevent Dwellers from escaping. The salt in the water isn’t enough to burn them, but it’s not pleasant. They stay there in the dark and the boredom, unable to move, use magic or even speak. Thirty days is enough. More than that and he might go mad.

  Jonas stroked the stubble on his chin. “Still sounds nicer than the Tombs,” referring to the city jail.

  “Boredom is agony to a creature made of dreams. Master Sol used to keep them in iron manacles too. I stopped that, it was too cruel.”

  We left the laboratory and moved our discussion to the parlor. I poured Jonas and myself glasses of Madeira. Hendricks declined my offer, as always.

  “Are you studying the book of runes that I gave you?” I said to Hendricks. He nodded. “Good, I want you to go with Jonas. One person’s dead, and I don’t want the second to be my boy.”

  “I’m not a boy.” Jonas spilled a few drops on wine on his vest and cursed.

  “You’re barely one and twenty, but even if you were fifty, you’d be my boy.”

  Jonas turned red. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

  “You asked for my help.”

  “I didn’t ask for a coup. I can do this myself.”

  I sipped my wine and tried to read Jonas’s face. “This isn’t about you and me. The kidnapper proved that he’s not afraid to kill, and he has Dwellers working for him.” I looked at him and grinned. “Unless you’d rather I went with you instead.”

  Jonas grumbled and drowned his argument in Madeira.

  Jonas

  I’ve got one lead, a dead witness, fairy tales trying to kill me, and a wizard pup trailing my heels. I wasn’t in a good mood.

  Molly Hyde’s last words haunted me. She was terrified, not about her own plight, but about getting her sister money. A girl like that, she shouldn’t have to worry for others when she’s got so many worries for herself.

  I had to fill Molly’s last wish and find the girl. For the longest time I thought that “Cherry and Catharine” were people, but I’ve never heard someone name their kid Cherry. Some time while Pop was goin’ easy on that Redcap fella, I remembered the streets, not far from the Bowery.

  With my annoying little shadow in tow, I hopped a carriage down the Bowery. It was late afternoon. The sun cast long shadows across the avenue and blinded me from the side whenever we crossed a street. The Manhattan Grid is a wonder of progress, but on days like these the setting Sun rolls down the east-west streets like an orange boulder.

  A young man lit the street lights as we passed. Another walked down the crowded street wearing placards on his front and back. The day crowd returned home, and the night crowd crept out from their holes.

  “I’ve never been here after dark,” Hendricks said, his eyes darting back and forth like a pair of scared rabbits.

  “Never? Why not?”

  “My parents always said not to go to the Bowery, and so I didn’t.”

  “Do you always do what your parents tell you?”

  “Yes. No.” He squeezed one hand with the other. “I used to. You should listen to your father more. He’s a very wise man.”

  “He’ll always be a Seventy-Sixer. The world doesn’t work the way he wants anymore.” I looked to the other side of the street. A Muni thumped a drunk with his nightstick and rolled him into the gutter. A bartender stood in the
doorway, shaking his fist at the drunk and cursing in German. Our carriage rolled by without concern.

  “When we get there, let me do the talking. You look out for more Redcaps.”

  “How long until we get there?”

  The carriage turned left at Chatham Square and rolled down Catharine. I tapped the driver on his shoulder. “When you see a Muni, pull over.” He grunted in agreement.

  I watched Hendricks squirm as the houses and people grew filthier. Catharine runs right to the docks on South Street, and the streets were filled with sailors and those that preyed on them.

  “There’s one,” said the driver, and he pulled the reins. We paid him and got out. There were two or three Munis. It was hard to tell because they were breaking up a brawl between sailors and some stevedores. The Munis were getting their coats dusted, pushed back by the rolling tide of bodies.

  I took out my nightstick and joined the fray before it blew into a riot. Riots are as common as cockroaches in the Lower Wards and they can last for days. I understand why. When life’s hell and there’s no hope, sometimes you gotta throw a brick.

  In the shadows with the setting sun shining in my eyes, I didn’t notice that the cops wore Mets badges until I was too close to ignore them. Still, we’re all on the same side, right? I started beating on the brawlers.

  “They started early today,” said one Met as he struck a bloody sailor across the back. He didn’t stop to look at me.

  I kicked the leg out from one whapper covered in tattoos. He sprawled to the ground and the Met stomped on his eggs. “Welcome to New York,” I chuckled.

  The Met looked at my badge and raised his fists.

  “I’m here to help,” I said.

  He was about to reply when a tow-headed sailor punched him in the sniffer. I grabbed the man and threw him to the ground with a flying mare. Before I could react, another one was on me. He hit me on the top of the head, knocking off my hat, and I felt the throbbing burn of an open cut. I jabbed him in the belly with my nightstick. He doubled over, and I drove my knee into his floating rib, flooring him.