Chapter 19 #2
Rune shot him a glare, then seemed to think better of instigating a fight with the Realmwalker in a Parallel London that he could very well get trapped in. Clearing his throat, Rune waved the barkeep down for a refill. The barkeep was no longer there.
“A new Mrs. Borges would solve many problems. I won't know how much magic my children have if there are none.”
Malachy’s entire focus veered to the boastful Ferromancer. He had lived long enough to understand how dangerous those words were. “Conducting your own breeding experiments, Rune?”
“Twice a day with two different women.” He barked a laugh.
“Dr. Dalton must be proud.”
The insult slid off Rune’s shoulders and onto Ari’s. The Umbramancer tensed, eyes flashing like a lit match in the void.
“There could be no nobler pursuit than the discovery of ourselves, Mr. Bane. If we were allowed to openly explore our natures, we would know if the magic in our own blood is heritable, and whether that heritability is stronger between mages of similar magical affinities or opposing.”
“Opposing affinities certainly ain’t compatible,” Rune said.
“Take me, a Ferromancer, hard as diamond, and Camille, an Animancer as soft as rose petals. Nada. But with Iris, the Gilded Lily’s only Bestiamancer…
You didn’t hear it from me, gents, but Iris is a beast in and outta the sack.
I’d breed her like a bitch in heat if Camille wouldn’t get so worked up about it. ”
At this, Malachy arched an eyebrow and deigned not to respond, giving Rune more opportunity to incriminate himself.
The Ferromancer had been a despicable lecher long before his coiffe turned more silver than black, and now it seemed his tastes were getting bolder.
Malachy tucked the information away in a mental drawer labeled blackmail material.
Ari propped his elbows on the table—a mistake, as the table teetered precariously—and leaned forward. “Imagine the possibilities. What might the child of a powerful Choromancer and Necromancer be capable of?”
Malachy gave Ari a measuring look. Razaq had done his research and pinpointed Malachy’s weakness in a certain wild-haired death mage.
Though, after the Ishtar-possessed zoo at the club, perhaps Ari had simply used his powers of observation to see Malachy and Cora fused in mutual ravishment.
Word of their current estrangement had not yet spread though, or Ari wouldn’t be using this tidbit as leverage.
“We’ve gone from zero to breeding experiments a wee fast," Malachy said. "I’ll spare you the suspense. Your so-called research is moot. If magic were heritable, we'd know by now. What you’re pedaling is a pipe dream with a high body count. Although… it’s a shame we won’t know what two Umbramancers might beget. ”
Prodding the wound of Sloane’s infidelity lit a fire in Ari’s eyes. The Umbramancer’s shadow surged along the filthy floor and crawled up the walls in coiling tendrils. Malachy had navigated a field fraught with emotional landmines and successfully detonated the biggest one.
With effort, Ari wrangled his shadow in and took a bracing breath. “Our salvation, Mr. Bane, lies within Dr. Dalton’s work.”
Malachy let the silence stretch like a noose Ari could hang himself with. Which he did, after seventeen seconds of hesitation.
“In private,” Ari said, “I have been assisting Dr. Dalton on his most promising research. It is the key to our very survival. We have been scouring the wide branches of family trees in search of rare magical fruit to answer a simple question: is magic hereditary? Is the birth of a mage as random as it seems, or is there a crucial pattern awaiting discovery? While at the Egyptian University, I traced magic through lineages in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Whereas ancient Egyptian mages were revered as gods and high priests, modern mages scurry through the shadows like rats. Do you think the Tribunal has allowed us to study whether we can bear our own magic into future generations?”
“No.” Rune thumped his fist on the table.
“No,” Ari repeated. Conviction flickered in his eyes like trapped flames.
“The Covenant’s rigid restrictions have suppressed all research into this line of inquiry.
Here we are in the twentieth century, and it is still unknown today if magic can be passed down.
The Masters—that cabal of self-elected medieval overlords—have denied us our legacy and have so robbed us of our future. ”
Malachy watched the Umbramancer pontificate in thoughtful calculation.
Ari had gone to considerable lengths to conceal records of his past, and now he was offering up a bounty of personal information on a silver platter?
Ari was spoon feeding Malachy his version of the truth, and Malachy knew better than to swallow it.
When he returned to his London, Malachy would plant someone loyal to him and unknown to the others in Ari’s gang to keep an eye from the inside.
Forewarned was forearmed for whatever revolution the Protean Society was stumbling into—the rise or fall of mages.
He would personally sift through both Razaq's and Dr. Dalton’s history with a fine-toothed comb.
As for their dangerous ideas about magic… Even sitting in a dodgy bar in an alternate German-occupied London, it was clear that Progress had leapfrogged onward while Malachy was trapped underwater in the Tribunal’s prison.
He tucked the thought away. One catastrophe at a time.
Rune chomped on a cigar. “The Masters will pay for what they have done to mages.”
“And how will you make them pay, Rune?” Malachy asked.
"With bullets and blood, mate."
Ari exchanged a look with Rune. “What the Proteans desire, Mr. Bane, is to get ahead of the inevitable without the Tribunal’s interference. Mages need to maintain the upper hand. We need to leash the humans before they organize against us.”
Bit late for that. Malachy scrubbed a hand over his jaw. The adrenaline had faded, and the gears of his overworked mind spun in useless circles. “How do you propose leashing the humans?”
Ari leaned closer under the single light bulb’s flickering glow. “I propose the return of the natural order. The survival of the fittest. I propose the reintegration of mages into a society we should be the dominant members of. How does that sound to you?”
“Sounds like a lot of words for eugenics.”
Ari’s shadow surged behind him. “The human stain must be cleansed from the world before they turn our own magic against us. The Proteans seek survival. The first step is the dissolution of the Tribunal and their strangulating Covenant. Given your recent imprisonment, I believe we can agree on that.”
Malachy performed a quick mental calculus.
While they shared the goal of bringing the Tribunal down, they had very different visions of how to rebuild it.
Malachy had nursed a secret hope the Tribunal could be reformed into something better—Masters elected by more mages than themselves; the Covenant amended to shear off the medieval shackles and drag the governing body into the bright lights of modernity.
And Ari dreamed of burning down the Tribunal and declaring himself king of the ashes. The rise of a few mages with whimsies of superiority at the cost of all humans.
It was too soon to alienate Razaq and the Protean Society, though. In the meantime, Malachy would listen, and watch, and wait.
“The Masters will be thrilled,” Malachy said.
Ari’s mouth tilted in a small smile. “Some have already joined our cause.”
“Who?”
“One of the Masters was the primary research subject of a seminal paper by Dr. Dalton himself, the leader of our humble organization. Are you familiar with Dr. Dalton’s 1918 paper?”
Malachy’s lips hardened into a line at the non-answer. It was the sign of a true academic for Ari to be so far up his own arse in obscure research he assumed everyone else was as well. “Summarize the paper.”
“Dr. Dalton published the results of this Master’s…
private research. Anonymously, of course, although this Master might as well have been the paper’s co-author.
The subject tested the heritability of his acute mental faculties across various breeding pairs.
The experimental design was flawless—nearly factorial in terms of mating crosses.
There have been promising results. Some offspring have unusually good memories. "
Malachy worked his jaw. The anonymous Master had to be Otto fucking Bittenbinder.
And Ari was just handing over this juicy blackmail about the Protean sympathizer on the Tribunal?
There were strings attached to this information, even if Malachy couldn’t see them yet.
“Where did this Master get a harem of mages to experiment on?”
“We have friends in many places, Mr. Bane. From mage brothels and Hollywood studios to the Tribunal itself.”
Malachy sat back. He didn’t doubt that the Hollywood elite had flocked to the Protean movement; the notion of mage superiority stroked a lot of egos.
It was a dangerous ideology the powerful were already eager acolytes of.
But the Tribunal’s corruption ran deeper than even he had thought, like rot in the heartwood of an ancient tree one storm away from falling on top of them all.
How many Masters were accomplices or complicit in these schemes?
“Have Dalton’s experiments led to any concrete results?” Malachy said. “Replicable or not.”
“Yes, and no. Correlation is not causation, Mr. Bane. It will take time and careful observation to tease apart nature versus nurture.”
“Jesus. Listen to yourself. You are diving deep into unethical waters, looking for patterns in chaos. What further proof do you need beyond your own eyes? If magic were heritable, some bastard would have figured it out a long time ago.”
“Would they?” Ari gazed steadily back. “What can and cannot be done remains to be seen. Or do you not believe that mages are superior?”
“Don’t be a fuckin’ idiot. Of course we are. My objection is to your sense of entitlement to act upon it.”
“Peaceful cohabitation is a utopia you should know better than to believe in.”
Malachy’s retort was cut off by the scrape of Rune’s chair as he pushed back from the table on swaying feet.
“I need another drink for this kind of talk.”
When Rune was out of earshot near the plywood bar, Malachy turned to Ari.
“Why do you leave leadership in Rune and Julian’s incapable hands?”
Darkness fell over Ari’s features at the Lumomancer’s name.
“I am often preoccupied by my research. Besides, Julian needs the attention and Rune enjoys the fanfare. I tolerated Julian’s antics, as his Lumomancy proved useful.
Now, however… Julian is guilty of many things, but of only sin,” Ari said, low and biting. “He covets.”
The sound of rising voices drew their attention.
“Fremdvolker!” the barkeep shouted.
A helmeted patrolman, barking orders in German, seized Rune and restrained his struggling arms behind his back.
“Get your damn Kraut hands off me!” Rune thrashed against the unrelenting grip.
Ari’s shadow crawled up the walls and spread over the floor like spilled ink.
Malachy was beside the patrolman in an instant, armed with reasonable excuses offered in halting German.
The patrolman’s eyes narrowed on him, then flicked to Rune and Ari.
He gruffly commanded them outside. Malachy stymied Rune’s protests with a hard look as they followed the patrolman down the sagging steps and into the night.
Once they were on the empty, rubble-strewn street, Malachy didn’t hesitate.
Before the patrolman’s fingers found the holster of his revolver and riddled them with bullets, Malachy opened a portal beneath the bastard’s feet. He dropped into the earth, his scream cut off as the portal closed over him.
Rune and Ari stared at where the patrolman had been a moment before, blinking in disbelief. “Wh-where did he go?”
“Sent him to hell,” Malachy said with a wink and no further elaboration.
“I almost had him!” Rune grumbled, rubbing his abused arms.
“We have eyes, Rune. Let’s get back to the rendezvous point. Cloak us in shadows, Razaq, and for fuck’s sake, Rune, keep your mouth shut.”
They followed Malachy through a maze of alleys, choked with smog and the fear of sweeping torch lights.
At the gutted bank, a sea of weary faces turned to them in unison. Malachy did a quick head count; they hadn’t lost anyone. He didn’t want to think about the consequences of that paradox, a man trapped in the wrong Realm, parallel to the home he could never return to.
He opened a portal back to their London and ushered the beleaguered Protean Society through, sure to seal it after himself.
Before they scattered across London, Ari leaned close and said, “I hope we can count on your support, Mr. Bane, and your discretion.”
“What you can count on is that I won’t fuckin’ kill you tonight. You owe me a favor, Razaq. I always collect.”