Black City (The Lark Case Files)

by Christian Read

  But worth it.

  Carma's in a good mood. She got the job done. She'll stay on that Library teat for a while longer and maybe, this time, they'll teach her some good magic, let her get rich, find a good woman to top hard, settle down and drive a good car.

  The Hollow, who was on the roof with her all along, is given an instruction by his wise master. He thinks Carma is entirely unworthy of death. The Jon-ghost-thing recalls her.

  You cannot help him. We will not risk the wrath of an Archon.

  I know, but I think I should watch him die.

  The Hollow watches Carma open the door, wonders why he let her go. The Teaching Silence intimates that you don't blunt a fine dagger on bad meat. He nods.

  What a fine lesson.

  Sixty-Eight

  So where am I?

  Ludo is here. I can hear him bawling over the sound of gunfire, laughing like a mule. He must be good at what he does. All I hear is short controlled bursts and that's what you hear in the movies all the time.

  I'm here before the Old Man is. He had to stop and gather his troops and all the stuff. Probably prepare himself as well. This is his big night. All I had to do was make two calls and catch a bus.

  Then, back to the community centre. Archon's presence is growing. I take my tools from my bag, set up in the kitchen. Wards and glyphs, drawing them on the ground, muttering every spell I've ever cribbed, ever made up. Draw my strongest warding symbols on the ground. I need to be able to operate without constantly warding the Primal Sigil. Octagonal guard memes. Strong. Words written along it. Don't let the sound of gunfire getting louder distract me.

  This is the show.

  Finish it off with the symbol of the Omegamantis. Drop down, cross-legged, ignoring the bruising in my leg. Shark presence is back. My science is tight. Strong. It notices me, but I'm still out of focus.

  Waiting here for the ambush.

  Ludo kicks open the door and scouts the place out. Walks right by me. 'Clear,' he calls out. Walks outside. Squeak of wheel, creak of leather. Whiteknuckle but the wards hold and neither of them notice me. I can see you, you can't see me.

  The Old Man, wheeled down the corridors until he comes to Wick's lair.

  'Piss off,' he commands Ludo, who does. Reckon he comes into the kitchen and rolls a joint. He's covered in blood and he's shaking. Adrenaline supercharging him. Murder-dopamine.

  Now's a good time, a perfect time to take him. Plant some bad spell in his head to see his way to a slit throat. Shut down his consciousness til he strokes out. Hell, convince his mind his body is dying then sit back, watch a useful homeopathy at work. Or just bind him still, pouring concrete into his nervous system and put a beating on him.

  No.

  That's not my way. Killing people isn't like the movies.

  Besides, two things. One, I don't think I could hurt the bastard without a sledgehammer. Two, I have to keep still. Have to wait until the Old Man is deep in it with Wick before I make the move. If he can finish the girl, great. I move then. If he loses, then I'll have to step up and that's the worst case.

  Either way, I blindside the winner. But to do that, I have to remain still. Very still. Then, snake them.

  Because. Here's the thing. If the Old Man gets the scroll, there's a good chance he'll be able to go use it as a lever against the Archon. Rattle the prisoner's cage. Maybe use it as a slave collar, to bind one of the most powerful entities our world can tolerate.

  And the Archon wants to be a city-god. But so does the Old Man.

  One day, we'll all live in a fire.

  He's been planning this for a million years. Living in some holocaust fantasy, living forever. Maybe the specifics weren't this. Weren't these circumstances. But as soon as he heard the scroll was in town, he had to go for it. He wants to live in a world of pain and death, but a man like this? He'll stay on top even in a holocaust.

  He's been a hardcore magician to the marrow. Never focusing on the small picture, never going in for results. Never trading it all in for gangster chick and gunmoles, or cocaine binges or even bogus miracles. He's made himself into a bad dream, a bogey for sorcerers, just for this moment. To be the man with the kind of power to have a city afraid of him through acts and will. Black fucking magic.

  Jesus Christ. What a will. Hardcore. Hardcore.

  But I'm still going to fuck his day up. I've seen too many sad deaths to let him go, let alone get himself an metropolis apotheosis.

  The Old Man is laughing.

  'Some child with good luck and a bit of talent with a brush? That's what I've been wary of?'

  A beat.

  'Shut up stupid old dick. You don't know what I am.'

  I kind of laugh.

  'Of course I do. You're a useful manikin. But you're not what I'm after. You're something to spit out. After, I'll breed you to something awful and let the children drill their way out of you with their digestive acids. You'll be my first sacrifice to myself.'

  Long pause.

  'Ew. That's fucking gross.'

  He snorts. He's done with talking. He begins to chant. Something I've never heard before. Some invented tongue, maybe. Vile as it is strong. Vibrations of it hit me in the solar plexus. Ludo covers his ears. Walks out. Thank fuck. I didn't need him hanging around.

  I listen carefully. I draw my conscious mind deep. Dzogchen receptive. Waiting. Not for long.

  The Old Man gets straight in. He calls out the names of spirits. It's like tigers off a leash. Feel them manifest. Carcinogenic ghosts, howling from eight throats each. I can't see them, just feel them. Not sure I want to. He starts throwing magic words at her like crude taunts. Words to hurt. Words to frighten, words to maim. Sonic leprosy. They're not meant for me. And I'm behind serious barriers besides, but it's like acid spray anyway. It's filling up my mouth, death words down the back of my throat. Swallow it.

  Then, the Old Man starts to bring the heavy artillery. All around me, the last words of rites he's had prepared for a hundred years scream. The walls break open like old wounds, leaking pus and bile and worse, so horrid it's almost real. Eyes open in the walls. Something made of smoke and light and hate prowls the kitchen, sensing my wards, and I shut my eyes, not wanting to look into its mouth.

  Compelled, it leaps and, finally, I hear Wick scream. The spirit is a Hierarch. A monster of high order. Something far too powerful to unleash except in desperation. Way too much to attack an untrained girl.

  And I understand.

  The Old Man isn't looking to hurt her.

  He's after the Archon.

  It's manifesting. It's real, here in the world, but Wick isn't done painting its body into existence. She just started tonight. And, oh fuck, I think he can hurt it enough to get it to submit to him.

  I think he's winning.

  And I gave it to him. Leaked the information to him tonight, hoping he'd be stupid and rush in, but I never knew he was this dangerous. This powerful. This is the sweet spot to do it. When it's trying to come into the world, to make itself real, to become a God like nothing that's walked the earth for a million years.

  I did it.

  Amateur. Fucking amateur!

  I get up, out of the Octagon. If I'm going to move against him, I have to commit. But first, I summon my own allies. The Ultrascorpions appear before me, tails switching, claws clacking. Ready for harm.

  My guys manifest, fog into ice, then they rush into battle like a hiss. Mandibles biting and tails shooting forward. I don't even see what the hell they're fighting. Wait, there it is. I've never seen a Hierarch before.

  Some cancer-creature. Some eregores a century worth of cruelty brings you. Hooks and old hot spit. Open boils and acid words. The Ultrascorpions can't win against something this long in birthing, percolated in decades of brutality. But they carve a path through the Old Man's lesser allies, ensuring I won't have to guard my back from some vicious things manifesting at me when I don't need the distraction. Then they engage the monster.

  Two scorpions
peel back a flap of plastic, sticking muscle, a third throws back its and clacks a battle cry, piercing the creature's inside with a barb as big as my hand. No time for celebration, they're already melting as a swarm of hornets made of vitriol take them. I watch this and more. Tentacular limbs like whips. Eyes as sick of leprosy. Turn away from the more cloacal features. Look back and the Familiar War has moved itself into another room or shifted into realms where bodies don't count.

  Now it's just me.

  Time for the dramatic gesture.

  Time to show the world who I am. Time to impress my desires and my sacrifices upon it.

  Then, I show magic just how into this battle I am. I drop the wards. The sigil beats down at me, but it's half-hearted. Its potency targets the Old Man now. Worth it. Make the symbol real as I commit to assault. Utterly. Totally. Win or die.

  'Well, fancy seeing you here.'

  It's Ludo. I never even saw him come back in.

  White of his eyes. Mad dog grin.

  I can't do anything but laugh, so I do. Sound of it scares me. I'm done.

  He goes to work, leg first.

  Sixty-Nine

  Early case I worked, me and Jon went into some S&M coven. A man with a ponytail and moustache drank midori while his frizzy-haired, nervous and overweight wife told us all about the pleasures of restriction and power. Behind them, in the club, the pornography featured a woman getting slapped repeatedly in the face and spat on. The woman droned on about intimacy and limits and respect. The man massaged her neck with thumb and forefinger.

  I'm thinking of that when the back of his hand takes my cheek, the sting slap of it fighting with the blunt force trauma to hurt more. He works my body, winding me, and I know he's just warming up. Rabbit punches that I take on my arms. That annoys him, so he changes pace. Takes me, slams my head against the wall. Between that and the second and third slap, my lips split.

  Let me tell you now. When you've really had pain rip away your power, your ability to resist, there's nothing intimate about it. The beatings hurt like you can't understand. Hope you never do. Then there's the humiliation. And Jesus Christ, he punches me in the face and my head sparks and my back teeth come lose and I'm afraid he's split my cheekbone and then he throws me into the kitchen bench, the corner taking me in the short ribs. I just start to beg God that he doesn't work my shins. I hate that.

  'Oh yeah,' he grins, 'this.'

  And with that weird kick, he goes to work up and down my right leg. Ankle, knee, thigh, knee, stomp the top of the foot, then toe. Shin. Then back into the rhythm. I fall, he stomps and whatever clicked in my knee the other night grinds now. At least I've stopped screaming. The pain is too much and my body is overtaxed. Numb.

  Ludo stops. Breathing hard. I reach for gnosis. Fail. Reach for gnosis. Fail. I just hurt too damn much and I'm too fucking scared.

  He's rifling through drawers. Old rusted knife. One of those rolling things. Pins. Can opener.

  Fuck. I need a delaying tactic. Something. Shift my weight trying to get up and the pain sweeps up from toes to skull.

  He picks me up by the hair and deposits me on the kitchen bench, back down. Something in me wants to cry and beg him to stop but I just can't listen to it.

  My body gives in. Can't move, lock up. Ludo takes my cigarettes, lighter from my jacket pocket, lights one up. Weirdly, I almost ask if I can have one.

  Wick is screaming too. Behind all the pain in my body, I can feel their battle like thunder behind my eyes.

  It's too much. I want to give in. But there's a rolling pin in his fist and Ludo's smoking my cigarettes with my blood on this hands. And I realise that I've gotten off lightly so far. A few smacks, a few bruises. The knee might be something else, but the real fun is just starting.

  'Fucking blanco pussy. Mess with all this el Diablo shit and look at you. You tell me where all this ends you up. I'll tell you. Nowhere. Smart guys like you, you're not the first to find out how valuable smart is.'

  He's talking to himself as much as me.

  I can only do this once. It's not the pain. It's the fear. He's going to hit me again. That's the worst. Fear. Pain, you can survive. Fear, no. So I concentrate. Knee, which grinds. Face, the bruise. The fucked short ribs. That's my meditation.

  No magic words. Just empty-handed desperation. I fling my pain at him, at the spells in his head that keep him safe from the Primal Sigils all around this dark, dirty room. Death-curse. I throw everything I have into it. One moment of pure concentration, holding on to a spell I made up years ago.

  And it works. Breach the Old Man's spell. And Ludo goes still. Silent. Staring at the walls.

  For about a second. Turns and stares at me with a deep sea fish stare and I slide off the bench. He's hurt. But then I remember. Idea-eater. It siphons off the worst of the curse and leaves him shaking, poisoned and living.

  Go for the doors just get out get out. Nothing more to fight with. Which is when my legs gives out and I collapse.

  Just pain.

  I crawl, not seeing where I'm going. Get outside. Get it together. Get outside. Get outside. Try again.

  Leg pain blinds. Close my eyes. Fight off fear. Nearly at the door.

  When I realise he's just walked in front of me. My hand touches his boots. If the Primal Sigil has sent him insane, it's the kind of insanity that makes room for his torture-urge.

  Open my eyes. Face it like a man. Scarlet. Baby, I tried.

  Not his boot. Too small. Open the eyes to see what I'm touching.

  Look up.

  Leaning over me. Bettina.

  Seventy

  Wick is losing. The bastard old thing is hurting her. Digging up every emotion and doubt until she just wants to give him the scroll to leave her alone. But he's just another one of the guys who dissed her work and spoiled it, so fuck him.

  But sooner or later, he'll kill her. The monsters tear at her and sting her like hornets.

  She uses the paint like a bug spray but that's not going to last long. There's only one way to win.

  The thing in the scroll is screaming at her. Join it. Give in to It. Let It into her and into the city she's marked with Its symbol. Into the people she took for it. They're dead, she explains. Dead or alive, you don't seem much different to me, it replies.

  The crazy crip wheels his chair into the room now. Seems to matter as he grins ugly when he wheels his way in and she can smell him.

  Let me in, says the thing behind the scroll. The thing that looks through her work like peepholes in a girls' locker room. I don't want this one to share in my majesty.

  Wick wonders what will happen to her if she does let It in. Will she still be her? Will she still like to tag the city, a ragged shape whose fucking awesome at art?

  No. You'll be a grandiose art work that all will cower to look upon.

  That sounds pretty cool. But then again. She sort of liked it when that guy said how much he liked her work. Wasn't that better than cower?

  She draws a circle around her with her can. It's an electric blue, the colour that she always felt was powerful somehow.

  The crip in the chair sneers.

  Become me a little, Wick tells the thing. It can't do anything else than obey her. She knows. She's read the terms of the scroll, although she can't speak the language. And It does. Surges into her, downloading like a flood.

  Oh no.

  Seventy-One

  She smiles at me, her face less gaunt, more skeletal.

  St. Catriona. Smiling at me.

  'Watch this.'

  She takes Ludo apart. Teeth, mainly. The sounds he makes is like a pig. I turn my gaze away as she takes his nipple between her teeth and starts to peel him.

  Think about how it felt. Think about the smashed guitar he's made of my leg. She throws him across the room and he's crying, I think.

  Better him than me.

  No. That's not really what I think. I don't mind being hard, but it's so easy to be cruel.

  'Bettina. Just finish it.'r />
  There's a crack. The squeals stop. But then there's the sound of something heavy pounding, a crack and she gets to the good bit. I'm glad she's behind the bench. I don't need to see that.

  The Old Man starts to laugh. The Primal Sigils start their pounding again. I stand up, but it hurts too much. Slide down the wall.

  'Bettina.' A whisper.

  'Bettina!' shout.

  My packet of cigarettes, thrown behind the bench. A second later, the lighter. Blood and something black sticks to it. Wipe it off and light up. Familiar act. Helps me. The pressure from the Sigils eases off as I use lighting up as a place to regain gnosis.

  Soon, she stops. Tries the taps but the water is cut off. She stands, her face is all red. Picks at her teeth.

  'Thanks,' I say to her.

  'De nada.'

  'No. It's a thing.'

  Ludo, gone just like that. One less thing to worry about.

  She walks over, grasps my wrist in sticky fingers. Right leg can't really bear any weight.

  'You should go. Wait outside. Don't look at the graffiti. Look at the sky or something.'

  She nods. 'The Old Man, he could switch me off.' I know.

  I lean against the bench, careful with my gaze.

  'Why'd you come back?'

  She shrugs. 'Dead people can't sleep easy. This,' waves her hand all around, 'it's just not good.'

  'No.'

  'I didn't want to sleep with this in the ground with me.'

  She walks out, a gore shade, slim in the dark.

  Old Man.

  Fucking it up for everyone since time began. Looking to inject himself into the city like a dose of poison, of radiation. Living forever, bonded to an Archon. As if this place wasn't bad enough already.

  I can limp, so I do it. Walk down the corridor.

  Wick is laying on the ground. The Old Man is giggling. He's running over her fingers with the chair. Her face is white from pain. The greatest moment a magician could possibly have but he's delaying it for one last moment of pettiness.