by Simon Hawke
“I had Dr. Marconis, our staff thaumaturgic pathologist, examine Detective Angelo’s chart and then check his room for trace emanations. Dr. Marconis is a seventh-level adept, with degrees from Johns Hopkins and the College of Sorcerers in Cambridge. He is highly respected, both as an adept and a physician.”
“The point, Doctor, please,” McGuire said.
“The point is that Dr. Marconis was not only able to detect thaumaturgic trace emanations in Detective Angelo’s room, but he said they were the strongest he had ever encountered. The energy in the residue of the trace emanations alone, he said, would have been enough to power our entire hospital for six months. On the recommendation of Dr. Marconis, we have since moved three patients in and out of that room. All three were terminal. All three were left in there for no longer than ten minutes, and all three are now showing signs of complete recovery.”
“You mean just being in that room for ten minutes cured them?”
“It certainly looks that way,” said Dr. Fuller. “Unfortunately, the effect is only temporary. The trace emanations will probably dissipate by tomorrow. In the meantime, we’re moving as many terminal patients in and out of there as possible, and charting everything. I don’t know what happened, or how it happened, but it seems to be working and I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Where is Dr. Marconis now?” McGuire asked. “Can I speak with him?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dr. Fuller replied. “For the time being, he’s in charge of this phenomenon, and he is going to be investigating it to the best of his ability for as long as it lasts.”
“I would very much like to speak with him as soon as he’s available, and discuss the results of his investigation,” said McGuire.
“I’ll be sure to pass it on,” said Dr. Fuller. “Meanwhile, there was one thing that Dr. Marconis wanted me to ask the police. Exactly what was Detective Angelo exposed to?”
McGuire took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. “Doctor, I wish to hell I knew.”
The Gypsy took the stairs down from the penthouse. It was a long way down, but she had no intention of getting into that elevator again. She had removed her boots and carried them in her left hand as she descended in her stocking feet. Exercise had never been her strong suit, and it was hard enough going down all those flights of stairs without having to do it in high heels. There was the added benefit that with her boots off, her feet made no noise on the stairs. She did not wish to attract any attention, especially since she was sneaking evidence out of a crime scene.
“Must you carry me upside down?” said Broom.
“I’m sorry,” said the Gypsy, taking the enchanted broom off her shoulder, where she’d been carrying it like a rifle, and holding it down at her side in her right hand. “There, is that any better?”
“Just be careful and don’t hit my head on the railing,” Broom replied.
“You don’t have a head, so far as I can see.”
“ Nu? I don’t have a mouth either, but you hear me talking, don’t you, Miss Smarty Pants?”
“Listen, bad enough I’m sneaking out with evidence from a crime scene, I don’t need any tsuris from you.”
“Evidence? Who’re you calling evidence? Wait a minute… where does a gypsy fortune-teller who dresses like a stolen car get off using a word like tsuris?”
“I’m Jewish. So sue me.”
“You’re Jewish? That’s funny, you don’t look Jewish.”
“Oh, and I suppose you do?”
“I must admit you have a point there,” Broom said. “Where’s the cat?”
Natasha looked over her shoulder. “She’s coming down behind us. You sure she’s not a thaumagene?”
“Nope. Shadow is a perfectly ordinary house cat,” Broom said. “Which is to say, no magic. She doesn’t talk, but she’s smart as a whip.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Natasha said. “If McGuire finds out, he’ll kill me.”
“For what, stealing a broom?”
“A thaumaturgically animated, talking broom, who can probably answer all his questions,” said Natasha.
“Trust me, bubeleh, you’re doing the right thing. Those policemen would’ve asked me lots of questions that I couldn’t really answer and then I’d have wound up in some dark closet in their property room.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” said Natasha with a grin. And then her smile faded. “What I’m worried about is how I’m going to get out of here with you. They’re liable to ask me lots of questions I can’t really answer if I go traipsing through the lobby with you.”
“Go down to the basement and out through the parking garage,” said Broom. “Then you can walk over to First Avenue and hail a cab.”
“McGuire said he was going to come back and pick me up in about two hours,” she said. She checked her watch. “Boy, he is not going to be happy about this. Just remember, Broom, we’ve got a deal. I expect some serious cooperation in return for this.”
“You’ll get it, don’t worry,” said the broom. “You may not want it when you got it, but you’ll get it. Boy, will you ever get it. And boy, are you not going to want it. Maybe you should just put me and the cat in that cab and go back up to the penthouse so you can meet your friend. You really don’t want to get mixed up in this farpotshket situation. You look like a nice girl. A little too much with the makeup, maybe, and the purple hair I could do without, but you should just live and be happy and not get yourself involved. Trust me on this, okay? I know from what I’m talking.”
“Forget it, Broom, we made a deal. I get you out of there and take you where you want to go, and in return you let me know what the hell went on up there. Half the things I picked up in that place scared the daylights out of me and the other half I flat out don’t believe.”
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said the broom.
“Now where exactly are we going from here?”
“The Village,” Broom said. “If anybody knows what’s going on, it’ll be Sebastian.”
“Sebastian?” Natasha frowned. “I’m not getting anything off that name. Who is he? Is he an adept?”
“No, he’s a fairy.”
“In the Village? There’s a big surprise.”
“Not that kind,” said the broom.
“What other kind is there?”
“The kind in fairy tales.”
Natasha stopped. “Now, wait a minute, you don’t mean to tell me… A fairy? You mean, like Tinkerbell? Glow in the dark, magical sprite with gossamer wings, that kind of fairy?”
“Well…no. Not exactly.”
“Well, then what, exactly?”
“Maybe we’d just better wait until you meet Sebastian,” Broom said. “He’s not really the easiest person to describe. You sort of have to experience him firsthand.”
“You’re not doing very much to clear things up,” the Gypsy said.
“Don’t worry about it, dear,” said Broom. “I promise you, it’ll only get worse.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE ENTRANCE TO Lovecraft’s Cafe was below street level, down a narrow flight of steps and through a heavy steel door painted black and covered with electric yellow runes. The uninitiated often thought the dramatic-looking runes spelled out some sort of ward or cabalistic message, but in fact they merely spelled out the phrase “Mixed drinks, fine food.”
The interior of the cafe was a whimsical blend of the occult and Rebeat, a retro movement harkening back to the coffeehouse tradition of the Village in the days prior to the Collapse. The decor was spare and black. Black walls, black ceiling, black booths, black everything, including the lycras, jeans, and turtlenecks of the waiting staff, most of whom were young dancers and actors waiting for their big break. Everyone who worked at Lovecraft’s, and many of the patrons, wore the obligatory Rebeat black eye makeup that completely encircled the eyes. Some of the patterns were round, like painted-on sunglasses; others were diamond-shaped, giving a harlequin effect; while stil
l others ran down the cheeks like tear tracks, making the wearers look like weeping raccoons. Save for this masklike eye shadow, no other makeup was worn, and a vampiric pallor was cultivated by avoiding sunlight. The heavy-duty Rebeats, the real purists, also affected a flat monotone, speaking in a bored and detached way, all the time keeping a completely neutral facial expression. Emotional displays of any kind were frowned upon. In fact, frowns themselves were frowned upon, and smiles were definitely uncool. It was impossible to shock or get a rise out of a true Rebeat. Nothing surprised them; they had seen it all, and none of it was very noteworthy. They dismissed most things with jaded catchphrases such as “Been there, done that,” and “It’s all nickel-and-dime.”
Lovecraft’s was not a trendy bar, because the Rebeat lifestyle was not very amenable to trendiness. It was a bit too odd and difficult to maintain for the terminally au courant. It was not enough to simply look the part, one had to do one’s homework. Rebeats were not hedonists; they were diehard intellectuals, masters of the hip sub-reference. Their drug of choice was reading and their recreation was composing and listening to poetry. They were also antimusic, regarding it as superficially emotional and too distracting. They liked their poetry performed to the percussive beat of bongos or the electronic syncopations of their rhythm boxes… or, better yet, done “hardcore”—with no accompaniment at all. Rebeat was an antitrend, and so Lovecraft’s was not trendy. It was essentially a hangout for bohemian adepts and the intellectually disaffected—in other words, alcoholic wizards and college students.
Dr. Sebastian Makepeace dwelled comfortably, if rather ostentatiously, in this environment. His doctorate was in Pre-Collapse History, which he taught at New York University, but he also held graduate degrees in Metaphysics and Occult Studies. Such esoteric qualifications made him eminently acceptable not only to his academic colleagues but to the Re-beats as well. Both groups appreciated him for his intellectual abilities and his originality. Even in a place like Greenwich Village, the mecca of the odd and the bizarre, Makepeace was unique. In a world where everyone who ever took an undergraduate course in Thaumaturgy liked to pose as an adept, Makepeace adamantly refused the title. He was, he insisted, neither a wizard nor a sorcerer. He was a fairy.
It irked him that dictionaries defined the term as either “a small, imaginary being with magical powers” or “a male homosexual.” Use of the word “fairy” to describe male homosexuals was something to which Makepeace took strenuous exception. It was, he claimed, offensive to both gays and fairies. He was on a personal crusade to redefine the word and his ongoing battle with the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary had become something of a legend in academic circles. He obviously took issue with the word “imaginary,” and insisted that his size certainly gave the lie to the word “small.” At a height of six feet six, and with a rather considerable girth, he would not be considered either small or imaginary by anyone’s definition. That left the “magical powers,” and there was no question that he had them. How he came by them, however, was a subject of considerable debate among his students.
At N.Y.U. he was considered an amiable, if somewhat volatile, oddball, and each year some of his students stubbornly set out to prove that old Professor Makepeace was nothing more man a traditionally trained adept. To date, however, none of them had managed to prove any such thing. He did nothing to discourage their efforts to “expose” him. He knew that no amount of research on their part would turn up any record of anyone named Sebastian Makepeace ever taking any postgraduate courses in Thaumaturgy, much less a degree from any College of Sorcerers. The Bureau of Thaumaturgy, under the aegis of the International Thaumaturgical Commission, administered all programs of magic study and certification throughout the world, but the name Sebastian Makepeace did not appear in any of their records.
However, to the skeptics, this did not constitute proof of his assertions. Tuition at a College of Sorcerers was expensive and the admission process was highly selective and competitive, but all the texts used in the advanced courses could be had at reasonable prices at virtually any used bookstore in the country. This had created certain problems that the B.O.T. had not foreseen. In other nations, where freedom of information was not always regarded as a right, laws had been passed to prohibit the unauthorized sale and possession of thaumaturgy texts, but in America, such prohibitions would not be constitutional.
Anyone with access to an occult supply store, claimed the skeptics, could easily obtain all the necessary knowledge and materials to practice magic. However, such home study was not without its hazards. Hospitals and psychiatric wards were full of people who had tried to teach themselves how to perform magic without the supervision of a certified adept. Makepeace always pointed out that it required natural ability, enormous discipline, and proper training. Nevertheless, the skeptics chose to believe that Makepeace was either a rare exception to the rule or else had received his training under another name. No one had ever seen a real-live fairy, they insisted, and there was no proof of their existence. They conveniently overlooked the fact that none of the spells Sebastian Makepeace used could be found in any textbook.
Lovecraft’s was the one place where Makepeace was accepted at face value. The Rebeats didn’t care one way or the other what he was. Supernatural being? Sure, whatever. Pass the pitcher, Dad. Some people found such blase hipness irritating. Makepeace found it remarkably refreshing.
“Hey, dad,” a young Rebeat regular greeted him as he made his way toward his usual table at the back.
“Hey, daughter,” he replied. The waitress was not, of course, his daughter, but if they called him “Dad,” he always replied in kind, addressing them as “Son” or “Daughter,” whatever seemed appropriate. Sometimes it was difficult to tell. He knew that it was not the proper “hip” response, but it seemed to amuse the young people.
He had left Kira upstairs, keeping an eye on Wyrdrune, who was still unconscious, and Billy, who was fast asleep, exhausted by the healing spell. Kira had looked pretty tired herself, but she would not sleep, nor would she leave the others. He did not have anything in his refrigerator that would make a decent meal, since he ate out all the time, so he came down to Lovecraft’s to get them something to eat and ponder what Kira had told him.
“The usual, Doc?” said a pretty, young, dark-haired waitress with heavy black eye shadow. She was wearing a black sheath dress that looked as if it had been painted on.
“Yes, please, Morticia,” Makepeace said. “And please tell Eduardo that I would like some of his excellent fettucine Alfredo to go. Enough for three or four generous portions. I have some unexpected company.”
“Sure thing, Doc,” said the waitress.
“Oh, and by the way, dear, is Gonzago in tonight?”
“He’s at the bar.”
“He is?” said Makepeace with a frown. “Where? I don’t see him.”
She merely pointed up.
Makepeace raised his gaze toward the ceiling and said, “Ah. Well, be a love and ask him to come down, would you?”
The man who was plastered up against the ceiling did not respond at once when the waitress called to him. His voluminous blue robes draped from his figure like funereal vestments, and his long white hair and beard hung down like Spanish moss while he remained pressed up against the ceiling like a torpid fly. Taking a nap on the ceiling was rather unusual even in a bar like Lovecraft’s, Makepeaee thought, but then Dr. Morrison Gonzago was an unusual human being. He was the only member of the faculty at N.Y.U. who was considered even more eccentric than Makepeace, but then he seemed to work at it much harder.
The fourth time Morticia called his name, Gonzago started and woke up… and promptly plunged straight toward the bar. Several of the patrons immediately leapt aside in alarm, upsetting their drinks in the process, but what looked to be a very messy crash landing was narrowly averted at the last instant when Gonzago’s body came to an abrupt halt in midair, less than an inch above the bar. Hovering there, his nose barely
touching the bartop, Gonzago started to slowly drift down the length of the bar, noisily slurping up the spilled drinks. Then he turned over in midair, like a man in bed turning over onto his back, belched loudly and profoundly, sat up, and, with a slight thump, dropped down onto a bar stool.
“A pint of ale, my good publican, and put it on my tab,” be slurred.
“‘Your tab hasn’t been paid in two months, Gonzo,” said the bartender. “Sorry, but I’ve been told to cut you off.”
“Cut me off? Why, you impertinent young whelp, I was sing up a tab at this fine establishment while you were still sucking on your mother’s tit! My tab pays the bloody mortgage on this place! Now draw me a pint of ale!”
“Sorry, Gonzo. No can do.”
“Give him his pint, Tony, I’m buying,” Makepeace said.
“Ah,” said Gonzago, noticing Makepeace for the first time. “Saved by the good fairy! You are a gentleman and a scholar, sir.” He made a wide, sweeping bow to Makepeace and fell off his stool. Before he hit the floor, however, he levitated and floated back up to the level of the bar. To anyone not well versed in the principles of thaumaturgy, it was a sight that was merely comical. To Makepeace, however, who was something of the thaumaturgic arts, it was a testimony to Gonzago’s skills as an adept that he could work these spells so quickly and so effectively, even while thoroughly in his cups.
“You are an incorrigible reprobate, Gonzago,” Makepeace replied, “but I forgive you because you have character.”
“Why, bless your heart, Sebastian,” Gonzago replied. “That is the first time anyone has spoken of my character since… when was it? Ah, since that symposium at Columbia last year.”
“The writing conference? I thought they kicked you out,” said Makepeace.
“I did not say they spoke favorably.”
The bartender set a pint of ale down in front of Gonzago. The wizard promptly levitated it to the level of his face, where it obligingly floated up to his lips, tipped slightly, and dispensed a gulp of brew. Gonzago sighed and smacked his lips with satisfaction, then came back down to the floor and sauntered over to join Makepeace at his table. His pint of ale obediently floated along behind him, followed by a bowl of beer nuts.