Guardian Glass

by Christopher Nuttall

  I walked right up to the table and glared down at the zombie head. It was the work of a moment to create a localised firestorm – a very localised one – and burn it into ash. The stall keeper opened his mouth to argue, took in my semi-uniform and face, and closed his mouth with an audible snap. He knew what I was, all right, and that was worrying. The real names of the Guardians are well hidden, but he would probably know most of the Guardians by sight, if nothing else.

  “I can explain,” he stumbled, finally. “It wasn’t going to hurt anyone…”

  “You’re under arrest,” I said. I had to move quickly. The crowd might turn against me at any moment. The civilians wouldn’t be a problem, but the magic-users might start something stupid. They’d pay for it, but I’d be too dead to care. “You have the right to remain silent…”

  I performed the spell as soon as I had completed reading him his rights. The poor bastard shrank rapidly down to a small statue of himself. It violates a dozen laws of physics – where, they kept asking, does all the mass go – but it suffices to keep a prisoner under control. Even if he was adept enough to break the spell – most adepts need to move their hands to cast spells – he would come back to full size inside a tiny box I’d pulled out of my magic satchel. The result would be lethal.

  “They really love you here,” Aylia muttered, sensing the waves of hostility passing through the crowd. “Should we…”

  “Yes, they do,” I agreed dryly. I’d ruined one of the tourist traps. Idiots. They’d have been screaming for real if they’d been bitten and I’d had to destroy them to save the rest of humanity. “Come on.”

  We reached our destination without further incident. I knew, however, that getting out might be much harder. The street had just been challenged. I doubted that the real movers and shakers on the street would allow that to pass without taking some revenge. They disliked Guardians almost as much as we disliked them.

  “You wanted to know where we were going,” I said, as we entered the outer wall. “Did you guess here?”

  “No,” Aylia said. She sounded honestly puzzled. “Why here?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example.

  -Mark Twain

  The Knights Templar Militant have a long history, most of which is either outright lies or a cunning tissue of half-truths spread around to bury the odd potentially embarrassing or irritating truth under a mountain of bullshit. That, at least, is the conclusion of the Select Bipartisan Committee into Magical Cabals, although they took two years and a thousand-page report to say it. Anyone attempting to research the Knights Templar will discover, very quickly, that it is impossible to sort out the truth from the lies. They’re an odd group, with connections to both the Freemasons and the Jesuits, and even a special Papal right to practice magic. The Catholic Church’s official position, in fact, is that they are the only group allowed to practice magic.

  As far as we can determine, there are around six hundred of them, ranging from Special Forces-trained soldiers – the Vatican has a private army with a surprising level of capability, although they’re not at the same level as Force Recon troops or SEALS – to quite powerful magic-users. They’re a formidable force at the best of times, which often finds itself deployed against rogue magic-users and the supernatural. They’re also a constant thorn in our side, just by existing. Congress has fits at the mere thought of any non-American force operating anywhere in America and tries to restrict their activities. This causes strife with Catholics in America and Latin American nations, not all of whom like the Vatican, but don’t want to appear as if they have been dictated to by the US. It’s a diplomatic problem, really; Congress would have fits if they knew I was talking to them without filling out forms in triplicate, giving them an opportunity to kill the visit. No wonder Wilkinson hadn’t been willing to okay it officially. It could cost him his job.

  I said as much to Aylia as we stepped into the courtyard. The Knights Templar had built a Church that reassembled a fortress from the middle ages, although there was little primitive in the hidden defences I knew existed around it. There are evangelists and other religions that see the Knights Templar as an unrelenting enemy and have declared war on them, sometimes with magic. The Druids outside loathed them, claiming that they worked with the Romans to destroy the old Druids – historical truth means little to them – and that doesn’t even count the radical Islamic or Jewish factions. The Knights Templar had good reason to feel paranoid.

  “I don’t like them very much,” I admitted. It couldn’t be denied that the Knights Templar did good work – they had an attitude that worked better for the job than more standard military forces, even the American SF – but they set me on edge. I had always believed that faith was something of a problem on my job, not least because it was easy for a demon to pervert it and ruin a good man. A pair of people who would otherwise have made excellent Guardians had been killed because they had looked at something through the prism of their faith. “Still, I think they’ll help us.”

  Aylia had a more practical question. “Can they help us?”

  “Yes,” I said, flatly. “They can help us. I think they will help us, given what is at stake.”

  Organised religion has never responded very well to humans developing magical powers, let alone the supernatural creatures. There were religions that killed or expelled magic-users out of hand – both Judaism and Islam had problems accepting that some of their people had magical powers – and others that sought to exploit them, like the developing Thug Cult in India. The Knights Templar had welcomed all Catholics, even all Christians, who had magical powers and trained some of them to use their powers in the service of the Church. Others had tried to duplicate their success, but years of mistreatment hadn’t endeared magic-users to them. The chaos in Iran and Saudi Arabia bears mute testament to that.

  And the Knights Templar had attracted someone very special. The Sensitives were among the rarest kind of magic-users; indeed, we only knew of three of them in the entire history of magic. One of them had been born in Iran and died there when the regime realised just what he was capable of doing, the second had been a perverted sex offender who would be spending the rest of his life in jail – at least until his lawyers ran out of ideas to work the system and he was finally executed – and the third was a Catholic. I hadn’t wanted to approach the sex offender. A missing girl at stake would provide too many reasons for him to refuse to work with us.

  I paused as I took in the single man standing at the door. He was wearing a red-purple robe and an enormous hat, which caught my eye at once, but it was his face that held my attention. He looked around fifty years old – magic tends to wear down the user quickly – and seemed determined not to allow us to enter. I studied him through my senses, waiting for him to speak, and determined that he had strong magical powers of his own. He certainly wasn't brandishing a wand in an attempt to appear immovable.

  “You are expected, of course,” he said, flatly. There was a strong hint of Ireland in his voice, although it was subsumed by his icy tone. “Brother Andrew was determined to see you at once, but I must ask that your…friend remains outside.”

  I stared back at him, unwilling to give an inch. “Is there a good reason why Aylia should remain outside, away from the sanctuary that you promise to all in need?”

  He didn’t seem intimidated by my pose. “This is a place of harbour for the Sensitive,” he said, firmly. I had already known that, of course; that was why I have come. “To meet a young girl would only unbalance him and make it harder for him to focus on his work for the Holy Church.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, tightly. I suspected that it was no more than a pissing contest, but I didn’t have the time. “I cannot leave her alone and so…”

  He crossed his arms under his chest, preparing to be even more stubborn, but a smaller man wearing rather less elaborate robes stuck
his head out of the door before I could say anything further. He was clearly younger, with an eager fresh-faced look that made him look rather retarded. I hoped it was just an act, but I suspected it wasn’t; a Sensitive would prefer the company of a man with the mental age of a ten-year-old, at best. He would simply be a less distracting presence in the Sensitive’s mind.

  “Your Grace, Brother Andrew sends his compliments and asks that you allow them both entry,” he said, before the first man could say anything. He looked up at me and extending a hand, which I shook automatically. “I'm Father Dougal, sir and madam, caretaker to Brother Andrew himself. You’ll have to excuse the Bishop. I’m afraid he isn’t used to all the requirements of his new parish.”

  The Bishop – for so the first man seemed to be – greeted Father Dougal with a stare that promised trouble later. “You will see them into the chapel, Father,” he ordered. It sounded more like a threat than a promise, somehow. “You and I will discuss the proper forms of address later.”

  He vanished into a side corridor as Dougal led us through a stone passage and into a small chapel. The Bishop, I decided, was probably uneasy in his role. He wouldn’t be a major religious figure in New York, despite his title, but merely the custodian of a shrine. I had no doubt that as soon as Brother Andrew died, he would be canonised. A Sensitive had little choice, but to be a saint or a devil. The devils were worse, in a thousand ways, than any other magically-powered criminal. I silently thanked God that there had only been one.

  The chapel felt peaceful, I realised, as soon as we stepped inside. I had never been impressed by other holy places I had visited in my career – I had been to both Palestine and Mecca – but this place was impressive. It felt cut off from the world, as if no time at all was passing within its walls, something that reminded me uneasily of Faerie. There were no spells crawling around the walls, but I was sure that there were other defences positioned further around the chapel. The Knights Templar are reputed to possess magical artefacts beyond counting, something else that gives their enemies pause. Who knows what they might have hidden inside their fortresses?

  “Welcome,” a voice said. I hadn’t noticed the man kneeling at one end of the chapel until he had spoken. He had blended in so well with the surrounding environment that he had been almost unnoticeable. It was a soft voice, as if my mother and father were crooning in my ear, and it made me want to relax. “Please, have a seat, don’t stand on ceremony.” There was a hint of a chuckle. “Bums on pews, please, bums on pews.”

  I blinked as the Sensitive turned around to face us. He was a slight man of, I estimated, thirty years old. Unlike the Bishop, or myself for that matter, there was no hint of rapid aging; he looked old, but not old. He was completely bald, apart from a single white shock of hair in the exact centre of his head. As I studied him, he was already moving to put us at our ease, waving to Dougal to bring out glasses of water and a handful of wafers. His little joke had relaxed both of us.

  “Please, take water and a cookie,” he said. “I would offer more if I could, but I’m afraid that I cannot eat anything else myself, even a mere cup of tea. The shock would be rather unfortunate for my system. Eat, drink and then we can chat. I must apologise for Len, my dear; he’s rather traditional in his ways. There were no people with Sensitive magic back then, I'm afraid and…”

  I sipped the pure water while he chattered on. The handful of people we knew with his magic tended to love what little company came to see them, even though they couldn’t tolerate being among crowds. Sensitive magic attuned the bearer to the underlying currents of the world, giving them insights that were normally impossible for anyone short of Mycroft Holmes…and the ability to use those insights. The pervert had used his talents to manipulate everyone he encountered. In medieval times, no one would have been able to prove that he had done what he had done to the children. Like all magic, it can be abused by the user…

  “But you didn’t come here to hear my chat,” he said, sitting back. I noticed that he had barely touched his water, or, despite his protestations, looked at Aylia. “You come seeking a lost child, my dear?”

  “Yes,” Aylia said. She sounded stunned. “If I might ask…ah, Father? Brother?”

  “Andrew is quite sufficient,” Brother Andrew said. He tapped his shaven head mischievously. “If my head got any bigger, it would start leaking out of my ears and that would never do. It would cause quite an upset for poor Len. He hasn’t been the same since someone introduced him to very hot curry with enough spice to blow up a battleship.”

  He gave me an innocent little smile. “And the story of the missing Faye child has been on all the news networks,” he added. “I would be remiss indeed if I had failed to pick up that a child had been lost, and indeed that it was a child related to you, and that you have had no children or lover yourself, and that the child was in fact your sister…”

  I said nothing, but Brother Andrew had just provided an explanation of why a Sensitive could be so dangerous. One of them, walking through a completely strange city, could just pick up enough from the crowds to know the city better than a person who had lived there all their lives. Their attenuation to the supernatural world was weaker, but they all had links, perhaps even enough to lead us right to Cecilia. The Church had taken the lead in combating demons and other dark creatures in Europe. I had no doubt that Brother Andrew would help us, if he could.

  “My sister,” Aylia agreed. I think that she was becoming a little overwhelmed by him. Not in the sexual sense – I had met homosexuals who were more sexually inclined to women than Brother Andrew – but in the personal sense. She might even forsake her family completely and become a nun, just because of his influence. He could chat to her as if they were old friends and, somehow, it would be as if they were old friends. She would trust him utterly. I couldn’t allow myself that luxury. “Can you help us find her?”

  “I can and I will,” Brother Andrew promised. I half-expected him to pat her on the knee, but he refrained from any such action. Of course, I realised; touching female flesh would shock him, perhaps even convince him that being without women was not as virtuous as the Church suggested. “If you wish, I will perform a reading for you now.”

  “Please,” I said. I didn’t want to spend too much time in the chapel. If nothing else, I was sure that trouble would be brewing on the outside. I really needed to call the New York Guardian and ask a number of pointed questions. Was it merely an oversight, caused by us being overworked, or was it something more sinister? “We do need to find her quickly.”

  “Excuse me,” Brother Andrew said. He stood up and walked slowly towards the alter at the head of the room. As we watched, he knelt in front of it and said a silent prayer, finally casting his eyes towards the crucifix hanging above his head. It seemed motionless to me, but he seemed to draw something from it, perhaps strength. A Sensitive might have a stronger relationship with God than…well, anyone. I felt a flicker of impatience, but waited as patiently as I could. He had the right to do whatever he liked to put himself in the right frame of mind.

  “I know, many people consider the rituals to be wasted time,” he said, when he returned to us. He’d sensed my reaction, of course. “There is much to be made for the argument that the Church rituals are too much for the glory of God - I believe that that was one of the reasons for the split between the Protestants and Catholics back in the time of Martin Luther – but they do serve a purpose. They help to frame a person’s mind, in that the man is tempered as well as the prayer itself, with the ultimate intention of preparing the operator himself. God hears everything, of course, and no prayer with true intention fails to reach His ears, but if we want His attention, we should at least try to do right, if we can.”

  I smiled. “Would the Bishop agree with you?”

  Brother Andrew smiled back. “The Pope and his Cardinals and his Bishops and everyone all the way down to the merest alter boy have the truth of it,” he said, “but they are human, as fallible as you or I o
r any other of God’s creatures. A sincere prayer from a Jew or a Muslim would be listened to, I believe, more than a faked prayer from the Pope himself. In my position, I see those who truly believe in God and are happy with their role, and those who have no faith at all. To have faith is to accept that God knows everything and that everything will work out in the end, to lack faith is to believe that God’s great plan cannot be accomplished without human intervention and help, a strong blasphemy.”

  He turned and knelt in the aisle for a long moment. “She’s still alive,” he said, finally. Aylia let out a gasp and then stopped herself, barely, from asking questions. “She’s not far away…”

  I scowled. Magic was sometimes vague when it comes to determining distances. It could be that she was in the next room, or she could be on the other side of the planet. Even without magic, it would be easy to smuggle a single child out of the country, but I didn’t know if the kidnappers would bother. They’d already closed off the most promising line of investigation. That left only the Pixie Dust and tracing that would be difficult.