The Watchmage of Old New York (The Watchmage Chronicles Book 1)

by C. A. Sanders

  “You won’t have to fight more than once or twice, Preacher. You can stage the fights if you want, like theater. The people come out for the legend. You think anyone looks at the Head of Joaquim and thinks it’s real?” He eyed us both in succession. “Think about it fellas. You’re both young men, and this is the adventure that every young man dreams of. You can go beyond California. Go to Europe, go to Siam. Go to Australia. You don’t wanna leave New York? Take New York with you. I can tell you’re sweet on Leenie here—take her too.”

  “Wha?” said Leenie. “You’re…but me ma’.”

  “Take her too. Take her sister. Take anyone you want. You’re gonna make us more jack than anything they’ll bring in here.”

  “Me sister’s dead,” said Leenie.

  Smokestack’s eyes opened wide and he made a deflated sound. “A shame. She was a pretty lass.” He raised his drink in toast.

  Dammit. The bastard was offering me everything that I ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of. I looked at Hendricks, who was trying hard not to look at Leenie. He fidgeted and rubbed one of his many bruises. “We’ll have to think about it,” I said.

  “Of course, of course, but the fight with Hyer’s already set. No matter what happens, the legend dies in two nights.” He touched Leenie on the arm. “I wonder, if you’re sister’s gone, how’ve you been paying your quota? What would happen if that stream dried up?” He looked back at Hendricks. “Ah, such is a question for the ages. Is there anything else I can offer you lads, if you understand me?”

  I nodded. “I reckon I do.”

  I met with Hendricks the next day at Turtle House. He greeted me at the door. His face looked much better, but his eyes were still blackened. He was breathing better too, no more wheezing.

  “Is Pop home, too?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen him in several days. Geebee is worried about him. She says that he looks sick.”

  “Geebee’s worried about everyone and everything. Pop’s a wizard, he can take care of a cold.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Let’s walk, I haven’t been around the grounds in a while.” He joined me, and we walked down a graveled path away from the house. The snow had piled up. It’s not unusual to have snow in November, but this much was odd. My boots crunched the snow as we walked. We went by the stables. I swore that I heard that big stable hand snoring from somewhere inside.

  “Smokestack looked surprised when Leenie told him about Molly’s death,” I put forward.

  Hendricks looked out at the East River. From where we were, we saw the tide flowing up the river and washing against Blackwell Island. When I was young, I used to watch the prisoners in the asylum as they farmed the field. The asylum closed down this year and the fields had gone wild.

  “All this was for nothing, wasn’t it?” he said. “All the fighting, all the gambling, all the people I’ve hurt. There was no point to any of it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been an ass. You don’t have to fight any more if you don’t want to. I’ll even find a way out of the Hyer fight.” We passed a farmhouse where a Dweller family lived. The old Pooka quartered wood outside the house while whistling a song.

  “No. I want to fight.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. You heard what Smokestack offered. We can take Leenie and her mother with us. We can get them out of that…Hell…they live in. Pardon my language.”

  “You’re sweet on her.” It was no surprise, Smokestack laid it out before. I could tell that it was his first love. First love is the most foolhardy.

  He kicked a clump of snow, and it exploded into powder. “I am. I would like to court her properly.”

  “Carriage rides, picnics in the park, walking along the avenue with her mother ten feet behind…”

  “I can’t do that with her life the way that it is. But I can change all of that. I had nothing to fight for, but now I do. I can save her.”

  I came to a stop. In front of us was a small house with red shutters on the windows. “Who lives here?”

  He shrugged. “Dwellers. Master Nathaniel rents or lends it to immigrant Dwellers until they can find their own home. I think that some Troll sailors are renting it for the winter.”

  “We used to live there,” I said. “See that apple tree? Once I climbed it and ate apples until I got sick. Mama got so mad. She took the switch to me until my ass was bright red.” I pointed out a clump of evergreen bushes. “Behind those bushes was where I told Nan Livingston that I was leaving for Yale, and she…it doesn’t matter.”

  The memories came flooding back. Swimming in the river, Mama’s homemade ice cream, me begging Pop to teach me magic and then crying when I couldn’t figure it out. Helping to dig the grave.

  I turned away from the house. “Let’s go, then.”

  Molly Hyde’s murder would go unsolved. The Vanderlay baby would never be found. None of it mattered.

  Nathaniel

  I should have known that at some point I would end up at Glamour Hall. Cadatchen had his perfect nose in everything, and Sniddlenose, the Pooka arsonist, sometimes worked for him. I was sure that he was entwined in these crimes.

  So here I was, in a back alley on Mulberry, staring down Tordreck, the clubhouse’s doorman. I was already in poor humor, short on time and patience. Tordreck made the situation that much worse.

  “Prince busy,” he growled. “You come la—”

  I raised my hand and he floated in the air, legs and arms flailing like an angry toddler. “How many times will I have to slam you against the door until it opens? Shall we find out?”

  It was four.

  Tordreck stumbled back to his feet from among the shattered door. A crowd of Dwellers turned and watched with amusement. He charged, but I hit him with a bolt of near-solid air, sending him sprawling into the tap room.

  “I have business with your employer. Fetch him.” I raised my hand and charged it with Chaos energy until it glowed like Saint Elmo’s fire. I didn’t have much energy left, and I hoped that he wouldn’t make me use it. Thankfully, Tordreck chose the better part of valor and stomped downstairs.

  I sat down at an empty table—daring the patrons to look at me and glaring at any that did. A rat Pooka in green came over with a tray. “Whaddaya want?” she asked in a nasal voice.

  “Two whiskeys, one water.”

  “There’s no ice.”

  “I didn’t ask for any.”

  She straightened the lines of her dress and scurried behind the bar. She returned with two short, full glasses and a tall water. I drank one whiskey right away and washed it down with the other.

  After a few minutes, Cadatchen walked up the stairs, Misthistle floating behind him. “Nathaniel, my dearest friend, what have you done to my door?”

  “Renovations. We’re going to speak in private. Find a place.”

  “Anything you have to say to me, you can say to my patrons.”

  I looked around. The club was crowded and all eyes were on us. “I am going into your back room,” I said slowly. “For every minute that I am in there without you, I will smash one cask of your finest.” I took another look around and gestured with my cane. “If anyone tries to stop me, they’ll be sweeping your ashes out the door.” I began my walk, eyes darting from side to side. No one stopped me until I reached the door to the back room.

  “Wait,” called Cadatchen. “I have an office, we can talk there.”

  “Agreed.”

  His office was on the other side of the bar. He opened the door with a flourish, and I walked inside. “Go about your merriment,” he called to the crowd. “This is but the night’s entertainment.” I heard smatters of laughter as he tried to save his reputation. Perhaps I shouldn’t have cowed him in front of so many, but I was tired of parlor games.

  He sat down behind a large desk of an unknown, shimmering wood and rested his arms behind his head. “Have a seat, Nathaniel. Your show out there was impressive, but now that we
’re alone, you can take off your mask.”

  “No mask. You’re harboring Sniddlenose, and I want him.”

  “Sniddlenose?” He chuckled. His laughter was like the notes of a harp. “Did he rob the wrong house?”

  “You know what he did and you know why I want him.”

  He rubbed his chin and sat up in his chair. “I don’t know where he is right now, but I can find him for you. For a favor, of course.”

  “No more favors. You run three gambling dens, a half dozen brothels, and who knows how many wine sinks.”

  “Don’t we deserve our fun? You’ll never understand how hard it is to be a Shining One so far from home. We feel the decay of this world and our own bodies with every moment. We need what I deliver,” he said. “Besides, none of what I bring is illegal, in a sense.”

  “Your games of chance are fixed. Your favor is that I don’t send you to Atlantis for a time, or back across the Veil. From what I’ve heard, you’ve a price on your head in Caer Macchus. I’m sure King Macchus would love to see you again.”

  He furrowed his brow, twisting his fairy tale features until he looked almost human. “You wouldn’t do that. I’m the man that keeps the peace in Five Points, I hold the streets together. If I’m gone, you’ll have a dozen gangs tearing this town up.”

  “Maybe the next generation will listen to their Watchmage.”

  There was a long pause as Cadatchen tried to read my bluff. Somewhere, he realized that there was none. “Now that I remember, I think that Sniddlenose has been working for Grizzlemaw as of late. He’s the one that you want. That savage is most likely behind the rioting on Henry Street as well. You know that he’d love to get his paws on the docks, and burning them down would make it easy for him to buy the remains.”

  “And it just happens that you’re pressing into his territory. His punishment would be your gain.”

  “It doesn’t make my words untrue,” he said. “This is my city too, and what Sniddlenose did was beyond the pale. If I had him, I would give him to you, and in pieces.”

  “Grizzlemaw would never turn a fellow Pooka over without a fight,” I said.

  “A fight is coming,” Cadatchen replied. “I tell you this out of respect.” He smiled at my raised eyebrow. “Yes, I do respect you, though you may not believe it. You are my opposite, the Winter of discontent to my glorious Summer.

  “I am moving on Grizzlemaw,” he continued. “The bear overstepped his bounds when he pushed into Five Points. He deserves no quarter, and none will be given.”

  This would be complicated. I never arrested Grizzlemaw in the past because the Pookas loved him, and they were the most common Dwellers in New York. As long as he stayed in his territory, we had no issues, but I’d have mass rioting to deal with if I arrested him. This was how Master Sol contained him, and so I did the same

  However, if Grizzlemaw was taken in gang warfare, the Pooka would shrug their shoulders and move on. The Law would have its justice, and no innocents would be hurt.

  “There will be Warp,” I finally said.

  “More reason for you to be there.” He studied my face and saw my frown. “I’ll have my people Glamour an illusion from the outside. The fools within will see the fray, the fools without will see nothing.”

  In my current state, I hadn’t the strength to stop their coming battle. If I couldn’t stop the breeze, I might as well build a windmill. I could cull both sides and still catch Sniddlenose. Now I was thinking like Master Sol. Wherever he was, I’m sure that he would approve.

  “When are you planning your attack?”

  I had to walk several blocks away from Five Points before I caught an omnibus uptown. Time was of the essence, but I lacked the strength and focus for an apparation spell. I felt all of my hundred and fifty years. Even the residual power that I carried in Master Sol’s hat was wearing thin. I shuddered to think what aging one hundred and fifty years in a few moments would feel like.

  I climbed onto the omnibus and found the last empty seat. A portly gentleman in spectacles scrunched himself into half of the seat to make room for me. He apologized for taking up so much room.

  As always, the omnibus was filled with men of all races and from all walks of life. An Italian sat next to a German, who argued with a Turk about the Crimean War from across the aisle. Most of the passengers stared at the street life as we rolled by.

  Of the people that did speak, the item of the day was Saturday’s parade to honor the foreign dignitaries that had so captured the attention of the city. They were comparing it to Lafayette’s return. Barnum had donated much of the money for the parade, which meant that it’d be a spectacle beyond comprehension. It would start at Union Square and march down Broadway, ending at Barnum’s American Museum on Ann Street. Barnum promised that some of his finest curiosities would march. I knew that several Dwellers worked for him as oddities. I suspected that they would find their way into the parade.

  There’s a printer turned poet from Brooklyn that recently joined the Bleecker Street bohemians. I once had him to my house for cards. He went on about his love of the streetcars and stevedores, the life and energy that ran through the city with us as conduits. He spoke about how we all cast reflections on each other, giving them our best and receiving theirs. I enjoyed his rough-edged mannerisms and appreciated his love song to the city, but when he went on about the immortality of the human soul, I looked back to my cards. What can one man know about immortality until it has been cast upon him?

  It was near time to sup when I returned to Turtle House. Geebee bustled me inside. She said that I had missed Jonas earlier, and that Hendricks wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be joining us for dinner.

  “Should I check on him?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him in days.”

  “Oh, no. Jonas said not to worry, he’s tired and has the sniffles. I’ll bring him some soup and bread later.” She chuckled. “You know him, he’s probably studying instead of sleeping.”

  “Is supper ready?”

  “Almost, but you have a visitor in your study. Mister Pelham is here to see you.”

  “Excellent, I’ll see him at once.”

  I was glad that The Hellfire Club sent Paul Pelham to me. Of the group, he was the youngest, most pleasant, and the most naïve in the craft. I didn’t have to act threatening with him, he did what he was told.

  Pelham was standing by the liquor cabinet when I entered, looking at my lithograph of The Drunkard’s Progress. “An interesting piece you have here, Watchmage Hood. Over your liquor cabinet as well. Cheeky.”

  “I’m glad that you like it, Paul. Come sit. Can I offer you anything?”

  “No, thank you. My mother is having me for supper, but I felt that I should come here first. She’s ecstatic that I came home for Thanksgiving. Paris is lovely, as is Vienna, but I missed my home. There’s nothing more beautiful than autumn in New York.”

  I nodded. “What do you have for me?”

  “Chauncey looked in his crystal ball. He says that there’s a war between Dweller gangs. He says it’s foggy, but it’ll take place in Manhattan.”

  Crystal balls in the hands of magelings. I wondered if Chauncey realized what he had. “Yes, I know that. What else do you have?”

  He frowned. “I’m sorry. I…um…there’s a coven of witches. They’re Hibernian, and they live in the Lower Wards. I don’t know what kind of magic they do, but it’s not proper Christian. They’re probably summoning demons,” he offered.

  “I doubt it’s that, but they’ll have to register. There are far too many unregistered magelings in the city. What else have you learned?”

  He went on for a while about vampires in Greenwich Village and werewolves of Brooklyn. The boy meant well, and some of his information would be useful in the future, but there was nothing that led me closer to the Vanderlay baby.

  “Thank you, Paul.”

  “Wait, there’s one more thing,” he said. “The parade on Saturday. There’re going to be a score of Turkish wiz
ards there. I don’t think they’re going to do anything outrageous, but they’ll be there.”

  “Hmmm,” I tugged at my beard, an old habit of mine. Maybe it was time to trim again. “Thank you for all of your help. You can see yourself out, I’m sure your mother is waiting.”

  “She is. Good evening,” he said. I nodded a reply.

  I heard the door close behind me and poured myself a drink. Why would Turkish magelings come all the way to New York to march in a parade, and how could they come without my knowing? One or two visiting magelings could escape my notice, but a score? I would notice that kind of influx in power.

  I thought about the Vanderlay’s trip to Palestine. The kidnapping took place before the dignitaries’ ship came in, but there had to be a connection. I’d have to see for myself. But that was for another day. I’d have to sleep all day and regain as much strength as possible. On the morrow, I marched to war.

  The battleground was some gambling den in the Fourth Ward called The Bloody Knuckle.

  Jonas

  The air was filled with tension and French perfume. Hendricks and I sat upstairs in The Bloody Knuckle. We commandeered one of the lady’s rooms for our own so we could prepare for Hendricks’s beating.

  “Why are you sitting on the floor?” I asked Hendricks, who was sitting Injun style with his back against the wall and his eyes closed. He didn’t answer right away, so I nudged him on the shoulder.

  “I need quiet, please,” he said without opening his eyes.

  I paced across the room. I could hear the crowd underneath us cheering for the undercard. From the sound of it, the crowd near overflowed the warehouse. Smokestack was right about tonight’s payday. All Hendricks had to do was go down in the thirty-seventh round, and we’d be swimming in jack.

  “Is this some wizard thing?” I asked.

  He opened his eyes. “You couldn’t be quiet for five minutes?”

  “I was quiet…I’m anxious. This is the biggest night in our lives. This is where it all changes. Don’t you feel it?”