by Andy Hyland
The upstairs hallways and bedrooms were equally pristine. “Through here,” Zack shouted from the master bedroom, at the far end. I followed the sound of his voice, into a room out of a fairytale. A broad, four poster bed with satin curtains falling down in waves and more cushions and pillows than any sane person could ever want.
“You know,” said Zack, looking at me with a frown, “I’m sure him and Julie didn’t…”
“I wasn’t even thinking that. Good grief, get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Sure. Through here.” He nodded back to a door in the corner. At first glance you’d take it to be a closet, or maybe a bathroom. It actually led to a room at least twice the size of the master bedroom. “Guess this is where he spent most of his time.”
A large oak desk stood beneath a wide, tall window that looked out over a small yard. Across the desk were scattered twenty or thirty large, blown-up photographs. Taken from a distance, at a guess. Zoom lens. Unsuspecting subjects. Some of them were faces I’d never seen. Others, however, I’d known for years.
“Gwen,” Zack said, pointing to the photo of an old girlfriend, concern touching his voice. “Don’t tell me he went after Gwen.”
“We don’t know that. This could be a pile of potentials. Bloody hell, look at this stuff.” I’d moved over to the shelving that ran along the walls. Files and files of notes, reports, more photos. “He’s had his little disciples out tailing all the Aware he could find.”
“A major operation, then.”
“No, a lone nutcase. But what a nutcase.”
“Check this out,” said Zack. He’d pried the lid off a packing crate in the corner. “Man, this box alone is worth thousands. I could sell this stuff all day long.”
“Let me look.” I pulled out book after book. Major tomes. Magical histories. Some languages I didn’t even recognize. “I’m guessing Ellen’s library. This must have been her study.”
“And now he’s using it to…what?” asked Zack. “Did he hate her? Is that what this is? Revenge?”
“Can’t be,” I said, remembering the photo. “We’re missing something. What’s over here?”
I grabbed a rough hemp sack from the other corner and tipped it out. Knives. So many knives. Silver, steel, curved, straight, runed and charmed. “Scorpio?”
Zack knelt down and picked up a few, assessing them with a trained eye. “Almost certainly. She didn’t exactly show off her collection, but it all adds up. Again, this is exquisite work, worth as much as the books, at least. And he dumps it in a corner? In a sack?”
I picked a mug of coffee up from the desk. Cold. Yesterday’s, maybe. “He’s not here. That’s the problem. And we’ve still not got anything that’s going to tell us where he is. And what the hell to do about him when we do track him down.”
“We could wait.”
I pointed to the photos on the desk. “And what happens to Gwen while we sit here? Or the others? Come on, let’s keep moving.”
We spent two hours going over the large house in detail. No door remained unopened. No rug remained unmoved. But there was no other sign of life in the house apart from a small bedroom on the third floor, which David had obviously been sleeping in. Clothes in the closet, toothpaste in the bathroom, the essentials. Even his car, nice as it was, didn’t reflect the level of wealth that he must have access to. The only personal touch in the room was another photograph, in a bronze frame. David and Ellen, smiling together, sitting with a picnic in Gramercy Park.
I met up with Zack in the hallway by the front door. Every room had been gone over at least twice. Pictures had been moved. We’d found a safe behind one of them, but it was unlocked and empty.
I looked up at a framed portrait of a young Ellen. Must have been commissioned by her husband. Blonde hair, full lips, quite the looker. And a glint of determination in her eyes, the kind of look that you’d need if you going to scale the slippery slope in an organization like the Union. I wonder how much her husband ever knew.
I turned away and considered myself in the dressing mirror that stretched from floor to ceiling, presumably for those last-minute touches before you left for a night on the town with high society. I needed a shave. Needed to slow down and take it all in. Needed – hold on a minute. “Zack, here, now.”
“Don’t call me like I’m a dog,” he moaned, making his way back from the kitchen where he’d found a jar of pickles in the fridge. “What is it?”
“Look. Tell me what you see.”
He looked at suspiciously. “I see a mirror. Is this a trick question?”
“And in the mirror? Say what you see.”
“You. Me. I’m better looking, have to say. Stairs over there. Table. Old Ellen up on the wall. Hang on.”
Good. He saw it as well. I wasn’t losing it. Behind us on the wall was the picture of Ellen in her prime, all svelte and blonde and lovely. In the mirror, however, the portrait was of the older Ellen, still smiling, but far closer to the age she would have been when she died.
“The little minx,” said Zack, admiration in his voice. “How did she do that?”
“Wrong question. Why did she do that?” I reached out, touching the mirror. Couldn’t see any runes, but it was definitely charmed. A current of power, but nothing dangerous or threatening, more of an invitation. I closed my eyes, felt the flow, went with it, met with it, let it test me, wash over me.
“Malachi, you might want to open your eyes,” Zack said quietly.
I looked up. My hand had disappeared inside the mirror. “Think we got lucky,” I said, and stepped forward. The surface of the mirror washed over me like a cold breeze, or a clear stream. Something familiar yet strange all at once. I was standing in a hallway, the mirror image of the one I’d left. Looking back, Zack was there, waving at me. I beckoned him forward. He grimaced, closed his eyes, and went for it.
“Who has come?” asked a woman’s voice from the sitting room.
“If that’s a giant rabbit with a pocket watch, I’m going to be very upset,” said Zack.
“Eh?”
“Rabbit? I’m late, I’m late? Alice? Looking glass? You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
“You can fill me in later. I’m pretty confident it’s not a rabbit, though.”
Zack rolled his eyes and fell into line behind me as I walked through the door. Again, the sitting room was identical, but reversed, in almost every respect to the one we’d already thoroughly searched. Twice. A few things seemed off, but nothing I could put my finger on.
The big difference was the woman standing in the center of the room, smiling at us. Ellen. Not a ghost, not an illusion, or a hologram. Ellen. As far as I could tell. My magical senses said nobody was there, but they were also telling me that I was standing in, and surrounded by, absolutely nothing, so I’m guessing they were out of their comfort zone at this point. Zack walked forward and placed a hand on her arm, gently, as if he was worried about scaring her. “She’s there,” he reported. Good to know.
She stared at the door, patient and unmoving. “Who has come, and why are you here?”
“Hello,” I said. “Not to be rude, but are you real?”
“Who has come, and why are you here?” she repeated.
“It’s a recording,” said Zack.
“Looks like it. Let’s try getting it to open up a bit. I’m Malachi English,” I said to the Ellen-shaped device. “This is Zack Preston.”
“Why are you here,” she asked.
“We need to find David. We need to stop him. Can you help us?”
A pause. “Why are you here?”
“David is killing people,” Zack tried. “Why is he doing this? What is he?”
Another pause. “Why are you here?”
“We’re not getting though, I said,” pacing back and forth. “We need a trigger phrase.”
“She’s Ellen, essentially,” said Zack. “Created by her, for a purpose. Meant to be heard. What would she want?”
I looked arou
nd. Same room. Same books and shelves. Same decade-old television in the corner. Same uncomfortable-looking sofa by the wall, with the picture on the table next to it. Another picture of Ellen with David. Smiling. Happy.
What would Ellen want?
“Ellen,” I said slowly. “David is in trouble. We need to help David.”
Ellen’s face grew serious. “You wish to help David.”
“That did the trick,” Zack muttered.
Ellen sighed and began to speak. “I feared that David would find life difficult once I was gone. It is – was, rather – to be expected. I have been his rock of stability. I have shorn up the blocks in his memory. Soothed him when he woke in the night screaming. I cannot, indeed I do not wish to, live forever, but I regret now not making alternative arrangements. The Union is fragmenting, and elements in there cannot be trusted. Besides, they have done enough damage. My family…I have not spoken with my family for some time. And as the Aware in this city – forgive me here, for you must be Aware yourself – from what I have seen and experienced, they are feral, self-serving and ill-disciplined.”
“Ouch,” said Zack.
“It’s almost like she knows us,” I added.
“Perhaps,” Ellen continued, “it was best for David’s sake that he was isolated, shut away, hidden from himself within a deep and winding enchantment. But in my darkest moments, I wonder. If you are here, then you are neither of the Union nor the Host, for the house defenses would prevent you from entering. But you must be Aware, else how could you have passed through the gateway? I can only hope that you exceed my somewhat low expectations, and that you prove yourself to be more than I thought you to be.”
“Not out to make friends, is she?”
“Hush, Zack.”
“If you are here, if David is in need of assistance, then you need to understand his tale in its entirety. Otherwise you will simply not grasp what he is, or…why he acts in a certain way on occasions. I expect you know that my daughter, Elizabeth Marie Lamarchand, was taken from this world in 1991. Not in death, though at times I wish she had been killed that night, but into slavery, deep into the Fades, to the heart of the hellplains.”
Zack reached out and grabbed my shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly.
“In all the years since, in the black sleepless nights, I have had to face the fact that it was my fault. I was young, naïve. I saw promise and honor and dignity in the Union. When the operation was planned, I offered my own daughter. She was ten years old. I cannot ignore the element of ambition in the proposal. I desired advancement. What better way to demonstrate my commitment than by giving my child, the Isaac to my Abraham?”
“Poor bitch,” I muttered. “How did she live with that?”
“I was given assurances of course. The representative of the Host on this mission, a slip of a thing, Tabbris, gave every assurance that she would oversee things personally. In the event, she was absent. Only Union operatives were there, and none of them returned home to their families. For long years I mourned, a childless widow, utterly alone. And then one day Tabbris returned with news.”
“Here it comes,” said Zack.
“They had found the encampment where Elizabeth Marie was taken. She had…died some years previously. But she bore a son. My grandson. It is, I understand, not unusual for slaves to be bred. Tabbris proposed a raid to reclaim him. She asked for my blessing, which I gave without hesitation. How could I do otherwise?”
“You know this Tabbris?” Zack asked.
“We’ve met. Piece of work, but if I was in a fight I’d want her on my side.”
“He was twelve when he was returned to me. My beautiful David. My darling boy. He did not know, did not understand this world. He was full of such anger, such rage, such pain.” Her voice grew hard. “The Union, the Host, they were concerned, but there was something they wanted from me, and in order to obtain it, I was able to extract binding oaths. That he should not be harmed, by their hand or by the hand of another that they knew of. That he should be left alone. Left to live his life as he chooses. They had no choice but to accept.”
“What did she give them to get that kind of oath?” Zack whispered.
“I don’t know, but it’s left us royally screwed when we go up against him.”
“From then on, I suppressed his memory. It proved most effective. He thinks his parents died in a car accident when he was young. That he went to a private school upstate. That we have always lived here, content with our solitary lives. He has hobbies, he enjoys reading. I have every confidence that the charms I have woven will prove resilient and permanent.”
“And that’s where it all falls down,” I said.
“But if I am wrong,” she continued, “then I fear for him. He has never been able to process his life, work through his issues, overcome his anger. Deep in the night I hear him talking sometimes, and it is not any language spoken by humans. I can only hope and pray that he knows peace in the years that remain to him. He has done nothing to deserve any less. It is we who have failed him. My arrogance that brought it all down upon him. Remember this, and be kind. There is other information that you need, and you will find it on the mantelpiece behind the clock.”
We stood there, waiting for her to continue.
“There is other information that you need,” she said again, “and you will find it on the mantelpiece behind the clock.”
“I guess that’s our cue,” I said, and walked over to the fire. Sure enough, behind the clock was a red folder, bound with a blue ribbon. Hefty. Fair bit of paperwork in there.
“I can do no more,” Ellen said. “Go in peace.”
Silence. I looked at Zack. “That it, then?” he asked.
“Anything more to add?” I asked Ellen.
“Why are you here?”
“That would be a no, then. You want to look through this here?” I asked Zack, waving the folder.
“Let’s get back to the real world. There’s a table in the kitchen. And food.”
“Understood. After you.”
We left the room, walking back out to where the mirror stood, its surface shimmering. Zack stepped through. I was about tofollow when I noticed the table to the side. An ornate bronze key sat there. I looked through to the other side of the mirror, to check my memory wasn’t playing tricks. No, I was right – empty table there, no key. Interesting. Ellen hadn’t mentioned it, but it could come in useful. If I ever found out what it unlocked. Tucking it back in my pocket, I left Ellen’s little memory capsule and pocket world, and went back to my own.
“So what have we got?” Zack asked, munching on another pickled onion as I leafed through the folder. “Looks like she put a ton of stuff in there.”
“She did that alright.” Letters, memoranda, minutes of meetings – a documented history of everything I’d learned so far, from Mercy’s file and now from Ellen herself. All completely legit. At the back was something that resembled paper, but which I was pretty sure was nothing of the kind. A gossamer thin, transparent thing that glittered and swam with symbols. “I’m guessing this is a copy of all the promises she got out of Tabbris.”
“And ripping it up won’t make the whole thing go away?”
I offered it to him. “You want to try that?”
“Maybe not. Come on, you’ve been through the whole thing now. There’s got to be something that’ll take us to where he’s hiding out.”
“Besides this place, where’s he ever been? Even Trueflame never had an HQ as such. It floated between halls and community centers. There’s no other place he’d have a connection to apart from here.”
“Has to be.”
“Unless. No, memory can’t work like that, can it?. That couldn’t work.”
“Malachi, we’re bloody wizards. Stop talking like things are impossible. Spit it out.”
I flicked back through the file to near the beginning, and pulled out a faded, stapled-together document, with “CLASSIFIED” in large red letters on the front. An operatio
nal plan for a sting to catch slavers. I found the relevant paragraph and pointed it out, sliding it across the table so Zack could see. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s the only lead we’ve got. Let’s get going.”
We nodded to Ellen’s portrait as we left, paying our respects. Sure, she’d screwed up big time, but she’d paid. Still a hell of a woman. Time to help David, or die trying.
Chapter seventeen
The cab dropped us off right outside where we needed to be. Ideally I’d have wanted to scout the area, but when time’s up against you, you take your chances. It was an old warehouse on West 55th, by the river. Run down. Broken windows, rusted metal, rotting wood. Nothing worth taking notice of, was the strong impression it gave out. A basic level charm to keep intruders away.
“Think this is it?” Zack asked.
“Oh, I’d say so,” I replied, pointing up to the surrounding rooftops. “There’s the honor guard.” Three, four, no, six of them. Host security, jeans, T-shirts and ripped arms, standing perfectly still, watching.
“And they’re really not going to lift a finger to do anything about him?” Zack said.
“We can’t,” said Tabbris, appearing behind us. Her face was etched in worry, despite the confidence she exuded. “It’s about time you got here. We’ve been waiting.”
“It’s not like we had a lot to go on,” I countered.
She nodded. “But you’re resourceful, if nothing else. You understand by now why I couldn’t give you any more help than I did. And why I can’t assist you now.”
“You’re telling me you can’t find one small loophole that will let you take action against a man who’s a threat to everyone – everyone – he comes across?”
“We’re the Host. We don’t do loopholes.”
“Mercy found a way to help. She gave us a file.” I caught the glint in her eye. “Which you knew about, didn’t you? So you did work a bloody loophole.”
“The file, which I knew about, but certainly didn’t authorize, and will have to speak to Mercy about, did not mention David. It covered Ellen’s career with the Union. No more.”
