Zephyr Box Set 1

by Warren Hately

  “Seeker,” the magician says warmly as he approaches us.

  Then all the love dies in his eyes.

  “And you, Zephyr.”

  I nod, keeping it curt because the old familiar Magus-derived sensation of not being able to access my memories properly throws me off as I try and fail to recollect whether there’s something deeper I really should remember about my relationship to history’s foremost magician.

  I come up blank just as the ageless, silver-haired old goat cracks a sardonic smile.

  “Give it up for me, buddy,” and he walks forward with his arms out and I am so off-guard that I consent to his hug.

  “It’s been a while,” I say.

  “It has,” he nods and steers us toward the tables. “Let’s talk.”

  *

  “I’M NOT EXACTLY sure why we’re here,” I say as I accept green tea from a tiny Chinese serving lady, who bows after setting down the bowls and departs backward.

  “Or where here is, to be honest.”

  “If calling it Shangri-La would help, you could say that,” Simon shrugs.

  “I like to know the real names for things,” I say with more iron in my voice than I really intend, but the guy radiates smugness and arcane knowledge in equal bounds and I don’t like not having home ground advantage. “I know it might surprise you, but I haven’t gotten on as long as I have in this world by just accepting the first thing someone tells me.”

  The magician shrugs. “Suit yourself.” And doesn’t elaborate. Instead, he turns his considerable charms on Seeker and they talk for a good five minutes about the developments of the past few months.

  I’m cool with that. The green tea is good and zingy and the view transfixes me. It turns out the boats are single-sailed gondolas powered by monks kneeling in concentration, their little hands up and fingers curled into elaborate di-grams derived from hand gestures used to contemplate the “Higher World”. It also makes them kickass psychics. Simon Magus explains he’s been living among the Chi Worshippers for nearly two years as he expands his knowledge of the eldritch world.

  “Seeker tells me your team is short in the magic department,” he says.

  “We were going to bring in Annie Black, but she signed up with the Feebs,” I say.

  I make a little finger motion indicating the connection between the two of them.

  “I didn’t realize you two had been talking,” I say. “Are you interested?”

  My tone sounds slightly incredulous and it has a right to be. Magus’s dismissive, apologetic expression confirms my suspicions correct that he wouldn’t be caught dead slumming with a bunch of latex-wearing freaks like us.

  “No,” he says. “I’ve done my time in such endeavors, and, well, I wouldn’t want to offer you anything but words of encouragement, so I won’t say anything more.” He slurps from the small bowl before him. “On that point, at least.”

  Sitting at the bench across from us, Magus does a funny twist as he keeps talking, eyes bringing our attention to a cowled figure sitting in silence at the furthermost table – someone I hadn’t seen before, and therefore, I firmly believe, someone previously masked or invisible to us.

  “I have a colleague I would like to introduce. I believe he may just be the fit you’re looking for.”

  By silent concession we all stand as the figure moves from his table and around to us. Brass-colored fingertips draw back the hood to reveal a head made of the same substance, intricate plates upon panels upon whorls that confuse the eye, the tattoo-like grooves a complication of etching-meets-clockwork design, the whole effect at one and the same time decorative, mechanical, and decidedly eldritch.

  “What’s this?” I can’t help but snarl. I’m no big fan of droids, as I’m sure you’re aware by now.

  “Seeker, Zephyr, this is my old friend Tom Brass. You might know him as Tom O’Clock,” Simon says.

  The magic robot nods his head. Black glass sits like pince-nez where his eyes should be.

  “I’ve been looking for a way back to your Earth for some time,” Brass says in a voice pretty much like what you’d expect from a Nineteenth Century mystical automata, erudite, just a touch of Sherlock Holmes with not as much of the smackability as I might’ve anticipated, especially coming from something that basically replicates humanity and which I find a little unpleasant and unnerving.

  “Tom O’Clock?” I frown and cast a quick glance at Seeker to see if she’s buying this shiz. “I can’t say I’ve heard of you.”

  “Tom was in the Crusaders and the original Union Jacks,” Simon says.

  “The original Union Jacks?” Seeker asks, astounded.

  The girl knows her superhero lore better’n me.

  “I was in the Star Squad after that,” the robot replies conversationally. “But we were mostly based off-world. I find not too many people have heard of them, but that’s preferable to being, as you might imagine, linked to the chaps who broke up the Beatles.”

  “Helped break up the Beatles,” Simon says helpfully.

  I harrumph anxiously at this too-close conversation and jut my chin out to get the robot’s attention.

  “The Crusaders: who were they?”

  “Oh, just a league of chaps, you know, to do her Majesty’s bidding in the Shadow War,” he replies.

  I discern some kind of movement behind his glasses, though it is probably not much more than the whirring gears and cogs that allow him to come into focus on my scowl.

  “Which ‘Her Majesty’ are we talking, here?”

  “Queen Victoria.”

  “Hmmm, I thought so.”

  “I sense distrust from you, dear Zephyr,” O’Clock, if I really have to call him that, says as he steeples his glove-like fingers. I’m not sure how the expressionless plates of his face arrange themselves to emote understanding, but they do. “Maybe if I told you a little more about myself?”

  “I’m not sure that’s necessary.”

  I look at Seeker and give her a pretty open, what-do-you-say kind of signal.

  “The team, the New Sentinels, we could do with an experienced occult adventurer,” she says.

  The brass robot turns his head unerringly back to me.

  “Or a transforming robot, eh what, Zephyr?”

  That’s pretty much the moment I realize he’s in.

  Zephyr 4.8 “Male-Reinforcement Rituals”

  THE WALLACHIAN FORTRESS deposits us in New Central Park and Seeker and I stroll across the crusty grass and over the three bridges over the main lake. Overhead, a remodeled biplane chugs across the sky dragging a banner that reads CSI NEW ZEALAND – STARTS MONDAY 8PM EASTERN. Some homeless guys are playing Frisbee and a small dog gnaws at the half-frozen remains of a mallard. Two park rangers on horseback eye the scene with beatific smiles, their radios providing additional background chatter.

  “So we’re set?”

  “A team of seven, huh?” I remark. “You’re sure about the robot?”

  “He said to call him Tom.”

  “Thomas O’Clock, what kind of fucking name is that?”

  “Do you have better?”

  I consider suggesting Contraption Man, but think better of it. Instead I shrug, surrendering to this one. Seeker looks jaunty, spritely and pleased. I tell her I’m surprised Magus himself didn’t sign up for the team and she says nothing until we’ve crossed the final arch and stop at the iron gates onto Elm Avenue, which leads on to downtown Jackson.

  “I think Simon Magus has troubles enough of his own without signing up for the New Sentinels, Zephyr. Don’t feel jilted.”

  “Jilted? Christ, whatever gives you that idea?”

  Seeker gives one of her sweeter smiles and shrugs, a knowing laugh playing merriment behind her eyes as she turns.

  “Four days to go,” she says. “You think we can keep it secret that long?”

  I blink. “Oh, that reminds me of something.”

  “Zephyr!” she gasps. “You’re not going to break the news early, are you?”r />
  “Oh hey,” I lie. “No, I was thinking about my costume. That Italian dude burnt a hole in one of my new suits.”

  “Who was that guy?”

  “I dunno,” I reply. “Some crazy.”

  “Some ‘crazy’ with scarily effective eye-beams,” Seeker says slowly. “I guess we’ll be hearing from him again.”

  My reply is distant and disinterested. I’m thinking about our afternoon, our new 150-year-old teammate and his comments skirting my own secret history.

  O’Clock outlined how he’d been created by Edison, but it was the immortal sorcerer Simon Magus who first found a soul for him. The robot had actually used the Holmes-Watson analogue to explain his period as the magician’s sidekick and then the time through the 1890s when the Western Empire very nearly fell to the Chinese as part of the aforementioned Shadow War. The resolution of that conflict remains a mystery to all those involved still alive today, since at the key cataclysmic moment it required history to be rewritten, and all the minds involved were wiped in the process. The Victorian Empire began to ail along with its monarch, but at least the Ghost Emperor in the East failed in his cross-continental coup.

  The robot and his mentor parted ways for large tracts of the Twentieth Century. There was an earnestness, a strange honesty in the way the mechanical being comported himself. We could sense his ennui, his yearning to return to the “real world” from Simon Magus’s idyllic, but utterly yawnsome Nirvana. He is an arcane robot, a thing of equal parts magic and science and possessed of the soul of some formless astral being Magus referred to as a Ki-Rin. I’m sure that’s just an analogy. The guy seems keen on them, but then maybe he’s been staying with the Chi Worshippers too long.

  I bid Seeker adieu and there’s a weird moment where we touch fingers and my sexy, strange, remote teammate bites her peach-ripe lip and drops her eyes, and into that moment I drop an awkward cough and say, “Okay, bye,” and do the crouch thing. Six trillion light globes or whatever and I’m damned if I can work out what’s going on.

  *

  I WANTED DINNER to be at a restaurant because people always say it’s hard for someone to make a scene if you hold a difficult discussion in public. I lost the vote and now with Tessa in my company, I book a cab and there’s an awkward moment downstairs when Elisabeth and my daughter arrive in the back of one of the law firm’s town cars and Beth and I just stare at each other as Tessa scurries free with an overnight bag. I’m about to say something when Beth veers back to the black chauffeur and instructs him to go on to the airport, she’s got a conference in Dallas, she doesn’t even blink as the tinted glass slides back into place and the car rolls on without a word spoken between us. There’s something a few shades short of hatred in that exchange-that-is-not-an-exchange, a new low for us, or maybe I’m just a slow learner because this is the woman who wants to divorce me, after all.

  It’s not with me that Tessa’s staying. The grandmothers have wrangled some time with their girl and I guess it was a) convenient for Beth, given the business trip, and b) a better option than leaving our daughter with me. We don’t have any legal agreement yet, which is one of the reasons why my ex hasn’t turfed me out of the apartment. I figure an end to that is only days away, though now I’ve cleared a path to some temporary digs, at least, even if they will just confirm my lack of a real life.

  “I’m gonna get changed,” Tessa says as she bounds with youthful enthusiasm up the stairs to our eighth-floor apartment.

  “Hold on,” I say, still in the foyer and pressing the button for the lift like it’s a cigarette butt that won’t go out. “You look fine as is. A cab’s coming. I thought we could just go from here.”

  Tessa eyes me with stupefied disbelief. Her mouth hangs open and she somehow manages to capture the right mix of disbelief and ridicule with her eyes despite her expression making her resemble a young retarded foreign child.

  “Dad. Come on. You can’t be serious.”

  The girl is in a new wardrobe: designer jeans, knee-high calfskin boots, a Gucci jacket and forest green blouse by Zara. Her mother is throwing more money at her than ever. It’s like her company heard she was up for a divorce and are rewarding her for dumping me.

  “Tessa, what is it, honey? You can show off your other clothes when you stay.”

  “These?” The girl plucks at the shirt with disdain. “Mum’s trophies? Or maybe I’m the trophy. I wasn’t talking about changing these.”

  “OK, what were you talking about then?” I ask. “I’m confused.”

  Tessa glances around for spies and drops down the steps to come back close to me, expression morphing like a panther, at once coquettish and coy.

  “Dad,” she half-whispers. “Come on. I was thinking we could fly to Queens. What do you say?”

  “You want to get changed into costume?”

  “Yes!”

  “Honey, it’s a school night.”

  “Oh come on dad,” Tessa says, the breath exploding from her gasp.

  I glance at a watch I don’t actually own.

  “The cab will be here any minute.”

  “Screw the cab.”

  “Hey watch your language,” I scowl and the lift opens and our neighbors, people who shunned us like we were AIDS victims or from tribal Rwanda since the first day we moved in, they flatten themselves to the far side and exit with their faces down.

  Through the glass door I watch the cab pull in to the curb outside. Tessa looks at me, the whole teenager pleading thing going into overdrive and I sigh and hang my head, and thinking about the guy with the eye-beams again not for the first time that day, mutter something about regretting this decision later as I step into the lift and try and remember if I’ve worn my third costume yet and in fact if I even have one.

  *

  IN THE SKIES over Atlantic City, Windsong and I are World War II fighter planes, swerving and dipping and putting on the speed as we dodge over the open water, the big friendly moon throwing our mirrored selves across the dappled surface as we streak toward Queens. Each time the girl catches up to me I add another burst of speed, curious to know how far she can go, and when finally we hit Mach I draw alongside to catch her squealing delight as she tests herself and her limits to see what sort of speed she can reach.

  I drop back, a snaking discharge of electrical energy crackling at her heels as incentive to pour on yet more speed as she hurtles close enough to the water now that it creates a trench. Next thing we are crossing land again, Astoria close, and by silent agreement we abandon our game and come down amid the trees that aren’t so leafy any more. Tessa is breathing heavily and she wraps her arms around my leather-clad frame as we duck into the shadows of the driveway and she rests her head against my shoulder, quite unable to speak with a wonderfully adolescent mix of adrenalin, exhaustion and wonder. I can’t help savoring the moment and smooth back her wind-tousled hair, the smell of lemon and cinnamon inexplicably clinging to it, my hand on her leather jacket’s hip as she grins up at me in a smile caught in full radiance by the gibbous moon.

  “That’s the fastest I’ve ever gone,” she whispers.

  “And how did it feel?”

  “Amazing,” she says and gulps, taking a few more breaths. “But you’re faster, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been doing this longer,” I say and smile, proud in my own way as she recovers her breath sufficient to stagger off a few paces and I follow, we’re rounding into the back yard and pulling our street clothes free.

  “I’m just going to, uh, change,” Tessa says and motions to the garden shed.

  I nod all patriarchal-like and walk casually, drunk with the moment, up to the vine-encrusted greenhouse and my old familiar change station.

  Minutes later we’re admitted through the back door into the rosy glow of George and Max’s kitchen. A roast drizzled with vindaloo spices sizzles in the oven and we exchange air kisses and chatter chirpily and try not to think about the recent troubles as Tessa and I file into the house and remark hear
tily on how nice and warm it is inside and my two mothers smile and observe our chastened, wind-chilled faces and say nothing except to put the kettle on.

  “How are you feeling after that madman attacked you, Joe?” Max asks.

  “Grandma,” Tessa laughs, “I actually think it was dad who attacked him!”

  “Hey, thank you very much,” I respond with mock tenderness. “Thanks for your concern, honey. No I’m fine, mom. Fine. I guess he just got the jump on me.”

  “Let me see your chest,” Georgia brogues and fusses forward and starts helping herself to the third and second buttons of the cheap long-sleeve I’m wearing until I bat her off, hands on her wrists as I try and imagine the steel in her eyes once, the cat mask and the flames trickling through her fingers ready to punish the wrongdoers of the night – but I can’t picture it.

  At that moment my heavyset old ma being one of Old New York’s defenders seems about as remote as my own childhood. I couldn’t tell you if they read to me, if I had blocks or plastic cowboys or played armies in the sand dunes on seaside holidays because the whole thing’s a blur, man. Is that just me? I hope not. Let me not be alone in my eidetic anesthesia.

  Georgia fusses with her fisherman’s knit pullover like she can read my mind, though she also tuts dismissively and moves across to the oven and slips on mitts to check the roast despite her own immunity, half-a-lifetime’s masquerade now just reflex.

  “Och, ‘tis such a shame. You had the most gorgeous nipples as a boy, didn’t he, Maxie?”

  “He did,” Maxine, who I’d otherwise call “the sensible one,” says with all the pomp and ceremony of the queen herself.

  “Get off it,” I mutter as Tessa laughs and discovers a chocolate cake concealed beneath a towel and gives a titter.

  They start preparing the table for dinner and there’s a lull, if not a black hole in the conversation into which we all pitch, the inevitable now looming like a kind of death itself ahead of us in the night.

  “The meat smells, uh, good,” I manage.