How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
—Lamentations 1:1
"Well," I said with mock cheerfulness, "I don't see Malachi Lee. Maybe we got here ahead of him." I stood beside the metal rail along the dock, turning slowly to take in the lonely greenness and brownness that was Battery Park, half-expecting to see bums in trench coats on the weatherbeaten benches, their grizzled faces nuzzling wrinkled brown paper sacks concealing bottles of bad wine. A squirrel or two should have been evident, a couple walking hand in hand, but there was nothing. Except for the pigeons. Pigeons and pigeons, everywhere. New York had a lot of roosting places high up, and there were few things left to check their population growth. The wide black asphalt of the Heritage Trail ended a hundred yards to our right. I surveyed the dock, the silent ferry, the Lady Woof moored just behind it, the seasick-green Statue of Liberty facing seaward with torch held high in greeting, Governor's Island to its right.
"What now?" asked Shaughnessy. "We take the world by storm, or something?"
I gave her a stony look. Words didn't belong, not here, not now. All things were coiled to maximum tension here; all roads had led to New York—and it seemed just as dead as old Rome. Black skyscrapers reared behind the trees of the park, looking like a badly matched matte painting in a cheap science fiction flick, a painted backdrop that didn't quite fit the foreground scene.
"I suggest we find somebody," said Ariel, "and see if we can find out what's what in this place."
"From what I've heard about this place," said Shaughnessy, "we may not want to find anybody."
"We'll have to look around anyhow," I said. "Keep a low profile, though." I couldn't take my eyes from the skyscrapers. "But this place feels so empty we'll stand out like blood on snow."
"It feels desolate, not empty," said Ariel. "There are people in this place, somewhere. I can feel it."
I studied her carefully but she didn't return my gaze, instead turning her head slowly from left to right, surveying the park. "Shaughnessy, will you get our gear from the boat? I want to look at that monument over there." I'd slung Fred at my left side but was without backpack or blowgun. I'd put Ariel's pack on her, empty except for the Barnett on the right side, the one closest to me. It was cocked and fitted with a fishing-head-tipped bolt.
Ariel and I walked across the black asphalt, gray pigeons scattering about our feet, cooing as they half-flew. Everything looks so gray, I thought, like a half-hour after sunrise in Georgia. Except for the park. That's green—green and brown, live leaves and dead ones. And even in the midst of that ran gray concrete paths. I couldn't shake my moodiness. It was the depression you feel in the heavy humidity after a big rainstorm. I wiped sweat from my palms and clutched Fred's twined grip. It's a city, I told myself. You've been in dozens before. This one's just bigger, that's all—it's still empty. I glanced at Shaughnessy as she walked back up the ramp of the ferry toward Lady Woof. Her brown hair fanned out as she vaulted over the rail.
The monument to American military seamen killed in the service was just ahead of us. It was a small granite court—more gray, I couldn't help thinking—with four tall granite slabs on either side. Names were carved on both sides of all eight silent monoliths, thousands and thousands of names.
"These were all killed in wars?" Ariel asked.
"In the military, yes."
She shook her head slowly, silently. A warm breeze scattered crisp brown leaves across the court, startling me. The sound was like chitinous beetles scurrying, like rat claws scraping on concrete.
At the far end of the court, between the last two slabs, was a statue—the Battery Park Eagle. It was the classic American Eagle, head arched forward and wings raked back, frozen in the midst of a killing dive with claws clenched. It was about a third the size of Shai-tan and with time and weather had gone the same pale green as the Statue of Liberty. Something was carved into the black marble of its base, but I couldn't read it from where I stood. I asked Ariel what it said.
"'Erected by the United States of America in proud and grateful remembrance of her sons who gave their lives in her service and who sleep in the coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
"'Into Thy hands, O Lord.'"
I started up the short flight of steps and froze as someone injected Freon into my veins with a chilled needle.
"Yes," said a familiar voice, "straight into our hands." From behind the eagle's base stepped Shai-tan's master. His right hand rested on the haft of his broadsword. "Hello again," he said, his one-eyed gaze taking in Ariel and myself. "You've saved us a lot of trouble."
Sweat on my palms. I tried to swallow.
At least twenty armed men filed onto the court from behind the last of the monoliths on the left and right, scattering pigeons and dead leaves in their wake. I looked up at the four black skyscrapers framing the scene in the background behind the park trees.
Ariel started forward without a word. Hands went to swords, axes, spears, chains, clubs.
"No," I said. "We can't. Ariel, look—we can't—we'll get killed."
She looked at me, a penetrating, disquieting gaze. "Pete," she said softly, "I can't be captured. I'll die in a month if I am."
"If we fight, we'll die now." I lowered my voice. "If we let them take us we can try to get away later."
"Fat chance."
"It's better than our alternatives." I turned around and cupped my hands to my mouth "Shaughnessy! Cast off! Push away!" I glanced back. The rider was motioning to a group of men, who broke away and ran toward the dock, ignoring Ariel and me. Shaughnessy appeared on the deck of the ferry. She hesitated, hands going to her mouth when she saw the dozen armed men heading her way. "Cast off!" I waved her away sharply. "Get out of here!"
She seemed indecisive, then turned and vaulted the rail and went out of sight. The twelve men were at the foot of the ramp, now swarming up it, then pouring onto the ferry deck.
Shaughnessy must have cut the rope and pushed off; the Lady Woof began to drift slowly away from Miss Liberty. The pursuing men stopped at the far side of the ferry deck. Two of them threw down their weapons and dove into the water. The rest were wearing a variety of heavy body protectors and couldn't follow without sinking to the bottom. They stood at the rail, watching their two comrades swim after Shaughnessy. The Lady was only twenty-five feet from the ferry and moving slowly. I wondered if the current would bring her back to the dock in a few minutes anyhow.
The faster of the two swimmers reached the stern of the Lady, grabbed with both hands, and pulled himself up. Shaughnessy popped up in front of him. In her hands was a rod. One end of it was against her mouth. The Aero-mag! The man's head snapped up and he arced backward into the water, thrashing.
The second swimmer had reached the starboard side and was pulling himself up. Shaughnessy must not have had another dart ready, or else she just reacted blindly; she reversed the blowgun and swung it like a baseball bat. I heard the faint smack as it hit him on the jaw. He recoiled but held on. She brought the blowgun back and jabbed him in the eye. He fell away with a splash.
"Let her go!" called the rider. His men turned to look at him from the deck of the ferry. "Let her go," he called again. "We don't need her." He lowered his one-eyed gaze to Ariel, lowered his voice as well. "We've got what we need."
I took a deep breath and walked forward two steps. The rider eyed me carefully, but a slight smile was on his lips. I reached slowly to my left hip, drew Fred, still sheathed, from its belt-loop sling, and laid it gently on the granite. "Let's go," I said, not looking at Ariel. I couldn't bring myself to.
He nodded and picked up the sword.
It was the hardest thing I ever said.
* * *
We were marched through the silent pathways of Battery Park and onto the desolate streets, where we headed north, walking in the middle of the road. Piles of olive-drab plastic garbage bags slouched on some street corners, twist-tied and lumpy. Occasionally a breeze wafted down the corridors of streets. There wasn't a store without a broken window. Some had been smashed from inside, and glass had sprayed onto the sidewalk.
I kept glancing to the World Trade Center as we walked. I'd always expected something . . . huge, massive, you know. These were merely tall. The twin towers—again I thought of Tolkien—with the pinstriping effect of alternating light and dark blue-gray lines, played tricks on my eyes the way a moiré pattern does. causing the perception of motion where none was.
And then we had passed Trinity Church, and the Trade Center was even with us, and we were heading north on Broadway.
I glanced at Ariel, who walked silently beside me, head up and noble, both of us surrounded by men with their weapons at ready or drawn. I looked down at the asphalt moving beneath my feet, trying to keep the images of heroic hindsight from coming, the "I shoulda dones." Maybe I should bolt for it now—go for the rider and kill him. That'd be enough.
I laughed aloud. Right—I no longer had Fred, and he had a broadsword and fifty men—and, most important, I would be forcing myself to perform an act that would result in my losing Ariel. Or, more likely, her losing me. And I just couldn't bring myself to do that. Time had become so valuable. The time I was spending with her now might be the last.
One of Ariel's rear hooves trailed along the street, scattering sparks. The men around us clenched their weapons tighter and muttered among themselves. The rider, who had been walking just ahead of us, turned back curiously. He questioned one of his men briefly and frowned. "Don't do that again," he said to Ariel. She stared blankly at him, blinked, and very deliberately extended her left front hoof and raked it across the asphalt. Red-gold sparks flew. There was a disturbed mumbling among the men.
The rider said one word. "Smith." A tall, burly man separated himself from the rest. He carried my crossbow in his right hand. He nodded to the rider and got behind me, not quite bringing it to bear, but holding it level at the hip. "If you do that again," said the rider with a forced smile, "we'll kill your friend, here." He jerked his head toward me.
She looked as if she were going to say something and apparently thought the better of it. I tried to walk without looking behind me, but it wasn't easy. Five kinds of warning bells were going off in my head and the small of my back, where I'd been hit before, was nearly screaming.
The rider turned around and we resumed walking. I tried to puzzle it out—why would Ariel striking sparks upset them like that?
The men walking with us were mostly silent and wary. Some glanced at Ariel with a strange mixture of wonder, curiosity, and fear.
We were in the outskirts of Chinatown, amid shops which had sold clothes and martial arts equipment—the latter no doubt looted. The rider slowed to walk with us, rubbing his left eye socket with an index finger. He saw me trying not to look and his other eye narrowed. He wiped the finger on his pants. "The bird who did this to me," he said. "That was its owner we killed?"
I mumbled something.
"What?"
"I said yes, you son of a bitch." I glanced around self-consciously. The men looked almost amused - yeah, brave little fuck, so what—we're gonna kill him anyhow. The rider half-smiled. There was something cold in his single eye, as if he were pleasuring himself by picturing me cut to dogmeat. Except for the eye he had that German übermenschlich look about him—he could have been a figure on a Hitler Youth poster, but the broadsword at his hip and the ruin of his eye gave him a vaguely piratical look that jarred with his Aryan features. I smiled inwardly as I regarded his eye. Give me half a chance, bastard. I'll do the rest of you, too.
He just nodded at my attempt at bravado, that same half-smile on his pale face. "Good, good. The falcon was his buddy; that means it died, too." The glint in his eye grew stronger.
"No," I said, glad at being able to contradict him, "we killed the falcon. Malachi Lee did. It didn't feel a thing."
"Malachi Lee." The smile thinned but the eye remained cold. I looked away from him.
They must have seen us coming in by sea—but how? I looked at the skyscrapers all around. The streets looked like deserted hallways with the ceilings somehow ripped away, leaving behind jagged walls. If not for our present situation I'd have been impressed by the grandeur of the city's architecture.
I asked where we were going, but the rider said nothing.
"Where do you think, Pete?" said Ariel. "He's taking us to his employer, his liege lord, the one he bows to. The necromancer." I could see Ariel was trying to irritate him. Nobody with power likes to be reminded that they have superiors, too.
Very distinctly, he hawked, turned his head, and spat at her. My hand went for Fred at my side and clasped air. The phlegm looked as if it were deflected by the wind and it curved left, splattering on the street ahead of her.
The men muttered to each other. I thought I was beginning to understand.
"Nobody spits on a unicorn," said Ariel proudly. One day her pride will be her downfall, I thought.
The rider glared and turned away. "We'll see what good being a unicorn will do you soon enough," he said to the empty street ahead of him. "You can protect yourself for now—but you can't protect him."
I knew the "him" was me and felt the pang of adrenaline shooting into my heart. It had just hit me that I was the only thing holding Ariel back. Her fear for my life had caused her to be captured and kept her from trying to escape. She'd have been able to get away easily if not for me.
I caught some of the men who surrounded us eyeing Ariel speculatively. They looked away quickly if Ariel looked at them. They were afraid of magic. It was what kept them in check, I felt sure. Most of them had the look of long-time loners about them—the wary eyes and mistrustful glances, the conservation of movement, the constant checking of terrain in all directions. Most loners don't trust magical ability, fearing it for the unknown that it is. These loners guarding us associated magical ability with people in authority, with their superiors—people with the power to make them do things. Now an enemy was in their midst—two enemies, actually, but I didn't count—an alien thing. And it performed magic.
"How much farther?" I asked.
"A few miles," he said grudgingly. "You can see it from here." He pointed at a building ahead. My eyes followed the line of his finger to the Empire State Building.
Empire State Building.
Yeah, I could see it, all right. We'd turned onto Fifth Avenue. An absurd thought kept running through my head like an annoying jingle. Gee, I've always wanted to see New York! Gee, I've always wanted to see New York! Gee—I walked like an old man, shoulders slumped, head hanging, feeling beaten. I was beaten. I was tired. I'd given up.
Off to see the Wizard. The worm in the Big Apple. I walked like an automaton. Welcome to the Machine, Mr. Garey. Why, thank you, nurse, I'll take a double—left biceps this time, please. Free Will, my ass—Fate led me here, that malicious bitch.
Dozens of armed men walked the streets in front of the Empire State Building. They became alert when they saw us, gesturing to one another and pointing to Ariel. The double revolving doors of the Fifth Avenue entrance were guarded by two armed men dressed in a hodgepodge of collected homemade armor. One even had a hockey goalie's mask pushed back on top of his head. They looked vaguely like English knights.
How many men could you fit into a building one hundred two stories tall? Thousands, at least. Tens of thousands, probably. I couldn't be certain the entire building was occupied—it posed too many practical problems, such as how to get from the bottom to the top. Elevators wouldn't work anymore.
Magic? Ariel had once said that magic was a resource like any other and shouldn't be wasted. Employing magic for routine elevator-type operations seemed a bit extravagant. What else, then? Pulleys and ropes in the elevator shafts? No way—the amount of rope necessary would be too heavy for any group of workers to pull. It never occurred to me that the necromancer would set his quarters, his "sanctum sanctorum," as Dr. Strange used to say, at the bottom of the building. Anybody utilizing this skyscraper would instantly recognize the military and psychological advantages of being master of all he surveyed. No, I never doubted for a second that we were going to the top.
The answer was so obvious I missed it.
Seeing the broken windows of a McDonald's on the other side of Fifth Avenue made me realize I was hungry. The last time I'd eaten was a small dinner at sea on the Lady.
We passed a restaurant called Leo Lindy's at the base of the building and turned left onto Thirty-fourth Street. A sign above the revolving doors ahead read: TO OBSERVATION DECKS. Orbach's was right across the street, Macy's a little farther down. Preening itself in the middle of the road was a griffin. Shai-tan.
I hesitated, glancing at Ariel. She remained silent. Our guards pressed closer around us, probably thinking that if there was any one time we were likely to make a break for it, this was it.
They were right—Ariel reared. Men backed away unthinkingly, all but one who pulled a hand axe and drew it back. Ariel twitched her head and the man fell with his skull caved in.
This is it, I thought, and I side-stepped the crossbow bolt I pictured heading my way at any second. Turning around quickly, I saw that "Smith" had turned the Barnett toward Ariel, whose back was to him. His hand was going for the trigger when I leapt, kicked it to the side, and gave him a right to the temple. He sagged to the street and the crossbow went sailing. I went for it—and found my way blocked by a bloody broadsword an inch in front of my face as I knelt on the street. I tried to look past it at the rider, but I couldn't. There was nothing else in the universe but that point, two inches from my eyes. I couldn't breathe, couldn't even think. My ears told me the shouting had died down, that Ariel obviously wasn't fighting anymore because she'd seen me, but it didn't register, nothing registered but the blade, the blade. The rider's voice was a world away, made throaty by his heavy breathing. "All right," he said. "I may not have your power—I'll give you that. But if you say another word, make a wrong move, do anything other than walk to that building, I'll kill him." The blade shook before my eyes. I flinched. "Get up!" I stood, not taking my eyes from the end of the sword, and it followed me up. "Move."
I moved. I stepped over a body. The remaining men had their weapons drawn. I felt them on all sides, at my back, ready.
We left three bodies behind. Blood covered Ariel's horn. It was all too much for me and I cried.
The rider strode ahead of us, heavy broadsword bobbing in time with his swagger. He stopped at the huge, leonine bird, reached up, and stroked the feathers at the bottom of its throat. He stroked down, ruffling at the place on Shai-tan's breast where feathers became golden-brown fur. The beast arched its powerful neck and blinked its eyes, a sleepy killer. It saw Ariel and spread its huge wings, hissing from deep in its throat. The rider calmed the griffin, stepped forward, and untied the long reins from around the right stirrup, standing on tiptoe to reach them. He held both reins in his right hand and turned to face us. The reins grew taut as he stepped forward. The griffin stood reluctantly and stepped forward slowly, not being pulled, but not exactly following. Our guard looked nervous as the beast approached, but they merely exchanged glances and kept a watchful eye on us. The rider stopped in front of me and lowered the hand clenching the leather reins. I smelled hot brass. "What's your name?"
I looked him in the eye and said nothing.
He shrugged. "It doesn't matter." He gestured with the reins. "Get on."
I glanced at Ariel.
"She'll follow you up," he said.
"How do I know that?"
He smiled. "You don't. But you don't have much choice, either."
I looked at the griffin's molten gold eyes. Why didn't the cavalry ever come over the hill in real life?
The griffin settled itself down on the street, bringing the stirrups level with the top of my chest. "Get on," he said again.
I grabbed the stirrup and the bottom of the saddle, jumped, and pulled myself up. I swung my right leg around and settled onto the saddle. It creaked beneath me.
"Hold on to the saddlehorn," said the rider. "Use both hands. Don't pull on the reins or you'll get thrown—it's a long way down." He turned to Ariel. "We're going to hold him on top while Shai-tan comes back for you. I know you can probably keep yourself from being lifted if you want to, but if you do we'll throw him off. Understand?"
"I understand." She looked over to me. I tried to nod confidently but I knew she wasn't fooled. She nodded back slowly and looked to the rider. "If you do anything to him, I'll kill you. Griffin or not, men or not, you know you won't be able to stop me."
"We don't care about him."
I swallowed hard. By then I had made up my mind to go for him. I truly didn't care what happened to me as long as Ariel was all right.
She must have seen it in my eyes, for she shook her head slowly and said, gently but firmly, "Go on, Pete."
Shai-tan stood, craning her neck, head flicking about alertly. I rocked in the saddle and grasped the long horn in both hands. The rider released the reins. "Take him up," he told the griffin mildly.
The street wheeled as the griffin turned and took two running steps that jarred my teeth. Two great flaps of the sail-sized wings and we were aloft. We climbed steeply. I looked down and managed to glimpse Ariel looking up at me, the rider and our captors around her. Shai-tan began circling and I had to look away because the ground began to revolve slowly and I thought I'd be sick if I kept looking. The griffin made two complete circuits in an upward spiral around the skyscraper. To my left the building seemed to rotate clockwise. We were about three hundred feet up when Shai-tan headed north, away from the building. We were still climbing. Skyscrapers rose ahead of us. I recognized the Pan Am and Chrysler buildings. Soon they began to give way beneath us and I saw Central Park ahead. The view was marvelous, unhampered by smog. I held on to the saddlehorn for dear life, rocking in time to the griffin's surging wingbeats. Shai-tan called out, a predator's cry echoing into the canyons of the city. We banked right, turning a hundred eighty degrees. We were now about three-quarters of the way to the top, around nine hundred feet up. The World Trade Center was bluish gray in the distance. Beyond lay Battery Park. I searched the blue expanse of water farther on, but saw no sign of a boat. I hoped Shaughnessy was all right. If she'd been with us when we were captured she'd have gone with us, and if we'd tried to fight our way out of it she'd have fought alongside us. And died alongside us, too. I'd seen no reason for it; it wasn't her fight. I'd sent her back to the Lady Woof in case there was a trap, so at least she could get away.
My hair streamed back in the wind rushing at my face. The powerful back muscles of the griffin flexed beneath me as its wings grabbed air. To have a Familiar such as this! The feeling of power it would give to soar above the cities, to command the pent-up fury within this creature!
I remembered Russ Chaffney and felt ashamed.
Cars had become motionless beetles; people weren't even large enough to be called ants in comparison. Men waited on the perimeter of the eighty-sixth floor observatory, the only suitable place to land; the protective metal fencing that had once been set in the guard wall had been removed.
The cathedral-like Chrysler Building and the blue strip of the East River were now to my left. Except for the sound of the wind rushing past my ears, it was deadly quiet down there
As we neared the eighty-sixth floor it became apparent that the only place with enough room for Shai-tan to land was one of the corners; the guard wall jutted irregularly and the walkway was too narrow, only about ten to twelve feet wide. The building slid underneath and Shai-tan cupped her wings, braking by air drag. The griffin landed smoothly on the near corner, one of her claws gripping either side of the angle of the guard wall, and folded her wings to her sides. A dozen armed men stood on the brick-colored deck before me. I gathered I was supposed to dismount where I was. It meant swinging out over open air and stepping onto the six-inch-wide wall, then stepping down from there. I glanced up at the thick needle of the TV tower rising above the observation deck and felt as if I were pitching over backward. I lowered my gaze to the wall on the left-hand side and eased out of the saddle, probing for the top of the guard wall with my right foot, slowly lowering myself until my feet touched the wall. I tried looking back over my shoulder so I could see just the wall and the observation deck without having to take in the cityscape below and ahead, but it was impossible—it was there in my peripheral vision.
Shai-tan shrieked just as my feet settled on the wall. I jerked and lost my footing. There was time only to push away from her and pitch myself backward onto the observation deck, where I was caught by the waiting men. "Thanks," I said, and then felt stupid.
Shai-tan spread her wings and jumped over our heads. A brief gust spread across the deck and she was aloft again. She rose twenty feet, flapped twice—just enough to clear her from the building—and then pulled her wings in and plummeted in a dive toward the street. I stood on tiptoe and leaned out over the wall as she dove, just managing to catch a glimpse as she cupped her wings and began to level off, and then she disappeared below one of the lower terrace levels. I was grabbed from behind and my arms were pinned behind my back. "All right, let's go," someone said. I tried to struggle but my hands were held fast. And there were at least a dozen of them, all armed. "I'm supposed to wait here!" I said over my shoulder. "They're bringing Ariel up—my friend—a unicorn—and I'm supposed to wait until she gets here."
"Get him out of here," said the voice.
"No, wait—"
They pulled me. Again I tried to protest and was punched in the kidney for my efforts. I gasped and my insides locked up when I tried to inhale. They dragged me up a short flight of steps and into a metal and glass area that used to sell souvenirs of New York City. A double elevator bank slid past, blurry, and then I was jarred as they dragged me down several flights of stairs. Keys rattled and a door opened. I was brought to my feet and turned around to face somebody. His face was blurry. I blinked to clear my vision, and when I opened my eyes again I just had time to see the flesh-colored blur before his fist hit my face. Colored explosions spread from jaw to eyes, and everything went black.
* * *
I was roughly shaken awake. Reflex took over before I was fully conscious, and I grabbed the arm tugging my shoulder and pulled. Whoever it was pitched forward, striking his head on the wall, and then they were all over me, five men crowding around me pinning me down with their knees on my arms and legs. I began struggling, then relaxed. "All right," I said. "All right. I'm not gonna resist."
I was pulled to my feet and pushed into a corridor lit by lanterns set on the floor at irregular intervals. The effect was eerie. The five men surrounding me were lit from below in pale orange, shadows making empty black sockets of their eyes.
"Where are you taking me?"
No answer. They indicated the direction I was to walk by shoving me. I stumbled, caught myself, and began walking. Our footsteps echoed in the long, empty corridors.
We stopped at a door guarded by two men in homemade armor. One of them nodded to my escort, flicked his eyes to me briefly, and opened the door outward. My escort led me in.
The room was dimly lit by five candles near the walls on the left and right. The door clicked shut behind us. The flames wavered. I smelled burning wax. The pale yellow light barely revealed an office desk with a large black chair behind it at the far end of the room. It sat before a large window which looked out on the night sky.
"That's fine." The voice came from the chair. The guards, who shifted nervously as they stood more or less at attention, turned and left the room. The candles flickered again as the door opened and shut with a final sound.
The room had been a large office. The carpet beneath my feet was plush. I tried to make out the figure behind the desk, but he was lost in the blackness of the chair. I stood my ground and said nothing.
"So you're Pete," he said. Telling me, not asking.
I took it as a question. "Who wants to know?" I asked, trying not to sound afraid. My voice cracked on the second word like a boy hitting puberty.
There was the impression of motion as hands were clasped together on the desk. "Please. I'm not impressed." His voice was low and mild. It had a persuasive, soothing quality to it, sounding faintly like a priest on a late night TV sign-off. He stood. Yellow candlelight from both sides highlighted his pale button-up shirt and dark pants. He was thin. He wasn't tall. His hair was light brown and caught gold on the ends from the candle flame. He was clean shaven. I'd walked almost nine hundred miles to confront him, and here he was.
I don't know what I'd been expecting. A tall, pointed hat, maybe, festooned with stars and crescent moons. A long, flowing robe and beard. Saruman the White.
"What have you done with Ariel?" My voice shook.
"I talked to her. That's all." He smiled. It looked genuine, unlike the rider's false cat-with-a-mouse smile. "The first thing she asked me was what I'd done with you. Obviously you both mean a great deal to each other."
"We're Familiars."
He nodded. "If you were anything else, if she were anything else, I might try to bargain with you."
"What kind of bargain?"
"Your life for her horn."
"Eat shit."
He shrugged. "It never hurts to offer. I don't have a vendetta against you. I don't care about you, or your unicorn. All I want is her horn. If I could take it and leave her alive, I would."
"What do you want it for?"
He ignored me. "She's strong, though, and she has abilities I hadn't expected." He slowly walked around to the front of the desk and leaned back against it. "But her defenses will weaken now that I have her. She's beginning to die." He paused to let that sink in.
"I'd like to make a deal," he continued. "But not with her."
"With me."
"Yes. I can't deal with her, but I can with you." He scratched his head. "I can take her horn and leave her alive, but only if she's willing."
"Why don't you ask her, then?"
"Because she wouldn't agree, of course."
"And you think I will. You want me to talk her into it."
"Think about it. You could have her, she could have you. Both of you would be alive. As I said, all I want is her horn."
"Why should I agree to that? You can't take it while she's alive. And you're not powerful enough to kill her."
"True," he acknowledged. "But, as I said, she's a captive now, and she's dying. I could wait until she's too weak to defend herself, but I don't know how long it would take. I'd rather she let me take it and have it now."
I looked down at the floor. He seemed to delight in twisting the knife.
"So I'm prepared to bargain," he continued.
"Not with me you won't." My voice quavered. "She's told me she'd die without her horn."
"I can promise you she wouldn't. If it were taken from her, yes, but not if she gave it willingly."
"I don't believe you. She wouldn't be a unicorn without her horn. No deal."
"I guess I will have to bargain with her, then."
"She'll never do it."
"I think she will. I'll offer a trade I think she'll go for, the same one I offered you—your life for her horn." There was no trace of uncertainty in his voice. "As I said, when she and I talked it was evident that you are her prime concern. I could have had you killed at any time, you know. It would have been easy to lie to her and tell her we'd kill you if she didn't cooperate."
I said nothing.
"But I think she would have known if you were dead. Or if I lied. I think she'd be able to tell that."
"I don't care what you do to me," I said, meaning it.
"That may be true, but it doesn't change anything. I'm going to put you in front of her so there'll be no mistaking my intent. If she gives in I'll have her horn and you can go. If she remains stubborn she'll die anyhow, eventually—and I'll still have her horn."
"Fat chance you're going to let me go."
"I might. You'll never be able to harm me. And after I have her horn, nothing will be able to harm me. Nothing in the world."
I went for him. I'd decided the second I realized where they were taking me that I was going to kill him regardless of the cost. Ariel would be able to get away; I would no longer be holding her back. I took two running steps and leapt for his face. He didn't flinch, didn't so much as bat an eye. Instead, he waved his right hand nonchalantly and I ran face-first into an invisible brick wall. My feet kept going and I pivoted in midair and landed on my back. He waved again and an unseen something sent me sprawling. I tried to pick myself up. My arms gave beneath me.
Behind me came a knock on the door. I was still trying to focus my eyes when it opened and a man walked in. My vision didn't need to be clear to recognize him, though: a dark discoloration over one eye made his face skull-like. He glanced at me on my hands and knees on the side of the room and looked away. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes, I did." He had sat back down in the depths of the black executive chair. "I understand you discovered a loner in the city yesterday."
"Nothing special about that," he replied carefully. "There are loners all over this city." The pale candleglow mannequinned his Germanic features.
A creak in the chair, a suggestion of leaning forward. "Captured loners are supposed to be brought here for questioning. You know that."
"He was a forager, half-starved. He was hunting for food."
"I don't care. There's been an increase in loner activity in the city these last few weeks and I want to find out why." He paused. "We can't find out anything if captured loners have their throats cut before they're interrogated."
The rider said nothing.
The dark shape of the chair leaned back, squeaking. "You're getting a touch too smug to suit me. A little too greedy. You can do what you want with prisoners after I question them, not before."
"I'm not trying to overstep any bounds," the rider protested. "I don't want your power. I'm happy where I am, thanks. With Shai-tan."
"Whom I gave you."
The rider nodded. He looked at me as if I were a piece of bad meat he'd just chewed and spat out. "What about him?"
"I'm taking care of him now. You can stay and watch, if you want."
I still fought waves of dizziness. My throat constricted at the metallic tang in my mouth. I swallowed. I didn't want to stay hunched over in front of them the way I was; I loathed the thought of the satisfaction it gave them. I struggled to my knees. Flashbulbs went off in my head. My jaw was swollen and tender where I'd been punched.
I think I passed out. My next recollection was of seeing several men carrying in a large, round table of thick, heavy wood. I was on my back, looking up, and the room was a carnival ride gone haywire, revolving around an ever-changing axis.
The rider had my samurai sword in hand. He saw me looking at him and grinned, then pulled the blade six inches from the scabbard and spat on it. I got mad enough to stand up, ignoring the headache piercing behind my eyes. I staggered a step toward him, intent on doing my level and wholly inadequate best to kill him. Two things stopped me. The first was Ariel. She stood in front of the door, flanked by armed men. She looked bad. Her hide caught the pale candle flame reluctantly, reflected it as a flat, rusty orange; her mane hung limply and dried blood stained her horn, but in that dim light her eyes were dominant. Her space-black gaze was still prideful and vitality still burned there. Those eyes went soft with hurt when they saw me, and I was conscious of what I must have looked like.
"Oh, Pete." A weight Atlas had never felt was in her voice; that, and the contained rage and pain of a chained Prometheus. The second thing I noticed was the table. It was made of some dark wood—ebony, perhaps—and was directly between Ariel and me. It was round, about seven feet in diameter, and three and a half feet high. A pentagram had been drawn across it in blood. A candle burned at each point. Ropes were secured in the wood at four of the five points. At a word from the necromancer three guards lowered their weapons and took hold of me. I struggled and cursed, but was too weak to do anything more than writhe feebly against them. Not that I could have done much had I got loose. I was dragged to the table and tied to the pentagram. Once I was secured, the guards returned to stand beside Ariel. I felt the candles burning by each hand. I was bound spread-eagled, hands and feet tied at four of the five points of the star within the circle. I lifted my head and saw the rider looking on in satisfaction, face half shadowed.
The office chair creaked as the necromancer stood. He held a black book in one thin hand. Those were surgeon's hands, pianist's hands. He walked around the desk and stopped before me. I looked up at his calm face, wishing I could work up spit.
The book was bound in old leather. He opened it and looked at Ariel, then shifted back to the book and began reciting, tilting the book forward until it was lit by the glow from the pentagram candles. The words he spoke were vaguely Latin-sounding and all too familiar:
"I summon thee,
O Dweller in the Darkness,
O Spirit of the Pit.
I command thee
To make thy
Most evil appearance."
It took a moment for the shock of recognition to wear off, and when it did I began struggling against the ropes cutting into my wrists and ankles, renewed strength flowing from my pounding heart, but the ropes were tied too tight.
"In the name of
Our mutual benefactor,
In the name of
Lucifer the Fallen
I conjure thee."
"No!" It was Ariel, eyes smoldering. She sent one of her guards sprawling with a toss of her head. The necromancer looked to the rider, who came forward, drawing his broadsword. Ariel stepped purposefully toward him, almost casually batting aside the spear that was aimed for her side. The rider kept me between himself and Ariel. He brought the broadsword up and held it poised over my head, staring evenly at Ariel.
"By his blood-lettered sacraments,
By Hell and by Earth,
To come to me now,
In your own guise
To do your will."
Coldness began spreading deep within me, as if I'd swallowed an ice cube whole. I felt isolated within the pentagram. A hurricane's-eye stillness settled around the table. I struggled harder but the bonds held. I jerked my right wrist; it had been burned by candle flame.
Candle flame?
I looked around quickly. Nobody was paying any attention to me, not even Ariel. She and the rider were absorbed in each other, a test of will. One guard was unconscious or dead, a second was picking himself up from the floor with the help of one of his mates, and the last watched the silent game of cat and mouse played by the rider and Ariel. The necromancer was immersed in the conjuration.
"I adjure thee In the name of
The foulest of masters . . . ."
I looked at the candle ahead of my bound right hand. A steady, even glow. My stomach was numb with cold. My lungs breathed Arctic air. The space a foot above my midsection pulsated, and a swirling gray mist slowly took form. I strained my hand past the candle flame. It seared my wrist. I turned my arm so that the rope was against the flame.
" . . .By his loins,
By his blood,
By his damned soul,
To come forth."
Burn, damn you, burn! The skin began to blister along the inside of my wrist. I smelled burning hemp. Disturbing movements began coalescing within the stormy gray above me. Once the spell was complete the pentagram would be sealed and the demon would appear.
"I order thee
By all the unholy names:
Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub—"
The mist began to solidify into something resembling ink in water. The rope was burned through! I pulled it but the twists of the knot held fast. I worked my hand quickly from side to side and finally it pulled free. My fingers trembled as I untied the knot from around my left hand. A glance up at the rider. He still eyed Ariel, waiting for her to make her move. She had to have noticed me untying myself, but would have been careful not to register it.
"Belial, Shai-tan, Mephistopheles—"
The air was freezing. I twisted beneath the inky mass and began untying my ankle bonds. My movement caught the eye of both the rider and the necromancer. The latter looked quickly back to the black book and intoned evenly:
"Thy hair, thy heart,
Thy lungs, thy blood,
To be here
To work your will
Upon me."
With the last word the temperature plummeted. I breathed mist and trembled from more than the cold as I untied the last rope. The thing in the pentagram with me began to assume a smoky, humanoid shape, massive and dark.
The stand-off between Ariel and the rider reached a head when I leaned forward to free my legs. I saw him about to swing the sword for my head and jumped away. I should have landed on the floor. Instead I ran into an invisible wall. The conjuration was finished; the pentagram was sealed.
* * *
I must have seemed to defy gravity as I leaned at an impossible angle with my back against the edge of the pentagram. The rider's sword stopped jarringly midway through its arc. A flash of sparks screaming from grating metals illuminated the room, and suddenly I was falling backward to the floor. The sword had breached the integrity of the pentagram, and I landed at the necromancer's feet. Before he could react I knocked the book from his hands and sent him flying over his desk.
An enraged bellow came from within the pentagram, then faded away.
Ariel had bolted for the rider the instant he began to swing. Through the haze of smoke I saw the rider jerk the sword from the wooden edge of the pentagram. He pulled back and swung, and sword met horn.
I stumbled over something in front of the office desk. Fred! I drew the sword from its sheath and intercepted a guard heading toward Ariel with his blade held ready to thrust. I deflected it, reversed my blade, and slashed, cutting through half his neck.
Ariel backed toward the door. She used her horn as a counterpart to the rider's sword: block, slash, thrust. She must have already started to grow weak; she was much slower than usual. I had to help her.
I grabbed the edge of the office desk and lifted. It toppled over onto the necromancer. I had to keep him too distracted, enraged, and busy to be able to cast a spell, or we were lost. Ignoring the curses—profane rather than arcane—from beneath the desk, I turned and ran to Ariel. The three remaining guards were behind the rider, trying to fan out and outflank Ariel but having a hard time of it because of the large table in the middle of the floor.
Fuck honorable combat. I dove to the floor beneath Ariel, rolled onto my back, and slashed straight up. The rider stopped in mid-swing, gasping as my sword brushed his thigh. Blood flowed down his leg. I'd been aiming for his groin. I thrust up and back, toward the soft part beneath his chin, but he jumped clear. Blood spattered my face. I rolled out from beneath Ariel and stood. The rider stepped toward me, skidded in his own blood, and fell. I stepped forward to deliver the coup de grace and stopped. Three guards were on us and the necromancer was struggling to stand upright.
Ariel twitched her head. A deflected spear scraped along the wall. I risked a glance and saw the necromancer standing, arms raised above his head. Using her body as a shield against the guards, Ariel backed up quickly, crowding me against the door. It flew open as the doorguards burst in, and I fell backward, rolled, and came up slashing, catching the right-hand guard in the stomach. Fred cut through his mail and he dropped his cutlass.
Ariel kicked straight back while engaging the remaining guards ahead of her. She caught the left-hand door guard in the ribs. Bone snapped and blood ran out of his mouth.
"Run, Pete!"
I had time to glimpse the rider, on his feet again, eye blazing, sword swinging, and Ariel's horn coming up to meet it, when the necromancer spoke a foreign word and the door slammed shut.
* * *
I was on the eighty-fifth floor. The elevator shafts and stairs were my only way down. No alarm had been spread and I made it to the elevator doors with no trouble. I pried open the doors with Fred, silently apologizing to Malachi Lee for demeaning the blade. I felt sure he'd understand.
The shaft was dark. Looking up, I could barely make out the bottom of the elevator, forever stuck on the eighty-sixth floor. A narrow peg ladder ran the length of the shaft; I grabbed it and swung inside. The door proved difficult to re-close but I managed somehow, holding onto the peg ladder with one arm. I'd slung Fred through the familiar and worn belt-loop.
I descended in total darkness. I found it was easier if I closed my eyes. The shaft only went down to the eightieth floor, so I climbed up to eighty-one, open the doors just wide enough to pass through, and stepped into the corridor.
Nothing.
I walked to the stairs, trying not to appear hurried. Women's voices came down the corridor as I reached the stairs. I opened the door quickly and stepped into the stairwell. The voices passed. I counted to thirty, then began walking down flights of stairs slowly to keep my footsteps from echoing in the stairwell. I expected at any moment to hear them thundering down on me from above. Surely they'd be scouring the elevator shafts and stairwells by now. Maybe word hadn't got around yet and there hadn't been time to send parties into elevator shafts and stairwells.
I crept on cat feet—maybe frightened mouse feet is closer—when I passed the eightieth floor. Men's voices came from the corridor beyond the stairwell door. I hugged the wall and went slowly down the stairs, expecting the door to open at any second. Nothing happened. I'd made it all the way down to the sixty-fifth floor when I heard voices and footsteps above me. They were perhaps four floors up and descending fast. I couldn't afford a confrontation. I was fatigued, had been beat up twice within the last twelve hours, and didn't want the sound of a fight tipping off others in any case, so I pushed open the door that led to the sixty-fifth floor and closed it quietly behind me. The floor was deserted. I kept my right hand firmly on Fred as I walked past office doors. Ignoring the first set of elevator doors, I walked around a bit instead, eyes peeled for movement among the dark shapes. There was none. I found another elevator on the opposite side of the building. I shook my head wearily and used Fred to pry open the elevator doors, sheathed the blade, and stepped in.
Forty-seventh floor. It had taken me over an hour to descend less than twenty floors. My fingers were hopelessly cramped, palms blistered and on fire. My legs were holding up relatively well. All that walking.
I had just stopped for a breather when something struck me hard on the shoulder. It felt like a brick and probably was. I stifled a cry behind clenched teeth and saw searing white bands. I lost my grip and fell.
I landed on my back almost immediately. Moist things lay all around me. The stench was terrible. Voices came from a long way above me, echoing along the shaft. One spoke something loudly and all fell silent. Three seconds passed, then something smacked into the metal by my foot. Another brick. I stood quickly. It hurt. I stepped over the junk around me and pressed myself against the wall opposite the peg ladder. Another brick slammed next to the first. I felt it through my feet when it hit.
The voices reverberated again, and then they were gone.
I'd landed on the elevator. I bent and groped around in the muck until I found what I was looking for: the emergency exit. I smiled to myself. It made me wince.
I picked Fred up from the shit. The fall had broken my belt loop. The sword seemed in good shape but the scabbard was cracked. I lowered it into the square hole on the roof of the elevator until it touched bottom, then let go. It fell over and landed with a hollow clank. I lowered myself into the elevator with one arm. The other didn't want to work.
Using Fred again, I opened the two sets of doors—the elevator was only a foot above being even with the forty-sixth floor—and stepped into the corridor. Again, no one was there. I was having a hard time understanding this. A contingent of possibly five thousand people, and I'd seen no more than—what? Fifty, sixty, something like that. A hundred, tops. I realized the building was big, but they should have been concentrating on the elevators and stairways to find me. I should have been running into them everywhere.
Unless they were nowhere near five thousand strong. One thousand? It began to sound more and more likely. Yeah, great, Garey, now the odds are only one thousand to one instead of five. Whoop-te-doo.
* * *
I made it out by cutting long lengths of phone wire, tying them together, and lowering myself out a window from the fourth floor as soon as it got dark. It wasn't easy, but it was just about my only workable option. My left arm still tried to convince me that it was on strike; I had to force it to reconsider. I dared not go any lower than the third floor; there were bound to be guards at all possible methods of egress from there down. I had been mildly surprised that the fourth floor was unguarded. Either they figured I'd have to descend farther to get out of the building, or my revised estimate of one thousand men divided between top and bottom floors was accurate. Either way, I wasn't about to stick around to find out which speculation was correct. I wanted out of there. So I could come back. And get Ariel. And head west, and go anywhere, nowhere. And the entire rest of the world could go even further to hell and I wouldn't care.
It seemed a long time before my feet finally touched the sidewalk. Then I was on the ground and couldn't help but breathe a sigh. Voices were headed my way. I walked away from the phone wire climbing the wall like straight plastic ivy. I deliberately walked so that I came close to the two men coming toward me, both armed. They nodded a greeting to me and I returned it, heart pounding, trusting the darkness to hide my beat-up face.
It isn't like in the movies: lone man in enemy territory is sighted by soldiers, recognized instantly, and pursued. These people were loners, as I was a loner. And, while they were part of what I suppose you could call an "army," there were no uniforms to distinguish me from them. I did nothing to invite suspicion, so I wasn't suspected. I kept walking past them, trying to keep my pace slow and deliberate, a curious, cold feeling between my shoulder blades.
So, after an inglorious arrival and an impotent confrontation, I walked straight out of enemy hands. But I vowed I would be back.
* * *
New York is a big city. There's too much of it to search realistically; almost anywhere I wanted to hide after leaving the Empire State Building would prove reasonably safe. Or as safe as anything ever is, which isn't very.
I hid in the manager's apartment of an old brick apartment house three blocks from the Empire State Building, just off Fifth Avenue. I collapsed on the musty bed, clutching Fred close to me.
Just before I became unconscious I heard the terrifying shriek of a huge nightbird in the distance. Its name appeared in formless letters, black on black, fading out as exhaustion forced me into sleep:
Shai-tan.