Dying Is My Business

Thirty-six

We entered the park, trying not to draw attention to ourselves, but after a couple of minutes it was obvious no one was giving us a second look. There were others in the crowd drawing much more attention than we were, women in colorful, cleavage-baring satin corsets and men dressed as knights riding upon flag-draped horses. There were Renaissance noblemen chatting on cell phones, and armor-plated squires gnawing on oversized barbecued turkey legs. Children ran by with foam rubber swords, giggling with delight, followed by a handful of adults walking with poleaxes and sheathed sabers that looked a lot more real. I caught a glimpse of a man in a peaked, storybook-style wizard’s hat, a curved wooden pipe in his mouth and a whittled walking stick in his hand. He reminded me of the twins in the photo of the Five-Pointed Star. It made me wonder if there were others at the festival who were like us, walking unnoticed amid the thousands who had no idea magic was real. What would the festivalgoers think if they knew? If they understood how dangerous magic was?

When I read The Ragana’s Revenge, I’d scoffed at the idea that magic could be real. I wished now that I’d had the chance to finish the book before losing it in the fire. Seeing as how my life had started to mirror the novel in ways I never would have imagined, it suddenly felt very important to know whether or not it had a happy ending.

We followed the paved path deeper into the park, surrounded on either side by booths of jewelers, gamers, purveyors of period clothing, and one booth labeled, oddly, YE OLDE LONG DISTANCE SERVICE, where a woman wearing a velvet gown and a wreath of flowers in her hair took customers’ applications on a decidedly anachronistic laptop. So much for escapism, I thought. The path was so packed with festivalgoers that we could only move at a crawl. As I weaved my way through, I almost collided with a group of college-aged men and women in forest-green tunics and dresses. They laughed at some private joke and touched their comically big, prosthetic pointed elf ears to check that they were on straight.

Next to me, Bethany adjusted her hair self-consciously.

A flash of red caught my eye in a small field just past the booths, where the crowd was less thick. A figure in a hooded red cloak was moving swiftly across the grass, his face hidden from me. He wasn’t browsing the booths or studiously checking the festival-grounds map like the others around him. He walked with speed and purpose, definitely heading somewhere specific.

Melanthius. I took off at a sprint after him.

“Trent, wait!” Isaac shouted after me, but I wasn’t about to let Reve Azrael’s manservant get away.

I zigzagged through the crowd and ducked past a blacksmith presentation at the edge of the path. I tried to keep my eyes on Melanthius as I ran, but every time I thought I was close, I lost him in the crowd, only to catch a glimpse of his red cloak again even farther away. I ran up the grassy hill toward him. Suddenly a unicorn appeared in my way, snorting and stamping one hoof. I paused, startled, then realized it wasn’t a unicorn at all, just a white horse with a long fake horn attached to a part of the bridle that covered its forehead. The long-haired, long-gowned woman riding atop it smiled down at the children who had gathered around her, blocking my path. I went around them and kept running. Ahead, Melanthius had paused near the edge of the forest, his back to me. I ran up, grabbed him by the shoulders of his cloak, and spun him around to face me.

A startled man with fat, ruddy cheeks and a patchy beard gaped back at me from inside the hood.

I let him go. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“The fuck is wrong with you, dude?” He walked off cursing as the others came running up behind me.

“It wasn’t Melanthius,” I said.

“I can see that,” Isaac replied angrily. “Don’t go running off like that again. We need to stick together.”

I scanned the crowd, only half listening. I saw red cloaks everywhere—on a teenage boy walking by, on a young woman buying something at a jewelry booth, on an older woman standing near the path and singing madrigals. “We’re never going to find him in this crowd,” I said.

A loud scream startled us. We took off running, following the commotion to the side of the park grounds, where a low stone wall overlooked the Hudson River. A crowd had gathered by the wall, pointing at the Palisades cliffs across the water. A thick, dark gray column billowed out of a cave in the cliffside and drifted across the river toward the park.

“Is that smoke?” Isaac asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s gargoyles.”

There were hundreds of them, all pouring out of the cave en masse and stretching like a ribbon across the sky. They followed the path of the river northward, flying inside a thick cloudlike cover of steam. It took me a moment to realize what the steam was. Their flesh was burning in the sunlight. They must have been in immense pain, but they had their orders direct from their king, and from what Jibril-khan had told me, if they didn’t obey they would end up dead. This was the Black Knight’s endgame, his final push to acquire Stryge’s power for himself, and he wasn’t the kind to let a tiny detail like his subjects’ painful aversion to sunlight stop him.

“We have to get everyone out of the park, right now,” Isaac said. “Philip, Gabrielle, you’re with me. Bethany and Trent, you follow the gargoyles, find out where they’re going. If I’m right, we won’t need Melanthius after all. The gargoyles will lead us right to Stryge’s tomb.”

The three of them took off, shouting at everyone they saw to evacuate the park. Bethany and I ran north with the gargoyles. In the distance, the single tower of the Cloisters peeked over the trees like the battlements of a mighty castle. The gargoyles were making a beeline right for it.

We ran past the tournament field, a long meadow of grass and dirt enclosed by a semicircle of portable bleachers on one end and a small picket fence on the other. I caught a glimpse of the jousting tournament inside, a man in an armored breastplate and plumed cap atop a chestnut stallion. He was holding a lance in front of him and galloping toward his opponent. The bleachers were filled with hundreds of cheering festivalgoers, oblivious to the gargoyle army flying past. I hoped like hell the gargoyles stayed over the river and didn’t come inland. The people here were sitting ducks, locked in by the bleachers and the fence with only a handful of narrow exits. If the gargoyles chose to attack, it would be a massacre.

But they ignored the tournament field and kept flying. Finally, they turned inland, sailing over the forest that surrounded the Cloisters. Bethany and I followed them, running into the woods and up a hill. At the top of the hill, Bethany stifled a cry of surprise, and we both skidded to a halt.

Below, the woods were filled with revenants, more than I’d ever seen in one place. There had to be a hundred of them, all shambling toward the Cloisters. They wore leather sheaths on their backs, and as one they stopped and turned their ragged forms toward us, until we were looking out upon a field of glowing red eyes. I reached for my gun, but as a great shadow fell over them, I realized it wasn’t us that had caught their attention.

Overhead, a pack of gargoyles had broken away from the others. They swooped down through the treetops and attacked the revenants with their claws, teeth, and tusks. Undeterred, the revenants fought back, pulling machetes from the sheaths on their backs and hacking at the gargoyles.

Bethany grabbed my arm and started pulling me away. “Come on! Back this way!”

I looked up. The sky was filled with gargoyles flying toward the Cloisters. The ones at the head of group had already reached the tower and were circling it like a funnel cloud. “But the tomb, we must be close,” I said.

“We’ll never make it,” she insisted. “You saw all those people back there in the bleachers. It’s only a matter of time before the fight spills over to where they are. You think either side cares how many humans get caught in the crossfire? We have to get them out of there before it’s too late.”

I took one last look at the battlefield below, already running with gargoyle blood and littered with chunks of mangled revenants, then ran with Bethany back to the tournament field. We squeezed through the narrow gaps between bleachers to get inside. There were three hundred people in those seats, at the very least. There was no way the two of us could get them all out of there as fast as we needed to.

Bethany looked overwhelmed. “What are we going to do?”

On the other side of the field was a dais where a man dressed as a medieval king was announcing the tournament standings into a microphone. “There,” I said, pointing. “That mic is the only way we’re going to reach everyone.”

“But what are you going to—?” she started to ask, but I was already running out onto the field. I darted between the horses as they galloped toward each other, the chestnut stallion rearing in surprise and throwing its rider. The other horse, a black mare, whinnied and slid to a quick stop. I kept running. Security guards appeared from the sidelines, chasing after me. I broke for the dais, raced up the stairs beside it, and hip-checked the announcer away from the microphone.

I grabbed the mic with my free hand and raised the Anubis Hand with the other to make sure I had the crowd’s attention. “Everyone! You need to get out of here! Clear the stands!”

A murmur rippled through the crowd, peppered with a few nervous chuckles and some drunken applause, but no one moved.

“Damn it, listen to me! You have to get out of here now! You’re all in danger!”

Below, the security guards surrounded the dais but didn’t climb the steps. They barked into walkie-talkies, and a moment later a cluster of police officers came out onto the tournament field, walking toward me. On instinct, my chest tightened at the sight of them, but I pushed the feeling away. This time, the cops were just what I needed. Provided they would listen to me.

“Officers, you have to evacuate the park, everyone is in danger!” I shouted into the microphone.

The cops kept coming toward me. One look at their stern, stony faces told me they didn’t care what I had to say. Their hands hovered at their belts between their guns and their handcuffs, waiting until the last minute to decide which one they’d need to subdue the raving nut with the big metal stick.

I stepped back from the mic and looked around, trying to find a way out. The security guards were still at the bottom of the steps, blocking any exit that way. On my other side, the costumed announcer had found his courage and grabbed the mic again.

“No need to worry, folks. We’ll get the show back up and running in a moment,” he said. The crowd cheered. The announcer looked at me, then said into the mic, “Just another reason they shouldn’t serve alcohol at these things anymore. Am I right?” The cheers turned to boos.

The cops looked up at me from the field below. One of them spoke around the wad of chewing gum he was working over, “Drop the metal pipe, sir, and come on down.”

I backed away, clutching the staff tight. I had to make them listen, but I didn’t know how. “Please, get them out of here!”

The cop sighed. “I don’t like having to repeat myself, sir.” The group of officers started toward the dais stairs.

A commotion arose at the far end of the field. A handful of gargoyles and revenants smashed suddenly through the low picket fence and onto the tournament field, locked in a desperate struggle. It was too late. The fight had spilled over already.

The officers, not understanding what they were seeing, ran toward the fight to break it up. “No, get back!” I yelled, but it was too late. As soon as the officers got close, the revenants attacked them with their machetes, hacking them to pieces.

Like a spark hitting a tinderbox, it set off a scream of terror through the crowd. People stampeded for the exits. The costumed announcer jumped off the dais and ran across the field, where the horses were panicking, kicking and running in circles. The jousters didn’t stick around to try to calm their horses before scrambling away. But only one end of the field was safe from the battle, the side with the bleachers, and the exits between them were too narrow. People pushed and shoved, and before long shouts of pain and anger joined the screams of terror. It was pandemonium.

I jumped off the dais, gripping the Anubis Hand tight in case any gargoyles came at me. I scanned the surrounding chaos for Bethany, but I didn’t see her anywhere.

A vast shadow fell over the tournament field, as if something immense had passed over the sun. I looked up. The whole sky swarmed with gargoyles, so many that the heavens themselves were blotted out, relegated to bright flashes of blue between the winged bodies overhead.

“Bethany!” I shouted, looking for her again. Then, finally, I spotted her near the other end of the field. She was helping an older woman with a cane out of the stands and away from the fight. I started running toward her. Bethany got the woman to the nearest exit, then saw me. She started toward me across the field, shouting something I couldn’t hear over the din.

A flash of black caught my eye. A dozen crows descended from the sky and swooped down to the field. A moment later they were gone. In their place was the Black Knight, sitting astride his armored black horse.

Right behind Bethany.

I shouted, “Look out!”

She looked over her shoulder, saw the Black Knight, and started running. The Black Knight urged his horse into a gallop, chasing after her.

“No!” I shouted, running toward them. “It’s me you want! Leave her alone!”

The Black Knight drew his sword.

Damn it, they were too far away. I heard the distressed whinny of another horse and saw the chestnut stallion standing nearby, digging a hoof in the dirt and flicking his tail nervously. I grabbed the saddle strap, hooked a foot into the stirrup, and swung myself up into the saddle. The jouster who’d ridden him had left his shield behind, hooked to the saddle on the horse’s back. Perfect. I picked it up in my free hand. It was made of a thin metal, possibly tin. Fine for a jousting exhibition, but not so great against the Black Knight’s sword. Still, it was better than nothing, and I didn’t have time to complain. The Black Knight was already bearing down on Bethany.

I leveled the Anubis Hand in front of me, a makeshift metal lance with a mummified human fist for a point, and squeezed my knees together to signal the horse to move. The stallion broke into a gallop, his panic subsided as his training took over.

“Over here!” I shouted. “I’m right here, you overgrown tin can!”

But I was still too far away. The Black Knight swung his sword, the barbed blade striking Bethany in the back. She cried out in pain, her legs giving out beneath her, and fell facedown to the ground.

My heart crammed into my throat. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t release the anguished cry building like a head of steam inside me.

Bethany lay still in the dirt. Very, very still.

My lips pulled back in an angry snarl. I spurred the horse to run faster. The Black Knight turned the impassive, expressionless face of his helmet toward me just as I bashed the Anubis Hand into his chest. I’d hoped to knock him off his horse, but the Black Knight only rocked in his saddle a moment. Then I was past him, the chestnut stallion’s momentum taking me several yards away before I managed to slow the horse and turn him around.

The Black Knight charged at me, the pounding hooves of his night-black horse throwing up divots of dirt and grass. He held his sword high, ready to strike. I spurred my horse to a gallop, the stallion’s taut muscles flexing beneath me as I closed the gap between us. The Black Knight swung his sword. I raised the metal staff to block it. The blade clanged against it, nearly knocking it out of my hand. Then we were past each other as our horses continued galloping.

I turned my horse around. The Black Knight did the same, and we rode at each other once more. This time the Black Knight knocked the staff out of my hand completely, and as we passed each other, he brought his sword around to strike again. It crashed against my shield with more force than I’d expected, throwing me off my horse. The shield went flying. I landed hard on my back in the grass. Apparently, I didn’t have much of a future in jousting.

Or maybe not much of a future at all. The Black Knight slowed his horse and dismounted. The chestnut stallion deserted me, galloping off to the other end of the field. I couldn’t blame him; just then I wanted to be on the other end of the field, too. The Black Knight held his sword in both gauntlets and walked toward me, his heavy boots flattening the grass beneath them.

I stood up, holding my head. It felt like the fall had knocked something loose in there. “Wait,” I said.

The Black Knight swung the sword at me. I jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting cut in half at the stomach.

I put my hands up as if to ward him off. “Whoa! I thought you wanted me alive. What happened to stealing my power for yourself?”

He swung again, and I jumped back to avoid the blade. Clearly he wasn’t interested anymore. Maybe he’d decided I wasn’t as enticing a source of power as Stryge. It was hard to feel bad playing the bridesmaid in that particular contest, but unfortunately it meant the Black Knight had no use for me anymore, no reason not to hack me to pieces.

“Stop,” I said. “I know who you are. I figured it out. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

The sword cut through the air at my midsection as I jumped back again. The Black Knight came forward, his metal boots stomping the dirt.

“Please, listen to me,” I said. “No one put it together before because the clues weren’t all there. They didn’t know you were still alive, or that you’d forgotten your own name. Four hundred years ago, an alchemist vanished from Fort Verhulst. It was you, but you didn’t vanish, you snuck out to go fight Stryge, to stop him from killing your fellow Dutch settlers. You made the Anubis Hand so you could save your home and the people you cared about. You’re Willem Van Lente.” I pointed at the staff lying in the grass. “The fist on the end of that staff is yours.”

The Black Knight swung again, and I jumped back again. I wished I knew how much more room I had behind me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off him to turn around. I hoped I wasn’t about to pin myself against the bleachers.

“In order to fight an Ancient like Stryge, you had to carry so much magic inside you. Every spell you could think of,” I said. “But after the Shift, that was a dangerous thing to do. All that magic changed you. It turned you into this.”

He swung again. I couldn’t tell if he was listening, but I refused to believe it didn’t matter to him. I refused to believe I couldn’t get through to him.

“In time, the infection twisted your mind. It made you forget who you are, forget everything about yourself. Except, maybe not everything. Somehow you remembered there were still people out there who could connect the Black Knight to Willem Van Lente, so you went back to Fort Verhulst, and you killed them. The infection made you kill the very same people you fought to protect.”

The sword cut through the air again, so close I could feel the breeze it made against my shirt.

“Willem, damn it, listen to me!” I yelled. “The infection made you forget the battle with Stryge. It made you forget so completely, buried the knowledge of how you did it so deeply, that even the oracles couldn’t see it. You forgot the man you used to be, the good man. You forgot your own name.”

The Black Knight drew back his sword to swing again, but hesitated. Was I finally getting through to him?

“I told you it doesn’t have to be like this. We can help you, Willem. If there’s a way back, we can help you find it, but first we need your help. Reve Azrael is about to wake Stryge up and undo everything you did. Please, you’ve got to help us. You’re the only one who can.”

The Black Knight tilted his helmet as though he were listening.

“I know how hard this is,” I said. “Believe me, I know better than anyone, because we’re in the same boat, you and me. Because if you want to put things right, if you want to save the city you love again … all you have to do is remember who you were.”

The Black Knight regarded me in stoic silence.

“There’s got to be something left inside you, Willem,” I said. “Some part of you that still gives a damn.”

By way of an answer, he drove his sword into my stomach.

I gasped and fell to my knees. The sword’s hilt and half the blade stuck out of my body like a third appendage. Blood poured out of me. The Black Knight pulled the sword out again, the barbs on the back of the blade shredding my insides even more. If the sword hurt going in, it was a hundred times more painful coming out. The Black Knight backed up a step but didn’t leave, preferring to watch me die. I looked up at him, desperately searching the cold, emotionless black helmet for some sign of the man he used to be, but there was nothing left of him in it. The infection had destroyed everything of the man he’d been, and replaced it with madness and cruelty.

The oracles were wrong. Willem Van Lente had died a long time ago.

I fell backward, landing right next to one of the bleachers. Bethany’s charm rattled against my chest under my shirt. As blackness crawled from the corners of my vision to spread over everything, I caught a glimpse of four small faces staring in horror at me from under the bleachers. They were children, three boys and a girl, their faces streaked with dirt and tears. They must have been hiding there since the moment all hell broke loose. They were so close I could reach out and touch them—too close, and too frightened to run.

Oh God, no, not again. In my mind I saw the little boy in the crack house, dead in his mother’s arms, and then the darkness came to swallow me whole.