The Magpye: Circus (36 page)

Cane hurled Marv through the
doors into the casino control room. The old magician fell, slamming
into the buffet table and sending food across the floor.

“
Phone's over there,”
said Cane, pointing to a telephone handset embedded into a wide
control panel beneath a bank of screens. “Get it done.”

Beneath them, through the floor
to ceiling glass, Cane watched as his last remaining loyal Kingsmen
kept watch over the hostages. None of them looked up at him. Their
eyes were glued to the television screens that dotted the walls.
The news was still rolling, and Cane was the only story.

“
Some of these people
don't exactly have telephones,” said Marv, staggering over to the
control panel. “They're a little... old school.”

“
Just make it happen,”
said Cane, “I've got transportation on the way.”

His tone was grim. Marv had
heard the tone before, it was the tone of voice that men get when
they realise that they don't have anything left to lose. He'd heard
it more times than he cared to remember, and the results were
always messy. Thankfully for Marv, he normally wasn't around for
consequences, but right now his magic was stubbornly refusing to do
anything other than let him be Cane's punch bag.

Marv picked up the phone and
dialled.

“
Laurence? It's Marv.
Yeah, yeah, I know, you told me only to call in
emergency...”

Cane appeared next to Marv and
started flicking switches on the control panel. The bank of screens
above them switched from showing video of the casino floor to
showing video from the hotel corridors up above. Cane flicked from
channel to channel until he found Magpye. Marv stole a glimpse at
the screen. Best guess, Able was only a floor above them, and
heading for the elevator.

“
Damn,” said Cane,
looking at his watch. “He's close.”

Marv pretended that he hadn't
heard anything.

“
I've got a client for
you, Laurence. Yes, he can
definitely
pay. No,
he's not in
serious
trouble...”

Cane flicked more switches,
until every screen was showing an image of the control room.

Marv placed his hand over the
receiver. “What are you doing?”

“
Just a little backup,”
said Cane, “In case you can't deliver.”

Marv took a step away from
Cane, stretching the phone cord with him. There weren't any mirrors
here, but Marv was sure that Cane must know that his face was
covered in The Ink again.

***

One floor above, Able reached
the elevator. He could still taste Taylor in his mouth but there
was no trace of him in his head. There had been no resistance since
Taylor, the floors cleared of Kingsmen. Maybe that was how Taylor
had wanted it, or maybe Cane's forces were finally getting
depleted. Either way, all that was left for Able to do now was find
Marv and find Cane King before the hotel burned down around
him.

“
Simple,” he said to
himself, looking up a wall-mounted map of the casino. “If I just
knew where the hell you where...”

Without warning, a screen next
to the map sprung into life. In place of the usual information or
advertising that Able expected it was intended for, it showed a
picture that seemed to be coming from somewhere inside the casino.
Able watched as Cane King moved from side to side in front of some
kind of control panel. To his left, almost out of shot was Marv.
Marv, on the phone.

“
What the hell are you
playing at you old bastard?” said Able.

***

Marv put the phone down.

“
It's done.”

“
Just like that?” asked
King incredulously. “One phone call?”

“
One phone call to the
right person,” said Marv. “Laurence will put everything in place.
This time tomorrow you'll be in a whole new life and nobody will
ever be able to find you.”

Cane looked down onto the gaming floor of the casino. Sweat
was running down his face and back as The Ink boiled inside of him.
This
wasn't
how things were supposed to go and
this wasn't the story that The Ink wanted to tell. It was taking
every ounce of Cane's will to go against the will of the thing that
lived under his skin, and he didn't know how much longer he would
be able to hold out.

“
And they'll be able to
get this thing out of me?”

“
That's the very first
step,” said Marv reassuringly.

Cane heaved and vomited up a
handful of blood.

“
Why are you doing
this?” asked Cane. “Why are you helping me?”

Marv put his hand on King's
shoulder. He could feel the heat coming off Cane's skin.

“
Because I know what
it's like to have something inside you that you can't control,”
answered Marv. In the glass, he caught sight of his own reflection
and realised that, somewhere along the line, what had been a line
of bullshit to keep Cane talking had become something else,
something real.

“
We're not so
different,” he said. “All my life, Cane, I've...”

The elevator pinged outside and
Marv felt Cane's shoulders tense. The Ink swirled onto his face and
contorted it into an animal's snarl. Turning, Cane pushed Marv
backwards with a force that lifted the magician off his feet and
sent him hurtling across the room. He hit one of the glass walls
hard, hard enough to crack the glass and hard enough to finally get
the attention of the people down on the casino floor.

Winded, struggling to get back
to his feet, Marv watched as Able walked into the room.

Cane was waiting for him.

“
Adam,” said Cane.
Except the voice wasn't Cane's. It was guttural and frothy, like
words spoken underwater and bursting in bubbles on the surface. It
was the voice of The Ink.

Able reached up and pulled off
his mask. In the screens across the room he saw his own face, his
white flesh and milky eyes, the blood caked around his mouth from
his meal of flesh just minutes before. It was the face of a
monster.

“I'm not Adam,” he replied, and
shot Cane King in the face.

Cane staggered back, clutching
and clawing at a wound that should have been fatal. The bubbling,
watery voice of The Ink howled as tendrils of thick black go burst
out from between Cane's fingers as he covered his face. Able
watched as, between Cane's fingers, he saw glimpses of Cane's face
was rebuilt piece by piece, layer by layer. He watched as thick
black ooze replacing bone and flesh before fading to a perfect
match for the surrounding skin. It took only moments for the howls
to give way to softer pants and gasps until, finally, Cane took his
hands fully away from his face. Cane's face, whole and
restored.

“Where,” he asked, “Is my
brother?”

“Check your little hidey hole,”
said Able, a note of cruelty in his voice. “That's where I left
him.”

“He's...
alive
?” said Cane,
astonishment in his voice.

“That's a matter of
definition.”

“And so you must be Able,” said
Cane, looking him up and down. “My brother's bastard.”

“Your brother's
nothing
,
”
snapped Able. “My name is Able
Quirk. You killed my family.”

“I killed mine too, if it makes
any difference.”

“Not really,” replied Able.

The two men flew at each other,
each possessed of superhuman strength and speed. Able unleashed a
ferocious series of punches and kicks, matched blow for blow by
Cane. Neither one of them dodged, neither one of the blocked. No
quarter was asked or given until both men found themselves free of
the other.

Able was unsteady on his feet.
He could feel Dorothy's mind hard at work, sealing up cuts,
repairing cracked ribs. Cane's strength was phenomenal, every punch
and kick a hammer blow. A few yards away, Cane rolled his head left
and right as The Ink healed him. Able tried to take a tally of how
many patches of darkness he could see on Cane's clothes, a track of
how many wounds he had inflicted.

Across the room, Marv realised
that he had a clear path to the open door. He felt his magic
tingling in his fingers, racing up his arms and down to his bare,
bloodied feet. It wanted him to run.

“Cane,” called Marv, his voice
uncertain. “It doesn't have to be this way. You can still get out,
you can still be free.”

Cane's shoulders slumped.

“You stupid old man,” he said.
“You really think I'd walk away from this?”

“I don't understand,” said
Marv, “You said...”

“I said what you wanted me to
say,” replied Cane. “When you said you could get me out, I knew you
had to have a way to take The Ink out of me, and I couldn't let
that happen. Ever. So I got you to phone your special little magic
friends and now, when this is over, I'm going to take that phone
number, find out who it belongs to, and kill them. Then I'm going
to kill everyone they know. I'm going to kill and kill and kill
until there's not a witch, magician, conjurer, or mystic left on
the face of this planet. I will kill them, eat them, and then all
the magic will belong to me.”

“You son of a bitch,
you...”

“Don't take it personally,
Marv,” said Cane sarcastically. “It's just business.”

“And so this this!” shouted
Able, launching himself for a second time at Cane. This time, the
exchange between the men was even more brutal than before. Every
blow was intended to kill or maim. Bones broke, flesh was torn.
Blood splattered against the glass walls of the room, painting the
scene outside in streaks of red. It was Cane who landed the final
blow, a punch into Able's windpipe that left him gasping on the
floor. Dead or not, even Able needed to breath, it would seem.

Crossing the room, Cane picked
up a table and hefted it over his head. It should have required
three or four men to lift, but Cane picked it up as if it were
nothing. Standing over Able, Cane held the thing above his
head.

“You're a lot like him, your
father,” said Cane. “You're weak.”

He brought the table down into
Able's back with a sickening crack and Able realised immediately
that he couldn't move his legs.

Across the room, Able watched
as Marv looked from him to the door and back again.

Able closed his eyes and
nodded. “Get out,” he mouthed and, by the time he opened his eyes,
Marv had vanished, as if by magic.

Leaving Able prone under the
table, Cane strode across to the control panel.

Able watched as he rolled up
his tattered shirt sleeve and dug a finger into a protruding vein
in his arm. A pool of black welled up and ran down Cane's arm. He
placed his hand on the control panel, fingers splayed, and Able
watched as the black ooze ran down into the console.

“What are you doing?”

“Rewriting history,” said Cane
with a smile.

On the screens, the video of
Cane and Able's battle spun backwards, then began again. This time,
Cane didn't lift a finger. There was no gunshot, no miraculous
healing. There was no fight. There was just Able, pulling of his
mask and pointing his gun at Cane. Able putting a bullet into the
floor at Cane's feet, making him get down on his knees. Able
standing over Cane with a gun.

Cane had spent a lifetime
learning how to manipulate the media and now, with the power of The
Ink, he could reach in and change the story as it was
happening.

“You see, after what happened at the paper-mill, I needed
to convince everyone that I wasn't some grandiose criminal
mastermind. I needed a scapegoat for all the things that have been
happening. My brother would have been perfect, the “wayward
sibling” with his strange obsession with the occult. It would be a
classic tale of one brother against another. The All-America Hero
vs. the Twisted Terrorist Madman. America
loves
that sort
of thing.”

“Except it isn't true.”

“No, it isn't true, but since
when has that actually mattered?” continued Cane. “Of course,
there's your cop friend to deal with but, with a little creativity,
I'm sure we can find some link between Owen White and all the
corruption there is in this city. The president will be terribly
embarrassed of course but, I rather think its time for him to go
anyway. We'll have a clean slate, fresh start.”

Able could feel his legs again,
a pins and needles sensation running down from the small of his
back to his knees.

“ It will never work.”

“Of course it will. What would
everyone prefer to believe? That I've really been here all this
time, hiding in plain sight? That my father and grandfather before
me were just the same? That every institution they believe in is
rotten to the core? My truth is much better than that. My world is
a happier world for everyone.”

Able slowly got to this feet.
Cane smiled.

“And what about people who get in the way?” he asked. “What
about people like
us
?”

Able knew that he had started
to speak in the plural again, but it didn't matter. He was speaking
for more than just the ghosts that were in his head now, more than
for just himself, he was speaking for all of the people who had
died at the hands of Cane King or his forebears. He was speaking
for a great unquiet mass that lingered in places like The Pit, that
festered under the very foundations of this city. He was speaking
for every person who had every stood in the way of the Kings and
paid the price.