“Wait until you’re gone. Ten aisles left, three sections right. Will I be able to see such a small vial?”
“You won’t be able to miss it. It will be a small black case and feel like death has gripped you. Once you find it, use your creature to get out. You will never find the door without me. Ready?”
“Stop asking me that. I’m never ready. This is insane.”
“We’ve done worse. Remember, wait until I’m gone before you move.”
He slowly turned away from the guardian and bolted behind me.
The guardian followed silently several seconds later.
THIRTY-FIVE
<Where is the angry man going?>
<He’s going to take the big metal man away from us.>
<Is he scared?>
<He’s keeping us safe. We have to find a small box. Come on.>
I waited until Monty was gone from sight and moved fast. Ten aisles left, I turned right and headed down for three sections when a wave of darkness filled my thoughts.
<This place feels bad. Can we go back?>
<This is the place we need. Once we get the box we can leave.>
<This place makes my stomach feel bad, like your meat, but without the meat.>
<I know boy. Mine, too. We’re almost out of here. Give me a second.>
I searched the shelves until the feeling of oppression and sadness grew stronger. There, sitting on the shelf, around eye-level, sat a small black box. Beneath it, on the shelf was a small tag that read: Mors Tenebris—Dark Death.
Honestly, it didn’t need the tag. I took the box and grabbed Peaches by the scruff.
<Take us to the grass, boy. Now.>
The Arcanum Obscura disappeared from sight and the bright green of Bryant Park rushed up to greet my face, as I landed on the lawn as gracefully as a cinder block. Several of the people closest to me looked up from their tablets and electronics, made a mental note that I must have appeared from somewhere above, and went back to their electronics.
<Can I chase them now?>
<Do not chase anyone. You can let them pet you, but no biting.>
<It’s not as fun when I can’t bite.>
<Do you want meat later?>
<Yes. I’m starving again.>
<Then no biting.>
<What if they bite me first?>
<No one is going to bite you, first or second. Let’s go.>
I got shakily to my feet and started heading off the lawn to the 42nd Street side. There, at the stairwell leading to the Arcanum Obscura, stood Monty. He extended a hand, and I gave him the box of death. I noticed he was banged up with facial scratches and some bruises. The rear of his jacket had a long tear down the center.
“Your jacket—” I started.
“I know,” he snapped as we started heading west to Times Square.
“It’s really shredded.”
“I’m aware of its condition.”
“Do we have a spare in the Dark Goat?”
“This is the spare from the car.”
“Oh,” I said, at a loss. “Those guardians really hit hard, don’t they?”
“You don’t say?” Monty said, shrugging off the jacket. He tore it in two and dropped the pieces in a nearby wastebasket as he stared at me. “Whatever gave you that impression?”
“What is Dark Death?” I asked. “The real answer, not the classic magespeak response.”
“It accelerates a transformation into darkness,” Monty said, fixing me with his gaze. “For a mage of a certain skill, it pushes the level of power into Archmage territory for a short time, if he uses blood magic.”
“What happens after that ‘short time’ is up?”
“Don’t ask questions you know the answer to,” Monty snapped. “It’s insulting. The outcome is in the name.”
We walked in silence until we arrived at Times Square. By the time we arrived, I had grown certain of a few things. First among them—I wasn’t going to lose my family. Not to a psycho pair of earth mages nor to some toxic mage accelerant. Not today…not any day.
“You can’t use that thing,” I said when we got to the front of the precinct. “You can’t use the Dark Death.”
“I told you,” Monty said. “It’s insurance. Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.”
I outstretched my hand.
“Don’t make me ask again,” I said, keeping my arm extended. “I’ll hold it.”
“You can’t use it, Simon. What purpose would it serve if you held it?”
“Here’s the thing about that kind of insurance,” I said, my arm still out. “Somehow, someway, the occasion always comes up when it’s needed. I’ll hold it.”
He removed the box from his pocket and looked down at it, then handed it to me. I opened the box to make sure the vial of black liquid was inside.
“Whatever you do—do not ingest that liquid,” Monty said. “You’re not a mage. I don’t know what it will do to you.”
“Guess that means neither of us will find out what it does today.”
“You can be truly exasperating at times,” Monty said, rolling up his sleeves. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“Don’t you have runes to place around this area?” I asked, deflecting. “It’s almost time, and you still haven’t done your computational analysis.”
“Yes, mother, and it’s permutational persistence, get it right,” he said, observing the perimeter of the Square around the police station. “Can’t you remember the simplest things? You have a memory like a sieve.”
“That’s what I have you for, WikiMonty.”
He threw a hand up in the air and started walking the perimeter. Every so often, I would see him crouch and inscribe golden symbols into the ground that glowed brightly for a few seconds before fading.
I opened the box holding the Mors Tenebris and removed the vial. I opened my flask, walked over to a nearby trashcan and dumped out half of the javambrosia.
I proceeded to drink the rest. I had a feeling I was going to need the jolt it provided—and besides, dumping all of it just seemed…criminal. I opened the vial and poured the contents in my flask. It refilled daily with my javambrosia, but for now it would only hold Dark Death.
I stepped over to a vending machine
