Mad Maudlin Read online

  * * *

  "Hosea!" Caity said, opening the door. She looked wide-eyed and jittery, and for a moment Hosea was sure she'd forgotten all about their date.

  Her hair was scraped severely back from her head and pulled into a tight ponytail—not a particularly flattering style, as it made her face look very round. She was dressed in clothes he'd never seen her wear before: a stark black velour tunic top and pants that looked oddly like a uniform.

  "If something's come up . . ." he said gently.

  "No, no, no . . . come in. I was just—with a client. Last-minute thing. It ran later than I expected. Come on in. I need to change, then we'll go. Is that okay?"

  "Of course it's okay," Hosea said reassuringly. "Take your time."

  Caity skittered off toward the bedroom, and Hosea followed her in, locking the front door behind him. In a moment he heard the sound of running water.

  Caity's apartment was a mirror image of his, but the living room had been set up entirely as a studio and workroom. The walls were covered with art in all stages of execution from concept sketches to proof pages and a few finished book covers. Most artists these days worked on computer, but Caity still worked on paper and canvas, converting her work to IRIS files only at the last step before she turned them in. She said the paper and pigments talked to her, and the computer didn't.

  Her work was lovely—if her drawings were anything like what Underhill looked like, Hosea was surprised that Eric had ever wanted to leave. Plump graceful unicorns with iridescent coats; small winged fairies that still managed to be cheerful and dignified, not sappy; forest brownies with all the happy innocence of puppies . . . this was the Enchanted Forest without its darkness, as was suitable for the young readers who would see her works. She was known for her whimsical animals as well. He looked at the titles of some of the finished books on the shelf: Strawberry Tea, Earl Ferret Goes To Town, The Cat Who Sang Opera, Tea With Mice. . . .

  Caity was a special lady, which was hardly surprising. Guardian House chose all its tenants. Not all of them were magicians like Eric and the Guardians, but all of them were special in some way. All of them had what Hosea's grandmother would have called "a touch of the 'shine.' " Most of them were artists in one way or another—either actual artists, like Caity, or writers, dancers, musicians, poets and the like, even if they had to work other jobs to support their art. He wandered around the room for a few minutes, revisiting favorite pieces. Most of Caity's professional work was in colored inks and ink wash, with a lot of fine linework, but occasionally she would do a piece "just for me" and then she would paint with brush and pigments. Some of these were wildly abstract—Caity sometimes claimed that nobody who couldn't draw a cow that looked like a cow had any business doing nonrepresentational work, but that sometimes it was fun to let go of pure shape—some were representational, but almost Expressionistic. None were framed.

  The lights were on over her drawing table. He wondered what she was working on now. He went over and looked down. Pen and ink, a blur of colored lines, but so many lines, so much dense cross-hatching, that it almost looked like an engraving. He took a closer look, and frowned. If this was for a children's book, he'd hate to meet the children it was for.

  At first he'd thought it was an abstract piece, a "just for me" piece, despite the medium. But her other abstracts were light and playful, in love with color and light, not this dark muddy thing. And the longer he stared at it, the more he seemed to see figures appearing out of the squalid blur of cross-hatching. Red-eyed, angry figures, with long wicked claws . . .

  He looked away with a faint shudder of distaste. There was a sketchbook laying on top of the taboret beside the drawing table. With a faint sense of guilt—this was snooping, and he knew it—he picked it up and paged through it quickly.

  More sketches, some obviously studies for the work on the table, others different, but with the same feel to them.

  If this was a new direction for her art, he really didn't care for it.

  And he wondered why she'd fibbed to him about where she'd been this afternoon, because unless she'd been meeting her client down at the local Catholic church—or some other place where they burned a lot of frankincense—she hadn't just come in from any business meeting. Her clothes and hair had reeked of the stuff. He knew the smell perfectly well from Toni's apartment. And he also knew that Caity wasn't herself any kind of a Catholic—most folk from her neck of the woods were some flavor of Baptist or Pentecostal, and he knew Caity well enough by now to know that she wasn't especially churchly.

  Not my business, Hosea told himself firmly. Less'n she makes it my business. Guardians didn't interfere in the affairs of ordinary folk unless asked for help. Paul and Toni had dinned that into his head thoroughly. Guardians didn't meddle unasked, hard as it might be to stand back and watch somebody head down the greased road to Perdition while you did nothing. The most a Guardian might do was offer help—but if that help was rejected, there was an end to it.

  "Always remember this, Hosea," Toni had told him. "You can't save the whole world. You'll find you have enough to do just trying to save the people who ask you for help. And you won't always be able to save even them."

  "All ready?" Caity asked brightly, coming out of the back. She'd taken the time for a quick shower, and to put on the blue dress he'd told her he especially liked.

  She saw him looking at the picture on the drawing table, and the bright smile dimmed, just a little. "Oh, that," she said, switching off the Tensor lamps over the table. "I should have put that away. It's nothing, really. Come on, we'll be late."

  But Hosea, holding her coat for her as they prepared to leave, could not rid himself of the notion that the painting on the table was just a little bit more than "nothing."

  * * *

  The apartment was not what he intended to become used to, the man known to his followers as Fafnir, Master of Treasure, told himself. It was certainly not as much as he deserved. But at least it was free, courtesy of one of his so-called Inner Circle. They fell all over themselves to give him things—money, electronics, living space. It was funny; the more things people handed over to you unasked, the smarter they thought they were. And if they weren't yet . . . sufficiently appreciative . . . well, he had plans to take care of that.

  It wasn't much of an apartment—a small one-bedroom in an area that had been known in less-gentrified days as Hell's Kitchen—but at least he hadn't had to ask for it. To ask was an admission of weakness, and Fafnir had no intention of ever appearing weak. He'd dropped a few well-placed and properly subtle hints around the time that Andrew had gotten so pissy about him being behind on the rent, and Juliana had just offered it to him. That was the beauty of this whole deal. He never had to demean himself by asking for anything. That would ruin the whole aura of mastery.

  The room was lit solely by dozens of white candles in glass jars that stood clustered on tables and along the walls, and the air was heavy with incense smoke from the three tall antique censers that burned in three corners of the room, constantly replenished by one of the Faithful. In fact, one of his minions was going around tending to the censers and candles at the moment. By now the ceiling had been tinted a shiny dark umber by the pounds of frankincense that they'd burned since they'd begun meeting here. The scent permeated the rugs, the drapes, the walls, everything in the room. His supervisor at work had complained about it once or twice, until he'd started keeping his work clothes in double layers of plastic bags in the back of the closet, and showering just before he left for work. That cut the smell, and he'd gotten no more complaints.

  It was nice to be able to bank most of his salary. Nice to be able to afford to buy anything he wanted, and to make an occasional show of wealth to impress the sheep (of course they had no idea about the job. That wouldn't go at all well with his aura of mystery). Nicer still to be able to get his Faithful to buy everything he needed or wanted, and have them urge him to accept these gifts to aid him in his Work.

  The best
sort of cons were the ones in which the mark fleeced himself.

  It was Andrew who'd given him the first hint, back when they'd still been friends, back when he'd still just been plain Freddie Warwick. One night a few years ago Andrew had gotten spectacularly drunk on a bottle of Scotch a grateful client had given him for getting him out of a tax mess—Andrew wasn't much of a drinker—and had told Freddie about something that had happened to him when he'd first come to New York, when he'd sublet an apartment for a rent that had seemed too good to be true.

  It turned out—so Andrew had said—that it was. The apartment was haunted by a succubus—a spirit that drained the life-force of whoever slept there. Andrew couldn't figure out what was wrong. Neither could his doctors.

  Fortunately, the computer consultant at Andrew's office could. Paul Kern, Andrew had said his name was. He'd figured out Andrew's problem, and gotten rid of the succubus. Andrew had gone on to enjoy one of the cheapest apartments in New York for years, until the leaseholder finally figured out that if he wasn't dead, it must be safe to evict him.

  And while solving Andrew's problem, Paul had told him a little about himself. Paul was a Guardian, someone who protected people like Andrew from things like that succubus. While he hadn't said much, Andrew had been pretty impressed. Apparently this Paul Kern could do some pretty amazing things, things just like Dr. Strange in the comic books Andrew had read as a kid.

  Andrew wasn't really forthcoming the next day once he sobered up. He tried to pretend he'd just been goofing, pulling his roommate's leg, and refused to talk about it any more. But Freddie had known better than to believe that. Andrew had about as much imagination as the average accountant. So Freddie had gone to a comic book store and bought a bunch of old Dr. Strange comic books.

  If Paul Kern could do even half of what Dr. Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, could do . . .

  At first, it had all seemed completely unbelievable, but he applied Occam's Razor to the situation and finally decided to suspend his disbelief and assume that all of this psychic magic crap was real and investigate it as such.

  He'd cruised the 'net, now that he knew there was something to look for, and found a few more references to Guardians. From that he picked up a few facts that Andrew had missed, or maybe hadn't known.

  There was more than one, for example.

  And when one died, another was created.

  But most important, the more he found, the more certain he became that all this was real. There were Guardians, they had amazing abilities, and for that reason, they were working very hard to keep their existence a secret.

  Now he had a new ambition. He wanted to become a Guardian. But he wouldn't waste his Guardian power going around saving losers like Andrew from demons. No. He'd do really cool things with it. And he would certainly not squander his time and effort on anyone but himself.

  And he bet there were a lot of other people who felt the same way he did.

  That was how he got his second idea.

  His very own cult. But not a bunch of bottom-feeder losers, whose day jobs consisted of asking "Would you like fries with that?" No, his cult would be for the elite, or at least those with ambition and aspirations in that direction.

  His Faithful gathered at his feet now, looking up at him expectantly: Juliana, and Neil, and Gregory; Luke, Vanessa, Quinn and Faith and Sarah. The flower of his searching, the cream of the crop. Well-to-do, well-educated, well-bred. Young, competitive, fast-tracked New Yorkers, looking for a little something more in their lives to help them make sense of it all, and just maybe, help them along to the fast track. And, down where it really mattered, not smart enough, not educated enough, and just a little too trusting to save themselves from people like him.

  "Now, my Inner Circle, we have dismissed the Outer Circle to the mundane world. It is time to unveil the Eye of the Inner Planes," Fafnir said.

  A sigh of expectation traveled around the circle of eight men and women who sat at his feet.

  "Neil, it is your turn to fetch the Eye," he said.

  Neil got to his feet and crossed the room, coming back with a large wooden box. He set it at Fafnir's feet. Fafnir opened it reverently.

  Inside, on a bed of black velvet, lay a perfectly clear sphere of quartz crystal the size of a softball. It had cost over $7,000. Fafnir hadn't paid for it, of course. He had merely remarked idly that such an object would be the perfect vehicle to focus Inner Plane Energies for the Work of the group. And it had appeared, presented to him as a gift.

  He lifted both the sphere and the tray out and set them on the floor. "See how it glows?" he said, knowing that everyone in the room would be willing to believe that they saw it glowing, though it was nothing more than the natural property of crystal and reflected candlelight, plus a little hypnotic suggestion.

  "It feeds on your energy, storing it for its work. In the presence of the False Guardians it would turn black and shatter. Once they are destroyed, you will see it glow so brightly you will be able to read print by it." The power of suggestion was a wonderful thing.

  "And your powers will be restored to you," Gregory said, in a combination of reverence and awe, with just a hint, just a touch, of resentment—but not resentment aimed at Fafnir.

  Fafnir smiled faintly and said nothing. He never claimed powers for himself, not explicitly. He let others do that for him. It was much more effective that way, he'd found.

  "The False Guardians are very powerful," he said in warning tones. His voice became deeper, his words slower, as he retold the old story—the central myth of the Inner Circle—once again. "Their first act, upon seizing power, was to shackle the True Guardian, and render him powerless on this plane. They felt that humanity, deprived of its only remaining defender, would be easy prey."

  At the familiar words, the eight sighed deeply, gazing raptly at Fafnir's face. Though he told this story openly and completely now, it had been months before he'd allowed them to know it, forcing them to piece it together out of hints and unfinished sentences, and even now he told it only in the third person. It made him sound so much more humble and self-effacing that way, so much more the innocent and noble victim.

  "It did not occur to them that the True Guardian, even though mortally wounded, would seek out others with a spark of the latent Guardian power, would gather those potential defenders about him, would painstakingly impart what knowledge he still could to them, so that—when the time was right—he and his Inner Circle could rise up—together—and overthrow, not only the False Guardians, but the shackles that bound him. When the False Guardians are destroyed, and their power restored to its rightful possessor, the True Guardian shall be the founder of a new order of Guardians, imparting his power to all his loyal followers, so that all of them can take up the task of protecting humanity from supernatural evil. . . ."

  The storytelling ritual came to a close, and the sheep sighed contentedly, not one of them seeing that there were holes in his story that you could drive a truck through. If the False Guardians were as evil as all that, why wouldn't they simply kill the True Guardian? Wouldn't that make a lot more sense than leaving him around to cause the same kind of trouble that Fafnir was causing now?

  But they wanted to believe in his fairy tale, and they weren't going to ask any questions that might make it go away.

  And when the False Guardians—oh, well, why not be honest, if only in his own mind—when the Guardians, or at least one of them, was destroyed, wouldn't the closest suitable person become the next Guardian? That was the way it went, according to the Internet. The power passed from one Guardian to the next. And he'd be the closest suitable person, right? Because he'd be right there. And then he'd have the Guardian power. And the rest of the Guardians just better watch out then.

  Along with the rest of New York.

  "Now, friends, it is time to work. Let us gaze into the Eye of the Inner Planes, and see what it tells us about what we must do next. Breathe with me. . . ."

  After a few moments
of deep breathing and staring into the stone, they were in a light trance, ready for his suggestions of what he saw in the crystal. Not that he ever actually saw anything, of course. Fafnir was interested in molding his followers into a weapon for his wielding, not having actual visions.

  He'd told them the truth, too, more or less. He had every intention of overthrowing the Guardians, and taking their power for his own. With the backing of both his Inner and Outer Circles—and what he was planning should be enough to arrange the wholehearted cooperation of both—he should be strong enough for that. He wasn't entirely a charlatan. He had some power of his own—as much as anybody could gain through rudimentary hypnosis. It wasn't much, but it gave him enough for him to know that he wanted more.

  But as for the rest of it . . . there'd be no sharing, no founding a new order of Guardians. He called these witless dupes gathered at his feet his Inner Circle, and they certainly thought they were, but there was room for only one person in his Inner Circle, and that was Fafnir, Master of Treasure.

  "Here, my faithful, do you see what I see? The image is becoming clear now. . . ."

  * * *

  Eric and Greystone had stayed up late, watching all the old Bogart movies in Eric's library, while Eric planned what to do next. He felt a great deal better about things after his visit to Ria, knowing that Magnus was not only alive, but on Eric's home turf. New York was a rough town to survive, but all of Eric's resources, both magical and mundane, were right here. If Magnus was in trouble, this was the best place on Earth for him to be in trouble in. And the Everforest Gate and Node was less than an hour away by elvensteed—much less, in fact—if they had to get him Underhill in a hurry.

  And Ria had been right about the other thing as well. He supposed it was what Oriana would call a "breakthrough." His parents were jerks. They'd always been jerks. They'd proved themselves jerks—twice over. He supposed he should be just as glad they couldn't have a third child. . . .