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

by Andy Hyland

  ‘I’ve been better,’ I said, grabbing a beer myself. ‘And, yeah, I know about the runes. Long story. I’ll get them fixed soon but I’ve not been around here too much lately.’ I sat down in a chair opposite him. This new furniture was going to take some getting used to. The sooner I got stuff I’d chosen myself back in here, the better. ‘Still, I’m alive and the sun is in the sky, so I can’t complain. How’s it going with you?’

  Dexter blew out a long breath. ‘Well, that’s the question. How is it with me? I’ve got to give it to you, man, when you get into something you don’t do half measures. I admire that.’ He raised his beer in a toast. ‘To deep shit.’

  I didn’t raise my beer, but instead took a long sip. ‘Go on.’

  ‘First of all, and I want you to level with me here, okay? I’ve always seen you as a straight guy. A decent guy. So level with me: is it about the money? Don’t give me that blank look. This Fairchild girl, the one with the outrageous apartment and the Daddy with the deep pockets. Is it a money thing? Swear to me.’

  ‘Cross my heart, it’s not money. I knew her Dad helped her out, but I’ve only recently found out the extent of it.’ I shrugged. ‘I like her.’

  ‘Good, good. Because if you were scamming a nice girl like that, there’d be something wrong with you, you know? I’d taken you for someone better than that, and it’s good to know some things in life don’t disappoint.’ He took a sip of his beer. ‘Still, she might look nice, she might act nice, but something’s up, you know?’

  ‘Enlighten me.’ There was an edge in my life I hadn’t intended, a defensiveness when it came to Julie that I wasn’t quite in control of.

  ‘Man, don’t you take that tone with me. You ask me to look, I look. You ask me to report back, I report back. Don’t go dark with me because I’m saying things you might not want to hear. You hear?’

  ‘I apologize. Please, go ahead. What did you find?’

  ‘Nothing much. Not directly. I mean, you knew about her Daddy, you’ve seen where she lives, wow-wee. And the rent on that shop – no way the profit’s going to cover that, not with the custom it’s got. I ran some figures and it might break even this year, might not. Decent place though. I do like that shop. You seen that Spawn stuff they’ve got in?’

  ‘Okay, I know this bit. What else?’

  ‘Daddy’s an investment banker, whole of his career. Climbed the greasy ladder and he’s riding high. Flies round a bit but mostly works and lives here. Mom died when she was three or four. Some sort of accident with a lift. Gruesome, but there’s not much detail on it. You’re that rich, you get to lock down your family secrets, you get me? Anyway, tragic. Girl by herself, no brothers or sisters.’ He hit his chest. ‘Gets me here, you know?’

  ‘So what exactly is up with her then, because nothing you’ve said so far is anything for me to get worried about.’

  ‘Well it’s not her. Not exactly.’ A long slug of the beer. ‘It’s that you’re not the only one watching her. She had two other tails. Two that I saw anyway.’

  ‘So she was being followed by three people, including you?’

  ‘Not people, groups. They were switching things around, knew what they were doing. One group human, the other hellkind. And the hellkind were being tailed by the humans as well. Pretty sure they didn’t know that.’

  I whistled. ‘Any idea what they were up to?’

  He shook his head and took another gulp of beer. ‘Nope. General surveillance from what I could tell. They kept their distance. But the problem I’ve got is that I think the human group started tailing me.’

  ‘You?’ Dexter was good. I’d never known him get made before. That was why he was my number one choice when it came to this work.

  ‘Yeah, me. You get me? Don’t worry, I shook them off before I came here, but as far as I’m concerned the job is over.’

  ‘Understood. Thanks. Appreciated.’

  ‘No problem. One other thing. I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell you this, figuring on how you like the girl. And it’s not concrete. I don’t like gossip. But you go with a girl, you get the family, you know what I mean, so maybe you should know.’

  ‘Spit it out,’ I said, figuring this was the good stuff. Dexter always liked to build up to a climax.

  ‘Look, it’s not her, okay, but the family connection, the father. I’ve got this guy I know in the NYPD – we all do, right? Gotta have the inside track sometimes or you lose out big time. I mentioned the girl’s name and he gave me a funny look. Almost turned me down flat. I managed to…persuade him, which I’ll need compensating for in turn.’

  ‘Consider that not a problem.’

  ‘Good. Just checking on that. Anyway, it was the Fairchild name that got him. Past few years, every now and then, they get a call from some journalist, looking into a death. Usually kids, but not always. It gets passed down the line. Rumor – more of a legend, actually – has it that there’s a list they run the name against. If the name’s on the list, if it’s tied to a certain number of cases, then the hack gets shut down. Turned down flat. And their name gets passed onto someone called Fairchild.’

  ‘Can’t be that rare a name, can it?’

  Dexter shrugged and held his hands up. ‘I figure not. I figure not. But, you know, I asked, I got told, I pass it onto you. You can ignore it, or use it as you wish. Entirely up to you.’

  ‘Understood. And thanks. Don’t suppose there’s any way to get my hands on that list they run the names against?’

  ‘No way I know of. Like I say, it’s a rumor. Rumor at best. Urban legends, that’s what they call them, I think.’

  ‘And the journalists? Anything happen to them?’

  ‘Didn’t dig any deeper in that direction. I can give you the guy’s name if you want.’

  I considered it, but in all probability it was a dead end. If someone was going round knocking off journalists, we’d hear about it somehow – hacks have their own code of honor, if honor’s the right word, and they wouldn’t stand for that. The alternatives were a shift in job, buying them off, something like that, all of which would be difficult to track. ‘No thanks. We’ve gone as far that way as we can, it looks like.’

  ‘That’s what I figured. Anyway, doing this little job for you has flagged me up to certain parties I’m not sure I want to run up against, so I’m off for a while.’

  ‘You hitting the Fades again?’

  ‘Nope. Mexico. I like the Fades, but something’s shifting there. Nothing I can put my finger on, nothing I can make sense of. Just a feeling, you know? You stay there long enough, you get a feel for the place. Now the pulse is off. Figure I’ll catch some sun and come back to the smoke when it all calms down. But first…’

  ‘First, you need your money,’ I said pulling out my wallet. ‘What did we say, four hundred?’

  He laughed and pointed at me dramatically. ‘Don’t you play me, boy. Come on, you hand it over now. And I need another three hundred for that cop.’

  ‘Three hundred? Mate, you need to learn to haggle a bit more.’ I paid him in full, and threw in a small bonus. A man needs drinking money in Mexico. You can’t drink the water down there, I’m told.

  ‘Don’t suppose you fancy one more small job, do you?’ I said, without much hope. ‘I need her shop checked out. Out of hours.’

  ‘Sorry, man,’ he said as he stood, pocketing the cash. ‘Getting a bit too hot here for my liking. Nice girl though. Hope she gets through whatever this is. You get married, you make sure I get an invite, you hear? Money in that family, the party’s going to be worth going to.’

  After he left I had another beer. Then, sod it, I made it a third. Putting off the inevitable. Considering my great plan to get us the lowdown on the Aleph, while not putting anyone’s life at risk besides mine. I’d managed to drag everyone in so far. I’d managed to get Jerry killed, Becky hit by exploding crystals and Simeon nearly fried. And yes, I know what they’d all say to that. But if I hadn’t been so fired up about helping Melanie, may
be we’d still be on the outside of it all, untouched. Not in the long run, of course. It always gets you in the long run. The short term, here and now, is the most anyone can hope for. All anyone can plan for.

  I put the beer down. I was clearly entering the maudlin phase, which, being a light drinker, hit me quicker than it did most people. One thing to do, and then on with it. I’d have to wait a bit longer, however, before I could get going. Maybe I’d finish that beer after all.

  The Outworld Emporium sat in darkness, soon after midnight. The staff had cashed up, hit the lights and headed off to a club, or bed, or whatever comic shop staff did in the wee hours. The windows were replaced, the stock was back as it should be – no time had been wasted in getting things back in order. I was glad.

  To get to the rear of the shop I needed to skirt round the block and come at it through an alley to the side. It all looked the same from the back, so I counted the doors twice until I was fairly sure that I’d got the right one. If I hadn’t, a quick sprint while the cops checked it out would be in order. The lock was good quality, and I’m not the best lock pick in town, so it was all of fifteen minutes later that I pushed the door open. The steady beep of the alarm sounded very loud as it prepared to kick into action. Inside and to the right was the control box. I entered the code, 1936, the year DC comics published its first title, Julie reliably informed me. Luckily she hadn’t changed it since the break-in, and the beeping stopped. All was still. A quick rummage in the fuse box later, and the CCTV was disabled.

  I had a small flashlight with a narrow, red beam. It wasn’t great, but with the large windows facing onto a road that was never completely quiet, it was all I could risk using. I headed out to the main shop area, grabbing a small stepladder from the store cupboard on my way.

  Closing my eyes, I pictured where it was I’d seen the plaster dust the morning of the robbery. Near the front, over to the left as I looked at it now. That would have to do. I put the stepladder out and climbed up. The ceiling was high and the ladder only designed for putting out and arranging stock on the upper shelves, so it was a stretch to examine things as closely as I wanted to.

  It took a while, but eventually the red beam of the torch ran across a section that didn’t look right. It was almost too smooth, too good a job, compared to the rest. I ran my finger across it. A small spot, roughly circular, about half an inch in diameter. No other clues, but then I didn’t expect there to be. I was only looking for something to lend confirmation to what was already in my head. This wasn’t that exactly, but it put an interesting spin on things.

  If it was as good an operation as I suspected, I was never going to find all the areas affected. Only sheer luck had pointed me in the direction of this one. Still, a quick check of the till area revealed some marks under the counter that had no business being there on such a new fixture.

  It was enough, and all I had time for. Sure, there might be more if I could put in a few hours and do it with decent lighting, but it was a result. The opposite of what I’d been expecting. Still, tempus fugit, and I had other things to do before the sun rose again.

  I put the CCTV back on, and re-set the alarm. The click of a door later and I was back behind the units in the alley, moving quickly, never there. Half an hour later saw me sitting at the back of the Starbucks on 47th, scribbling some notes onto a cheap pad I’d picked up at a convenience store. When I’d done, I tucked it all inside an envelope, stuck on a stamp and posted it as I walked down to the Brooklyn Bridge. Time to meet my maker.

  Sure, sacred ground would have been better for me, but probably taken as a sign of disrespect by him, and he was big on disrespect. Running water provided less protection, but wouldn’t rub it in his face quite as much. It was a compromise. I stopped half way across, the borderland between Manhattan and Brooklyn. A couple of cops passed me on my way over, and I gave them a smile, putting on my best impression of someone who’s definitely not about to do something stupid like jump. They smiled back and headed on.

  With no pedestrians in sight in either direction, apart from the rapidly-disappearing cops, it was time. I pulled a mirror out from my inside pocket, six inches by three, and set it on the railings, lodging it so it pointed down. Then I sat so I was looking up at it. He didn’t like being looked down at, and I was angling for help. Hopefully he would take the show of respect and act with condescending favor.

  That’s how deluded I’d become. Perhaps in some dark corner of my mind I’d admitted to myself that this was never going to work, in which case you have to wonder what was driving me forward, what was sending me running back to him. Maybe in was only in the sunless places of the night, with your options all gone, that you find out how screwed up you really are. In any case, any ideas that this could end well were about to be rapidly dispelled.

  I cleared my throat and pulled out a switchblade, holding it poised over my wrist, steadying myself. Enough blood, but not too much. A flow, not a gush. ‘I come now, by the path of blood, by the way of the forsaking of life, to the taker, the consumer, the one who sits in the flame, and I beg your audience. My master.’

  A quick dig and slice with the blade. I gathered some of the blood on my fingertips and threw it at the mirror. It hit, and ran down slowly. Nothing happened. I gathered more blood and threw it again. ‘I implore you. Speak to your servant.’

  The surface of the mirror shimmered and shifted, flexing as the centre pushed outward. I threw yet more blood, and the mirror twisted, leaping up and twisting in the air, becoming an irregular orb. Gradually the irregularities settled into the contours of a head. The hooked nose, swept back ears, and the eyes which, silver as they were, along with everything else, looked out with mocking cruelty.

  ‘Master?’ the voice sparkled, metallic on the night air. ‘Master? You call me master, and declare yourself my servant? This, from one who ran, from one who forsook me? I gathered you from death, I gave you a position within my court, and yet you fled from me. And now you return.’

  ‘I…I, I come before you -’

  ‘And I can barely hear you. Can barely make you out. Do you have protections in place?’ The face paused in thought. ‘Ah, water. You are indeed cautious. But for one who wishes to speak, to make supplication, such things make no sense. Strengthen our commune before you are lost to me.’

  I squeezed my forearm, digging into the cut with my hand, pulling out more blood and throwing it at the face, which received it with a gasp of ecstasy.

  ‘My Lord Molech,’ I declared. ‘Hear your servant’s request, I beg.’

  ‘Oh, you beg,’ it chided. ‘How I love it when you beg. You beg so very well. I miss your begging. Are you returning to me, then, my poppet? Is my treasure to return?’

  I gasped, fighting against the voice, the will behind it. How foolish to do this, to think I could prevail in this sort of encounter. He claimed to be the Molech of biblical fame, who accepted children cast into the fire, but personally I had my doubts. More likely he was an upstart, claiming the name as a prize, but that made him no less dangerous and possibly even more so. For too long he’d held me captive. The memory of those years hit home like hammer blows as his soft voice continued.

  ‘Come to me. Cast yourself now on my mercy, and will I not receive you? Will I not tenderly raise you up?’

  ‘My Lord,’ I continued. ‘I must question you, for I must know things that only one of your knowledge and wisdom can answer.’

  ‘You,’ it said, ‘question me?’ An edge crept into the voice.

  ‘Forgive me, I mis-spoke. I crave only your help, your aid. I would know of the Aleph.’

  ‘And all things,’ it said, ‘all things can be given to you. All knowledge can be poured out upon you. All things, all pleasures, made yours. I merely require tokens of your devotion, signs of your dedication.’

  I felt the knife move again against my arm, dangerously close now to the critical area in the wrists. The blood flowed more freely. I gathered it up on my fingers, in my palm, flinging
it at the silvery face which grinned and leered, absorbing the blood as it spattered against it.

  ‘I would tell you of the Aleph, of all that you wish to know,’ it mused. ‘I would gladly give you such things.’

  I was light-headed now. Euphoric. My hands moved by themselves, gathering and throwing my life away with every scoop. Red rain cast into the night, into the darkness, even as the darkness pulled down across my eyes.

  The last thing I saw before I collapsed was a blinding light, a bolt of lightning exploding against my vision.

  Chapter fifteen

  ‘You’re a bloody idiot,’ were the first words to reach me when I came round. Someone or something had been stamping on my head. The pain was intense.

  ‘Here, come on, sit up,’ another voice coaxed. ‘That’s it. Come on, take these tablets. They’ll help, I promise.’

  ‘Don’t mollycoddle him,’ the first voice butted in. ‘There’s no point. I’m kicking the shit out of him as soon as he gets his act together.’

  I opened my eyes. The first voice did, as I suspected, belong to Becky, who stood steaming a couple of meters away. Arabella, looking the more concerned of the two, was the one pressing the tablets into my palm and holding a glass of water.

  Good grief, I felt rough. ‘That was you, then?’ I guessed, looking at Becky. Dismissing a major demon, even one manifesting through a small bathroom mirror, wasn’t something you could do lightly. Three or four people could pull it off, working together. Becky, at a stretch, could get the job done herself.

  ‘Can’t believe you’re that damn stupid. No,’ she said, cutting me off as I started to talk, ‘I got your little letter. That arrived yesterday. All that crap I had to wade through about how it was all your fault made me want to retch. And it felt like I was reading a suicide note, so don’t tell me you had any real hope of it working.’

  She sat down, huffing. I looked around. We were in Simeon’s cavern. Somehow I’d ended up on a hospital bed with tubes attached. Pretty sure it hadn’t been around the last time we were down here. ‘I blame myself,’ she continued. ‘You’ve been acting so normal lately. Made me forget how busted up you are.’