Fix (15 page)

Some of the shards had tumbled from the sky, falling out like jigsaw pieces to reveal a blank whiteness – an emptiness more terrifying than any black. And obscured behind those gaps was a striding storm of edges, a six-legged whirlwind crouching down to push itself through the gap–

“Say it.” Ruth shook her like a rag doll. “Say where we are!”

“Bastogne.” Aliyah wanted to sound tough – but watching this devastation, Aliyah's voice leaked out like a deflating balloon. “World War II's final battle. The broach's epicenter.”

“You're in Europe now, kid,” Ruth told her. “And your daddy doesn't dare come here.”

“
S
o who's guarding
the huntomancer?” Paul asked.

As Robert fumed at the wheel, driving them to an unknown location, Paul wondered whether handing the fine details of Project Mayhem over to Robert had been a good idea. It meant the Unimancers couldn't destroy Project Mayhem if SMASH brainwashed Paul – but it also meant Paul was reliant on Robert's dwindling goodwill.

The silence lengthened, became itchy. Valentine sat in the back, arms crossed, expecting an apology. Except she seemed rattled by Robert's coldness; she'd kept stealing glances at him over her Nintendo DS, as if expecting him to reach back to take her hand.

“Robert,” Paul insisted. “I recognize your concerns about this mission's exposure. But if we're going to use him to find Aliyah, I need informa–”

“The Butler is guarding the huntomancer.”

Robert spoke curtly, a prisoner giving his rank, name, and serial number.

“I assume he's a 'mancer?”

“The Butler is neither a ‘he' nor a ‘she.' At best, they identify as ‘servant.'”

Paul nodded, mentally checking off the “other” box in the male/female/other field on his internal forms.

“But yes,” Robert continued. “They're a servantmancer.”

Valentine coughed. “Shouldn't you get, I dunno, a guardomancer?”

Robert glared out at the road. For a moment, Paul thought Robert might ignore her. Given that Valentine was gripping her DS like a weapon, he wasn't sure how he'd keep the peace if Robert blew her off–

“Jailing people wasn't our mission,” he said stiffly. “When I've
had
a choice in which 'mancers I've been able to save, I've prioritized acquiring combat and camouflage skills to keep us safe come the day.”

“
What
day?” Paul asked.

“The day they outlawed us. I thought we had seven years before they dropped the RICO act on us – but whoa, Morehead yanked the hands forward on
that
Doomsday clock.”

“You were planning a decade ahead?”

Robert gave a bitter laugh – reminding Paul that sunny Robert still had plenty of Tyler Durden's black nihilism floating around inside. “Ending segregation took a hundred years, Paul. Gay marriage took forty. Did you think you'd make the world safe for 'mancers in time for Aliyah's sweet sixteen party?”

Robert chuckled as he flicked off the headlights, nudged a creaking gate open with the bumper, and pulled onto a cracked road leading into an abandoned asylum.

Paul scratched his neck, feeling foolish. He'd kind of thought he
would
fix America's politics for Aliyah.

“
That's
what happened to my sense of adventure, Valentine,” Robert said pointedly. “Staying ahead of the government.
Winning
. This is a guerrilla war, and you win those through smart use of forces and moral superiority on the ground. Project Mayhem was designed to
endure
. This is what we
do
.”

“‘You are not your job,'” Valentine quoted dully. “‘This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.'”

Quoting
Fight Club
to Robert was like slapping him in the face. He hunkered down over the wheel, face darkened.

“As for the huntomancer,” Robert said quietly, “I'll let Butler explain the sitrep to you.”

Imani frowned. “You haven't called anyone since Paul made the decision to come here.”

“Butler always knows when company's coming.”

He backed the car up next to a set of wide, cracked steps. The asylum had once exemplified the grand brass architecture that only really got funded in the 1940s, but its steps were now littered with water-soaked roofing tiles and broken beer bottles.

Paul quashed the itch to magically access the failed building inspection records so he'd know when the institute had been condemned – once, acquiring that information would have been trivial. But he felt the black flux pressing in, eager to punish his curiosity. From the half-collapsed roof and layers of graffiti, he guessed it'd shuttered its doors two decades back.

The overcast moon above gave them enough light to pick their way up the buckled stairs.

The chained doors rattled open.

A hooded lantern shone respectfully at their feet, offering guidance.

They had to move quickly; most of Project Mayhem's safehouses were squatter locations. Robert had tucked the car by the asylum's side, out of casual observers' sight; they didn't need the cops arriving to investigate.

Paul braced himself to see a stern Englishman in a valet outfit, holding the door for him–

Which is why he was surprised to find an old, bare-chested white man in a leather collar, vest, and cap.

Paul cruised to a halt, staring, knowing he was being rude but uncertain how to stop. He knew he was being rude by thinking of Butler as a man when the Butler identified themselves as a
they
, but…

The Butler stood at an attention so firm, any rudeness slid off their polished leather vest. Moonlight glinted off the silver chains that connected Butler's nipple rings to Butler's burnished leather pants; though their body was grizzled, Butler's face was hairless, cherubic, their cap set at a jaunty angle.

Butler held their leash in one hand, the lantern in the other, ready to offer either if needed.

“Sheeeeiiiit.” Valentine's voice was low with admiration as she joyfully turned to Robert. “So these are the kinds of secret adventures you're off having? This is top-tier magic, Robert.” She saluted Butler. “High-protocol service kink turned to 'mancy? Not my style – too many rules – but respect, old bean.
Respect
.”

She held out her fist. With a glimmer of 'mancy, Butler slapped their leash over their shoulder in a crisp military salute, then reached out to meet Valentine's fist-bump, their two protocols melding seamlessly.

Butler bowed, nipple-chains jangling. “Mr and Ms Tsabo-Dawson. Mr Paulson. If you'll allow me to escort you inside, I'll do my best to answer your enquiries.”

B
utler led
them through decaying hallways strewn with rusted gurneys and smashed-in prescription cases.

“I leave it untidy near the entryway, so casual visitors won't investigate,” they said, in a voice tinged with a faint Southern drawl. “I have arranged nicer accommodations for our poor guest.”

“
Poor
?” Valentine asked. “
Guest?
Didn't this huntomancer murder three 'mancers?”

“So he did,” Butler agreed. “But you don't murder that many people without carving up your soul. Adding more punishment wouldn't help the poor lad. I care for him with all possible gentleness, in the hopes that kindness might resuscitate his compassion.”

Paul flicked a gaze towards Robert, understanding why he'd chosen a servant to imprison the huntomancer. Butler was both detail-oriented, and devoted to the huntomancer's safety: a perfect warden.

Valentine shot him fingerguns. “Man, if I'm gonna be chained up, I want it to be you, Barney.”

Imani did a double-take. “Did you call them a purple dinosaur?”

A slight grin crept across Butler's face. “No, ma'am. She's referring to Hannibal Lecter's able prison caretaker in
Silence of the Lambs
. A high compliment.”

Valentine threw her hands up in triumph. “At last! Someone who gets my pop-culture references!”

“My former master was quite fond of movies involving dungeons,” Butler demurred. “In any case, yes, I am Mr Steeplechase's caretaker.”

“I thought…” Paul blushed, hating to ask foolish questions, but Butler's ease made every query seem reasonable. “Didn't he slit his throat?”

Butler rounded a corner, moving deeper into the asylum's interior; the lantern played over scrubbed cell doors, the cells themselves threadbare but as welcoming as hostel accommodations. “So he has, sir. I've never heard him make a sound – you could listen all day and never know he was in his cell.”

“So how do you know his name?”

“His clothing had a name stitched upon the inside.”

Paul frowned. “Steeplechase. The mob had a huntomancer, back when I worked on the force…”

“Same person, sir.” Butler led them down a freshly-mopped stairwell, into a basement where the peeling paint had been scraped away. “We got an anonymous mob informant. Apparently, his superiors had set Mr Steeplechase on a target so monstrous it caused a crisis of conscience. They begged us to stop him before he reached his target.”

“Yes, but…” Something about Steeplechase tickled Paul's memory. They'd called in the mob's huntomancer once to track down a serial killer. He hadn't been involved, but he'd heard rumors–

He wished he hadn't popped another Oxycontin before their arrival. His memories swam away like startled goldfish.

Yet as they walked down the stairs, Paul felt his cares easing away. The smell of chamomile tea filled his nostrils, and somehow tiny Butler had hauled several comfortable leather chairs into this distressing madhouse basement, giving it the semblance of home. Robert's favorite newspapers lay spread open across silver trays, and a thick chocolate milkshake sat inside a chilled ice bucket waiting for Valentine, and a pressed business suit in Imani's size was hung neatly inside a small armoire.

“Did you lay this outfit out for me?” Imani asked, plucking at the emergency clothing they'd purchased at a Target.

“I purchased them earlier,” Butler demurred. “I have… instincts. Instincts that help ensure I have the proper things when people need them.”

Paul scanned the area, seeing nothing he needed. “What about me?”

“Alas, sir,” Butler said solemnly. “I'm afraid there's only one thing that will allow you to relax.”

Butler stopped before an old-fashioned cell door: it had a slot to push food through, and a narrow opening to check in on the prisoner. Inside the cell, moonlight streamed through a barred window set high in the stained concrete.

The chipped walls had been inscribed with mysterious spiderwebbed lines.

And of course Butler was right. All Paul wanted was a lead on Aliyah.

Two lucite-encased mirrors were set high in the far corners; the protective shield surrounding the mirrors was cracked but not broken. The mirrors reflected dim starlight onto a barren mattress, an empty bucket, a tray with plates licked clean.

Through the mirrors, Paul saw the cell was empty.

Yet that blank space held a puzzling allure – Paul's eyes skipped across the shadows.
Something
lurked in there. Hairs prickled on the back of his neck; looking away seemed dangerous. He had to find where the huntomancer hid, because the alternative was that something dreadful had escaped.

He stepped forward to get a closer look–

And it
flickered
.

The thing inside the cell moved too quickly for Paul to process – it practically teleported from shadow to shadow, like a smash-cut in a movie – blink, blink, and one muscled arm thrust out between the bars to crush Paul's throat–

Butler pulled him back.

Bloodied fingers closed centimeters from Paul's tie.

Paul froze, understanding why deer went numb in the headlights.

Steeplechase thrust his arm out, quivering with exertion – but though he'd slammed his body against the steel door, the only sound echoing through the asylum was Paul's strangled cry of terror.

The huntomancer was old – older than Butler, scrawny, wiry, gray. Steeplechase had the grizzled, emaciated look of an ancient animal, something too stubborn to die. The curlicued scar around his wattled neck highlighted where his larynx had once been.

His ragged fingernails were chewed to razor-sharp points, but his bloodshot eyes were wet with tears.

Steeplechase held Paul's gaze for a moment, furious – and when Butler jerked Paul backwards, Steeplechase flickered away to the far wall, clasped his hands over his balding head, and crouched down, bobbing in mute agony.

“He's a bit of a guided missile, sir,” Butler explained. “He can't think of anything but his target. He worsens daily. Which makes sense, I suppose; we
are
thwarting his obsession.”

“It must be…” Paul straightened his tie – a tie that seemed like a liability now that someone had tried to strangle him with it. “It must be a chore keeping him pent up here.”

“Not as much as you might think, sir,” Butler demurred. “He's powerful, but terribly untrained. No capacity to hold his flux. His 'mancy rebounds on him. He's found chinks in the walls – but utilizing his magic to do violence upon those weaknesses guarantees some unfortuitous coincidence alerts me whenever he's close to freedom. If he could hold his flux, sir, he might be magnificent.”

Paul imagined those sharpened nails slicing his jugular. “Not the word I'd choose to describe him.”

“I don't care how you describe him.” Imani stepped forward, peering fearlessly into the cell. “The question is, can he find our daughter?”

Steeplechase's head whipped around.

Another flicker, and he was once again pressed against the cell, cocking his head like a hawk to examine Imani. His arm hung down from the cell window.

His cheeks glistened with tears.

Imani bowed her head, approached Steeplechase as though approaching a feral cat. “Her name is Aliyah. She's a fighter. They
stole
her from us, Mr Steeplechase. She's in the hands of men who will hurt her.”

With serene grace, Imani stepped into range of Steeplechase's bladelike nails. Paul reached out for her – only to find Butler gripping his shoulder, one hand held up in a
let's see what happens
motion.

Imani rested her palm on Steeplechase's bloodied hand. He flinched at her touch, then froze as though afraid he might hurt her; he turned away, his tears flowing in streams.