City of Dark Magic
Read City of Dark Magic Online
Authors: Magnus Flyte
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance
EARLY PRAISE FOR
CITY of DARK MAGIC
“This deliciously madcap novel has it all: murder in Prague, time travel, a misanthropic Beethoven, tantric sex, and a dwarf with attitude. I salute you, Magnus Flyte!”
—Conan O’Brien
“The most wickedly enchanting novel I’ve ever read and also the funniest. A Champagne magnum of intrigue and wit, this book sparkles from beginning to end.”
—Anne Fortier, bestselling author of
Juliet
“A story that abounds in mysterious portents, wild coincidences, violent death, and furtive but lusty sex . . . [this novel] cleverly combin[es] time travel, murder, history, and musical lore.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“The riddle of Beethoven’s ‘Immortal Beloved,’ alchemy, and clandestine love fuse in this fastpaced, funny, romantic mystery . . . An exuberant, surprising gem.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
PENGUIN BOOKS
CITY of DARK MAGIC
The manuscript of the book you are about to read arrived in the mail one day at Penguin headquarters in New York with no cover letter. It was written on stationery from the Hotel La Mamounia in Marrakech using a manual typewriter, and postmarked on the Isle of Mull. The return address was simply “Flyte, Magnus.” When the editors sought details about the author, they found them to be conflicting. He may be American. He may have ties to one or more intelligence organizations, including a radical group of Antarctic separatists. He may be the author of a monograph on carnivorous butterflies. He may live in Venice, Vienna, Vladivostok, or Vermont.
City of Dark Magic
may be his first novel.
CITY
of
DARK MAGIC
A Novel
MAGNUS FLYTE
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Pen1emguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in Penguin Books 2012
Copyright © Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey, 2012
All rights reserved
Map illustration by Rodica Prato
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This novel is a work of fiction. While some of the place names and family names are real, the characters and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Flyte, Magnus.
City of dark magic : a novel / Magnus Flyte.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-60306-2
1. Music students—Fiction. 2. Prague (Czech Republic)—Fiction. 3. Paranormal fiction. I. Title.
PS3606.L98C58 2012
813'.6—dc23
2012028676
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Contents
Prince! what you are, you are by circumstance and by birth. What I am, I am through myself. Of Princes there have and will be thousands—of Beethovens there is only one.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN,
in a letter to Prince Lichnowsky, 1806
It is enough for the tourist to enter the twilit little streets of ancient Prague in the evening, and the same mood will breathe on him as has been felt for centuries by those who tell of the ghosts in Prague houses. It will not seem impossible to him, as he walks the winding alleys, that some of the strange inhabitants with which fantasy has peopled Prague should emerge from the flickering shadows before him.
JAN VANIS,
A Guide to Mysterious Prague
PROLOGUE
T
he Save Venice fund-raiser began as these things do, with Bellinis, with tiny toast points topped with squid pâté, and with swaying musicians playing the greatest hits of Italian opera beneath a fresco by Tiepolo. Sequined women and tuxedo-clad men stepped out of teak vaporetti onto the private dock at Ca’ Rezzonico, where, it was hoped, strong drink and the thought of beautiful palazzi sinking into the sands below would lift wallets as easily as a child pickpocket in the Piazza San Marco.
The organizers were salivating, greeting a German fashion designer, an American hedge fund owner, and a dour British playwright. Models had been hired to improve the beauty quotient, since billionaires are not especially attractive up close.
But just after midnight, something had gone terribly wrong. That was when, as one of the carabinieri put it, the
cascata dei corpi
, or human waterfall, began. It was a minor member of the Saudi royal family who went first, startling everyone around him by emitting a series of hoarse screams and then crashing through a glass window and plummeting out of sight. A billionaire American industrialist, who onlookers at first thought was rushing to save the Saudi, soon joined him. They were the first two.
A honeymooning couple from Youngstown, Ohio, being poled up the Grand Canal were startled to see a series of bodies falling from the windows of the glittering palazzo. Inside, panic was raging and it was generally felt that very few that evening distinguished themselves by bravery. By the time it was over, seven people in formal wear and one waiter were floating facedown in the Grand Canal. Dead.
The city was in a panic, though a panic in Italy means most people still stand around coffee bars drinking espresso and Prosecco. St. Mark’s was still very crowded.
What had driven these people to suicide? Or were the unfortunate souls already dead when they hit the water? Despite the clamor of an army of international lawyers descendingroy like vultures, demanding the bodies of the dead, Venetian medical examiners were dutifully dissecting and testing the remains, which, since the city’s tiny morgue was full, were being housed in the Church of the Redeemer next door. Its cool marble interior was considered a more dignified choice than a nearby fruit warehouse.
Because all of the dead (except the waiter) were foreigners and very, very rich, it was headline news around the world. Camera crews had descended on the city, and the Grand Canal in front of the Ca’ Rezzonico was a flotilla of press boats. The local taxi boat drivers were pocketing wads of euros. The latest arrival had been crowds of teenage fans of Hilda Swenson, an eighteen-year-old Swedish pop star whose blond hair had streamed out around her floating corpse like a halo, it was said. Her Chihuahua, who had not been found and was presumed to have survived the fall, was sought by the police.
Crime scene analysts and antiterrorism experts had already combed the building and interrogated the caterers. It wasn’t a bomb, it wasn’t a gas, it wasn’t a deadly virus. “What did these people die of?” demanded the American president, who had lost one of his largest campaign contributors, of the Italian head of state.
It wasn’t a good answer, but it would allow Il Primo Ministro to save face until he could pressure the damn scientists for a better one.
“Fear,” said the Italian.