Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling (11 page)

Amanda blinked in slight shock. She couldn’t believe he had just offered to teach her. It had been on her mind since yesterday that she would love to learn such an Art form. ‘No sir, the honour would be all mine.’

‘Same time tomorrow, your training begins.’

‘Thank you sir, I’ll be here,’ she said.

Walking back through the woods to her cottage Amanda couldn’t resist the odd little jump for joy and whoop as she practically skipped home through the long grass with not a care in the world, her red hair and flowing skirt bouncing to her movements.

The rest of the evening was a blur of happiness, and she never could remember just what it was she did that night. Her mind was full of ideas and questions about her training, but just like the previous nights, when her head hit the pillow, she fell straight off to sleep.

Gentle Water reported in today, he’s made contact with Amanda in Ireland, met her a few times over the last few days and is starting to teach her the basics of his Martial Arts style.

At least we can relax for a bit now, the meeting was always going to be touch and go, despite the reassurances of our friend.

I must keep in regular contact with him.

- Diary entry of Royston Kendrick, Spokesperson for the Legacy Coven.

Investigation

New York

Mid-August, six weeks later

‘Amen,’ muttered Vito, and opened his eyes. He sat in one of the forward pews in the nave of St Patrick’s Cathedral and had just finished his evening prayer. Letting his eyes adjust to the dim light he looked up again and gazed over the pews in front of him, into the Sanctuary beyond. The white marble of the Gothic arches in the sanctuary rose high above him, each one framed an ornate stained glass window, back lit by the city outside.

This Cathedral did a suitably impressive job of showing the power of the Lord and his Church. Behind the lectern the bronze Baldachino stood glinting in the light. It looked gold from where Vito sat, its four legs supporting a sloping pointed roof over the altar, intricately carved and decorated. Above it the walls rose high to the lierne vaulting above. An impressive sight, and one the tourists of New York enjoyed visiting.

Tonight, Vito supposed he might technically be a tourist, but he wasn’t like the godless hoards that wandered in here with their cameras, ignoring the rules against photography and snapping away anyway. Vito had come here on business, he wasn’t here to take in the sights. Inside this building Vito could almost feel at home, its majesty and grandeur about as close as New York got to the sublime beauty of the Vatican, but it wasn’t quite like home, and even here in this house of God, the Americans couldn’t help but show off their patriotism.

Vito glared up at the American flags that hung from the walls high above on both sides of the Nave. He looked at them in undisguised disgust, he wasn’t much of a fan of Americans, he’d been forced to deal with them for a full day now and it had started to wear a little thin. Their loud grating accent and forceful, egotistical nature was guaranteed to put you off your lunch.

So far in his career in the Church he had managed to avoid coming to the States, but now as a fully-fledged Inquisitor, it was inevitable he would end up being sent here at some point. He could think of worse places to go, places where you took your life into your hands just by being there, places where war, famine, death and disease where everywhere. The world had plenty of areas like that, where the true horror of human nature was laid bare for all to see, but for some reason Vito hated the USA the most.

It seemed to think it ruled the world, that it had become the rightful king and heir to the globe and every nation upon it. It felt it could impose its own values upon other countries and religions, and make them into carbon copies of itself. The politicians went on about freedom and democracy and crushing the evils of the world, but it seemed to Vito that maybe the country should turn its gaze inwards and look in the mirror once in a while.

Crushing or converting the heathen nations of Islam had always been a worthy goal, of that he was in agreement, but not if it meant the USA ruled the world, even if it did claim to be a Christian nation.

The United States, a young country, a baby in fact, needed to learn a little humility when it dealt with Europe and the cradle of civilisation. It should show respect to its elders.

He turned his mind to the task at hand and resolved to see it though as swiftly but as thoroughly as possible. It was the only thing to do, get it done quickly, but done right so he wouldn’t have to come back here because he made a mess of something due to going too quickly. He guessed he would end up having to engage in conversation with some Americans during this time, which would be something he would just have to put up with he guessed.

The Cardinal had been most friendly towards him, and Vito found his accent to be acceptably soft so that it didn’t grate too much when he spoke. Vito felt grateful for small mercies.

It didn’t seem too long ago now that Grand Inquisitor Mary Damask had called Vito into her office in the Vatican and outlined what his mission would be in New York.

He gathered up the manila file on the pew next to him and opened it up, glancing at the description of the girl he had to find.

‘Female, seventeen or eighteen years old, long red or bright auburn hair, slim and athletic.’

The red hair sounded fairly distinctive; he hoped this wouldn’t take too long. He glanced over the mission once more, he had to investigate a report that a local resident had seen the Red-Head attacked in an alleyway by what the witness called a ‘demon’. The witness’s apartment had been opposite the alleyway, and she had watched as the girl had thrown lightning at the demon, destroying it. The resident had reported this to her local priest, the police not believing her story, and the report had made it back to the Vatican.

Vito had flown out of Rome yesterday, and now Vito felt ready to head out into the night. The Cardinal had treated Vito very well, and as a visiting dignitary from the Vatican, Vito’s every wish had been granted.

The Cardinal didn’t know too much about Vito or the highly secretive Vatican group he represented, he only knew what Vito had told him, which wasn’t strictly true. He had said he was part of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the oldest office in the Roman Curia.

In truth he belonged to a much older organisation within the Catholic Church, one that remained highly secretive and unknown to the rest of the world. Only the office of the Pope, his superior, and his most trusted Cardinals, the Popes inner circle, knew of the Disciples of the Cross and their mission.

Vito stood up from where he sat on the pew, gathered his bag to him and carefully excused himself from the church, passing the tourists that stood around admiring the architecture. He made disapproving sounds as he passed people clicking away with cameras and eventually headed outside into the cool night air through the huge ornate doors.

The night felt cool but dry, the air fresh tonight, the smog seeming to have lifted a little from the metropolitan area. Although still quite early, the night had closed in, its black shroud pulled over the sky. The street lights and neon glowed brightly in the dark, lighting the way for the pedestrians below them. New York’s busy traffic being the one thing that reminded Vito of Rome and the crazy traffic on the Italian capitals cramped streets. Much like home, you took your life into your hands as you stepped out onto New York’s streets, but the colours were different here, in Rome there were more stone and traditional building colours, here it looked all Blue and grey as the modern sky scrapers reached for the sky. In the caverns that surrounded them the yellow cabs rushed around like the amber blood of some great metallic monster. Into this maelstrom Vito stepped, pulling his collar up and his coat closer to him.

It would be a fairly long walk to the district where the attack had taken place, and as he moved away from broadway and the tourist centres the quality of life become visibly lower. The buildings here were run down or empty with smashed windows and graffiti daubed upon the walls.

He caught his reflection in the darkened glass of the shop fronts as he passed by them, and felt happy that he seemed to blend in fairly well to the background.

Although only thirty three years old, he easily looked to be in his forties. Thin and wiry and a little over average height, He kept his dark hair cropped close to his head, he preferred it that way. After a Witch had pulled at his hair and ripped out a fist full of it on an early mission, he had quickly cut it right down so he wouldn’t have to endure that indignity again. He wore a tan trench coat and neutral trousers with a dull shirt and shoes, the coat billowing out behind him as he strode along the sidewalk.

As he went he made sure he moved like a local and kept a low profile. He kept his eyes forward and didn’t look up or down. Look up and you’re a tourist, look down and you look weak, either way you’re a victim. So Vito looked straight ahead, but never met anyone’s eyes, that might be taken as a challenge, something Vito really didn’t have the time to get involved with.

In his training Vito had learnt a lot about how to walk the streets and remain unnoticed. Keeping a low profile was important in what he did, apart from anything else he had a job to do and the Church didn’t want to be paying for things they didn’t have too. Besides, the press crucified the church each time they caught even a whiff of a scandal, a priest caught with weapons on his person would look very bad indeed.

Finally he turned onto the street he he’d been looking for and paused to take it in. He had entered the Red Light District a short distance back and had already been propositioned by the packs of girls that hung around here, and this street seemed no different.

It looked quite dark, the street lights not working too well, some of them smashed altogether, the black buildings seemed to lean in a little bit, each one looked imposing and half of them looked like they needed renovating. Most of the residents here probably stayed in their rooms at night, locked the doors with the half dozen dead bolts they had and prayed they would wake up in the morning.

The street looked to be bustling with pedestrians at first glance, but it became clear from a second look that half of these people were women dressed in grubby miniskirts, stockings, high heels, and small jackets as some kind of meagre defence against the cold. The ladies looked very much like Vito expected they would do. Apart from the odd one, most looked quite haggard, their eyes dark and tired framed by hair that appeared lank and often bleached. Most of the girls here were probably hooked on some kind of drugs, Crack or Heroin perhaps.

Vito wasn’t sure whether he pitied them or hated them, they stood for the very moral decay that the church stood so utterly against. Each one dressed in tight or revealing clothing showing off their wares to anyone who cared to look. Vito didn’t have much time for compassion when it came to this scum, there were plenty of clergy who did spend their time with people like this, but Vito wasn’t one of them.

Across from him stood the entrance to what he thought could be the alleyway where the woman said she saw the occurrence. Vito stepped back into the shadow of the wall closest to him and pulled out the scrap of paper he had made some notes on double checking his location. Looking again, his first thoughts had been right, that was indeed the alleyway.

He slipped the paper back into his bag and crossed the street towards the alleyway. At it’s entrance he stopped to look back to see if he could spot the apartment from which the woman had most likely seen the incident, but he couldn’t be sure which it might be, it could have been any of four or five windows. He had the address, but hoped he wouldn’t need to go knocking on their door.

He noticed the Prostitutes were further along the street towards the middle of the block, not too close to the alleyway. The attack had probably made them move further down, away from the alleyway and the creepy feeling he felt here.

The Vatican had managed to get hold of the NYPD report into the death of a local pimp in the alleyway as well, but there had been no witnesses to the event other than the woman whose evidence had been deemed unreliable due to her insistence on the fantastical nature of the attack.

Vito looked in the other direction, away from the prostitutes in time to see 2 more streetwalkers come out of a corner shop carrying drinks bottles. Vito smiled to himself as he understood that the girl had probably been heading to the shop when she’d been pulled into the alleyway by the beast the witness had seen.

Vito stepped into the opening of the alleyway that looked just wide enough to fit a car or something down. Further in, the alleyway actually widened out before thinning down again and turning a corner. It looked dark down here, no lights really reached inside so that everything sat veiled in shadows. Along the sides of the alleyway boxes and refuse bags were scattered about the place, piled up here and there where they had been dumped. A couple of large square metal bins on casters, nearly as tall as Vito, overflowed with rubbish. Even though it wasn’t raining, water still drained down the sides of the buildings through guttering creating puddles here and there, dark and irregular in shape.

Further in now, Vito turned and looked back up the alleyway. Over the road he could now only see a couple of apartments that might be the one the witness lived in. They had a clear view down here, and if they turned their lights off they would see Vito stood here easily enough. Vito turned back to the scene before him, looking at the physical remains of the attack.

A pile of debris and a partial hole in the wall were off to his right, boarded up from the inside with the remains of Police tape around it where they had cordoned it off. The tape hung limply now, fluttering in the slight breeze. Then he saw the burn mark on the wall close to the debris. This must be where the creature had been hit by the lightning.

No doubt the police forensics had been over it once with a dead body having been found here, so Vito decided to start with a more esoteric investigation.

So far Vito had been on his guard, keeping his God given insight closed off from the world around him and the dark magical energies that would no doubt be here, but now he needed to use his gift.

Vito stood up straight and closed his eyes, raising his face to the heavens he spread his arms out and called upon God to show him what had happened here.

Vito felt his mind opening up to the feelings in this place. There seemed to be some sort of residual energy here, a powerful feeling of something wrong. Slowly the impression of a girl began to form in his mind. Not an image as such, but a feeling of a human presence, a feminine presence. This must have been the girl that had been attacked. Then he began to get some feelings from the girl as well, to get some kind of impression of her state of mind. The sensation came on quickly as he felt the utter terror this girl had felt, she been scared out of her mind, and hurt as well. She didn’t seem to really understand what had been happening to her at first, but when she saw the thing that had attacked her, she’d been scared to death.