I'll answer your questions quickly.
1. No, I never did that.
2. Things like blood magic and human sacrifice have no more 'power' than anything else inherently. But if you want to fuel your rite with shock and taboo-breaking, sure it works. And then someone like me will find you if you take it too far.
I know you're not seriously suggesting something like this, but really, it's just the dick move of a psychopath - not to mention the quickest way to attract Johnny Law that I know. I've seen it before and it's just ugly and sad. Child abuse. Drug addiction. Everyone wants the Al Crowley heroin addiction and sexy parties, and they forget about the mountain climbing and novels.
3. A magic wand sounds lame, I know. Grab a bone, a drumstick, whatever. It's just a symbol, and a good old one. I like working roughly within elemental symbolism, cups and swords and all that, but only because I'm familiar with it. Don't like it: ditch it. That's what I was trying to say before. Read better.
4. Yes, magic has an objective reality.
It's real and it can change the world in very real ways. Because there is another world. There's as many worlds as you can think of. And some are dark and creep into rooms in which children hide behind the couch. And some blaze with meaning and compassion. And some are strange. But there are dimensions or planes or whatever that overlap with our own. And there are entities that exist that are not human.
And there are worlds outside our world that have nothing in common with us. Worlds that we can only interpret as hostile to us. Malign. And although those worlds may not share that viewpoint, or any human viewpoint, their actions are harmful to human life and sanity.
Yes, you can change the rules. Transform into an animal. Teleport. Alter time. Whatever. But it's so damn hard and so much effort that why bother?
Just wait. Try it later. Understand more before you get into that stuff. This isn't some dire warning. I'm just trying to spare you a lot of effort and irritation.
But yeah. You can change the physical world with it.
So ask yourself this question: how can you trust history, reality, anything, when you know it can be changed by people with a handful of symbols and mischief in their hearts?
Forty-Four
Wick is nine people now, one of them rich.
She waited, careful. Snuck into one of the uptown apartment complexes. She just waited by the garage, hiding in a corner until a rich black car opened it up. Then, she just walked in once it started to close. She's on camera, but her hood is drawn. They won't be watching. Security guards will be talking to each other about guns and war games and that. She's not worried about getting picked up later.
She walks around the garage, wide and empty and cold. She's used to like places like this. Lonely and unmarred. She got a canvas and she was alone to work in it. None of the others could get in and out like she can. But now she's never lonely. Her and it, the voice, are in many people's heads now. She finds the richest car there, to the best of her knowledge. She takes the image of the car and feeds it into the pool of minds she's colonised. There's some minor dissent, but one of them loves cars and reads the magazines and follows the racing, and he tells Wick which one to choose.
She tags it. Waits. Gets bored. Tags more. Within about three hours, she has four more minds. Thirteen. Good number.
Wick takes time now to look over her work. She's never been this good. The colours never brighter, the letters never this sharp. One of her selves races upstairs, grabs a camera, documents all this.
'My ex-husband works owns a gallery! We should get you a showing!'
That's... amazing to Wick, who says she would love it. But the voice in the scroll is as amused as a housecat.
'If you like. But soon, a night or two, we will truly begin our work.'
The rich self of Wick drives her where she needs to go. Buys her dinner and cigarettes. Lets her smoke in his car. And all her selves offer up ideas to where she should tag next. They love her work. Everyone should see it. The voice is happy. She's noticed its capacity is growing.
Everyone. Even the dead.
Forty-Five
Ludo wipes his face with a handkerchief. He's under the overpass and outside the old house. Most of this kind were torn down long ago, but the Old Man kept this one safe. Gabled roof and old red wood, and the thing slumps like a cripple.
At least he was reasonable, this time. As reasonable as he gets. He listened to Ludo recount the operation.
'It's moving, it's hiding. It wants to be ready for me.' The Old Man hacked that out through messy, sliced-up lips.
'But it's getting ambitious.'
Ludo is given instructions and a vial of the alchemy. He shoots it up in the back of the town car, getting visions of all those he's lost in a twenty-minute death-nod. His second girlfriend, who he never meant to hurt. Zandt, who killed himself after the ANC thing. Katriona, who got the bug and died whoring. All of them who meant something to Ludo come to him. Some are in hells of their own making, but Ludo clings to their existence, knowing that a lifetime of killing has some greater purpose.
It gives him permission for his brutalities. No matter what pain of murder he dishes out, all these souls will live on. This life is just the start of the journey, and that means Ludo has no need for restraint. Those he kills will have other chances at existence, so killing isn't even worth worrying about.
He packs away his works neatly and wipes the drool from his lips.
The phone rings.
'Yeah.'
Some drone.
'The magician is back. He's downtown somewhere eastside.'
'What's he doing?'
'Moving. Quickly. He's good. Too good for any of our bullshit street-mages.'
Ludo knows better than to try Lark in his house without serious back-up. But the blanco prick is a loose end. The Old Man is throwing cash around; he can spend a bit more. Ludo has discretionary funds and it's time to spend some.
'I'm going to have him take care of with outsourcers.'
'Fine.'
Ludo makes a call and sets up the meet. He needs a killer and a very, very good one. He'll sort that out at dawn. Right now, his car pulls up at the old depot. There's some of the crew, pulled up around the chain link fence.
'Jeffe, hey.'
Looking over at Tick, a former crack-head granted transcendence through the rock, Ludo shudders. The man's human rubbish, a collection of failures under a stained suitcoat. The Old Man likes his grotesques, but Tick is a surprisingly good magician, so Ludo copes.
'Don't go in there. There's something in there.'
'What?'
'Something bad.'
Ludo shrugs. 'Noriko!'
The Japanese strolls over from the tight batch of first responders, the Old Man's eyes and ears.
'Go in there. You're looking for weird graffiti. See signs of inhabitancy, speed dial.'
She strolls through the car park and into the depot, through the fence. They wait fifteen, twenty, quiet in the cold night air, staring at each other made pale under buzzing white lamps.
Then Noriko comes back. Ludo sees her damage through his worked glasses immediately.
'What the fuck?'
'You must be Ludo.' And it isn't Noriko's voice. It's a teenage girls' voice. And something else. Something slides into her syllables like a shark slides into a pool. Too much danger. Ludo doesn't fuck around. He takes out his knife and quickly slits her throat.
She dies staring up at him curiously. Tries to talk but there's just a nasty sucking sound where her trachea is split like the Old Man's lips. The blood is black on the asphalt. Ludo curses his instincts as ideas light up deep in his great bone head. Like watching a bombing run from a distance.
'New plan.' announces Ludo. He's wary of the Wick girl now.
'We'll bring her to us.'
Forty-Six
Wick is curious.
'Who is the Old Man?'
The voice is silent. Then petulant. Just another human with mastery
on his mind.
Wick frowns. 'I don't like him.'
He'll like you.
'Who is Ludo and why is he in my old place?'
Let's go and see him. Let me show you one of my gifts to you.
Forty-Seven
Ten years I've been in my place and I've not been lazy. Written wards and glyphs on street lamps and dumpsters in permanent marker. Made my marks in wet sidewalk cement, disguised as lover's nonsense. Abandoned offices I've broken into, leaving runes and rhymes in dust on windows, more potent for their flimsiness.
I sit in the back of a bar, watching a cigarette burn down in the ashtray, moving my consciousness from node to node. There's a man watching my house, but I don't sense any training. He's just a guy.
I wait until he's bored, running pornographic fantasies through his head, then I slip the eregore into his head. I imagine it in the form of a Struwwelpeter puppet, cutting as it goes, and soon his nervous system is haunted as any house. He becomes forgetful. If he's working for some cult, they should have sent a player. The guy gets confused and walks away.
That's one watcher down, and I want into my house.
But there's someone else. From an alley, I look carefully.
There's a car, waiting across the road from the alley I use to get into my place. A man in there, watching my place. Eating a burger. Waiting. Nothing magic on or about him. No thoughts of a gun, but that doesn't mean he's not carrying.
I pull up my jacket collar, pay the tab with my last catch, and hit the street to eyeball him, standing in the last of the sun so he'll have to blink into the light. I don't smoke.
Someone's put protections over them, but... it's a terrible job. A first timer, who couldn't or didn't concentrate. Who couldn't hit the right state of mind to fire up their spell. Weaksauce.
'Mr. Lark.'
A voice behind me. I turn. A woman, in a suit. Hair up. Cop written all over her.
So focussed on the Old Man and magic I didn't even bother to look with my eyes. Amateur.
'I'm Agent Valier of the Department of Civil Security.'
Car door opens and out comes a man with a friendly, boring face. 'That's my partner, Agent Coffee. We'd like to ask you a few questions at our office.'
I look at the woman very closely.
Spooks.
Did not see this coming.
Working for the Old Man? No. Not with the shit magic they're hiding under.
I'm curious enough to say yes.
We drive past the woman who's following me. She on a phone booth, already calling it in. She's sloppy.
Forty-Eight
They're too amateurish. I can't believe it. They can't be here about the weird stuff.
I'm in an office, all plastic cheap-assemble furniture, under an oppressive white fluoro - too bright. It's all humming computers, phones and depressing pictures of families tacked to cubicle walls. There's even a cartoon gently and toothlessly poking fun of bureaucracy that Coffee's pinned up.
There's another guy typing in a room of about twelve of these sad little hutches. He's taken off his tie. He looks over at me without much interest.
The building they brought me to was a bland mid-town thing, new and charmless, although we came through serious security doors to get here. There's a flag on display in the lobby and an armed guard.
But inside, it could be any office in any industry. Accountants or charity-workers.
I take out a smoke and Coffee mock-frowns at me.
'Sorry, no smoking in government buildings.' He points a finger up. 'Fire alarm. Besides, I'm a little asthmatic. About five per cent over the line. Never had an attack, but who wants to risk it?'
He continues talking, but he's sizing me up.
Wrong kind of smoke, but I don't say anything. I keep it in my mouth and idly ply my finger across the desk. Here's why I think they're amateurs. Using the grease from my fingers, I sketch out a No Smoking sign on one of the three small desks that line his bay, you know the one. Big red line through a dark.
Then, I carefully wipe away the line. Draw big circle for face, little circle for mouth. Stare at it. Let it into my mind. Keep it there, then, with a word, let it out of my mouth and into the world. I light up. He doesn't notice. Is he bluffing? Valier walks over, takes a seat and says nothing. I blow smoke into Coffee's face but he just waves it away.
Their protections are that terrible they can't even pick up on this sort of conjure charm.
I take his coffee mug, ash into it. Waiting.
Agent Valier sips at her herbal tea. She's a good-looking woman. Sharp, short haircut and fashionable frames. She waits for Coffee to stop talking about his childhood maladies and then puts down her cup. Takes out a manila folder.
'Mr. Lark. We've invited you in here to talk to us. This is informal. This is not an arrest or an interrogation. We just want to talk to someone who might give us insight into a case we are working on.'
'Yeah.'
'Do you know a Mr. Brandon River?' She's formal now.
'No.' I don't.
'Do you know a Nell Jeancat?'
Yes. She's probably hiding from me and she tried to have me whacked about three days ago. 'No.'
'Do you know a Mr. Nathan Ludovitch?'
OK. I'll bite. I should deny everything, of course. That's the smart thing. But they know I know something and I'm not afraid of being arrested. I'm afraid of Ludo and the Old Man ripping me up. I'm afraid of Primal Magic.
'I know who that is.'
They glance at each other. I think they were expecting me to play the silence.
'Do you know a man by the name of Mully?'
'No.' OK, that's good.
'Do you know a Mrs. Sandra Saunders?'
Actually. I know the name but can't place it. This is why I record everything.
'That name is familiar.'
'Can you recognise any of these objects?'
Eight by tens. Hands them across one by one. A lamp. Tongs. A book in Arabic or maybe Urdu, jewels in the cover. Hookah. A scroll case. A curving sword.
A scroll case.
And we all got given an order. Look for a scroll case. That's what we're going to reward our ally Ludo with.
'This.'
'Have you seen the item?'
'No, but I know who is looking for it.'
I study the scroll case, but there's nothing special about it from the photo. Except. It's sealed in wax with what may be some sigil, some expression of magical intent. It's hard to get readings off photos. But I think I recognise the style.
First, I've got a choice to make. These guys, they can get guns and arrests together. I could point them at Ludo and get his ass jailed or dead. But something tells me, hapless like they are, I could be feeding them to sharks. So I listen, hoping they'll give me a clue as how to treat them.
'How do you know who I am?'
They stare at me. This is what they're good at, keeping the questions flowing downstream from them.
'We're the government, Mr. Lark. We know lots of things.'
'Not about me.'
And it's true. Lark isn't my name and hasn't been it for a long time. My original birth certificate, me and Jon got rid of those years ago. The Library hooked us up with three or four different people to be. I don't pay utilities and, as far as my landlord knows, he has a derelict apartment he's going to fix up one day. So the government can't come at me that way.
'Come on, Mr. Lark. You're a well-known man in certain communities in the city.'
Coffee is grinning and it says that he's my friend.
Which is a lie.
'Who told you about me?'
They don't notice my index finger on my jeans moving slowly side to side, like I imagine a rattle snake moves its tail to hypnotise. They don't notice the measured way I talk.
'People.'
'I want a lawyer.'
Or the bullshit clichés I spout. I want a lawyer. I know this isn't the police. But they have heard this kind of thing before and i
t creates a chain of responses.
'We aren't police. We just want to talk.'
And I hum my sutras, relaxing myself, growing uneasy. It's not as easy as it should be.
'I know my rights.'
'We aren't violating your rights, Mr. Lark. This is an informal discussion to aid us in ongoing investigations.'
And there, I get them. They're not thinking, they're just trying to calm down a would-be human asset who's gone squirrelly. So I slip my agents into them and suddenly, they're trusting me. I am doing them a big favour.
While they talk at me, I am on their computer. They are logged in. I print things out. I should have one of those little disc things, UDS or whatever, but I'm not good with computers.
The other agent, tieless, watches me with alarm, unable to think why. But he's much less of a challenge. Jim, 38, addicted to transsexual internet pornography and a Billy Joel fan. I go through him like a fucking buzzsaw.
'Mr. Lark,' goes Coffee, 'We've been monitoring certain elements amongst the religious community of the city for some time. Your name has come up as a respected individual. We reach out to you because,' he stumbles. The spell is compelling something he doesn't want to share. I could jinx him into spilling everything but I don't want to push him too far.
'...because we've had very little success creating assets within this community. We figured we'd come to you directly.'
I sit back. Sip at my coffee.
'Let's start from the top.'
Forty-Nine
In 1991, by March, the United States had seized Iraq. They didn't stay for long that time. No point. But a soldier by the name of Danny Tran was there. He came as Staff Sergeant, leading a rifle team. While he was in-country, he happened upon a small museum. This wasn't the vast National Museum of Iraq that would suffer outrages upon its honour a decade later. No. This was a scholar's place, out of the way and quiet and of no interest to those who sought out sphinxes and gold. Three floors of important documents where classicists and professors could come to study. To Staff Sergeant Danny Tran, it was three storeys of cool, cream air-conditioned sandstone in an out-of-the way place. An Ulama ran this place and kept it spotless and welcoming and as free from politics as was possible. He had wept and kissed his children the day the bomb failed to explode after landing ten feet from its doors. This place wasn't about politics, just the past.
Black City (The Lark Case Files) Page 15