Empire of Splinters
A STORY OF THE GENIUS WARS
Mike Massa
The coffee was too hot, the place was too crowded, and the dame was just too damn French.
“Charming location, this, non?” Mademoiselle Natalie Deuxvisage said, waving her ivory cigarette holder to indicate the packed state of the Manhattan café. The black lacquered tables were jammed together, complicating the work of harried waiters. The clatter of dishes, the rattling of newspapers and combined conversations generated a respectable din. Deuxvisage took a luxurious drag and managed to waft the smoke right across Al’s face.
“I didn’t pick the joint,” Al said, giving her another once-over. It wasn’t a chore, since a gorilla like him didn’t get to spend much time around dolls like her. As dames went, she was pretty good looking, if your taste ran to sharp-dressed blondes, particularly the dirty kind. Her hair fell to her shoulders in perfectly sculpted waves which had somehow shrugged off the gusty fall winds outside. Deuxvisage noted his regard and smiled back more brightly than the sixty-watt bulb hanging over the table. Her wide-set eyes were a light brown, almost golden. They reminded Al of a great hunting cat whose affections—or bite—rested on a coin flip. The Frenchwoman’s cream satin blouse was fastened all the way to the neck, probably the product of one of those fancy continental designers like Dior or Chanel, but Al figured the brand should’ve been called Horatio, given the valiant last stand gamely being fought by the straining buttons. The top served as the backdrop for her only visible piece of jewelry, a small golden locket. She wore a perfectly tailored red suit, and she wielded it as expertly as any weapon a Knight would carry. There might have been a man somewhere among rear tables who hadn’t noted the precise alignment of her seamed stockings when she strutted into the place, but he would’ve been way in the back. Like, Brooklyn.
“And what, Sir Al-berr,” she purred, unnecessarily prolonging his name in the French fashion, “are your instructions?”
“Bring the standard field equipment,” Al recited from memory. “Meet the Knight of Limoges at the usual spot. This is the place; I got the gear and there you are.”
“And your disguise is so convincing,” Deuxvisage continued, gesturing languidly at him with one hand, and just coincidentally showing the fine grain of her perfect skin to best advantage. “You’re practically glowing—the accent, the clothes, and the whole colonial manner. Tres chic!”
“What’s wrong with the threads?” Al said, glancing down at his double-breasted suit. Getting the tailor to do a rush order had cost. It was like the guy had never sewn a jacket fifty inches across the shoulders before. Al rather thought pinstripes on navy were nicely low key. The suit guy had even cut the jacket extra generous around the underarm, easily accommodating the Webley revolver tucked out of sight. The sleeves were still the right length to ensure the small, white, enameled roses decorating his gold cufflinks could peek out occasionally. Al’s shoes had been another fifty bucks, on account of how the cobbler complained about the size of his dogs.
“Well, the cut is hardly Savile Row, cheri,” Deuxvisage smiled, leaning over to run one finger down Al’s lapel. “Or Paris. I would never have recognized you if we hadn’t worked together on l’affaire Asiatique last century—when was that?”
“Peking, 1860,” he bit out. “The Summer Palace.”
“Oh yes, of course. We gathered up the Splinters, the mortal coils of les miserable mort loci Chinoise.”
Al knew damn well she remembered. It had been one of the first major jobs with, instead of against, the French. Al’s master, York, had still possessed enough of his waning power to take the field, so the White Tower had directed York to ensure the success of the European expedition. Freshly recovered from Kabul, Al had traveled all the way to China as an aide to the expedition’s commander, Lord Elgin.
Elgin.
That geezer had known his business, all right. Lord Elgin had leveraged the profitable opium trade as convincing cover for the real mission. Then again, the Tower had previously used the House of Elgin for collections. Bit of a family business, that. Elgin’s lineage should have been all the explanation anyone needed for the real purpose of the fight with the Qing dynasty: suppressing Chinese influence against the Council for generations by taking or destroying every Splinter and any slumbering Chinese centrum they could find.
Characteristically alert to the opportunity for choice loot, the French had sent along knights of their own. Together, they’d collected several East Asian Splinters over a period of three years. The inclusion of Deuxvisage had been a mystery, until Al had watched her adroitly manage the Empress, ensuring whatever the Knights of Europe couldn’t carry off was destroyed in the wreck of the Summer Palace.
“I performed to your, how you say, satisfaction?” Deuxvisage idly skinned the wrapper from her open pack of Gauloises.
“Yeah. You did all right.”
She had handled herself well enough. Didn’t matter. Al hated working with the French.
He knew it was cultural. Every Knight absorbed the nature of genius loci which first claimed their service. In turn, every genius reflected accumulated human events which had taken place in their Seat. For Al, that meant York. And the English and the French had ever feuded. Hell, if he tried, Al could access the memories of the Knights of York before him, and smell the battlefields filled with reeking, mingled French and English dead, going back as far as you like. Orleans. Ligny. Waterloo. Yeah. No one was going to forget Waterloo, especially Deuxvisage, no matter how nicely she was behaving at the moment.
“Come now, I’m behaving quite nicely, Monsieur le Chevalier Al-berr,” Deuxvisage said, lightly kicking the uppermost of her crossed legs, allowing one red-and-white pump to dangle. “No need to be so dour. Our masters are allies this century, non? We’re here to frustrate the Boche, not revive ancient grudges.”
Al tried another sip of his coffee. Still oily and scalding.
“Yeah, that’s what the boss said.”
“Did he also happen to say who was meeting us to deliver the final orders?” Deuxvisage replied. Across the room, an indiscreet businessman had spent a bit too long admiring her red gabardine skirt, or perhaps the generous expanse of thigh it exposed. Al saw the Finder hidden inside his wristwatch glow, light leaking from under the edges of the dial, and sensed a brief surge of Power during the interplay. The hapless American essayed a friendly grin, only to meet Deuxvisage’s slitted eyes. The man hurriedly glanced away, perhaps not quite sure of why he felt so uneasy. Maybe her small, gleaming teeth were too even. Maybe they seemed too sharp, framed by the carmine lipstick which had refused to adhere to the cigarette holder.
“Tone it down, ma’amselle,” Al said, enjoying her slight wince as he deliberately mangled the French term. Then Al frowned as the man stood up and almost stumbled out of the café, leaving his overcoat across the back of his abandoned chair.
“You didn’t need to lean on him so hard. This is an unclaimed city. You know the rules—civilians are off-limits.”
“Let the uncouth keep their looks to themselves.” Deuxvisage took a long drag, and held it, before allowing the smoke to slowly trickle out her nostrils. “They’re rude. They get what they deserve.”
“If the Knight sent by Rome catches you breaking the Law . . . ”
“When’s the last time a Knight of Rome surprised anyone?”
“Buona questione,” a new voice broke across their conversation. The crisp pronunciation and distinctive Italian accent left no room for confusion. “A very good question. Though my days as a mortal, or even a Knight, are long behind me, I still keep my hand in. Surprised?”
The very tall, impeccably dressed man who appeared over Al’s shoulder pulled out the open chair at their table.
“My name is Sempronius Densus,” he said. “You may know me as Herald of Rome.”
✧ ✧ ✧
Al felt a chill as he sat a bit more upright and placed his hands on the table, preparing to rise. He caught the motion of Deuxvisage uncrossing her legs and putting her cigarette out, also gathering herself to stand.
“Staté,” Densus said, extending one hand as a blade, palm down. “Stay.”
It wasn’t a request. Densus joined them, tugging his chair a bit closer to the table’s edge.
“Your Grace, it’s an honor,” Al said, leaning back a fraction and dropping the New York drawl. He respectfully inclined his head.
Densus returned the motion and then received Deuxvisage’s nod in turn.
At an inch over six feet, Al was accustomed to being the tallest man at any table, but the steel-haired man relaxing into opposite chair was easily half a head taller. A discreetly sized golden pin sparkled on the lapel of his black single-button suit, worn over a crisp white shirt with a high collar. Al squinted for a moment to make out the details. The herald’s device was a small, golden sigil of Victory, striding across a globe, holding a wreath and a palm. His eyes were the color of an old iron sword. Al watched as the man raised a hand to get the attention of a waiter, and then pointed at Al’s coffee to signal he wanted one for himself. The herald saw the Frenchwoman’s extinguished cigarette.
“Please, no need to cease on my account,” Densus said in accented English, withdrawing a plain wooden cigarette case. He opened it, offering one first to Deuxvisage, who declined, and then to Al.
Al’s hand didn’t shake as he withdrew a tailor-rolled Medina.
Rome! The Herald of Rome here in New York? Do they know?
“You’re wondering why the Council sent not just a Knight but a herald, and one of the Seven,” Densus said, extracting a gold lighter from his trouser pocket. As it clicked open, the background sound of the café became muted and indistinct, as though the adjoining conversations were on a radio station which wasn’t quite tuned properly. Densus lit his cigarette and placed the lighter between the others and himself, as though inviting its use. Neither of his tablemates made a move to touch it. “I can see it on your faces.”
“A herald of the Seven Cities hasn’t been seen outside Europe or North Africa in centuries, Your Grace,” Deuxvisage said, as she extracted a fresh Gauloise from her purse and fitted it onto the holder before striking a match. “My master was not aware of the import Rome and the Council must place on this small issue.”
“This matter may touch the First Law, Knight of Limoges.” Densus paused as a waiter bustled over with a steaming coffee. As the server departed, Densus tried the coffee, grimaced and sat his cup back in its saucer. “Nothing’s more important.”
“The First Law?” Deuxvisage’s eyes widened. “To openly and directly subvert the will of the mortals is to invite destruction. It means war, and not just among the loci petit, but between the great cities!”
“She’s right,” Al considered his fellow Knight, before returning respectful attention to the tall, spare herald. “It’s invited gross destruction everywhere it’s been tried. A clear violation of the First Law could mean a return to the Great War, your Grace.”
“Mortals shape their destiny as they wish, without interference from the genius loci,” Densus said. “Only Chaos may be fought directly, and for that the Council is ever watchful. By tradition, the oldest guide the rest. Rome, and those cities of the Seven who remain active, whose vigor is strong and focused, represent the accumulation of the most ancient wisdom. And so, the oldest of the laws of the Council stands: none shall directly mold mortals, nor consume them for the glory of a genius loci, nor seek to multiply at mortal expense. The reason one genius loci may rise rapidly in a small city, and another slowly, if at all, in a major metropolis, are part of the mystery. It remains as ineffable to us as life is for the mortals.”
“There’s an attempt to influence the mortals here?” Deuxvisage asked. “In America?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” Densus replied, smiling.
Al suddenly felt compelled to study the end of his cigarette.
Fascinating thing, ash.
Deuxvisage said nothing, either, equally absorbed in the finish of her nail polish.
“The Council can tolerate simple influence, at times,” Densus said, his smile still not reaching his eyes. “Influence may tread the line, but doesn’t cross it, necessarily. Which is why both of your masters remain in their centrums, uncollected. As to war, you may have noticed, just last month, the small matter of the German invasion of Poland. Warsaw is isolated, alone. The Polish Knights are dead and Sobieski may be extinguished.”
Sobieski, savior of Vienna and Herald of Warsaw, knocked off by the Krauts?
Al was shocked enough he almost didn’t register Deuxvisage’s teeth rattling momentarily against her cigarette holder.
“The Germans believe they can defeat the rest of Europe. Provided the war remains a Continental affair, they may not be wrong. Naturally, they wish to keep the Americans out of the war, remembering the lessons learned only a few years past. If there are no genius loci to guide Americans, or worse, if any genius should emerge who is actually sympathetic to the Germans . . . ”
Al nodded. The impact of the Americans in the Great War had come late, but had been a decisive factor, contributing to the rapid collapse of German Imperial will. Now, some prominent Americans were strongly advocating isolationism. Even Chuck Lindbergh, an otherwise decent guy whom Al had met in London, was loudly proclaiming the benefits of staying out of the current fight.
“Therefore, the open nature of this city is in question,” Densus said. “Here in New York are immigrati from nearly every corner of the globe. Almost every religion is represented. This variety of population, where so many turn their hands to such a myriad of purposes, both religious and mercantile, appears to have delayed the quickening of a genius loci in this city. However, the Germans want to be very, very sure. The Seven have reports that members of the Council, perhaps several, have dispatched mortal agents to steer events. So far, they’ve acted within the letter of the laws prohibiting direct interference. Yet the war’s momentum is overtaking us all, and now we expect them to act.”
That’s awfully bold of them. Who on the continent has the stones to cross Rome?
Something must have shown on Al’s face.
“Berlin and Cologne, Sir Albert,” Densus said. “Others, perhaps. Of course, the current political nonsense stirred up by German-American Bund has no real hope of welding the Americans to the fascisti.”
Densus paused to take a drag, and as he exhaled, a wry smile again flashed momentarily.
“The Bund has been rallying steadily. There are more than twenty-thousand dues-paying members in New York, alone. A few months ago, they filled the largest theater in Manhattan, under an aegis of protection provided by the mortal authorities of the very city they hope to suborn. Unchecked, this creates the sort of confusion which will continue to prevent the consolidation of spirit of an incipient genius loci for this city. Without a sympathetic genius loci to guide them, to goad them, the Americans may stay out of the war, and this serves the interest of German genius loci, as well as their puppets.”
“Pardon me for being direct, Your Grace,” Deuxvisage replied. Meeting Densus’ gaze, she briskly tapped the ash from her cigarette and a bit fell across the saucer bearing the herald’s cup. “Surely, you must see our problem. Over a long enough period, the genius loci of a city may change as the inhabitants of the city change. We are all of us tied to a place. The fascisti, as you call them, own the very city of Rome. Remaining passive, as the loci of Italy have done, as Rome himself has done, means the humans of the city ultimately shape the genius there residing and—”
“Tale est semper lex,” Densus interrupted.
Such is always the law.
The timbre of the herald’s voice changed, and the Latin echoed in Al’s skull. Conversation, even motion, ceased for several seconds, and volition didn’t enter into it. A herald, after all, was the voice of a genius loci. Knights enjoyed a variety of enhancements, but heralds functioned at another level, entirely.
“We serve humanity, not the reverse,” Densus laid his cigarette down on the ashtray, letting it smolder. “Yes, mortals shape us all, so if we are to change, then we shall change. Yet, dramatic change requires hundreds of years or a tremendous exchange of energy to alter the spirit of a place. The heralds who serve the genius loci change over the course of decades. Knights, even with your enhanced lifespans, change the fastest of all. Yet, emperors, presidents and chancellors come and go like the tide swirling about the rocks of the foreshore. Their excesses disappear with them. It has always been so.”
“Cities can be destroyed,” Al said. “It’s been done. More than once.”
“Rarely,” Densus replied. “And mortals have the right. Yet, it takes a mighty effort to erase a city, and mortals are reluctant to do so. In only a handful of examples have cities and their loci been destroyed all the way to the ground, and then only after great effort and time. Even Warsaw remains relatively undamaged despite the mortals’ toys.”
Al decided not to raise the matter of a certain Spanish town only a few years earlier.
Densus reached for his coffee cup, but didn’t drink, instead eyeing it balefully.
“Try this, sir,” Al pushed the sugar and creamer toward the herald. “It helps.”
Densus began to doctor his drink with sugar.
“Not all the members of the Council agree, Your Grace,”
Deuxvisage was tenacious, Al would give her that.
“The Council doesn’t require agreement, but obedience, which, unlike this coffee, suffices,” Densus said, splashing a dollop of cream into his cup, and then sipping. “Disgustoso! I’ve waded through Milanese gutter water that smelled more appetizing. How do you stand it, Albert Smithson, Knight of York?”
“Well, the Americans can’t brew a decent pot of tea, so I’ve learned to adapt on these trips,” Al said.
“An English Knight drinking American coffee,” Densus said. “What would your master make of that, I wonder.”
Al heard the herald’s emphasis and felt the chill of fear return, sharp enough he felt his blood might shortly congeal.
“York always makes the best of a situation, Your Grace,” Al said, shooting his cufflinks clear of his jacket sleeves. “Surely Rome can appreciate flexibility and adaptability. We’ve seen this city’s mortals are in a spot of uproar. It makes sense to blend in, as the Americans say, to keep a low profile.”
“To avoid mortal attention can be wise,” Densus said, his eyes momentarily alighting on the now exposed jewelry. He looked up again, meeting Al’s gaze. “Adaptability is laudable. Yet, no decision is without risk, Sir Knight.”
“The mission, Your Grace?” Deuxvisage said, tapping one red nail against the table.
“The mission will be brief,” Densus replied. He then looked up and narrowed his eyes at both Knights. “Or it will fail. Attenzione.”
Al and Deuxvisage both leaned forward.
“The Bund marches tomorrow, organized by external visitors for a purpose not understood by most of the American dupes. The presence of thousands of marchers, united in purpose aligned with the Nazis, is more than sufficient fuel to temporarily forestall a naturally occurring genius loci. It’s also enough to prime the quickening of a Splinter in close proximity. We believe they’ve collected such a Splinter, a Hapsburgian remnant from the fragmented centrum of Hungarian loci, but we’re not certain. A number of things have gone missing since the Great War.”
“Like Vienna, herself?” Deuxvisage said. “Why did we bother with all the talks at Versailles, for a Treaty we wouldn’t bother to enfo—”
“Impudence ill becomes the Knight of Limoges.” Densus’ eyes changed. Specks of silver shone among the iron. “Unless your master wishes you to challenge the Council, Mademoiselle Deuxvisage?”
“Of course not, Your Grace,” Deuxvisage lowered her eyes demurely, very slightly dipping her chin. “I apologize.”
Deuxvisage did abject well, Al decided. She actually sounded sincere.
“Thus,” Densus exhaled forcefully, and rolled one shoulder. “The Splinter may be present at the target site. After the march, there will be a reception for select guests of the Bund. They will regard it as an occult but harmless ceremony, and remain polite to their hosts, the highest-ranking agents and tools of the Germans.”
“How directly may we act, Your Grace?” Al asked.
“The goal is to avert a war within the Council,” Densus said, firmly stubbing out his cigarette. “Not, as they say here, touch one off. You will not indulge yourselves.”
His eyes now lingered on Deuxvisage, who smiled blandly as the herald went on.
“Civilian deaths are forbidden, and any injuries must be needful. Yet, you must subvert the efforts of German agents present in the city. While I can provide some small additional assistance, the business must happen tonight, and it depends on you two. If you miss, they will move the ceremony. We may not find it a second time.”
He produced a slip of paper.
“We’ve narrowed down the location. Your target is somewhere on an upper floor, protected below by mortal authorities and above by a gathering of the city’s elite. The Splinter is shielded, so Finders may detect the touch of a genius loci only in close proximity. Non c’è problema, there’s just a single building involved, so you should have no difficulty.”
Densus passed a slip of paper to Al, who glanced down before passing it to Deuxvisage.
“Corner of Fifth Avenue and East Thirty-fourth Street,” she read aloud. “Number 350. We shall walk over and take a look before nightfall, yes?”
✧ ✧ ✧
Al strode between Deuxvisage and the curb. The sidewalks were bustling with the business of the city, every bit as busy as Leadenhall or London Embankment. Despite the congestion, oncoming pedestrians made room, walking around the pair, even though Al’s shoulders took up half the width of the sidewalk. Often as not, Al could see the instant some otherwise self-assured New Yorker reconsidered a decision to impede his path. A little man might preen at such attention. Al merely offered brief, polite smiles.
The cool fall air carried the familiar waterside stench from docks which lined both sides of Manhattan, as well as the more recent addition of coal smoke and motorcar exhaust. At intersections, the wind whipped down the cement canyons formed by lines of tall buildings, swirling discarded bits of paper. Pedestrians hurried along, jamming the sidewalks as tightly as the cars filling the width of the street. Above, ranks of skyscrapers brought the horizon to within arm’s reach, the stone-and-glass profile jagged against the lighter clouds. Even more were taking shape as cranes raised construction material skywards, adding to the black steel skeletons which bit into the overcast. As different as it was from London, let alone pastoral York, Al could see a stark beauty emerging, and feel a pulse growing in the city. Something powerful was stirring.
“You know, my good Chevalier, you’ve never told me how you started,” Deuxvisage said, interrupting Al’s woolgathering. “What brought you to this life.”
“We was too busy in China,” Al said, once again concealing his English accent. In public, it was time to blend. “Before, we were always on different sides, so there wasn’t never a reason to tell you nothing.”
“Humor me, Al-berr,” she replied, drawing out the second syllable of his name. “After all, it seems this war may last a while, and we may work together more often.”
“I was a Greenjacket rifleman,” Al said, without looking at her. “Baker rifles could take a Frenchman’s bicorn hat off his head at two hundred paces. Of course, we didn’t usually aim for the hat. I was wounded when Boney sent in the Old Guard. Nearly died a week later from a gut infection. York’s herald was on the field. She was so impressed with the Baker she told York the Greenjackets was the future.”
“Merely because you were a rifleman?”
“I might have shot some French officers. Battalion commanders, they were.”
“So York raised you up,” Deuxvisage said. “Wise of your master to seek to understand how the world was changing, even then? Raising a Knight costs a loci substantial amounts of Power, and York, how to put this delicately—”
Al exhaled.
“The tolerance of the White Tower and rest ain’t bringing much joy to my master, no.”
“Please, you mustn’t think I’m cruel,” Deuxvisage said, lightly stepping over the legs of a drunk. “Other English cities have prospered and grown, but York remains much the same, despite his care for the ordinary people. This, even when it’s plain London cares only for London.”
“Your concern for we English is—”
“I do care! But about the ordinary people! After all, the Revolution was about replacing the monarchy with a better system! It was about taking care of the people, you see.”
“Uh, huh.” Al didn’t bother to look over. “How did that work out for the Vendée?”
“You know the saying about les omelets?” Deuxvisage replied, flicking one hand airily.
“Now you sound like one of the damn Bolsheviks!”
“Moi, une bolchevique?” Deuxvisage began to laugh, her crystalline peals of mirth covering the traffic noise.
“Easy!” Al warned, as a few heads turned their way.
“Al, you have me dead to rights!” she replied, still giggling like a girl a tenth her age. Energy sparkled off her, raising goosebumps on the back of Al’s neck and causing a few pedestrians to stumble confusedly. “Such a wonderful phrase. Isn’t it what the American gangsters say? Can you really see me as a dour apparatchik matron in one of those dull brown uniforms? No style.”
“Hey!” Al grabbed her arm and lightly shook it. “Tone it down.”
“Ah, so much better!” Deuxvisage deftly slipped Al’s grasp and intertwined her arm with his, before withdrawing it to lightly rest her fingertips inside his left bicep. “Now we are friends! We can talk of more serious matters.”
“Such as?”
“Don’t you find it strange Rome sent a herald, and his oldest at that?”
“Preventing a German genius loci in New York is an important mission,” Al replied, touching the brim of his hat to the blue-coated police on the corner. “I’m just about the oldest of the English Knights, and you’re no spring chicken, if you pardon my saying so, Natalie.”
“In your many years, Al-berr,” Deuxvisage said, her warm contralto unchanging, even as her grip briefly hardened into an inflexible band of steel compressing his bicep. “Many, many years, surely you’ve seen loci change as their cities changed?”
“Sure,” he replied, glancing sideways. “The White Tower is pretty different from even a century ago, but London has changed about him. I probably wouldn’t recognize Bath if I saw her in person, not that she’d ever leave her Seat, but it stands to reason she’s different, since the Druids, the Iceni, the Romans and the rest who were there when she was young are long gone from England.”
“Then you’ve seen Knights change as well?”
“We’re not invulnerable, we just live longer. Hell, clip a Knight just right and you can lay him out.”
“I’m not saying we can be changed,” Deuxvisage said, tossing her blonde hair with a sharp movement as they passed a long window painted SAKS FIFTH AVENUE. “We can be replaced. We can be killed.”
She swung to a halt, towing Al to a stop next to her. She appeared to appraise the displays of mannequins, clothed in expensive-looking dresses, ignoring Al’s raised eyebrow.
“The speed of the Germans is something new under creation—they’re set to take all of Poland in less than a month. The fascists under Mussolini are effecting change upon Rome more profoundly and more rapidly than we’ve ever seen. His Grace, Sempronius Densus, wasn’t dispatched by his master merely because this is a First Law affair. He was sent because Rome has no one else. The Knights of Rome are no longer. That’s what I mean.”
She was probably right. Al figured it didn’t matter, not right now. He had his own mission.
“Okay, so Mussolini’s bully boys knocked off the Knights of Rome,” he said, taking a few steps toward their destination, before pausing to check if she was coming. “Warsaw stands alone. It happens. Times change, sister. Them that don’t change with it eventually fall.”
“Eventual change isn’t the issue!” Deuxvisage insisted, reluctantly stepping away from the window. “The sheer speed is. When have two cohorts of Knights been erased so quickly? And the commons—there are four times as many mortals now as when I was raised to knighthood, and I thought Bonaparte’s army, carpeting the land, could never be matched. Then, five million died. After his battles, the largest the world had seen, we were careful to suppress any rogue genius loci, borne of the chaos and pain of battle, and we succeeded. A scant century later, the numbers and the horrors of the Great War shocked us all. How many died then? Twenty million? How many loci now slumber, drained? And the horrors which were born? In consequence, we must guard those battlefields endlessly, due to the foolishness of mortal governments and inaction of the loci. You know! You’ve patrolled Le Zone Rouge.”
Of all of Al’s top ten unpleasant memories, the Great War was about six of them. Maybe seven. It wasn’t that he was a stranger to carnage. In the last century, York had dispatched him to observe, and then to fight, countless skirmishes and battles. Yet, nothing in his much-longer-than-average life had prepared him for the meat grinder of Verdun, churning out roughly butchered corpses by the thousand, or the endless cannonade of Second Somme which first shattered minds, then bodies. Never before had mortals brought such terror where men fell in endless windrows, creating a feast for crows and rats so vast the mass of rotting flesh carpeted the stinking mud all the way to the horizon, overflowing the deep, putrid waters of countless giant shell holes.
Such immense destruction cast a dark shadow on the land. It eclipsed prior memory. It redefined hell for a Knight who thought he’d seen every form of viciousness humanity possessed.
“Yeah,” Al replied. The danger remained, all right, and it had created unexpected unity among the factions of the Council. “I know all about the Red Zone.”
Influenced by the unseen hand of the genius loci across Europe, national governments already exhausted by years of war had invested more money to cordon off tens of thousands of square miles of rich farmland, and even large towns, forbidding entrance to any human. Ostensibly, the postwar threat from unexploded bombs and gas shells was too great to allow survivors back into their homes, or to work their ancestral lands. There were, in fact, plenty of still deadly shells and bombs littering the Zone.
But that’s not why we stretch ourselves and the mortals thin, not by a long shot.
Genius loci who quickened over a period of decades or centuries could become stable, positive partners for mortals within their area of influence, their demesnes. Attempts to accelerate the development of a spirt of the place usually failed, or worse, created unstable personalities. It got worse from there.
When tens of thousands of lives were violently extinguished in the span of a few short hours, occurring on a patch of ground but a few acres in extent, the potential existed for rogue genius loci to rise. Such spirits would be guided not by the centuries-long awakening from the joint purpose of a great city or an ascendant civilization but by pain, shock and horror of chaotic, mass death. These rogue spirits were more powerful and dangerous than any other threat. A genius loci created in madness would mulch human lives as though they were firewood, burning them so it could grow stronger. Much of the détente between ancient enemies was due to the mutual recognition that locating and containing such rogues until they dispersed, starved of any human contact, eclipsed any argument over borders or mortal honor. Al had watched the Herald of München spend his death curse, without question or hesitation, to contain the mad, newly born genius at Arras. The blowback had ripped apart hundreds of mortal souls and left two Knights insane. Yet, the Council had gauged the price cheap.
For more than a score of years, it had been enough. The council had recruited a new, large wave of Knights to serve within the military units organized by the French, Belgians, British and even the Germans to keep the Red Zone empty of human activity. Most of the chaos rogues had diminished in strength and nearly faded away. None had grown. None had been allowed to spread, to feed.
“The militarists have rearmed,” Deuxvisage said. “Now, Germany, and others, march their armies to battle again. Containment could fail. New, more terrible battles will be fought, raising the old rogues and creating new ones. Do the Seven and their supporters understand? No! The most powerful genius loci in Europe meekly follow lead of the Seven. Has the White Tower stirred himself or his bitches? Has Coventry? Madrid? They recognize nothing of the new threat. It isn’t just the loci who are in danger, it’s the ordinary person. This time, perhaps a hundred millions!”
“Easy, Natalie,” Al said, a little jarred by her passionate outburst. He looked around to see if she’d been overheard, but the cries of the nearby news hawker were providing adequate cover. “This ain’t the place.”
At least she’d kept her voice down. For a time they walked south along Fifth Avenue in silence. Al chewed on her statements. It wasn’t the first time he’d given it long, hard consideration.
The German invasion of Poland hadn’t been the first step. Even without prodding by genius loci, mortal political maneuvering was never-ending. The war in Spain, the Japanese in China, all of it predated the mad, little Bavarian corporal and his Nazis. Of course, the various members of the Council had their hands all over the developments—how could they not?
Lost in thought, Al didn’t see the trio of men approaching at right angles until they caromed off him as he prepared to cross the street. Even his bulk was slightly rocked by the triple impact.
“Watch where you’re walking, fat head!” one dark-suited man exclaimed, the red flower on his lapel a bright contrast to a new, dark stain down his gray suit front. A wet, crumpled paper sack lay on the sidewalk, giving off a distinctive odor. The smell of cheap whiskey redoubled, as two more men, friends to the first, joined in a boozy chorus well within halitosis range.
“What the hell are you doing here, daydreaming?” the largest, a pockfaced giant matching Al’s height, said. “Are you simple, or are you gonna say something?”
“Maybe his mommy is taking care of him,” the third said, leering at Deuxvisage.
“Please gentlemen, we’re very sorry,” Deuxvisage said, her patently insincere tone obvious to Al. Apparently, he had a better ear for that kind of thing than these clowns, one of which had already turned his attention to the lady. “Sorry to have bothered—”
“Hel-lo, beautiful!” the first helper leered at the French Knight. “Lookie here, boys! We got ourselves a size six squeezed into a size four dress!”
“I’m rooting for the extra two sizes to make a break for it!” the whiskey-stained man said, placing one hand on Al’s chest, preparing to shove him toward the curb.
The familiar anger flared through Al. He squeezed his fingers into tight fists the size of small hams, knuckles popping. Although this was the wrong time and place to attract attention, he wanted nothing so much as to literally redecorate this corner with their bloody guts.
Instead, he watched as Deuxvisage plucked a brand-new trilby off the closest loudmouth, and glanced at the interior label.
“Oh, what a pity!” she said, white teeth flashing. “This says you’re a size eight. That’s going to be uncomfortable for your friend over there.”
The three men paused in mid-smirk. This wasn’t going to plan.
“Whattaya saying sister?” the now hatless man asked, grabbing for his hat and missing. “Gimmee that!”
“Well, even though you lot look, how to say, a bit lavender, I doubt any of you have a fion larger than a four,” Deuxvisage said, drawing the hat just out of reach and cocking her arm just so. “So when my companion shoves your head up your pockfaced friend’s ass, it’s going to be quite a squeeze, yes? I will be rooting for the extra sizes to make a break for it!”
And then she launched the hat straight into the air, drawing the Americans’ eyes upwards.
In Al’s long life, he’d often experienced the strange way time seemed to freeze in the moments just before violence erupted. You remembered odd things, like the tilting wings of a sea bird glimpsed through the gunports of the Virginia, just before she opened fire on the Union frigates at Hampton Roads.
This time, Al noticed three things. First, he saw that although the closest man seemed outwardly drunk and reeked of spirits, his eyes were clear, his skin unmottled by any alcohol-induced flush. Next, he felt pressure as the man tried to shove him backwards, and Al saw his opponent’s eyes widen slightly as the effort moved Al not even a quarter inch. Lastly, the red flower wasn’t a flower at all, it was a small, decorative pin stuck to the man’s lapel and plumb in the middle of it was a goddamned swastika.
That didn’t really change Al’s next move, but it did make it more satisfying.
Al reached up and gripped the thumb on the hand splayed across his chest. With a twist, he broke it, and pulled the man off-balance while rotating and locking his arm. A sharp strike overextended the elbow and snapped the wrist. Expecting an attack from the side, Al gave swastika-boy a healthy shove into the street. As he pivoted toward the adjacent man, Al sensed, rather than saw, a brisk, upwards movement, and used his forearm to redirect the knife sweeping toward his groin. A shin to the side of the knifeman’s knee half-collapsed his attacker. Al used the bladed edge of his hand to chop at the side of the man’s neck, and his attacker slumped to the pavement.
Al felt a brief surge of Power.
The Knight spun toward the man with the hat, but he’d thrown himself against the side of the building, clutching at his eyes. The start of a keening moan was accompanied by a drip of red escaping from under the man’s hands. Deuxvisage’s eyes were wide and shining, and her jacket front heaved a little as she took a deep breath. There was no mistaking her self-satisfied look.
“Quickly, we go!” she ordered, grabbing Al’s elbow. “Before the gendarmes appear.”
Al ignored the tugging at his elbow. He checked the street for the first man, but had to look down the road a piece before he spotted him sort of wrapped around the axle of a big panel truck stopped a hundred feet down the block. Annoyed, he looked to his second target who was laying faceup, enjoying a peaceful sidewalk nap. Yep, Pockface had a pin too. Al snatched it before the two Knights walked quickly onwards, ducking through the gathering crowd.
“What did you do to that guy?” Al demanded, widening his stride as they continued to increase the distance from site of the commotion.
“An old bleeding charm,” she replied, increasing her gait, and staying half a stride ahead. “Showy, but effective, as you saw.”
“Yeah, great,” he said, flourishing the pin, before handing it to her. He tucked his shirt in more neatly, and recentered his belt buckle. “’Cept the part where you blew our identity. Them guys were looking for us.”
“Nonsense, they were simple fools, celebrating before the march.”
“The second guy was ready to geld me,” Al countered. “You don’t have a knife already out for a chance encounter. He knew who I was, but maybe not what I am. Between the little truck accident and the knockout, my guys look like a simple fight gone wrong. Your man’s blinding will reek of magic. Now they know there’s a Council Knight in New York.”
“You’re being foolish,” she said, her heels striking the pavement a bit more briskly than before. She threw an irritated arm to the side, indicating all of the city. “These Americans have no experience with the genius loci, or their servants. They wouldn’t recognize a charm even if it reduced the size of their stupidly tall, overcompensating buildings.”
The argument continued as they briskly marched down Fifth, alternating as each rehashed arguments and prejudices which were old when London was a mud-wattle village. Abruptly, Al realized Deuxvisage had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Ah, Al-berr,” Deuxvisage asked in a very small voice completely at odds with her previous diatribe. “What’s the street number we seek, again?”
“Three-fifty,” Al replied, glancing around the street to ensure they hadn’t been followed. “350 Fifth Ave. C’mon, we gotta keep moving.”
When she didn’t answer he looked over to find her leaning backwards, one hand shading her eyes against the early-afternoon sun. He followed the direction of her eyes and looked up as well. Way, way up. Soaring into the overcast, the tallest building in the world inspired a little vertigo as his eyes unsuccessfully plumbed the heights to spot the very top of the tower.
As he returned his line of sight to ground level, his gaze swept past the building’s name, inscribed in golden letters two feet tall, then across three stories of diamond-paned glass framed in stainless steel. Just below were busy double doors, also of glass, through which a stream of New Yorkers came and went, ignoring the profundity of the building over their heads. A final decoration, smaller, silver numbers a mere foot high, decorated the door lintel with the simple legend “350.”
“Well, ain’t that a bitch,” he said, exhaling long and slow, like an old horse farting.
“A single building,” Deuxvisage cursed quietly. “Densus, ta mère la pute!”
She was still staring at the gold-filled legend three stories up.
“Empire State.”
✧ ✧ ✧
“I adore mortals,” Natalie Deuxvisage said happily. Neither the cold wind whistling about their ears nor the strain of the climb seemed to bother her. “Of their many inventions, surely the moving pictures are the best!”
A few feet below her, Al seethed.
“Keep your voice down,” Al urged in a stage whisper. They were already twenty floors up, climbing the seam of the interior angle of the great building. Only sixty-five more floors to go. The cross section of each floor described a very shallow letter H, and the inside notch offered several advantages: some shelter from the weather, a modest amount of concealment from some angles and most critically, a two-inch seam between the great sheets of tan sandstone which clad the entire exterior of the building.
“No one down there can hear us!” She inclined her head downwards to the deep, man-made canyon, where West Thirty-fourth Street and the remnants of the Bund’s march were invisible, hidden by a convenient fog that had begun rolling in as they waited to begin the climb.
“It’s the people in there I’m worried about!” Al said, motioning with his head toward a nearby window. His forearms should have been burning with the effort of holding his upper body as he used a layback technique he’d learned from Georgie Mallory, the poor sod. Properly executed, technique made a virtue of the opposing effort of one’s feet and hands. Al’s hands were inches deep in the seam where the walls of the Empire State came together at right angles. His right hip and shoulder ground along the face of smooth stone which clad the entire building. He’d doubled his body underneath him, as though he was sitting on an imaginary chair, using the posture to force his India rubber boot soles against the opposing slab of stone. The pressure of his feet gave his hands purchase, and it was a simple, but tiring matter, to reach a little higher, then alternate steps upwards. A light-colored pack, containing needful items, dangled from the rope tied to his belt.
Grip with both hands tightly, then step and step. Shift handholds up, squeeze, and repeat.
And repeat.
And repeat.
Simple.
Of course, for the tallest building in the world, few humans could sustain the effort, even with ropes, chalk, hammers and pitons. And many, many hours. More than Al had.
However, Al was steadily consuming a small portion of the energy gifted by his genius loci. This enabled the Knights to overcome the otherwise impossible task, climbing up the outside of the Empire State Building. As long their strength didn’t flag, they could just “walk” up the stone. However, Al’s store of Power wasn’t infinite, and if he should fail, there would be no more forthcoming.
At which point, there would be no point.
“Please, Al-berr, tell me you recognize the impossible coincidence with the popular moving picture, the one with the great ape and the beautiful girl he loves!” Deuxvisage tittered. “You know, the one ending with, ‘’Twas beauty killed the beast.’”
Al looked up at her, his eyebrows climbing halfway to his hairline. He looked pointedly down at the street, now twenty-one floors distant and increasing with every step. If she would only stay focused on the mission . . .
“Of course, I’m Fay Wray,” the French Knight said, smirking over her shoulder. “Incomparably lovely, yes?”
Al was a knight, not a statue, and he’d been nose-to-rump with the tightened seat of her climbing outfit for a while now.
Damn, this dame even made the borrowed denim boiler suits look good. Al gave himself a quick mental shake. I wonder how many besotted fools she’s fatally distracted this way?
“Yeah, yeah,” Al said. “Climb.”
“So that makes you the great, hairy beast, in thrall to my charms. You must be ready for me to fall!”
“You’re no Fay Wray,” Al said, pushing up behind her, rudely intruding into her personal space. “If you fall, I ain’t gonna try to catch you. Go on, let go, see if I care.”
She released one handhold and leaned dramatically into space. The pack she wore swung her even further away from the wall. Al, who long ago had overcome his hesitation for heights, nonetheless felt a sudden ripple of not-quite-fear, his enhanced vision affording him a perfect view of her dangling negligently from one fingertip, merely for the purpose of affecting a swoon.
“You won’t?” She thew her head rearwards with one hand to her forehead. “Shall I just let go and see?”
If Deuxvisage fell, she would peel him off the wall as well. In that event, their borrowed strength offered scant odds for survival, and the amount of Power needed to muster even a slight chance at life would make any further effort tonight impossible. Al tried to keep her focused on the point of the climb. He wanted at least one of her hands fully back onto the stone.
“Would you stop?” he asked, keeping his voice to a stage whisper. “What I care about is your damn Finder. You getting anything?”
His device had been annoyingly imprecise, which he’d rather expected, but it would be helpful to know what Deuxvisage made of the readings from her own equipment.
He watched as she collected herself, reestablishing a proper grip. She fished her locket out of the neckline of her suit and flicked it open with one hand.
“A bit of interference, mon chevalier,” she replied cheerfully, snapping the device shut and tucking it back in. “Perhaps it will clear as we climb higher. We have nothing so high as this in France, expect perhaps the Eiffel Tower in Paris.”
“You know, you never told me where you came from before you entered Limoges’ service, ma’amselle,” Al said, abusing the French word again, just to irritate her. He edged upwards, prompting her to resume the climb.
“Were you born in Paris?”
“There’s more to France than stuffy Paris,” Deuxvisage said archly. “No, my beginnings are far too humble to have been born a Parisienne.”
“Perhaps another great city?” he said. “Marseille?”
“Oh, I didn’t start from so high a perch, Al-berr,” she said, pausing her climb and looking back once more. “I’m no Marseilleuse. If you must know, cheri, I was born in poor circumstances. My father ran a few head of sheep in a tiny village named Felletrin, so I suppose that makes me a . . . ”
She allowed the pause to stretch out meaningfully.
He worked it out and gave her a horrified look, prompting a resumption of laughter.
“Oh, oh, your face!” Deuxvisage said, a pearly smile clearly audible in her voice. “You look just like an owl. Not to worry, my bold chevalier, I won’t make you say it. Let me make the jokes, it takes my mind off this dreary climb. I still say we could have simply marched in and used, how you English say, the lift.”
“The Bund are wise to us,” Al said, speeding his pace a bit to keep crowding her. “Thanks to you. Their puppet master, whoever it is, will expect trouble. This way we bypass the cops who are just regular joes. We deal only with the Bund and their masters. Efficient.”
“In this way,” Deuxvisage said, aping his manner and momentarily stamping her feet in an audible rhythm. “We use a great part of our strength merely to achieve the climb. Besides, I am forced to wear these hideous boots. Couldn’t you carry me, Sir King Kong?”
“Lay off, sister!”
“No plan requiring Fay Wray to climb herself up the side of this American monstrosity, while wearing man-shoes and painters’ overalls is a good plan!”
“We climb to the observation deck on eighty-six to avoid the mortal authorities inside the building. Before we search the upper floors for the Splinter, we change into party clothes, so we look like guests at the reception. Locate the Splinter. Either destroy it or steal it. The Bund, and any hostile agents from another genius loci, we dispose of. Simple as.”
“Whatever you say, Sir Ape.”
This dame.
The plan, such as it was, had been Al’s. It kept him from having to kill any cops, and it was solid.
✧ ✧ ✧
The plan, such as it was, failed. Naturally. Two patrolmen had been waiting on the eighty-sixth floor.
A quick glance around the corner assured John there weren’t any more police nearby. Fortunately, Deuxvisage’s appearance had frozen the two officers, who couldn’t reconcile the thousand-foot drop beyond the brightly lit observation deck with the appearance of a beautiful woman climbing back inside. Al, warned by Deuxvisage’s cheerful “’allo, mes cheries!” had taken advantage of their momentary hesitation to jump over the wall himself, close the distance and strike the first officer, sending the man’s cigarette flying and laying him neatly out with a single blow to the jaw. He turned to address the second, only find Deuxvisage straddling his recumbent form.
“I’m so glad we climbed the outside of the building to avoid police,” she said, chuckling. “Wonderful strategy, Knight of York. Still, I followed your squeamish directions. No murder.”
The policeman at her feet stirred, lifting his head up as he began to regain consciousness. Without looking away from John, the French agent kicked the officer in the temple, and the man’s head thudded against the tar paper and gravel which covered the deck of the observation platform. Al stilled a beat of anger and motioned her to copy him as he bent to strip the officer’s deep blue tunic, struggling a bit with the man’s unconscious weight. They improvised restraints and gags from the heavy garments, wrapping their prisoners tightly.
A ladylike grunt of effort accompanied Deuxvisage’s knotting of the sleeves, pinioning the fallen man’s arms behind his back.
“Can’t leave them outside,” Al said, scanning the area. “Too cold. Gotta hide them until we’re done.”
Deuxvisage sighed theatrically but bent down to grab a handy police ankle.
Above them, gleaming in the yellow electric glare of modern lights, the remainder of the building was visible for the first time. Despite how far they’d come, it still towered upwards, first a series of tapering, square floors built of the same, tan sandstone Al had come to hate. From each corner, the great polished, steel-clad buttresses arced into the towering fifteen-floor cylinder, only a few dozen yards in diameter. Surmounting all was a small observation platform on the 102nd floor, capped by a bronze alloy dome. Above, only a shadow hinted at the presence of a radio aerial.
Al quickly reconnoitered the interior, which was partially lit by the great lights outside. Then they dragged the unconscious police along, a chore which became easier as soon as they reached the polished floor inside the observation platform. Beneath their feet, art deco swirls of pale colored stone were edged with shining ribbons of steel, and the metal-clad walls and elevator doors gleamed in the shadows.
Pretty? Sure, but Al felt naked until they reached a conveniently unlocked office. Once the door was closed, he flipped the wall switch, and they deposited the unconscious cops in a heap. Then Al turned his back as Deuxvisage pulled formal wear from the bag he’d had dragged up eighty-five floors. Al quickly stripped out of his climbing suit.
“Well, Al-berr,” Deuxvisage said. “You have your share of scars.”
He almost jumped out of his skin at the touch of a finger tracing a jagged mark on his shoulder.
“Do you mind!” he said, turning to face her. Reflexively, he smoothed the hair on his arm back down.
She was holding a dress against her chest, but the shiny black fabric left a devastating combination of pale, bare shoulders and thighs visible. She had very small, neat feet.
Al swallowed.
“We’re on the job here.”
“Such a story written on your skin. Why haven’t you used the Power to heal yourself completely?”
Her own skin was unmarred. Perfect. Pale.
“My scars remind me how much stupid costs,” Al said, yanking his eyes away from her loveliness and turning to face the opposite wall again. “Besides, healing ain’t free. My hide is just gonna collect more dings and scratches.”
“Hmm.”
He awkwardly balanced on alternating feet to pull his trousers on, then used an unnecessary amount of force to yank his white cotton undershirt over his torso. A rustle of fabric behind him reassured him the French Knight was dressing as well. Al slipped on shoes and rapidly buttoned up his tuxedo shirt with the supplied studs, before slipping his cufflinks into place. The tie was a clip-on, thank York. He added the borrowed decoration to his lapel.
“All set, cherie?”
He turned to find Deuxvisage fully assembled. The black silk number he’d glimpsed had been a backless slip dress, and she was wearing the hell out of it. It draped all the way to the ankle, hugging every curve. Her silhouette made plain what she wasn’t wearing beneath it. A sheathed dagger left more doubt about its purpose.
Whatever dark magic Limoges bestowed on her had restored her hair to upswept elegance, and Deuxvisage’s makeup was dazzlingly perfect, right down to the bloodred carmine on her lips. Her locket gleamed in the little valley where jewelry loved to rest.
“What do you think?” Deuxvisage asked, hand on one hip, eyeing his own outfit. “Not quite a match for the arrangement your quartermaster provided.”
“It’ll do,” Al replied, pointedly not looking at her as he rolled his shoulders to settle his store-bought dinner jacket. He jammed the discarded boots and coveralls into the bag before slinging it into a handy corner a bit harder than he had to. “Time to find the ceremony.”
He snapped the light off, and then went through the motions of fully uncovering his wristwatch, lifting the face itself for a moment. The Finder glowed, suggesting the presence of a nearby Splinter, but as he’d expected, he couldn’t determine a direction to the German ceremony.
“No joy here,” Al said. “How about you?”
The French Knight checked her locket.
“The same. We shall do this the old-fashioned way.”
They stepped out into the main room again, and this time headed for the elevator.
Time to mingle.
✧ ✧ ✧
Annoyingly, the elevator stopped at ninety-five. Then, a few floors up the staircase, the sound of the Deuxvisage’s heels on concrete steps was slowly overcome by the tinkling of a piano. They followed the sound of the party to the doors on the next landing.
Al did a quick check of his watch. The slightly increased glow suggested he was a bit closer, but the Finder remained unhelpfully vague. Al laid his hand on the doorknob, and looked at his fellow Knight as she consulted her locket. She snapped it shut with a faint smile.
“Well?” Al asked.
Deuxvisage arched an eyebrow in unmistakable challenge. Al shrugged and opened the door for her. She stepped through decisively, startling a guard, who looked from Deuxvisage to the door where Al was emerging, and back to the French Knight, who was smoothing down the sides of her dress, and putting a little English into her shimmy. It did interesting things to the back of her outfit. And other bits.
“Sorry, mac,” Al offered in the borderless language of men, accompanied by a leer as ageless as it was knowing. “Lady and I had to step out for a moment, quick-like.”
“Of-of course, sir,” the guard stammered, eyeing the little red lapel pin Al had appropriated from the sidewalk sleeping beauty.
Al followed Deuxvisage along the edge of the crowd. Couples danced on a temporary parquet floor which defined the middle of the space, surrounded on two sides by tables set with china and silver. The reception was cozy, filling a space about twice the size of a school classroom. A four-piece band filled the room with a Glenn Miller piece. The crystal sconces threw bright light, sparkling from abbreviated chandeliers hugging the ceiling, creating an artificial elegance which complemented the deep-pile carpet. Al casually glanced around.
Glittering gowns and tuxedos were the rule, though it seemed special guests had red armbands as well. Deuxvisage was garnering all the attention, which varied by sex. Men’s eyes widened imperceptibly, but the few ladies present narrowed theirs. Either way, being ignored was a new experience for Al. He could live with it.
“A drink, and then we explore,” Deuxvisage said over her shoulder as she reached the bar.
“Two Manhattans,” Al ordered when the barman looked up expectantly, mostly ignoring the Frenchwoman. A brisk nod, and the man busied himself with shaker, ice and bottles. As the barman made the drinks, Deuxvisage turned away from the counter and used the edge as a handy prop from which to observe the room, hip-to-hip with Al.
“The back corner,” she breathed into his ear.
Al let his eyes drift until he spotted a pair of men slipping through a door. As it closed, he could tell they were ascending a private staircase. Before he could reply, the weight of a hand on his shoulder interrupted. Al looked over.
“Pliss to excuse,” an unfamiliar continental voice interrupted. Al looked to his left, and then down. An elegantly handsome man of average height stood, coolly returning his regard. The newcomer’s tuxedo fit too well to be anything but bespoke, while the narrow-set ice-blue eyes and strong jawline were already spawning incipient dislike in Al. The man’s frank appraisal was just this side of insulting. The swastika lapel pin was the cherry on the hate cake.
“My name ist Josias Erbprinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont,” he said, with the slightest nod and heel click. “I am visiting from Cologne. I see we share an interest, but I thought I had been introduced to all the local Party members. Yet, I recognize neither you nor your lovely companion.”
Al could feel Deuxvisage’s interest spike, though she did no more than pout, waiting for the drinks.
“Zu what?” Al replied. “Is that where you’re from? I thought you was German.”
“I am German, you . . . ” The blonde man interrupted himself with an impatient shake of his head. “The principalities of Waldeck und Pyrmont are my family’s ancestral home and responsibility. Under the great Führer, of course.”
“Oh, of course.”
“And you are?”
“Name’s Smith,” Al said, hoping his lack of expression would convey how he felt about inherited titles. Best thing about America was the absence of so-called nobility. Europe was still awash in princelings and second sons, and not one of them fit to clean a Greenjacket’s rifle. This clown thought his title carried weight here?
“Your purpose, Herr Smith?” the German said with a sneer. It was a good one. Al figured he practiced in a mirror.
“Visiting from the West Coast. The Party is trying to grow a chapter there.”
“Iz that so?”
“Sure izz, Joe. Sunshine, starlets, that sort of thing.”
At this, the pressure of Deuxvisage’s hip on Al’s leg changed as she shifted her feet.
“Your colleagues in the Amerikadeutscher Volksbund neglected to mention such to me,” Erbprinz said, dipping his hand suggestively toward his jacket. “They are normally quite good about this sort of thing. Perhaps we should talk to them. Together.”
Fucking Bund. Just when you needed a little incompetence. At least the little princeling was ignoring Deuxvisage. His mistake.
“Two Manhattans, suh,” the barback announced, setting the drinks down with a click.
Erbprinz’s eyes flicked over for just a moment, and Al used Power to get his hand on the German’s wrist, but Deuxvisage was quicker than either of them. She stepped to Erbprinz’s side faster than a hummingbird could flit toward a flower, and darted her arm downwards, until it was intimately looped around his waist, her hand inside his suit jacket.
A brief surge of Power made Al’s watch glow a bit, but that was lost in the brightly lit room. However, the pulse of heat from the watch felt like a warm wrist kiss. The amount of energy needed was unhealthy for a mortal like Erbprinz. Al couldn’t care less. This guy wanted to play Nazi spy? He gave up the protection of being a civilian.
“You know us,” Deuxvisage purred. “We met at the thing last week. We’re old chums having a drink, right?”
“Old chums,” the hapless man answered, his eyes unfocused. You had to look closely to detect the white of his eyes were glowing, the blue-white color largely overcome by the yellow electric light overhead. “Drink.”
He sagged very slightly, supported by the now wire-taut muscles of Deuxvisage’s bare arm.
“Quickly. He’s quite strong and I can’t control him and hold him up simultaneously.”
Al moved to the German’s other side and slipped a companionable arm around his shoulder.
“Yeah, Joe, just some old friends going to the ceremony together, right?” Al reinforced the message. “In fact, you were just going to show us where it is.”
“Ceremony,” came the reply. “Friends.”
Al couldn’t wait to make some new friends.
✧ ✧ ✧
The dim stairway up which they’d dragged their new friend had led to an even darker hallway, terminating in a door, marked PRIVATE EVENT. The locked door surrendered to Al’s grip, with only a muted crunch to mark the destruction of the doorjamb. Inside was a small, mostly bare room, lit by a single bare bulb above the door. One wall was curved, making up part of the building’s uppermost tower. The space held a partially full coatrack whose shelf supported a dozen or more hats. The adjacent table held a selection of black half-masks, which obscured the wearer’s nose and brow, but left the mouth bare. The far wall was obscured with heavy, red velvet drapes drawn toward each other. Where they met, a doubled golden fringe suggested their next step.
Murmurs of speech filtered through, the words indistinct, but the cadence familiar. He stepped a bit closer to the curtain. Al had heard something similar the last time he tuned into the Beeb to catch a snippet of the German chancellor’s latest address. Behind him, a pair of muffled thuds caught his attention.
Erbprinz was propped up behind the coats, staring vacantly. Deuxvisage reached for him, fingers to his temples. His eyes closed, and from beneath the lids the blue-white glow resumed, more intensely this time. Another surge of warmth heated Al’s wrist.
“No killing,” he whispered.
“In that case, our strong German mortal will merely sleep for a day or so.” Deuxvisage withdrew her hands abruptly, and the glow blinked off. She fished around the German’s beltline and withdrew a Walther, passing it to Al.
“Brought my own.” Al patted his suit jacket.
“Destroy it, then.”
Al quickly separated the parts of the gun and dropped them to the floor. He called up a little Power and stamped on the receiver, very slightly bending it.
Deuxvisage pantomimed applause and considered the masks on the adjacent table. Lifting one to her face, she half-turned.
“Tie me up and I’ll return the favor,” she murmured, shooting a hip out to one side, before slowly pivoting. The silky gown brushed against Al’s shins, the promise silken as a mermaid’s kiss, and as reliable as a cracked flint. The fine blonde hairs on her neck managed to reflect a little light as she arched it invitingly. Al squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then moved closer and snugly tied the black ribbons in a neat bow before picking up a mask of his own.
“I can manage myself, thanks,” he replied quietly, making short work of his own “disguise.”
Deuxvisage offered him only a moue as she lightly stepped to the curtain and very slowly eeled thru. Al followed, and took in the sights, blinking.
He was no snob. The Knight of York had supped with both kings and swineherds, had dossed down one night on a midden and the next been pampered with silks. So, while ostentation didn’t really bother him, neither did it particularly impress.
But bad theater was bad theater, and no one liked that.
Except, apparently, amateur Nazis.
Beyond the doubled curtains, flickering orange light lit a larger space. As his eyes adjusted, Al could make out a line of tuxedo-clad men, a few begowned women among them, arrayed in a semicircle, facing toward the middle of the room. Each man wore a red armband, each woman, a sash. All the spectators held hands with their neighbors. More red velvet, trimmed in gold, sloppily draped the curved walls, defining the entire floor of the tower. Lustrous wooden paneling peeked through the velvet, obscuring all but one window. The floor was the now familiar gloss of polished stone, picked out in curved lines of metal in the distinctive art deco style of the building. It reflected a glow from what turned out to be old-fashioned old-gas lights. Abandoned since the mortals had invented the wonders of electricity, the black cast-iron floor lamps positioned to illuminate the center of the space wouldn’t have been out of place in Queen Victoria’s court, but the dancing gas lights created a sense of motion adding to the arcane atmosphere.
If you were into that sort of thing.
Al exerted a trifle of Power, and his steps became perfectly silent as he padded up behind the line. The tableau now visible was just, well, silly.
A waist-high, white cloth-covered altar held what appeared to be a rough, quarter-scale kneeling female figure. The gold-painted figure’s arms were upraised, holding a small, finely carved casket, perhaps a foot long, edged in silver and displayed with the lid open. In contrast to the quality of the chest, the rest of the ritual objects about the carving were crudely fashioned of metal, wood and bone. In front of the altar was a polished wooden bench, covered in red cushions.
Two figures, robed in white, stood opposite. Gossamer white veils rendered their faces indistinct, but the taller one must have been the leader. At least, Al thought so, though calculating seniority by the height of a gilded antler headdress was not necessarily conclusive. The golden swastika suspended between the antler tips was enough reason for Al to mentally designate this guy as the first body to drop. Antler-boy was chanting, aping the rising and falling cadences of Hitler’s best. The Latin was loud enough, but the priest’s accent was poor, and the conjugation made Al’s right hand itch.
He decided to fill it with the Webley hanging under his jacket.
A hand on his arm stilled further movement before the pair of them were noticed standing quietly behind the priest’s audience. Al checked to see what Deuxvisage had planned. Behind him the priest’s speech seemed to be building to a crescendo. That, or he was loudly winding up his pitch for insurance.
She’d opened her locket and as he watched; she gripped it with her fist. With her other hand she tugged Al down to her level.
“I can deal with the spectators, but the ones in white may be protected,” she breathed into his ear. “I won’t have much left after this.”
Al merely nodded and waited to see what she came up with.
Without fanfare, or the incantations the Nazis seemed to find needful, she merely stepped up behind the centermost spectator and touched his neck from behind. A stiffening of his spine and a certain rigidity suggested he wasn’t paying attention to the ceremony anymore. As quickly as Al’s eyes could follow the motion, this odd paralysis spread left and right along the line. People stopped surreptitiously adjusting their feet, slightly moving their heads—all the tiny motions humans make, even when they are trying to hold still.
The priest stopped mid-chant and lowered upraised hands. The assistant looked left and right, veil swishing sideways each time.
Then, each and every member of their audience slumped to the ground, the centermost slowly spinning, allowing Al to see what had arrested the priests’ attention. The eyes of the mortals were glowing with intense blue-white light, far more than Al had noticed on the hapless Erbprinz. More glowing eyes became visible as the rest of the bodies tumbled to the floor, and then the glow subsided.
Beside him, Deuxvisage gasped, bending over, having kept her hands on the man for as long as she could. She propped herself up, hands on knees, and drew deep breaths. Whatever she’d pulled off had worked really well. It also left the pair of Knights facing two very surprised priests over the apparent bodies of a lot of very important people. And of course, Al was holding a weapon.
“All right you two, don’t try anything stupid,” Al warned. “This little shindig is over, and no one else had to get hurt.”
“Kill him!” Antler-boy shouted to his single upright follower.
Yelling seemed like overkill, but Al had to give the arcanists credit for good instincts, even if their reflexes were too slow. They fumbled with their robes, each trying to draw guns of their own.
Baker rifle or handgun, the principles were the same. He raised his weapon to eye height, using the sights, since that’s what they were there for, simultaneously thumbing back the hammer. He squeezed the trigger deliberately, because you could always miss, even at close range. The pistol report was a surprise, like it was when you did it right, and Antler-boy fell with the finality of a puppet whose strings were cut. The assistant tried to raise a gun, but panic-fired before the muzzle was level. The shot blasted a chunk from the golden altar statue.
Deuxvisage’s scream of “No!” was cut off by Al’s second shot. He watched the fat round snatch the white veil off the face of his target, revealing an attractive brunette woman. She let her gun hand drop, and the pistol clunked against the floor. She swayed, staring back at Al with a single shocked eye, no longer twin to the blasted ruin of her other eye socket, before following her red-splashed headdress to the ground.
Al walked to the fresh corpses and used the toe of his shoe to expose Antler-boy’s face. A thin man with a scar stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Al switched the Webley to his left hand and collected the unfired Colt. He performed a one-handed chamber check and clicked the safety upwards.
“Well, that wasn’t what I planned, but it worked,” Al said, turning to check on Deuxvisage, who’d been obscured by the altar.
Upside, she hadn’t hurt herself from the prodigious expenditure of energy needed to render more than a dozen Nazi sympathizers unconscious. Downside, they weren’t alone.
Al held very still, the revolver half raised in his left hand, his right arm straight at his side.
“Well, shit,” he said to the world in general.
“Zat seemz to be the case,” the visitor said, glancing around the room.
Erbprinz, of the principalities of Whosis and Whatsis, had rejoined the party. Deuxvisage was pinned against his chest, and except for a quarter of the man’s head, his body was almost entirely shadowed by his captive. The French Knight’s contorted posture suggested her left arm was twisted behind her back, but Al could see it was the shining dagger dimpling the smooth skin of her throat which held her perfectly still. The German took it in, and the jumble of unmoving guests, a wrecked altar, and two puddles of blood, nearly black in the dim room, told the story.
“Do you know what you’ve done, fool?” Erbprinz shouted. “I’m trying to contain a fire before it consumes the world, and you pour petrol on the flames?”
“Invading Poland is containing a war?” Al snorted. “Besides, you’re supposed to be asleep for a few more hours, Joe. Guess I messed up.”
He shared a frown with Deuxvisage. Her return glance could’ve melted asphalt.
“I was raised a Knight at Ypres, you arrogant British ass,” Erbprinz said. His sneer was improving, Al conceded. “Your sleeping charm didn’t last five minutes, let alone five hours.”
“Huh, well there you go,” Al said, sidling a little sideways. The German twisted to keep himself shielded by Deuxvisage’s form. “So what now, Joe? Maybe let the girl go and we settle this, Knight to Knight? I’ll drop the gun and you lose the sticker.”
“Risk your touch again? I don’t think so. I should have shot you the moment I saw you! Where is the Splinter?”
Al looked at the wrecked altar.
“If you mean the little silver box,” Al said, scanning the floor around the altar, “the lady missing an eye might have blown it apart with her Colt. I think the pieces are around here somewhere. Ah, here we go.”
He walked a short step, careful to keep his right arm in shadow. The silver box spun a few turns when he lightly kicked it from around the altar, fixing the German Knight’s eyes firmly on its location.
“Guess she missed,” Al said, raising the Webley. “This what you’re after? What if I were to shoot it?”
“Stop!”
Al froze a second time as the German twisted the knife, and the first drop of French blood dripped down the blade.
“So,” the German exhaled long and slow. “This is what you want? A total war—no genius loci to guide the Americans? Germany and America should be allies. Haven’t the Americans fought you English twice already? Despite this, their Jewish president’s love for the English may draw them in and then, then they will burn like the rest. Now drop the pistol and put your hands on your head, or I slit this distracting fräulein’s throat, and use her blood to complete the ceremony!”
“Go ahead, kill her. See if I care.”
“An unconvincing bluff, Englishman. If you didn’t care, you would’ve already shot. Knightly English honor, no doubt. Yes, I know you. You would’ve covered your tracks better if you hadn’t blinded my man earlier today. I’d still be waiting downstairs if I didn’t know there was an English Knight with a bleeding curse in my city. Your pretty, nameless mortal whore is convincing window dressing, but no Knight of York will kill a helpless woman out of hand. Soft, soft like your weakened master, rotting in a shrinking kingdom. Drop the gun. Here, now, I hold all the cards.”
Al weighed the gun in his hand. If Al surrendered the gat, both Knights were going to have answer some very unkind questions, and then end up in a city garbage scow, to be dumped in the Atlantic. He squinted at the Kraut. Still no clean shot. He made a show of considering the Webley and tossed it a few feet away.
“Good. Now go to your knees, dog!”
“I don’t think so, Joe.” Al kept his body bladed toward the German, his right arm at his side.
Erbprinz tensed his hand slightly, and a steady trickle of fresh blood welled up, before flowing down Deuxvisage’s throat and disappearing into the black silk.
The French Knight didn’t react a bit, merely keeping her eyes fixed on Al’s own.
“You think I bluff?”
“Two things, mac,” Al said, looking at the little silver casket and smiling. He could sense Erbprinz dividing his attention between the threat Al represented, and the treasure on the floor. “For a man holding all the cards, you sure do a lot of talking.”
“And the second?”
“Well, she’s not just some random arm candy I brought along.” Al winked. “You have a knife to the throat of Hollywood’s greatest star. You know, the world-class actress beloved by millions starring in a film about this very building. What’s killing her, here, going to do to your little ceremony to install a new genius loci in the Empire State Building? Hell, what’s it going to do if you just hurt her? No New York loci born of the death of a star who had brought fame and honor would have you—and you wouldn’t have your German-loving, English-hating loci. So go ahead, poke the knife a little harder. Kill Fay Wray, why dontcha?”
Erbprinz opened his mouth to speak and then looked down at his captive.
Deuxvisage’s eyes widened, and her insouciant grin reignited.
And she slumped slightly, forcing her throat toward the keen point of the dagger.
The German Knight sagged with her, preventing her from impaling herself lethally, but the knife slid in a bit more, and blood ran freely. He began to swear, looking down at the damage, and for a moment he had no more human shield. A single crashing boom cut off his curse, now stillborn, and a dark mark, a death mark, appeared alongside his nose, where the slug punched its way through his skull, spattering the better part of its contents onto the floor behind him.
Al moved swiftly forward, keeping the borrowed Colt raised on the downed man, but it wasn’t necessary. Erbprinz’s eyes were open and motionless, one bulging slightly. Al used his polished shoe to push the head over and grimaced at the wreckage of the back of the man’s skull.
He glanced at the artifact, and donated it a bullet, then another, for good measure. Through the curling gun smoke, the broken bits looked like ceramic. Then he spared a glance for the Knight of Limoges.
Deuxvisage had pushed herself up to her knees, and Al offered her a hand the rest of the way up. She took a shaky step and braced one hand against the altar.
Al tore a strip of cloth from the altar decorations and pressed it to her neck.
“Thank you, my chevalier,” she said, taking over the chore. “You saved my life.”
“All in a day’s work for King Kong, isn’t it?” Al said, scanning the state of the room. The lid of the ruined German Splinter lay on the floor, the double-headed Imperial eagle which adorned it drowning in the spreading puddle of Erbprinz’s blood. The whole room was turning into a sticky lake. Cleanup was going to be someone else’s problem, at least.
“So that’s that.” Al looked back for agreement from Deuxvisage, but saw only the blur of motion as the golden statue of the kneeling woman just completed an arc which would end at his head.
Strangely, it didn’t hurt. There was a dark, dark circle in front of him, blacker than the blood flowing across the floor, and it was deep. Deeper than the well you might flip a coin into, waiting in vain for the splash. And just when you prepared to turn away, thinking you’d missed it, you heard the lightest splash, so faint you might have imagined it.
Al fell and waited to hit the bottom.
✧ ✧ ✧
He woke in stages. Above was the ceiling of arched steel beams supporting the great bronze roof of the Empire State. He could even make out the access for the original dirigible gantry. A great weight lay on his sternum, pinning him in place. His hands lay limply across his belt line, and his ankles dangled off the edge of whatever he was lying on. His limbs stubbornly ignored his directions, twitching limply. He sensed movement. A familiar pair of heels clicked their way toward him. He tried forcing his head to turn, but success was measured in fractions of an inch.
“Ah, you’ve returned sooner than I expected,” Deuxvisage said, arranging some of the relics on the cement-and-steel table, and discarding others. “First the German, now the Englishman. I must be more tired than I realized. Unnecessarily climbed up the side of a building, I seem to recall.”
She leaned over him and tapped his chest. It felt like a two-pound sledge, lightly but solidly tapping a tent peg into the ground in preparation for the big swing. Her locket was missing, and when he looked down he saw the damned thing was sitting on his chest, just a few inches from his chin. He could also tell he was lying along the length of the bench next to the altar.
“Don’t fight, cheri. My locket will keep you from squirming overmuch and keep you safe. Well, somewhat. So don’t struggle, you’re already quite drained, and I need what you have left.”
“Need it for what, you two-timing, cross-eyed bitch!” Al tried to move, but his hands and feet remained still. He tried and failed to move his wrist much more than an inch, though his fingers danced madly, like a hanging man plucking at the noose around his neck.
“Shh, poor thing,” Deuxvisage lifted his watch into view. “I have this and need to arrange things just so. Breaking their Splinter complicated matters.”
She laid it on the German altar where it glowed brightly, surrounded by the broken pieces of the German Splinter. The statuette was back, missing a bit of one arm.
“I was so sure you would become suspicious when your Finder couldn’t narrow down the location of the Boche Splinter. Lucky for me, you accepted the tale of ‘interference’ quite pleasingly, so you never thought to look for this, though it was ever so close to you, vaunted Knight of York.”
She raised a small, unremarkable object. Al had to concentrate. A brass hammer, overlaid with a one-handed scythe of the same metal, just about the size to fit into a lady’s clutch purse.
A hammer and sickle?
“What does that bit of commie trash have to do with anything?” Al asked.
“An empty vessel,” Deuxvisage giggled merrily. “Prepared and infused with my master’s will. A sort of, but not quite, Splinter. A sort of stepping-stone.”
“Why would Limoges prepare a Russian Splinter?”
“Well, darling, as you observed, times change,” she said, laying the empty Splinter in the hands of the statuette, close to his watch, causing it to glow even more brightly. “I told you I cared for the people, and say what you will about the communists, they are for the people.”
“Limoges has been talking to St. Petersburg? Moscow?”
“La, does it matter?” Deuxvisage adjusted the position of a few objects, getting them just so. “No kings, no gods—the people will rule.”
“You can’t be sure—”
“Oh, I rather can, my tired chevalier,” she tsked. “Isn’t it obvious? The Germans so thoughtfully gathered all their Power and infused it into this building. Of course, with their Splinter destroyed, it would eventually disperse. But add just a bit more, from, say, a Knight of York. Perhaps there is an empty vessel close by? Why, there might be enough to kindle a new loci after all! In some months, a new spirit will appear to naturally rise in this garish city. A loci properly sympathetic to the people. Oh, it might change over time, but not before the Germans are properly anchored in the west. When it happens, well, perhaps the Russians can become our friends again. You know how the Russians feel about kings, emperors and czars.”
“Whose friends? You and I fought together!”
“Yes, we did, in France,” Deuxvisage answered. “Among dead French citizens and murdered French towns. The English were quite safe across the Channel. Soldiers are born for sacrifice, but the Boche took French towns, killed French civilians, yet your generals fought where and when it suited them. The French government wasn’t much better. The people suffered. Le Zone Rouge lies mostly in France—ruined French towns and spoiled French soil that can never feel the touch of a plow, or the sound of a shepherd again. What of England? Intact. Stronger than ever. Well, no more.”
“It won’t work, you know. The Council, they can’t let it stand.”
“Fait accompli!” she replied, distractedly scanning the area immediately around the altar. She frowned and crouched to grab the ankle of a German corpse and drag it a bit further away. “They will be preoccupied for some time. And who will hold the Seven at the end of the current fracas?”
Al sagged back against the bench. He could see it all now. It was pretty funny, actually. Be a lot funnier if he wasn’t about to be sacrificed by a crazy French dame.
“You aren’t listenin—” he tried again.
“Stupid!” Deuxvisage nearly screamed, suddenly lunging close, her red-rimmed eyes one foot from Al’s own.
“You stupid Englishman, with your stupid inability to hear what I’ve been trying to explain, with your stupid loyalty to the Tower, and your stupid white roses . . . ”
“I get it,” Al chuckled despite his predicament. “I’m stupid. It sank in after a little bit.”
“Are you not taking me seriously?” Deuxvisage stayed leaning over him, her face contorting. Her voice rose in pitch. “For the sake of sentiment, I meant to keep you alive, so you might someday serve York, though given the diminishment of his demesne, you would never be as strong as you were today. So do be rude. Go on. I will teach you the manners you lack!”
Al reached out to touch the Power hovering about the altar, and let it mingle with his own. His heart swelled, his chest burned, and he instantly broke out in a heavy sweat. If he held it for more than a few score seconds, he would scorch.
“Buncha folks tried teaching me manners over the years,” Al gasped, but the fire in his belly and his head failed to still his rasping laugh. “Never took.”
The burning was inside his eyes, and everything became paler. The gas light grew a deeper orange.
“You laugh?” Deuxvisage was getting more worked up. She rifled through Al’s pockets, turning his pockets inside out. Then she threw his arms apart and checked his coat’s inner pockets. “I’ll cut the humor away! And stop with the American accent! It has gone from charming to amusing and then tiresome. Now it’s making me angry, Sir Knight. You don’t want me angry with you when I make my next decision.”
“Well, like I told the German there, leaking his brains across the floor, I have two pieces of information you ain’t gonna like.”
“Oh, is that so?” Deuxvisage stood back up and crossed her arms. The Colt dangled from one perfectly manicured hand. “Well, let’s hear them, cheri. If I’m amused, I may let you live.”
His feet began to shake.
“We played each other, sister. My Finder couldn’t narrow down the location of the German Splinter for the same reason yours couldn’t. I was carrying my own.”
With that, he let his Power and everything he’d drawn inwards flow down his arm, dizzying him. It all traveled to the cufflink on his right wrist, conveniently thrown onto the altar by the carelessness of Deuxvisage’s search. Now his Finder flashed incandescent and popped like an overloaded lightbulb. A bright glowing bubble, wider than a man was tall and centered on the altar, sprang into existence. Transparent clouds covered the surface, twisting, as though driven by the powerful gale swirling the objects on top of the altar, tugging at his nerveless fingers and making his hair go every which way. The motion of the ritual items quickened till they were a twisting blur. Al heard gunshots and watched flashes of blue-white appear on the hemisphere of energy closest to the French Knight. Deuxvisage must have caught a ricochet, for she clapped a hand to her side and red began to leak out. He spared her the merest glance, because his wrist was on fire. He watched the white enameled rose of his cufflink blaze, becoming as bright as a miniature sun. Al grit his teeth against the scream trying to tear its way out of his throat and fought the invisible bonds that nailed him to the bench. The remains of his cufflink flowed onto the altar like a small waterfall of liquid gold, leaving ravaged flesh and burned cloth behind. Deuxvisage’s locket exploded, sending burning fragments into Al’s chest, a sensation which would’ve demanded his attention in any other circumstance, but was now relegated to second place by the inferno of his arm.
“You can’t do this!” she yelled over the wind. “York will never be allowed to make a new loci! The Council will collect him for this, and you will end up in the ground!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart,” Al shouted back, using the last of his strength to finish his play. He raised his head off the bench with a deliberate, final effort and sent every bit of remaining Power, everything holding him together despite his injuries, all of it, his entire life, down the wreckage of his arm.
“York ain’t making a new loci. He’s just swapping his digs. He’s been riding me the whole time, and you never felt it, because you already had a Splinter. You never suspected a thing when none of our Finders worked right. See, that’s the second thing. I ain’t been faking a Bronx accent, you damned, confused Frenchie! I’ve been faking an English accent the whole time. Dis is New York!”
The wind howled so loudly it downed out any response she might have made. Didn’t matter. Al let his breath trickle out slowly, and his many pains grew distant. He’d done his part, as well as anyone could’ve asked for, and he didn’t fear death. He had enjoyed two good lives and no regrets. He was pretty sure he’d done good.
“You did, my Knight.”
Boss? That you?
“It is, my faithful Knight. Rest now and rise again. I have a new job in mind for you.”