by Andy Hyland
‘Oh, the beer’s normal. Pretty good, actually, and reasonably priced. But you’re not where you think you are. And here, it’s a different set of rules.’
‘Don’t listen to him, baby,’ cooed Stacey. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. Don’t you want to get high?’
To his credit, he was confused enough not to jump at the offer.
‘So this place isn’t, like, a New York pub?’
‘No. And this chick giving you all the sweet talk is a harpy.’
Stacey hissed and threw her glass against the wall. ‘I saw him first.’
‘Harpy. Is that what you call a…hooker around here?’
‘No,’ I told him, ‘it’s what we call a lesser demon with wings, talons and really nice legs.’
‘Oh, you’re so sweet,’ Stacey chuckled. ‘I should spend more time with you. But don’t call me a lesser anything. You’re going to wreck my self-esteem.’
‘If you want to get high,’ I told her, ‘there’s a guy out front with a scar on his face. No one’s going to stop you walking out of here with him on your arm. Trust me.’
‘Appreciated,’ she said, suddenly all business. ‘Later, maybe,’ she waved to the new guy as she sashayed out the door. ‘Stay safe, honey. But not too safe.’
‘Man, she’s…’
‘A killer demon with great legs, like I said. Before we go any further,’ I stuck out my hand, ‘Malachi. Malachi English.’
He shook it, guardedly. ‘Jerry Crate. You going to tell me what’s going on? You folks are starting to freak me out a bit.’
Oh Jerry, I thought. If you’re freaked out now, wait till we get going.
We stood outside Benny’s, after of course I’d done a quick check to make sure the demonic kiddies had upped and left.
‘This isn’t right,’ Jerry muttered.
‘Oh, it’s right. It’s just new to you. This, or something like it, has always existed, and people like us have always ended up here sooner or later, if they made it that far. Let’s play a game, okay? I’m going to throw some guesses out, and all you have to do is nod or shake your head. I get three lives. If I can’t get it right, you win. Got it?’
Nod. Oh, the boy caught on quick.
‘No scars, so I’m guessing serious health problem.’
Shake. One life down.
‘Hmm. No obvious scarring, so I’m not going for car crash. Overdose, then?’
His eyes fell to the floor. Quick nod.
‘Hey, it’s alright. I’m not judging. The people you’re going to meet in this brand spanking new life of yours are all damaged goods in one way or another. So, correct me if I’m wrong here, but you were medically dead for over ten minutes?’
Another nod.
‘But you didn’t see a white light, did you? No smiling family members holding out their hands?’
A shake of the head and an all-too familiar look in the eyes.
‘You half-remember something else. Something very different. But you mind is refusing point blank to take you back to that moment, isn’t it?’
A nod.
‘Game over. I win.’ I took his shoulders and turned him around, so he was facing down the long road, past Benny’s. ‘That way, if you keep going, is hell. That is where you went. That is what you cannot and will not remember.’
He swallowed hard. ‘How far?’
‘It’s subjective. It depends entirely on how much you want to go there. But we’re not taking a step in that direction today, so don’t worry.’ I turned him around one eighty. ‘And that way, lies the world you grew up in. Until now, the only world you knew was there.’
‘So this place is?’
‘The great in-between. We call it the Fades.’
‘I don’t remember coming here.’
‘Not surprising. The first time you slide – the first time you move between the planes – it’s usually an accident. And it throws you enough that your memory ends up screwed. You got lucky with Benny. He’s one of life’s good guys. He called me. Or sent for me, anyway. And now you’re my problem for the next few days.’
‘So what now? Are we staying here?’
I considered it for a moment. The Fades, if he survived long enough, was going to become a home away from home. And in its own way it was quite seductive. A place you almost felt you belonged. More so than in the rat-race of rampant pettiness, that other place you’d lived in up until now. The Fades could be so seductive. And for that reason, so very dangerous. Best not linger.
‘For now, we’re going back to the New York City we all know and love. Take my arm, clear your mind and try to feel what I’m doing to get us there.’
A section of someone’s intestinal tract dropped from a great height and schlopped onto the cobblestones in front of us. Visceral juices sprayed up and over our shoes. Like the first drops before a heavy rain, other body parts, internal and external, started to fall around us. A tongue. A hand with two fingers. And, right over there, a cheek with what looked like a scar running down it.
‘That, incidentally,’ I told him, ‘is what happens when you decide to get high with a harpy. Come on, start walking.’
We slid, and a few seconds later he was under the morning sun, people passing us by on their everyday, relatively carefree lives.
‘What was that place?’
‘I told you. The Fades, we call it. The nowhere between here, and hell proper. A passing place for some, home for many. You’ll get used to it. Please try to listen and keep up.’
‘I am never going back there.’
‘We all say that, but we all do.’ Time for the tough love part. ‘I’m not asking you to like what you’re seeing or being told, but you need to take it on board and you need to adapt. You get two days with me, regulation training time, and I’ll fill you in on what you have to know. But if you crack, or if you act like a dick, you’re on your own. And that place you can’t remember? You’ll be seeing it in glorious technicolor for the rest of eternity, because people on their own don’t last that long. Are we clear?’
‘Crystal.’
‘Excellent. Now, first things first, you need to meet everyone. But I’ve got work to do, so that’ll have to wait.’
Jerry shrugged. ‘Sure. You’re in the driving seat here. What sort of work do you do?’
‘Oh, it varies. Think of me as a crime scene specialist, but with a twist. I get paid to make sure this world doesn’t get disturbed too much by the…other one. Something happens, I clear things up, so people can go on living their normal lives.’
‘So you’re a cleaner then?’
I glared at him. My work is complicated and involved, and I get professionally offended very easily.
‘Sorry, I didn’t…I mean. It sounds…kind of cool.’
‘Cool isn’t the right word. But anyway, that’s not what we’re up to now. This is more of a personal thing. Someone’s gone missing. We’re going to find them.’
‘Okay. What’s the plan?’
‘Well, right now, we need to go and look at a castrated corpse.’
Chapter four
‘Hold up,’ Jerry shouted after me as I strode forward. I kept going in the hope that he’d can it and fall in line – they learn so much better if they do that. After half a block I gave up and turned round. He wasn’t following. I ambled back, trying to look hacked off with him. Annoyingly, he didn’t seem to notice.
He stood there scratching his head and looking at the floor. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Can we…can you slow down a bit. This is a bit much. I think it was the whole body parts falling from the sky thing – haven’t seen that before. Think I need a sit down, get my head straightened out. Can you leave me somewhere and come back later?’
It was tempting, and would make my life quicker and easier. Immediately it felt as if Simeon was watching me, weighing up my actions. In my better moments, it’s the what-would-Simeon-do question that keeps me on something approaching the straight and narrow. I relented. ‘Okay, but let’s do som
ething productive.’ It wasn’t a good idea to let newbies sit and stew for too long. You had to keep them active. There was a line of thought going round a few years ago that suggested you sit newbies down and gave them all the time in the world. After a few months of this people cottoned on to the fact that this led to half of them topping themselves in the first month. My way is much better.
‘Productive is fine,’ Jerry said. ‘Just not sure about the dead body yet, you know?’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, turning round and moving forward again. ‘You’re going to love this bit.’
We wandered into Central Park about an hour later. ‘Magic?’ Jerry whispered. ‘We’re really going to do magic? Can we do that?’
‘Stop whispering,’ I told him. ‘This is New York. Nobody’s listening to a word you say. Nobody’s interested in who you are and what you’re doing. Be as weird or out there as you want to be – nobody cares. And yes, we’re going to do magic.’
He carried on whispering. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. ‘So, are we like wizards or something?’
‘Nobody uses the word wizards. Please don’t do it, you’ll get funny looks and it’ll reflect badly on me. Witches, yes, sometimes, if you’re a woman and magically gifted. Some men call themselves warlocks, but they’re all tossers and best avoided. Most of us go for mage. Gender-neutral, and it sounds pretty cool.’
‘So how come we can do this?’
‘Good question. Many theories, nobody knows. Do you want to walk around here doing the theory or do you want to get your hands dirty with the good stuff?’
We sat on the grass, nobody near us. A small group were doing some variant of yoga over by the trees, and every now and then a jogger would pant past, but it was a quiet day.
‘Okay, clear your head,’ I told Jerry. ‘Big blank space. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply.’
‘Got it.’
‘Now…it’s hard to describe but once you do it you’ll know what I mean… roll forward right out of your head. Keep going until you bump into something.’
I felt the exact moment it happened, and grinned like a teacher who’s got a kid to understand calculus. Or, maybe, more like a proud parent seeing their toddler take its first steps. ‘Keep going,’ I encouraged, ‘slowly, forward, forward. See it yet?’
‘Is that you?’ he asked, a look of shock on his face. ‘You’re…glowing. Bright.’
‘Magical things are easier to sense in this way. Looking for something non-magical is like trying to find something grey in a fog. It can be done, but it’s slow and very hit and miss. Roll yourself backwards now. All the way back. What do you think?’
A smile crept across his face for the first time since we’d left Stacey. ‘That was…wow. That was intense. What else can we do?’
Ah, an eager one. They’re always fun. You get a better success rate with them as well. It’s the nervous ones that keep you awake at night. ‘Spellcasting,’ I said, ‘or just casting, as we say.’ I drew a cross on the ground, pointing at the four quarters as I spoke. ‘Main areas of spellcasting. Firstly, wards. Protective spells, barriers. Sounds boring but get a few of these under your belt and you’ll be all the better for it. Want to try one?’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Right, put up your hand, palm towards me. Keep your eyes open for this – you don’t want to get into the habit of only casting with your eyes closed.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because a lot of the time when you cast, it’s because something is trying to kill you. Eyes open.’
‘Got it. Like this?’
‘Excellent. Now, without moving your hand, push forward. Use your mind but don’t roll forwards like you did when you were sensing. And don’t push too hard. Keep it small and simple the first few times. Cast too hard and too fast and you’ll be flat on your back and defenceless. Pushing yet?’
‘Yes,’ he muttered, almost under his breath.
I felt the ward go up. Not a bad first attempt. Some newbies you could spend all afternoon with and they wouldn’t get this far. I took my keys out of my pocket and held them up. ‘Keep focussed. Keep pushing. Now watch.’ I threw the keys so they were heading for his face, above where his hand was held out. He flinched but the ward held and the keys bounced backwards off it and onto the ground.
He watched them fall incredulously. ‘I did that?’
‘You did. Nice one. So that’s wards.’ I carried on round the quadrant. ‘Next come hexes – essentially attack spells. Various forms, and you need to work on a few that are unique to you. If they don’t know the exact attack that’s coming, they’ll find it harder to defend against.’
‘Who will?’
‘Hellkind. Really nasty things of all shapes and sizes. You’ll start getting noticed soon. Oh, there he is. See over there?’ I nodded towards the footpath over to our right. A hunched figure stood there, a man in a grey jacked and spiked blonde hair.
‘Looks normal.’
‘He isn’t. You’ll learn the signs. That’s Garrell. He’s already pegged you for a newbie – he’s got a nose for that sort of thing. Sometime in the next couple of days, he’ll offer you some pills. Tell you that they’ll boost your magic, make you a hit with the ladies. If you take those pills, you’ll be paralyzed on the floor while he carves you up and eats your liver while you bleed out and watch.’
‘Nobody’s stopped him?’
Awkward question. Now probably wasn’t the time to mention that I’d taken Garrell’s money and cleaned up the mess on more than one occasion. I’d break it to Jerry later. He’d find out soon enough that there weren’t any white knights in his new world. ‘Moving on,’ I pointed to the third quadrant, ‘we’ve got artefacts. Think of them like magical batteries, holding their own casts. Like a battery you can use them till they run out. Or explode. Most mages can make them, some are better than others. Finally, we’ve got all the other stuff. Mesmers, confuscations, the Swiss-army-knife casts that get stuff done.’
‘Wards, hexes, artefacts and the other stuff. Got it. Sounds straightforward.’
‘You’ll be fine. Oh, one other thing. Runes.’ I grabbed some dirt and formed it into a circle on the grass. ‘The shapes matter, but more than that it’s the power you cast into them. They’re like artefacts, holding any spell you like, but you can’t move them around. They stay put, or they lose the power. Feel it?’
He put his hand over the circle. ‘It’s hot.’
‘Yep, just an example.’ I scattered the dirt. ‘Go slow, go steady, and don’t over-reach yourself. And if you find yourself head to head with a demon in the next few months, then scream and run.’ That wouldn’t help even a little bit, but it’s like telling passengers to adopt the safety position when a jet’s going down. Gives people something to do in the face of almost certain death.
‘Can’t believe this is all happening,’ Jerry said as we got to our feet and walked off.
I looked over. Garrell was still watching. He gave me a little wave.
The castrated banker (if there was ever a great new title for a Sherlock Holmes mystery, that would be it) wasn’t in the main city morgue. No, that would have made life too simple. It seems that someone with not only money, but influence, had managed to get what remained of Neville Compton moved to a private facility on the Upper West Side. That made life awkward, but not impossible. Hopefully.
Jerry was holding up well, but he’d been through the wringer and so I got us a cab over there. The meter was flickering and refusing to play ball, so the driver guessed at twenty and I paid him thirty. Least I could do given the inconvenience we’d caused.
‘So, that meter playing up. That wasn’t magic or anything, was it? You trying to get a cheap ride?’ Jerry asked as we walked half a block further to the James Monk Memorial Medical Facility.
‘It’s kind of magic,’ I told him. ‘But not from me, and not the active sort. You hanging around with Stacey has left you kind of tainted. Demons and the other entities from the Fades can cross if the
y want to, but they’re…displaced might be the word. Anything electronic picks up on that – won’t work around them – or work properly, anyway. It’ll wear off quickly enough. Don’t try watching TV for a few hours. It’s a good way to spot them by the way.’
‘Damn,’ he said, stopping dead. ‘You know, I haven’t called my parents. They’ll be freaking out. I don’t even know if anyone told them I’d been in hospital.’
I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t recommend calling them. You’ll try it eventually, but there’s no point rushing it. Give yourself some time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t put this gently, so here goes. The world as you knew it isn’t that interested in you anymore. You’ve been phased out. You’re here, but you’re tolerated rather than welcomed.’
‘Who by?’
‘Not who – what. Reality. Or what passes for it. Look, when did the whole dying thing happen for you?’
‘Last Friday.’
‘And since then, you’ve done what?’
‘Well, just wandering around I suppose. I’m from Denver, so no family here.’
‘And nobody drove up? Nobody’s been in touch?’
‘Now that you mention it, no, not really. I’d assumed they were told. They must know - I’m still on my Dad’s medical policy. But, no. Nothing.’
‘And at the same time you didn’t exactly reach out yourself, did you?’
‘No. I…drifted. Nothing seemed that important anymore. I …I don’t know what I did.’
‘I understand. We’ve all done it. If you were in a room with your parents or anyone else in your family, right now, they’d say hello politely and ask how you were, and then leave and forget about you.’
‘Ouch.’
‘It’s nothing personal. It hurts. Stings a bit. But not too much, because you feel out of phase yourself anyway. Any connections from here on in you’ll have to build from the ground up.’
He paused. ‘So I live in a world of demons and monsters.’