Max Quick: The Bane of the Bondsman (Max Quick Series Book 3)

by Mark Jeffrey

  Ragazzo hesitated only one more moment and then knelt and began wrapping the moaning Giovanni as well.

  WHEN THEY HAD finished, they lay panting with exhaustion.

  Giovanni was wrapped like a mummy. Dried blood caked the bandages here and there, but the bulk of the bleeding had stopped. The bandages were a cerement around his entire body, covering him entirely — with the sole exception of his eyes.

  And those eyes were filled with a new madness, a new depth of despair and fury.

  Those eyes danced around, to and fro, hither and thither, now drenched with revenge and obsession.

  But he could not move or speak. He was not truly conscious.

  “He will live,” Appius said at last. “He will live, thanks to your help. I could not have done it alone.”

  “So. You will honor our bargain, then,” Ragazzo said.

  “Yes,” Appius replied. “The word of a Centurion is beyond reproach.”

  “And you will return me to the mainland?”

  “Yes. But you must leave Cyranus forever. Agreed? You must never trouble Giovanni ever again.”

  Ragazzo nodded again. “Agreed. But what of him? What if he does not agree?”

  “He will not heal quickly enough to disagree, not even on our journey home. And besides, I need your help to pilot the vessel: it is a two-man job. We have no choice, you and I. We must cast our lots together.”

  “But why? Why do you trust me now?”

  “Because you pulled him back from the faery land. You did not have to do that. You could have left him there to bleed to death. But you did not. Yet one thing troubles me: why did not the Arch unmake you the way it unmade him? He saw you pass safely … and thought it must be safe for him as well. And I know that you did not lead him into a trap: you yourself were surprised, I see that clearly in your eyes.”

  Ragazzo nodded. “I will explain it like this. We stand upon the Stitch Point of all the earth,” he said. “This island is where all roads meet. More than that, I will not say, because of my oaths. However, as you know, I am from that land beyond the Arch. I am of it. He is not. And the Arch is broken, as you see, by the earthquake that followed your previous exit from it.

  “Because it is broken, in truth, I did not know whether even I would even survive the crossing.”

  Appius nodded slowly, but clearly not understanding all of this.

  “Answer me this,” Ragazzo said. “How much time passed here while we were there?”

  “One week,” Appius replied.

  “A week here, while mere moments passed for Giovanni and I on the other side. Which is how you were able to have bandages waiting when we returned.”

  “Yes. I could see both of you clearly through the Arch … yet the moments passed very slowly on your side. When I beheld Giovanni covered in his own blood, I ran back to the ship. I gathered a spare sail and brought it back here and cut it into strips. This was four days ago.”

  “Giovanni stepped through from this world,” Ragazzo explained, “where time runs very fast, into a world where time runs very slowly. The Arch acclimates those who pass over its threshold to accommodate this — when it is working correctly. You and your men passed over and back unscathed. As did I — but being from that world, I do not require acclimation — I am naturally acclimated.

  “But the Arch is damaged. It no longer acclimates for those who require it. Thus, when he crossed over, Giovanni’s body still operated at the fast time of this world — in the slow time of that world. Is it any wonder that his blood ruptured his body? No, it is not. The wonder is that he is even still alive.”

  SO IT WAS that Ragazzo and Appius returned to the ship, carrying the wrapped body of Giovanni di Cyranus in a makeshift liter. After Appius contrived to fix the rudder, they made for the shores of Cyranus once more.

  When Giovanni had been returned to the bed of his villa to recuperate, Ragazzo found Jane still living in the woods outside of the town. The two of them left, and were never seen in Cyranus ever again.

  Giovanni took over a year to heal. Appius cared for him and ran his household while he was incapacitated. It wasn’t until the second month that Giovanni returned to sanity and demanded to know what had happened to Ragazzo, only to learn that the boy was long gone and would not be heard from again.

  Appius explained to Giovanni what he knew of what had happened to him through that Arch. Giovanni was full of questions following ever still more questions, such that Appius became exhausted answering them all.

  In the third month, a day came that Appius dreaded. Giovanni demanded a mirror be brought to his bed. And together, Appius and Giovanni removed the bandages.

  Giovanni cried aloud when he beheld himself the first time.

  He was salt-white: his body had become entombed in nothing but rubbery scar tissue. Slashes criss-crossed his cheeks, his eyelids, his hands — everything. Not an inch was spared.

  He was a monster — and would be from that moment forward for the rest of his life.

  AFTER A TIME, Giovanni di Cyranus left his hometown.

  He gave his villa to Appius, who was content to stay. He told Appius he would return one day, but secretly, he knew that he never would.

  Giovanni drifted through Europe. For time, he was a beggar, and his mind was shattered with grief. Many shunned him, believing the scars that ripped and raddled his white, scarred skin were leprosy or some disease even more horrible. He went hungry quite a bit — so hungry and starved, that he should have died on many occasions.

  But he did not.

  It seemed he could go without food or water for far, far longer than most people. And this was a curse, for he felt the full effects of his torment — but there was no release of death.

  Something about that island, something about having gone through that underground doorway to the world of the gods, had transformed him. It had lengthened his days.

  Based on what Appius had told him of Ragazzo’s explanation, he reasoned that the ‘slow time’ of that other world had infected him somehow. His brief exposure to it had slowed down his own body’s internal clock — causing him to age in a manner more in tune with that world than the fast-time of the world he inhabited.

  But he was not immortal. As the decades slipped by, he aged, albeit very slowly. He saw this. He had not become like Ragazzo, not fully, not completely. He was something else in between what Ragazzo was, and what everyone else was.

  His hunger and and his hate changed him. With his fierce intelligence, he learned to steal, to thieve, to trick and connive.

  By the 1700’s, he was wealthy again from several jewel robberies. He set up in Spain, and lived there for a long time.

  Yet, he never married. He never loved again. He couldn’t. There was too much loss in him to countenance taking such a chance ever again.

  Many times, he set about in society wearing a golden mask, to cover his disfigurement. The gold was elegant; his face was not. Physical defects were frowned upon by the aristocracy. He would not be accepted as he was. Likewise, he covered his marred hands in gloves. After all, a gentleman could not appear with deformities in public.

  But with his mask and gloves and cane and elegant couture of clothing, he created a new version of himself — one that in many ways surpassed the old version. He was a living masquerade ball, a source of intrigue and speculation. And his quick wit and vast intelligence were always a hit at the salons and teas.

  As the years passed, they became far too numerous for him to explain. He had lived too long, much longer than anyone could possibly live. Already, there were whispers about him and whether he was in league with unholy entities to prolong his days. It was too dangerous to stay. He was forced to abandon his wealth and slink off into the world to forge a new identity.

  This he did in succession of times and places even he could not recall. The human mind was not formed to acclimate to the rapid changes that took place in the world from 1800 on into the twentieth century. The psychological trauma of havin
g everything you thought you knew ripped asunder from you every several decades was too much, and on many occasions, Giovanni was mad and lost and back in the streets again.

  There were times he could not recall his own name.

  But the desire, ever burning, to discover how to save his daughters and wife remained somewhere in his shattered mind. It drove him with a singular hunger. But as such things do, the desire sharpened and bifurcated at the same time — it became a generalized lust to discover the secret of life itself.

  At some point, it ceased to be about his long dead daughters (who would have been long dead many times over by then even if they had lived), it became about control, mastery, knowledge. Knowledge that was denied him.

  And it became about the ability to control his own death, which he knew was coming one day. It became about himself.

  But oddly, it was this insatiable drive that brought him back, gave him a new purpose in life. A new sort of clarity born of insanity, took him. One day on the streets of London in 1883, he rose up and cleaned himself. Again, he thieved: with his brilliant mind, it was a simple thing to enter the houses of the wealthy and ransack their jewelry boxes.

  He set himself up as a gentleman once again. And once again, he took up the golden mask to hide his deformity. And as before, he was a hit: the mystery of the man with the sharp wit so shrouded appealed even to the ladies, who would have found him distasteful to gaze up had he gone about plainly.

  But this time, he collected. He collected fiercely. He spent his days ostensibly seeking antiquities, but really seeking Niburian artifacts of any and all kinds. Collectors would present him priceless Egyptian treasures, and Giovanni would yawn. Yet, some obscure stone tablet, dirty and indecipherable hiding in the back of a warehouse excited this strange golden man into a frenzy in which he was willing to pay anything to obtain it.

  Building on the work of Henry Rawlinson and the Behistan Inscription (which has the same text written in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian — thus providing a translation matrix very much like the famous Rosetta Stone), Giovanni was able to crack Sumerian — and was the first person in the world to be able to read it. However, he did not publish this secret; he kept it to himself.

  He went on archeological digs any time he was invited — and it was likely that he would find something of interest. One time in particular, in Iraq, a strange jewel was recovered … one dark like a hole in the fabric of time and space.

  Giovanni recognized at once that it Niburian. A tablet found with the jewel described it as a ‘singular eye’, a tear in the fabric of reality that allowed minds to join, among other powers. Since Giovanni was the only one that could read the inscription, only he alone knew its significance.

  Nevertheless, he killed the entire expedition with dynamite, ensuring that only he would possess this rare stone, entombing them in the very dig they had meticulously carved into the desert floor.

  From then on, he sought jewels ravenously. Again, the merchants brought him all kinds of wonderous gems to buy — and he would shrug with boredom at what every other buyer became excited about. But every once in awhile, this strange golden man would see a stone that looked nearly worthless — and offer huge sums of money on the spot. The merchants thought him mad — but knew that every once in awhile, they would get lucky, so they kept coming back.

  And Books. He knew the look of the strange tomes he sought. These were scattered all over the ends of the earth, their owners not gleaning what it was they possessed. These also he bought up immediately whenever he came across one. And if their owner would not sell — well, they met the same fate as those in the Persian archeological expedition.

  BY 1925, GIOVANNI had a vast worldwide empire of wealth and holdings. He had accumulated a great collection of Niburian artifacts and writings. He had worked out the true history of the ancients to a far greater degree of precision than most people alive. There were exceptions, of course, though he did not know this. There was Madame Europa Romani in New York, for one. And there were others, other nearly immortal beings that roamed the shadows of the world versed in Niburian knowledge and artifacts, unknown even to Romani or Giovanni.

  By the turn of the century, Giovanni had made his primary home in New York. He mingled with the new aristocrats of the day there: the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Veerspikes. He didn’t care about wealth itself, of course, but these fools trafficked in collectables, and Niburian knowledge and artifacts flowed through their ignorant, overly wealthy hands with an astonishing regularity.

  But then, the well of trading dried up. There were other forces at work on the markets now, also buying up Niburian artifacts. Wealth alone was not enough to secure them any further. Giovanni was enraged; he’d never had competition before. But somebody out there was waking up … or several somebodies. It was getting harder by the day to find new merchandise …

  So he tried a new tactic: crime. But he was too visible personally — he no longer wore the mask; the twentieth century was more amenable to his naturally scarred appearance. But his face was not one that was easily forgotten. He could not be personally involved in the burgerlaries he committed now.

  He assembled a gang of low men. They were immigrants, mostly, not having a way to make an honest wage once they’d arrived in New York City, literally just off the boat. Giovanni was Italian; the Italian immigrants bonded with him. He turned them into low men, thugs, muscle. But he paid them well for their loyalty, and in turn, the men loved him for his generosity and were willing to do anything for him, however strange it may seem.

  This was his new family. He even socialized with them behind the closed doors of his mansions, throwing them parties as lavish as the ones he threw for the Veerspikes and the Vanderbilts. The more Americanized of his men took to calling him ‘Johnny’, which Giovanni allowed. And so they went further, calling him ‘Siren’ instead of Cyranus.

  And thus it was that the name Johnny Siren was born.

  It made sense: it sounded more gangster.

  For a gangster was what Johnny Siren had become — one of the first. His wealth, mysterious origins, horrific scars, and army of Tommy gun wielding men were a fixture in the New York of the 1930’s and 1940’s.

  Johnny Siren was the godfather of a massive crime syndicate that specialized in stealing Niburian artifacts.

  IN 1977, THERE was an odd moment in New York city.

  Johnny Siren stood at a crosswalk on Fifth Avenue. And Max Quick — tired, starving, hood pulled over his head — stood at the other.

  The light changed. The two walked towards each other. Siren’s cane banged on the pavement — and Max Quick looked up. They passed each other, and their eyes met. Max Quick, remembering nothing of his time as Ragazzo due to Mr. E’s imposed cryptomnesia, did not recognize Siren. And Siren, not having thought of Ragazzo specifically in centuries, did not see the boy who long ago went to a strange far away isle with him — and isle that changed his live and unnaturally extended it. He only saw a boy in a hoodie no different from millions of other boys in this city.

  They both looked away, and continued on.

  Their backs receded from one another, to wait another few short decades until the time of the Pocket when they would meet again.

  BY THE TURN OF the twenty-first century, Siren had become somewhat of a recluse. He had relocated to a remote estate in the Colorado mountains.

  Occasionally, he would catch wind of a Niburian artifact out there somewhere, and he would leave to investigate. It was getting harder now to find new ones. You couldn’t just buy them anymore; the only ones left were in private collections and therefore unadvertised — or they were in Museums, usually very small and obscure ones.

  That was how the tiny town of Starland, California first came to Siren’s attention. There was a small Museum there. The curator was quite good: she had a keen eye. Although her budget was small, the trinkets she acquired for display were always unique.

  Siren arrived in the sleep coastal town of Sta
rland for the first time in the 1990’s.

  He had meant to go straight to the Museum of Antiquities. But it was a nice day outside, so instead he went to the Pier. A small amusement park had been built there — it was charming, like something from the turn of the last century, Siren thought. A smile played across his face. Yes. And the day itself, the sea breeze and the weather, reminded him very much of similar days back in Cyranus, Italy.

  But with a snarl, he came back to himself. Happiness! Happiness existed only to be smashed by disappointment and grief. He had not the time for that.

  Time was the thief, always the thief.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Siren looked up. A pretty woman, blonde, with freckles and green eyes looked down at him. He was startled. “What? Oh. No. Go ahead.”

  The woman sat down and smiled. “Hi. My name is Sabine. Sabine Cole.”

  Siren stared at her outstretched hand, somewhat amazed. She was not repulsed by his appearance? How could that be?

  He placed his salt-white scarred hand in her lovely, supple hand and shook.

  “Jonathan,” he said awkwardly. “Cyranus. Some people call me Siren.”

  She smiled — dazzling smile. “Siren? That’s a funny name. No offense.”

  “Well … yes. Yes, I suppose it is a funny name,” Siren said.

  “What’s your accent? I can’t make it out?”

  Siren smiled a little at that. “I was born in Italy. I’ve travelled a lot. I suppose I’ve picked up a few other accents here and there.”

  “What do you, Mr. Siren?” she asked with a laugh.

  “Oh. Well. A lot things. But mainly, I’m a collector of antiquities …”

  SABINE BECAME PREGNANT with Casey the following year.