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

by Andy Hyland

  We left the car in a side street a few blocks away. Nobody was tailing us yet, so we might as well ditch and run before someone caught up. A car chase through the city at night after an explosion outside a bank was never going to end well. Zack hit all the nearby CCTV cameras with a cast strong enough to wipe out any trace of us, and we continued on foot, Zack in front and Arabella behind, me with Julie’s arm across my shoulders, pulling her along.

  ‘Becky, it’s Zack,’ he said into his phone. ‘Get to the library now. It’s all kicked off. Yeah. You heard about that one? Damn it. Yeah, we’ll be underground in two.’

  We slipped into an alley next to a bar. Zack hammered on a back door until someone answered. ‘Tommy in?’ Tommy was, and led us through a back kitchen and down to a basement. That got him fifty bucks worth of thank you. He held up the trap door while we jumped in one by one. ‘Okay,’ Zack called to me once he was down, ‘pass me the redhead.’ I was too strung out to argue, and more or less dropped my still-blonde girl down into his waiting arms.

  We weren’t in the best place to reach Simeon, and our route took us through two miles of disused subway before could go further down below the city. An hour later we fell through the red door. Becky was there waiting, as was Simeon and an elderly woman far across the room who had her head down over a book and paid us no attention whatsoever.

  ‘What the hell?’ asked Becky.

  ‘Popular question,’ I said. ‘Get me a drink.’

  I laid Julie carefully on a sofa and sunk a beer while I filled everyone in on the night’s happenings.

  ‘Okay, so far so weird,’ said Arabella. ‘But you still haven’t told us who that is.’ She pointed straight at Julie, who was lying still, eyes open but nobody home.

  ‘Seriously?’ I asked.

  ‘Did he get duped?’ said Zack. Took me a second before I realized he was talking about me.

  ‘No, I – look, that’s Julie.’

  ‘It really isn’t,’ said Zack.

  Arabella nodded in agreement, staring at me like I was mad. ‘Julie’s blonde, right? That chick’s got red hair, she’s shorter than Julie, heavier than Julie, and – this is the key bit – looks nothing like Julie.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Becky, who’d stayed quiet throughout this little exchange so far. ‘You’re still seeing Julie right?’ I nodded. ‘And you guys don’t.’ She walked forward, and passed her hand over Julie’s eyes, concentrating hard.

  She stood up and laughed suddenly. ‘Frank Fairchild, you clever, clever bastard. Damn, I would have loved to meet you. Ready, you two? You’re going to love this.’ Reaching behind Julie’s neck, Becky quickly unclasped the necklace and pulled it off.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ said Zack. ‘That was…amazing. Can I see that? What a piece of work.’

  ‘How?’ was the only word Arabella uttered.

  Becky held the necklace up high so that the sapphire swung in front of her eyes. ‘It’s beautiful, in so many ways. And lover boy still doesn’t get it.’ She grinned at me. ‘Sorry, bad night I know, but you don’t see work like this that often.’

  ‘Fill me in,’ I said. ‘Please.’

  ‘It’s an old-fashioned glamour. You were there when the necklace was put on, so you were never affected by it. Everyone else no longer saw Julie. They saw you wandering around with a redhead that looked nothing like her.’

  ‘Damn.’ That explained the odd way people were treating her after she put it on. ‘And the Julie with Frank…’

  ‘Another glamour. Whoever that woman was, you can bet your ass Frank had gifted her a necklace, this time with nobody but him around. So everybody, including you, saw him leave with Julie.’

  ‘And saw both Frank and Julie die in the explosion,’ finished Simeon. ‘Are we absolutely sure that they were in the car? If he’d stage-managed things this far, then it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he’s still out there.’

  I thought about it and shook my head. ‘No. I don’t think so. He was saying goodbye. I don’t think he saw any other way out. This was him clearing the decks and giving Julie a chance to run.’

  ‘So?’ Becky asked. ‘You going to? Run?’

  ‘One part of me says yes,’ I admitted. ‘Take her, head out to wherever it is that Frank had prepared. Settle down, play happy families. Hell, if it’s as well stocked as he says it is, we could all go. But it’s a short-term fix. Deep down, I think even he knew it. What he’s talking about sounded big – end of days stuff. We could hold out for a while, but sooner or later we’d have to come back out to the real world.’

  ‘Which would have gone to hell,’ said Becky.

  ‘And,’ said Simeon, ‘there is the small matter of your pact with Sitri. You’re up against the clock on that one, and if you fail to deliver then he could claim you. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with. No protection would hold.’

  ‘There’s a time limit? I thought I had as long as it takes. Kind of an indefinite thing.’

  ‘What gave you that idea?’ said Becky. ‘You moron. You’ve got ten days. I thought you knew that? Standard pact under the accords? Did you have the slightest idea what you were getting into?’

  ‘Not really,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve always been a bit fuzzy with the accords. Never liked legal stuff.’

  ‘Great,’ said Zack. ‘A whole bunker at our disposal, and there’s no point going to the damn thing. What do we do?’

  I stood up. ‘Nothing’s changed. We find out about the Aleph. We find out what the hell Carafax are doing with them. And we stop it. Only the stakes have changed. It appears, people, that we’re now out to save the world.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Arabella.

  I was lying of course. I had no interest in saving the world. But if that was the only way to save Julie, then that’s what needed to happen.

  Chapter nineteen

  ‘Speaking of the Aleph,’ said Simeon, ‘how are we doing back there, Grace? Everyone, meet Grace. Formerly of the Great Library, now massively annoyed with all of them and working with us.’

  The elderly woman stood up and made her way over, carrying Sitri’s angelic statue. She had a waspish face underneath a bun of steel-grey hair. Eyes that could melt glass at twenty paces. ‘You know the basics, of course,’ she said in a surprisingly soft voice. ‘They symbol on the statue is the Aleph, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. All sorts of divine associations with that – Alpha and Omega and so on. Delusions of grandeur, I’d imagine – a claim to divinity etcetera. Apart from that, there are no other markings on the statue. No hidden physical code.’

  ‘So Sitri cheated us?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Technically, he abided by the pact. It’s all here, it seems, but we can’t get at it. We need a pentagrammic union.’

  Simeon nodded. ‘To be expected, I suppose.’ He turned to the rest of us. ‘It’s a basic but effective way of stopping powerful information and spells falling into the hands of lone wolves and lunatics. You need a binding ring of five proficient magic users.’

  ‘From what I’ve seen, getting five magic-using lunatics together in one place isn’t that difficult,’ Arabella pointed out.

  ‘Admittedly, the pentagrammic protection has limitations.’

  ‘We’ve got six of us here,’ I pointed out. No problem.’

  Grace shook her head. ‘I’m Aware, but my magic was blocked when I went to work for the Great Library. It’s not something that is easily reversed. And the particular bind that’s used here is very specific. Sometimes you can use magic users of any type – human, hellkind or angelic. For this, however, you need magic users of the same type. Five humans.’

  Zack cleared his throat. ‘Er, Simeon, I don’t suppose you qualify to play with the humans on this one?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t been human for some time. Not that I’m demonic either. Somewhere in time my kind…fell down the gaps in between.’

  ‘I don’t like where this is heading,’ s
aid Arabella.

  ‘I don’t think we have a choice. It’s late in the day to drag anyone else into this and get them up to speed.’ I turned to Zack. ‘Let’s go get Melanie.’

  ‘Ahem,’ said Becky, nodding at Julie. ‘You think you should be here when she wakes up? Or resurfaces from wherever her mind’s gone on holiday, anyway. She’ll need you here.’

  ‘I’ll go with Zack.’

  ‘You damn coward.’

  ‘Yep. You know the whole “Hi Julie, your Dad’s dead, you’re being lined up for a sacrifice, and by the way, the firm your Dad worked for all these years, they had your Mum killed” thing? I need some space to build up to that. Put me on the list of bad boyfriends if you want.’

  ‘Men. Bloody hell,’ muttered Arabella.

  ‘Books never let you down,’ Grace pointed out, nodding slowly.

  ‘Go,’ said Simeon. ‘We’ll hold the fort here. There may be something we can do for her. Slow the waking process and give her time to heal somewhat before she has to face reality again.’

  I walked over to Julie, kissed her forehead. ‘See you soon. Come on Zack, let’s go get the bitch.’

  ‘I count two. You?’

  Zack nodded. From Frank’s file on me, it was clear that Carafax had assembled their information quickly and comprehensively. No surprise that it would include my friends and acquaintances. Becky’s place sat in darkness but along the street, far enough away not to be obvious, was a nondescript BMW. Didn’t take too much of a stretch to reach out and detect the two humans hunched down in the front seats, tinged by an aura, tainted by non-human magic.

  ‘Don’t suppose Becky has a back way in?’

  Zack shook his head. ‘One entrance. One exit. Easier to defend but it has its disadvantages. You reckon they’re mages, or muscle?’

  ‘I’m inclined to think both. We try to go in, they’ll raise the alarm before coming for us. You remember that trick Arabella pulled on Machiavelli’s goons last summer?’

  ‘I remember. You can do that?’

  ‘Never tried. Still, desperate times and all that. It’s quick enough to stop them screaming for help. If it doesn’t work, try to slow them down.’

  The sedan was parked close to a streetlight, which was exactly what was needed for this. In theory what I was about to try wasn’t beyond me, and was even at a lower level than most attacks I’d cast in the past few days.

  I rolled up the street, doing my best impression of a drunk trying to hold it together. This gave me a good excuse to grab the streetlight and the car at the same time, leaning over as if I was going to spew.

  ‘Hey, get off,’ came the shout from inside the car. Too late. I drew the electricity from the grid via the streetlight, and let it pass through me to the car. Part two of the cast was the tricky bit – being able to conduct the flow but remain insulated from it at the same time. Scotty might tell you that you cannae break the laws of physics, but what do you know? Turns out you can. For a brief moment the car lit up, every light flashing into life, and the alarm began its wail. Then it was over and the car was back as it had been, this time with steam escaping from the hood. A quick check of the interior revealed two Kentucky-fried cult members.

  ‘Nice,’ said Zack when I got back to him. ‘Must try that some time. It doesn’t hurt?’

  ‘Tingles a bit,’ I admitted, shaking out the after-effects.

  Melanie was where Arabella left her, stretched out in Becky’s bath. Zack whistled softly. Remind me to never, ever piss off Arabella. We’d liberated Melanie from Carafax and she’d come out with a black eye. Since the rescue she’d sustained another black eye (now fading), various lacerations to the arms, bruising pretty much everywhere, and, from the way she groaned when we lifted her out, there might have been a couple of broken ribs in there as well.

  The verity chain lay spent on the laundry bin, along with two towels covered with blood. I glanced at it, making a mental note.

  I pulled the duct tape off her mouth, took ten seconds of the screaming that came out, then put it back. ‘Listen,’ I told her, waiting until I had her undivided attention. ‘You’re coming with us. If you behave, there won’t be any trouble. But we can’t risk you drawing attention to us, so make a scene and that’s it. Game over.’

  One thing I’d always loved – actually strike that, I was besotted – one thing I’d always mooned over in Melanie was her expressive eyes. In the space of a few seconds now they conveyed so much: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. She nodded. We got her out of the handcuffs, tape and twisty ties (don’t ask). Somehow she still managed to walk in heels, and a couple of hours later we were knocking on the red door. Melanie straightened herself. Everything she’d been through, and she was still up for a scrap. A sneaking hint of admiration for her crept into my heart.

  ‘Hi Melanie,’ smiled Arabella sweetly. ‘Want a hug.’

  The air turned blue for about five minutes. Once they’d shouted themselves out, we got down to business.

  ‘So that’s the deal, is it? Suddenly I’m necessary? What do I get out of it?’

  Appealing to anything besides self-interest was a complete waste of time. ‘We need to get this done,’ I said. ‘We can’t let you go until this is over, but…tell you what, you stay down here and hang out for a few days. No ties, no handcuffs. Then you leave. The alternative is you get stuck in the corner over there trussed up like a Turkey at thanksgiving, and we may or may not be around to let you go at the end of it all.’

  She took the sensible option. Good girl.

  ‘So how does this work?’ I asked Grace and Simeon. ‘We stand here in a circle and chant?’

  ‘Not far off. But we can’t do it inside here,’ said Simeon. ‘For one thing, the occult energy released could send up a beacon. It may not, but if it did then I’d rather that beacon didn’t point here. And secondly, we can’t know the effect on Julie and Grace. If there’s any sort of psychic discharge, they have no way to defend themselves.’

  ‘Any ideas?’ I asked.

  I suppose if you’re looking to do strange and wonderful things like stand in a group around an angelic statue, chanting words you don’t understand, in a complex rhythm you can’t keep, then Central Park at 3am is as good a place and time to do it as anywhere. Simeon stood on the outside of the circle, waving his hands like a conductor, occasionally slapping his palm against his forehead. After four attempts, we got there.

  Static electricity crackled in the air, running up our arms, every hair flicking upright. In the centre, the angelic statue took on a blue sheen, growing larger and larger until it towered several feet above us. The stone became pale skin, and golden hair, and perfect white feathers.

  ‘Greetings to you, seekers of the way,’ it said smiling, in a voice like honey. ‘Do not be afraid. We are the Aleph. We are the first. We are the bringers of light, knowledge and power. But we do not hoard these things. We offer them freely to those who would join with us.’

  I looked around the circle. This was…unexpected. I was the only one of us who’d actually met an angel, and the experience hadn’t exactly been serene and beautiful. Angels usually kick off by saying ‘don’t be afraid,’ for a very good reason. This was…there was something I couldn’t put my finger on.

  ‘You have found us by your diligent efforts,’ the angel continued. ‘You have come seeking our aid, because you look around at this world and see that it lacks order. It lacks justice. It lacks control. And you know that if you had the means, you could bring about an age of peace and wonders.’

  ‘Because you give people power and that’s what happens, isn’t it?’ muttered Simeon. ‘Peace and wonders. Who is it trying to kid?’

  ‘We would aid you in this. We would lend to you our resources. We would equip and guide you. We are…forbidden from interfering directly with your world, but by working together we can achieve great things. End the evil. Make your stand. Embrace me now. Signal in this way your joining with us in the great cause.�
�

  It smiled, dazzling and approachable, glorious and humbly self-effacing. I felt a tug. Melanie, on my left, had stepped forward. I yanked her back, and so did Simeon on the other side. ‘That’s enough, I think,’ Simeon said from behind me. ‘Everyone break. Now.’

  Everyone broke the handholds, apart from Melanie, who remained clutching mine and Simeon’s. After a few seconds she gathered herself and let go, looking at the ground, red-cheeked.

  ‘What do we think?’ said Becky.

  ‘Not here,’ said Simeon. ‘Grab that statue. We’ll walk and talk.’

  ‘I think we’ve just seen,’ I said, as we headed South in a non-linear fashion, ‘one massive advertisement.’

  ‘Good description,’ nodded Simeon. ‘One that can only be opened by five magic-sensitive humans. Seductive, enticing. If you weren’t forewarned, you could be sucked in.’

  ‘So we’re all agreed it didn’t actually come from angels?’ I said. ‘I’m stating the obvious here, in case anyone was sucked in by that crap.’

  ‘You see the way Melanie reacted?’ Becky asked in a low voice. Melanie was far enough ahead not to be able to over hear us. ‘She’d have dived right in if we’d let her.’

  ‘But she didn’t,’ I pointed out. ‘So they’re offering all this power to the unsuspecting five that open the message. Hell, even if they knew they were dealing with demons some of the Aware might chance it. Offering a mage power is like offering a junkie a fix.’

  ‘And the embrace would do what?’ Zack wondered. ‘If you’d have walked forward?’

  ‘It’s an open invitation,’ I said. ‘You’re practically saying to this supernatural entity, or group, “go on then, possess me.” Opening the door to your soul and letting them waltz in.’

  ‘Nuh uh,’ said Arabella. ‘Edwin Monk isn’t flagging up as demonic – you said so yourself. Nothing about Carafax is. Tinged round the edges, that’s all.’

  ‘Then we’re down to the unthinkable,’ said Simeon. ‘Demons giving away power. Not their essence, not a transfer of themselves, merely power. A gift.’