The Nimble Man (A Novel of the Menagerie) (2 page)

Brows knitted, Eve turned to stare at Doyle. "It's a
map of Manhattan."

The spider paused for several long seconds at a spot upon
its web that corresponded to where Greenwich Village would have been on the
map. When it at last moved on, it had left something behind. Amidst that
crystalline web, at one particular junction of gleaming thread, a tiny crystal
stood out from the pattern of the map.

A chill passed through Mr. Doyle like ice sliding down his
back and he stared at the map. Slowly he nodded. He had wondered for so long
what had happened to the Mage, what had become of Lorenzo Sanguedolce, that it
seemed unreal to him, looking at that crystal and knowing that it symbolized an
end to his search.

He nodded gruffly and glanced at Eve. "All right, then.
To New York."

Shortly before dawn, with heavy storm clouds aiding the
night in its quest to keep morning at bay, the limousine swept through midtown
Manhattan. Its tires shushed through pools of rainwater and the windshield
wipers hissed as they beat their hypnotic rhythm upon the glass. New York had
its reputation as the city that never slept, but on that Sunday morning it
seemed, at least, to be dozing. The limousine was not the only vehicle about
— they passed several taxis and police cars and a handful of automobiles
whose drivers were likely about on business of questionable intent — but
the streets were lonely nevertheless. With the storm hanging so low over the
city and the rain driving down upon the limousine, the city seemed very
inhospitable indeed.

In the back of the limo, Eve rested her head against the
tinted window and gazed up at the cityscape that unfolded with each block. Twenty-four
hour neon storefronts, digital billboards, and the glass and steel faces of
thousands of corporations. In her life she had seen the rise and fall of cities
more glorious than this one, and yet there was something about New York —
with its old-fashioned personality and its vast ambition for the future —
that she admired.

Her long legs were stretched out and she had slid down in
the seat. From time to time her mind drifted so that she was in a sort of
trance state in which ghosts of the past haunted her memory, but she did not
sleep. Eve never slept during the night.

In the driver's seat, Squire yawned, revealing teeth as
jagged and numerous as a shark's. The gnarled, ugly little man glanced into the
rearview mirror and saw her watching him. His grin was hideous.

"Hey, babe. Good morning. You were zoning out back
there so I didn't want to interrupt."

Eve stretched languidly against the leather upholstery,
aware of the goblin's hungry eyes but unconcerned. She twisted her neck,
muscles popping. Across from her, behind the driver's seat, Doyle slept in a
sitting position with his hands clasped, corpselike, over his chest. He snored
lightly, head bobbing from time to time.

She glanced at the driver again. "Usually you can't
keep your mouth shut, Squire. I appreciate it."

"My pleasure," he said.

The goblin returned his attention to the road. They had
passed through Times Square and were now rolling south on Seventh Avenue. Squire
was a cautious driver. Doyle had paid to have the limo customized so that
Squire could see through the windshield and still reach the accelerator and
brake, mainly because the goblin liked to drive. Of all the services the
creature performed for his employer, chauffeuring was the one at which he had
the least amount of skill. Eve would not deny that Squire had his uses, but
there were times when they were outweighed by his more annoying attributes.

"So, what's this about, babe?" the goblin asked,
casting a quick glance over his shoulder, his gnarled features silhouetted by
the greenish light from the limo's dashboard. "I mean, I need my beauty
sleep and the boss rousted me without telling me much. What's the hurry?"

Eve closed her eyes and sighed. "If I explain it to
you, will you stop calling me 'babe?'"

"I can try."

She nodded, opening her eyes and sitting up straighter in
her seat. Her black hair fell in a tumble across her face and she swept it back
again. "That's good. Doyle would be unhappy if I ripped your throat out."

The rain pelted the limousine's roof and sluiced down the
windows. The engine purred and Squire kept both hands on the wheel as they slid
through another intersection. Once again he caught her eye in the rearview
mirror.

"Don't be that way, darlin'. I don't mean anything by
it. And I'd have to be blind not to notice what a looker you are."

Eve's upper lip curled back in a hiss that revealed her
fangs. "That could be arranged."

"Okay, okay," Squire protested, shrugging. "Just
making conversation. You don't wanna talk, we won't talk."

Eve turned her gaze out the window again as they passed
closed shops and newsstands with their metal rolling doors locked down tight. A
tall, thin man in a hooded rain slicker hunched over as he walked his dog, the
little beast leading him along by its leash, creating confusion as to which of
them was the pet. Given the hour, Eve was tempted to believe the dog was in
charge.

"I know very little," she began, still peering out
into the rain.

"That's more than I know," Squire noted. He fished
around the front seat and then held up a pack of cigarettes in triumph. The
limo slowed as he tapped one out and used his lips to draw it from the pack.

"I've forgotten more than you'll ever know," Eve
said, and her voice sounded hollow even to her, tinged with a melancholy she
rarely allowed in herself. It was the rain. The damned rain. For some reason it
always put her in mind of a simpler time, long ago.

Squire either missed her tone or ignored it entirely. "All
right, you know so much, then spill it." The goblin pushed in the
dashboard lighter, the unlit cigarette rolling like a toothpick between his
lips.

"You're not going to smoke in here," she said.

His wiry eyebrows went up and he glanced at her in the
mirror. "I'm not? No, I guess I'm not."

Eve glanced over at Doyle. He grumbled in his sleep now,
brow knitted in consternation. She was not surprised. He was not the sort of
man she would ever expect to have sweet dreams.

"It's pretty simple, actually. You know the story of
Lorenzo Sanguedolce?"

"Sure. Sweetblood. That's what all the arcane books
call him. Sweetblood the Mage."

Eve nodded once. She had expected Squire to know the story. Anyone
even tangentially involved with the magical community would have. Tales of
Sanguedolce could be traced back as early as the eleventh century and though he
seemed to have changed his name several times the stories about him cropped up
in journals from a dozen countries over the course of hundreds of years. He was
called Sweetblood, but it was unclear whether this was a literal translation of
his Italian surname, or if the surname was simply another variation on that
descriptive appellation.

By all accounts Sanguedolce had been the most powerful
sorcerer who had ever lived. Yet early in the twentieth century, he had simply
disappeared. None of the dark powers in the world had laid claim to having
destroyed him and though there were rumors and whispers, no mage was ever
proven to have knowledge of his whereabouts, or his possible demise.

"You know your boss has been looking for the mage for a
very long time?" Eve asked.

Squire chuckled without humor. "That's an
understatement. Never thought it was a great idea, myself. You know what they
say about searching for Sweetblood."

"We may have found him."

The goblin jerked the steering wheel so hard to the right as
he spun to stare at Eve that he nearly plowed the limousine into a squat blue
mailbox on the sidewalk. In a panic, Squire hit the brakes and got the limo's
nose headed in the right direction again.

Eve watched him in the mirror. Several times the annoying
little creature opened his mouth and closed it again, as though for the first
time in his life he had no clever or boorish remark to make. She knew it would
pass, though. With Squire, it always did.

"Hell," the goblin said, the word coming out in a
harsh grunt. "All the stories say . . . ah, hell, Eve,
all
the
stories say that would be a bad idea."

Squire kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road.
A taxi cut in front of the limousine despite that there were only a handful of
cars on Seventh Avenue. Ahead a light turned red and the goblin began to slow
the limo.

"True."

The word came from Doyle. Eve glanced over at him and saw
that his eyes were red and his face somewhat flushed. He had not slept nearly
enough, but that was not unusual. Magic had suspended the aging process in him,
had even partially reversed it, but there was no escaping that the man was
still human. An alchemist and magician, a brilliant writer and scholar, a
believer in both the goodness of the world and the darkness that tainted it,
Mr. Doyle was among the most powerful magicians on Earth, but he was also just
a man. Human.

Eve envied him that. She could not even remember what it
meant to be human.

"Boss, you're awake," Squire said, turning to
glance back at Doyle now that he was stopped at the red light.

Tiredly, Mr. Doyle smoothed his jacket and ran his fingers
through his silver hair to straighten it. "And you, my small friend, have
a gift for stating the obvious."

"What can I say?" Squire muttered happily. "I'm
blessed."

The light turned green but Squire was careful to look in
both directions before the limousine picked up speed again. Behind him, his
employer tugged out a pocket watch and clicked it open. He checked the time and
then slid the watch back into his vest pocket.

Doyle cleared his throat and glanced at Eve, then turned his
attention to Squire again.

"The warnings about what would happen to anyone who
searched for Sweetblood are dire," the magician absently admitted as he
began searching the inner pockets of his jacket for something. "But I
suspect they were spread by Lorenzo himself in an effort to dissuade the
curious."

Eve stared at him. "And if you're wrong?"

Doyle raised an eyebrow and stared at her, his eyes as
silver as his hair. "If I'm wrong, then we handle it."

"That's your plan?" Squire asked. "That's not
much of a plan."

"There isn't time for subtlety," Doyle replied. "My
search has always been a casual one, rarely the focus of my efforts. But Dr.
Graves has word that someone — someone with malevolent intentions —
has indeed located Sweetblood."

"And we need to get to him first," Squire said,
nodding to himself as he turned the limousine down a side street, the rear tire
bumping up over the curb.

"Precisely."

The goblin turned south again at the next corner and soon
enough the city was changing around them. The skyscrapers had given way to
brownstones and rowhouses and there were trees growing up out of the sidewalk. They
passed a park that seemed remarkably free of litter and graffiti.

"All right," Squire said. "I get it. But I
was still half-asleep when you got me out of bed to drive you, so there's still
one thing I'm not understanding."

"Only one?" Eve taunted.

Doyle frowned at her. "What's that, Squire?"

"Where do the glass spiders come in? You said something
about glass spiders, didn't you? Or was that in my dream?"

Before the dapper magician could answer, Eve spied their
destination, the address plainly exhibited on the front door of the brownstone.
The sky had begun to lighten but the drenching rain and the heavy cloud cover
would shield her from the sun.

"Stop here. This is it."

The goblin pulled the limo to the curb. Doyle leaned across
the back seat to peer through Eve's rain-streaked window, eyebrows raised. Then
he popped his own door open and slipped out. Eve stripped off her suede coat,
folded it and left it on the seat, then followed suit. The rain began to dampen
her hair immediately, streaming like tears upon her cheeks. Thunder rolled
across the sky, echoing off the faces of the buildings. Lightning blinked and flickered
up inside the clouds as though behind that veil the gods were at war.

Doyle slammed his door without another word to Squire. His
gaze was locked upon the brownstone and he stared up at its darkened windows as
he strode around the limousine to join Eve on the sidewalk.

Her nostrils flared and she sniffed at the air. "Does
this seem too easy to you?"
"I'm not certain that's a word I
would choose," Doyle replied, wiping rain from his eyes.

Eve pushed her hair back from her face and rapped on the
limo's passenger window. When Squire rolled it down she bent to peer in at him.
The goblin's eyes went to her chest, where the tight cotton of her turtleneck
stretched across her breasts.

"Up here, you little shit."

A dreamy smile spread across his features. "Sorry. What
can I do for you?"

"Open the trunk."

He reached for the release and there was a small pop, then
the trunk lid rose. The sound of the rain pelting the metal altered at this new
angle. Eve went to the rear of the limo and reached into the trunk to retrieve
a parcel wrapped in soft leather. She unfolded the leather and folded her
fingers around the stock of the sawed-off shotgun, and she smiled as she
dropped the leather wrap into the trunk and slammed it shut.

Turning to Doyle she cocked the shotgun. "Too easy."

"Perhaps," he replied. Then he nodded toward the
brick steps in front of the brownstone. "Would you like to get the door?"

Eve strode purposefully up the short walkway, not even
bothering to check the windows of the surrounding homes for prying eyes. That
sort of thing was Doyle's problem, and he dealt with it often enough. She went
up the four steps and paused on the landing, then shot a kick at the front
door. The blow cracked it in half and tore it from its hinges. The bottom part
of the door flew across the building's foyer and shattered the legs of a small
table; the top half swung like a guillotine from the security chain that still
connected it to the door frame.