by John Conroe
“That a good idea? Handing out power to hostile entities?” Krupp asked me.
“Hostile? He’s pissed at his death and I think he grew pissed that he couldn’t get anyone to pay attention to him. If the people in the clinic killed him, then he was likely directing his anger and attacks on them. He didn’t know we were different until we talked to him. Now he knows. And he needed that last hit to give you probable cause, right?” I asked.
“It certainly sped things up,” Krupp said, stepping carefully into the dark hole.
The black form was back, in the corner of the basement nearest the electrical box. This time, features started to form.
“I found a body,” Krupp said suddenly. “Decayed and mummified, but I think it could be male.”
“Let me guess. Five-nine, thin, brown hair, blue eyes, long, angular face?” I suggested.
Mazar and Caeco turned to me, but I kept my eyes on the filled-out figure in the corner, the one that watched me with something that might have been hope.
“How the hell did you get that? Although the eyes are closed,” Krupp said, backing out and turning to look my way.
“He’s standing in the corner,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, flicking a quick look into the corner but apparently not seeing what I was seeing. “Does he have any ID on him? Because the body is stripped naked.”
The young man disappeared in a blur, a cold, icy wind breezing past all of us and entering the hole. Krupp reacted instantly, flashing her light into the dark space. I could now see the desiccated lower legs of a body, feet closest to the hole in the brick. Deeper inside, almost as far back as the hole went, a sudden cloud of soil and dust puffed upward from the dirt floor. Krupp glanced back at me, her face questioning. I felt myself nod. “I would take that as a hint,” I said. Pulling on a pair of blue nitrile gloves from her jacket pocket, she disappeared into the hole then came backing out, a filthy, decaying cloth bag in one hand.
Setting it on the concrete, she handed her light to Caeco, who illuminated the bag while Krupp went to work with both hands. Two—no, three—wallets, a necklace, a small handful of rings, some papers, and a watch all came out of the bag.
Mazar, also sporting blue gloves, started to look at the wallets. She held up the second one to show me. “This our guy?”
I nodded, looking into the face of the phantasm made real in New York state-issued plastic officialdom. “Thomas R. Parkston, resident of Tuxedo Park, New York,” I read out loud.
The whole basement lightened perceptively, the atmosphere suddenly brighter.
“That would be confirmation,” Caeco said, looking around at the basement, then at me.
“As would this letter, indicating young Thomas had an appointment here with a Doctor Wendle three and… a half years or so ago,” Krupp said, eyes still on the unfolded paper.
Krupp and Mazar exchanged another cryptic glance, then turned to me. “Are we safe now?” Krupp asked.
“From Thomas? I would guess so. He’s achieved his goal… at least part of it. He’s got your attention and you’re investigating. Will you notify his family?” I asked.
“Yes, in a few days, when we’ve confirmed forensically that this is him,” Mazar said. Both were still looking at me and the vibe had changed.
“And let me guess—time for me to leave?” I asked.
Mazar just stared at me, maybe fascinated, maybe excited about the case. Krupp, though, nodded. “Yeah, we think it’s best if you don’t get involved with the New York office, especially considering who you work for,” Krupp said.
“Right, well then, I’ll just meander home,” I said, suddenly feeling weird.
“Caeco will see you out,” Mazar said with a glance and a nod at my ex-girlfriend.
I nodded and turned away. “Declan,” Krupp said, causing me to turn back. “Thank you.” Mazar nodded her agreement before both agents turned back to the pile of personal effects.
Caeco took my hand and pulled me toward the doorway. I was only too happy to leave that creepy basement of death to the professionals. She let go when we were in the hall, not looking at me but pushing at her short hair in that nervous gesture of hers.
“That was really cool,” she said when we were in the stairwell and headed up.
“What part?” I asked.
“The whole thing—from the moment it threw the book at you till it showed us the bag of effects,” she said.
“Yeah, it kinda was. I don’t have much experience with ghosts. More my aunt’s thing than mine. You guys need to hire a few Air witches.”
“Air bitches you mean,” she said. “I’d rather they brought on some psychometrists.”
“Yeah, wait till they become mainstream. Can you picture a courtroom where a kid like Steve Colter was giving testimony while holding the victim’s watch?” I asked.
“Steve seems a little flighty,” Caeco said.
“That’s because he’s eighteen, nerdy, and never been laid,” I said.
“Oh? Is that what separates the cool kids from the dweebs? Virginity?” she asked, arching one brow at me.
“I’ll leave the ultimate determination to you scientists, but that’s my theory,” I said.
She grinned suddenly and looked down.
“What?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I like that you called me a scientist,” she said.
“Why? It’s what you are, just like your mother,” I said, uncertain of her emotions.
“See, everyone else thinks I’m a soldier or an assassin,” she said.
“Yeah well, you have to admit you’ve got mad skills, but really, once anyone gets to know you, I’m sure the nerd will shine through,” I said, which earned me a fast smack on the shoulder. She pulled the punch though so it hardly stung. I’d rub it later.
We reached to door to the building and she stopped, suddenly uncertain, herself.
“Okay, I’ll leave you forensic types to your work,” I said, starting toward the open doorway. A fast hand caught my shirt and she pulled me down for a quick kiss on the lips, then almost as fast pushed me upright again.
“Thanks for the backup, D,” she said, an odd gleam in her eyes.
“Anytime, Caeco Jensen. Anytime,” I said, stepping out the door into the early summer evening sun. The door behind me closed softly and I started down the steps, only to realize I had no idea which way the Demidova tower lay from here. Pulling out my phone, I set about navigating the wilds of New York, thinking about my ex and finding myself whistling as I walked.
Chapter 19 – Chris
Chet had me run through it again—for the fifth time. Declan had already gone over it with him while we were on the Demidova jet from DC, but our master of technology wanted my limited take on the whole thing.
“So we get settled in this holding-slash-meeting room and it lights up the monitor with questions that are directed at Declan. He asks it why not any curiosity about me, and it says it already knows about Brutal Asset,” I repeated, almost word for word.
“So it has access to the AIR files,” he mused.
“So it said. It said it hadn’t penetrated the security at Oracle yet but that it would in the next day or so. But it knew he was an energy user,” I said, making little air quotes.
“What did it say next?” he asked, leaning forward.
“I told you, that it had no files of any energy user with advanced cybersecurity abilities,” I said.
“So it’s trying to figure out our young warlock’s voodoo or whatever it is he does when he makes quantum particles leap and jump at his command. Why? Countermeasures?” Chet asked.
“Nagle, the programmer, said it was designed to learn from any other software it came in contact with. Maybe it not only wants magicware 1.0 for defense but for offense too?” I suggested.
“That’s not scary or anything. A malignant program with magical properties,” Chet said.
“Could it do it? Use quantum physics?” I asked.
“I don’
t know how, but then again, I don’t know what the hell Declan does or even what you do, for that matter, and I’ve had several years to study you, pal,” he said, scratching his head.
“So does this help you think up software traps or whatever Declan was talking about?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s all useful. Knowledge is power, dude,” he said, rubbing his hand together. “But think of Anvil as a living thing, moving about its environment, which happens to be the Internet. It gets curious about something and pokes its digital fingers into a cookie jar, only there’s a virus waiting for it, and not just any virus. No, this baby is a vat-brewed, eye of newt and wing of bat creation that latches onto Anvil and gets dragged everywhere it goes. It doesn’t go active right away. No, it attaches and waits. Every time Anvil makes contact with a copy of itself, the virus spreads. Then at some point, maybe our signal or command, it activates and kills the host program.”
“Would that even work? Would we even know how to write such a thing?” I asked.
“Susskins knows a shitload about writing viruses,” Chet said. I must have looked blank or puzzled. “You know, the bald one? Works on the special project?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah. Mr. Personality,” I said, picturing the guy now. Of course it would be the only human on staff that managed to creep out a few of the vampire staff, if only the newest ones.
“He has a… varied background. Has some specialized knowledge about viruses.”
“You mean he used to write them and crash people’s computers,” I said.
“Possibly, but that came in handy when that antivirus company hired him for his last job before this one. Anyway, we don’t have to hang out with the guy, just get him to help us write some magical code. My intern, Simon, can help, too. If I recall, he was a bit of a hacker as a kid.”
“You do know that he and Declan don’t get along, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yeah, I picked up on that, but they worked okay on the first magic code that freed our mainframes. They should be all right. I mean, even I get tired of his sucking up sometimes,” Chet said.
“You mean when you’ve been dragging him around all day with his lips locked to your ass?” I laughed.
“Whose lips are on whose ass?” Lydia asked from the doorway. “I told you—I get first rights to all dirt and scandal… it’s in my contract.”
Tanya moved into view behind the little terror, but then, I already knew she was there.
“Simon the intern on Chet’s,” I said.
“Old news,” she said, waving it away. “So what have you kids been up to while the grownups were sleeping?”
I explained the trip that Declan and I took to DC and summarized the last few minutes’ conversation.
“So Declan feels it’s too late to change this thing’s mind and that we need to just kick its ass with a magical computer worm?” Tanya asked. Chet and I both nodded. “I like it.”
“Hey, where is our wicked witch of the web?” Lydia asked.
“He asked for a few hours to take care of some personal stuff. He’ll probably be back soon,” I said.
Both women frowned at me. “Is that a good idea? Leaving him alone in the city? He’s just an eighteen year old,” Lydia said.
“He’s a young adult who also happens to be possibly the strongest witch in existence,” I said.
“See, when you say it like that it makes me even more worried. Young man, bottled up with emotions and hormones—especially hormones—alone in the deprived underbelly of the Rotten Old Apple and packing magical firepower roughly equivalent to a naval destroyer. What could happen?” Lydia said.
Despite my confidence in Declan, I began to see her point.
“Who was he going to see?” Tanya asked.
“He didn’t say, but I caught a glimpse of his phone. He probably doesn’t know how well I can see. Anyway, I saw Caeco’s name on the text,” I said.
“That’s his girlfriend, right? Or I mean ex-girlfriend. What’s she doing in the city?” Lydia asked, serious now.
“She’s working for those FBI agents on some paranormal version of a Bureau crime team,” I said.
“Oh, so super witch, whose first and only girlfriend, now his ex, happens to show up and texts him for a booty call? Or is the FBI dragging our ace card into some freak show?” Lydia asked.
“Look, I’ll just text him and check up on him,” I said, pulling out my phone.
“Wait, we need an angle. Can’t be just checking on him or he’ll think we don’t trust him to be on his own,” Lydia said.
“But we don’t trust him on his own,” Tanya pointed out.
“Of course not. He’s just a kid. But we don’t want him to know that. So what do we tell him?” Lydia asked.
“I want to take the whole intern group to Plasma tonight to give them a little break. Ask him if he can be back for that,” Tanya suggested.
I typed it into my phone and sent it on its way. “Hmm, that’s odd. Shouldn’t it say it’s been delivered?” I asked Chet, showing him my phone.
“If he uses an iPhone too, then yes,” Chet said.
“He uses an iPhone,” Tanya and I said in unison.
“I hate when you two do that,” Lydia said. “Try calling him.”
I did. “No answer. Went straight to voicemail.”
“Okay, no reception in New York? Something’s up,” Lydia said, voicing what we’d all been thinking. The question was what was blocking our signal, and where was our witch?
Chapter 20 – Declan
I was being herded. It took me a solid twenty minutes to figure it out.
Hell’s Kitchen lay west and north of the Demidova Tower, that much had been pretty clear on my phone’s map app.
So naturally, I started walking south and east while looking for a taxi. Only I didn’t see any. Any at all. That should have set off alarms, but then it started to rain.
Sunny and hot one moment, pouring cats and dogs the next. The storm was coming from the north and seemed to move very slowly. So slow that I managed to keep ahead of it as long as I headed more south than east, following 11th Avenue. It’s not like I was running in terror of getting wet. I’m not the help-me-I’m-melting kind of witch, facing down a bratty Dorothy and her kicking dog Toto. But this was a drenching, soak-your-wallet-and-phone kind of storm, one that lacked any form of lightning whatsoever. In other words, boring and annoying. So I hustled along, walking down Manhattan, trying to get far enough ahead that I could bolt east. I made it three blocks south from the abandoned and haunted organ-robbing clinic when I hit a solid wall of traffic on 34th Street. I mean, there is always traffic in New York but this was ridiculous. And the stoplights weren’t changing. The storm was catching up to me and I was about to risk a dart into traffic when I looked up and saw it—an overpass of some kind. Only with plants… and people walking on it. I followed it with my eyes till I found where it came down to the ground. A wheelchair ramp touched down halfway between 11th and 12th Avenues. Perfect.
Breaking into a run, I made the ramp and climbed quickly above street level to what the signs were calling the High Line. Apparently, it was some kind of abandoned rail line now used as a park of sorts. It initially moved west, but I could see it curving back to the east and then heading south. The rain was close so I hustled along, slipping by some women tourists who were oddly unfazed by the impending storm. That should have been clue number two.
I cleared the west leg to where it turned south, running alongside the Hudson River. The storm was almost on me and I got ready to run flat out when I skidded to a complete stop.
Three women stood across the walkway a hundred yards ahead. They formed a line, and all three were staring at me. They were too far away to make out details, but something seemed familiar. Deep inside, I felt Sorrow perk up and pay attention.
A quick glance behind me to check on the storm found another group of women standing in the path. Nine of them. Nine plus three equals twelve. Twelve women is the usual number of a circ
le of witches.
The rain started to patter on my shoulders and head, and the wind came hard behind me, almost pushing me forward. I moved, but at a slow walk. The women’s faces became clearer and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up straighter. I grabbed for power, but I was above the earth, on a suspended path with a cold wind removing any heat around me. Then the storm caught me fully and in an instant, I was soaked.
By now, I had a pit in my stomach and the short, dumpy shape of the middle woman seemed familiar in an awful kind of way. Ten more steps and I recognized her beyond all doubt. Macha Banfill, leader of the Irwin witches. My estranged distant family. The young woman to her left was familiar as well. We had tangled at College Arcane and I knew she was powerful. I also knew she had come out second best at that meeting, as I had been a literal pain in her ass. Her smirk was not comforting.