Black City (The Lark Case Files)

by Christian Read

  This was all in the Old Man's territory. All far uptown. Cafes getting hit with hauntings. Social clubs gone black and hallucinogenic. He did... nothing.

  Same old story. He's not doing anything? He can't do it. He's gone soft. One night, a rain of ghosts had all uptown talking, and the Library put its foot down. 'Sort it out.' So Mully pulled on his suitcoat and his snap-brim hat and did.

  Sooner or later, everyone's going to find out about magic, and that's fine. But not without a timetable. Not without a plan. Even if the locals see behind the curtain now and again, whisper about miracles, that's not so bad. But wars are bad for business if they get out of hand. Detente becomes total war and soon, no one's safe. The Library didn't like that. Don't like it now, obviously.

  So, Mully goes to see the Old Man. Wants to know if he needs help keeping his peace. They respected his right to run the docklands his way and besides, the Library respected tough guys. Other hand, if the Old Man had gone soft for real, he could be cut loose and the Library could deal with who wins. There's always a strongman.

  They met on the dock.

  Mully went in alone. Even back then he had students, but not for work like that. Not for taking into danger.

  Big white caddy came creeping up the docks. Out come guys in seersucker. Then, a woman in widow's black. Mully pegged her as some Malandanti type from the Old Country. Then, on two walking sticks, comes the Old Man himself.

  'So he's real. Not just a cover story.' Ask him that, pouring sugar into my cup.

  Mully sips at his tea and if he's annoyed I broke his narrative, won't show it. Manners.

  'Oh no. He's real. Human.' Back to the story.

  The Old Man was half blind, peering through thick black glasses but not senile. Just worn out. He stepped closer.

  'Had the polio gait I remember being quite common from my own childhood. Don't see it anymore, thank heavens.'

  'Tell the Library this is under control.' That's the Old Man's first words through a throatful of phlegm.

  'Well, I must say, I hardly see evidence of that.'

  The Old Man pointed one of his canes down the dock.

  Mully went. There, a stack of pine boxes. One of the heavies went with.

  'Take this,' and offered a torch. Mully looked around. Nothing. Looked inside the crates.

  Bound and gagged, all the players. Men and women, eyes hurting when the beam of light hurt them. Whimpering like puppies. Twenty crates' worth.

  He marched back to the Old Man. 'You have to let them out.'

  From the far end of the dock..

  Sasha comes out. Smiles at us as we rest in the garden. 'Everything alright, guys?'

  'Yes, yes thank you, dear. But some more tea?'

  She smiles. 'For you, smiley?'

  'Please.'

  They burned them. The night came alive with orange and soon, the stink of burning and cries. Mully euthanised two, maybe three, reaching out with kind death magic, switching off their minds. The screams were loud and piggy, and Mully's eyes go dead when he tells that bit, in a black memory.

  'So he's like that.'

  'I'm afraid so,' says Mully. 'But you already knew that.'

  'Yeah.'

  Mully left the docks. He could have had a show-down. Magic fight just like the old days. Released the spirits bound to him, forced the heavies to suicide of some damn thing, but the simple truth was, he would have lost and died. It haunts him, still, I think. Which is one of the differences between him and me.

  I would have got gone in a second.

  As Mully was walking away, tears on his cheeks, the Old Man called out something.

  'They're just the first in the fire. One day, we'll all live in a fire. The difference is, I'll have people waiting there for me.'

  Mully's hand trembles and he breathes in set patterns, calming himself.

  'That was the first time I met him. Our paths didn't cross until... seventy-two, seventy-three?'

  'How old is Old.'

  'Old. Older than me, and I should be long gone.'

  Sasha with her tea tray comes over, sits with us a minute and I ask about her studies. Mully taught her to read and write and she's discovered a passion for the law. She's going to take a high school equivalency in a year or two. She's happy, she says, but then tells us her show is on and leaves the weirdos to their talk.

  'She's doing well.'

  'I caught her in bed with a man in his fifties. We've got a long way to go.'

  'Pain addicts.' I think he's wasting his time helping her. It's in her too deep. She'll be addicted to humiliation all her life, but Mully never gave up on a human in his.

  'I may never free her from it, but perhaps I can help her find some use for it.'

  'Your call, boss.'

  'You don't approve.'

  'I just don't...'

  I don't like sharing these opinions with Mully. It makes me feel callow and low. But he knows.

  'All I can do is try. And I think it would be nice if you spent some time with the girl. She's not the only one who has an inability to unshoulder burdens.'

  I shrug. Light up. He mock-frowns.

  He smiles, smoothes his blanket, waves a soothing hand. 'But I was talking of times gone.'

  'Have you got something real to drink?'

  Slowly, he looks, reaches over, touches my shoulder. 'You don't have to be that, here.'

  'I'm not... I'm not a kid anymore.'

  'I know that. But this man you've become. Do you need him so much?'

  I think of what I've seen the Old Man do and more besides. Think of the things I've summoned up. Put down. Think of the full potential of a Primal Sigil. I remember when I was young, in this garden. Fifteen and addicted to knowledge, learning about power. Think about watching dad bleeding out in my bedroom and Scarlet turning her gaze away.

  'Yeah.'

  Smile. Always a smile that he means.

  'Seventy-seven or thereabouts, as I was saying. They were terrible times. Just so ugly. Flared trousers. Of course, I briefly got to wear a cravat again. And an opera cape but that's neither here nor there.

  'Fajimbala was some Biafran renegade. Minor warlord, you'd call him now. Took money from anyone, betrayed everyone. Caused a few problems in Kenya, too. Just one of those chaps who has a nose for trouble and the right amount of base cruelty to merrily profit from it. Real tribal magician. Eat an albino kind of a fellow. Base cunning and real power.'

  He came to the city post-Vietnam, says Mully. Disco was just kicking off and hip-hop was waking up from the dozens and the dancehalls. An exciting time, although Mully found the whole thing messy and strange. He liked the films of the era, though, despite the swearing.

  No one knew Fajimbala's tribe or ancestry, but within weeks of himself hitting the city, things had gone well for him. His enormous bulk was wrapped in fine suits and he was a regular at clubs. He stayed uptown west, in the black areas, terrifying the African immigrants. They knew a bad conjure was on them. Their own witch doctors went into high alert.

  Jamaican 'Jump ups' were recruited. Newcomers to the city, who made their name with brutality, were bought into Fajimbala's crew. Very quickly indeed, this dangerous mage perverted notions of God Is A Living Man and created a whole new death cult. A death cult that was feared and loathed everywhere in the city.

  'You have to understand, the sects of Morninglight... they were in trouble. They didn't reach out to me because they couldn't solve their own problem. Although obviously they couldn't, but they'd never admit it. And the Man, as they called the Library, would have made them admit it. No, they came to me because I was a useful middleman. I was respected, of course. But more than that, I was liked.'

  Mully looks across at me for a brief second, still trying to teach.

  Mully escorted Crow, who was the chief Librarian enforcer at the time. They met in an abandoned roller disco.

  'Do you remember Abdallah?' Mully asks, his eyes bird bright.

  'Sure. Smart guy. He died three year
s back.'

  'Yes, I was at his funeral. A clever man.'

  'I know. Whenever we had to go up to Morninglight, he was the first man I spoke to. Respected man.' I reply.

  'He was different in the seventies. He was just starting out. Very political in the African communities as well as the magical ones. I can't say I liked him much. An intense fellow.'

  I recalled the kindly fellow with the thick French accent and the terrible scar on his forehead. Couldn't put him on the Panther trip, but Mully says it, it's there.

  Mully listened to the Morninglight sects. All the African cults planned to move against the intruder and indeed just wanted to clear it with the Library to avoid repercussions. Fajimbala had to go down.

  Crow listened. She was an arrogant woman and laid down her rules. They complained but obeyed. The Library was the Library. An arrangement was made, and the Library offered to look the other way. Mully volunteered to oversee the operation.

  'For free. Which was silly of me.'

  A few nights later, Fajimbala was bound with speargrass and offered up to leopard spirits. A nasty fight, by all accounts. Then, they decided to deal with him as his Jamaicans had dealt with others. A chainsaw, a quartering.

  'But before they did that, I looked into Fajimbala's eyes. And I saw, I touched rigpa and I saw, the Old Man looking out. He wore that man's body like a glove. I begged them to stop. To just kill him, to end this torture.'

  Did they? No. But out of respect, they gave Mully an hour with Fajimbala before the carved him up. Enough time to throw the Old Man out.

  'Why save him?' I ask.

  'The Old Man knew what they had planned. Take the body, bury it across town.'

  'He has juice. Why use a proxy?'

  'I think he wanted it to happen. I think he wanted to be able to be buried across the city and yet, remain physically unharmed.'

  'Are you sure?'

  Mully looks at me and clicks his left, then right thumb together before clapping his palm on his fist. It means, lesson over.

  'No. But why else take a body? Why else play games?'

  Dead. Alive. Spread out over the city. Mully just looks at me coolly, letting it come.

  'Pain. Mutilated. A sacrifice to himself. Jesus. He'd feel it when they took the saws to him, but he'd be alive. His body spread out over the entire city, but still he'd be alive inside it.' I shuddered, thinking about the... will that would take. The psychotic courage.

  'Probably.'

  'But... he'd be living in dead flesh.'

  Mully stops. Not smiling. 'Yes. He would. And his body would encompass square miles, dead as it was.'

  'Looking for undeath?'

  Mully isn't smiling now. He looks at me over the rim of his cup.

  'Or worse. Now. I want to finish my Scrabble.'

  I smoke.

  Thirty-Eight

  We while away the afternoon, speaking of other things. Sasha joins us, and we speak of her studies, tell her edited stories of life in the Library, which she always likes, making them action flicks not horror stories. I take my mind off things for a while until Sasha has an appointment with tutors.

  Mully and I retire to his study again. He wants us to play chess, but I was never good at the game. I think the rules are fake. Restrictive. I always imagine white pawns assassinating white kings, refusing to be sacrificed. Popular revolutions. Bishops declaring each other antipope.

  The afternoon sun fades away and now it's just cold outside.

  'Who had access to Primal magic?'

  He shrugs. 'It's all around us. People rediscover it all the time, as well. Where do you think it came from?'

  'The Gallowglass collection. Seems the only place it could.'

  'So why didn't they use it?'

  'Couldn't.'

  'Or wouldn't.'

  I shake my head. 'Couldn't.'

  'But the Old Man knew?'

  'No, I don't think so. Or they only got access to the Primal sigil a few months ago. Perhaps the Old Man planted it?'

  'It's the sort of thing he likes to do.'

  Sit in silence, drinking Turkish coffee now. Clock chimes five. He cranes his head to peer at me.

  'So in the absence of answers, what do we do?'

  I almost smile. He's asked me this a hundred times or more.

  'Pin down what evidence we can. There's got to be a Bleak Elector or a Gallowglasser around somewhere. If nothing else fails, find Jeancat. Someone has better answers for me.'

  His old hand, his long fingers, reach into his desk and he emerges with a key.

  'You know your way around my sanctum.' He's not asking.

  Thirty-Nine

  By nightfall, I have the location of a Bleak Elector. Perhaps the last. I emerge from Mully's sanctum and hand him back the key. Nod at him that I have what I need.

  We take seats again, in his study and he puts on music. He's a devotee of soft jazz. He's a Brubeck man, which drives me spare, but what's to be done? His house, his rules.

  'You're still thinking about her, aren't you?'

  We've never really spoken about the break-up. Scarlet never studied under Mully, but I brought her here dozens of times. She loved him. He used to flirt with her dreadfully, which made her laugh and blush. When she started getting into working for the Library seriously, he gave her advice.

  'Lark, nothing can heal you but time. You know that. I won't counsel you on heartbreak or anything as terrible as that. But Scarlet. She believes in the Library now. That's her love.'

  'And Everett.'

  'No.'

  I look at him. 'Oh, make no mistake, there is affection there, but she's in love with duty. That's a calling I find it hard to fault. Even if you didn't provoke her, I think you'd find her devoted to something more than you.'

  'You see her,' I accuse. Can't help but take that hard.

  'I've worked for the Library for decades, son.' It's said kindly but is certainly a rebuke.

  'Things like what's happening now. That's what the Library has stood against for a very long time. She's right to take her work seriously.'

  'I know. I did as well. I do. But...'

  'But your pride is hurt. But she hurts you by prospering. These are younger men's responses. You are a sorcerer, and we do more than explore or challenge. We protect. Protect her and as all magicians must, do it without lust for result. Hunting her won't change anything.'

  And that's it. The first real law of magic. Craving results will mar you. Just work.

  'And ask yourself, why she went to you and not another Librarian.'

  'It had occurred.'

  We sit in silence a moment.

  'You have work.'

  I get up. His hands are too old too shake. It hurts him. I put a hand on his shoulder. Turn to go.

  'And Lark?'

  'Yeah.'

  'The Old Man... be careful of him, but don't be terrified. That's his magic.'

  'Too late.'

  He frowns. 'No. You can see the way through if you know you're in the trap.'

  Forty

  And here's the thing. The Old Man has to go.

  I'm too scared of him to tolerate him. He's a legend and powerful and old and dangerous, but, if there's one thing magic teaches you, it's glamour. I can be either a man unable to move past a leg that throbs, fear shooting into my fingertips with every step I take.

  Or I can be a hunting-mage, moving through the night, seeking out victims.

  I make a choice.

  Ludo. Him first, then the Old Man.

  The city is going bad. I can feel it. Spun sugar with mites trapped within. Its piercings are infected. Fingernails turned black. I can't leave this place, and I won't tolerate being a parasite on some diseased body.

  I move. Slow and careful in the night, but with a bat's surety.

  Mid-town, in the old town, where the buildings are old and rotten and the dogs move in packs, feral as victims. My eyes are darting at every cross street and I keep whispering new spells of misdirection
around me, muttering like a zealot.

  I walk for a long hour and my leg hurts me, threatening my mood, but I make it a part of my superhero mentality. Leather jacket becomes armour. Pain becomes a power, strange as any X-man. I'm a submarine, I'm a panther, I'm a sniper's round.

  And here he is. The church is tiny, the neon crosses that adorn it are unlit. This is the kind of place Bettina's grandmother took her when she was a kid.

  Reach into my wallet and take out a spike of metal. Lockpick mojo. I hold it to the church back door and twist it. Opens. Perfect. I take my time, drawing a symbol on the door to protect me in case of traps.

  I turn on a light. It's a kitchen. She's there, staring at me. She's slit her wrists but it's bullshit. Two slashes across. She's still panting. She did it just a second ago.

  'I'm not with anyone. I'm not to hurt you.'

  She starts.

  Under the sink, I find a first aid kit. She panics as I take her hand.

  'If I was here to fuck you up, do you think I'd waste time patching you up?'

  Hoarse. Whisper. No.

  I take her, wash the wound, bandage it. I just wrap her scratched wrist.

  We sit.

  'I'm the only person whose looking for you. The protections in this place are terrible. If they wanted you, you'd be found.'

  She sobs. It annoys me. I light up and look at her. Forty, maybe more. Stringy hair. Greasy, unstyled. A weird cross. A brand on her neck. Cultist to the core. Her eyes are red from exhaustion. I let her cry it out.

  'You're Bleak Electorate.'

  Shakes. Moan. Boring.

  'Do you know who I am?'

  'You're Lark. We met a few years back. You were borrowing some books from us.'

  I remember that, a bit of snooping disguised as interfaith cooperation. We just wanted to see their Marian texts, make sure nothing was out of hand. Black female energy is dangerous. But the Electorate had nothing.

  'I don't recall you, I'm sorry.'

  'S'ok.'

  'And you know what my job is?'

  'You used to work for the Library. I heard you got fired.'