by Simon Hawke
“Not in this case,” Kira replied. “In the past, what’s enabled us to track them is their uncontrollable hunger for power. They start killing to build up their life force. Usually, their murders have a pattern, but there haven’t been any stories about a new series of killings in the city.”
“And that’s bad news?”
“Well, no, of course not, but what it means is that either the Dark One is committing murders in a way that they haven’t been discovered, or else he’s confident enough of his strength that he doesn’t feel he needs to kill to grow more powerful.”
“Or else he’s smart and he’s preparing a spell that will allow him to take in a great deal of life force all at once,” said Wyrdrune.
“You mean like a mass murder?” Gypsy asked.
“Exactly.”
“And if we don’t find Modred in time,” said Kira, “we may not be able to stop him. Without Modred, we can’t call upon the full power of the runestones.”
“Can’t you work up some sort of spell that will enable you to find him?” Gypsy asked.
“I wish it were that easy,” Wyrdrune replied. “Unfortunately, magic has its limits, even with the runestones. There is a link between us, but it isn’t something we can consciously control, and the fact that we’ve had no feelings about Modred one way or other suggests that his runestone is either damaged or depleted.”
“What happens then?”
“I don’t know,” said Wyrdrune. “I suppose the runestones can be destroyed, though I don’t know how. The Dark Ones certainly seem to think they can be, otherwise they’d never dare to attack us. The trouble is, they can gain strength through necromancy, which is something we can’t do.”
“So they can get stronger faster,” Gypsy said. “If Modred’s runestone is damaged or down on energy, how does it get replenished?”
“‘I don’t know that either,” Wyrdrune replied. “With ordinary white magic, recovery occurs naturally. How long it takes depends upon how much energy has been expended. The runestones are a great deal more powerful than any white magic I’ve ever run across. The Old Ones have more life force, but if they’re injured? I don’t know. We are, of course, the weak link. Physically, we’re far more vulnerable than the runestones. But they need us to maintain their energy.”
“How? You mean, like parasites?”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d put it quite that way,” said Wyrdrune. “It’s more of a symbiotic relationship. They make us a lot stronger than we’d be without them. For example, I’ve never completed my thaumaturgical training. Technically, I shouldn’t even be able to pass my first-level certification exams. But the runestone has made me a wizard. But the stones themselves are inorganic. They’re alive because they contain the spirits of the Council, but they’re not living organisms in the same sense we are. They do not metabolize.”
“So you’ve got to eat to keep their strength up,” Gypsy said.
“Sometimes like a horse,” said Wyrdrune. “The more energy they expend, the hungrier we get afterward. Under ordinary circumstances, we eat a little more than the average person. After a large expenditure of energy, we pig out like you wouldn’t believe. It’s a good thing Modred’s fabulously wealthy, otherwise our grocery bills alone would wipe us out.”
They arrived at Makepeace’s apartment building and Wyrdrune sent the cabbie to the other side of town, where the spell of compulsion would wear off and he would remember nothing. When they got upstairs, they saw that Jacqueline had already arrived.
Makepeace introduced the two of them. Jacqueline had already met Gonzago, who was obviously taken by her. Gypsy could not fail to note the contrast between them. Jacqueline Monet was a study in understated elegance. She was dressed in a black neo-Edwardian suit and a white silk shirt with a lace jabot. She wore low-heeled black boots and held herself well. Unlike herself, thought Gypsy, the woman had perfect posture. She had always counted on her flamboyance to make her the center of attention. Jacqueline was one of those rare women who could do it with mere presence. She was an older woman, though how much older was difficult to tell from her appearance alone. She was in her late forties, but she looked ten years younger. Her dark hair was starting to go gray and she did nothing to hide it. The effect of the gray streaks in her hair was actually quite becoming. She spoke with a French accent, but it was not pronounced, and her English was perfect. Gypsy found herself liking her at once.
“We need a plan,” said Wyrdrune, as they all took their seats in the living room, but before he could continue, Broom came sweeping in from the kitchen with a tray of coffee cups.
“Is that all who’s coming? I’m out of cups. Do you realize this man has nothing in his kitchen? There’s a thing in the refrigerator, I don’t know what the hell it is, but I swear, it’s growing. A roach couldn’t survive in this place, I’m telling you.”
“I do not have roaches,” Makepeace said stiffly.
“No, but you’ve got dustballs you could play soccer with,” Broom replied.”‘The last time this place had a good cleaning, subway tokens were a quarter and cabdrivers spoke English.”
“So clean the place, already!” Wyrdrune said.
“Before or after I finish cooking for this army? You think maybe it would be too much trouble to ask someone to go out for groceries, or are we all going to live on pizza and Chinese?”
“Make a list of what you need and we’ll call out,” said Wyrdrune, “but if you don’t mind, we’ve got things to talk about right now, okay?”
“Why should I mind? Why should you trouble yourself about the little necessities of life, like food, for instance? I understand, you’re busy saving the world. I’m expected to take care of these little, unimportant things, but you’d think it would be too much trouble for me to get some cooperation. Nasty necromancers are out there, threatening the human race, but meanwhile we’re out of toilet paper. You want nasty? Try wiping your tuchis with the Daily News.”
Jacqueline laughed. “Bonjour, Broom. I have missed you, mon ami.’“
“Well, at least somebody around here notices me,” Broom aid. “How are you, bubeleh! It’s good to see you, too. You’re looking a little thin, sweetheart. Have you been eating well?”
“Can we get on with this?” asked Wyrdrune.
“Well, excuse me, Mr. Wizard!” Broom said. “Here’s your coffee, and it should keep you up all night thinking about what a rude and insensitive person you are.” The broom set down the tray and swept off back into the kitchen in a huff.
Wyrdrune gazed up at the ceiling.”Don’t just look down,” he muttered, “help me!”
“I really must find out what sort of spell you used to create that fascinating creature,” Gonzago said. “I simply have to have one of my own.”
“Take that one, please!” said Wyrdrune.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that,” Gonzago said, pouring a liberal amount of whiskey into his coffee cup from a pocket flask. “It would be like separating a child from its mother.”
“Which is the child and which is the mother?” Jacqueline asked, holding out her cup for some whiskey.
“Good point,” Gonzago replied, pouring a dash into her cup. “Cheers.”
“Are you people through?” asked Wyrdrune testily.
“Go ahead, my boy, we are all ears,” Gonzago said.
“Thank you,” he replied wryly. “Now, here’s what we’ve managed to learn so far…”
After he had brought them all up-to-date, he asked if anyone had anything else to add. Billy reported that he had found a temporary place for them as subletters of a loft on Waverly Place and he had engaged a real estate agent to start searching for more suitable accommodations. “Getting new digs in Manhattan is not exactly easy,” he said.
“Well, at least it’s a start,” said Wyrdrune, nodding. “The question now is, how are we going to find Modred?”
“You have felt nothing through the runestones?” Jacqueline asked.
“Not a thing,”
said Kira. “But if he was dead, we’d know it.”
“No, we know he’s alive,” said Wyrdrune. “What we don’t know is what kind of shape he’s in. Apparently, he doesn’t remember who he is. He thinks he’s a hood named Giovanni Angelico, also known as Johnny Angel. That means Angelo was not completely brain dead when Modred’s runestone merged with him, taking Modred’s life force along with it. So Modred had access to at least some of his memories. Angelo was an undercover cop. He must have gotten into his cover identity so deeply that it was at the forefront of his mind most of the time.”
“I guess he’d need to do that to maintain his cover,” Kira said.
“Right,” said Wyrdrune. “So that’s what Modred is functioning on. The problem is that, in some ways, it’s not all that far off from his own sense of identity. He was a mercenary for most of his life, and then a contract killer. Becoming Johnny Angel couldn’t have seemed like much of a stretch. If his own memories were confused, Angelo’s probably seemed familiar. Or at least those memories associated with his cover.”
“So then we must try to think like this gangster, Johnny Angel,” said Jacqueline. “He has been given a job to do, without this woman. How would he go about it?”
“Assuming, of course, he decides to go through with it,” aid Gonzago. “Your friend Modred was a killer, however ouch he may have changed since then. But Angelo is a police officer.”
“True, but we don’t know how much of Angelo is left,” said Kira.
“No, he’s got a point,” said Makepeace. “If Angelo was still alive when the runestone bonded with him, then surely it would not have let him die. Angelo may be lost somewhere in the matrix of the new gestalt identity he has become, but he is nevertheless present and could not countenance committing a cold-blooded murder.”
“So you’re saying it could have set up a massive internal conflict?” Billy asked.
“It makes sense,” said Wyrdrune. “Which means that if we’re lucky, he hasn’t gone through with it.”
“And that means the people who sent him out on the job will be after him,” said Kira. “So we not only have to find him before the Dark One does, but we’re going to have to beat the police and the mob to the punch, as well.”
“And don’t forget the B.O.T.,” said Billy. “They’ll be looking for him, as well.”
“We need to find out what Angelo was doing as Johnny Angel. The details of the operation. Gypsy, you said McGuire had the D.A.’s task force file on Angelo?” Wyrdrune asked.
“No, he saw it, but she took it with her,” Gypsy said. “He said she wouldn’t let the thing out of her sight.”
“So you didn’t get a look at it yourself?” asked Makepeace.
“I wasn’t with him when he met her,” she replied.
“Well, then I guess we’ll simply have to get it from the D.A. ourselves,” said Wyrdrune.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MANSION OVERLOOKING Oyster Bay was one of the most well appointed and luxurious on Long Island’s exclusive north shore. It stood on a high bluff looking out over the bay and Long Island Sound, and on the landward side, the hill gently sloped down across the expansive and meticulously land-scaped acreage to the tall, wrought-iron gates leading to the road. The owner of the mansion was a wealthy and reclusive entertainer who lived there with his new wife and a small staff of servants. They were all physically present in the house, but in a sense, none of them were really there at all.
The house was fairly isolated, and it was not the sort of residential area where neighbors would drop by. People who lived in such places valued their privacy and generally minded their own business. To all outward appearances, nothing had disturbed the routine of the place. The landscape maintenance crews always arrived on schedule, did their work, and departed without disturbing the residents. The monthly bills were always paid on time. Each week, one of the staff would drive out through the gates in one of the vehicles belonging to the estate and go into town to do the shopping or take one of the cars in for servicing to get the thaumaturgic batteries recharged. All bills were mailed directly to the accounting firm that represented the mansion’s owner, all business matters were forwarded to the management firm, and all other mail was routinely picked up at the box down by the gate, the way it always had been. Inside the mansion, on the other hand, things had changed considerably.
They changed the day three strangers had arrived, two men and a woman who looked, at first glance, to be related. In a way, they were. They had simply walked into the mansion and taken over. The minds of the owner and his young wife, and of the staff, were no longer their own. When called upon, they came to do the bidding of their new masters, but otherwise, except to take care of routine, scheduled tasks, they all remained in one room in the east wing, simply sitting there and staring straight ahead of them, remaining very quiet.
“We are wasting too much time,” said one of their new masters, pacing back and forth across the spacious living room. He was dressed in loose-fitting khaki slacks, a dark green polo shirt, and tan boat shoes with no socks. By his outward appearance, he looked like nothing more than a young business professional having a quiet, casual weekend at home. But he spoke in a language that predated any that were known to history. “I did not come here merely to wait in this house day after day. When are we going to act?”
“You have waited for several thousand years, Calador,” said his companion. He was dressed comfortably in a black silk robe and slippers as he sat in a reading chair, studying a newspaper. “Is it too much to ask to wait a few days more?”
“It is if nothing is being accomplished, Beladon,” Calador replied irritably. “I was well on my way to establishing my own domain when you found me.”
“Yes,” Beladon replied. “I found you. That is precisely the point. You were careless and profligate in your methods. I had little difficulty in locating you as a result. And that was fortunate. It could easily have been the avatars who found you first.”
“And then where would you be?” asked Delana, lounging stretched out on the sofa, sipping a cold drink. She was wearing some of the clothes she had found in the bedroom closet of the young woman who was now her slave. They were dark blue silk lounging pajamas, and they made a stark contrast with her bright green eyes and long red hair. She was the youngest of the three, and looked no more than nineteen or twenty by human standards, though each of her years could easily have been measured in centuries.
“I would have dealt with them as they deserve,” said Calador, stopping his pacing to stare at her angrily. “Which ¦ more than either of you would have done.”
“You would have died, as the others died,” Delana said with a shrug. “None of us are strong enough to prevail against the Council individually. You would do well to profit from the mistakes the others made, as Beladon has done in bringing us together.”
“So, we have joined our forces together,” Calador replied. “And since then, what have we accomplished of any consequence?”
“Your overeagerness shall be your undoing, Calador,” said Beladon. “You, perhaps, have not accomplished anything, but I have done it for you. I have found this dwelling for us, and I have enlisted an acolyte among the humans who sin a position of some power in their society. I had also found the avatars, and nearly succeeded in destroying them, all without any direct risk to us.”
“Yes, but you failed,” Calador said.
“Not completely,” Beladon reminded him. “One of the avatars was seriously injured. His runestone has now found a new host, but that host is weak and vulnerable.”
“Then now is the time for us to strike out at the others,” said Calador, “when they cannot unite to form the Living Triangle!”
“Why strike at two who are at full strength when we can strike at one who is weak?” Beladon countered. “We need only to destroy that one and the spell of the Living Triangle is forever broken.”
“Then by all means, let us do it!” Calador insisted.
�
�Before a hunt can be successful, it is first necessary to locate the prey,” Beladon replied calmly. “And that shall be done soon. I have already taken steps to insure it. In the meantime, it is your task and Delana’s to prepare the spell of Quickening, so that we may be at full strength when we must face the others.”
“We have been doing our part to prepare the spell,” said Calador. “There is little else to do here while you are gone.”
Beladon smiled. “All those eons of confinement in the pit and now you feel trapped in this large and airy place? Patience, Calador, patience. That was what the others lacked. I know the hunger for fresh life force grows within you by the day, as it does in Delana and myself. You think we are immune? That has always been the price of necromancy, and we have always accepted it. However, things are different now. The humans are far, far greater in number than they were in our day, and though you may think them inferior still, the fact remains they have evolved considerably. Even with the avatars eliminated and the runestones destroyed, they can still pose a formidable danger to us.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” said Calador. “You overstate the case, Beladon. They had posed no threat to me at all.”
“That is because you had chosen to establish your domain in a remote and primitive area of their world,” said Beladon. “You should take advantage of your time to study them more thoroughly. Read their books and newspapers, watch the television, as Delana has been doing.”
“There is nothing on that box but mindless drivel,” Calador said scornfully.
“You must be selective in your viewing,” Beladon replied. “You have learned the language of this tribe of humans, but you have learned little else about them. Watch their news programs and educational channels. And even the ‘mindless drivel,’ as you call it, has things to teach about their culture and society. Their weapons, for example, are far more formidable than the crude tools they had used when they were under our dominion in the old days. They can kill at a great distance, and we can be killed, Calador. Study their history books. I have placed a number of them in the library. You will see how the surviving Old Ones fared after we had been defeated by the Council in the Great War. For centuries thereafter, the humans persecuted them, hunting them down and killing them. Even after the last of the purebred were gone, they still continued with their persecutions in an effort to winnow out the half-breeds among them. Read about the Burning Times and the Inquisition. Read about their Holy Wars, waged to depose the half-breeds who rose to prominence among them. For centuries, they had condemned magic until they eventually came to believe that it was no more than a myth, yet now it has taken root among them and while none of their disciples individually can match our strength, together they could overwhelm us easily. Eliminating the avatars is but the first step to regaining our dominion. Conquering the humans will not be as easy as you think. We shall need to seek out our old companions, wherever they have fled to, as I have sought you out, so that we may all unite our strength together.”