IV
“Seems a might suspicious,” the copper said for a second time from where we stood in the middle of the street.
Dawson had heard the whomp and crack of flesh and metal slamming into the cobblestone from his post inside the lobby, and thinking the body was that of a resident, had rushed to render aid.
I’d left Gunner upstairs, raced to the ground floor, and gone outside to find the poor man looking terrified and grief-stricken.
“Mr. Hamilton,” he exclaimed, running toward me. “There’s—he must have—”
“I need you to find a police officer right away.”
The request brought Dawson partially back to his senses. “On New Year’s Eve? I can’t imagine I’d find one who isn’t warming his belly with a beer or three.”
“I don’t need them sober,” I said, managing not to snap at him. “Anyone with a badge and a pulse will do.”
In truth, I didn’t actually need a metropolitan officer for anything important.
This stranger had broken into the private residence of a federal agent, so it was clearly my jurisdiction.
(Never mind that he possessed and employed illegal magic.) But one of the agreements that kept the peace between agencies was that the Bureau needed to have the police formally offer the reins—so to speak.
And that’s how I found myself in the company of Officer Kelly, who was already a sheet or two in the wind and likely wouldn’t have remembered the words to “Auld Lang Syne” come midnight, if Dawson hadn’t dragged him out of whatever watering hole he’d been hiding in.
I pushed my open coat lapels back, tugged up my trousers, and crouched down beside Mechanical Man. I put a thumb on his broken jaw and pulled his mouth open to study those hideous teeth.
“Mm-hmm… might suspicious.”
I tipped my bowler back and looked up at Kelly. “Where in my account did I lose you?”
Kelly jabbed a finger downward, indicating Mechanical Man’s chest. “Only aether tears a man apart like that.” He gave me a wide, malicious smile. “A shame you federal sort think you’re above your own laws.”
“I’m a caster, you thickheaded brute.”
Kelly crossed his massive arms, and his ill-fitting blue uniform pulled tight across his chest. “Sure looks like ammunition damage, not a spell.”
I stood, hands on my hips. “Care to find out?”
“ Hamilton ,” called a stern voice from the cross streets.
I recognized the speaker immediately, and my stomach felt as if it’d just plummeted off the edge of the fire escape like Mechanical Man.
I lingered on Kelly a second longer, was successful in getting him to shift uncomfortably and be the first to look away, then turned to my left.
“Sir,” I answered as Moore stomped down the snow-covered street.
“I’ve been calling you, goddamn it,” Moore barked. “What’s the point of assigning you a PDD if you never carry it?”
I held both hands up. “Sir—”
“We’ve got a situation—” Moore cut himself short and seemed to finally acknowledge the mangled body at my side.
A plume of cold air escaped my lips as I said, “So have I.”
Moore slowed but kept moving toward me. He studied Mechanical Man and then looked at me with a raised brow. He must have recalled Fishback’s words just as I had.
A magical mechanical man.
I nodded once.
Moore directed his attention to Officer Kelly. “Director Loren Moore of the New York branch of the Federal Bureau of Magic and Steam. This death falls within our jurisdiction under directive S. 134.5: Unlawful retention and employment of illegal magic.”
“S. 240 and S. 120 as well,” I murmured before crouching beside the body again.
“S. 240: Unlawful ownership of an illegal magic firearm, and—120?”
“Yes, sir.”
“S. 120: Trespassing on federal property, which includes an agent’s place of residence,” Moore concluded.
Kelly took off his helmet and scratched his forehead. “Aye, but those wounds—”
“Thank you for your attention, officer,” Moore said.
“You’ll, of course, file an official report with your captain?
” Moore removed his bowler and pulled his PDD headset up and over his ears.
He flicked his arm and the handheld transducer slipped out from his sleeve.
“Did you need me to repeat the jurisdiction codes?”
Kelly put his helmet back on and said gruffly, “No, sir. I got it. Good night.” He hoisted his belt up his belly, turned, and began west on Twenty-Seventh.
I shifted weight to my right side and stared up at Moore from my position as he put in a request to the office for a prisoner transport at my cross streets—no dillydallying. “He must have scaled the secondary fire escape overlooking Fourth Avenue so as not to be seen by the doorman.”
Moore tugged the headband to rest around his neck and put his hat back on. “And how did he come to be down here?”
I jutted a thumb upward. “He fell from the fire escape outside my window.”
Moore stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and began to walk a circle around me and Mechanical Man.
The snow underfoot had that deadened crunch to it—consistency that made for a perfect snowball.
Just the right amount of wet to stick a rock inside, pack it tight, and make the boy who never quite fit in walk home bleeding.
I heard the smack in memory, rubbed my left temple where my hair was shorn close, and said after a moment, “He utilized fire ammunition.”
“How many bullets?”
“Four. One round.” Magic was snapping erratically from the dead body, almost as if the manufactured spells left behind in the skin or the cogs or whatever it was that made this union of flesh and metal possible was dissipating before my eyes.
Dying, almost. But Moore hadn’t acknowledged it.
I carefully lifted Mechanical Man’s broken arm that seconded as the unregistered gun.
“This is nearly identical to the weapon Milo Ferguson had.”
“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely.” I yanked up the sleeve of his suit coat and shirt and winced. “Except Ferguson’s wasn’t fused to his body like some sort of hellfire abomination.”
“This is Fishback’s magical mechanical man.”
“That was my assumption as well.” I dropped his arm and leaned back on the heels of my shoes. “There must be a practical reason for the bonding of these elements to the man’s body, instead of, for example, wearing something that is detachable.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, looking like this, he’d be alienated from society.” I waved one hand at the mangled body. “He certainly couldn’t have taken a stroll through Union Square without causing a scene. So why allow such an assault to his person? It must be a key to utilizing tangible magic without a caster.”
“Do you think he was forced into this?”
“I couldn’t be certain. But he told me to look the other way and let Tick Tock handle Fishback. It confirms everything about Fishback’s story—the fire ammunition, a new gangster, and of course, the magical mechanical man.”
I wrapped a bare hand around Mechanical Man’s jaw and could feel the elements in their raw form.
But underneath that, there was an impression that wriggled away like a nightcrawler sensing the warmth of a lantern in the dark.
I moved my hand back to the gun, where it connected at the elbow, and I followed a band of iron with the tip of my index finger.
That same feeling was worked into the iron as well, but it slithered as I tried to hone in on its specifics.
When I raised my gaze, Moore was squatted on the opposite side of Mechanical Man, staring at me.
“There’s something in these components.”
“Magic?”
“It’s difficult to tell. I suspect it dissipates after death. Interesting that some of these mechanical additions are built from silver and iron and he utilized manufactured fire magic.”
“Highest melting point,” Moore replied, his eyebrows rising slightly.
“Less chance of damage to his person, since he’s not a caster,” I continued. “His artificial body parts must somehow work in conjunction with the magic bullets—a sort of counterbalance so the spell doesn’t go haywire as it did with Ferguson.”
“Could there be more mechanical men like this? Each built with specs that allow for the most advantage in using different manufactured spells?”
The question was perfectly reasonable. Logical, even. But the thought of perhaps a whole army of these monsters wielding magic without care, without training, and suited up in unique and horrifying ways in which to maximize the spell’s output—it made my blood run cold.
“You mean to suggest that if he were using ice magic in those bullets, his mechanical parts might have been vanadium or nickel?”
Moore nodded. “So on and so forth.” He looked to his right as the sound of a steam engine choked and sputtered in the cold air and a prisoner transport automobile rounded the corner. He stood and raised a hand to the driver.
“We need to talk to Fishback,” I said, standing as well and beginning to count questions off on my fingers.
“That architect’s exact location and damn name, for starters.
Is Tick Tock himself building these mechanical men?
How many are there? Where’s Tick Tock hiding out—same location as the delivery handoffs or someplace else? What about—?”
“That’s why I was calling your PDD,” Moore interrupted. “Fishback is dead.”