“Jefferson! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She stepped out and shut the door, and I heard her snarling through it with the fearless, ball-ripping anger that comes from someone with a collection.
“Smells blood now,” I said.
Detective Runner shook his head as he stifled an unprofessional chuckle. “He’s Narcotics, we’re Homicide. We don’t always get along. Look, Alex, right?”
I nodded.
“You don’t look stupid. So before my partner comes looking for a second course, we’d like you to cooperate with us. We know you’re not working alone. The cops don’t walk Lincoln Street often, but we keep eyes and ears on it. A truck matching yours passed through last night. Tonight you come through again, with a body. Maybe not the first.”
He sat down and splayed his hands on the table. “The gang that runs Lincoln, they call themselves the Mambas. Bad news boys. We know they’re fighting someone, and they’re losing. In the past six months, they’ve retreated from their holdings on the docks all the way to their home turf. They’re getting desperate. Maybe desperate enough to shoot people who don’t deserve it.”
I chewed on my tongue for a second, glanced at the door, and then at him. “Who are they fighting?”
He leaned away. “I’m sure you know.”
Damn, he wasn’t green enough to take the bait. Still, he had confirmed some of my suspicions.
While I considered my next move, I felt a ripple of energy through me. It started in my gut, a sour feeling that turned into nausea. It wasn’t a stomach ache. I was sensing magic. Something powerful. And I recognized it. The necromancy I’d felt in Josh Wilkes.
The cops had his body. Could they have brought it to the 8th? Had some hapless cop sprung the trap it carried?
I waited to hear a scream, or for an alarm to go off, or for cops to rush in and gun me down, convinced I was the one responsible. Runner watched me the whole time, waiting for a confession, or for his partner to come back.
Lorensdottr was faster. She slammed the door behind her as she entered. “Anything?”
Runner shook his head.
“I don’t think we need to waste our time tonight,” she said. “A few days in lockup will let him stew on what’s coming. He’ll be more willing to cooperate, then.”
I met her steady gaze with my own.
“Fine. Alex Fossor, you’re under arrest for the murder of Joshua Wilkes. You have the right to remain-”
Another, more urgent knock interrupted her. I knew then that Lorensdottr wasn’t a mage, because when she glared at the door, it didn’t turn to ice.
“Book him,” she snapped and opened the door. “What?”
An older man, heavyset but sturdy, with a curly mustache and a bald pate, waited on the other side. He met her furious gaze with steady indifference, and the way she tensed up told me he was her superior. She stepped through and shut the door, gently.
“Alex Fossor,” Runner said. “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, do you understand?”
I sighed and nodded. A few more cops ran by the door, silhouettes behind cloudy glass. Some of them stopped near it, but I couldn’t hear what anyone said on the other side.
Runner rattled off my Miranda rights, slow and clear, and made sure I understood. Yeah, the police on-scene had given me the same, but Runner wasn’t a bored beat cop going through the motions. He knew his procedures, and he followed them like a cat on a fence.
Before he could finish, Lorensdottr returned. A kaleidoscope of emotions rippled over her face. Her SO watched from the doorway.
“Let him go, James.”
Runner blinked. “I- what?”
“Do it.”
I was so shocked I almost recoiled when Runner uncuffed me. “What’s going on?”
No way I’d gotten bail. No way the mayor had called to give the bad guy his freedom against all sense and justice.
Lorensdottr’s lip curled. “Get him out of here!”
Being released from police custody doesn’t mean you get to just leave. They took me to a waiting room, stuck a foul-smelling cup of coffee in my hand, and ignored me for an hour. Then some uniformed cops led me through booking. They photographed me, took copies of my fingerprints, got down all my vitals, where I work, who I work for, my driver’s license, my registration, where I live. Everything they could get out of me without a warrant.
They put the fake ID Piotr made me to the test, and the whole time, none of them would tell me anything. If I spoke, they shushed me, or barked another order.
Afterward, they escorted me out of the building and left me on the curb. My truck, I was told, was in the impound lot. They’d mail me when I could retrieve it.
“Mr. Fossor?” Detective Runner stepped out of the precinct building, waving my wallet. He stuck it in my hand and gave me a look like he wasn’t sure if he should congratulate me or punch me out. “You should know that my partner and I will check in on you, so don’t make yourself scarce.”
“Wait,” I said. “What’s going on? No one will tell me.”
He frowned and glanced back at the precinct. “The body they allegedly found in your truck… vanished.”
“Vanished?” It took a second to hit me. No body, no evidence, no crime. It was practically my job description.
Runner shook his head. “Nevermind. Go home. We’ll be in touch.”
When he returned inside, I checked my wallet. Nothing was missing, though I suspected they had made copies. I’d know if they detected the forgery when they came to arrest me. Thank God I’d left the gravedigging cash at home.
I considered the wave of angry magic that had washed over me in the interrogation room. The necromancer must have reanimated the body and walked it out of the precinct.
By why? Maybe they’d made their point and cut me a break? Whatever the reason, it had won my freedom, but I worried about where they’d taken Josh’s body. I was still working for Philip, technically, and if the body returned to Lincoln Street, he would be after me. As much as I liked Piotr, I didn’t expect him to stick his neck out for me.
I shook my head. It was too much to fathom wandering the inner city streets in the dead of night. I needed to get home, call Piotr, and get some sleep. I headed north and followed the sidewalks until I found a corner store with a payphone out front. After calling a cab, I leaned against a brick wall and paced the parking lot.
But less than a minute later, a taxicab straight out of the 1940s rolled into the lot. It was a big, heavy brick of a car, with rounded edges and circle headlights.
It was not the cab I had called for.
An Indian man stepped out of the driver’s seat. He was handsome and clean-shaven, with light brown skin and eyes, and curly black hair. He wore a red silk sherwani, an Indian button-up coat that hung down to his knees. It was like he’d stepped away from a formal party.
“Alex Fossor,” he said, with a hint of smug amusement. “I wish we could meet under better circumstances. You’re under arrest.”
I took a step back. “I’m what? Who are you?”
“My name is Agni Chakrabarti,” he said. “I serve as Sheriff in this city, and all of North America, for the Rimbault Society.”
“The who?”
“The Rimbault Society, Alex. Surely you’ve heard the name, at least.”
I scanned my memories. “The Society. Yeah, the Visatori I used to run with had some choice words about you guys. High and mighty mages with a bug up their asses. Like to flex their magic on the dregs on the bottom. Let everyone know they’re in charge.”
His smile didn’t falter. “Unflattering, but accurate. And also not the entire story. The Society devotes itself to protecting the Untold—everyday humanity—from exploitation by the Versed. What you call ‘mages’.”
“The Edicts. Sure, I know about them, too.”
“Do you? Could you recite the seventeen for me?”
I frowned. “What is
this, a classroom?”
“If that helps. The Society teaches its members the Edicts before they’re permitted to begin their apprenticeships. I can’t vouch for the Visatori’s methods, but surely they instilled some measure of discipline in you?”
I frowned. “They cared little for the Edicts. A lot of them stamp on Visatori tradition.”
“Perhaps, but that’s the nature of progress,” Agni said. “The Edicts exist to protect the Untold.”
“The way they explained it, it just gave the Society permission to meddle with others. The Visatori lived for centuries without need of some oversight committee.”
“If that were true, they wouldn’t live like fugitives,” Agni said. “Even before our Society existed, the Visatori and their Romani cousins, accrued a rather unkind reputation.”
“That’s the nature of racism,” I muttered. “One side deciding the other isn’t welcome. They’ll invent any excuse to get rid of them. Like the Edicts.”
Agni smirked. “I see your intentions are good, even if you’ve had plenty of indoctrination from their perspective. You’re not with the Visatori anymore, Alex. You’re on your own, in a Society-protected city. You’re under our jurisdiction, whether or not you welcome it. So please, the Edicts? All seventeen.”
I scoured my memory for the list the Visatori had recited, so they could pick apart all the contradictions between what the Society preached and practiced. “Wisdom, Discipline, Life, Sanctity, Consent, Responsibility, uh, Defense… Temperance, Diligence, Respect, Hospitality… Silence, Industry, Fraternity, um, Truth, Preservation and Self-Reliance.”
Agni nodded as I finished. “The Society prefers the more gender-neutral ‘Fellowship’ over ‘Fraternity’ these days.”
“Whatever. I read your list. Are we done?”
“I’m glad to see the Visatori didn’t abandon you completely unprepared. I suppose that explains why you haven’t violated those rules until tonight.”
“Violated? I’ve done nothing!”
“That’s not what the evidence suggests, Alex.”
I took another step away from him. “What evidence? The magic in that body?”
“The Necrourgy,” Agni said. “Yes.”
“I use that magic all the time,” I said, before I could shut my teeth. I didn’t want to confess more to the ‘Sheriff’ than he already knew.
“We’re not interested in you animating a few bodies here and there. No matter how abhorrent some of us find it.”
“So why?”
He tilted his head, as if disappointed. “Alex, the boy is dead.”
“I didn’t kill him!” I shouted.
“And yet here you are, and here I am.”
Panic rose in my gut. I only knew about the Society secondhand, but the Visatori had never said one good thing about them. No wonder they’d always avoided the cities, if the Society were so well connected that they could learn about my problem before I even knew I had one.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” Agni said.
“Where are we going?”
“Uptown. Get in, please.” He opened the rear passenger door for me.
“No way,” I said. “I’m not going-”
I hadn’t finished the sentence before I plopped down in the back seat of the cab, with no memory of getting into the car. Agni climbed into the driver’s seat. Confused, but too scared to sit still, I was halfway out the door when I blinked back into my seat. The door slammed itself shut.
“Try to sit still, Alex.” Agni smirked in his rearview mirror. “Trying to run doesn’t help your case.”
I shouldered open the door, but he blinked me back into my seat.
“Let me go!”
He sighed. “Perhaps some perspective would help.”
The cab vanished, and I was falling.
Out of the sky.
FIVE
The city spread out far below me. I couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, couldn’t stop or slow my descent. I screamed until my throat hurt, and then I could only hear wind whipping past my ears. The biting cold winds turned my extremities numb and felt like razors on my skin. I had enough time to reflect on how much I did not want to die before the asphalt rushed on me-
And I landed on my ass in Agni’s cab. I bounced to the floor and let out a hoarse croak.
My heart danced around in my ribcage. I had never felt so relieved to be alive, and white-knuckled the door handle as I pulled myself into a seat. I was afraid that if I let go, the Sheriff would teleport me into the sky again.
Agni met my gaze through the rearview mirror. “I have your attention now?”
With a shiver, I leaned away from him, unable to muster an ounce of defiance. He nodded, satisfied, and continued his leisurely drive through the city’s center.
“Who, what are you?” I asked in a hoarse voice.
“Versed, like you,” Agni said. “As Sheriff, my job is to enforce the Edicts in North America, and I’ve served for, hm, thirty years, give or take.”
Thirty years? He didn’t look a day older than me, but that much didn’t shock me. Mages could live a long time. Most of the Visatori I knew had stopped aging around thirty, and the oldest—Nana Valerie—was around a hundred and twenty. She looked her age, but she’d been sickly most of her life. I knew mages could live longer. Two or three centuries, if they were healthy and smart.
I shuddered. “How old are you, Sheriff?”
“I’ll be ninety-seven next month,” he said.
“Does that explain the car?”
“Indeed.”
Despite its age—including its woefully outdated opinion on seat belts—the taxi’s engine rumbled like some kind of dragon lounging on a hoard of treasure. The trip was so smooth I couldn’t feel the road under us.
“Isn’t that embracing the stereotype?” I asked.
He smiled. “Please, Alex. You know better.”
I was silent for a few minutes, but my curiosity peaked again. “How did you do that?”
“Tilemetaforurgy.”
“Tile-what?”
“Teleportation,” he clarified. “I can project objects, including people, from one place to another at my whim. And that wasn’t my maximum range.”
“I’ve never seen magic like that before.”
He shrugged. “We’re more common than you think. But Necrourgy? That is rare, and dangerous. It is Society policy to deny apprenticeships to Versed with such talents. The potential to breach the Edicts, even accidentally, is too high. But I have to admit, for your age, you show appreciable skill.”
“Why do you call it ‘Necrourgy’?” I asked.
He met my eyes in the mirror. “That’s the correct parlance. Necromancy, from necromantia, means to learn prophecy from the dead. ‘Necrourgy’ means to craft, or work, death.”
“Doesn’t sound as cool as ‘necromancy’.”
“The Society tries to avoid romanticizing our abilities,” Agni said.
“But you call yourselves the Versed,” I grumbled. “Even though we don’t get our magic from books.”
He smirked. “Touche. Here we are.”
The cab parked at the foot of a skyscraper occupying a large plaza dotted with large pieces of modern art. I had seen the building before, from a distance. As the tallest in the city, the tower had served as a landmark to navigate by. ‘Breckenridge’ was written in large brass letters in the plaza’s namesign.
Agni stepped out of the taxi, and I blinked into step alongside him, with no sensation of leaving my seat.
Uniformed guards waited to permit us entry. The lobby was enormous, and showed off the wealth of the place. The floors and walls were warm, brown marble. Fountains and greenery decorated small waiting and reception areas, and four glass elevator tubes rose into the ceiling high above us.
“Sir,” the shorter of the two guards said. “Council is already in session. The Archmage says to come right up.”
“Very good.” Agni walked to the
nearest elevator, hit the call button, and waited with his hands clasped behind him. I fidgeted, glanced at the guards, and wondered if they’d tackle or shoot me if I tried to bolt. But with Agni around, they didn’t have to worry. One step out of line, and I’d be teleported to whatever part of the building he chose.
Or maybe he’d send me above the skyscraper and let gravity show me the way.
When the elevator arrived, he stepped on board, and I followed a half-second later.
“Fortieth floor, please,” he said.
The idea of Agni even using an elevator seemed ridiculous to me, but I suspected he was drawing the moment out just to keep my stress level at a rolling boil. My sweaty hand had a death grip on the arm rail. My legs felt like rubber. I wasn’t ready when the doors opened into a wide hallway lined with soft lights and guards.
The men wore unusual robes, black with dark red trim, and a red sash bound by a brass brooch shaped like a fist holding three lightning bolts. Along with a modern sidearm and earpiece receiver, their weapon belts sported an ornate dagger with a silver blade, and a shiny black stick I realized was a wand. It was a hybrid of archaic and modern style, like a Shaolin monk crossed with a Secret Service agent.
“These are the Keepers,” Agni explained. “They are my eyes, ears, and hands. Enforcers of the Edicts.”
I had never seen a Keeper before, but I could imagine each being something akin to Agni, a decades-old veteran of hunting wayward mages, more than prepared for anything I tried to throw at them.
“Keepers? The Visatori mentioned them,” I said. “Magic cops.”
“Crude, but accurate.”
A set of tall double doors waited at the end of the hallway. Dim green glyphs danced over their surface. Agni produced a brass key from his coat, the kind that opened locks about two hundred years ago, and touched it to the door. I felt a shift in pressure, a ‘whumpf’ that made the doors rattle.
Death Dealers Page 4
