Magic and Loss g-3 Read online

  “See what I mean?” Hexe sighed.

  The sound of distant, rhythmic drumbeats echoed throughout the neighborhood as a couple of centaurs in PTU helmets and crowd-control gear came trotting down Perdition, clearing away the vendors and pedestrians from the street. Upon espying these outliers, the crowds lining the curb began to cheer and clap.

  A minute or two later the Procession itself hove into sight. At its head were six Kymerans marching abreast of one another, each one dressed in robes the color of their respective caste: blue, yellow, red, green, orange, and purple. Their billowing garments were covered with arcane symbols picked out in silver thread and they carried between them a long pole, three to each end, from which hung a heavy satin banner embellished with the seal of Golgotham: a six-fingered right hand within a pentagram.

  Behind the walkers was the Motley Fool, a masked acrobat dressed in the trademark coat of many colors that was the symbol of Kymerans in exile, and who walked on his hands and performed backflips and somersaults. The crowd laughed and cheered, tossing coins into the street, which the Motley Fool scooped up and placed in a pouch cinched about his waist.

  Following the costumed tumbler were three minotaurs with crimson loincloths knotted about their muscular waists and protective caps on their horns. Strapped across their backs were drums fashioned from the shells of gigantic tortoises. Marching immediately behind them were barrel-chested, horse-legged ipotanes wielding what looked like human leg bones in place of mallets. The rhythms the drummers summoned forth resonated like thunder and quickly invaded my pulse, making my scalp tighten and the hair on my arms stand erect.

  After the drum line was the royal carriage containing Lady Syra, Witch Queen of the Kymerans. She rode in a phaeton wreathed in garlands of flowers, drawn by Illuminata, her private chauffeur. The albino centauride was dressed in a shimmering silver mail tunic and a helmet topped by a snow-white ostrich plume. The doors of the carriage were set with enameled panels bearing the Seal of Arum: a golden battle-dragon with its tail in its mouth. Lady Syra, wearing a tiara fashioned from a pair of intertwined dragons atop her peacock blue hair, waved to the cheering crowds with her right hand, while holding a scepter that resembled a caduceus in her left.

  Directly behind the royal carriage was the Mayor’s coach, which was as ornately carved and heavily gilded as a circus wagon, pulled by a team of four centaurs. Banners proclaiming REELECT MAYOR LASH were draped on either side while the Mayor enthusiastically hurled fists full of wrapped sweets at the crowds.

  “Yay! Free candy!” Adrian exclaimed, eagerly scooping up one of the treats. Before I could warn him, he opened it and popped it in his mouth. A second later he spat it back out, a horrified look on his face. “Holy hell! What is that shit? It tastes like black licorice mixed with salt and ammonia!”

  “It’s called salt licorice,” I explained. “It’s something of an acquired taste. Kymerans love it.”

  “Agggh! My tongue’s gone numb!”

  “Yeah, it’ll do that,” Hexe conceded.

  As Adrian staggered off in search of something to wash the taste of free candy out of his mouth and restore sensation to his tongue, I returned my attention to the Procession. Directly behind the Mayor’s coach was a phalanx of twelve centaur stallions outfitted in ceremonial barding, with elaborately detailed bronze pectorals protecting their lower equine chests, leather and brass croupiers shielding their haunches, and helmets with hinged cheek plates.

  Suddenly there was a sound like a hundred beehives being overturned, and twenty-five leprechauns playing scaled-down Irish war pipes marched into view, followed by an equal number playing toy-sized hand drums. Both pipers and drummers alike wore the traditional leprechaun dress of bright green breeches, jackets, and broad-brimmed hats, with shiny golden buckles on their hatbands and shoes. All fifty were redheaded, though only the older ones had any facial hair, and none of them stood any taller than a three-year-old human child.

  The Wee Folks Anti-Defamation League’s float, drawn by a brace of centaur colts, was festooned with campaign banners that read: VOTE THE GREEN PARTY: SEAMUS O’FAE FOR MAYOR. Perched high atop a fake pot of gold at the end of an equally artificial rainbow was none other than Little Big Man himself. The tiny, charismatic lawyer and civic leader seemed to be enjoying himself immensely as he waved his shillelagh with one hand and tossed imitation gold doubloons to the crowd with the other.

  While the leprechauns were the most numerous of the faeries that call Golgotham home, they were far from the only Wee Folk on the float. A quartet of foot-tall brownies, flat-faced with huge eyes and tufted ears, their bodies covered in short curly hair, scampered about like a litter of bipedal Pekingese puppies as they supplied necklaces, candy, and toy doubloons to a squadron of dragonfly-winged pixies, who zoomed in and out of the crowd like barnstormers.

  There was a high-pitched buzzing sound and something suddenly swooped toward my head. I instinctively backed away, fearing a wasp or hornet had flown into my face, only to find myself staring at a pixie hovering inches in front of my nose. It was six inches long, with iridescent wings that beat so fast it seemed to hang in midair like a hummingbird. It was androgynous in appearance, with high-turned cheekbones and large eyes and a hairless, pale green body that resembled celadon pottery, clad in a simple, tuniclike garment woven from spider silk. It was carrying a doubloon in its tiny, yet surprisingly strong hands.

  “Vote for Seamus!” the pixie said with its pennywhistle voice. Upon dropping its cargo in my outstretched hand, it promptly zipped back to the slowly moving float to rejoin its kin.

  I looked down at the doubloon, which, despite its color, was made of anodized aluminum. On one side was stamped O’FAE FOR MAYOR; and on the other, GOOD FOR ONE FREE BEER @ BLARNEY’S BOOTH. I had to hand it to Seamus—he certainly knew his constituency.

  After the faerie folk passed by there came a triple column of satyrs pulling rickshaws, who wove in and out like Shriners in midget parade cars. In the lead rickshaw was Giles Gruff, leader of the satyr community, monocle in one eye, dressed in a top hat and monogrammed waistcoat, waving his gold-topped walking stick like a drum major. Riding in the other rickshaws were a mixture of comely nymphs and fauns, who smiled and tossed strands of wine-colored beads to the onlookers thronging the street.

  Next came Golgotham’s merfolk contingent, fronted by ten strapping, green-haired mer-men, naked save for their seaweed skirts. Using conch shells to trumpet their arrival, they went into the ritual dance of their people, grimacing and chanting as they slapped their bare chests, thighs and upper arms with their wide, webbed hands. Upon finishing, a couple of juvenile mers sprayed them down with misting wands attached to tanks of salt water, so that they would not dehydrate and start to wither.

  * * *

  Given that Golgotham is an automobile-free zone, the throaty rumble of combustion engines, even at low throttle, seemed as out of place as the whinny of centaurs on Broadway. The Iron Maidens Motorcycle Club, composed of two dozen Amazon warriors and Valkyries, rolled their idling hogs down the cobblestone street, dressed in their club colors, longbows and spears slung across their backs.

  At the head of the pack were Hildy and Lyta, the joint leaders of the merged gangs, sitting astride a chopped trike. Hildy, who stood over six feet tall and had long, blond Teutonic braids and a Harley-Davidson patch to hide her missing eye, was in the driver’s seat. Behind her was Lyta, dressed in a leather bustier that proudly displayed her missing right breast. As Hildy gunned the throttle on the trike, Lyta stood upright, lifting her bow over her head, and cut loose with an ululating war cry. The other Amazons instantly did the same, shaking their bows at the sky. Hildy pulled her war-hammer from its holster on the side of the trike and held it on high as well, giving voice to the famous call of the Valkyries. Her sister Choosers of The Slain answered in kind, raising their spears while gunning their motors, until it sounded like Wagner at Sturgis: loud, proud, and fucking awesome.

  The last float in
the Procession was a flatbed pulled by a brace of Teamsters, on which a dozen hulders, fauns, and nymphs, wearing nothing but red-white-and-blue G-strings, star-shaped pasties, and tricorn hats writhed against stripper poles bolted to the floor of the trailer. Banners draped along either side of the float proudly proclaimed DUIVEL STREET WELCOMES YOU TO THE JUBILEE!

  Bjorn Cowpen, dressed in a pair of form-fitting red velveteen bell-bottom pants and a bright blue silk shirt open to his navel, with a white cravat knotted about his throat, stood surrounded by his patriotically garbed, gyrating employees as he tossed out sealed star-spangled condoms and sampler packets of flavored personal lubrication. The parents in the crowd recoiled in horror, yanking their children away from the sight of near-naked exotic dancers hanging upside down by their thighs from mobile stripper poles, while the rest of the onlookers hooted and cheered.

  “This’ll come in handy later,” Adrian quipped as he caught an All-American rubber.

  “Better let me keep track of it,” Vanessa said with a wink, plucking the patriotic prophylactic from his hand and sliding it into her cleavage.

  Bringing up the Procession was the Paranormal Threat Unit, led by Captain Horn, who rode atop a police wagon pulled by a brawny centaur in PTU riot gear. Marching on foot alongside the wagon was his second-in-command, Lieutenant Viva, her long, copper-penny tresses tucked up under her helmet.

  At first I thought they were merely participants in the parade until a drunken spectator, inflamed by lust and stupidity, clambered onto the Duivel Street float. Captain Horn pointed his right hand at the rowdy and an ectoplasmic cocoon instantly formed about the inebriated man, binding his arms to his side. Lieutenant Viva and another PTU officer quickly hurried forward and grabbed the subdued unruly, who now resembled a giant wad of cotton candy, and quickly tossed him in the back of the paddy wagon.

  Now that the Procession had finally passed by, the crowds on either side of the street moved to fill the empty void, scavenging the gutters for missed throws and other treasures before experiencing the games of chance, carnival rides, and souvenir booths that lined the cross streets. Many of the local restaurants and pubs set up temporary stalls on the sidewalks as well, to take advantage of the festival-goers.

  Blarney’s booth, easily identifiable by its bright green awning, was already doing a brisk business selling corned beef sandwiches and baked potatoes to those eager to cash in their doubloons for free beer. I spotted Lafo, dressed in painstakingly accurate Colonial Era dress, right down to the powdered wig, manning a stall that flew the familiar two-headed calf logo.

  “Jubilation to you and yours, Serenity!” the restaurateur said jovially, handing Hexe an enormous plastic novelty glass shaped like a revolutionary musket. “What can I get you and your friends?”

  “What do you think I should try?” Vanessa whispered, eyeing the menu board warily.

  “This is probably the closest you’re going to get to ‘typical’ carnival food. Most of the other vendors are far more, uh, ethnic than this,” I explained, pointing to another booth across the street advertising python kabobs and caramel apples dipped in deep-fried mealworms.

  Vanessa and Adrian quickly agreed that I had a point, and decided to go with the roasted goat tamale and chili-cheese funnel cake, which they washed down with souvenir muskets of prickly pear margaritas.

  Food in hand, we wandered deeper and deeper into Golgotham, past booths selling souvenir tricorn hats and red-white-and-blue papier-mâché skulls on sticks, leprechauns competing in clogging contests, and the occasional fire-eater. I decided not to drink anything harder than orchid cream soda, just in case a sober head might be needed, since Nessie and Adrian seemed determined to sample every wine, mead, and ale stall they saw. All in the name of epicurean curiosity, of course, not because they’re lushes—or so they kept reassuring me.

  The plaza that surrounds the Fly Market was temporarily transformed into a carnival midway, where Kymeran youngsters with Technicolor hair stood in line with their parents to ride the Ferris wheel, and the Flying Bobs. I watched in amusement as a pair of bleating satyr kids clattered excitedly up the metal steps of the Tilt-A-Whirl, while centaur foals rode a carousel outfitted with gaily colored moving stalls instead of merry-go-round horses.

  At the far end was a large, raised wooden platform festooned in tricolor bunting, atop which could be seen the members of the GoBOO as well as Lady Syra and Mayor Lash. The assembled dignitaries were reviewing a collection of jars and bottles arrayed atop a long table, while down on the ground level, a nervous group of competing witches and warlocks watched their every movement, eager to find out who would claim the blue ribbon for best potion of the year.

  While most of the booths sold concessions and souvenirs, there were more than a few manned by local merchants eager to advertise their businesses to potential customers. One such booth belonged to Dr. Mao, whose red awning boasted gold and black tigers and signage in Mandarin, Kymeran, and English. Behind the counter stood the proprietor himself, dressed in a traditional Chinese tunic and cap. His bushy gray eyebrow, which stretched across his forehead without a break, marked him as a shape-shifter, as did the extra-long ring fingers on either hand.

  “Jubilation to you, Serenity,” the old were-tiger said, bowing slightly.

  “Jubilation to you and your family as well, my friend,” Hexe replied. “I see you’re putting my former lodger to good use.” He pointed to Lukas, who was at the back of the stall, grinding roots and herbs with a mortar and pestle alongside Dr. Mao’s only child, Meikei.

  “Yes, if you call finding excuses to paw my daughter in public ‘working,’” Dr. Mao said acerbically.

  “Daddy!” Meikei protested. Lukas quickly let go of her hand, his ears suddenly bright pink.

  “Don’t ‘daddy’ me!” Mao said, wagging a long fingernail in her direction. “Don’t forget I’m the boss of both of you! Now grind up some more fossilized dragon bone—we’re almost out!”

  As I chuckled at Lukas’ expense, I felt Hexe suddenly grab my arm. I looked up to see Boss Marz walking through the crowd in our direction, flanked on either side by a pair of his croggies. His familiar, Bonzo, rode on his left shoulder, chattering excitedly.

  “Get out of here, Lukas,” Dr. Mao said in a quiet yet urgent voice. “I don’t want him to see you.”

  “But, Master Mao—!” The youth protested, his eyes flashing like an angry cougar’s.

  “You heard me—go home!” Mao’s drooping mustache suddenly became bristling whiskers as dark stripes swam to the surface of his skin. “Meikei and I can handle the booth.”

  The young were-cat bowed his head to his master and quickly slipped away, disappearing into the bustling street without a trace.

  “I give Lukas a hard time,” Mao said as he watched his apprentice leave, “but he is a good boy and I’ll be skinned if Marz gets his hands on him again.”

  Speaking of the Maladanti, I stole another look in Boss Marz’s direction and saw him stop at a Hit the Cats booth operated by a cyclops in a Knicks T-shirt. Although the carnie smiled as he handed the crime lord an envelope, it was clear from the glint in his solitary eye that he was nervous.

  As Marz reached out to take the “tribute,” Bonzo screeched and ran down the length of his master’s arm and snatched up not only the payment, but a small plush teddy bear as well, before scampering back to his perch. Marz pocketed the money while Bonzo plucked the eyes off the toy before tearing its head off and gutting it of its stuffing. Chuckling, Boss Marz turned to stare directly at us.

  Hexe stood his ground and looked at Marz and his men defiantly, his right hand at the ready, refusing to shrink from view or dodge detection. There was a gleam in his golden eyes, as if some hidden fire was being stoked deep within him, and for a heartbeat it was as if I was staring at Lord Bexe, the Last Witch King of Arum.

  One of Marz’s croggies started to raise his left hand, only to have his boss swat him like a parent correcting a child acting out at the supermarke
t. The Maladanti goon quickly stepped down, placing his left hand in the small of his back. The trio then turned away and proceeded down a nearby side street.

  “That was a close one,” I sighed in relief.

  “Don’t let him ruin the Jubilee for you,” Hexe said, slipping his arm about my waist. “Marz isn’t going to do anything that will bring the PTU down on him—not while he still has tribute to collect.”

  I smiled and nodded in agreement, but seeing Boss Marz wandering about the festival was like splashing about at the beach, only to have a shark brush your leg with its tail. Glimpsing the hesitation in my eyes, Hexe dragged me over to a nearby booth, where he spent the next fifteen minutes and twenty dollars throwing rubber rings at upright soda bottles in order to win a plush toy white gorilla wearing a plaid tam-o’-shanter.

  You know how some women get excited over their men giving them jewelry? Well, in my case I get the exact same way when someone wins stuffed toys for me at carnivals. Needless to say, much kissing and squeezing followed.

  As late afternoon turned into dusk, the Jubilee began to undergo a gradual sea change as Golgotham’s darker denizens gradually joined in the celebration. Vanessa, Adrian, Hexe, and I were sitting in a beer garden when a group of trolls ambled past, muttering among themselves in their thick, unintelligible language, lashing their heavy, ropelike tails as they sniffed the air with big, bumpy noses the size of knockwursts.

  “Gracious! Look at the time!” Adrian said, pretending to look at a wrist watch. “Nessie and I must be getting back home! I need to be ready for work in the morning, you know.”

  Vanessa frowned. “I thought you said you had arranged with the head of your department to get tomorrow off—”

  “Yeah, but he changed his mind,” Adrian said quickly as he helped his wife up from the table. “Remember, I told you I got a text from him this afternoon—?”

  “Huh?” Vanessa’s frown deepened for a second; then her gaze fell on the gaggle of goblins, their bare, paddlelike feet slapping against the cobblestones like wet laundry. “Oh, yeah! That’s right!” she said, gathering up her purse. “I was having such a good time I totally forgot!”