A Mage's Gambit: New York Falling (A Malachi English book)

by Andy Hyland

  ‘No problem. What do you want me to get? Where’s your stuff?’

  ‘Stop talking. Listen. Whatever was stopping me was strong. Never felt something that could block me so hard. So strong. Dragged me in and played around, wouldn’t let me go’

  That was concerning, to put it mildly. The number of entities in the area who could take on Becky one to one and come out on top were…well, last count there weren’t any. ‘Well whoever it was, they pretty well steam-rollered us.’

  She shook her head, grimacing from the pain it caused. ‘No, I got through. Malachi, whatever that was, you need to be careful. So careful. Don’t go by yourself. Promise me. I’d go with you, but I think people would stare. I’m not looking my best.’

  ‘Becky, what do you mean? Go where?’

  ‘Home. Your place. That’s where Jerry is. And whatever that thing was that did this to us – it’s there too.’

  Chapter six

  Becky could protest all she wanted, but I wasn’t going to leave her in that state. Half an hour later we had a table full of bloody amethyst fragments and the tattered leftovers of bandages. I gave myself the once over, and apart from picking small bits of rock out of my cheek there wasn’t too much that needed doing.

  ‘Seriously. Leave,’ Becky said, shoving me in the chest towards the door. ‘It was an exploding rock, not a nuclear bomb. A rock which you owe me for, by the way.’

  ‘You should tell someone.’

  ‘What makes you think I haven’t? And here,’ she said, grabbing a small brown paper parcel from a shelf and chucking it at me. ‘Party bag. Good stuff. You can settle up with me later. And for pity’s sake get someone to go with you.’

  ‘I’ll make some calls on the way.’

  ‘Make sure you do. Now leave. I need to get this place cleared up. Damn.’

  I left her muttering to herself and checked my watch as I headed down the stairs. Six thirty. Some of the Aware would be slowly getting up – our life invariably includes putting in the night shifts. Some things are easier after the sun goes down. I tried a few numbers on my cell phone as I jogged out the building. Arabella and Scorpio rang through to voicemail. No point leaving messages, given the timescale I was working to. Zack picked up. I filled him in and told him to get his ass in gear up to my place.

  My place is currently an apartment up in Washington Heights. I’ve knocked some walls down to make it more open plan, and thought maybe I could start calling it a loft. Becky laughed herself sick over that one. Normally I wouldn’t mind walking, to kill some time, but given the rush I jumped in the first cab I found, feeling slightly bad about shoving in front of a suit. He mouthed off so I gave him the finger through the window as we pulled away.

  Traffic wasn’t great and it was well past seven o’clock when I paid the driver and hopped out. I live on the fifth floor, right at the top. No lights. No signs of life.

  It hit me as soon as I entered the lobby. Nothing the Unaware would notice, but for those like me the clear, unmistakeable stench of sulphur. Hellkind, from deep in the Fades at the very least.

  ‘Wow. You smell that?’ Zack appeared at my elbow. Not many men could pull off the skinny jeans look in their forties, but Zack was so utterly dedicated to the ageing hipster look that somehow he managed. A carefully sculpted full grey beard compensated for the thinning comb over on top. We’d worked together on and off for five years now. Quite possibly the most selfless man I knew. The one who was always going to show up in a tight spot.

  ‘Yep. Thanks for getting here.’

  ‘No problem. What’s the deal?’

  I filled him in as we trotted up the stairs.

  ‘So,’ he said carefully. ‘We’ve got something powerful enough to go head to head with Becky, and the strongest sulphur trail I’ve smelt this side of the Fades, and it’s only you and me going in.’

  ‘It’s not ideal,’ I admitted. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘New ink. You like?’ He flashed his forearm. A flaming skull, the skin still red and smarting from the work. ‘Came straight from Nancy’s place. She’s got this new guy. He’s got chops. What about you?’

  ‘Used up my last angeldust. Not that I think it would do much here.’ I suddenly remembered Becky’s package, which was now heading who knows where on the seat in the cab where I’d left it. ‘Looks like I’m relying on the home comforts.’

  We reached my door. I touched it carefully. Nothing. My security wasn’t merely disabled, it was gone. I’d put days of work into that little work of art. ‘We may be in trouble here.’

  ‘Let me.’ Zack reached out and flicked his ring finger towards the lock. It clicked open and I nudged the door with my shoe. ‘Think it’s still in there?’ he asked.

  ‘Something is,’ I said, reaching out as carefully as I could, testing for the door-wards, the alarm runes, anything. ‘And it’s wiped out everything I’ve got. We’re going in blind here.’

  ‘It shut them all down?’

  ‘Not shut down. It’s like they were never there.’

  Zack shook his head. ‘I don’t know, man. Think we should get someone else in? Nearly night outside. Wouldn’t take long.’

  He had a point. We each had our strengths, and we complimented each other well, but we weren’t exactly the team you’d choose if you were going up against anything hardcore. Not that we were lightweights or anything, but still. Yes, waiting was sensible. But I’d blown enough time getting here, and if Becky was right then we were all that currently stood between this thing and whatever it wanted with Jerry.

  ‘Sod it,’ I decided. ‘Let’s do this.’

  I went first. Wasn’t strictly the best thing to do given Zack’s particular talents, but I knew the place best. A small hallway was immediately ahead, with the bathroom off to the left. Nothing so far. At the end of the hallway was the big room, as I called it. I’d knocked through the separate kitchen, dining room and lounge to make what was, by my standards, a huge open area. I’m still not sure if I was strictly allowed to do that, but it’s my place, right? And I had a couple of spare weeks with time to kill.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered. What little furniture I had was lying smashed against the walls, crumpled in broken disarray, leaving a great empty space in the middle of the room. Jerry, or what was left of him, lay in the center, with someone or something crouched over him.

  Zack didn’t waste any time, jumping in front of me and screaming out a curse. He threw his right hand forward, and the flaming skull tattoo burst into life, stripping his skin and hurlting towards the intruder, growing larger as it covered the distance. A kind of magic that hurt like hell, but if you wanted a knock-out punch there wasn’t much that could beat it.

  Without even looking at us, the figure twitched and the skull turned on a penny, doubled in size, and reversed direction, flying straight at us. Zack was out of action for a few seconds, dealing with his own pain, so it was up to me. I threw my arms wide, casting the strongest short-term ward I could manage. It was barely enough. The skull splintered against the invisible shield and vanished in a haze of purple mist.

  My legs gave out and I fell backwards, my hands still twitching, summoning what power I had left to cast something – anything – all the time knowing that it could never be enough.

  ‘Mr English, I presume.’ The crouched figure stood slowly, rubbing its lower back and stretching. His voice was dry, hoarse. ‘You and your kind are really too curious for your own good. This,’ it pointed down at Jerry, ‘is the third warning we have given you. It is the last warning you will receive. You are getting this final warning, we are refraining from wholesale slaughter, solely because we have better things to do. Stay out of business that does not concern you, cleaner.’

  It picked something up from the floor. A wand? A staff? No. A walking stick. And an old man, eighty if he was a day, limped towards us. Tight lines ran across his face, below thick grey hair that swept back from his temples. The walking stick was black with a silver twist at the top, as
expensive-looking as his immaculate grey suit. A suit that was now completely ruined, drenched in the same blood that covered his hand as he stooped and lifted up my chin to face him. ‘Last chance,’ he hissed, showing pristine white teeth beneath receding gums. ‘Keep out of our way. I do not make house calls lightly.’

  Then he hobbled out, and there wasn’t a damn thing that either of us could do about it. I looked over at Zack, still on the floor, breathless and holding his arm. He looked back. ‘Well man, that went to shit pretty quickly.’

  I needed desperately to check on Jerry, but it was ten minutes before either of us could stand. What I’d told Jerry earlier that day was perfectly true: you could cast, but it would hurt, and it would cost you. Think of it this way. If you ran hard, you’d drain your physical energy, and sooner or later you’ll stop, or collapse, or, worst case, die if you were in a really bad way. Casting of any kind works that way, but with the soul instead of the body. Most of us have pushed ourselves to the edge physically at one time or another, but there’s no way to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it what it means to have your soul drained and broken. As with your heart, if you push it too far there’s no way back.

  I was up before Zack. He had to deal not just with the soul drain but with the layers of skin being stripped from his arm. He clutched it, raw and bleeding, against his jacket. I pulled him up and we made our way over to where Jerry lay in the center of the room.

  ‘Shit,’ said Zack.

  Yeah. That pretty much summed it up. Next to Jerry’s body lay a short, hooked blade, and the old man had used it to do a number all over him. His T-shirt was slashed down the middle and pulled away from his body. The flesh underneath hacked to pieces. A long cut ran from his sternum down to his groin, slicing clean through muscle and letting his grey, greasy intestines and other organs get their first glimpse of sunlight.

  That wasn’t the worst bit.

  Jerry’s jeans and boxer shorts were pulled down to around his knees. The knife had…well, like Zack said. Shit.

  ‘Do you think the balls were used to do that?’ Zack asked, pointing at the long wall next to the door. In large letters of blood the old man had simply scrawled: ‘STOP.’

  ‘Like we didn’t get that message in person,’ I muttered. ‘I’m guessing that means he wasn’t expecting us to find him here. He didn’t count on Becky pushing in.’

  ‘Yeah, and didn’t she come out of it all peachy. What do we do now?’

  I looked out the window at the setting sun. ‘Check the front door’s shut. Then we wait.’

  The sun disappeared behind the skyline just before eight. Simeon showed up at half past, noiselessly as usual. I glanced over and he was there. He nodded to me and walked over to Jerry, crouching beside the body and placing his palm on the guy’s shoulder, head bent and lips moving in silent prayer. Personally I didn’t see the point but I know better than to show disrespect at a time like this. Once he’d finished I ran through the events, from Becky’s injuries up to our humiliating defeat at the hands of what appeared to be a frail old man. ‘Three warnings. The card was a general go-away to anyone magically aware who found it. The shambler, more direct but obvious and still not a huge danger. Now this. They’re going up through the gears.’

  ‘It was unnecessary. Pointless,’ Simeon said quietly as his hands moved quickly, examining the marks, the causes of death. He dabbed a finger in the blood, raised it to his lips. His tongue flicked out and touched it briefly. ‘Nothing.’ After a few minutes he stood up, moved over to the writing on the wall and observed it in silence.

  ‘He didn’t deserve this,’ I said quietly, unable to take my eyes off the corpse. Only a few hours ago he’d been walking, talking and drinking in this new world he’d found himself in. He was scared, admittedly, but that never did anyone any harm. Not when there were so many very good reasons to be terrified. But I had a feeling he would have made it. As long as any of us make it.

  ‘No, he didn’t deserve it,’ Simeon agreed. ‘But when did that ever stop things like this happening? Were you under the impression that this world, this city, was a place of justice and fairness? Where good things happen to good people and all the bad folk get their come-uppance?’

  ‘I wasn’t…’

  ‘Of course you weren’t,’ he cut in. ‘And I apologize. I admit I’m thrown by this. The Carafax card by itself, and Melanie’s disappearance – I wasn’t, in truth, too worried. Oddities are a part of everyday life. I even found it interesting, intriguing. More fool me. The rapid descent into…this has taken me by surprise, and that doesn’t happen very often these days. Do you have a time of death?’

  I’d been thinking about that. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say he died shortly before we got here. The way he’s made the cuts, Jerry could have been alive and conscious for a while. The disembowelling would have finished him.’

  ‘And the..?’

  ‘Hard to tell. Might have been before death. Hopefully after. But I doubt it.’

  ‘I agree. Whatever was doing this was making a statement. But even so, it’s gratuitous.’

  ‘I think he was enjoying himself,’ I said, half to myself. ‘What about the knife?’

  ‘I don’t recognize it, and I’ve seen a fair few,’ Zack said from across the room. ‘Got a guy I know down the docks. Bit of a collector. Import and export on the side, strictly black market. Let me run it by him. He’s working tonight.’

  ‘Agreed,’ nodded Simeon. He turned back and wandered over to the body. ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by keeping the poor man in this state any longer. You have the necessary?’

  ‘Everything we need is in the closet,’ I confirmed. ‘Bags, chemicals. All there.’ My work involved a fair amount of cleaning up crime scenes and disposing of anything that could be considered evidence. When you become Aware you quickly find that the old ways of making money don’t fit your life too well anymore. And your previous employers seem remarkably uninterested in dealing with you. Like I’d told Jerry, reality has decided you don’t belong anymore. So you adapt and do what you can to bring the money in, usually within the community. Becky supplied magical services and gimmicks to those less skilled (which was pretty much everyone, I’d thought up until tonight). Zack, through a range of contacts, shipped black magic goods into the country and sold them on ebay. If you knew what you were looking for and could read between the lines in his descriptions, there were bargains to be had.

  I don’t know what took me into the cleaning business. A small job here, and there, a bit of cash. In my old life I might have thought of it as corrupt – hiding the deed, stopping it ever being discovered. Over time I’d made my peace with it. Sometimes ignorance was bliss. Some things people didn’t need to know about. They’d sleep easier that way. And I was good at it, if I say so myself. If there was a way to make something go away, chemically or magically, I had the tools to get it done.

  Simeon nodded to himself, and looked carefully at both of us. ‘I’ll get my own help in for this. You two get out of here.’

  ‘This is my place,’ I protested. ‘I can sort this out.’

  ‘Zack,’ he continued, ignoring me, ‘get your arm seen to – the raw meat look isn’t working, and then see what you can find out about that knife. Meet me back at the library when you’re able to. I won’t be there myself until dawn. And you,’ he said, turning his attention to me, ‘just go. Do something. See someone. Go somewhere. Do whatever you need to do to get your head in order.’

  ‘Is that safe?’ Zack asked. ‘Out by himself after this?’

  ‘If he’d wanted either of you dead, you wouldn’t be standing here talking to me right now. For some reason he stopped at a warning. I agree with Malachi – I’m inclined to think the business card and the shambler were also warnings. I wonder why. Not that I’m not grateful for small mercies,’ he added.

  ‘The word mercy doesn’t really apply here, I think,’ I said curtly.

  ‘From where I’m standin
g, it could have been much worse. But you’ll gain nothing from being here. Let me do this for you. Please.’

  I thought about it, and quickly concluded that, actually, hanging around and dealing with this wasn’t what I wanted to be doing right now. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘One thing first.’

  The television, miraculously still intact, stood in the far corner. I switched it on. A bit of static, and the picture was glitching, but it was all working.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ said Zack. ‘That guy was hellkind. The sulphur. The strength of him. Surely.’

  ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ I agreed. But if he was demonic in nature, that strong and that close, every electronic device in the apartment would be out of commission for hours. ‘You ever seen a human pull off something like that, so easily?’

  ‘Never,’ said Zack. ‘And we’re not talking about superman here either. Just some old dude.’

  ‘Please don’t write off old people like that,’ said Simeon. ‘I find ageism of any kind deeply disturbing.’ He paused, drumming his fingers against the wall. ‘I’m going to have to escalate this. Now please, leave this to me. Get out. Both of you. Now.’

  I wandered slowly down the stairs with Zack. He had his jacket draped over the damaged arm, conveniently also hiding the vicious, blood-covered knife. Things like that cause all sorts of problems if people see them. I blame the whole New York zero-tolerance obsession.

  ‘Is that arm going to be okay?’ I asked him. ‘Seems worse than usual.’

  He nodded. ‘It was the flames. Didn’t count on the flames. Usually I go for snakes. Sinister and effective. This time I thought: let’s be a bit more dramatic.’

  ‘It was certainly dramatic. Anywhere else, I think it would have been great.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Definitely. Worth trying again. Maybe as a backup.’

  ‘Good call. What do you think Simeon meant when he said he was escalating things?’