The Watchmage of Old New York (The Watchmage Chronicles Book 1) (16 page)

“No games,” I said.

“Bah, no fun,” he answered.  “I’m compelled to tell you anyway, as per our contract, and my contract with your former master.  Cadatchen is expanding his territory.”

“I knew that from the incident with Sipsy.”

“More than unclaimed area.  Grizzlemaw has been pressuring some of our associates in Five Points. Cadatchen plans to return the favor.”

“He’s looking for blood,” I said with furrowed brow.

“Again, a rapier, not a mallet.  However, if he wanted to change his ways, loosing a Fire Elemental against Grizzlemaw would be one way.  He could burn down the Bowery and then buy the places that he wants for half the price.  It’s possible that Sniddlenose erred and burned the wrong target.”

I suspected otherwise.  It’s hard to mistake the lights of the Bowery for Henry Street. “And the baby?” I asked.  “Is he involved?”

“It’s no secret that Cadatchen wants that handkerchief.  Every powerful Dweller and mageling that knows about it wants it.  It calls to you.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Cadatchen has secrets that even I cannot divine, but I have neither seen nor heard evidence of young Stewart.  Look to your magelings, Watchmage.  They are far more dangerous than any of us.  I fear that their short lives make them mad.”

“Perhaps.”

“I’m speaking as a friend.  I followed one of them, a Franklin Wythe, last night.  He sneaked into the potter’s graveyard behind Saint Vincent’s with an Orpheus Lantern.”

“You mean he…”

“Short lives make them mad.”

My headache reached blinding levels.  I thought that I might vomit. “I’ll meet with him right away.”

“I agree. If that is all, I must bid you
adieu
. Cadatchen will need my advice in the days to come.

I rose from my seat to escort him out.  “I feel that none of these incidents are singular.  The kidnapping is part of something bigger.”

“It could be,” he said as he floated out the door.  “But I am not one for conjecture.  I am but a seeker of Truth.”

He left, and I looked out the window, into the gray skies above us and the gray streets below.  Winter was coming early. 

Bleecker Street is where this generation of artists has staked its claim, a Bohemia within Manhattan.  They sit in the local coffee shops and wine sinks, passing around witticisms and
The Saturday Press
.  Some were quite talented, and I’ve had many over for dinner and cards. Most were dandies with more pride than skill, basking in others’ genius.

I entered one of those Bleecker Street taverns and ordered a glass of port from the bartender.  He smiled as he handed me the stemmed glass.  I looked around at the people sitting around their table, drinking wine and musing on Halleck and Poe. 

“You’re here for the meeting?” The bartender asked.  I nodded.  “Yeah, you look like one of them.  Are you a poet or a critic?”

“Neither,” I said.  “I’ve no talent for words.”

He grunted.  “They’re downstairs.  Dicing, I think.”  He pointed to a flight of stairs behind a curtain of beads.

“My thanks.”  I took my port and walked down the stairs.

Even before my feet hit the floor, I saw the colored lights flashing and knew that I was in the right place.  Small constructs of light made to look like Pixies fluttered about the room, creating distracting, but pretty, patterns of color.  In one corner, a string quartet played something contemporary.  There were no musicians, the instruments floated in the air and played themselves. 

There sat five well-dressed men around a circular table.  Tom Lancaster was one of them, and there was a small pile of jewelry and other sundries in front of him.  The other men had similar piles.  A stack of the booty lay in the middle of the table.  Three serving trays floated around them, offering refreshments.

Chauncey Rivington, a heavyset, middle-aged man in a green bowler, shook his hands together and rolled a set of five dice.  I didn’t recognize the markings on the dice.  “Aha!  Three flaming suns and two moons!  I win!” He reached for the articles in the center, but Alfred Van Wyck, the man on his left, put his hand over Chauncey’s.

“Not quite yet, good sir.  All of your dice scored, so you have to reroll.  We all have to ante one more piece.”  Chauncey slid a ring off of his finger and tossed it into the center.  Tom Lancaster rolled a vial of blue fluid into the center.  The other two men, young Paul Pelham and Franklin Wythe, folded. 

“What if I don’t want to?” asked Chauncey.

Van Wyck shook his head.  “You may not want to, but you must.”

Chauncey rolled again.  “Three moons. Can I stop now?”

“Not yet,” said Van Wyck.  “When you roll three of a kind, you have to keep rolling the other two.”

“Are you sure?”

“I didn’t make the rules.”

Chauncey rolled the final two.  “Zounds, a star and a skull.”

Van Wyck puffed on his cigar and gathered the pot to his side.  He smirked at Pelham and Wythe.  “If you hadn’t folded, we’d be sharing this.”  He picked up a ring and brought it to eye level. “What does this ring do?”

“It produces candlelight,” I said as I came out of the shadows.  “I’m sure it’s very useful.”

“Ah, Nathaniel,” said Tom.  “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Tonight it’s Watchmage Hood, Tom.”  After the incident with the Flerriers, I realized the danger of fraternizing with magelings.  It makes it difficult to enforce the Law when you’re too close.  “Where did you find this game, Mister Van Wyck?”

“I bought it from a Pooka.  He called it ‘Cosmos.’”

“And you always wager dangerous magic so casually?”

Van Wyck tried to stammer out a reply and dropped his cigar.  The room grew tense.

“Um…Watchmage Hood,” said Paul Pelham.  “Would you like some Turkish Delight?  It’s imported.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Pelham whispered an incantation and one of the trays floated to me.  I picked a choice piece and chewed.  “It’s very sweet,” I said once I swallowed.  Pelham bobbed his head and smiled.

“Besides warning you about treating magic in such a flippant manner, I came for another reason,” I said.

“I told them about the Flerriers,” said Tom.  “We’re all willing to help you in any way we can, isn’t that right?”  The other men nodded.

“For proper reimbursement, of course,” said Chauncey, his jowls shaking.

“Considering that you were the one that gave Tom the book on chimeras, you should be thanking me for your life.  You,” I looked each of them in the eye in succession.  “All of you, have consistently broken the Laws of Magic. Look at this room.  If one of the patrons from upstairs came down here…” I stamped my cane on the ground for effect.  “This city is my life, and your hobby puts the city at risk. I won’t be able to protect you when the Star of Nine hears of your misdeeds.  If you assist my search, I will advocate on your behalf.  It might keep your hearts out of the pyre.”

Chauncey turned pale and fidgeted with the hat.  “We’re happy to be of service.”

“I want you to tap your resources.  Talk to other magelings, the ones that you know, but I do not.  Do whatever you can, but I want to know who stole that baby. Congratulations, you’ve been deputized,” I said.  “Chauncey, give me the book on chimeras.  You can’t be trusted with it.”  

“But it’s mine.  I traded very powerful magic for it.”

“You’re in no position to argue. Bring it to Turtle House within three days.” I turned to Wythe.  “Mister Wythe, I’d like to talk to you privately.  Please join me upstairs.”

The other magelings looked at each other and at Wythe, appearing intrigued at the development.  Wythe smiled and rose from his seat.  He snapped his fingers and his walking stick flew to him from across the room.  “I believe I know what you’d like to speak of.  I’ll gladly discuss.”

We walked upstairs and found an empty booth with a curtain.  We sat on opposite sides of the table, and I pulled the dirty curtain closed.

Wythe leaned forward and put his elbows on the table.  “Before we begin, might I compliment you on the way you handled those rogues below.  They don’t understand magic the way that we do.  To them, it’s a hobby.  To us, it’s life.  That’s why it saddened me so to see your appren—”

I slammed my fist to the table. “I know what you were doing in the graveyard behind Saint Vincent’s.  Are you mad?” My anger and revulsion bubbled near the surface, and I struggled to hold it within.

“I,” Wythe began. “I have no excuses beyond love.”

“Where did you find an Orpheus Lantern?  From someone in the city?”

“No, no. I bought it in Damascus on a whim.”  He looked down at the wooden table between us.  “It was a curiosity.  I never dreamed that I’d have to use it.”

There was honest grief on his face, something I never expected from what I knew of the man.

“It was foolish,” he said at last.  “I told her that I’d take her with me and we’d sail the world.  I promised I’d return for her.”  His mouth and cheeks tightened as if he was trying to reclaim his strength.  “That damned Vanderlay.  I’ll not weep for his lost babe.  He deserves to lose something he loves.  And no, I didn’t take the child, your son already asked.  It seems I’m on the wrong side of the law in both lives.”

“Where did you put her body?” I asked

He sighed and slumped his shoulders.  “She’s aboard my ship. Please,” he said. “Please, don’t take her.”

“What you have planned—even if it was possible—is a crime against Magic, Nature, and God.  You expect me to stand aside?”

“Haven’t you ever loved someone, loved someone so deeply, that you would break any rule, cross any ocean, travel to Hell and back for a chance to see her again?”

“I have,” I said, and I softened my voice.  “But you cannot bring back the dead.”

“There are wizards in the Orient.  They say—”

“They’ll say anything for your money.  There’s no hope.  It’s an unbreakable law,” I said. Despite all his crimes and his ne’er-do-well lifestyle, I embraced his pain. “I’ll send my assistant to your ship to retrieve her body.  I’ll pay for a plot and stone in Green-Wood.  We may not be able to bring her back, but we can at least give her a more dignified rest.”

“You leave me nothing but memories,” Wythe said.

“That’s all we ever have,” I answered.  “As for your crimes, I must report them. Expect no mercy from the Star of Nine. Take your ship out of port and sail where you may, but you may not return to my city.”

“Are you casting the Ban on me?”

I nodded.  “Put out your hand.”

He hesitated.  I saw his muscles tense, as if he would spring away.

“Put out your hand,” I repeated louder.

Slowly, Wythe laid his hand on the table.

I raised my cane and touched the end to his hand.  The Watchmage’s symbol on my cane lay along his palm.  I spoke words in the Old Tongue and tapped into the cane’s power.  The symbol glowed white hot.  Wythe winced and bit his lip.  There was no smoke, and no scent of burning flesh.  It was a burn on his soul.

I pulled the cane away, leaving a nine-pointed star on the palm of his hand.  I could see it, and other wizards as well, but the common man would never know.  “You have twenty-four hours to board your ship and set sail.  If you are on the island after that, you’ll be very unhappy.”

He rose from the table.  “You won’t see me in your city again.  Good day, sir.”  He swept open the curtains, and stepped out onto the street.

I’ll have to have Teepatok retrieve the body with haste, lest the man set sail before honoring his agreement.  I wished him luck in evading the Star of Nine’s justice, though I knew there was no hope. Alas, the hazards of love.

Jonas

Jumpin’ Joe McCree hit Hendricks with a powerful left and right that threw Hendricks against the ropes.  He stepped in and elbowed Hendricks in the sniffer.  The poor kid went down in a heap, blood flowing from his nose.

It was the fourteenth round.  I stepped into the ring and helped Hendricks into the corner.  “He really got you that time,” I joked, trying to hide how bad he looked.

“Can I knock him out yet?” He said in a watery voice.

I looked at Smokestack, who puffed his cigar and smiled at the crowd’s bloodlust. I patted him on the shoulder. “Do it. Make the damn crowd remember your name.”

“Please don’t swear,” he said.  I wiped the blood from his face with a kerchief and slapped him on the back.  He joined Jumpin’ Joe at the line.

Hendricks gestured with his hands to cast his spell.  The crowd went of their chump, they’ve seen this before from “Preacher” Hendricks.  To them, he was giving last rites, and they weren’t wrong.

Jumpin’ Joe was fast, and he hit Hendricks with a flurry of lefts, almost knocking him down.  But Hendricks had redoubled his shield and turned his fists like unto a thing of iron.  Hendricks absorbed the next few punches and hit Jumpin’ Joe hard in the bellows.  Joe doubled over, and Hendricks landed a haymaker to the jaw that spun him like a paddlewheel and dropped him like a brick.

Joe tried to get to his feet, but fell back to his knees and vomited.  Smokestack called the winner, and the crowd roared its approval. They chanted Hendricks’s name like he was the Second Coming.

“Stand up tall, you won.” I said.  “Wave to the crowd.”

He waved weakly.  “I used all my strength to beat him.  I’m going to faint.” He leaned on me and I felt the full weight of his body.

“Let’s get you in the back room.”  I gestured to one of Smokestack’s men, and he helped carry Hendricks away.

We sat in the back room for a long time, listening to the crowd through the walls.  Hendricks quickly made a name for himself, and The Bloody Knuckle embraced him as their champion.  It was what I had planned.  Winning means money, money means friends, and friends mean information. 

Leenie made several trips in, bringing water and a warm roll with butter.  She doted over Hendricks, who looked half dead and too hurt to appreciate the feminine attention.  She didn’t stay long, caught up in her duties and afraid of revealing our connection.  We’d been giving Leenie a share of the prize money to pay off her debt to Smokestack.  Hendricks would’ve given it all to her if I let him.  “Let this ill-got money do some good,” he said.  I disagreed.

“I think your sniffer’s busted,” I said.  “Can you fix it?”

Hendricks shook his head.  He wheezed and winced with each breath.  “I don’t have any magic left, and even if I did, healing is too complex for me.”  He touched his nose and winced.  Tears ran down his face, alternating with the drying blood.  “What have you done to me?”

I felt a very cold ball in the pit of my stomach and found myself looking anywhere but at his battered face.  “It’ll be alright.  No more fighting.  We’ll find another way.”

So there we sat, surrounded by kegs of home brew and crates of whiskey, waiting for something.  We didn’t know what that something was, but it was coming, and it would be fierce.

When the fights were over and the crowd piled out, Smokestack and Shadow joined us.  Shadow carried a black bag with him. 

“Shadow,” said Smokestack, “take care of the man.”  Shadow went over to Hendricks and took a roll of bandages from his bag.

Shadow took off his coat, taking care not to move his neckerchief.  I never saw his wrists before, and had to look away.  Both wrists were ringed with destroyed skin, red, rough, and bubbled.  He must’ve worn shackles for a very long time.

Shadow cut off a bit of cotton with his knife.  He grabbed the back of Hendricks’s hair and stuffed the cotton into his nostrils.  He took hold of Hendricks’s nose and twisted it back into place. Hendricks groaned.

“Another great crowd, Willis,” Smokestack said to me.  He flipped through a stack of bank notes and slapped a short stack in my hand.  “Besides myself, you and Preacher are the best thing to happen this place.  We’re making money hand over fist.”

I counted our jack, but lost count.  “I reckon that’s fine with me.”

“I’ve big plans for you and Preacher, but this is something best discussed upstairs.”

“Agreed.” 

The four of us left the gloom of the storage room.  We passed through the main room, where business was still brisk.  Revelers clashed their wooden mugs together.  A large hourglass behind the bartender slowly lost its grains.  I smirked, the lottery would begin soon.

Leenie danced with an older, palsied man.  Smokestack cut in.  “Leenie my dear, bring a bottle of our finest red upstairs for my companions and I.” 

She looked at us, her face crinkling a bit when she looked at Hendricks’s bloody face.  “I’ll be right there, sir.”  She bustled behind the bar.

We went up the stairs, Shadow in the front and Hendricks in the rear, taking several glances behind him.  The main room was carpeted, with red, shaded lamps and overstuffed couches.  Three women dressed for sin greeted us with kisses on the cheek.  One offered a plate of chilled oysters, which I took to with glee.

Hendricks and I sat on one couch, while Shadow sat on another and Smokestack in a pillowed chair. Smokestack draped one leg over the chair’s arm.  One of the ladies sat on his lap, and he fondled her thigh while looking at me.  Shadow remained unmoved. Hendricks looked around for an exit.

“As I said, I’ve big plans for you, Willis.  You and Preacher will have everything you ever wanted.  This is only the beginning.”

A low groan escaped Hendricks’s lips.  With both his blinkers blackened, he looked more raccoon than man. 

“We’re done fighting,” I said.  “Preacher’s gettin’ beat like a rented mule.  He can’t keep this up.”

He laughed.  “I was thinking the same thing.”  He spanked the woman on his lap and she scurried away.  “You’ve become a bit of a legend, and the legend is always bigger than the man.  It’s the legend that people pay for.  The man comes and goes, the legend lasts forever.  Do you understand?”

“No.”

Leenie came up the stairs.  “Ah, here are our drinks.  Thank you, my dear.  Take a seat next to Willis.”  She looked at him curiously, and then sat down next to me.

Smokestack smoothed the edge of his mustache. “Where was I?  Oh yes, the legend ends here.  You’re going to lose your next match.  Tom Hyer’s stepping back into the ring, and I’m backing him.  Preacher’s falling in the thirty-seventh round.”

I whistled in appreciation.  Tom Hyer was the former champion of New York, considered to be the best boxer on this side of the Atlantic.  “And then what?”

“Then what?  Then the Grand Tour!  I’m sure you still have friends in Texas.  You’ll start there, set up for a while, make some money, and move on.  You’ll go all the way to California, anywhere you want.” He smiled, and his eyes twinkled like Bowery stars.  “And I’ll only take a small fee.”

I swallowed another oyster. “How do you know I won’t cross you?”

Shadow cleared his throat. 

Smokestack gestured towards the man with a curved finger. “Shadow here is looking to,” he paused, “go on holiday.  He’ll make sure you don’t welch on our contract.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore.  I don’t want to leave New York,” said Hendricks.

“You won’t have to fight more than once or twice, Preacher. You can stage the fights if you want, like theater.  The people come out for the legend.  You think anyone looks at the Head of Joaquim and thinks it’s real?”  He eyed us both in succession.  “Think about it fellas.  You’re both young men, and this is the adventure that every young man dreams of.  You can go beyond California.  Go to Europe, go to Siam.  Go to Australia.  You don’t wanna leave New York? Take New York with you.  I can tell you’re sweet on Leenie here—take her too.”

“Wha?” said Leenie. “You’re…but me ma’.”

“Take her too.  Take her sister.  Take anyone you want.  You’re gonna make us more jack than anything they’ll bring in here.”

“Me sister’s dead,” said Leenie.

Smokestack’s eyes opened wide and he made a deflated sound.  “A shame.  She was a pretty lass.”  He raised his drink in toast.

Dammit.  The bastard was offering me everything that I ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of.  I looked at Hendricks, who was trying hard not to look at Leenie.  He fidgeted and rubbed one of his many bruises.  “We’ll have to think about it,” I said.

“Of course, of course, but the fight with Hyer’s already set.  No matter what happens, the legend dies in two nights.”  He touched Leenie on the arm.  “I wonder, if you’re sister’s gone, how’ve you been paying your quota?  What would happen if that stream dried up?” He looked back at Hendricks.  “Ah, such is a question for the ages.  Is there anything else I can offer you lads, if you understand me?”

I nodded. “I reckon I do.”

I met with Hendricks the next day at Turtle House.  He greeted me at the door.  His face looked much better, but his eyes were still blackened.  He was breathing better too, no more wheezing.

“Is Pop home, too?” I asked.

He shook his head.  “I haven’t seen him in several days.  Geebee is worried about him.  She says that he looks sick.”

“Geebee’s worried about everyone and everything.  Pop’s a wizard, he can take care of a cold.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.  Let’s walk, I haven’t been around the grounds in a while.”  He joined me, and we walked down a graveled path away from the house.  The snow had piled up.  It’s not unusual to have snow in November, but this much was odd.  My boots crunched the snow as we walked.  We went by the stables.  I swore that I heard that big stable hand snoring from somewhere inside.

“Smokestack looked surprised when Leenie told him about Molly’s death,” I put forward.

Hendricks looked out at the East River.  From where we were, we saw the tide flowing up the river and washing against Blackwell Island.  When I was young, I used to watch the prisoners in the asylum as they farmed the field.  The asylum closed down this year and the fields had gone wild.

“All this was for nothing, wasn’t it?” he said.  “All the fighting, all the gambling, all the people I’ve hurt.  There was no point to any of it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been an ass. You don’t have to fight any more if you don’t want to.  I’ll even find a way out of the Hyer fight.”  We passed a farmhouse where a Dweller family lived.  The old Pooka quartered wood outside the house while whistling a song.

“No.  I want to fight.”

“You do?”

“I do.  You heard what Smokestack offered.  We can take Leenie and her mother with us.  We can get them out of that…Hell…they live in.  Pardon my language.” 

“You’re sweet on her.” It was no surprise, Smokestack laid it out before.  I could tell that it was his first love.  First love is the most foolhardy.

He kicked a clump of snow, and it exploded into powder.  “I am.  I would like to court her properly.”

“Carriage rides, picnics in the park, walking along the avenue with her mother ten feet behind…”

“I can’t do that with her life the way that it is.  But I can change all of that.  I had nothing to fight for, but now I do.  I can save her.”