Chapter 13
I woke up early the next morning, chased from my slumber by troublesome dreams where I pursued three shadowy figures down a narrow alleyway, while Golgotham burned around me. Unable to return to sleep, I threw on my clothes and went downstairs. I started a fresh pot of coffee and went to see if the Golgotham Gazette was waiting for me on the front step. It was.
COUPLE VICTIMS OF VICIOUS WITCH-BASHING, the headline screamed above the fold. I guessed I could forget relaxing with a nice cup of coffee while working on the Word Jumble.
As I shuffled back into the kitchen, Hexe came padding downstairs, dressed only in last night's jeans, carrying Beanie under one arm like a football. "Somebody needs to go potty," he said around a yawn.
"Here, I'll take him," I said.
"It's a deal." Hexe handed over the wriggling bundle of dog.
One of the nicest things about Hexe's boardinghouse was that it had not only a backyard-a rarity in itself, no matter where you live in Manhattan-but also a garden. Secreted away behind a high stone wall, it was far larger than it looked from the outside, much like the house itself, thanks to what Hexe referred to as "architectural origami." It was here that he grew many of the herbs necessary in his practice, and even kept a huge living-hedge-maze. As I stood on the back porch and waited for Beanie to finish sniffing every blade of grass in his immediate vicinity, I took a moment to enjoy the peaceful solitude the garden provided. It was hard to believe that on the other side of its ivy-covered walls people were trying to kill one another over something as silly as an extra ring finger.
Once Beanie was finished, I picked him up and returned to the kitchen, where I found Hexe reading the Gazette. A cup of coffee sat waiting for me on the table. As I sipped my morning brew, Beanie scampered across the faded linoleum, making a beeline for his food and water bowls. I chuckled as I watched him eat. His head was so big compared to the rest of his body that his rear end tilted up in the air, lifting his hind feet off the floor. I heard a decidedly feline growl of disgust and looked up to find Scratch perched atop the fridge.
"Morning, sunshine," I said by way of greeting. "What are you doing up there?"
"It's the only place I can get any peace when that honyock's awake," Scratch explained. "The idiot never looks up. It's as good as being invisible-even better, since I don't have to waste energy on a cloaking spell."
"That's because dogs can't look up," Hexe replied from behind his paper.
"Sucks to be them, then. What's this about a witch-bashing?" Scratch asked, gesturing to the headline with one of his wings.
"You can read?"
"No need to sound so surprised, nump," the familiar retorted. "Of course I can read! In fact, I can read every language known to mankind, plus a few you bloodthirsty bastards don't know about."
"Pull your claws in, Scratch," Hexe warned, putting aside the newspaper. "Just because Tate is human doesn't mean she's responsible for what happened last night."
"I won't say I'm sorry, because that's not how I roll," Scratch said. "But I will say I'm not unsorry. How's that?"
"A double negative is close enough to an apology for me," I replied with a shrug. "And about last night-what I don't understand is how three humans, armed just with baseball bats, could get the drop on a pair of Kymerans. I mean, all Jarl and his wife had to do was point a hand at them-left or right-and wiggle some fingers, and they'd have been toast."
"It's not as simple as that," Hexe explained as he refreshed his cup of coffee. "While all Kymerans have some kind of magic, we're not all dab hands at spell-slinging. Just like some humans have a natural aptitude for music, and others are born accountants-we all have our individual strengths and weaknesses. According to the paper, Jarl is an alchemist who distills katholikon and elixir vitae. His wife is a lapidary-her talent lies in the ability to transform pieces of quartz into scrying crystals. I'm certain neither of them was a quick draw, especially if they were ambushed. "
"So you're saying the douche bags that attacked them were lucky. If they had picked a Kymeran like you or Oddo . . ."
"Or, heavens forbid, Uncle Esau." Hexe grimaced. "If that had been the case, the results would have been far different." Suddenly there came a knock on the front door. "I'll go put on some proper clothes," Hexe said as I went to answer the knock, Beanie trailing at my heels. "If it's a client, tell them I'll be there shortly."
I opened the door to find a petite Kymeran woman who smelled faintly of menthol and pencil shavings standing on the front stoop. She had kumquat-colored hair worn in a loose bun and she carried an artist's sketch case tucked under one arm. Around her neck was a lanyard attached to a laminated identity card.
"I'm Gale," she said with a smile. "I'm the picturemaker for the PTU. I hope I'm not interrupting your breakfast."
"Please come in," I said, stepping aside. "Captain Horn mentioned you'd be stopping by."
As Gale crossed the threshold, Beanie darted forward and loudly sniffed her shoes, his eyes bugging even farther from their sockets. "How-cute," she said diplomatically. "Is that a baby gargoyle?"
I led Gale into the front parlor, and motioned for her to take a seat on the purple velour sofa. She sat down and opened her sketch case, placing a tablet of bla tize="3">Iank paper and several pencils on the table in front of her.
"We were just having coffee-would you like a cup?" I offered.
"No, thank you, Ms. Eresby. I find it interferes with my work-it makes my hands jittery."
"So what do I have to do?" I asked, taking a seat opposite her. "Do I give you a description? Do I look through a mug book?"
"It's quite simple," she replied as she picked up a pencil with her left hand, leaned forward, and pressed the fifth finger-the Kymeran extra "magic" digit-of her right hand against my brow, where the "third eye" is located. "All you have to do is take a deep breath, clear your mind, and picture the face of the man you saw running away from the crime scene."
I closed my eyes, and within seconds the images from the night before began to unspool within my mind. As I tried to focus on the face of the witch-basher, I heard Gale's pencil scribbling across the sketch pad.
I opened my eyes to see Gale, her own eyes shut fast, frantically drawing with her left hand as if it possessed a life and purpose all its own. I glanced down at the picture, expecting it to be nothing more than a mass of unconnected squiggles, but was surprised to see an incredibly detailed portrait of a young Caucasian male in his mid- to late twenties, with medium-length hair. I looked over my shoulder and saw Hexe, now fully dressed, standing in the doorway, watching the picturemaker do her job.
A few moments later the pencil fell from Gale's fingers and her hand dropped into her lap as if dead. The picturemaker emerged from her trance and stared at what she had drawn with blurry eyes.
"Are you sure this is the human you saw?" she asked, tapping the sketch.
I nodded. "That's him."
"Very good. I won't bother you any further, Ms. Eresby," Gale said, gathering up the tools of her trade and returning them to the sketch case. "The Paranormal Threat Unit thanks you for your cooperation and good citizenship."
"We're always happy to be of service," Hexe assured her.
Once the picturemaker was gone, I returned to the kitchen and poured myself another cup of coffee. I had the nagging feeling that something was amiss, but I was at a loss to identify exactly what. As I stood at the sink, trying to puzzle out what was bugging me, Hexe wrapped his arms about my waist.
"What's wrong?" he asked as he nuzzled the nape of my neck.
"What makes you think something's bothering me?"
"Your brow's furrowed," he replied, reaching up to smooth the fold from between my eyebrows. "Whenever I see lines on that pretty forehead of yours, I know something's on your mind. So what is it?"
As Hexe gently massaged my knitted brow, I suddenly realized what it was that was bothering me. "It's about the witch-basher's portrait," I said. "I've got the weirdest feeling that I've seen that guy's face before."
"Of course you have," Hexe replied with a laugh. "You saw him last night."
"No, that's not it," I said with a shake of my head. "There's something familiar about him that I just can't place. I'm pretty sure I've run into him before, but I can't remember what the circumstances were. I'm fairly certain he's not a friend onotrned tof a friend, but I can't completely rule it out, either. I just wish I could remember where I saw this douchenozzle before it drives me nuts. . . ."
"Perhaps you ran into him at the Calf?" Hexe suggested helpfully. "There were dozens of humans there the night of the riot."
"That's probably it," I agreed as I turned around to kiss him. Still, although it seemed the logical answer, deep down I knew it wasn't the right one. No doubt it would come to me when I least expected it, and someplace really annoying, like in the middle of a shower, while working on my new art project, or just before falling asleep.
The next day Hexe and I went shopping for such staples as Perry's Peanut Butter Fudge ice cream (for me), canned haggis (for him), and fresh-ground Colombian coffee (for both of us). While on the way to Dumo's Grocery, I saw copies of Gale's sketch plastered on every pole, news box, and storefront, each of them with the heading: WANTED FOR WITCH-BASHING!
On our way back home, our little red shopping cart filled with canned goods and toilet paper, I heard a strange, mournful call, accompanied by the steady thud of a drumbeat. An odd and somber procession was slowly making its way down Horsecart Street, coming from the direction of Chiron's Stables, the high-rise that housed Golgotham's centaur population.
For the first time since I moved to Golgotham, the myriad cabs, carts, and wagons that normally filled its narrow cobblestone streets seemed to disappear, leaving the roadway clear of traffic. The passersby on the sidewalks fell silent and stopped whatever they were doing upon hearing the lonely wail.
"What's going on?" I whispered.
"It's a centaur funeral," Hexe replied.
As he spoke, I saw an ipotane dressed in a swallowtail formal coat marching down the center of the street. He wore a top hat, similar to those of Victorian undertakers, complete with a black bombazine bow, the ends of which hung behind him like a second tail. The haunting sound I'd heard came from the bukkehorn held to his bearded lips.
Following him was a second ipotane, in identical somber dress, lugging a drum muffled in black crepe, which hung from a strap about his thick neck and on which he kept the beat for the mourners' funeral march.
Directly behind the drummer was a huge black hearse drawn by two Clydesdale-sized centaurs, who wore the same type of hats and coats as the ipotanes, the splits in their swallowtail coats carefully arranged across their broad, equine backs. The Victorian-era hearse was the size of a circus wagon, with glass sides and elaborate gilt and silver scrollwork along its posts and wheels. The casket it was carrying was big enough for a baby grand piano, and covered in flowered wreaths shaped like horseshoes.
Behind the hearse followed the mourners, who numbered a dozen centaurs and several ipotanes. Both male and female centaurs wore black ostrich feather headdresses and decorated funeral drapes of black bombazine that covered their haunches. The centaur males wore dark Shadbelly riding coats on their upper bodies, while the centaurides were dressed in black jackets cropped at the waist, with puffy leg-of-mutton sleeves, and had funeral veils affixed to their plumed headdresses. Some of the bereaved wept into black-edged handkerchiefs, while others used mourning fans made of black ostrich feathers with tortoiseshell handles to hide their grief.
"Where are they going?" I asked in a hushed voice. "They're headed to Pickman's Slip," Hexe explained. "There the ferryman will take them on a funeral barge to an island in the East River known as Necropolis. That's where Golgotham buries its dead."
The group of mourners at the rear of the procession was composed entirely of ipotanes dressed in black togas, wearing garlands woven from dead, dried flowers. I was surprised to see Gus among their number. Big fat tears rolled down the drover's bearded cheeks as he mopped his eyes with a bandana. As he walked past, I reached out and gently touched his arm. Startled from his grief, he stopped to stare at me in confusion.
"Gus, it's me-Tate," I said. "What happened? Who died?"
"It's Bayard," the ipotane answered tearfully, once he recognized who I was. "He died a couple days ago."
"You're kidding!" I gasped. The idea of death coming for someone so young was so dreadfully wrong I could barely absorb it. "What happened?"
"They say he OD'd on ketamine," Gus replied, the sorrow in his voice giving way to anger. "But I don't believe a word of it. I may have given the colt a hard time now and then, but he was a good lad! He wouldn't get mixed up in that kind of thing."
"I'm so sorry for your loss, Gus," I said sadly. "Please give my sympathy to Bayard's stable."
The ipotane nodded his head and loudly blew his nose into his bandana. "Thank you kindly, Miss Tate. I'll pass along your condolences. You excuse me-I need to catch up with the others." With that, Gus rejoined the funeral cortege as it wended its somber way down to the river and to poor Bayard's final rest.
"Are you all right?" Hexe asked gently as I brushed a tear from my eye.
"I'm okay," I replied. "It's just sad, that's all. He was so young. . . ."
"How did you know him?"
"He and Gus were the other members of that little work team Quid put together last week," I explained. "But I can't say any more. You know the rules: 'No questions asked-'"
"'No stories told,'" Hexe said, nodding his head in understanding. However, as we continued on our way home, he kept sneaking concerned looks at me whenever he thought I wasn't paying attention.
Later that same evening, as I was happily pounding away at my latest sculpture, my cell phone started to ring. I glanced at the caller ID and saw that it was Nessie, no doubt calling to regale me with an account of her latest misadventure in wedding preparations.
"Hey there, Bridezilla," I said by way of greeting. "Ready to elope yet?"
"Do you have access to the Internet?" Her voice sounded so serious that the smile instantly disappeared from my lips.
"Of course," I replied. "I'm in Golgotham, not Outer Mongolia."
"I'm sending you a link. There's something on YouTube. . . . I don't know if it's real or not, but you and Hexe need to see it before it gets taken down."
"Nessie, what's going on? You're starting to freak me out."
"I can't really describe it," she said in a strained, sad voice. "Once you watch it, you'll understand why."
I hung up and took my laptop downstairs. I found Hexe in his office reading a large, leather-bound book with iron hasps. The pages were yellowed with age and covered with hand-lettered Kymeran script. Before he closed it, I glimpsed an illustration of an eye in the middle of a pyramid surrounded by arcane symbols.
"I just got off the phone with Nessie," I said as I placed the laptop on his desk. "She sounded really weird."
"And this is news how?"
"No, I'm serious. She sounded really upset. She said there was something online we need to see."
I powered up the laptop and pulled up my Mozilla Thunderbird. Sure enough, there was an e-mail from Nessie with the subject heading VIDEO LINK: URGENT! I clicked on the link, and seconds later found myself staring at a YouTube page with the heading SONS OF ADAM MANIFESTO. Inside the video box was a dimly lit room, the walls of which were draped with black plastic sheeting held in place with duct tape. Since the windows were covered as well, it was impossible to tell if it was the middle of the night or high noon. Hanging directly in front of the camera was a makeshift flag fashioned from a white bedsheet and a can of red spray paint that read SOA.
What really got my attention, however, was that the man standing in the foreground was the same person I had seen running from the witch-bashing. Now that I had a chance to take a good look at him, I could see things I had not noticed before, such as his eyes being a pale, almost translucent gray, like those of a newborn baby. I was also surprised at how young he seemed to be-his face was amazingly smooth, without character lines or wrinkles. Behind him stood his two compatriots from the night before-or at least I assumed they were the same ones-their arms folded across their chests, their faces unreadable behind their black ski masks. All three men were of the same general height and build, with barely a centimeter's difference between them, as if they had all been stamped out with the same cookie cutter.
The man in the foreground cleared his throat, and when he spoke it was with an angry, forceful voice. "Greetings. I am Cain, and these are my brothers, Abel and Seth. We are the Sons of Adam. Perhaps you are already familiar with our work? We are the ones who used the Kymie couple in Golgotham for batting practice.
"For too long filthy, demon-ridden Kymie scum have been allowed to dwell in the midst of our great city, tempting God-fearing men and women with their unholy magic and nameless sins. They, and their inhuman cohorts-the centaurs, leprechauns, and other soulless abominations-lie nestled against New York City's bosom like some vile, venomous snake, waiting for the moment to strike! The time has come to sweep these monstrosities from our streets and chase them from our city! The Big Apple belongs to Mankind, not to the Kymies!
"We, the Sons of Adam, formally declare war against the evil witches, warlocks, and monsters that plague Mankind. My brothers and I shall not rest until Golgotham is no more, and its streets reclaimed by their rightful owners: the people of New York City! And to prove our dedication to our cause, we will show you exactly what the Kymies and their friends can look forward to from here on in."
My blood turned cold as Cain stepped aside, revealing what had, up until that moment, been hidden from the camera. A man lay on the floor, hands tied behind his back and a pillowcase over his head. Cain motioned to one of his younger "brothers," who stepped forward and yanked the makeshift hood free. I covered my mouth in horror and turned to lnd u are ook at Hexe. His face had gone as white as paste.
"Bloody abdabs-that's Quid!"
The favor broker's face was bruised and badly swollen from the beating he had suffered at the hands of his kidnappers, but there was no mistaking his woolly, lime green eyebrows. He lay there, his mouth sealed with duct tape, his cat-slit pupils expanded to the size of saucers, as sweat rolled down his naked scalp and dripped into his face. The terror in his eyes was that of a man who has seen his death, and knows it to be brutal.
The trio picked up their aluminum bats and arranged themselves around the prostrate Quid. I struggled to swallow the greasy knot rising in my throat as they raised their weapons. In the end, I could not bring myself to watch the beating, but I could hear the sickening thuds as the bats made repeated contact with flesh and bone, as well as the sound of Quids muffled screams.
"Enough!" Hexe shouted, slamming the laptop shut so hard it cracked the screen.
We stood there for a long moment, staring at one another, unable to believe the unspeakable evil we had just witnessed. Then Hexe grabbed me and pulled me into his arms, holding me as tightly as if we were standing in the middle of a whirlwind.
We spent the rest of the night grieving our friend and comforting one another the best way we knew how, while praying to whatever gods might listen that our love would protect us from the madness beyond the safety of our bed.