Kakistocracy, page 14
“Being a protector isn’t something you owe us. It isn’t something we demand of you,” I said, looking up at him. “It’s who you are. Those fires you put out in the Bowery, that was back in the early 1800s when you were called Mose the Fireboy?”
Mose nodded, a fraction of an inch.
“You were a middling then, weren’t you? All those feats, all those acts of courage; you were a middling the entire time. It was many years later, after you recruited others into the Watch, that you disappeared for several decades. That must’ve been when you ascended to godhood. Do I have that right?”
Mose heaved a deep sigh and nodded again.
“You became a legend without any powers. And that was before you had loyal followers, an organization to lead, before you’d accumulated centuries of knowledge and wisdom. You’re the best of us, even if you’re no longer the god of the nexus.”
“You don’t understand,” said Mose. “You don’t know how it feels.”
“I’m a middling who ascended to godhood and burned my powers, same as you. Who would understand what you’re going through better than me?”
“You were a god for a very short time. You never became …” Mose paused, searching for the right word. “Addicted to it.”
“Addicted to power?” I asked.
“What better, more euphoric a thing is there?” said Mose.
I recalled learning that after Mose came back to the Watch, he curbed his infamous appetites. A notorious glutton and bon vivant, Mose became practically a monk after he returned to New York City during the Reconstruction era. Was power a stand-in for his past vices, one so potent and pure that all others paled by comparison?
“Imagine your limbs cut off, your eyes gouged out, your nose broken,” Mose said. “You can still hear and taste, but you can no longer see, touch, or smell. That’s the equivalent to how I feel every waking moment.” Mose ran his hand through his tangled hair. “You had the power for a brief time, too brief to become reliant upon it. Believe me, that is a blessing. I’ve tried to dull my remaining senses with alcohol and drugs, but the relief they offer is fleeting at best.”
“What about companionship?” I asked. “Have you tried being among the people who love and respect you instead of this self-imposed existence as a hermit? Come back to New York with me. We’ll get you cleaned up, ply you with good food, and most importantly, distract you from what you’ve lost.”
“No,” Mose said firmly. “This is my detox. If I’m to survive the change in my circumstances, I must have this solitude. My only chance to reconcile myself to life as a middling again is to stay here. It may take years, perhaps decades …” He trailed off, lost in thought, then refocused on me. “I don’t know how you managed to find me, but if you truly care about me, you will leave me be, and never tell anyone where I am.”
I considered pressing my case. Surely, Mose would choose to help if he knew the threats his organization and his city were facing. Surely, the needs of millions outweighed one person’s mental health and well-being. But those were only rationalizations; cold equations that permitted logic to rule over emotion. I thought of Omelas again, of Mose suffering at the heart of New York City. There were people willing to shove him into that torture chamber. Leaders of men who steeled their hearts and found it within themselves to accept that the ends justify the means.
I was not one of those people. Perhaps that was ultimately why I refused to become the next leader of the Watch, deferring to John. For all of his indecisiveness, I had little doubt he would’ve dragged Mose kicking and screaming back into the fold.
I nodded reluctantly. “I won’t tell anyone how to find you. I will say you’re indisposed. But I will lie to them, and tell them you’re well.”
Mose’s lips split into a bitter smile. “Trickster gods do make the best liars,” he said.
“Is there anything you need? Anything at all? Money? Magical artifacts?” I wrinkled my nose. “Air freshener?”
“Solitude is all I require,” said Mose. “This is literally the farthest and the loneliest place I could find.”
“I’ll respect your wishes,” I promised. “One last question and I’m gone.”
Mose waited impassively.
“Where are we, and how do I get back to New York?”
It turned out that Mose was hiding in the Australian outback. He made his home on the outskirts of a village called Little Topar, in New South Wales. I had no artifacts on me capable of opening a portal, so my only option was to rely on mundane transportation for a thousand-kilometer trip to Sydney where the nearest branch of Abaddon, Inc. was located.
It was late afternoon by the time I finally got there. After a twelve-hour ride and various annoying misadventures and delays along the way, the sight of those marble columns was most welcome. The front doors had been locked, so I headed for the guardroom at the side of the building.
Instead of the usual doortroll, there was a five-foot-tall koala guarding the entrance.
“G’day mate,” said the koala. “How may I help ya?”
“Umm …” I didn’t get it. If Abaddon existed in all those cities at the same time, then how could an entirely different creature be guarding the entrance? The concept was making my head hurt. “Where’s Tiny?”
“No one here by that name, mate.” The koala looked at me with those huge, murky eyes that appeared unfocused and dull.
“I need the door to New York,” I said.
“We’re closed,” said the koala. “This is an employee entrance. Come back tomorrow and make an appointment, eh?”
“I work here,” I said. “That is to say, I work for Chulsky. And also for the Watch. We have the right of access to the portals.”
“Wouldn’t know anything about that,” said the koala. “Someone will be in tomorrow morning to sort this out. Well, go on. Don’t stand there like you have a roo loose in the top paddock.”
I was tired, annoyed, and upset about the way my encounter with Mose had gone. I’d had enough of the uppity doorcreatures with their local color.
“Listen, you oversized discount-bin teddy bear, I don’t have time for your nonsense. You pick up that phone, and you call Daniel Chulsky, or Steve Irwin, or Crocodile Dundee, or whoever is in charge of this branch, and you tell them Conrad Brent is here, and he’s in a hurry.”
The koala bristled—literally. “Crikey, there’s no need for that kind of language. You Yanks are so rude. I’m going to place that call now, and if you fair dinkum know Daniel, I’ll let you right on through, no worries.”
I understood about half of what he was saying. I nodded toward the landline on his desk, hoping he’d place the call before he started drinking Fosters or grilling blooming onions on the barbie, or whatever it was talking koalas did.
The marsupial made that call and nodded as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line.
“No wukkas,” said the koala once he hung up the phone. “You go on through. Sorry mate, I’m just doing my job, deadset. Gotta check to see if the visitor might be a drongo or a crook.”
“I didn’t know those attributes were still required in order to come to Australia,” I told him as I walked through.
I could hear him muttering something about bloody Yanks as I went.
Chapter 12
I got to sleep in my own bed that night, but my sleep wasn’t restful. The various problems I was dealing with were escalating. I’d never been afraid of facing danger, or standing for what was right, but I liked my challenges straightforward. Hunt down a serial killer. Protect a sacred grove. Encourage a malevolent sorcerer to move their operation outside the boundaries of my borough. Instead, I was wrestling with issues I couldn’t fight head-on or bluff my way through.
Mose was as good as gone, leaving a well-meaning but less capable John Smith struggling to lead the Watch. Emersonians terrorized the gifted population of the city with carte blanche from the mayor’s office. Angels and demons were preparing to turn the city into a battleground over a disagreement I didn’t fully understand. And as if all that weren’t enough, only a flimsy armband stood between me and a deferred fae execution.
Those were big scope problems. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why Daniel Chulsky had ever thought I’d be a good candidate to constantly deal with such issues on behalf of Abaddon. I felt supremely unqualified, and at a loss for what to do next.
After a few hours of fitful sleep, I felt somewhat better. My problems wouldn’t just go away. I needed to address them methodically, take it one step at a time, focus on the parts of each problem I could unravel. At some point, fortune would have to smile upon me, for variety’s sake.
For the moment, the problem that seemed the least insurmountable was getting past the cat in the Gravesend Cemetery. If I could break into the Rojas house, perhaps I could then get to the bottom of what it was the angels and demons wanted and scratch a potential armageddon off my list of troubles.
First, I loaded up on artifacts. I didn’t know exactly what the cat was: a nature spirit, a poltergeist, or a feline Cerberus guarding the interred. I brought everything I could think of and a few items that were outside the box, just in case.
Second, I asked for help.
Terrie Winter was superb at identifying various kinds of magic, and she had as much experience as me in dealing with the peculiar manifestations of the same. She was also one of the most powerful gifted I’d ever met, save for gods, angels, and other souped-up entities.
“I’m on my way,” Terrie said when I summarized the problem for her. “Text me the address. Oh, and grab me an everything bagel with butter from that spot you like. I haven’t had breakfast.”
Forty minutes later, I handed her the food and a paper coffee cup with a Bagel Beagle logo. We leaned against her Corvette—the convertible was shiny and new but, as best I could tell, not at all magical—and I explained the problem to her in greater detail. I trusted Terrie completely—she already knew that I was a middling and any other secrets I might keep were insignificant by comparison.
“This should be fun.” Terrie wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “I love cats.”
“I don’t think you’re going to love this cat.” I glanced at the metal fence.
The cemetery looked serene. The accumulation of snow in the street had already melted, leaving only scattered piles of dirty slush. But beyond the gate, the gravestones were still covered in a shroud of pristine white snow.
“Let’s see.” Terrie held her enchanted staff to the metal bars, poked it through, and examined the lock on the front gate. “An eternal summer enchantment is contained within the cemetery. It has nothing to do with the fence or the lock. Those are both ordinary.” She stuck her hand through the bars up to the elbow. “See? Nothing. Guess we have to get in there to activate it.”
“Right,” I said, remembering my short and ignoble flight over the fence, landing in the street. “Let’s be extra careful.”
“Always am,” said Terrie. Then she climbed the fence and swung one foot over to the other side. “Need a special invitation?”
I followed. We dropped onto the ground inside the fence, and landed in tall grass, surrounded by insects and birds, and a warm summer breeze.
“Sweet!” said Terrie. She looked up at the cloudless sky. “I may have to start coming here to work on my suntan.”
I pointed toward the center of the cemetery, where the old tuxedo cat perched atop the same gravestone. It was as though the cat hadn’t moved in the days since my last visit.
As if on cue, the cat looked up and studied us with its amber eyes.
I could feel it coming. Like static electricity in the air before the storm. I braced for impact.
Terrie raised her staff, its swirling wood patterns leading up to a fist-sized purple gemstone embedded at the top. A wave of arcane energy rushed forth from the cat, broke against the pulsating gemstone and washed around us like floodwater finding its way past a tall rock.
“Good kitty,” she said. “Nice kitty. You can stop this now.” The onslaught of energy didn’t cease. Terrie’s arm began to tremble with effort, the tip of the staff shaking. “Little help?” she asked me.
I activated an ancient Peruvian disc, which the Huari people had used to counter the Tiwanaku war spells long before the Inca dominated that part of South America. It emitted a powerful barrier, capable of blocking most hostile magic.
“This will buy us a few minutes, tops,” I said. Huari discs were highly effective but also short-lived. It took both a long time and a considerable amount of magic to recharge one.
Terrie lowered her staff and sighed in relief.
“I’m going to try a psychic link,” she said. She focused on the cat, her brown eyes locking with the creature’s unblinking stare.
Everything grew quiet. The birds, insects, and even the breeze were silent as the two communed. The waves of arcane power emanating from the cat continued to noiselessly break against the power of the Huari barrier.
After about twenty seconds of this, Terrie gasped and broke eye contact with the cat. She turned to me, looking like a diver who’d finally breached the surface and inhaled a sweet lungful of fresh air.
“How long was I out?” she asked.
I told her.
“Wow. It felt like an hour.” Terrie shuddered. “Remind me not to do that again anytime soon.”
The arcane energy was steadily eroding the barrier.
“We have maybe a minute left,” I said.
“Lady Moody,” Terrie addressed the cat, “we mean you and those whose peace you preserve no harm. We’re of the Watch. We’re guardians. Protectors, like you.”
If the cat heard or understood her, it—she?—showed no sign.
“We humbly ask safe passage,” said Terrie. “We request the sanctuary of the Gravesend settlement.”
I could feel the barrier beginning to give.
“She’s not buying what I’m selling,” said Terrie. She raised her staff again. “I think a strategic retreat is in order.”
“Yeah, no argument from me.”
Terrie and I backed a few steps to the fence. Puss-without-Boots watched our hasty retreat. As soon as both of us touched the fence, the cat lowered its gaze, and the attack ceased. Moments later, the remnants of the protective barrier dissipated as well.
We didn’t try our luck again, opting to climb fast.
“So, Lady Moody?” I asked when we were safe in the street. The temperature around us was once again within the margin of error of water’s freezing point.
“She was the first woman to have founded a village in colonial America,” said Terrie.
I nodded. That much I knew.
“She was also a gifted, who escaped persecution by the Puritans. When she founded the Gravesend settlement, she made it known that all manner of gifted, heretics, and free-thinkers were welcome here. And they came, from all across the continent. Gifted and mundanes, living in peace, side by side.”
“That’s nice. Doesn’t explain the belligerent feline,” I said.
“I’m getting to that,” said Terrie. “In exchange for sanctuary, the gifted who lived in the settlement poured some of their magic into protections erected around the village commons.”
“And the cemetery is within the boundary of the commons,” I added.
“Right. When she was alive, Lady Moody used the accumulated magic to protect the settlement, much like Mose could tap into the nexus under the Watchtower and harness its power to protect the city.”
I felt a pang of guilt at the mention of Mose and made myself focus on the present problem.
Terrie continued, “When she died, Lady Moody imbued her power and spirit into her familiar, a cat who passed a few weeks before she did. It became the guardian of the commons. Over time, as the gifted ceased donating their magic, its area of influence shrank until it encompassed only the cemetery.”
“She told you all that?” I asked, looking back over the fence. Not that I could see the cat, or any signs of summer, from outside the cemetery.
“Not exactly.” Terrie leaned on her staff for support. The ordeal had taken a lot out of her. “I saw flashes. Moments from Deborah Moody’s life, moments from the familiar’s afterlife. It was a jumble. Postcards mixed with flashes of emotion, out of order. A puzzle I had to put together, and I felt like I’d been at it for a long time before I finally sorted out some of the details.”
“We’re up against a four-hundred-year-old witch possessing her dead cat. Lovely.” I took mental inventory of the artifacts I brought. I hadn’t thought far enough outside the box, after all.
“I thought so, too, which is why I tried to reason with her,” said Terrie. “But that isn’t quite right. Lady Moody transferred her power and will into the vessel she made using the dead cat, but I don’t think her mind, her consciousness is there at all. It’s just a thing, programmed to keep out gifted intruders. Like one of your amulets, except biological rather than inanimate, if that makes sense?”
“Hmm.” I shrugged noncommittally. The explanation made sense. Then again, sense was such a relative thing. “All right, how do we turn off a zombie cat?”
“This isn’t going to be easy. Generations of gifted poured magic into the Gravesend commons for over a century,” said Terrie. “They kept doing it for a while even after Lady Moody passed away and was buried somewhere in there.” She pointed at the cemetery. “They wanted their descendants, and the site of their eternal rest, to be guarded after they were gone.”
“Which is why the enchantment hasn’t run out of juice,” I said.
“Exactly. Since no one is adding more power, the enchanted area has been shrinking, slowly. If you had enough time, you could simply wait it out,” said Terrie.
