Death Dealers

by M. G. Gallows

  The glyphs vanished, and he motioned for me to enter. “Remain silent until the Archmage addresses you. Uncivilized outbursts will not be tolerated.”

  The room beyond was a Greek amphitheater the size of a basketball court, far too large to occupy the building Agni and I had arrived from. Rows of descending seats circled a stage in the center. Thirteen thrones on raised pillars overlooked the stage.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I saw people gathered in the audience. Hundreds of them. There was energy in the air, a kind of distant buzzing sensation in the back of my neck, like standing too close to an electrical power box.

  Every single human being in the room was a mage.

  Until that moment, I’d never seen over twenty in a group. To see so many, and feel the power they gave off, was like nothing I’d encountered before.

  There was a clear delineation of hierarchy and rank. The youngest were consigned to the nosebleeds, furthest from the stage. They looked more or less indistinguishable from someone you’d see on the street, albeit with more expensive attire. Some wore odd adornments or trinkets, which I assumed were enchanted.

  Older mages sat closer to the stage. Physically, most remained in their prime, like Agni, but their archaic fashion sense gave them away. It was clear they no longer saw a reason to follow contemporary fashion trends, at least among their fellow magi. Cloaks, robes, and tunics were the norm. Their reliquaries were even more bizarre, ranging from millennia old tribal fetishes of bone and fur, to regal scepters of gold and precious gems.

  Eleven of the thirteen thrones were occupied by men and women that looked to be in their early seventies, which meant they could have been centuries old. Each owned a staff, forged from purest gold, silver, thick plates of iron, or ancient wood, with gemstones the size of fists, or primal runes etched into stone. One staff—belonging to a woman dressed in a yellow slicker and ornate gasmask like laboratory royalty—was even made from liquid, a bubbling column of green that stretched and coiled like a sunbathing snake. The implements floated beside their thrones like banners.

  A man stood center stage, addressing the elites. He had a disciplined air about him, broad and straight like a soldier at ease. I would have said he was in his late fifties, but who knew with mages? His attire—a light gray suit with a maroon shirt and tie—looked more modern and fashion-conscious than anyone near him. His staff was deceptively simple, iron bound in wood, which gave the impression of an old musket rifle.

  “This insistence on a vote is not only premature but rash,” he said. “The passing of Robert Lacroix has diminished our number to twelve. We have no tie-breaker for a vote.”

  A man dressed in a Regency-era waistcoat rose from his throne. “Irrelevant. There has been a breach of the Edicts, and the accused has been brought to account. This issue is not so black and white that we cannot proceed with confidence, Archmage.”

  Several members of the throned circle nodded.

  The old soldier—the Archmage—turned his gaze my way. “Bring forth the accused.”

  I blinked and found myself on the stage, in the very center of the room. Every eye turned on me.

  Holy crap. It wasn’t just an arrest, it was my trial. Under the scrutiny of all that power, it was a struggle to stay on my feet, and keep my bladder in check. Sweat stained my brow and T-shirt.

  The Archmage approached, with a lack of fear most politicians can’t muster. I could see he had a trimmed beard and immaculate hair, brownish-red with streaks of silver. His eyes were the color of smoldering wood; dark brown with hints of burning embers within.

  “Alex Fossor. You stand accused of murder with intent to reanimate. A breach of the Edict of Life. How do you plead?”

  I had to step back to avoid falling over. “Innocent!”

  Snorts and derisive muttering came from the audience.

  “You’ll have to do better than that, son,” the Archmage said. “The evidence is compelling. Our auguries have confirmed you were in the vicinity last night, and encountered the victim there. Tonight, he is dead. Murdered by Necrourgy. Do you deny you wield this aspect of the Art?”

  “N-no, but you can-”

  “That same body then vanished from police custody, did it not?” He interrupted. “Sparing you from their persecution. Very convenient.”

  “I didn’t reanimate him. And I didn’t kill him! I sensed necromancy in his body, stronger than my own! I didn’t want to risk the feedback, so I didn’t try again.”

  More derision, more scowls. Half the audience had already made up their minds, come hell or exonerating evidence.

  “Necrourgy is one of the foulest expressions of our Art,” the Archmage spoke. “It is inherently destructive. Few develop the capacity to wield it, yet you would have us believe you happened upon another? One our augurs cannot detect?”

  “It’s the truth,” I said, fists clenched.

  “Then identify them.”

  “I didn’t see them. They left their magic in the corpse.”

  “A corpse that has disappeared,” he said. “Conveniently.”

  I swallowed back my surprise. They didn’t have it?

  “You found me,” I insisted. “Have your charming Sheriff hunt it down.”

  I heard a few chuckles from the back rows. I wondered if any of them had met Agni under similar circumstances to my own.

  The Archmage stroked his beard. “The body is warded from our sight.”

  “You think I could do that?” I asked. “From all of you? Goddamn, before tonight the most powerful mage I knew used her gifts to find missing car keys. Her granddaughter could make rocks float. Where could I possibly learn how to shield myself from people like you?”

  His eyes bored into mine. I could only guess at what someone of his age and power was thinking. I jumped when he clapped his hands and turned to the audience.

  “A breach of the Edict of Life. Evidence beyond our reach. A Necrourge whose circumstances are far too convenient to be coincidence. The sentence is death. What says the Council?”

  “Wait-” I started, but my teeth snapped shut, held there by an unseen force.

  The twelve Councillors—those seated on the thrones, and the Archmage himself—considered me with either naked hostility or pensive dislike. Some turned to their attendants, cliques of personal advisors in the audience behind them, who spoke in hushed tones.

  One by one, they dolled out their vote by either conjuring their magemark, or abstaining. Six marks appeared, including the Archmage’s, a heart of flame adorned with a crown, which hovered over his staff.

  He shook his head. “As I feared. We have brought ourselves to an impasse.”

  “Unacceptable!” A haggard crone of a woman, with long gray hair and tribal tattoos on her bare, wrinkled arms, rose from her throne. “This mage feeds the dead to an army of wights below the city! His actions put countless lives at risk!”

  The blood ran from my face, but I couldn’t speak to argue with the woman.

  Agni spoke in the Archmage’s ear, and the old soldier put on a patronizing smile. “A dozen is hardly an army, Councilor Boudicca. And the Necrourge’s methods in dealing with the wights, however unsavory, are not a breach of the Edicts.”

  The woman let out a disgusted snarl. The staff at her side—a primitive-looking twist of gnarled wood and leather-bound bones—rattled in anger.

  The Archmage held up his hands. “Councillors. Until more compelling evidence comes forward, or we appoint a new Councillor to the thirteenth seat, a vote is clearly meaningless. I elect to contain the suspect for now until either of those events occur. All in favor?”

  A flurry of magemarks appeared. There was no questioning the result.

  “Very good. Sheriff, remove the defendant.”

  My mouth could work again, and with it came my bluster. “Listen here, you sons of-”

  The floor fell out from under me, and I plummeted through the pitch-black darkness.

  I screamed, thinking I was in freefall o
ver the city again, but there were no lights or stars. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. At least I wasn’t freezing. I let myself fall, or float, in silence. After minutes, or hours, of weightlessness, a light appeared below and swallowed me.

  I slammed into the very stage I’d just left. The impact wasn’t hard enough to break bones, but I nursed the impending bruise on my noggin as I rolled onto my side.

  The amphitheater was empty. I had landed behind the Archmage, the only one still present. He was speaking into a cellphone as I came to my senses.

  “-but this isn’t up for debate.”

  “Walter, you can’t just sic your dogs on him,” I heard a woman say over the speaker. “Let me handle it.”

  “Sorry, I’ve made my decision. We’ll talk later.”

  “But-”

  He tucked the phone into a pocket and turned to smile at me. “Need a hand, son?”

  He offered one, but I didn’t move.

  “Rest easy,” he said. “The dog and pony show is over for now. Just you and me. I’m Walter Breckenridge, First Councillor, Archmage of North America, yadda-yadda.”

  I accepted his hand, and he hauled me to my feet with ease. “You already know me, I noticed.”

  “You, and about every other Versed on the continent,” he explained. “Privacy is for people of no consequence.”

  “Or enough power to demand it?”

  He smirked. “Sometimes. But the Edicts are important, and we need to be fast to catch transgressors.”

  I frowned. “Not fast enough to catch the real culprit.”.

  Walter shrugged. “We’re not convinced you aren’t, remember.”

  “So, what? I’m ‘contained’? Do I sit here waiting for you to kill me, or is Agni going to kick me into his terminal velocity funhouse for a few days?”

  His smile broadened. “You’ve got spirit, son. But mind where you wave it. Some of my fellow Councilors have slain armies in their day. They won’t think twice about stepping on you, and they’ve had plenty of time to learn how, without breaking the Edicts.”

  Despite myself, despite my fear, the part of me that turned acidic in the presence of such self-important authority was boiling over. “Most of my life, you guys never noticed I was crawling around underfoot. You didn’t care. Then your Sheriff shows up and suddenly I’m an ant under your magnifying glass. All so you guys on top can remind me I’m at the bottom. Who the hell are you to rub your noses in people’s lives?”

  “We’re mages, that’s who the hell we are. And you’re a mage too, son. One of the Versed. You may not like it, and you’re as backward as they come, but it’s high time you started acting like one.”

  “How’s that?” I asked. “By confessing to a crime I didn’t commit? By dancing to this song you guys keep singing about Edicts and laws? To give you all the illusion of control?”

  His grin didn’t falter. “Illusion?”

  I was on fire. All of me at once. I screamed, my skin blistered, my muscles charred, my fats sizzled. I tore blackened flesh from my cheeks as my eyeballs boiled-

  Then the pain stopped. I was whole again, unharmed save for a gash below my eye, where I had cut myself with my own fingernails. I could still smell the burned flesh and hair.

  Walter’s presence shifted. He seemed to loom over me, despite our equal height. “That was no illusion, son. Only the truth. And Necrourges like you—brazen, self-righteous and volatile—rarely last a century before you breach the Edicts. Sometimes gleefully. So tell me, ‘necromancer’, why shouldn’t I crush you underfoot?”

  My mind reeled for an answer. I combed over my sparse knowledge of the Edicts and found it by accident. “Destruction doesn’t serve knowledge!”

  He flinched as if I’d slapped him, then broke out laughing. A deep, honest laugh that echoed across the amphitheater.

  “The First Edict,” he said, as he caught his breath. “Wisdom. We wield the Art in pursuit of knowledge. The only Edict that is, sadly, more philosophical than enforceable.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “I think I like you, Fossor. One day you’ll trip. I’ve never heard of a Necrourge who didn’t. But not today.”

  I rubbed at the gash on my face. “So, what now?”

  “My opinion on the matter can’t take priority, I’m afraid. The Council wanted you contained, so you will be.” He made a fist and opened it, revealing a ball of fire the size of an orange. Before I could react, it streaked into my chest.

  I jumped back and clawed at the flesh over my heart. I could feel the fireball’s warmth in my ribcage. “What did you do?”

  “If you try to leave the city, you will die,” he explained. “And if the Sheriff discovers evidence to convict you, you’ll know it, when you drop dead where you stand.”

  Holy crap.

  Walter checked his watch. “That’s all the time I have for now, I’m afraid. Sheriff?”

  Angi materialized beside me. He grabbed my arm, and I plopped down in his big taxi outside of Breckenridge Plaza. The Archmage’s plaza. Agni got the engine started, and we sped away from Uptown. I put my head between my knees and tried to get my brain around the epic clusterfuck I’d been dragged into.

  SIX

  It was too much.

  The Rimbault Society had come out of nowhere and peeled my life—my entire world—apart on a whim. Every secret I’d kept, they had laid bare. They had dashed any misconceptions I had of freedom, or privacy. They could snuff out my life with a thought, and justify it as their civic duty.

  This must be why mages keep their distance from normal people, I thought. A young mage like myself could twist reality in ways that would horrify people. But if some unprepared normal—an ‘Untold’—were to encounter the Archmage? They would go mad from the revelation.

  “You look pensive,” Agni said. “It can be a sobering experience, to understand actual power.”

  My lip twitched. I had to clench my fists and remind myself that I hadn’t stood before some divine entity. “It’s disgusting. You’re lording over everything and everyone. You’re not gods.”

  “Easy, Alex. You would do well to keep your perspective ‘ant-sized’ for now.”

  “So I won’t know it when you smite me?”

  “You were ignorant. Now you know how the world works. The Rimbault Society is everywhere. Economies, governments, we’re there, doing our best to protect the Untold from magical abuse.”

  “And making yourselves stupidly rich, while you’re at it?”

  He smiled. “Money is the least of our resources.”

  I sighed. “Where are we going?”

  “That depends on you. The Archmage has given you a rare opportunity, one few people appreciate. You say you are innocent-”

  “I am.”

  “So do you expect someone else to prove it for you? Will you sit at home, feeling sorry for yourself, until the worst comes to pass?” He stared at me through his mirror.

  “You think I should prove my innocence? Find the necromancer on my own and expose him?” I asked.

  “The stakes are high and stacked against you. If you want that to change, do you think it will come from the people who just voted to condemn you?”

  I licked my lips but didn’t answer. My mind churned over the evening’s revelations, but by the time I climbed out of Agni’s cab in front of my house, a modicum of a plan had formed.

  “Don’t dawdle, Alex,” he said. “My Keepers and I will search for that body. If we find it, you’ll know.” He put a fist over his chest and splayed out his fingers. “Boom.”

  I watched him speed off. He hadn’t reached the end of the street when the entire taxi vanished. When I staggered into the house, the clock on the microwave told me it was four in the morning.

  My bed was calling to me, but I was too wired to let myself sleep. Instead, I put on a pot of strong coffee and stuffed myself with whatever I had in the fridge. Food and caffeine would have to replace sleep. I jumped in the shower, shivering under the cool water, then pulled on
a fresh pair of jeans and a threadbare superhero T-shirt.

  I think I was pulling my socks on when exhaustion caught up with me. One moment I was pulling my socks on in the darkness of pre-dawn, and the next I was blinking against the gray morning light. My microwave informed me it was almost eight. My untouched coffee had gone cold in the pot.

  With a growl I pushed to my feet. No time to make a fresh pot. “Time to go,” I said out loud. “Find the mage, clear your name, get the hex removed, make sure Piotr and Philip aren’t out for your blood after losing Josh’s body. You gotta… I gotta feed the Gallows. Damnit!”

  I’d have to take the work van. Dietrich wouldn’t approve, but I was sure he’d understand, once I told him my truck was evidence in a murder investigation.

  I grabbed some grocery bags from a drawer and swung open the freezer just as there was a knock at the door.

  My first thought was that Philip had tracked me down. I shut the freezer and crept to the door. It didn’t have a peep-hole, which was a glaring mistake on my part.

  Detectives Runner and Lorensdottr were waiting on my porch. Runner still had that ridiculous duster on, but both looked like they’d gotten plenty of sleep. The jerks.

  “Officers?”

  “Mr. Fossor.” Runner flashed me that million-dollar smile. “Good morning.”

  “Not really. You here to give my truck back?”

  Lorensdottr rolled her too-blue eyes behind her tinted glasses. How did she even see in the dark with them on?

  “No.” Runner said for her. “But we wanted to ask you a few more questions. May we come in?”

  A little early for a check-in, I thought. They really wanted to peg me for something.

  Maybe it’s the freezer full of human flesh, my brain offered.

  I told it to shut up.

  “Sure.” I ushered them in and shut the door. “Want some coffee?”

  “Sounds great,” Runner said. He sat himself on my couch.

  “No thank you,” Lorensdottr said. She folded her arms, as if afraid to touch anything.

  I set the grocery bags on top of the freezer, then started a new pot with fresh grounds and bottled water from my fridge.