Brian Thomsen & Martin H. Greenberg (ed), page 7
“Cottages housed us,” the older Marie stated.
“Ah, very much like Chicago for some,” muttered Marc.
“Nothing like Chicago,” both women chorused.
The limo finally turned onto Rampart Street. The proximity of the graveyard made the hairs rise on Marc’s neck and arms.
The car pulled to the side of the avenue, next to the gates of the St. Louis Cemetery. Marc exited after two of the bodyguards, hauling Tesa out by her hand. A guide waited at the wrought-iron barrier with a key, glancing at his watch.
“It’s very irregular to open up a half-hour early,” he drawled.
Marc thrust a hundred-dollar bill into his hand. “I understand, but this is an emergency. Make sure you and the other guides get something good out of this.”
“Yes, sir!” Eyes wide, the man unlocked one side of the gate and swung it wide. “There you are, sir, ma’am. Anything special I can show you while I’m here?”
“No,” Di Luna said roughly. “I know where I’m going.” Careful not to trip, hands shaking with more than his usual spate of graveyard nerves, he headed for the Laveau vault. Planting himself firmly in front of it, he reached his left hand to the bodyguard with the coin. The man pulled the fabric jewelry pouch from his pocket and handed it to his employer.
Marc took out the coin, examined both sides, shrugged, then quickly bent and placed the quarter among the other offerings left for the voudoun queens. It looked no different from the two quarters he carried in his front suit pocket. Rubbing his fingers as if he’d carried something noisome between them, he stepped back from the grave and listened intently.
“What is it, honey?” asked Tesa, worried.
“Shhh,” replied Di Luna, searching within his mind for taint of the voodooiennes.
No drums, no Creole-lilted French. No Maries.
Grinning, feeling better now than any time in the last two weeks, Marc thanked the guide and returned to the limo with his wife and bodyguards. In a festive mood, he bought them all dinner at a famous Creole restaurant while waiting for the Lear jet’s refueling. He settled deep into the limo’s cushions on the ride back to the airport, convinced he could finally sleep. Dismissing the driver with a huge tip and a compliment on her driving when she pulled the car to a gentle stop on the tarmac, Di Luna scrambled out and boarded the plane with his wife, bodyguards front and back. As soon as the jet climbed into the air and headed for Chicago, Marc fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Tesa roused him just before landing and handed him an envelope. “This just came for you from the pilot, darling. It came over the radio.”
Marc tore open the sealed paper. Screening it from the eyes of his wife, he read the few handwritten lines.
“Situation serious. Must have your decision immediately.”
He crumpled the note. “Damn.”
“Something important?” asked Tesa.
“Just means I’ll have to spend a few hours in the office tonight before I can come to bed.”
She pouted so very prettily. “Oh, honey, do you really have to?”
“Sorry.” He kissed her tenderly, the first time in two weeks. “I really have to. I’ll make it quick as possible, I promise.”
They held hands during the limo ride back to their lakeshore condo, even while he was on the phone. Marc kissed Tesa again before she disappeared to tuck in their children, Carl and Julia. Di Luna disappeared into the office he maintained at home, picked up the phone, and dialed a number.
“Di Luna here. What’s the situation now? That bad?” He listened for a long time, his expression turning stormy as he settled into his high-backed leather chair. “Sounds like we need the hit squad. No, not all of them, just the best, the top three or four. Yes, I’ll see to it. Don’t worry. Immediately.”
He put down the phone. Disgusting how things could quickly disintegrate when he took a few hours off. This situation had involved a major drug pickup and sale. Somehow the authorities had gotten wind of it, apparently through the flapping mouth of one of the little people involved whom he hadn’t been around to approve. No time to delay. He punched a number.
“Guido, Di Luna here. Yes, the trip went fine. Listen, I need your help. Remem-m-m—”
African drums robbed his throat of speech, his mind of thought. Both Maries stood before his internal eye, bright as if surrounded by flames.
“You said … you’d get out … of my dreams!” Marc labored to howl. “I returned your damned coin!”
“Oui, your dreams,” the older Marie spat. “This is not one.”
“And you are directing an odious plan again,” her daughter stated. “We are here to stop that. To stop you.”
“You can’t. This is free-enterprise business,” Di Luna returned, recovering.
“Oh, but we can, mon cher,” replied Marie the First with a feral grin. “This duty was given us by Powers beyond the grave. We do not sit biding our time in Purgatory but are involved in active good works. We’ve been planning your retirement for months.”
“Better than singing hymns to a Being who turns an ear our direction once a century,” Marie Fil nodded.
“And infinitely more satisfying.” The older voodooienne nodded to the phone squawking in Marc’s hand. “That call was routed straight to the police. An individual in your organization, one you trust, has been an informant for quite some time.”
Di Luna felt the blood desert his face. “But this line is secure.”
“No more,” Marie the younger announced. “The authorities are on the way.”
Marc roared, “I’ll get you voodoo bitches!” Dropping the receiver, he lunged for them, hands clutching at their throats.
And passed right through. The wall of his office brought him up short. Turning, Di Luna dove again, pounding his fists against the edge of the desk when he couldn’t reach the Maries.
“Definitely deranged,” the daughter said. “But he’ll recover in time for a lengthy trial.”
“Oui,” agreed her mother. “Now, much as I hate to miss a delicious denouement, there is that situation with the senator awaiting us.”
“Must we go?”
“Only if you’re not interested in finishing two dances in the same night.”
“You’re still determined to make a reputation.”
“You’re the one so desirous of continuing the one I build.” She twitched the flounce of her sleeve into place. “Let us be gone. We are finished here.”
They faded, leaving howling Di Luna to the ministrations of the police breaking through the door.
* * *
Assassins & Hitmen
“Tonight, he will be sleeping with the fishes.”
What’s a mob without a hitman? It would be like a politician without a bribe, a precinct without a pad, and a stoolie without an unfortunate and very fatal accident. Whether he’s a very close friend of the family or just a very professional hired gun practicing homicide for profit, he’s a principal member of the organized crime team, ready with a rod (or some equivalent) to help settle age-old or recently incurred family disputes.
… and what is a hitman but the modern day equivalent of the family assassin of the good old days of medieval and Renaissance vendettas. This is the spin that Fiona Patton and Robert Greenberger take as the new kid in town is forced to earn his bones, while Mickey Zucker Reichert turns the focus to a fellow who has been practicing his chosen trade for an extremely long time.
* * *
A DYING LIFE
by Fiona Patton
The city of Cerchicava was growing. The black death had passed, the Mage’s War was a distant memory, and a renaissance of culture, both magical and financial, had flowered, swelling the population of the ancient city-state to record numbers. Hundreds flocked there seeking a new life of riches and opportunities. Some found it. Most did not.
The two men who leaned against the tavern wall in the upscale church district that night were after bigger prey then some chance-met country immigrant. One was heavyset, bulky muscles straining the cloth of his patched doublet. He carried a truncheon and a hooded lantern. The other was slight, eighteen or nineteen years old with dark, feverish eyes that seemed to look inward at some danger only he could see.
In the distance the great bell of San Demino began to toll. The smaller man squinted up through the shadows.
“He’ll be out soon,” he noted.
His companion grunted. “You sure, Coll?”
“Bennie’s been setting him for a week. He always goes in, has a dram, and comes out in time to walk to San Lucazi’s for evening prayers.”
“Priest is he?”
“Yeah, Paulo.”
“Is he protected?”
“Not magically.”
“Wonder who he pissed off.”
Coll just shrugged. He was a “cutter,” Paulo, a “marker.” Neither knew more than that their contact had fingered the “mark” and told them to collect tonight. Neither wanted to know more.
It began to rain, and Coll shivered under his thin jacket. He’d been collecting with a marker for over a year now, a sign that his work had been noticed. He’d been moved up to “set jobs”: collections of specific items for specific spells. It kept him out of the cemeteries but not out of the rain.
The tavern door opened, and noise poured into the street, interrupting his thoughts. A large man, red robes prominent in the lantern light, emerged and immediately turned south toward the distant row of churches. Coll took the lantern, and he and Paulo fell into step behind him.
They caught up with him swiftly. The priest had barely enough time to gasp his surprise as the marker slammed into him, driving him toward an alley mouth. Coll was right behind, a thin stiletto appearing in his hand.
Paulo’s arm came up, there was a distinctive crack and the priest was down. Coll scuttled forward as he fell, flinging the priest onto his back and pressing his ear against his chest. The priest moaned.
“Paulo!”
The big man raised his arm again. The priest’s eyes locked on Coil’s face, the sudden knowledge of a death too horrible to conceive of sending a shock through them both. The priest cried out and clutched at the smaller man’s clothing, trying to throw him off. Unnerved for just an instant, Coll could only stare back at him, and then the jack came down with a crunch. The priest went limp.
The cutter went to work quickly now, slicing through the robe with an experienced motion. The white flesh underneath was soon exposed, and as Paulo held the lantern, Coll pressed his ear to the priest’s chest once again. There was no sound.
A quick, deep cut in the dead man’s abdomen exposed the soft organs underneath. Coll reached in with his left hand, lifted the liver, turned it, and sliced an inch long piece cleanly off with an expertise born from years of practice. One motion and the urn inside his pocket was out, opened and the “item” deposited in the liquid within. Another motion and it was corked, soft wax pressed around the mouth. Coll pocketed the urn and, without a word, left Paulo to dispose of the body.
No one would ever know that Zeno de Podeno, pastor of San Lucazi, had been marked to die so that his flesh might be sold to the enemies of his family—no one but the cutter, the marker, and the necromancer who would make use of the item.
Moving quickly through the alleyway, Coll stripped off his bloody jacket, using it to clean his hands. He’d barely flung it to one side before a sudden stab of pain doubled him over. His stomach heaved and, stumbling to his knees, he crouched, choking and retching, in the lee of a dilapidated building.
To many, necromancy was the most heinous crime that could ever be visited upon the dead. To defile a corpse was vile enough and called for brutal penalties in all the city-states; but to use dead flesh against the living was to attack the spirit of them both and was punishable by death. It was a gruesome, highly illegal business but one so lucrative that many were willing to risk the savage penalties to service Cerchicava’s growing number of Death Mages.
The priests taught that those who served the Necromantic Spellcraft were as dammed as the mages themselves. Coll believed them. Wiping his hand across his mouth, he waited for the fit to pass, then stood and straightened his clothes. He’d been corpse-cutting since he was a boy, starting by holding the lantern while his master worked. In due time he’d moved up to crude collections from plague victims and hanged criminals, then finally to set jobs. It was all he knew. He was good at it. It had taken him off the streets and made him safe, and if the faces of the dead came back to hover about his bedside, there were plenty of herbs that brought him the insensibility of a drugged night’s sleep. He was alive, that was all that mattered.
Pulling himself roughly together, he continued on his way.
Gebhard, Coil’s contact, maintained an alehouse on the docks. After a word with the “protector” by the door, the young cutter was ushered into the back room. The man was busy scratching figures in a ledger and did not look up, although the tense set of his shoulders said he knew who approached.
Used to the aversion of others, Coll still glared at him. Hypocrite, he thought bitterly. Setting the urn down on the table, he turned to go. He would be paid later. Whatever Gebhard thought of him, he needed him.
As he reached for the door, the man looked up.
“I’ve another collection for you,” he said without meeting Coil’s eyes.
The cutter turned back.
“A set job, very special, very specific.”
Coll nodded.
“You’re to go to La Palazzo de Sulla immediately. You’ll get your instructions there.”
Coll went white.
La Palazzo de Sulla was the home of Lord Montifero de Sepori, one of the most powerful noblemen in Cerchicava. It was rumored that he was a Master of Necromancy, but no one, not even the city’s due, had ever had the evidence or the courage to accuse him. Those who worked in the cutting trade knew he was their ultimate master but it was never spoken of. Lord Sepori had a long reach. He could pluck your thoughts from the air as easily as he could snuff out your life. If you were loyal and useful, he would insure your safety; if you crossed him, or hesitated, you’d find yourself on the receiving end of a spell too horrible to even contemplate.
Coll had contemplated it, and his blood ran cold as he approached the small side door of the palazzo an hour later.
Rumor had several cutters dead under terrible circumstances of late. One, a small, consumptive youth named Alfons, had been found by a dipper, his ribs staved in and one heart chamber sliced cleanly away. Like the others, Coll had simply assumed he’d tried to betray their powerful master. Now he wasn’t so sure. Perhaps he’d only doubted. Perhaps he’d laid awake at night, listening for the faltering heartbeat of the dying, feeling their fear sink into his spirit and shrivel it up. Perhaps he’d hesitated, just once, as Coll had tonight.
His mouth suddenly dry, the young cutter rapped on the door.
Lord Sepori was a husky man in his late forties, his thick, black hair streaked with gray. He was seated by the fire in a book-lined study, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to reveal muscular arms scored with the burn marks of years of spellcraft. Coll could almost feel the power radiating off him. He looked up as a servant bent to whisper of Coil’s arrival, and the cutter could see the red shimmer of a magical spell over his eyes.
Sepori gestured. Hesitantly, Coll entered the room, pausing as the man stood.
“Gebhard speaks very highly of your work,” he said, his voice a surprisingly warm baritone. “A man who might go far. A man to take notice of.”
“Ah, thank you, My Lord.”
“Walk with me.”
Striving to hide the revulsion he felt, Coll followed the mage through a small door and blinked. Before him stretched a huge, glass conservatory filled with roses. Hooded lanterns hung along the stone sidewall illuminating the structure with a soft, yellow glow, and the air was filled with perfume and the odor of rich, damp earth. Coll could only stare about him in astonishment.
Lord Sepori’s red-tinged eyes glittered in cold amusement. “Does this surprise you?”
An immediate denial died on the cutter’s lips. “Yes, My Lord.”
Showing his teeth, Sepori reached down to caress a peach-colored bud. “Such beauty,” he murmured. “Beauty should be preserved, don’t you agree?”
“Ah, yes, sir.”
“And ugliness destroyed.”
“Sir?”
Crushing a small insect between his fingers, the lord straightened. “Gino!”
A man working within the roses at the far end shuffled forward. The magical tattoos on his face glowed hotly, as did the stitching across his mouth and nose. Coll took an involuntary step backward.
Sepori took no notice of him. “These plants are infested,” he said in disgust. “Destroy them and inspect the others at once.”
The apparition bowed, and Sepori moved on.
“We’re on the brink of tumultuous changes, Coll,” he said, his tone conversational once again. “Changes which may snatch a man from the richest palazzo or raise him from the vilest gutter. Do you follow?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Excellent. I require a very special item tonight, and I need a cutter of extraordinary skill and unshakable loyalty for the collection. One with the brains to rise in my organization as far as ambition may take him. I believe that you are such a man. Am I correct?”
The necromancer was very close to him now. Coll could smell the bitter odor of stale magic and preserving oil on his clothes. His chest grew tight, and he stilled the urge to inch away.
“Yes, My Lord.”
“The specifications are most precise. You may not take a marker, but the mark is young and ailing. He will not present a problem. His name is Lorenzo de Marco, the son of our most benevolent Duc Giovanni de Marco.”
Lord Sepori’s sharp gaze was on his face. Coll grew very still but dared not show any outer emotion. The mage continued.
