I got out of the car, strolled over there, and tapped on the driver side tinted window.
“Hey there, chum. I got news for you: you aren’t very good at this trailing thing. So either leave me alone and go back to picking up fares at the airport, or roll down this window and explain what it is you want.”
The driver didn’t respond. Instead, the passenger door opened and a petite redhead in a business suit climbed out.
“Don’t frighten the help, Mr. Brent. He was simply doing his job.” There was a healthy amount of amusement in her voice, as though she was delighted by this turn of events. She spoke with a hint of a British accent. Her looks and her voice were almost enough for me to forgive the imposition. Almost.
“Well,” I grumbled, “he wasn’t doing it very well.”
“On the contrary,” she said, “I intended for you to see us. I had no doubt that a man of your reputation would notice being followed. What I really wanted was to see how you’d handle it.”
She offered me a business card. According to the fancy font her name was Moira O’Leary and she was a security consultant.
“Watching someone react to a perceived threat is very instructive. I like to learn as much as I can about the people I’m going to work with. I’ll admit that your rather…direct approach was delightfully unexpected.”
“I’m glad I managed to entertain you,” I said, “but what makes you think we’re going to be working together?”
“Oh, we will.” She smiled. “Your boss owes my client a favor or two. I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you shortly. He might even say ‘pretty please.’”
Not bloody likely. Mose didn’t have to say please because no one was foolish enough to question his orders. When he said jump, you jumped, and you didn’t dare to ask how high.
“My organization isn’t in the habit of owing favors. Your client must be pretty special,” I said, fishing for a little more information. Turned out, Ms. Security Consultant wasn’t going to make me guess.
“Of course he’s special,” she said sweetly. “He’s Bradley Holcomb.”
O’Leary wasn’t kidding; people at the offices of the Watch were falling all over themselves to accommodate her real estate magnate boss. I was told to assist him in any way I could, with special emphasis on the fact that these orders came from Mose himself. I called the number on Moira’s business card and was promptly summoned to Holcomb Tower.
I don’t like venturing into Manhattan. It is the capital of Weird in the New World. Beings of immense power walk the streets beneath its gleaming skyscrapers. Terrible schemes are hatched behind closed doors in offices with prestigious addresses—and I’m not just talking about the Wall Street financiers. Dangerous men, women, and creatures of all kinds congregate there, and they make Brooklyn feel like a sleepy suburb. I try to keep my visits into the Big Apple’s rotten core brief and infrequent. But, sometimes, things can’t be helped.
I was ushered into a large office furnished with a mismatched collection of items of art and antiquity. They may not have fit together particularly well, but they all shared one common trait: hefty price tags. A supersized mahogany desk was installed in the center of the room. Leaning back in a lambskin office chair was the man himself.
Bradley Holcomb, real estate king of New York, reality TV host, and—at least in his own mind—a curator of the upwardly mobile lifestyle. His name, slapped indiscriminately on everything from condo developments to cologne, was the gilded standard for the bourgeoisie. Even surrounded by the opulence of his office, Holcomb looked less impressive in person than he did on TV. They always do.
“Mr. Brent,” he said, studying me intently, “thank you for coming to see me on such short notice. Also, forgive me for staring. All kinds of important people visit my office, but I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting a wizard before. I imagined you to be…” He paused, looking for the right words to express his disappointment with my being so ordinary, “…older.”
“In my experience people rarely live up to their hype,” I said. Holcomb either chose to ignore the barb, or it went over his head. He continued to ogle me as though I was some kind of a circus freak.
“What is it I can do for you, Mr. Holcomb?” I prodded.
“I’ve been working on a fascinating project,” he said, snapping out of it. “I acquired a nice plot of land adjacent to Marine Park. Beautiful space. Naturally secluded, yet right off of Belt Parkway, so it’s easy to reach. I’m building a high-end theme resort there. Gonna make the place look like ancient Rome.”
Holcomb’s face lit up and his entire demeanor shifted when he started talking about his hotel. He became almost likable.
“It’ll be a perfect combination of classic style and ultra-modern amenities. I’m even building a miniature copy of the Coliseum, with a boxing ring in the center. Holcomb’s Rome is going to make theme hotels in Vegas and Atlantic City look like gaudy McMansions in comparison.”
I nodded patiently. Holcomb would know a thing or two about gaudy.
“It took forever to get the permits,” he said. “But once construction began, strange things started to happen. Floor plans went missing from a locked safe. Every worker on the demolition crew simultaneously came down with terrible headaches. Sabotage of all kinds has been derailing the project.”
Holcomb reached for a stress ball on his desk and squeezed it, hard.
“I’m a practical man, not taken to flights of fancy. When it was first suggested to me that my problems were supernatural in origin, I laughed it off. But I’m not laughing any longer. I tripled security, accomplishing exactly nothing. Then a business associate recommended that I hire O’Leary as an arcane consultant. She was the one who filled me in on the crazy stuff going on in the world that we muggles aren’t supposed to know about.”
“We prefer to call you ungifted,” I said.
“Whatever works,” said Holcomb. “O’Leary told me about the Watch and helped me get in touch with Mr. Mose. It wasn’t all that difficult to persuade him. Money, it seems, can buy magic just like any other service.”
Mose must’ve charged this arrogant fat cat through the nose to make me do house calls like some sort of a plumber. Still, someone was using magic to mess with the ungifted—exactly the kind of thing the Watch was created to guard against. The fact that the victim was Holcomb didn’t obviate my obligation to look into the matter.
“All right,” I said. “Fetch whatever maps and floor plans for this thing that weren’t stolen from your safe and let’s take a look.”
Perched between Marine Park and the coastline of Deep Creek was one of the last undeveloped areas remaining in the borough of Brooklyn. Thousands of people drove past it every day, commuting via the always-busy Belt Parkway. There was no off-ramp by Marine Park. Drivers could only marvel from afar at the glimpses of primordial wilderness and the scenic view of the Atlantic.
Holcomb would change that. His plans called for building an Exit 10 off Belt Parkway, which would deliver travelers right to his new hotel’s front door. For now, I had to drive all the way to the Flatbush Avenue exit, park at the Gateway Marina, and walk.
I spent several unpleasant hours slogging around Holcomb’s construction site. Whoever was messing with the project was thorough, devious, and definitely supernatural. Signs of arcane interference were everywhere. Tree trunks had runes carved into their bark, enchantments spun like shimmering spider webs hung from the tree branches, and stones covered with glyphs were spread along the sandy beach. An ancient magic was at work, intent on disrupting the construction. It was effective and considerably unpleasant, but never lethal.
This magic was different from the types I’d encountered in the past. I was clueless as to what manner of creature was protecting its territory, but had a pretty good idea of how to flush it out. I set to disarming the trickster traps and clearing the area of supernatural hindrances.
It was slow going. With no magic of my own, I had to rely on various arcane tools. Each actio
n that any other gifted could perform by merely flexing their abilities was taking me minutes of careful tinkering with artifacts that operated on other people’s stored power. My feet got wet and the bottom of my trench coat was caked with mud. I cursed as the wild shrubs scraped against my skin. There’s a reason I choose to live in an urban environment. I’ll take a paved road over a grassy path any day of the week.
“You shouldn’t do that.”
I was knee-deep in disrupting a particularly elaborate enchantment when a voice caught me by surprise. I spun around to see who managed to sneak up on me. It was a man in his late forties, dressed in an earth-tone windbreaker, tough khaki pants, and hiking boots. He was far better prepared for an excursion to this area than I.
“Don’t break it,” he said. “Do you have any idea how much effort goes into weaving an enchantment like this one? It’ll take us weeks to repair all the damage you’ve caused today.”
“Repair?” I said. “Oh no, no. We can’t have that. The Watch takes a dim view of magic being used against the ungifted.”
“I know who you are and what you represent, Mr. Brent,” said the stranger. “My people have deep respect for the Watch. It is a grave disappointment that you choose to side against us.”
“Back up for a moment,” I said. “I’m not picking any sides. I don’t even know who or what I’m dealing with, and I don’t like that one bit. Care to bring me up to speed?”
“My name is Graeme Murray. I sit on the ruling council of the Circle of the Sacred Oak.” He saw a blank expression on my face and elaborated: “We’re druids, Mr. Brent.”
I displayed my encyclopedic and brilliant command of history: “I thought druids were, you know, extinct?”
“There are still a few of us around, carrying on the traditions of our forefathers. Walk with me, Mr. Brent, and I will endeavor to, as you put it, bring you up to speed.” The druid headed deeper into the brush. I followed him, the still-active enchantment threads glowing faintly behind us.
“My people ruled the British Isles since the beginning of history,” said Murray. “Openly at first, then behind the scenes, after the Romans came. But things were changing. With time, our numbers and influence began to wane. To make matters worse, the ruling council got us mired in a war against the Cabal in the 1700s.”
I’d heard about the Cabal before. It was a shady organization of European mystics and sorcerers. They were vastly powerful in the Victorian era and still influential in modern day. The Watch and Cabal had butted heads many a time in the past.
“The Cabal devastated us. Druids were hunted in Britain and Ireland like common criminals. Siobhan Keane, one of the few on the ruling council to oppose the war, gathered her remaining loyalists and set sail for the New World.”
We walked toward the far end of the property, near the edge of Marine Park.
“Druids share a bond with the land; most would rather die than abandon their sacred groves. To convince so many to leave the British Isles, to begin life anew elsewhere, was a gargantuan feat. Siobhan Keane wasn’t merely a leader—she was our founder, our savior, as important to us as Jesus and Mohammed are to their followers.”
We arrived at a small clearing, surrounded by ancient oak trees overgrown with mistletoe.
“This,” said Murray “is Siobhan Keane’s final resting place. It’s the one sacred site for my people in exile, and we’ll do whatever we have to in order to prevent anyone—gifted or ungifted—from bulldozing it down.”
The two of us stood quietly for a moment and listened as the Atlantic breeze rustled the yellowing leaves in nature’s requiem for the queen of the druids.
It took some doing, but I managed to set up a meeting between Holcomb and the druids.
We sat in the conference room of a nondescript hotel by the airport. Holcomb probably didn’t feel comfortable inviting a bunch of hostile gifted into his home office. He wouldn’t even take my calls, leaving it up to O’Leary to handle the preliminary negotiations. The man was a big fan of delegating, at least according to his reality TV show. To her credit, O’Leary got him to consider the druids’ side of things enough to come meet with the ruling council of the Circle of the Sacred Oak.
Six rather ordinary-looking men and women, my new pal Graeme among them, sat around the large oval table broadcasting various degrees of annoyance, frustration and overall bad karma. Holcomb was running late. Really late. The druid leaders didn’t appreciate being made to wait. Several of them took to shooting venomous glances my way, as though the real estate mogul’s tardiness was somehow my fault. I kept a neutral expression, hating every minute of it.
After what felt like hours, the conference room door finally swung open to admit Moira O’Leary and a dozen grim-looking men. They fanned out in a semi-circle, taking positions against the walls and blocking the entrance. Every one of them was gifted and every one of them was heavily armed. They aimed their weapons at the druids.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded a councilman. “Where is Holcomb?”
“He won’t be coming,” O’Leary said. “Mr. Holcomb has left it up to me to deal with this nuisance.” She turned her attention to me. “I want to thank you, Conrad, for flushing out the pagan scum. We’ll take it from here. You should leave. Now.”
The double-dealing, two-faced mercenary had played me. And I was just beginning to like her.
“These people are here to negotiate.” I remained seated, so O’Leary and her goons couldn’t see me searching through the pockets of my coat. “You wouldn’t want to jeopardize that with some sort of a rash vigilante action.”
O’Leary laughed.
“Rash? We’ve been hunting their kind for centuries. Don’t let the nature-loving act fool you. They are terrorists, ruthless killers of women and children. They’ve waged a guerilla war against the Cabal for several hundred years, and their hands are elbow-deep in blood.”
So she was a Cabal agent, and the hate in her voice sounded genuine. I wished I hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning.
“Our faction wants no part of your war,” said Graeme. “Our ancestors traveled across the ocean so that we could live at peace.”
“These people are civilians, Moira. Look at them. They didn’t try to hurt Holcomb’s workers and they’re certainly no threat to the Cabal.” I smiled and waved my right hand, palm out. “Come on. You know these aren’t the druids you’re looking for.”
No one even chuckled. So much for diffusing the situation with humor.
“Do keep in mind that these negotiations are guaranteed by the Watch. I’m sure both of us would rather avoid the possibility of friction between our organizations?”
O’Leary was having none of that. “We have no quarrel with your band of do-gooders, so long as you stay out of our way. You’re free to go and play at policeman somewhere else. But if you stay, you die with them.”
The smart move would’ve been to take her up on her offer. I had no business interfering in a centuries-old war. Besides, what chance did I have against a dozen gifted? Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to walk out and leave six innocent people to their doom. After years of making careful, calculated decisions I surprised myself by abandoning caution and following my gut.
“You really shouldn’t have called me a cop,” I said, rising from the chair. “It upsets me.”
Before anyone could react I drew a pencil-thin turquoise glass vial from one of my pockets and threw it as hard as I could against the wall.
The vial shattered, unleashing a Chinook wind bottled inside. Powerful gusts wreaked havoc in the confines of the room. Hurricane-like currents lifted people and chairs from the ground. Intense fog made it impossible to see beyond arm’s length. The air had become hot and moist, as though someone had run a long, steamy shower.
The pandemonium around me kept the bad guys busy and gave me a chance to set up a portal. Transportation magic is unreliable and takes at least a dozen heartbeats to activate. What’s worse, a portal charm is only good fo
r a single one-way trip and very difficult to replace. I winced as I activated it, but using up a prized possession was better than facing a Cabal army.
Someone managed to open the conference room door and the Chinook swooshed out into the hallway. As the fog began to dissipate, everyone could see a portal the size of a manhole cover floating a few feet above the floor.
“Go!” I shouted at the druids while ripping a golden bracelet off my wrist. The action triggered a force barrier, cutting off the other half of the room. That particular toy was reusable, but it would take four lunar months to recharge. This mess was costing me dearly.
Druids stumbled toward the portal but the Cabal mages got their act together. They unleashed a coordinated attack on the barrier and within seconds it began to collapse. I desperately tried to think of a way to buy us more time but had no trinkets capable of stopping a dozen hostile gifted working in concert.
A druid woman in her early fifties turned around. In a few steps she was at the barrier, touching it lightly with her fingertips. Her entire body began to shimmer as she worked her own magic. Infused with whatever power she lent it, the barrier strengthened despite the continued attack from the other side. She appeared calm, almost serene, but I could see the new wrinkles appear on her face and her hair visibly turning gray as she gave up her life force to maintain the barrier.
The rest of the druids were through the portal now. It was beginning to wobble and would dissipate soon. I took one last look at the woman who did not hesitate for even a moment before choosing to sacrifice herself in order to save her people. A small part of me wanted to stay, to fight and probably die alongside her once the barrier failed, but I knew better. I was no hero. I was just a guy with a few arcane gadgets and lots of bravado.
I hurled myself into the portal, fervently hoping that its erratic magic wouldn’t teleport me into a concrete wall.
Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 1 March 2013 Page 9