The Initiate

by James L. Cambias

  Mr. Al-Amarni nodded, took a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lit it, and then Sam flopped back against the seat as he floored the accelerator. The next few minutes were the greatest exhibition of automotive skill ever seen in the city of New York as Mr. Al-Amarni threaded between the cars on Thirty-fourth Street, blasted through cross traffic on all the avenues, and twice took detours onto the sidewalk. He kept his right foot on the accelerator and only took his left hand off the horn twice to flick ash from his cigarette. On FDR Drive he could really open up, hurtling south at a hundred miles an hour to the Houston Street exit. At no time did he use the brake.

  The cab stopped neatly in front of Ash’s building, and Sam pressed his two-hundred-dollar cash reserve into Mr. Al-Amarni’s hand before sprinting upstairs.

  When he got to the third floor he found the door ajar. Sam pushed the door open, ready to launch a pain-spirit at whatever dumb fucker had dared to bring Ash into this.

  Moreno stood in the center of the living room, not at all dead, wearing a black cashmere overcoat with his hands in the pockets. Between the expensive dark clothes and his melancholy expression, he looked like he was on his way to a funeral. Ash sat on the couch, obviously frightened but unhurt.

  “It was you,” said Moreno. Not a question.

  “You’re alive!”

  “Spotted some guy writing a rune on the bus I was about to get on in Bogota, so I let it go without me. Earth elemental threw a rock at it. Thirty people dead.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “You aren’t William Hunter. That’s some autistic guy in Connecticut. Your name is Samuel Arquero. Somehow you got through the initiation without giving your real name—and your real blood.”

  “That just proves I’m careful.”

  “Nice try. I did some digging. You’re adopted, just like me. From Colombia. I found the orphanage, traced you from there to New Haven. Found out where you went to high school. Cute yearbook picture of you and your sweetie.” He nodded at Ash. “It was a long shot, but when I couldn’t find you I figured she might know.”

  “Okay, why? Why not just phone me?”

  “I figured you were trying to murder me. Did you know we’re from the same little village, you and me? Muzo. Nice place. Amazing how two unknown Apkallu come from the same Podunk town in Colombia,” said Moreno.

  They had the same build, the same coloring, Sam realized—hell, they had the same nose! Now he understood the easy rapport they had developed so quickly; at some level below conscious thought they had recognized each other.

  They were sons of the same man.

  “Lucas,” said Sam.

  Moreno nodded and took an old Polaroid from inside his suit jacket. He handed it to Sam and put his hands back into his overcoat pockets again. “That’s what he looked like back in 1969. He went down there as part of an archaeology expedition.”

  Again, no denying it. The hair and eyes were lighter, but forty-seven years earlier Lucas had looked very much the way Sam did right now. No wonder he kept his sunglasses on all the time.

  “He lied to me,” said Sam. “He told me one of the Apkallu sent a monster to kill my family. I’ve been working with him, trying to find the killer, trying to bring down the whole thing. But it was him.”

  “He knew he could never trust another Apkal, so he figured out a way to bring in a ringer,” said Moreno. “I wonder how many kids he fathered and abandoned, just to get one he could recruit? Then he wiped out your family just to give you some motivation.”

  “Not just mine. We’ve got to stop him,” said Sam.

  “No,” said Moreno, sounding very weary. “I’ve got to stop him. You”—he sighed—“have shed the blood of four Apkallu, that I know of.”

  “I won’t deny it,” said Sam. “I killed Roger, and I’d do it again. They’re evil, Moreno—you know it as well as I do. Zadith used people as puppets, Miss Elizabeth bathed in the blood of children, White trafficked with demons.”

  “Feng had a wife and a kid,” said Moreno quietly.

  “Feng ordered me to beat a dog to death, when he thought I couldn’t refuse! You’re a good man, Moreno. You believe in justice, in right and wrong. The Apkallu are corrupt, from top to bottom. Together we can clean them all out. Starting with our father.”

  The two of them stood there, eyes locked. And for just a moment Sam thought Moreno might agree. But then his expression got even sadder, and he shook his head. “No. You can’t fix things by murdering people.”

  Sam whispered the words to call forth his sleep-spirit, but felt nothing. He looked at Moreno with his Inner Eye and was startled to sense no spirits around him at all.

  Moreno drew his left hand from his overcoat pocket to reveal a familiar short iron club. “Forget about it,” he said. “You can’t fight me with magic.” He took out his right hand, which held an elegant-looking little automatic pistol. For a split second Sam wondered if it was also custom made.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Sam. “You can’t just shoot me.” He glanced at Ash. “At least send her away first.”

  “She doesn’t know me. But there’s an easier way.” He put the Mitum back in his coat pocket, and drew a small red plastic case from inside his jacket, never taking his eyes—or the pistol—off Sam. He set the case down on the table and stepped back. “That’s Seconal. It’s a tranquilizer. That needle’s loaded with about five times the lethal dose. Just inject yourself and you’ll go to sleep. It won’t hurt at all.”

  On the couch Ash was crying, terrified. Sam picked up the case. Inside was a single syringe with a plastic cap over the needle. He took off his jacket and rolled up his left sleeve, then took the cap off of the syringe and held it in his right hand. “You’re not going to do anything, are you?” he asked Moreno. “When I’m dead you’re just going to keep on protecting the Apkallu, telling yourself it’s all for the greater good. But I want you to remember this: I’m going to die despising you, brother.”

  And then he threw the syringe like a dart at Moreno’s face.

  It didn’t connect, of course. Moreno flinched and batted it aside—but he used the hand holding the gun to do it. And in that moment Sam leaped at him, grabbing for the gun. He got his hands on Moreno’s wrist and swung his body into Moreno’s, knocking the other man into the wall hard enough to crack the wallboard. Ash screamed.

  Moreno used his free hand to claw at Sam’s eyes, and Sam responded by stamping down hard on one of Moreno’s handmade Italian shoes. He banged Moreno’s gun hand against the window frame two or three times but couldn’t break his hold on the pistol.

  Moreno punched him hard in the kidney and Sam responded with an elbow to his face. A moment of desperate scuffling followed, ending with each man with one hand on the gun and the other around his opponent’s throat. It became a question of whether Sam could choke Moreno unconscious with his right hand before Moreno could get the gun free. Somewhere Ash was shouting into a phone.

  They were close in age, both worked out regularly, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. In the end it came down to luck—Moreno tried to knee Sam in the groin, Sam twisted to avoid it but lost his balance, and the two men toppled to the floor with Moreno on top. The impact was just enough to break Sam’s grip on the gun, and Moreno pulled free, aiming the pistol right at Sam’s face.

  And then he hesitated. “Maybe—” Moreno said, but he never finished because a gunshot boomed and he staggered sideways.

  Sam looked at the doorway. It was Todd, Isabella’s failed child-molester slave. He had a pistol in his hand and his face was completely blank as he fired at Moreno again. But another shot rang out at the same instant from Moreno’s gun, and Sam saw a bloody hole appear in Todd’s chest.

  Todd ignored the wound and emptied his own gun into Moreno before collapsing.

  Sam scrambled over to Moreno and pulled the Mitum out of his overcoat pocket. He tossed it into the bedroom and tried to call up a healing spirit. “You’re going to be okay,” he told Moreno, bu
t the other man was already still and silent. “No,” said Sam. “No, no, no. Hang on. You’re going to be fine. Please hang on!”

  He managed to stammer out the words to call his healing-spirit to him, and urged it toward Moreno. But the spirit balked. It couldn’t exactly talk, but Sam could sense its bewilderment and disdain. That is not alive. That which is not alive cannot be healed.

  “No!” said Sam one last time.

  “Sam? Sam, don’t worry, I called 911,” said Ash. “Who are these men? What’s going on?”

  Sam couldn’t think of any more lies. “This is my brother. That guy’s a child molester. I’m so sorry. I wanted to keep you out of it.”

  She knelt next to him, and he put his arms around her. She was trembling uncontrollably. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said. “How did you make me forget about you?”

  “Magic. It’s real, and it’s all horrible.” He looked at the clock, then back at her. “I’m sorry about this. I can’t stay. There’s something I have to do, and I’m not going to be able to see you again. I’ll probably be dead. I love you, Ash. Please forgive me.”

  “Go,” she said. “Please, just go. I don’t know what you’re doing or why or anything and I want it all to stop. Just go away.”

  He realized a phone was ringing—the ringtone was the song “Father Figure,” and it was coming from inside Todd’s grease-spotted anorak. Sam pulled the phone out and tapped the Talk icon.

  “Hi! Who’s this?” asked Isabella’s voice cheerily.

  “What did you do?” he asked. His voice was hoarse and he realized he was crying.

  “Is that Mr. Ace? I guess Todd’s dead, then. Did he get Mr. Moreno?”

  “Yes! They’re both dead and the police are on their way!”

  “I’m at the Zoo right now. Come here so we can talk—but don’t bring that awful Mitum thing. Promise?”

  Sam wiped down Todd’s phone and set it down on the floor, then picked up the Mitum from where he’d tossed it.

  “Ash, I can’t make you forget about this, and I’m sick of all that anyway. Tell the police whatever you want. Don’t lie. I’m so sorry.”

  “Just go,” she repeated.

  An hour later he got out of a cab at the Bronx Zoo and paid the driver in cash. The Mitum was safely stashed in his locker at the boxing club. Moreno’s fancy Walther pistol was in Sam’s coat pocket. He paid his way in and worked his way methodically through the Zoo.

  He found Isabella standing quietly at the big viewing window at Tiger Mountain. On the other side of the plexiglass two tigers sat watching her. As Sam approached Isabella turned, and the moment she broke eye contact both tigers sprinted away from the window.

  “Why?” he asked her. He wasn’t crying any more.

  For once she looked genuinely startled. “I was just helping,” she said. “Some of my friends watch you, just in case. And that nice lady. When Mr. Moreno showed up at her place with that thing they told me right away. So I made Todd go stop him. Is he dead?”

  “They’re both dead.”

  “Good. He was stupid. Todd, too. So, who are we going to kill next?”

  “I have to get down to the Met. They’re making Lucas the Sage of the West tonight.”

  Isabella shrugged. “Mr. Stone said it’s for grownups only, but I’m going anyway.”

  Sam looked at the little girl in front of him. His Inner Eye told him that Isabella was only the tiniest fragment of something ancient and monstrously powerful. She—it—would go a long way toward evening the odds at the Met.

  And that was the problem. He had certainly damned himself already; he knew that. But asking for help from Isabella felt like a step too far. Sam was willing to lie and murder. He wasn’t willing to accept any more help from whatever stood before him, smiling sweetly again in an adorable Burberry winter coat and beret.

  “I think Stone’s right. You’d better stay away.” He got down on one knee to put their eyes level, but kept some air between them. “Isabella: You can still save yourself. Make your friends go away, find some normal adult to help you. You can still be a real little girl.”

  “I thought you were nice but you’re not. You’re stupid and I guess you’re going to die. I don’t care. With you and Mr. Moreno gone I can do whatever I want and nobody can stop me.” She turned and walked away with immense dignity. The animals in their pens cringed or hid as she passed.

  * * *

  That evening the Metropolitan Museum of Art was closed for a private function. The guest list held a startling number of important people—politicians, tycoons, celebrities, and gangsters—so security was very tight. Fifth Avenue was completely blocked between Seventy-ninth and Eighty-fourth Streets, and the cordon extended all the way to the edge of the Great Lawn behind the museum.

  New York City police manned the outer perimeter, and one of the cops cast a professional eye on the inner layer at the Museum entrance itself. “Who are those guys?” he asked his partner.

  “Dunno. Secret Service, maybe?”

  “Maybe. Look like a bunch of goddamned robots,” he muttered. Sam stepped up just then and showed the officer his invitation. “You’re pretty late,” the cop told him. “Everybody else got here an hour ago.”

  “I had to get a new suit,” said Sam truthfully.

  The cop waved him through, but turned to keep an eye on Sam as he walked to the main entrance and climbed the steps.

  The goddamned robots at the front door had also been shopping for men’s wear recently. All four men wore identical brand-new dark suits, and the coats stretched dangerously tight across their bodybuilder shoulders.

  Sam held the Mitum in his left hand. He had pulled the sheath of a folding umbrella over its black iron head, as a rudimentary disguise. But the effect of it was unmistakable. As he approached the men at the doorway, they suddenly transformed. One moment four intimidating-looking goddamned robot security guards stood stone-faced in front of the entrance; the next moment four confused gym rats in off-the-rack suits stood wondering why they were out in the cold.

  None of them challenged Sam as he walked into the museum. He could hear the sound of music from the Egyptian wing, so he directed his steps that way. As he passed through the galleries he felt the lack of his Inner Eye. Being limited to mere vision and hearing was like being blind and deaf without the power to sense spirits. He had forgotten what it was like.

  Of course, any spirits in the area would doubtless be getting as far away from the Mitum as possible. If any supernatural spies were reporting him to their Masters, Sam hoped that the Apkallu would assume a tall dark-haired man in a nice overcoat bearing the Mitum was Moreno.

  Sam wasn’t wearing his magic rings—there wasn’t any point to having them, with the Mitum in his pocket. Instead, he wore a single ring on his left hand: the plain gold band he’d worn for ten years, with “Sam and Alice 2003” engraved inside.

  He passed another pair of security guards at the entrance to the galleries of Egyptian Art. They were not under mind control, at least not the kind the Mitum could dispel. A man with Lucas’s resources wouldn’t find it hard to hire men who would obey orders and keep silent. Sam showed them the invitation and they let him pass.

  Sam had never seen a party like this one. As a blue-collar kid in Bridgeport he had gone to weddings and quinceañeras big enough to require a second mortgage to pay for. As an engineer at Sikorsky he had attended a couple of expense-account shindigs for politicians and Pentagon brass. And once he had rather reluctantly gone to Aruba for a three-day bachelor party for a co-worker. This event made all of them look like an eight-year-old’s birthday at Burger King.

  Superhumanly beautiful succubi and incubi knelt to offer trays to the guests—wines Sam didn’t recognize, exquisite-looking canapes (no two alike), fruit still dewy from the fields, and little single-serving jars of cocaine. Snake-scaled dancers writhed to the piping of satyrs, while swarms of fireflies swirled over and around the crowd.

  The guests were so
mewhat overshadowed by the servants and entertainers. Even dressed in the most lavish clothing possible, they were an aging, dissipated-looking bunch. The ones who weren’t overweight were bony and frail. The handful who looked normally healthy seemed almost as strange as the satyrs and nagas.

  At the center of it all the Seven Sages sat on actual thrones of gold, decorated with rubies and sapphires the size of golf balls. Their robes were sewn with gold and decorated with gems and pearls. Sam didn’t doubt any of it was real. Five of the Sages were men, two were women. Most of them showed immense age. Hezqeyas the Sage of the Nile, and Lucas the new Sage of the West were the youngest, and they were the only two who didn’t look about to keel over any minute.

  What struck Sam most forcibly, looking out over the crowd, was how their faces looked. No amount of cosmetics or surgery could hide the vileness. No allegorical image could display sins more plainly—greed, spite, vanity, lust, and a great deal of self-pity. The secret Masters of the world didn’t look very happy.

  As Sam entered the room, Lucas was just raising a jewel-studded golden goblet foaming with champagne in a toast. He appeared to be the only person in the room truly enjoying himself. That lasted until his eyes met Sam’s.

  No point in being subtle. “Lucas!” Sam shouted over the music. “You lying, murdering son of a bitch!”

  He walked forward. The Apkallu in attendance let him pass, shrinking back as they felt the effect of the Mitum, but unwilling to miss what might happen. A few of the most unhealthy looking tottered away to the far end of the room where the magics that kept them alive wouldn’t fail. The servants and entertainers close to Sam lost their superhuman allure, fading to crude human shapes before vanishing or fleeing. The fireflies vanished. Even the music lost its wild beauty, diminishing to amateurish squeaking until the satyrs stopped playing.

  As Sam approached, Lucas raised his hand. “Enough, Samuel,” he said. “This is not the time or place for your little grievances. I don’t want to spoil this occasion with violence—but there was a time when the induction of a new Sage was celebrated with human sacrifices. A death would not be out of place.”