forcing the Archmage backwards on the dais. But just when it looked like the old wizard was about to crumble, he thrust the staff upwards in the air and roared, 'By Ba'alat of Gebal, fall at the feet of your lordf
The Archmage rammed the staff down into a socket in the central design, completing a circuit between the floor and horns of the altar. With a thunderclap his staff released all its mana, burning my skin like fire, knocking Transomnia flat to the floor… and piercing Lord Buckhead through the heart.
'NO!' I screamed. But Buck just slumped to the floor, his staff falling to the ground with an impotent, hollow clatter like any old piece of wood.
'Like bugs drawn to the light,' the Archmage said, cloak thrown back by the force of the blaze. 'All too easy.'
Skin crackling with fire, crying with pain and loss, I twisted forward and craned my head up, at last seeing the face of the wizard behind this all.
My heart stopped.
It was Christopher Valentine.
42. UNVEILED, THE ARCHMAGE
'And to think, when I began stamping out rivals, it involved months or years of painstaking work-detecting, divining, even the odious art of dowsing,' the Mysterious Mirabilus said to the unconscious crowd, spinning the bronze-handled, triangular-bladed silver dagger in his hand with a broad, disarming grin. 'But in this 'modern' age all I need do is divine the right city, scan the yellow pages for likely practitioners, lay out a few bodies and- BAM!'
The dagger stabbed home into the altar right in front of my bound hands, and I jerked back. My hands didn't move, and I slouched back against the altar, sheltering my head between my forward-stretched arms, trying anything I could to get away from that knife-perilously aware this thrust my exposed backside into the air.
'All too easy,' Mirabilus repeated, hand resting on the dagger. After a moment of silence, I glanced up cautiously and found him staring down at me. Nothing of the kindly old grandfather remained; all that was left beneath his black, pointed eyebrows were two merciless chips of ice. I was too terrified to speak.
Almost.
'Why are you doing this to us?' I whispered.
'I have always been forthcoming about my goal,' he said, his genial tone belied by the cruelty in his eyes. ' 'The one and only.' I am to become in truth what I claim on the stage-the last of the magicians, the last and greatest mind to look out on the world with the same eyes as those first wizards who began to see the world with greater eyes at the dawn of man.'
'For the love of God-'
'Spare me this idolatry,' Mirabilus said, jerking the dagger loose, spinning the altar so the world whirled around and stopping it short with a cold, clammy hand slapped on my thigh.
'Oh, God,' I said, squeezing my knees together, throwing my head between my elbows and pressing myself as close as I could to the cold stone. This… disgusting old man was going to rape me before I died. 'Oh, Jesus-'
'Enough,' he said, and the dagger embedded itself again into the altar with a sudden ring, wobbling back and forth, slapping itself against my buttocks a few times before finally coming to rest, not touching me in any way- except I could still feel it there, a ghostly echo of cold silver and the cool smooth bumps of the jeweled guard hovering there, a ghostly threat hovering beyond sight or reach. 'Do not speak the name of that Hebrew fuck again. I don't want to hear it-especially not from you. Not from a skindancer. We are the priests of Ba'al Shaman, the children of Ba'alat, you and I; keepers of the secret art, masters of the hidden flame-'
'Oh, G-,' I began, and choked it off. I didn't want him to start using the dagger now. I didn't want him to start using it at all. There had to be, had to be something I could do. And then I realized: what the hell was he doing walking around after taking that bullet?
'Y-you were shot,' I stammered. 'You faked it. H-how did you-'
'Stalling for time by asking me how I do my tricks? Dakota, Dakota. For shame. You might as well ask how I pulled off the Dueling Mirabiluses,' he said. He smiled at me, then began miming sarcastically: ' 'Did he use a double?' 'Maybe he's twins? 'Or maybe triplets?' 'Is it a hidden projector?' Bah! What an endless parade of fools.'
He stepped back, holding his arms wide, and two shimmering copies of himself appeared where he opened his hands. 'You know the truth, Dakota. Magic is real, and I know how to use it. How did I survive the Masquerade? I was never on the stage of the Masquerade-not before tonight. I created those projectia without ever leaving my dressing room!'
'But… but…' I said, now really stalling for time. Wait-his image had gone to the hospital. 'But the doctors examined you! They did bloodwork, took X-rays-'
'I could say that I'm just that good,' Mirabilus said, 'but why lie to you, Dakota? You're in the club. I did a simple switcheroo: I let the projectia get shot, then took its place in the ambulance. A pair of stab wounds, a little more magic, and, voila, a simulated gunshot. Didn't you hear when the X-rays came back? 'Miraculously', the bullet missed bone. It didn't hurt the illusion that those damn clods infected me with a very real bug.'
And that was it. I was out of options. I looked around desperately. My friends were laid out around me like ninepins, and Transomnia was at the entrance Buck had blasted, nailing sheets of plywood over it to hide the interior of the Masquerade from the street. Maybe Doug knew where we were, if Jinx had told him-but supposedly he couldn't tell the police without Mirabilus knowing. We were fucked.
'Oh, please feel free to ask me something else,' Mirabilus said, checking his watch. 'I've lugged this altar across five continents. I've had many, many women on its surface. And I know stalling for time. But it's useless. The full moon is hours off yet, and I'm not yet peaked enough to sample your goods-'
I cringed on the platform, pressing my forehead to my bound hands. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. The creepy old geezer was going to rape me before stripping the skin from my body. I was fucked. Or was about to be. Oh, God And I looked aside for any help, saw Jinx and Cinnamon hanging from a hook, saw Alex and Buck laid unmoving-and then I saw that Wulf still breathed.
'Look. I… I know you want my tattoos, and maybe Cinnamon's too, if you decide not to turn her,' I said. Mirabilus said nothing, so I cautiously continued. 'And I know how you feel about the magicians. I won't get in the way of you eliminating your rivals-'
'Won't?' Mirabilus said curiously, putting his hand on my buttocks. 'Or can't?'
I cringed again, but continued. 'But you don't need to let Wulf die.' I cried. 'His marks are too old to harvest. He's not a magician at all. He doesn't even know what you've done to him. He served you well, even if he didn't know it. How could he possibly be a threat?'
'Wulfgang? That old Nazi bastard?' Valentine laughed. 'He's no threat at all. In fact he was my favorite stalking horse-all I needed to do was plant a suggestion about a 'cure' for his 'curse', and steer him towards my target. Normally he'd dig up one or two practitioners, but this time he struck gold, I have to say. At last, he's helped me draw out my true rival.'
I looked over at Buck. I'd drawn him into this. 'Oh no. Not Buck-'
'Oh, no, not him, my dear. And not Alex or Jinx either. They're all just wankers,' Valentine said. 'Even Buckhead, prize that he is, is in the end a pathetic old fool, a fading wannabe-god who never learned anything. None of them, not a one, know the Art.'
He shrugged off his cloak, exposing a barrel chest covered in intricate tattoos. ^
'My true rival, my dear, is you.'
'Tattooing is the only true magical art,' Mirabilus said, spreading his arms wide, showing off a hundred, a thousand detailed tattoos, each a hyperintricate knot of runes and sigils I would have been proud to have inked-had they not been woven throughout with scars and brands and symbols of pain and death. 'Tarot readings, onmyoji
