James Baldwin - Burn Artist

Nicolai and I followed Rodion to his office, tongues thick and still with tension. Lev was at Rodion’s desk, his face a stiff mask. He looked exhausted, green around the gills. He held out the receiver; Rodion snatched it from him, and took the seat as Lev stood up and moved aside. I tuned into the room, careful not to screw up the line, and felt – and smelled – the same weird, faint odor I’d smelled before. Burned wax or plastic. I drew a cross over myself, like the others had done before, but my cross was not an Orthodox crucifix. I used the Kabbalic Cross, symbolically touching and warding through multiple layers of reality.

Rodion banged the speaker button, broadcasting to the room. “Jacob, you sniveling piece of shit. The fuck do you think you’re playing with?”

The speaker squealed with a sound that went straight to my teeth, and then resolved into a whickering roar of white noise.

“My client demands you withdraw immediately,” a voice rasped out in English. Male, female, it was hard to tell. “To avoid a repeat of what occurred today.”

Vassily murmured aside to Lev and Semyon, translating for them. Their English was haphazard, at best.

“Your ‘client’ and you can hole up in a cell together and fuck each other inside out, big man,” Rodion said. “So check your attitude before we knock you and your whole fucking family.”

“Call it off, Brukov, or the next one burns tomorrow.” The phone disconnected with a sharp ‘clack’.

“Who the hell does this guy think he is?” Vassily said.

“Someone who can cause people to spontaneously combust from a remote location,” I replied grimly. “They’re arrogant, but I can probably find them or the place the spell originated from.”

Nicolai’s face rippled with irritation. “Can you find him or not?”

They wanted black and white, but there was no such thing in life or in magic. It was always like this with the Organizatsiya. “I’m fairly sure it was Kozlowski and Sons. I won’t know until I visit the site.”

“Do it,” Rodion flicked toward the door with a dismissive wave, scowling. “Twenty-one grand for this asshole.”

I inclined my head. “Consider it done.”

“Hey boss,” Vassily said. “I didn’t really get a chance before, be we were outside, but we also saw something yesterday. Your man was hanging around Bruno Accorso, one of the Manelli Caporegimes.”

“Are you sure?” Lev blinked, pushing his glasses up along his nose.

“Absolutely sure,” Vassily replied. “It was Bruno and two of his soldiers. Maslak looked pretty strung out about it, too.”

Rodion growled. He and Lev and Nicolai exchanged glances.

“I’m going to call the Pakhun for this one,” Rodion said. “Go do your thing. Take out the spook and we’ll get back to you about Maslak. We can still sell off those shares, can’t we?”

“Our half.” Vassily fidgeted with his zippo, fingers light and quick. “We’ll break just slightly under even if we do, adding up all the costs and the loan to Maslak, but we’ll lose his shares if they aren’t transferred to us. I could probably find someone to forge them over to us, but that’s iffy.”

“Right. Then we’re taking over the company and liquidating it.” Rodion thumped his fist on the table, and sat back. “Bring me that asshole’s hands, Alexi. Once we nab Maslak, I’m going to feed him pieces of his pet spook until he chokes.”

The drive home from Sirens was tense. Vassily and I were silent, unable to converse while the memory of Slava – burning, screaming – loomed large in our memories. Back at home, my friend radiated displeasure as he watched me dress and arm before the drive out to Long Island. Shoulder holster, gun, knife, and other less standard tools. Salt and chalk, of course; a fire extinguisher, which I had rigged to a military-surplus bandoleer with Velcro and duct tape. I took the bone amulet, too. Scrubbed of Slava’s blood, I was able to quickly tune it back in to my own energy and apply my own to seal the enchantment. His death had charged it more quickly than the moon ever would have.

There was one other magical tool I considered taking with me. My Colt Commander, one of the first guns I’d ever bought, lay on my altar in a three-layer ring of steel wire, oxidized iron dust, and crushed hematite. Sigils were carved into the barrel on both sides, concentrated words of power which were currently still not doing what I wanted them to do.

A hitmage does a lot of wardbreaking. People inevitably seek magical protection as well as physical protection if they suspect their lives are threatened. Maslak, for one, but any man with enough money and common sense would hire a spook to ward him up when word got out that there was a contract out on his head. Wardbreakers like me were less common than you’d expect. The average spook could create and unmake their own wards, but not other people’s. My gift was to be able to find the cracks in the veneer, the tiny errors that were inevitably made by the human hand and mind in the creation of magical objects.

The problem with wardbreaking was how much time it took. Most times, I didn’t have fifteen minutes to screw around under someone’s car with planetary metals and colored chalk. My solution to that was to create a chargeable gun that could shoot bullets that could bust magical shields. In theory, it was an elegant and efficient solution to a common problem. In practice… the results had been less than satisfactory. I could engrave individual full-metal jackets, and they worked fairly well against simple wards – very simple wards – but once they were spent, they were gone. I didn’t want to just plug a small amount of energy into someone’s magical shield with a single shot. I wanted the Wardbreaker to work like a taser: the power came from the gun itself, with the round being an anchor for a powerful stream of energy. I was sure you could break wards by overcharging them, inflating the magic until it ripped itself apart, but I hadn’t been able to make it work.

I frowned down at it. No… for the moment, it wasn’t worth the risk or the extra weight. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to get it to work unless I used the gun more, but using the gun more meant taking it on jobs like this one. A misfire was the difference between coming home in the morning, or being delivered to the hospital under a sheet. I took a disposable piece instead, a neatly drilled and filed virgin S&W Model 645, and packed two full magazines: an eight round clip of FMJs marked up in painstakingly etched arcane designs, and eight plain.

“You’re an idiot, Alexi,” Vassily said. “At least let me drive. Did you see what this freak did to Slava?”

“That is exactly why you’re not coming with me.” I said. “I’m not too worried. You heard the guy’s voice. Over-dramatic, arrogant, and so very dire. This guy is probably some kind of stage wizard who’s good at magic and not much else. He won’t know what to do with someone who can kick his ass in person.”

“That’s a lot to assume from one phone call.”

I turned to look back at him. “Do I tell you how to do your job?”

Vassily huffed, leaning back on his hands. “I really don’t want to have to come and collect your ashes from K&S, okay? What am I gonna say to Mariya if something happens to you and I wasn't there?”

“You tell her I died doing what I love,” I replied, checking the bolt action on my pistol a second time.

“What? Perishing in a pyre of your own body fat while some pimply fat kid dances around your burning corpse?”

“Hunting my fellow man,” I said, holstering the pistol. “If you find my ashes, assume I had a mysterious, knowing smile on my face.”