The New York Magician

by Zimmerman, Jacob

  My hand almost blew off.

  A cone of something erupted from my bandolier, and every edge in the alley suddenly lit in glaring incandescence, a hellish line-drawing of urban oubliette. In my surprise, I moved my right hand up into line and as I did so, a sequence of lines bent and twisted, forming a luminous outline which moved away from the right-hand wall and towards me. The trigger pull was reflexive.

  chooonnnk. chooonnnkACK.

  There was a whiplash sound as the second shot of the double-tap, done by habit, overwhelmed the baffles of the suppressor and released propellant gases into the air. The lines of light in the alley all detached from their surfaces, rimes of ice flowing before the sun, and dripped upwards, fading as they went. The shape jerked, twice, and then fell in its rush to crumple at my feet.

  I stepped back once and pulled the Maglite. Twisting its crown with my fingers, I played it on the figure.

  It was gray, flowing, and almost human. As I stared at it, the Beretta still pointing at its middle, it began to rustle around the edges. A moment later it lost cohesion into a flood of gases which spread rapidly out around my heels and dissipated into the cold New York night.

  I just stood there for a moment, unsure of what the hell had just happened, and then common sense took over. I turned left, hunched into my collar, and slipped the Beretta into my coat once more as I hurried towards University Place.

  There had been something under the wraith, but I had no idea what it had been. It had apparently had its own ideas about being followed. I was completely caught up in wondering what the hell I'd just shot when the surroundings rippled once, twice, and the sounds of the city trembled with a dissonance I'd never heard or hoped to hear. The wraith settled around me from above my head. I had just enough time to lift both my hands to my face before I felt an incredible flood of energy, energy manifested in the very fractures of space that were the wraith's form. It crackled into me with the hissing roar of air cannoned through a train tunnel, and before I could think or do anything, my awareness flickered and snuffed under its assault.

  I have no memory of hitting the pavement.

  When I came to some of my senses, I was in an amazingly uncomfortable position. I opened my eyes to discover that that really didn't make much of difference. There was a stickiness over my eyelids which I had fervently wished wasn't blood, but which I also recognized probably was. The reason for my discomfort was that my wrists were tied behind my back and my ankles were bound together and tied to my upper thighs. The result of this knot work was that I was in a sort of fetal position, lying on my right side. Fortunately or unfortunately, most of the really tormented muscles seemed to have gone numb before I woke up. That was a bad sign in the long run.

  I coughed experimentally. That disturbed a cloud of dust from the floor around my face, so I resolved not to do it again but promptly failed, wracking my chest and straining my shoulders as my diaphragm convulsed.

  Moaning seemed to be in order. I gave that a try. It didn't improve my situation, but it made me feel better about the amazing discomfort and pain I was in.

  After a couple of minutes arguing with myself to the effect that I wasn't really in bed, and I really should try to figure out what the hell was going on, I acknowledged the point with surly bad grace and tried to at least roll up to a kneeling position. This was painful and pointless until, in my thrashing, I came up against a wall; using that as a fulcrum for my shoulder, I finally managed to get my weight on my knees. I blinked several times, trying to see if I could clear my vision, but I couldn't tell if I was succeeding - the problem was in fact that it was pitch-black around me.

  I noticed first that my bandolier was gone. So was my coat, and the hardware that it had contained. My ankle was numb, but I presumed that if whoever had tied me had taken the time to tie my ankles, they'd found and removed my holdout gun from there as well. I couldn't tell if I had shoes on until I rocked enough to smack my feet against the hard floor. The soft thump told me that nope, I probably didn't. I caught myself thinking of the forthcoming pins and needles, assuming I managed to avoid gangrene, and almost sobbed in anticipatory agony.

  Just around about then, an intensely searing light drove its way back into my skull and I tried to scream and close my eyes. I did close my eyes. I may have croaked. The light turned out to be a door opening; the dimness of a hallway, painful to my light-starved eyes, showed me two figures entering the room. They grabbed me under the shoulders, cut my ankles free from my thighs, and hoisted me up between them before carrying me out of the room. I tried to keep my feet off the floor to avoid my toes being smashed into anything during the half-lift half-drag; I wasn't sure I'd succeeded. The lack of feedback I was getting from my body was getting worrying.

  We went right, then up a flight of steps that looked like 'basement back stairs' before exiting through a crash-barred door. Wending through a few darkened rooms, we finally came to what looked like workshop, with silent power tools and shelving surrounding a battered workbench in the center. The workbench was lit from above by a pair of portable work lights, making it a pool of brilliance. The figures on either side of me hoisted me without much apparent effort - I felt strangely light, as if they weren't lifting my whole weight - and dropped me onto the workbench. The pain of impact was bad, but not nearly as excruciating as I'd predicted. I rolled over back onto my right side.

  "Free him."

  That was new. The voice came from the shadows in the back of the room. A moment later, something cut the remaining thongs binding my ankles and wrists. I didn't so much stretch as ooze back into normal shape and extension, still lying in a curl on the bench. I know I cried at the pain that the movement of my joints engendered, but no tears came. I thought about the headache and my throat and guessed I was dehydrated. If I wasn't able to get lachrymose, it had to be fairly severe.

  "Leave him there. Go away."

  Voice was someone of few words, but effective ones. The shapes to either side withdrew into the darkness. After a few seconds, I heard a door open and close.

  "Mister Wibert. You'll have to excuse the help." There was a rustling noise as the voice moved towards me. I blinked blearily towards it. A dark man was weaving smoothly between the tool benches. He reached the workbench and surveyed me, hands flat on the bench to either side of his shoulders, before shaking his head.

  I wasn't bound. But there was no way I was moving. He was just as safe, which pissed me off.

  "…'ter?" I managed to croak.

  The observer nodded and reached under the bench. He came up with a squeeze bottle, which he spritzed once into my open mouth. I swished the liquid around as best I could and felt the sandpaper start to break free and dissolve. It was water, room temp but apparently unaltered. I spat the mouthful out and opened again, hopefully. He obliged me, and I drank gratefully, ignoring the foul taste which was almost certainly my mouth and not the water.

  After a few repetitions, he put the bottle down again and moved around the table so that his face was in easy view. I looked at him. He was middle height and looked awfully familiar, despite that I was sure I'd never met him. It wasn't until he spoke again that the shoe dropped.

  "Mister Wibert. I understand I have you to thank for my brother Hapy's arrival."

  I shook my head in confusion. "Shu?"

  "Indeed. Very nice to make your acquaintance."

  "Why…this?"

  "Mister Wibert, you fancy yourself a professional interlocutor, I understand. You speak with my kind at whim or at others' behest, aided by your ability to discern us no matter the precautions we might take to remain unnoticed and unseen. You pull us from our preferred anonymity."

  "No…only if…you want to talk." My voice was still shot with nails but recovering. My shoulders were beginning to sink into molten lava. My ankles were still numb, which boded ill for any escape attempts.

  "If we want to talk?" There was a slight anger in Shu's face. He frowned down at me. "It is not the talking. It is your pe
rception of us regardless of our will that concerns me. For that reason, I determined that when I wished to discuss the present situation with you, I would do my small part to make you understand the degree of presumption you take up when you address one of us despite our wards.

  I was starting to get annoyed. That was good; if I had room past the pain for anger, I was still functioning at a relatively high level. "Wait, you're saying you had me kidnapped, knocked out, tied up in a basement and dropped here on this bench because you wanted me to know how it feels when I turn to you on the fucking subway and say 'hi?' That's a little out of proportion, don't you think?"

  "Obviously not, or I would not have done so." Shu sighed and hitched one buttock up onto the workbench. "I do not expect you to agree. Just take it from me that the degree of offense is roughly comparable."

  "F…fuck you."

  Shu nodded. "Yes, whatever. Now. Are you alert enough to discuss our difficulty?"

  I tried experimentally to move my right hand to my left wrist. It worked, despite igniting pyrotechnic joint pain in both arms and shoulders. I rubbed at my left wrist, jerkily, feeling the groove the thongs had cut into them. "What difficulty? We've never even met."

  "No, that is true. But as I said, you brought my brother here."

  "Hapy? Why the hell does everyone keep saying that? I didn't bring him here. I want to find out what the hell he's doing here myself."

  Shu shook his head. His short black hair shifted. "You may deny it all you wish. However, I know the truth. You brought Hapy here, and disrupted the balance significantly. Not in my favor. Were you another Elder, I would simply accept this as a move of the game, but you-" he poked my right shoulder, hard, eliciting a whining hiss from my throat, "-you are a human. You have no blood in the stars; you have no power. You dare to make a move in the game and to sit there and tell me you had nothing to do with it?" His anger was back, and rising. I was still trying to figure out what the hell I'd done to piss him off.

  "I…" I subsided into coughs; not difficult. Apparently he actually wanted an answer. He pulled out the water bottle again and fed me sips of it for a minute or so while I thought as hard as I could under the circumstances. Shu. Know his name. Brother of Hapy. God of ancient Egypt, then, but which? Name is familiar. Had me snatched. Wait, that was a wraith and what looked like a sylph under it. That means God of Air, most likely. God of Air. What the hell does that mean? I sipped again, nodded.

  "Look, can I assume that since you've gone to all this trouble that we can actually talk now?"

  "We are talking. For how long is the question."

  I didn't like the sound of that. "Okay. You're upset that Hapy showed up in Manhattan. I'm confused and concerned at Hapy's showing up in Manhattan. Various individuals seem convinced that it was my doing, but I swear to you on the icons you took from me that I didn't do it. At least, if I did, I have no memory of doing so and had no intent."

  "That is irrelevant."

  "Fine. What balance did I disturb? Can I at least know what I'm going to die for, then?"

  "You will most likely not die. You will not be in any condition to interfere again in my affairs for some years, however."

  Yikes. That sounded not so pleasant. "Well, before that."

  Shu shook his head. "No. It is enough that you interfered. You have no need to know how. It will make it less likely you are tempted to repeat any form of action that might irritate me in future."

  I tried to stretch my legs out flat. They almost made it. The pain was indescribable. I writhed for a moment while Shu watched me impassively. When I could place my wrists at my sides I did so and turned my neck to look at him. My neck hurt from sympathetic strain, but it hadn't undergone any direct trauma.

  "Did you send that slyph and wraith after me?"

  "Of course. You interfered again. Ariel is useless to me for some time, due to your actions with your stupid handgun."

  "Just say I shot him. It's less confusing."

  "You shot an ancient spirit, one of my most trusted assistants, and dispersed his coherence. I presume you used one of your filthy tools to do so; he would not have noticed a mere bullet."

  I grinned weakly. Score one for the stupid team. "Wouldn't you like to know."

  "Mister Wibert, you cannot goad me into releasing you. I have released you, and it has done you no good. I have no interest in this conversation as a contest of any sort."

  "Oh, but I do." I was still grinning. It took two coughs to get that out.

  "That may be. In any case, I tell you this simply so that you understand that even if you survive my displeasure, Ariel will eventually be in a position to make his own unhappiness known."

  "Tell him I'll shoot him again."

  Shu actually looked up at the darkness above the table in exasperation. "There is no point in continuing this." He stepped back and waved. The door opened and closed again; I could see two somewhat fuzzy shapes approached the table. Since I could now move my head, I could see that they looked an awful lot like the shape I'd seen lying on the floor of the alleyway. I squinted, but couldn't make out any facial features. Sylphs, then. They lifted me to the floor and held me in a standing position. I was aware of a crackling, as that of static electricity during a storm; there were popping sensations in their grips.

  "As you can tell, they are not terribly happy with you. You have deprived them of their Lord's guidance. I've told them they are free to express their displeasure, so long as you can be said to survive at the end of the process."

  "Gee, thanks so much." I cast about me with my will, searching for any familiar feeling of energy which would betray the presence of my icons, but there was nothing. Shu didn't strike me as the type to bring his captive's weapons into the cell.

  Shu turned away. I raised my voice; he stopped at my words, facing away. "Shu. One last thing."

  "Yes?" He did not turn to face me.

  "We're going to have this discussion again. And I'm going to get answers."

  "Are you attempting to threaten me, human?"

  "Take it however you want."

  He just shook his head and moved off into the darkness. There was a slight howling noise, wind in the far-off distance, and then he was gone from the room. I turned to the sylph on my right. "Okay, Tinkerbell, let's get it over with."

  Despite not having a face, its head wrinkled in what I could tell was anger. I was thrown down onto my knees, and closed my eyes in expectation. I didn't have any tricks left; I just knew I wasn't going to let any of them get the last word. I'm the damn talker around here.

  The first blow was painful.

  The second was incandescent.

  After that, I think they began changing the ambient pressure inside and around my joints, and I passed out in the agony of my skeleton locking into a frozen shape of hurt.

  Waking the second time was worse. On the plus side, I didn't expect to be somewhere nicer, so my expectations weren't disappointed. On the debit side, all my prior aches were still there, now with extra joint pain added. From what I could tell, my knees, elbows and wrists were swollen enormously. I hoped that didn't mean permanent damage.

  I appeared to be in yet another dark place. It wasn't the same as the first one, however, because the air was heavier and cooler. I managed, after the first few attempts, to roll over onto my back. There wasn't any dust on the floor. Dirt, sure, but with the thicker and more oily consistency that indicates true urban grime.

  Of paramount importance, though, was that there was a slight angle in the floor which led to a low point in one corner. In that corner there was a drain - a metal plate set into the floor with holes punched through it. It was maybe six inches across - no chance I was going out the thing. I couldn't see well enough to see a faucet, but dragging my feet across the walls near the drain produced no such thing. If it was a shower, I was out of luck; there was no way I could stand, much less stretch above my head.

  The drain, though. The drain had possibilities.

  At t
he back of my head was a glimmer of an idea. I couldn't quite get the shape of it, though, so I continued exploring. The room was entirely bare save for the metal shape of what must be the door, set flush with the hinges on the other side. I wondered at that for a moment; it indicated some forethought in using this as a cell, or it meant that the door didn't lead to a generally populated place, like, say, a corridor. Neither was encouraging, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

  The drain appeared to be clear. I could press my fingertips against the holes in the metal plate; the pads went some millimeters into the holes with no resistance. Laying my ear to the drain, however - that was what pulled the faint form out of my subconscious. I could hear water flowing. Very, very faintly, but regularly. Not dripping, no; the hissing rill of water in motion in a confined space.

  If there was water flowing beneath me, open enough to hear and constant, the odds were very good that I was in a basement. That, coupled with the stair bottom I'd seen, upped the chances further. I couldn't swear to it, of course, but honestly, I didn't have a lot of choice.

  The problem was what I was going to have to do. Luckily I was already in fairly constant pain, and I didn't give myself a chance to think about it. I moved my head to my left forearm, in the fleshy part near the elbow, and chewed as hard as I could. The pain was merely a descant to the ache already there, and the fluid-swollen flesh gave way fairly easily. I gagged at the familiar iron tang of blood, then, after making sure it was running down my arm, I pressed the arm to the drain, held it there.

  Luckily I had warmed the plate somewhat in my explorations, so it didn't cool my arm enough to impede the blood flow. I listened as carefully as I could, but couldn't tell if my blood was dripping down through the plate. All I could do was hold my forearm there, massaging my bicep, and wait.

  I think I started singing something. Something stupid, pop from the radios I moved among as a Manhattan denizen without ever touching them. Moving around Manhattan is to live in a reverse panopticon of sound; leaving a cab with a song blaring in it, you will pass (some moments later) a person lying on the park lawn with their radio playing the same song. The advent of personal electronics hasn't done away with this, merely jumbled the signal - for now you will hear a smaller number of tunes more frequently, but not in synch. Each person's radio will be at a different place in the song, and those few times you move from one sound field to the next and hear the song move 'with' you, you stop and wonder - are both of those people listening to the radio? Or are they merely listening to recordings which, by the wonder of statistics, are this time in sync?