by Andy Hyland
“I didn’t say I approved, but that’s just how it is. One less thing to worry about.”
“Are we all going?” Arabella asked.
Zack pointed to the emerald brooch. “It’s not like we can split up, is it?”
“I’ll take the meeting with Julie, you two are on lookout. We’ll get there early so you can take up decent positions.”
“Sounds good. Just don’t drive off with him,” said Zack. “I don’t fancy our chances of lasting the night if you do. The Host could be after us by now.”
“Relax,” I told them. “Things are looking up. Stay positive.”
The meeting spot was a wide alley behind a couple of large industrial units in Hell’s Kitchen. Zack and Arabella took up opposing positions on reasonably flat first story roofs either side. I waited in the shadows with Julie, who’d thankfully stopped glowing by this point.
“Stop looking at your watch,” she muttered. “You knew we were here early. Max is never early or late - he’ll be here exactly when he said he’d be.”
“So…you and Max. Pretty close?”
“He’s been very helpful in giving me some tips.”
“On?”
“Managing you for one thing. Oh relax, I’ve got my own life as well you know. Dad’s money and the name.” She sighed. “Now that he’s gone it seems I’m a magnet for social climbers. Max has given me some really good pointers on who to stick with and who to avoid. It keeps me out of trouble.”
“And I get you into it,” I said, smiling grimly.
She reached out and took my hand. “I’m not complaining. Give me this life over opera and ladies who lunch. Any day.” She looked at me. “I’m serious, Malachi. I’m serious about us and the life we have. But we can’t ignore our responsibilities. If we could unite the magic community, present a united front to the hellkind, life could be easier. Less people would be hurt.”
“Peace in our time.”
“Cynic.”
“Always. But you’re right. Maybe it’s time to grow up. I just have to survive this first.”
Headlights appeared at the end of the alley and turned towards us. Julie lifted my wrist and glanced at my watch. “Told you,” she said. “On time, to the minute.”
I’m not sure whether I’ve actually got a sixth sense, in the way that most people use the phrase. As in, some limited ability to perceive that something’s about to happen. Maybe over the years my finely tuned survival instincts have learned to pick up on the smallest details, extrapolate forwards, and tell my mind to get out of harm’s way. Wherever those signals actually come from, they were firing hard and fast at me now.
“Something’s wrong,” I told Julie, and started to pull her backwards.
“You sure?” She started to look up and around. Zack flung his hands up in a ‘what’s-happening’ gesture.
“I’m sure. Get up on that bin. Jump to Zack. Do it. Now!” As soon as I started speaking, the car began to accelerate towards us. I gave Julie a shove, and once I was sure she was on her way - Zack could be trusted to look after her from here - I ran towards the other side of the alley, where Arabella was positioned. The car was still coming, the headlights dazzling, and someone had their foot on the accelerator.
I’d run towards Arabella’s side of the alley because there were no fire escapes there, and what I was going to try wasn’t exactly a sharply honed piece of casting. Every now and then a mage decides that they’re going to try to fly. Actually fly. Like superman. So they try it. And then they all die. Much trickier than it looks. I wasn’t going for anything so dramatic - I just needed enough lift to get me up to the roof. More an augmented jump than anything else.
With seconds to spare before the car made contact with my legs, I drew on the cast and leaped up. Where momentum ended, magic took over, and I sailed up towards Arabella. And then right over her head, accelerating towards the high flat wall of an industrial unit. She reached up to grab my legs, but I was already too high. Below and behind me came a sickening crunch of metal as the car smashed into the wall where we’d just been standing.
I hit the brickwork and slid downwards, rough surfaces scraping the skin from my hands as I scrabbled for purchase. Then my back hit the almost-flat roof, and I half-slid, half-rolled my way to the edge, where with a lack of grace I simply fell three meters to the floor, almost landing on my feet and without serious injury. Not bad. Nobody dead, so I’d consider that a job well done.
The car was in much worse shape than I was. Once a sleek black limo, now it was a write-off. The engine was screaming, wheels still spinning, throwing up a cloud of grit and dust into my face. The other three were clambering down from their perches to stand beside me. I called up a small wind to clear the air and give us a clear sight of the best way forward. Two people were in that car, and we needed to get them out.
“Let’s go,” Zack shouted into my ear, grabbing my elbow and pulling me forward. He moved to the left of the car while I took the right. Tinted windows. That didn’t help. I smacked my elbow into the rear passenger window. It remained perfectly intact, mocking me as a sharp pain shot up my arm. Bugger. Probably bullet-proof as well.
A hot, acrid smell of magic suddenly hit the air. Something was building, whirling, gathering. “Get back,” I shouted across to Zack. He’d already felt it and was scrambling back to where the girls were taking cover behind a large metal storage container. We made it there just as the explosion hit.
Blue flames erupted from the middle of the car’s roof, spreading high into the night sky before turning back and pouring down, enveloping the entire black surface in a writhing electric mass. The window that had resisted me only a few seconds ago now imploded, along with all the others, and the fire poured back in. We looked at each other. This was a full-on and utterly lethal magical attack. I didn’t care how well-trained and disciplined Max was - even if he’d been fully prepared I couldn’t see him getting out of there alive.
“We’ve got to try something,” Julie screamed at me. And she was right. Max was a good guy. If we could give him half a chance at surviving, then it was worth the risk. And it would be a bloody big risk at that.
I walked slowly forward, closing my eyes to better focus and reaching out with my arcane senses. The blue fire shone brightly in the darkness, moving and questing. Alongside it were two bright forms - magically aware humans, that could only be Max and his driver. I threw a cast around a section of the fire and tried to pull it backwards, away from the men. For a second, it worked, before the fire simply split and reformed outside of my grasp. Still I was walking forward, calling down wind and every other cast that I could think of that might, somehow, slow this thing down, disrupt it somehow. Nothing was working. The bright forms were fading. The one up front, driving, suddenly winked out, only darkness remaining.
Someone grabbed my arms and started pulling me back. “Too close,” Arabella shouted. “You’ll get fried.”
I tried one final, desperate attack, pulling the air itself from the car, in the hope that this blue fire might have some basis in the non-magical red fire, and need oxygen. It was pointless. I’d only just started when the second bright form also went dark. I opened my eyes. The flames streaked back out of the window and the hole in the roof and hung in the night sky for a second. I could swear it was looking down at me, grinning. Exulting. Then it flared, dissipated, and was gone.
“Careful,” Zack instructed, but we were all running forward and even he was ignoring his own advice. I reached through the window and opened the rear door. The inside of the car was, apart from the aforementioned hole in the roof, untouched, almost immaculate. The leather seats still shone and a lit cigar smouldered on an ash tray set into the armrest. “What can you see?”
Not much, was the answer. A long dark coat lay on the long back seat, pinstripe pants jutting out the bottom and a white shirt tucked inside. All in decent condition. The fire had taken the body, nothing more. I turned my attention to the driver’s seat, which was much the same apart from a
smattering of gold fillings spilt across a smart uniform.
I moved back to let Zack make his own inspection. “Go ahead and look,” I told Julie and Arabella. “It’s all perfectly respectable.”
“You ever seen anything like this before?” Zack asked. I shook my head.
“Those are Max’s clothes,” Julie said, her face a blank mask. “He’s gone. Whatever that was…”
“Yeah, I know. We know,” I told her. “We need to move out, now. Sooner or later someone’s going to start wondering what that noise was. Or whoever orchestrated this whole thing is going to come to check on their handiwork.”
“So isn’t that a good reason to hang around?” Zack asked, moving close and dropping his voice.
“If it was just us, I’d agree. But whoever did that is packing some serious firepower, and we can only move as a group. We can’t put Julie in the middle of it. She’s immune, but she’s not bulletproof.”
“Damn, you’re right,” he nodded. “This is going to be a real pain in the ass. Sorry - didn’t mean she was…”
“Yeah, I get what you mean. It’s going to slow us down, but what choice do we have?”
“Back to base, then,” said Arabella.
We heard the sirens start when we were two blocks away. It was time, I reflected, to review my list of who I was prepared to drag into this.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I still can’t believe he’s dead,” Julie was saying. We were back at Becky’s. Zack was fixing a meal, while Arabella sorted out supplies. Julie was staring at her phone, willing it to ring.
“We didn’t see him die,” I pointed out. She stared at me. “Fine, he’s dead,” I admitted. “You’re right. But stranger things have happened.”
“We’ll know soon enough. Patrick Everheart is as close to Max as anyone. If he can’t reach him, then it’s time to start planning the memorial service.”
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “All things considered, I mean. You were close.”
She ran her finger through her hair and let out a long breath. “I’m less than okay. I suppose…I suppose I was creating a kind of substitute father figure out of him. He’s - he was a really great man. Helped me out a lot. You were getting along with him as well, though, right? How are you?”
“I’m coping. But then, I’m used to people dying on me. And, with no disrespect to Max’s memory, him dying is only one of many problems I’ve got at the moment.”
Her phone started playing the into to ‘Lawyers, Guns and Money’ by Warren Zevon, her specified ringtone for Everheart. I’d still not managed to find out what played when I rang her - that was a secret she guarded closely. Julie stood up and took the call - she’s one of those people who can’t have a phone conversation sitting down, preferring instead to pace around whatever room she’s in whenever possible.
I left her to it, and wandered over to Zack. He was chopping vegetables with an enthusiasm bordering on mania. “Coping well?” I asked.
“Stir crazy,” he muttered. “Freaking stir crazy. And I’m going to be lucky if I’ve got any business left at the end of all this.”
“I told you -”
“I know, I know - anyone we call is a potential leak, or could end up in danger themselves. I get it. It’s just so unfair.” He looked up at me and let the knife rest for a moment. “We only ever tried to do what was right, didn’t we? I mean, we helped make Charlie a vampire, but he was dying anyway. And we did it to save all those other kids. Then we stopped him from killing. We didn’t kill any angel - come on, how would we even begin to try that? And now everything’s come down on our heads. I know we’re not great and we’re not perfect and we’ve done some shitty stuff, but…we’re not that bad, are we?”
I didn’t get to answer him. Julie’s conversation ended and she strode over to fill us in. “Patrick hasn’t been able to reach Max for hours. They heard about the car being found by the cops. Definitely his. The gold fillings match the dental records of his driver. There’s not much doubt left anymore.”
“Hell of a way to take a car down,” said Zack. “Bomb. Organized crash. All much simpler.”
“But that wouldn’t have sent the same message, would it?” I countered. “This is as much a statement as a murder. It’s a declaration of war.”
“By who? And why?” Julie asked.
“Excellent question. What did Patrick suggest?”
“That we keep things low key. He’s arranged a meeting of the Mage-born council members. Our presence is requested. Just you and me. Nobody else.”
“Did you tell him that’s not exactly possible at the moment?”
“I didn’t know how much info we’re willing to divulge at the moment, so I just said yes.”
“Good girl,” said Zack.
“But they can be trusted,” Julie insisted.
“Everyone’s a possible leak,” I told her. “All it would take was for one of them to figure out they could score brownie points with the Host for turning us in, and it’s back to the pit. Or possibly something more instantaneous.”
“When’s the meeting?” Zack asked.
“Early tomorrow. Sorry, it’s after midnight, so later today. I know it’s daylight, but they’ll send a car for us.”
I nodded. “That gives us time to get our own arrangements in place. And since the cops are now in on the whole thing, it’s about time I made a phone call myself. We’ve got a few hours to kill before dawn.”
Detective Larry Dialgo stood in the shade of a tree, a way off the paths, in the northern part of Central Park. He looked shifty as we approached. Tensed. “You said you wanted to meet me,” he said. “Didn’t say you were bringing friends.”
I held out my hands. “We all come in peace. It’s a bit complicated. We’re kind of stuck with each other for the moment.” I motioned for the others to stay where they were, and walked on by myself towards him. He held up a hand once I got within a few paces. “Do we have a problem here?” I asked.
“I should let you know,” he answered, “that police marksmen have you in their sights. Don’t make any fast movements. I twitch my fingers the wrong way, you’ll have a hole in your head before you know what’s going on.”
“Bollocks.” I couldn’t help but let out a short laugh at the look on his face when I said that. “Sorry mate, but you just can’t bluff. Your voice gave you away. Besides which, I’ve fallen for the whole sniper thing once before, and it’s not happening again any time soon.”
“Shit,” he muttered, and turned away.
“What’s happening here? I thought we were good. We’re not technically on the same side, but that’s never stopped us helping each other out. Enemy of my enemy, that kind of thing?”
He turned back and looked at me hard. “That was before,” he said, then paused, waiting for a response. I didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t get one. “Fuck it,” he said, shaking his head and coming back towards me. “I was taking a chance coming here anyway. I figure if you wanted me dead, I’d have hit the dirt by now.”
“Want you dead? You need to tell me what’s going on.”
“I can do better than that. I’ll show you.”
He pulled out a large-screened smartphone from his coat pocket and flipped through some files before turning it towards me. “Surveillance video. Lennox Hill hospital. Three days ago.” It was coarse and grainy, but clear enough to make out the details of two police officers lying on the floor, not moving. “This is just inside the room where Sally Kirkwood was being held. You remember her, right? The mother of those two girls who went missing, husband and son murdered. You should, you were arrested at their house the night it all went off.” I opened my mouth but no words came. My stomach twisted. He flicked the screen and the shot changed to a corridor. A single person running along it. The face clear as day. Me.
“It wasn’t me,” I said, my voice hoarse and practically a whisper. “I promise you, that was not me. I do not kill cops.”
“They were good people
. Mary and Stu. I never worked with them, but I know guys who did. They came over from Brooklyn to check up on Sally, the mother, in their own time, after putting in a nine hour shift. Docs reckon they died relatively quickly, but in a fair amount of pain.”
“I told you, it wasn’t me.”
“I guess I believe that. But you know who it was? You were right there.”
I nodded.
“And you didn’t think we might want to know about it? That I might want to know about it?”
“I know how this sounds, but I was caught up on other stuff. This was nothing compared to what could have happened if I hadn’t dealt with it. But this is bad and I should have been in touch. I…I suppose I forgot.”
He pocketed the phone and gave me a look which told me in no unclear terms that in his world I’d committed some kind of unforgivable sin. Chalk up one more person that I’d terminally disappointed. “So who was it?”
I stared at him while my mind whirled. If I gave him Patrick now, that would cripple any chance of us finding out what had happened to Max. The man was a cowardly toad, but right now he was necessary. “Let me deal with it,” I said.
“You don’t get it, Malachi. There’s only one man the entire force is looking for in connection with the murder of two officers. And that’s you. They don’t have a name yet, but every cop in New York has seen a photo of your face, and you’ve seen how clear it is on the footage. I work with trained, proud professionals, but if you tried to run there’s not one that wouldn’t put a bullet in your back. And if I didn’t know you like I did, I’d be right there with them.”
“What happened to them is terrible. I know that. I’m not denying it. But there’s other stuff happening, and if we don’t deal with it then there’s going to be trouble.”
“Who for?”
“Me, mostly. But it could spread.” I couldn’t meet his eyes.
“I’ll leave it with you,” he said eventually, “but know this: the only way you get to walk around safely in this town - this country – ever again is if you get the real killer to us. Your kind of back-street justice won’t cut it, because unless their guilt is proven, you’re still our prime suspect. Do you get me?”
