The Gathering Dark Part 1

The Gathering Dark.

by Christopher Golden.

Prologue.

No matter how much the city did to clean up the underground, the subway always stank like p.i.s.s. New York Transit cops hustled a homeless woman in a rank, stained parka older than its owner up the stairs toward the street. The rattle and roar of a train came up from deep within the crosstown tunnel, followed almost immediately by the hissing hydraulic scream of brakes. Newspapers blew across the tile floor.

In the morning it would be spotless. The night crews would have done their work. The electronic news tickers that ran along the walls and the small screens that carried images from the highest-paying content provider would be sparkling, without a smear or smudge.

Depressing as h.e.l.l.

Peter Octavian had seen many faces of this city over the years, seen it rise and fall, breathe new life into the world, grow cruel and corrupt and yet somehow also vibrant and joyous. To his mind, the fascistic effort to clean up Manhattan drained the city of its character.

Nights like this, though, he could pretend he was back in another age, a time when he understood more about people. For it was raining up above, the storm clouds heavy and low, the puddles growing, the streets slick. Taxis pretended not to see you in the rain, which meant the subways were flooded not with rain but with people who wished they were safe in the back of a private cab.

Grime from the streets was tracked all through the station. The tile walls dripped with acc.u.mulated moisture. The air itself was damp and cold.

A rare smile on his handsome, stubbled features, Octavian pushed through the turnstile, turning up the collar of the heavy canvas jacket he wore. It hung past his knees and seemed to rasp as he walked. All around him, city people rushed home from working late, or out to meet a date, and never once did any of them meet his gaze. But he watched them. His attention would have been barely noticeable even if someone happened to glance at him, but still he was wary, always on guard.

Some people were not what they appeared to be. It was a dark truth he knew perhaps better than anyone else on Earth.

Sometimes shadows were just shadows and the monsters were right in front of you.

He took the steps two at a time. Even before he emerged from the station, the cold rain sliced down into the shelter of the underground, tiny pinp.r.i.c.ks like ice needles jabbing at his face. Defiant, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and lifted his face to the roiling storm above, the night sky dark with layers of black. The winds blew the rain nearly sideways, and his hair, already damp from walking to the station downtown, quickly began to drip streams of water down his face. He paused to orient himself, then turned north and strode quickly across the street.

A cabbie blared his horn. There came the shush of tires through a puddle and the sprinkle of water onto the pavement. The rain itself, each individual drop, seemed to reflect the neon glitter of the city's electric life. People hurried by in ones and twos, huddled under black umbrellas like mourners.

Half a block later, he heard the music. A Caribbean rhythm, an old Bob Marley tune, though Marley himself was decades dead. This was a new millennium leeching from the last, filled with a dread of the unknown future.

Octavian thought it wise, that dread. As the twenty-first century grew from infant to toddler, humanity could reach higher, touch the sky, open doors perhaps better left closed. Already the human race had learned a great deal that it might have wished never to know. The past brought comfort, memories of safety. Or the illusion of safety. Yet that was enough for most.

The chant of Marley and the Wailers rang sweetly from the open door of a dive bar called The Voodoo Lounge, whose neon sign was only half lit. Just inside the door stood an enormous man with ebony skin and a bald pate that gleamed with reflected neon red. His left eyebrow had two thick rings through it, and a long, rough scar curved from above his right eye, through the brow, and across the bridge of the nose to his left cheek.

When he smiled, a miracle happened. The giant became handsome. His name was Agamemnon. Though Octavian could not imagine a child with such a name today, the man insisted it had been given him at birth by his mother, and he would accept no subst.i.tutes, no nicknames nor terms of endearment.

"Peter!" he rasped, voice like distant thunder. "What brings you?"

They shook hands.

"Agamemnon. Good to see you. Had a call from Bradenton."

"He's on the bar tonight," Agamemnon said. "Listen, you don't have a cigarette, do you?"

"Sorry."

"Nah, it's a s.h.i.tty habit. Just gives my hands something to do."

Octavian nodded as though he understood, and perhaps he did. Why else did he paint if not to give his hands something to do? He stepped through the open door of The Voodoo Lounge and the music pounded against his eardrums. Despite laws to the contrary, smoke wafted across the air. It had the distinct scent of hashish.

"Hey!" Agamemnon called. "Buy an umbrella!"

A small, uncommon smile creased Octavian's features. Once upon a time, it would not have been so rare.

The place was packed with people, and now he understood why the door was open. Though it was cold outside, the body heat within was almost infernal. Men and women of every race pushed up to the bar, jostled with one another for position or simply to cop a feel. On the dance floor, bodies gyrated, beads of sweat glimmered on foreheads wrinkled with intensity. Laughter bubbled in the air and the pheremonal musk of s.e.x sought and promised hung heavy as the rain's own moisture on the room.

Bradenton was at the bar, grinning broadly as a woman removed her top. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were dark and perfect and she leaned back so that all those around her could get a look.

"That's worth a double shot!" Bradenton crowed, then poured her three fingers of tequila.

Though he was tall, the bartender was thin and bony, his face edged like granite. He had an inch or so of bristly hair on his head and a well-groomed goatee that made him look almost severe. A Chinese dragon was tattooed on his throat, its tail wrapped around his neck before ending at the base of his skull.

As though he had sensed the attention on him, Bradenton glanced at Octavian. His expression became grim and he excused himself from the press of flesh. Another bartender filled the void almost instantly. The bare-breasted woman never bothered to put her top back on.

"Peter," Bradenton said when they met up at the far end of the bar.

"You know I don't do this sort of thing anymore," Octavian said gravely, eyeing the other man carefully.

"It's serious, amigo, and I don't need this c.r.a.p in my bar."

Several seconds ticked by as the men stared at one another. At length, Octavian dipped his head and then nodded once.

"Great! Oh, man, thanks so much."

Bradenton stepped back a bit, grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal, and poured a shot. He slid it across the counter to Octavian, who tossed it back without a word. The gla.s.s clinked on the mahogany bar as he set it down.

"Anyway," the bartender went on, "the stuff in the papers about this magician guy? Calls himself Mr. Nowhere?"

"I've read the coverage." Already, Octavian began to scan the bar for some sign of malevolence, something out of place.

"He's here," Bradenton said, voice low.

Octavian gave him a hard look. "So?"

Uncertain, Bradenton poured him another shot. "You've read about him. He's made people disappear in five different bars in the city. Makes a big deal about it, like he's some old-time stage magician. Makes them disappear in front of crowds of people, and they never come back."

The man scratched at the dragon's tail tattooed on the back of his neck. "I've seen him do it, Peter. Twice in here in the last week."

"Why don't you call the cops?" Octavian asked dismissively.

He left the shot on the table and took a step back, out of the immediate range of the lights above the bar. Something was in here, he felt that now. Something that shouldn't be. Better to be in the shadows, to watch from the dark.

"You haven't seen him do it, man. This s.h.i.t is real. Nothing the cops can do. But you-"

"I helped you once, Bradenton. Doesn't mean I make a habit of it."

The bartender stared at him. There was something in his expression, more than disappointment, almost disgust, that made Octavian bristle with both anger and humiliation. Once he would have killed the man for the look in his eyes.

"You know all this s.h.i.t," Bradenton said. "Magick."

Octavian sighed tiredly and turned away from the bar. As an afterthought he turned and tossed back the second shot of Crown Royal after all. Then he closed his eyes and let his senses focus on the dark presence in the room.

After a moment he opened his eyes and strode across The Voodoo Lounge to a far corner. At a round table, a gallant-looking old man with silver hair and a black cane sat encircled by a dozen people or more.

"Indeed," the man said. "It is among the highest forms of magick. Physical translocation. Most magicians never achieve it. To me, well, not to brag, but it's little more than a parlor trick. I've been at this game for quite some time."

A chill ran through Octavian; fear like an itch at the back of his brain. Dread swept over him in a crash, then receded like a wave upon the sh.o.r.e. Mr. Nowhere, the media called him. Typical, to give such an unsettling figure a show business name. Yet here he was, bedecked in the image of show business, albeit an image stolen from bygone days, the elegant stage magicians and prestidigitators of nearly a century earlier.

Beneath the magician's voice was a rasping, angry sound, a swarm of bees, the revving of a racer's engine.

Octavian hated to be afraid.

He stepped forward, insinuated himself among the small throng around the magician. They gazed in adoration at the charming old man, as though they could possibly not have heard the stories in the media. But this was a modern age, and nothing on television could be perceived as truly real. Everything seemed somehow contrived, even the worst tragedies, the most heinous crimes. Fiction and reality were almost indistinguishable to these people. They sensed no danger.

Fools.

"Where do you put them?" he asked, voice clipped, cold.

The magician glanced up. His eyes twinkled merrily. "They're all quite safe, I a.s.sure you. All part of the show."

"That's not what the authorities think. How long do you think you'll be able to pretend they're coming back?"

The smile slipped from the magician's face as if it had never been there, an illusion no less stunning than levitation or sleight of hand. People began to back away, and Octavian had to revise his opinion of them. Fools they might be, but they could feel the danger now, could sense that a battle had begun.

"Perhaps I ought to show you how the trick works," the magician suggested.

He had a thin white mustache so fine that Octavian had not noticed it at first, and as he spoke, he stroked his fingers across it like the villain from an old Hollywood serial.

Octavian sc.r.a.ped the back of his hand across the stubble on his chin. He stood like a gunfighter, legs slightly parted, long canvas duster draped across his body.

"Try me."

With a laugh, the magician glanced at his audience, who had backed away even further. They were anxious, even scared, but they wouldn't stray so far that they would not be able to witness the outcome. The music in The Voodoo Lounge had changed from reggae to old blues. B. B. King sang "The Thrill Is Gone" on the sound system. Other customers began to move closer, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Excellent," the old man said. "Pay attention, my young friends. You'll never see magick like this again in your lives."

With a flourish of his hand, the old man sketched a symbol in the air. Like the neon in the windows, the symbol took form, began to glow, and to flow like mercury.

"Now you see him," the magician said, and the sound of angry bees that buzzed beneath his voice increased.

A flick of his wrist, and the symbol hanging in the air flowed toward Octavian. With a single motion, he sidestepped the burning energy, duster flapping as he moved. His fingers steepled together, both hands shot out and he captured that energy between his palms.

He gave the magician a hard look, then crushed its glow between his hands. With a pop, it was snuffed out. The stench of brimstone rose from his fingers.

The magician gaped at him a moment, and it was almost comical. Then terror swept the old man's features, his face etched with it.

"I'm still here," Octavian told him. "Now, bring them back."

The buzzing grew louder and the old man's face began to change, to grow ugly. "f.u.c.k off, mage. So you've got your own little parlor tricks. You don't have the power to challenge me. They're mine now. All of them. And more where they came from."

A sad smile blossomed on the face of Peter Octavian. He glanced at the fascinated crowd. "Pay attention," he said. "Now you see him . . ."

All that time, his hands had been held before him as if in prayer. Now he opened them, fingers contorted in a gesture of ancient power. A flash of bright blue light burst from his hands.

The old man was gone.

In his place was a hideous creature whose flesh seemed hard as rock, edges sharp as diamonds, skin so red it was almost black. Jagged ridges ran in two identical strips up its face and across its leathery skull. Its belly was enormous as though it were grotesquely pregnant.

Screams drowned out the music.

People ran.

"Now you see him," Octavian repeated softly. you see him," Octavian repeated softly.

Blue light arced from his hands again and this time he seemed to dance with it, a series of steps and hand motions that were almost balletic. He spun around, the energy trailing off his fingers in ribbons.

With it, he sliced open the creature's vast stomach.

A wet, hollow sound echoed in the room and the demon screamed. For a moment its innards seemed endless, an entire world contained in the recesses of its gut. Then, one by one, five people spilled out, covered in a rancid sort of afterbirth. They choked and wept, and one of them vomited, but they were alive.

What remained of the demon burst into flames, but it was already dead.

Someone shouted for a fire extinguisher.

Octavian turned and strode toward the door. The place was silent now, save for the music. The patrons of The Voodoo Lounge had gathered round in horror and awe, but now, as he headed for the door, they parted to let him pa.s.s. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the topless woman again. Suddenly uncomfortable with her nakedness, she covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her arms and looked at the floor.

Afraid of him.

It was the thing he hated most, for people to be afraid of him. He would not be able to come in here anymore.

Bradenton and Agamemnon met him at the door.

"Peter, that was . . . holy s.h.i.t, man, that was amazing."

Octavian ignored him. Instead, he glanced regretfully at Agamemnon, of whom he was quite fond.

"You won't see me here again." Agamemnon nodded silently. The mage turned up his collar and stepped out into the icy, driving rain.

1.