by Magnus Flyte
EARLY PRAISE FOR
CITY of DARK MAGIC
“This deliciously madcap novel has it all: murder in Prague, time travel, a misanthropic Beethoven, tantric sex, and a dwarf with attitude. I salute you, Magnus Flyte!”
—Conan O’Brien
“The most wickedly enchanting novel I’ve ever read and also the funniest. A Champagne magnum of intrigue and wit, this book sparkles from beginning to end.”
—Anne Fortier, bestselling author of Juliet
“A story that abounds in mysterious portents, wild coincidences, violent death, and furtive but lusty sex . . . [this novel] cleverly combin[es] time travel, murder, history, and musical lore.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The riddle of Beethoven’s ‘Immortal Beloved,’ alchemy, and clandestine love fuse in this fastpaced, funny, romantic mystery . . . An exuberant, surprising gem.”
—Kirkus Reviews
PENGUIN BOOKS
CITY of DARK MAGIC
The manuscript of the book you are about to read arrived in the mail one day at Penguin headquarters in New York with no cover letter. It was written on stationery from the Hotel La Mamounia in Marrakech using a manual typewriter, and postmarked on the Isle of Mull. The return address was simply “Flyte, Magnus.” When the editors sought details about the author, they found them to be conflicting. He may be American. He may have ties to one or more intelligence organizations, including a radical group of Antarctic separatists. He may be the author of a monograph on carnivorous butterflies. He may live in Venice, Vienna, Vladivostok, or Vermont. City of Dark Magic may be his first novel.
CITY of DARK MAGIC
A Novel
MAGNUS FLYTE
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Pen1emguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa • Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in Penguin Books 2012
Copyright © Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey, 2012
All rights reserved
Map illustration by Rodica Prato
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This novel is a work of fiction. While some of the place names and family names are real, the characters and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Flyte, Magnus.
City of dark magic : a novel / Magnus Flyte.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-60306-2
1. Music students—Fiction. 2. Prague (Czech Republic)—Fiction. 3. Paranormal fiction. I. Title.
PS3606.L98C58 2012
813'.6—dc23
2012028676
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The scanning, uploadingic)g, uplo and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors’ rights is appreciated.
Contents
Praise for City of Dark Magic
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Map
Epigraph
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
FIFTY-FOUR
FIFTY-FIVE
FIFTY-SIX
FIFTY-SEVEN
FIFTY-EIGHT
FIFTY-NINE
SIXTY
SIXTY-ONE
SIXTY-TWO
SIXTY-THREE
SIXTY-FOUR
SIXTY-FIVE
SIXTY-SIX
Acknowledgments
Editor’s Note
Prince! what you are, you are by circumstance and by birth. What I am, I am through myself. Of Princes there have and will be thousands—of Beethovens there is only one.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN,
in a letter to Prince Lichnowsky, 1806
It is enough for the tourist to enter the twilit little streets of ancient Prague in the evening, and the same mood will breathe on him as has been felt for centuries by those who tell of the ghosts in Prague houses. It will not seem impossible to him, as he walks the winding alleys, that some of the strange inhabitants with which fantasy has peopled Prague should emerge from the flickering shadows before him.
JAN VANIS,
A Guide to Mysterious Prague
PROLOGUE
The Save Venice fund-raiser began as these things do, with Bellinis, with tiny toast points topped with squid pâté, and with swaying musicians playing the greatest hits of Italian opera beneath a fresco by Tiepolo. Sequined women and tuxedo-clad men stepped out of teak vaporetti onto the private dock at Ca’ Rezzonico, where, it was hoped, strong drink and the thought of beautiful palazzi sinking into the sands below would lift wallets as easily as a child pickpocket in the Piazza San Marco.
The organizers were salivating, greeting a German fashion designer, an American hedge fund owner, and a dour British playwright. Models had been hired to improve the beauty quotient, s
ince billionaires are not especially attractive up close.
But just after midnight, something had gone terribly wrong. That was when, as one of the carabinieri put it, the cascata dei corpi, or human waterfall, began. It was a minor member of the Saudi royal family who went first, startling everyone around him by emitting a series of hoarse screams and then crashing through a glass window and plummeting out of sight. A billionaire American industrialist, who onlookers at first thought was rushing to save the Saudi, soon joined him. They were the first two.
A honeymooning couple from Youngstown, Ohio, being poled up the Grand Canal were startled to see a series of bodies falling from the windows of the glittering palazzo. Inside, panic was raging and it was generally felt that very few that evening distinguished themselves by bravery. By the time it was over, seven people in formal wear and one waiter were floating facedown in the Grand Canal. Dead.
The city was in a panic, though a panic in Italy means most people still stand around coffee bars drinking espresso and Prosecco. St. Mark’s was still very crowded.
What had driven these people to suicide? Or were the unfortunate souls already dead when they hit the water? Despite the clamor of an army of international lawyers descendingroy like vultures, demanding the bodies of the dead, Venetian medical examiners were dutifully dissecting and testing the remains, which, since the city’s tiny morgue was full, were being housed in the Church of the Redeemer next door. Its cool marble interior was considered a more dignified choice than a nearby fruit warehouse.
Because all of the dead (except the waiter) were foreigners and very, very rich, it was headline news around the world. Camera crews had descended on the city, and the Grand Canal in front of the Ca’ Rezzonico was a flotilla of press boats. The local taxi boat drivers were pocketing wads of euros. The latest arrival had been crowds of teenage fans of Hilda Swenson, an eighteen-year-old Swedish pop star whose blond hair had streamed out around her floating corpse like a halo, it was said. Her Chihuahua, who had not been found and was presumed to have survived the fall, was sought by the police.
Crime scene analysts and antiterrorism experts had already combed the building and interrogated the caterers. It wasn’t a bomb, it wasn’t a gas, it wasn’t a deadly virus. “What did these people die of?” demanded the American president, who had lost one of his largest campaign contributors, of the Italian head of state.
It wasn’t a good answer, but it would allow Il Primo Ministro to save face until he could pressure the damn scientists for a better one.
“Fear,” said the Italian.
ONE
Sarah picked up the envelope and sniffed it. She had an especially sensitive nose, and something about the thick stationery was odd.
“I think it’s a letter,” said Bailey, with whom Sarah shared a tiny office on the top floor of Exeter Hall. They always gave the music grad students the worst offices. This one was unheated in winter, stiflingly hot in summer, and smelled faintly of mice.
“I can see it’s a letter,” said Sarah, moving Bailey’s troubadour bobblehead an inch to the left, knowing this would drive him nuts. They enjoyed finding ways to outmaneuver each other. Bailey was an expert on madrigals, while Sarah’s recent work at Thoreau College in Boston focused on the emerging field of neuromusicology. Sarah had spent most of last week wondering about the differences in the brains of musicians and non-musicians when it came to pitch perception, and whether pitch was something that non-musicians could conceptualize. She had forced Bailey to listen to her musings. It was only fair, since he had been playing a particularly annoying madrigal, “Hail the Buds of Spring,” over and over on his recorder.
Sarah ripped open the heavy brown paper envelope, and slid its contents—a thick wad of paper neatly tied in brown string—onto her lap. Bailey picked the discarded envelope up off her desk.
“It’s from Lobkowicz Palace, Prague, Czech Republic.”
“I can read, Bailey,” Sarah said, untying the string. “And it’s pronounced: LOB-ko-witz.”
The name was intriguing. In the early 1800s a Prince Lobkowicz had been a patron of Haydn and Beethoven, who had each dedicated a number of works to the prince as a thank-you. She hadn’t realized that the Lobkowicz family was still around, if these we stre the same ones.
Sarah looked down. The wad of paper looked like . . . money. Her jaw fell open and she looked more closely.
“Czech crowns,” said Bailey, leaning over her shoulder. “You know, it’s illegal to send cash through the mail.”
Sarah examined the inch-thick pile. A curly bearded king stared intently at something just below the left edge of the banknote.
“What’s a hundred worth?” Sarah asked Bailey, who quickly googled the answer. “Five dollars and fifty-seven cents,” he said.
“Oh,” said Sarah, who had been hoping the crown was worth a bit more. “But there are a lot of them here.” She unfolded a letter that had accompanied the currency.
“Well?” prompted Bailey. “What’s it all about? Are they trying to smuggle out their money?”
“No,” Sarah said, still reading. “They’re offering me a job for the summer.” Europe. Sarah had never been to Europe, although she had optimistically kept an up-to-date passport since she was sixteen. No one in her family had ever been to Europe, at least since they had fled the great famines of the nineteenth century. She looked up from the letter.
“This is just cab fare from the airport to the palace. They’re offering me two hundred thousand crowns for the summer.”
“That’s almost twelve thousand dollars!” Bailey exclaimed.
Sarah blinked. Her fellowship only covered the basics, which left her in the usual state of doctoral-candidate poverty. She hadn’t grown up with money; she was the first person in her family to go to college, let alone pursue a PhD. Twelve thousand dollars sounded to her like a million dollars.
A trip to Europe. To Prague.
Prague. It was too bad it wasn’t Vienna, since she had mastered German as an undergrad and Vienna was where Sarah’s personal and professional hero, Ludwig van Beethoven, had largely lived and worked. She might be able to finagle a side trip though.
“What do they want you to do?” asked Bailey. “Not that it matters, because you’ll do it.”
Sarah read further. “It’s about a museum the Lobkowicz family is opening,” she reported. “They have a huge collection of art, musical instruments, weapons, ceramics, books. A trove of handwritten scores: Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. Letters and other documents to do with music. They need help sorting, deciding which things should go on display, which need restoration work.” Sarah leaned forward and started typing at her computer.
“Are you looking up Lobkowicz?” Bailey asked. “’Cause I’m already there. One of the oldest Bohemian families, princes of the Holy Roman Empire, knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece, enormous fortune, politically powerful. Joseph Franz Maximilian, 7th Prince Lobkowicz, was a patron of Haydn and Beethoven, who dedicated—”
“Yes, I know about him,” Sarah interrupted.
“Hereditary titles were abolished in 1918,” Bailey rattled on. “So they’re not really princes anymore. That sucks.”
“Maximilian Lobkowicz,” S CbkoSo they’arah said, reading, “1888 to 1967. He was a patriot and a supporter of the newly formed Czechoslovak State. He fled the Nazis in 1939 and they seized the entire family fortune.”
“So they lost everything,” Bailey said, picking up the story. “Until 1945, when the family returned after the war and got everything restituted back to them! And then . . . oh. Oops.”
“And then the communists confiscated it all again in 1948,” Sarah said. “The family was forced to flee a second time. It looks like everything stayed lost until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The family has been gathering up the stuff since then, I guess. And now they want to open a museum.”
“Well, that’s all clear enough,” Bailey said. “But why do they want you?”
Sarah didn’t
take offense at the question. She knew herself to be a gifted student, exceptional even, and she had experience with archival work. But she wasn’t a world-class musicologist—not yet. She had been a student of such a person, which was how she knew she wasn’t at that level.
Dr. Absalom Sherbatsky’s “Music Cognition” seminar was by far the hardest class to get into in Sarah’s graduate program. In fact, Sherbatsky had been known to cancel his course altogether if there were no applicants he deemed worthy to receive his wisdom. (He had refused to teach at Harvard after a class there had “failed” him.) When it was announced that Dr. Sherbatsky would be leading a special series of lectures with the disarming title “Beethoven: In One Ear and Out the Other,” Sarah was intrigued.
For the first class, Sherbatsky strode in with a boom box circa 1985 and popped in a tape of Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture, op. 72.
“You’ve heard it before?” Sherbatsky smiled, all mock innocence. “Really? You know this one?” He folded his arms and tucked his chin into his Brooks Brothers shirt, closed his eyes. A few of the more sycophantic students copied this pose. Sarah leaned forward, intent on recognizing the recording. Hans Knappertsbusch and Munich’s Bavarian State Orchestra most likely.
Sherbatsky played the overture through to the conclusion and then asked for a student to write out the French horn passage in the second theme of the allegro on the chalkboard. Several hands shot up eagerly.
“So you’ll all agree?” Sherbatsky asked, when this was done. “This is correct?” Nodding all around. “This is what you heard?” More nodding.
“No,” said Sarah. Sherbatsky shot a look her way. “It’s what it should be,” Sarah said. “But it’s not what’s on that recording.” Sarah approached the chalkboard and made a quick adjustment to the second measure. “The second horn made kind of a silly mistake. The recording is live, obviously, but not performance. Dress rehearsal, I’m thinking.”
