by Andy Hyland
He didn’t wait for an answer. Simply turned and stalked away without looking back. Damn it. I never was good at making new friends.
Back to the old friends, then. Encountering Dialgo had cost me time. I slid over, aiming to arrive near to Benny’s but not too close – a block away in the dark Manhattan of the Fades. I edged along, walking quickly but sticking to the walls. At the corner I peered round and saw a group of three. Arabella was the youngest. With her was Valen and a guy I didn’t recognize. He was short and fat, in a badly fitting cheap suit. Greasy hair over a red, angry face. Orders were being given, the instructions spat out, accompanied by jabs of his podgy fingers. Valen looked impassive, Arabella intense, drinking up every word.
The fat guy finished, turned on his heels and marched back inside Benny’s. Times like this made me wish it wasn’t so guardedly neutral. Walking in and beating the crap out of him till I had my answers would save me a huge amount of time. Still, maybe there was something to be said for following him rather than Arabella.
I shook the thought away. This wasn’t only about the intel – it was about protecting her, finding a way to extract her from whatever she’d got involved in. Fat guy’s time would come, as would Valen’s, if it turned out he was anything other than a good influence on her.
I let them stay half a block ahead as we moved through the streets. It was easier to gauge distance now the buildings were ranged about us. Somehow the Fades was more manageable when you could break it down into blocks.
After more than an hour, they turned right and disappeared, sliding at the end of an alley. I hurried forward. Time and location were only ever approximate when sliding between the Fades and Earth, but if someone else slid and you were close enough behind them, you could ride the slipstream they created. They’d picked a thin place, and the slide was easy.
Sure enough, I came through Earth-side about a hundred meters behind them, at the end of another alley. They were paying no attention, studying a door off to the right. Some warehouse with cheap offices bolted on to the side. Not exactly prime real estate. Valen crouched down, picked the lock. It was daylight, no shadows to move in, so I had to wait until they were inside before running up.
The door led into a small kitchen – bare and cheap, teabags and jars of instant coffee scattered round, with cups and mugs that hadn’t been washed well enough to remove the dark rings near the top.
A couple of empty rooms with threadbare carpets were off to each side. Nothing in any of those, so I stepped quietly forward, following a corridor that curved round to the left. Noises from above me. I moved round and trotted up a small staircase. At the top was a single door, ajar, with a small reinforced square glass panel at head height.
Valen was standing at the far side of the room. If he’d looked up right then he’d have seen me peering back at him. But all his attention was fixed on Arabella. She was standing, fists clenched, above a figure lying on his back, hands held in front of his head in self-defense. He was an old guy – the other side of sixty, maybe closer to seventy. White tufty hair and loose skin. Dressed in an orange boiler suit, embroidered badge on the chest, some sort of uniform.
Arabella took a swipe at his head. He fended it off, which only made her angry. Or angrier, rather – she scowled down at him contemptuously. As punishment for not taking the punch, she lifted a boot and drove it hard into his stomach. And again. And again. They old man’s whimpering stopped – not he was gasping for breath, gulping, trying to force air back into his lungs.
“Enough,” Valen said. Arabella looked up at him. Was that disappointment on her face? What had gotten into her, for pity’s sake? Valen walked over to the old man and dropped to a knee, talking to him, voice too low for me to hear. The old man was starting to sob now, nodding, eyes closed.
Arabella looked over and saw me watching. She must have been expecting me to show up, but there was shock on her face. Then something else. Something like embarrassment. Good to see she was still capable of that after beating up on a pensioner. She bit her lip and her eyes opened wide in a warning, willing me to move away.
I took the hint, and descended the stairs three at a time, using the rails to slide, stepping lightly. At the bottom I ducked into a cupboard and pulled the door closed behind me. I counted three minutes before footsteps went past. Arabella’s boots, and what must have been Valen’s heeled black shoes. When I was absolutely sure they’d gone, I made my way back up. The old guy was sitting on the floor now, crying quietly.
He looked up at me and shrank back as I came through the door. “Easy,” I said, holding my palms up, “I’m here to help. Heard some noise, came to check if anything was going down.”
His face was a mess. The left eye was swollen shut, the skin purple. Lips were mashed up, nose was busted. But it was the fear in his eyes that got to me. Nobody should ever be that scared. Well, nobody who didn’t deserve to be. And this guy looked like he’d done nothing more than turn up for work.
I knelt down, still staying a few paces away. “Do you know who did this?”
He shook his head. That was something. I wanted to get Arabella out of this situation. Not see her go to jail, even if that would have been appropriate in the eyes of some people.
“What did they want? Why did they do it?”
He didn’t speak. Just shook his head. Clearly he’d been warned not to talk. I sighed. Back in the good old days, I could flick a mesmer in his direction and he’d be putty in my hands – something Arabella or Valen could have done, but had chosen not to. And one of Becky’s verity chains would have done the same job. But neither of those options were available. All I could do was scare him more than they did. More than Arabella did. And from his eyes, I knew I wasn’t capable of that. A phone rang across the room. He jumped, eyeing me nervously.
“Get the phone. Get yourself an ambulance. I’ll go see if I can find who did these.”
“Please…don’t,” he said, almost too quietly to hear. “They said not to. Not to. I mustn’t.” And then he started crying again.
I stood up and left, wishing I could do more, but knowing I couldn’t. Outside, I didn’t feel any trace of them sliding. Either they’d stayed Earth-side or slidden too far away for me to sense. My shoulders slumped. Times like this I could really have done with having Becky to talk to. Zack’s mobile rang through. I checked the time. A few minutes before eleven in the morning. Sod it. I needed a drink.
Benny’s was deserted. Just me around, apparently. The fat guy couldn’t have stayed long. I mentioned him to Benny, gave a quick description. “Seen him? Wouldn’t have been that long ago.”
Benny’s face was carefully expressionless. “I can’t get involved in that. Sorry.”
“This neutrality thing you’ve got going, Benny. Really sucks at times like this.”
“Ignoring it would suck big time for me.” Something in his eyes told me that wasn’t an idle warning.
I sighed. “Line me up a few beers.”
“Any preference?”
“A variety. Let’s start with five and go from there.”
As I drank, I poured my heart out about the problem with Arabella. “I should have seen it coming. Really should have seen that.”
Benny nodded. “It was one of the reasons Becky was always so hard on her. To some of you,” and he avoided my eyes here, “the violence was a bit of a joke. You indulged her, like a kid. Which she is, I suppose, a kid sister to all of you. But she’s angry, and it’s getting worse, and Becky was looking a few years down the track at what could happen.”
“It didn’t take a few years though, did it?”
“Becky dying did a lot. Arabella’s hurt and she can’t handle it, so she’s lashing out in the only way she knows how.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. What are you going to do?” He raised his eyebrows, stuck another three bottles in front of me, and walked off. A few seconds later he reappeared, holding a padded white envelope. “With ever
ything that’s going on, this slipped my mind. I hold things for people. Last letters, things like that. This one’s got your name on it. Sober up before you read it. Walk around a bit. Get your head in order. This sort of thing demands respect.”
I weighed it up. Benny was simply staring at me, giving nothing away. “I wish you weren’t playing your cards so close to your chest. The way things are going, I really need someone to talk to.”
“Lonely at the top, is it?” he asked, giving me a sad smile. Then he walked away. I figured he wasn’t coming back in a hurry, so I put some notes on the bar and left, shaking off the effects of the beer as I walked out the door. I stood looking around for a few minutes, still amazed at how this place had sprung into being. For years – decades, centuries? – the Fades rattled along, and now this. All because, I thought with a spark of pride, little old me.
Something moved to my left. I glanced over but it had gone. Then it was back, high up on a building, fifty meters or more. Gray, gliding smoothly, hugging the surfaces. Even at this distance I could see the red eyes. But had it seen me? I slid, forcing my way through the veil, practically falling out the other side, breathless, a cold sweat on my back. They were really here. The ratten horde was in town.
Chapter twelve
I walked for an hour or more, eventually finding myself back in Central Park, skirting the lakes, striding hard. Even with the sun overhead, even with runners in T-shirts going past, the day felt cold to me. Eventually I found an empty bench and sat down, mentally running through my list of Really Big Shit to Deal With.
First of all, there was the David Lamarchand issue, all wound up with Julie being kept away from me, and possibly – hell, who was I trying to kid? – definitely in danger.
Item number two was the serial shadow killer, taking out the Aware and the hellkind – which reminded me, I’d have to catch up with Stacey and check she was okay. Related to the Lamarchand issue? Absolutely. How? Pass.
Item three, hampering my progress with everything else, was the fact that I couldn’t use magic. Which, for a mage, was bloody embarrassing. And potentially lethal. This needed sorting out.
Finally, the big ticket item was the slave grab by Molech’s posse. He’d sent in the big guns, using the horde. Arabella was caught up in it, and Valen was in even further. What exactly their role was, I didn’t know. Someone would be running the show Earth-side, and it wasn’t Molech. He’d never come this far through the Fades. Raid like this, standard stuff, probably any one of a hundred elevated foot soldiers. None of them pleasant. All of them way beyond my ability to deal with, at the moment. But deal with them I’d have to, because I wasn’t standing back and letting them take any more kids. Not on my watch, mister.
Those were the challenges. I quickly ran down my list of resources. Zack, obviously. The big guy always had my back. Mercy? To an extent – she’d clearly help if she could, but the Union were involved, and despite having a soft spot for Liberty, I didn’t trust them, or the forces behind them. Benny was waving his neutrality round like a shield, fending off all comers. Dialgo – well, some fences needed mending there.
Shit. Becky, I miss you, you bitch.
I needed some good news. I pulled out the envelope Benny had given me. It felt aged, but maybe that was how things went in the Fades. No idea how long he’d held on to it for. I tore it open and pulled out a thick wad of paper. One short handwritten note, attached to a thick legal-looking document on stiff cream paper. I read the note first.
“Hi Malachi. If you’re reading this, then something truly disastrous has happened. I’m dead, and you’re still alive. This, if nothing else, shows beyond any doubt that the universe truly is an unfair place. I mean, look how much more I had to give than you. Think how much more diminished the world is by my absence than it would have been by yours.
Turning serious for a moment, I want to say thanks. You know what it’s like for us. We get ripped away from our families, all our friends, and after wandering for a while we end up where we end up, alone. But we don’t stay that way, and I count myself blessed to have found you. The others as well, but you in particular. You’re more than you think you are, better than you think you are. And I rest a bit easier knowing that everyone’s in safe hands as long as you’re around.
I’ve got some money stashed away for a rainy day, and my apartment’s a bit closer to where the action usually is than where you are at the moment – could come in useful. And if there’s anything else I’m able to give you when the end gets near, I’ll see that it comes your way. For the greater good.
I wonder how I went out. In a blaze of glory, I hope. Facing down the big bad, all guns firing. But most of all, I hope I went out surrounded by the people I love. I hope I went out next to you. Take care of yourself. Head up, shoulders back.
I wonder, if at the end, I’ll get the white light this time.
Becky xxx
P.S. Melanie really is a bitch. Don’t you dare get back together with her.”
Tears were running down my face by the time I was half way through. Two people stopped to ask if I was alright, which gives you some idea of how bad I must have looked. You don’t get that sort of thing happening much, not around here.
The bundle behind the note was a last will and testament, a summary page on top informing me that I was the sole heir of Rebecca Maureen O’Taitley, and that I should present myself along with this document to her attorney, Mr Michael Sturgess, who would furnish me with the necessary keys, cash, etcetera etcetera.
I stayed there for a while, holding the letter and watching the water. As the sun finally started to set, I got up, grabbed a hot dog, and headed home. That night I drank some coke, watched some TV and slept like a log, unassisted by alcohol. Tonight the world, and all the other ones, could continue on their merry way. I was off duty for a little while. Tomorrow I’d get some stuff done.
*
First on the agenda was showing up at the offices of Michael Sturgess, attorney at law. Nothing plush or fancy, just a beaten up converted ground floor apartment downtown, two streets away from Becky’s old place. The receptionist eyed me warily, even though I was decently dressed and perfectly civil, and told me to sit in reception. I waited there, for no discernable reason, for about half an hour, wondering if this was what normal life looked like.
Eventually a nervous man in a discount-rack suit that was a size too large stuck his head round the corner. “Mr…English?”
“That’s me.” I stood up and shook his hand. Limp. Sweaty. We went into a side office where I gave him Becky’s envelope, minus the personal note. He looked it over, and stepped out for a minute, before returning with an identical envelope, from which he removed an identical-looking document. Fifteen minutes it took for him to compare them, line by line, running his finger down the page.
“You have some identification?” he asked eventually. I passed over my driving license. Completely fake, of course, but good enough to cut the mustard.
Finally, he put his hands together, looked me in the eye and spoke carefully. “Normally there would be more to do, but Rebecca was very clear about keeping things informal, and she paid enough to make that happen. Let’s be clear now. Once you leave here with what I’m about to give you, this meeting never took place. All documents will be destroyed. No official papers will be filed. With anyone. Ever. Is that clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Very well.” He left again and came back with a shoebox, tightly sealed and bound with a red ribbon. “There’s this,” he said, “and the keys.” He gave me the box and dropped the keys into my hand. “That concludes our business.”
“You do this often?” I asked, genuinely curious. “I mean, this is all less than completely legit, right?”
He smiled thinly. “It’s all off the books. I have some experience with people in your position. And some sympathy as well. If there are any services that you require similar to Rebecca’s, I am at your disposal. I am trustworthy. I would strongly su
ggest you put at least some things in place, against the…the inevitable.”
I nodded. “You have a card?”
“Not necessary. You know where I am.”
“Understood.”
A short walk down the road and I was standing outside Becky’s place. The sign for Madam Morgana, Becky’s cover and alias, looked tired, scuffed and old. That could come down. But not yet. Becky had disabled her magical security a few days before she died, so only the physical locks needed dealing with. I let myself in and went up the stairs. The door at the top, one I’d long dreaded because of the invasive way it probed you before granting you entry, was, for the moment, only a door.
The apartment was a wreck. Not from any scuffle, though some of Melanie’s dried blood was still in the bathroom following Arabella’s interrogation. No, it was Becky’s hoarder tendencies that kept things this way. I cleared a space at the table and sat down, opening the shoebox. Nothing inside but handwritten notes. Some in envelopes addressed to Zack, Arabella, Scorpio, and a few other names I half-recognized. Everything else was a haphazard guide to the apartment – how to trigger the security, the locations of all the most important stashes – cash and magical, and operating guidelines for some of the more experimental artifacts she was working on.
I sat for while, taking it in. It didn’t feel like mine – that would take a long time to kick in. One day I’d have to tidy the place or it would drive me mad. But for now there was too much of my friend left – her smell, the way she’d chucked half a box of chicken wings behind the TV, the crumpled sheets on the bed.
Then I got moving. Becky had expectations of me. They were unfounded and far too high, as far as I was concerned, but she didn’t give me all this so I could sit around moping. That wasn’t something she’d ever tolerated.
