Primrose. A good neighbourhood. Jewish and Vietnamese. I stop in and wolf down pork rolls and juice. Find some sunglasses. It's a chilly day, cold air, with no clouds. The worst.
Primrose is famous amongst my scene for having three baal-shem, heavy duty guys who work the kaballah tip. Each of the masters is about three hundred years old, and I'm not sure if I'm kidding. Rabbis and wise men. No women in this tradition.
Streets are filled with pretty Viet girls, old women out shopping, past a coffee house where Yeshiva students argue loudly and one stares at me. Knows me. I pass by one of the great magicians' houses and feel the ultra-spectrum hum of his protections.
Turn a corner, down past the bakeries and the temples and the apostolic church and the bodegas and sewing shops, a pork roll joint and a dumpling house and a ladies' hair-salon. A good part of town. Someone is following me but the Kaballists are a tight run crew. They know me and aren't hiding and they probably know why I'm here. This is the 'never again' severity crew and they've dealt with shaven-head jack-boot cults before. Less being shadowed and more a polite eye-brow raise.
Walking along the street, enjoying being about in the mid-morning. I don't recall the last time I was out at this time of day when I was slinking home wearing fatigue sweat as a coat.
The branding over my heart suddenly burns cold.
It's a ward against a certain kind of curse. Scarlet gave it to me one Christmas Eve. We were drunk and coming up and her hand was shaking she was so scared but she did it.
I got it specifically because I was having a lot of issues with death threats at the time. A Pink Panther run of accidents when someone found a hole in my protections. An angina attack at the age of twenty-eight that was clearly a poor attempt at someone exploding that organ. Kill-jinxes that had me falling down stairs and wary of leaving the house in case of a sudden case of runoverness
Got tired of it. Took certain steps.
Brandings. Don't hurt so much when you do it. Healing, though.
Anyways.
Glance around.
And again.
An old woman with a kind face sees me circling.
'Mister! I see it. Relax.' I stare at her, reading to bomb her ancient brain out with a spell that'll puke up her shins.
'Turn around!' she's quite amused. Four foot two of mirth. She thinks something is funny. No one's casting murder spells laughing like that.
I turn. She reaches up to my back.
'Kick me! I haven't seen that in years.'
She hands it to me, taped on. It doesn't say kick me. She's done that thing where you see what you want. It's a mess of native American images and has some bullshit Wiccan phraseology. It reminds me of.
'Thanks lady. Just a friend playing a joke. '
She rattles on some stuff while I stare at the damn thing before I excuse myself.
What is this?
I smell the note.
Fucking. Patchouli. Hippie magic. Goddamnit.
What the hell is this prick doing in this neighbourhood?
I have his poxy curse-marker in my hands and it's streaked with drying grease from his. Tracking him is pretty easy, especially because he's going into the incredibly effeminate tea-shop across the road. The first place you'd look for him.
Even then, it takes me a minute to pick him out. He's changed his look. He used to have his long hair greasy and vile. Now it's thin ratty dreadlocks and his ears have those huge hole things in them. Thick sideburns given away to a pointed goatee. Bastard.
He sees me and runs out the back. I think I'm supposed to chase him like I'm a cop and he's a perp. Which is stupid because my leg hurts and I have no intention of calling attention to myself while the Old Man may be looking for me.
Just walk after him casual. His hemp-soaked lungs won't let him get too far.
And so I find him at the park where I remanifested in the world. Lying on a bench, breathing hard.
'Greyson.'
He looks up at me.
'Oh man.'
Here's the deal. A few years back, Jon and I got a call from Lin that some hippies had been visiting her shop. Lin's bookstore is a famous one in the occult scene because she stores a lot of good beginner's books. But better than that, she has a lot of things out the back. Start asking about those books and recruiters and like that are going to notice you. She also has contacts all around the world for works you can't find in a catalogue.
Lin was a consistent source of good leads for us. Guys getting into books we might not want them to read. New cults organising, you can pick that going on when the same book gets a sudden run on. We'd leave out juicy books of ludicrous black magic jabber, tagged so we could retrieve them from budding knife-jobs who bought them, looking for hurt magic. Like that.
Anyways, we get a call from Lin, who wants to distract these patchouli-stinking guys from hanging around her place, which is a respectable joint.
'They call me dude,' said Lin, dressed to the nines in what she loved to call her dragon-lady getup. She walked out of crippling poverty and remade herself to be as strange as she could, drawing on old images of what people used to think of women like her. It's a performance I don't ask her about.
'Honestly, they buy up all my incense and the better class of customer won't stay to browse.'
'Lin, that's not really a Library problem.'
'Well, this might be. They've started ordering in things like the Refulgent Codex and The Wilgerfortis MS.'
'Alright. Let me know if they grab something dangerous like the Buried Goat Book or the Unseen Dragon.'
Which they did. Books of earth magic and geomancy. Dangerous books. Things like that will give you ideas. Soon, I've got to go and banish some elemental bastard or some scarecrow thing. Jon and I do the research. We get the addresses where a few of the books are shipping out. We follow some of the hippies around a few days.
Distressing experience. Crystal shops. Books on rebirthing. Organic farmers markets. Chai. Enough harp music to drive a man to suicide. Scarlet would laugh at us when we came home, Jon drinking heavily, getting ready to hit the clubs. Me locking myself in the office to play Misfits as loud as I could stand, trying to clear the dolphin off us.
We find the leader. His name is, and I'm not making this up, Silver Morningstar. All the hippies we saw buying books ended up at his joint. We went around to visit him at his business. Yes, he was selling worm farms.
'What's up, guys?' he greeted us as we walked into his tiny warehouse, filled with mud and rotted vegetables. The city is a tiny island where no one has a yard. What the fuck was he playing at? Jon and I looked at each other, hiding disgust.
'Mr' bite it out 'Morningstar. We represent the Library and we're interested in books you've purchased.'
'Wow, ok man. The Library, I've heard about you guys. Wow.' We looked at each other again.
So we grill him. Well, Jon does. Jon's good with the non-threatening conversations. I just hang back, look around. He's got some talent but there's nothing to worry about. A few bullshit spirits, lurking around the place.
But.
There's something else. Something not right. We can smash up the place but he'll call the cops and we'll have to bail. Don't need the hassle. Just talk to him about his books and 'extend Library co-operation'. That means, here's a free lunch. Loan them a book. Give them a place to conduct a rite, something like that and soon, we own you. That's the basic MO for your starting-out coven.
That something not-right bugged me, though. Over tequila shots I spat out the miserable truth. 'We have to keep surveillance.'
Jon puts a knife on the table. 'I will kill you with death for this.'
'I look forward to dying from your kill.'
It keeps going for another week.
'I can't stand this anymore.' Jon looks at me one night.
'Let's do it.'
We jumped the gun and found their temple, up on a rooftop garden. Snuck in, hiding in shadows we drew around us. Watched their depraved hipp
ie rites. Shirtless people drumming. We just watch. Then, old Silver Morningstar comes in all el Jefe. He's calling mother earth and all that using the word 'nourish' way too much. Spirits come, attending him. More mojo than I thought.
But... wait. The information shifts.
Dark Mother. Annis. Cannibal ma. Black Moon. Red Moon. Bad fairy.
Holy shit. He's trying to sacrifice someone. That dreamy, stoned girl on the altar, she's not going to get some Rhea-force riding her bones, she's going to get eaten up when the Dark Mother manifests physical. She should be terrified, but she's buried under ounces of hash and the other hippies can't feel it or don't care.
'Stop this,' I say to Jon, urgent. He moves in like a wolf and commences with a beat-down. I open the doctor's bag to grab my stuff and start a banishing. Strong stuff, but Jon's totally broken their concentration and I can go after the dark mother. The terrible goddess disperses and there's screaming. We send the hippies to fuck and tell them to look after their victim.
Leaves us with Silver Morningstar. Jon works him a bit, but it's nothing serious. Slapping him around more than anything. Let him know that if he tries murder again, we'll have him. Jon's not above killing the guy, but I never liked that part of the work.
We steal all his spare acid.
A year after that, Bill Greyson turns up running some awful nudist free-love cult. And guess what? Silver Morningstar is Raven Wolfwing now, but he's still flirting with powers we just don't trust him to use responsibly. Bust up the second cult and hex him up good. He tries this again, I'll know and I'll end him. We explain to the naked people just who he is and what he's done. There's a few faces we recognise from the rooftop invocation. Stupid people. Desperate people. Spent my professional life around that kind.
Can I really stop him doing these rites again? Not really. But Jon cuts a rune into his arm with a scalpel and that'll remind him. And I can certainly discourage him with my hex.
Little bit after that, he turned up at the Library with a .22 looking for payback. We just locked the door. Called the cops who picked him up but laid no charges. Never heard from him again.
And here he is.
My voice, I try to make it sound like the doctor telling you there's a cloud on your scan.
'Try to doorstep-hex me? Me?'
'Just get it over with, man.'
'How did you even know I was here?'
'I live here now. Run an,' and he's talking about some computer shit.
'Shut up. Answer the question.'
'I saw you, man. Had the curse laying around and snuck up while you were, you know, pondering.'
'Thought you'd get a little payback.'
'Umn, well, yeah.'
He should be too scared of me. Point to his arm. 'You forget about that?'
Rubs the old rune scar.
'No man. No. But, here's the thing. You're not a Librarian anymore. Word is out, Jon is gone and you're on your own. You had a rep, man. But word is out that maybe you're twisting. In the wind.'
An old guy walks past us, smiles at me. Nice walk in the sun. I nod back just talking to my lazy friend.
'You think I'm losing my rep?'
He laughs.
I take the pen from his pocket. Add my revisions to his curse mark. Put the hippie-stinking paper back on him.
'Well, better let people know that I'm nothing to fuck with.'
He feels the curse going to work on him.
I don't need randoms with beefs interrupting my days. They'll see what happens to Silver Raven Morningstar here. They'll talk. His eyes open up and he commences to sprinting but he'll be seeing what I want him to see for hours to come. Blood and black stuff leaking from his mouth.
Good.
Word will spread. 'Greyson stepped to Lark and got a beat down.'
Good.
Check the time. Off to see the boss. Nice day in the sun for real.
Thirty-Six
I hit the stoop. Knock on the door.
Sasha, his current student, opens the door. She smiles like the morning.
'Lark.'
She goes for the hug and I step back. I hate that shit but she just laughs at me.
Someone put cigarettes out on Sasha's belly when she was five. Burned a swastika and pentagram into her chest when she was seven. Got her pregnant three times before she was fourteen. Cut off her big toes. Broke her nose too many times to count and siphoned off her blood regular.
Bullshit antimony. Satan nonsense. Mully found out about her somehow and me and Jon get her out. He looked after her and, much to everyone's livewire shock, she turned out to be the biggest-hearted girl around. Kind and sweet and profoundly damaged, but somehow moving past it. She's sixteen now. She works for him, looks after him since the operation.
'Is he free?'
'Sure. Come in.'
His old townhouse is full of light and plants everywhere. I spent many, many years here. He's sitting in his parlour, playing scrabble online. Mully. My teacher. Books everywhere. Strange sculptures on the shelves.
Wards here like shimmering blue lightning. If there's one place I'm safe from the Old Man, it's here.
'Didn't you tell me you'd quit smoking. I can smell you from here.'
He turns around. His eyes, blue, circled green, gold flecked. His hair, thin on his head, falling from ears to shoulder, wavy. Face shaved. Precise accent of classical education. Dressed like a schoolboy. Face and skin dark from any possible number of sun-lashed countries.
My teacher.
Mully isn't his name. None of our names are our names. You know why. Taking an Irish name was just something he found amusing.
The best and strongest man I know.
'I'm in trouble, boss.'
'Sasha?'
'Apple tea, please. Have a seat.'
I need a smoke. He gets up, takes his cane and we walk into the back. There's a white iron set up out there. Sasha limps over to us, brings him a blanket and the crisp green tea. Sip. Light up.
'Just let me smoke in the house.'
'It's a disgusting habit and I wish you'd stop.'
'Me too.'
Silence. He'll let me come to it. He's never in a hurry, never in a rush. So I do.
Scarlet, the Old Man, Bettina. Black Library. Bleak Electors, Gallowglass. He listens in silence, only asking if Jeancat is alive. I don't know.
Finish it. 'So I stitched up the hippie and here I am.' He looks over at me and smiles. I've put him and his house in danger and he smiles at me. It's like taking a kick to the teeth.
'You shouldn't have tried to see Scarlet outside of her hours.'
'I know.'
'She's stubborn.'
'Yeah.'
'How is she?'
'I don't know.'
He shakes his head. No sympathies. He knows I don't like or want kind words that mean nothing.
'You want to know about the Old Man.'
I don't even know what I want.
'Sure.'
He sighs, stretches his legs. Starts to talk.
Thirty-Seven
1955 and Mully was still working for the Library, although not as a full member. Still had problems with his skin and passport in those days. But the Library recognised talent, then and now, and found a way to make use of the newcomer to the city, without having to sully its ivory ways. Funny to think of, really.
Seemed the Old Man was old, even back then. Had a name, though no one could remember it. Back then, he was just a hard man. World wasn't put together from the War quite yet, scars fading but visible. People from all over the world ended up in the city and brought traditions with them. Americans with cajun hoodoo or Southern California Krishna Consciousness or their Sci-Fi flying saucers. Muslims with their mathematics and fire people. Jewish miracle-workers, traumatised still and angry for divine answers. French and German witches, English druids, Indian fakirs, Greeks with drawn-down moons or orthodox thaumaturgy. Sohei and Yellow Turbans, Finns eager to take bear-shapes and wield doomed swords. The ci
ty was host to a sudden influx of immigration and, in the occult world, that meant a hunt for resources. Reagents, books, sacrifices, sickles, places of power, converts, hiding places and all the rest.
Far uptown, under the bridge, was where the Old Man plied his trade.
'The rumour I recall believing, was that he was an IRA man who'd tried to buy guns from the Nazis. After the War ended, the Republicans were keen to play down their involvement with the Germans, so they kicked him out. I don't remember why I held that opinion, so I'd take little stock in it being true.'
Whoever he'd been, he was in the city a few years ahead of the post-War immigrations and had planned ahead. He used to buy heroin, then a new drug, from Eastern sailors who had access to poppy fields in places like the Kush, funded his organisation that way. The uptown docks are smaller than down, with less policing. Basically, a goldmine in those days, where cops were cheaper than today and the security was laughable.
'I won't say it was the Wild West but, even in the fifties, law was rather looser than you'd believe. And the police in the city, never a reliable bunch, were no more than gangsters themselves. The docks were a bad place back then. Every week, the papers would expose a cathouse, or do some expose on a jazz bar where 'tea' was openly smoked.'
Because the docks were so lucrative, every gang wanted a slice, and so did every cult and crew. Need some bloody idol to your god? But there's trade embargoes? Smuggle it in. Some rare psychotropic, or a white slave Scarlet Woman, or a prohibited book? Just pay off a dock worker. Get one of your fraternal brothers a job as a docker. It's a good strong union job, and you'll have someone on the ground to make sure the inspectors don't find your dragon idol or your three pounds of Leng dust you'll be chopping up with razors.
There were a lot of cultists and people associated with them in those days.
It was '55 that it all kicked off.
Some new-breed magicians, high on wicca and comic books, who thought they'd have the run of the place. Brits, mainly, and a few Yanks, rolled into town, putting the hex on anyone who looked at them sideways. Rashes of suicides. Even a spontaneous human combustion. Then the Chinese finally got their act together and fought back. It was all upside hells and dragonlines. A group of Turks, from some radical Sufi cell, kicked out of their homeland, decided to take advantage of the chaos.
Black City (The Lark Case Files) Page 12