Black City (The Lark Case Files)

by Christian Read

  So how is Lark alive when tougher than him came apart so easily?

  'What do you want anyway, dead man?'

  Ludo is in the Old Man's waiting room. Alone. It stinks in here. Mothballs and rotted carpet. Peeling wood and a filthy window. He's glad to have something to focus on beyond his employer's rage.

  'I know what you're looking for.'

  'That a fact.'

  'Look, I want to talk to the organ-grinder, not the monkey.

  'Put the Old Man on.'

  Ludo laughs. 'Don't be fucking stupid. And, believe me, I'm doing you a favour.'

  'Then listen carefully. You're after a scroll. It came from the Gallowglass. I know where it is and I know who has it and I can give all that to you.'

  'What's the cost?'

  'I walk away from this. And I hear the Old Man has a copy of Sigmund's Woe. That.'

  That's bullshit.

  'I'll call you back.'

  'Wait. Tell him I'm swearing to play you true. He'll know what it means.'

  Ludo hangs up.

  Ludo enters the bosses' office.

  'Sir. A development.'

  Sixty-Two

  WARNING:

  THE FOLLOWING FILE IS CLASSIFIED CRIMSON GLOVE. IF YOU ARE NOT CLEARED FOR STATUS: CRIMSON GLOVE, REPLACE THE FILE NOW AND REPORT TO THE SECURITY CLEARANCE OFFICER.

  NOTE:

  THIS LETTER WAS FOUND IN A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CODENAME: THIRTY-ONE AFTER THAT ASSET'S SUICIDE. GRAPHOLOGY INDICATES AUTHENTIC PROVENANCE.

  Magical battles

  So a magic battle doesn't have fireballs and death rays. You got that, right? But it does have weapons and it does have dangers. Very real dangers.

  Here's my advice to you. If you think you're going to be in a magical battle, be prepared. You can play it fast and loose all you like but, victory is in the preparation. You have to Batman it.

  A magician's first and best weapon is study. It's why so many people try for it and fail. It takes a long time to get your clip full of bullets, to sharpen your sword. Here's the best example I know of that. You need a weapon. So you can look up some Egyptian curse or stick a goat's head on a stick for Odin. That's fine. If it worked for someone else and you're prepared to put in the work, recreate the rite, it will work for you, too, probably.

  But let's say someone is in your face. There, then. You need a spell right the fuck now. That's where a magical battle gets intense and if you can walk away from one, you're probably a good magician.

  I do it with words and gestures. I probably already said that. So say, I want a spell that just straight up dredges shame and self-hate. You can't fight a magic war remembering the time you fiddled with your little brother when you were three in a game of doctor.

  So I make a word for that spell. Let's say: bastard.

  Every time, in the right context, I say that, there's a spell. I practice with it and I discover that maybe a better word will work: Doublebastard.

  I play around with that for a while. Then I want it to sound cooler. I go for Latin, the classical choice: Doublusbastardus.

  There's a spell. I just invented a magic word. I use it a few times. I lock it away, let it rest in my head, fruiting. Don't let the desire for results mar it up for me. Then, when I need it, it's powerful, a pristine idea.

  I work with spirits. Mean ones, when I'm looking for allies in a fight. I take my time, sorting through the deck, looking for the aces. Spirits I like, respect, find easy to work with or, if I don't care, enslave. Spirits I can make sure will arrive when I need them, straight away.

  Spirits, though, can be easy to banish. That's a good portion of my work with the Library. People call up things all the time, never knowing that a banishing should be the first thing they learn.

  I have spells now. I have allies.

  This takes time. And that's the hard bit. Because once you've found out what traditions and styles work for you, once you've trained your mind, once you've read the books and practiced, practiced, practiced, you want to get into it. No. You have to take your time and assemble your weapons with care.

  And if I've been preparing for a fight I probably have a lot of different weapons. I need them because I see a lot of different practices at work and I need to be flexible. And if I'm smart, I probably have a lot of different kinds of weapons. And if I'm really good, I'll manage to keep my cool when I'm using them. See, you can drop down deep into meditation all you like, but these fights are pretty intense. It's easy to lose your gnosis state in the middle of them, which is pretty much dropping your gun.

  Here's the secret to winning a battle. You have to see it. You have to enter into a different space. It's not just concentration. You have to see the spells. You have to remember them. You have to visualise them or create some anterior narrative analogous to visualisation. You have to respect your own skills and your allies while you commit them to war.

  And that's what makes a good magician. The ability to keep many ideas in the head at one time. Many ideas, and also contrary ideas. It isn't about being the smartest. It isn't about being the most researched. It isn't about having some cultural connection to the unconscious or being a bastard or being a saint. To win a magical battle is to let your imagination be tested to its fullest.

  But really, more than that, you have to live symbolically. Act like you believe that you are an occult soldier. Transform your life with beliefs and actions. Always, always actions. What you do, how you live, what you say is imprinted upon the world and the world will regard it. Magic is simply a way of manifesting that regard.

  Get weird or go home.

  Sixty-Three

  Got to get the scroll off the girl. Got to prevent the Old Man from getting his hands on it.

  Here I am. The middle of a goddamn mall. Effecting the plan. I'm a hero. I'll get the girl for sure.

  Bitter laugh goes here.

  The Forum is trendy apartment buildings on three sides, a huge mall in the centre. Sunken into that, a square of concrete, stairs on each side. Chess set in the middle. Tables bolted to the concrete. Shops of teeth-grating tweeness. 'House of Jam', 'Saffron, Saffron' and the inevitable pun-based Thai restaurant.

  All closed now. Some windows vaguely lit to haunt mannequins and bracelets. This is where Ludo said to meet. It's cold and I'm hiding in shadows. I'm here early, working up hiding spells. They won't see me when they talk to me. I'll be safe in the dark.

  Look, I know this is stupid. Last time I was here, Ludo beat the shit out of me. Only Bettina got me out. But this time, I've got something they really want, I'm expecting them trying something and I'm ready for it. And better than that, I've got a good plan to run the hell away.

  Way I figure it, I have to get their attention quick and cruel. Because they'll be thinking the best way not to pay is put a bullet into my fucking skull. I'd like to discourage that line of thinking.

  Cold tonight. Winter coming on fast. Cold wind blows the wrappers and leaves along the ground.

  Ludo, big as a bull, big as a bastard. Black suit. No shades. He's got someone with him. Oh yeah, this one I recognise. Humbert, she bizarrely calls herself. Straight out of Turkmenistan or somewhere like that. She's beautiful and vicious as winter. Shaman traditions. Gnosis. Yeah. She bought spirits with her. Rat things that scurry at her feet.

  No problem.

  I said I'd swear to play it true. That means that I'm treating this meeting as an act of magic, of ritual. I'm being respectful. Taking this as serious as I can. That might mean something to the Old Man. Might not. But something tells me that he's magician enough to at least acknowledge it. Of course, it means I can't betray or lie. The risk is calculated.

  Ludo waits, legs apart, hands by his sides. A soldier at attention. Humbert necks some pills from a bottle and washes them down with water.

  'OK, here's the deal.'

  I let them see me walking forwards, stand before them. Really, I'm thirty foot away, in a stairwell down to car parking. I smashed the light, the way their bra
ins see it, like a mirage. I'm to their side, watching. My leg hurts again, just to see him.

  Stop. 'Bring the book?'

  Slowly reach into his coat. There it is. A small, old-fashioned hardback, square. Something only the Old Man could have. Something I want for real, but it's also bait.

  'Put it down.'

  He lays it out on one of cafe's tables. Oh yes. That's mine.

  Stares at the fake me. 'Now, stop your poncing about and get to it.'

  I tell him the address. Forget to mention the hundred or so bodies Wick has at her disposal. Not a lie.

  'You can find her there. What you want is there.'

  'How do you even know what I want?'

  'Ludo, just stick to breaking heads. Finding out hidden things is my job. Anyways, it doesn't matter. I'm out. I got hired to investigate a cult battle. That bought you in. If I knew it was the Old Man's business, I never would've got involved. But I did. I'm not his problem. I'm not yours. Now, you get what you want,' I point at the book, 'and I get a taste.'

  He doesn't respond. He's taking his time.

  He's wasting time.

  Humbert is trying some spell at me but she's punching above her weight.

  What's...

  My shielding spell is broken like a glass jaw.

  Ludo turns to look at me. The real me, hiding in shadows. Grins. Shifts his body.

  'He telling the truth, boss?'

  Then, letting himself appear in my vision, himself. The Old Man.

  And he is. Ancient. Like something got into his body to twist and diminish it. His hands are thick with spots. His teeth, brown and chipped like a cave. His eyes are... they're bad eyes.

  He stinks. He reeks. Not just filth and age, but the sour milk burn of sadism.

  Oh Christ.

  'Lark, is it? The one who left the Library?'

  'Yes.'

  I'm too scared to bother playing him. The Archon was bad, but it was like being scared of the sun dying, the moon falling to the Earth. But this man seems electric with cruel capacities that are intimate and intravenous.

  'They never let anyone go before.' His voice is stringy and wheezing. 'What's so special about you?'

  'They couldn't stop me.'

  He snorts. Snot lands on his lap. His nurse, a tiny blonde thing taut with terror, comes from behind his wheelchair to clean it. He waves her away. Rubs into his robe with the back of his hand. Not the first time.

  'I doubt that. You're just another chancer. Pick my teeth with the likes of you, you little fuck. So I wonder why they really let you go. But they didn't, did they?'

  Stares. 'Yeah. Someone's laid a geas on you, haven't they boy?'

  'Yeah.'

  'You might want to think about that.' He laughs, his tongue poking against his ruined teeth and his spit shoots out like insults.

  Ludo speaks, startling me. 'You want this done with?'

  'Shut the fuck up, monkey,' says the Old Man conversationally. Ludo raises his eyebrows but says nothing. Back to me.

  'You've seen it haven't you.' Not a question. 'The prison.'

  'What?'

  'The binding spell. The scroll, you dim fuck.'

  'Yeah.'

  'What's it like?'

  Tell it true. 'Beautiful. Powerful. I think you're mad to try and tame a thing like that.'

  Laughs again, pouring scorn into me like fevers.

  'You might be, you poxy little first-timer. But what's mad for you is just another working for me.'

  He jerks his head at Ludo.

  'Let him go. I want him to see what happens when I get it. Want him to live with it. Besides, he said an oath.'

  Hesitates. Says nothing. Smart. But it's plain to see Ludo's opinion on a magician's promise.

  They wheel away.

  Over his shoulder, the Old Man cries out 'Stay out of it now, boy. I see you again, I'll have you done in by dogs in heat.'

  Seems it's the day for warnings.

  Not much time now. If that little amateur whose been following me around is here, then he'll alert the people I'll need alerted. My plan looks like it has legs. Like I said, calculated risk.

  Take a card from my wallet. Dial it in.

  'Agent Valier. It's Lark.'

  Sixty-Four

  Shirelle Valier never really wanted to join an intelligence agency. She was far too sensible for that. She realised that it wouldn't be getting across borders without a passport, flirting with handsome spies in Hilton bars, breaking into embassies. It would be desk work, plain and simple. Boring.

  But when she graduated with a Masters in ancient languages, there wasn't much of interest for her in the world of employment. She didn't want to teach. She didn't want to publish. She picked up the occasional job translating, but that was only good for a few hundred bucks now and again. Nothing to live on.

  Ms. Valier's uncle, as he had done for the last five years, tried again to recruit her. A sophisticated man, he had never treated her like a child, and so she loved him fiercely as an adult. His style was all Scotch from crystal tumblers and handmade shoes and hair greying in wings. At a bar, amusingly enough in the Forum, he bought her a campari and made his final pitch.

  'You're smart. You've a clean record. I can vouch for you. You have unusual skills, and we're always looking for that. There's travel in the job, the money is, well, adequate and you'll be doing something useful.'

  'But, I don't know. Analysing data all day...'

  'Sometimes it's dull, yes, but what work isn't? And analysing data is a small part of the job. You'll be making decisions that affect people in the real world. You'll be actually one of the good guys.'

  'Good guys?'

  'Better us than them and, believe it or not, that's actually how I feel.'

  He was disarmingly earnest. She believed him.

  There was a sea of crew cuts and bobs and flat platformed pumps and promise rings when she sat for the examination. At first, she was mildly discouraged, worried that these would be her peers but, sharing coffee with a few of them, she was put at ease. They were intelligent people, political, perhaps a tad conservative for her tastes, but she was hardly a radical these days.

  Of course her test scores were excellent, and she read her acceptance letter with a smile. She called her uncle who flew in, took her out for lobster, that time on his boat.

  Op training was mainly easy for her, although the physical fitness was a shock, after a university experience that saw her enjoying too many good red wines, too many classes scheduled late and too many rich pastries at faculty dos. Her brother, a decathlete, drew up a plan for her and, before she knew it, she was eating miles with a steady pace, enjoying the slap of pavement beneath her soles. Cryptography was quite fascinating, but the computer lessons bored her. Guns and knives and interrogation techniques and humint and comint and all the stuff from the movies and the novels.

  She graduated highly placed and was given her first assignment overseas. Working in an embassy in an Eastern European city. The work was alright, monitoring and funding some right-wing groups who had issues with unions. She ate dumplings, met a nice guy, made a life for herself.

  Then her uncle called. She said goodbye to the guy and moved back to the city.

  'What do you know about cults?'

  'Same as anyone. Scientology. Waco.'

  'No, the real ones. Assassins and Roslyn Chapel and that sort of business.'

  'Well, they're the same no matter what time. Usually parasitical, heretical off-shoots of existing religions. Common traits include charismatic leaders, the only true way, give up all your worldly goods. You know, that kind of thing.'

  'Do you know what a Skoptsy is?

  Forty-five minutes later, she was in a room with a prisoner. His hands were cuffed behind his back. A handsome, big man, red-headed and raw-bone handsome. Simple table, the mirror in the room, the white lights buzzing.

  'Andrei Breshnev. You bashed a man to death with a house brick and attempted to steal several items from his
house. Unfortunately, that man was an important intelligence asset and we'd like to know why you killed him.'

  'He was unclean', said Breshnev in thickly accented English. Not even bothering to deny the crime. 'It was not good for him to have the... have the things of our faith.'

  'Now, curiously, one of those things was a toy. A bronze head.'

  The Russian laughed. 'Toy.'

  The dead man had been an ex-KGB officer who liked swapping old code, old histories, old secrets for a steady supply of cash or heroin he could sell. He claimed that the source of intelligence was someone he called Brasshead. It was too interesting a coincidence that the one item the man had stolen had been the inspiration for a codename. Especially considering that the thief had left hundreds of thousands of dollars of gold bullion behind him.

  'Show him the thing.' Her uncle's voice over the hidden earpiece. She frowned. This was weird.

  'Here it is. Why don't you tell me what's so important about this thing?'

  She took it from the bag and placed it on the plain table. Breshnev stared at it in awe. A mechanical head, a human face, shaped like an eastern sphinx's profile.

  Then the man began to strip. The guard in the room went for him taser but her uncle calmed them both. Then the man slipped off his trousers. A mass of scar tissue where penis and testicles could be. Just a slit for urination.

  'Look,' gestured the Russian. 'God creates something to tempt us but we are wise. We know the sacrifices he demands.'

  He crawled up onto the table, kneeling before the head, praying fast in his mother tongue.

  'Ask him about Lubbovich.'

  Breshnev bowed to the head. Held his hands like a man at prayer.

  And began to babble in a voice not human. She drew back. His was a grinding, metal voice, hollow and... bronze. His Russian was different, better pronounced. He spoke like this for two minutes. He engaged the head in what seemed a passionate monolog. Then, collapsed.