by Andy Hyland
‘Well we can’t get anything out of Melanie till she comes round,’ I said. ‘Let’s see if we can grab some spare clothes and clean up. Becky wouldn’t begrudge us a quick shower either.’
‘Sure she’s safe?’ Arabella said, nudging Melanie with her foot.
‘There’s three of us,’ I replied. ‘And I’d like to see her get away with casting anything too nasty in this place.’
‘I’d have thought so too, but if the security’s gone on the door, then who knows what else has gone AWOL?’
‘Best be safe then,’ I said. ‘You’ll find some plastic wrist ties underneath the kitchen sink. Best not to ask. I choose not to.’
In the absence of anything better to do, we took our time and cleaned up as best we could, setting our clothes out to dry. Then we sat around talking idly while Arabella fixed up her Mohawk and the skies turned from black to grey outside.
The phone rang a little before dawn. I jerked awake and we looked at each other. It must be someone who knew the direct line, and wouldn’t get redirected to the excuses. Zack nodded. ‘Hello,’ I said, answering the call. ‘Madam Morgana’s home of psychic wonders.’
‘Malachi,’ said a breathless voice on the other end of the line. ‘It’s Simeon.’
‘Simeon? You’ve got a phone?’
‘I borrowed one. Look, I’m down in Battery Park. The globe. Get down here as soon as you can. I need some help, quickly.’
‘What -’ I began, but the line was already dead.
I looked at Zack. ‘Simeon. Sounds bad. We leave now. ‘
‘What about her?’ Zack pointed at Melanie, who, from the sound of the gentle snoring, had gone through unconsciousness and was now merely asleep.
‘Leave her to me,’ said Arabella, rising and stretching. ‘By the time you get back, we’ll have answers.’
‘Do what you need to.’ As an afterthought I threw her the verity chain I’d been keeping in my pockets. ‘This will help.’
We managed to flag down a cab immediately we got outside, which deposited us a few minutes later at the southern tip of Manhattan. The first rays of the new day were hitting Miss Liberty, and everything metallic shone with a fiery glow. The globe that had once stood inside the World Trade Centre now stood in a small, immaculately tended lawn, ringed by a small chain fence.
‘No way,’ I shouted as we sprinted across to where Simeon was standing next to the globe, fists clenched and sweat pouring from his forehead. Broken wood jutted out of his torso at irregular angles. At his feet lay three bodies.
He looked up at us approaching. ‘The light,’ he gasped, falling to his knees. I can’t believe it took me that long to figure the problem out. He was in the shadow of the globe, to its west as the sun rose in the east. Even in the shade I doubted he had more than a few minutes left.
‘Cover him,’ I shouted, stripping off my coat and laying it over as much of Simeon as I could. ‘Use what you can.’
With my trench coat and Zack’s jacket strategically placed, Simeon was temporarily shielded from the sun. I looked around. The place was unusually quiet. ‘No cops?’
Zack shook his head. ‘It’s been dead since we got here. Someone’s arranged a lot of privacy for this.’ He hoisted Simeon on his shoulders.
One of the guys on the ground moved. ‘Sod it,’ I said, pulling him up and slinging him across my back. ‘Maybe he knows something.’ It didn’t look like he’d be much use to anyone, but I was going to try.
‘Where to?’ Zack asked.
I looked around. ‘Can’t risk going on foot for long like this. Hey, didn’t Simeon have an access point over there?’ I nodded to Harbor House, a pub on the nearby pier.
‘Like I said, Simeon’s place was shut up tight last time we looked. No access point would open.’
‘That was before we had Simeon with us,’ I said, setting off.
A pub basement, a sliding cabinet and a cast to open a hidden door, and we were in business, trudging through the under-passage of the city. Good job it had worked, because the sun was fully up now and people were out and moving. Finally we stood at the red wooden door, which thankfully gave way as soon as we approached.
Zack placed Simeon down on the cot against the far wall. I dumped my body on the floor by a sofa, and stretched out my back. ‘How is he?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, what’s a vampire meant to be like after they’ve had the crap knocked out of them?’ Zack asked.
I walked over and examined Simeon carefully, feeling out with my mind even as my hands danced over his face and bruises. ‘He’s there,’ I said. The spark in him was burning low, but it burned. ‘He needs strengthening up.’ I looked at the guy I’d ditched on the floor. ‘What state do you reckon he’s in?’
Zack walked over and ran his hands across the body. ‘Pretty far gone. You thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘Absolutely. Let him do a good deed before he shuffles off.’ Sure, the guy wasn’t going to talk, but that didn’t mean that we couldn’t use him. After all, he was basically a walking packet of blood that didn’t need it anymore. You can see where I’m going with this.
We strategically placed the body across three chairs, getting everything at the right angle by using books to prop things up where necessary. The end result was the guy laid flat out, face down over Simeon, with his feet higher than his head. I figured, why not let gravity do at least some of the work.
‘So you don’t have any sort of…problem with this?’ Zack asked. ‘Not judging. Just curious.’
I thought about it for a few seconds, and shook my head. ‘Screw them. They fired the first shots. You don’t come at my family and then expect mercy afterwards. Let’s give this a try.’
I pulled out my switchblade and snapped it open. It gleamed, clean and sharp. No runes, no mage-craft. Good old fashioned sharp edges. I sliced across the guy’s jugular and got the show on the road.
The flow of blood took us all by surprise. I mean, we’d all shed our own blood, and done our share of bloodletting on anyone who got in our way, but to stand there and drain it out of someone – that’s another thing entirely.
‘To the left, left, a bit more,’ I called, as Zack and I between us tried to get as much blood into Simeon as possible, as opposed to it splashing all over his face and running wasted onto the floor. We tried to hold his mouth open, avoiding the teeth, which looked a lot sharper once you got up close.
‘Are we doing this right?’ Zack asked. ‘He’s not going to choke if too much goes in, will he?’
‘Who knows?’ I answered. ‘Last time I checked this is a first for everyone involved. Unless you’ve been feeding vampires on the sly and not telling any of us?’
‘Is that it?’ he asked as the flow stopped and turned into a trickle. It had barely been a minute since we started, though it seemed much longer.
‘What do you mean, is that it?’ I said. ‘There’s tons of the stuff.’ It was everywhere – over us, over the floor, all over Simeon. ‘How much do you reckon we got into him? Was it enough?’
Zack shrugged. ‘Like you said, first time for all of us. So what now?’
‘Now,’ I said, as we dumped the used, empty body of our former enemy by the wall, ‘we wait. Might as well grab a sofa. Vampiric regeneration is a new one on me, so it could be a while.’
‘Sofas sound good,’ said Zack. ‘I’m going for that one.’ He walked across to a long, comfortable pink number and flopped down.
Me, I went for the shelves. I’d never been down here without Simeon being around, and there was one thing that had always bugged me, nudging at the edge of my mind every now and then. The books. I mean, I recognized many of the tomes that lay around the desks, leather-bound, dog-eared and spine-cracked. Standard magecraft, and we’d all taken our turns reading them at one time or another. It was the others, the ones that lined the walls, dusty and faded but in their own way pristine.
I wandered over and grabbed one at random, turning it over in my hands. No title,
no author. Inside, it was all tightly-packed neat handwriting, edge to edge, top to bottom, no space wasted. There were names, dates, marriages, baptisms, other seemingly random events. The second book I picked up was the same. A third and a fourth, all from different parts of the room, the same. No, not entirely the same: the handwriting changed in one of the books. But the sense, the value in this – I’d be damned if I could see it. Try and solve one mystery and you end up with a different one.
Nothing else to do but join Zack, who was snoring by this point, collapsed and exhausted at the end of another night where it felt like we’d taken one step forward and two back.
The time would soon come when two steps back would feel like progress.
Chapter thirteen
We slept long, and woke slowly. Nothing had changed during nap-time, it seemed: the steady drip of water from the pipes, the far-distant murmur that, if you listened to it right, might have been traffic above.
‘You’re up,’ said Becky, as I stumbled to my feet. Okay, so some things had clearly changed. I just wasn’t awake enough to have noticed them yet. The cot where Simeon had been was empty. Still soaked with blood, apart from the outline of a body where it had been kept away from the coarse sheets beneath. The floor beneath the bed, however, was clean of however many pints had cascaded onto it. And the drained body that we’d dumped against the wall and left – that was gone too.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked her. ‘Could really have done with you last night. And again, this morning.’
‘Sorry. Trying to run down Eliajel. No luck there at all. Took me a while to get back.’
‘What’s up with your apartment? Your security’s all gone.’
‘Oh that. I don’t know. I think I’m just frazzled. I needed to clear my head, so I turned everything off for a while. Not the best time, I know, but I’m no use to anyone until I’m back up to scratch.’
‘You’re going to ask for help if you need it, right?’
‘Trust me. I need something from you, you’ll know about it.’
‘Ah, you’re awake,’ said Simeon, walking in from a door in the far wall, holding a rolled-up copy of the New York Times. ‘I expect a few explanations are in order.’
Before the explanations commenced he fixed us up with some breakfast. Or dinner. Turned out we’d slept the day through. Simeon himself had woken sometime around noon, refreshed and revitalized, if a little unsteady on his feet. But now he stood before us, pale but smiling, and impeccably dressed in a dark grey three-piece suit that didn’t belong in this century.
‘First of all, I repeat my thanks to you. I don’t often pause to contemplate my own death, but yesterday I was forced to. While it wasn’t entirely unattractive, I couldn’t help but feel that certain things remained…undone. Perhaps the time you’ve granted me will allow me to move forward in those areas.’
‘You don’t need to thank us,’ I told him, biting into a bacon sandwich. ‘We owe you the same many times over. Bit of a shock seeing you like that, to be honest. I suppose I’d built up some idea of you as untouchable.’
‘Far from it,’ he chuckled before turning serious. ‘I have certain advantages in my current state. But they’re matched by the weaknesses. I assure you, I don’t go all sparkly in daylight. But please, much has passed since we last spoke. Tell me of your own findings, so I can better help you by explaining my own.’
We ran through everything, from Jerry’s death, to Sitri holding up in the Staffarian and the absolute recklessness of Melanie’s rescue. ‘And she’s holed up at Becky’s with Arabella,’ I finished. ‘By the time we get back there, I expect Melanie will have decided that being frank and open is the best way forward.’
‘So Sitri’s clan mentioned the Aleph?’ said Simeon, jumping back a few minutes in our account. ‘That is certainly interesting.’
‘Anything to do with Carafax, do you think?’
‘I am beginning to think so. Carafax is, or was, yet another minor occult society, an old boys’ club based in the financial district, specifically the bank of Willis, Beck and Thornton. We’d never heard of them because they’d never done anything of note. Fundraising and spirited good works were as much as they got up to. At least on the outside.’
‘So they’re, what, bigger on the inside, like the Tardis?’ asked Zack.
Simeon thought before answering. ‘I’d say they are patient. They didn’t rush to power, they built it over generations. They are discreet and patient and they crush any threat to their secrecy. Mercilessly.’
‘And yet here we are,’ I pointed out. ‘They threw warnings at us, at least at first, before we started killing them and collapsing their buildings.’
‘Yes, that is certainly a break from their normal modus operandi. If I had to guess, and I am only guessing, I’d say they were trying to avoid bringing themselves into the open. Whatever they’re up to, they were prepared to spare you for the sake of not stirring up the Aware into a full-scale war. Not that I think it would bother them too much, not with the resources they have, but it would disturb their privacy and whatever it is they’re planning.’
‘The castrated guy, Compton, the one that started all this off. He was with that bank,’ I remembered. ‘One of their own got taken out. Can’t be a coincidence.’
‘I agree. Thanks to Melanie and whatever brought her to their attention, we’ve stumbled across something of note. As the great detective would say, the game is afoot.’
‘Batman said that?’ asked Becky.
‘Moving on,’ said Zack, ‘what about the Aleph. How does that fit in? Or him. Her. Them. Any ideas?’
‘Good question,’ said Simeon, smiling ruefully. ‘And one that led to me being attacked and almost frying in the morning sun. Apparently it’s a sensitive topic around New York lately. I asked one of my superiors for permission -’
‘It’s funny,’ I interrupted. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get my head round you reporting to your bosses.’
‘I’ve always had them, Malachi. Did you think I was some lone wolf, running the Aware underground from my lair below the city, hatching my own plans?’
‘Well, for a long time, yeah.’
‘Another one of the things you’ve got wrong over the years. But then, you are so very young. As I was saying, I asked my superior for permission to research the Aleph. It was a name I’d stumbled across by accident, in much the same you did, but not courtesy of Sitri on this occasion. Taking my questions further would involve accessing resources that I’d not normally approach. I was told my request would be considered.’
‘They ended up saying no?’ said Becky.
‘On the contrary, I was told to meet in a specified place at a certain time, to be given one of the books I required. I was there. I was waited. I was, how would you put it? Jumped. I was jumped. And they very nearly put paid to me.’
‘You reckon your superior sold you out?’ I said.
‘He is…he has always struck me as somebody that tolerates me rather than accepts me. Whether he would stoop to betrayal, I am not sure. But somewhere in that organisation, perhaps somebody he spoke to, or someone connected with the Great Library…’ He shook his head. ‘I do not know. Speculation will not take us very far. But we must assume that the circle of people we can trust is extremely limited.’
We sat for a few moments, lost in our own thoughts.
‘So the Aleph are tied to Carafax, for sure,’ said Arabella. ‘It was Carafax goons that jumped you. I’d bet my soul on it.’
‘The Aleph,’ I said. ‘It’s going to come down to the Aleph. If we can find out who they are, then the pieces will fit. We’ll be able to see the big picture.’
‘You think?’ asked Zack.
‘I hope. But I’m open to suggestions.’
‘Problem is,’ said Zack, ‘nobody know about the Aleph. Well, some people do, apparently. Carafax. Some shadowy figure Simeon may or may not know. And don’t think I’ve forgotten to push you what the Great Library is – we’r
e coming back to that sometime.’
‘Sitri knows,’ I said. Everyone looked at me. ‘Sitri’s clan were all on about the Aleph, and Sitri knew exactly what they were talking about. We have to find a way to get it out of them.’
‘That’s insane,’ said Zack.
‘Pretend for a minute it isn’t. Is it the best option we’ve got at the moment to find out anything?’
‘Yes, I’ll give you that,’ said Becky. ‘But it’s suicidal. Sneaking up on them and spying is one thing. But to wander right up to Sitri and ask for a chat? That’s something else. But we’ll do it.’ She sighed. ‘If that’s what you decide to do, and I’ve got a feeling you’ve made your mind up, we’ll come. Give me a couple of days to get some stuff prepped.’
Zack nodded. ‘I’m in.’
‘And this time, so am I,’ said Simeon, drawing surprised stares. He’d never gone on an op with us before. But it looked like things were changing.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Becky, get your stuff together. By the time we leave to talk to Sitri about the Aleph, we’ll have got everything we can out of Melanie about Carafax. Hopefully it’s all going to fit.’ I stood. ‘I’ve got stuff to do. For a start, I need a new phone – rubble damage. I’ll catch up with you later.
‘Sure,’ said Zack, standing as well. ‘Come here.’ He drew me into a bear hug, patting my back hard. ‘You stay safe, and call soon.’ I stood back, trying not to look too surprised. He’s not exactly the touchy-feely type. None of us are, in fact. Not unless you include punching people. Last night must have really got to him.
Becky was, of course, correct. Any attempt to contact Sitri and get him to share and play nicely would end in certain death. Which was why I wasn’t going to allow any of them to do it. I had something else in mind. And if it went wrong, the only person to die would be me.
Chapter fourteen
It was late afternoon in the big wide world by the time I’d bought a new pay as you go phone and headed up to Washington Heights. I opened my front door and walked in to find Dexter waiting for me on the sofa, with a beer he’d liberated from the fridge, and his cap lying on the table. ‘Hey man, you okay? You know your runes are out, right.’