Hunters in the Night (6 page)

“Seems
like we have that in common,” I said. “We both learned our skills pretty
early.”

“Here’s
to the early bloomers,” Newton said, raising his glass. “How’s your beer?”

“Good.
Although I’m not really the best judge. This is actually the first time I’ve
had beer in years. Drinking isn’t something I ever made a habit of. But I’ve
been a little stressed recently so . . . why not?”

“I
know exactly what you mean,” Newton said. “This job does bring with it a
certain amount of tension. I know more than a few colleagues on anti-anxiety
medication.” He pointed to his glass, full of an amber liquid with a frothy
head, and smiled. “I prefer to self-medicate.”

“I
noticed,” I said.

“It’s
either this, or sex,” Newton said.

“I
wouldn’t know,” I said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve tried that too.”

“What?”
Newton said. “I find that difficult to believe. A handsome fellow like you? You
must attract plenty of girls.”

I
gave him a suspicious glare. “Now you’re just fishing.”

“Guilty
as charged,” he said. His face was turning red, but I didn’t know if that was
because he was embarrassed or because the alcohol hit him that fast.

“I’m
surprised you don’t know already,” I said. “You seem to know everything else
about me. Is there something missing from my file?”

“Contrary
to popular belief,” Newton said, “we don’t have orientation records for every
citizen. Electronic surveillance still has certain limitations, thankfully.”

“Thankfully,”
I said, and took a long sip from my glass to avoid having to say anything else.

“Change
of topic,” Newton said. “This is your first trip to Europe, right? What do you
think so far?”

“It’s
nice. Friendly people, good food, beautiful land.”

“A
magical land, would you say?” Newton’s glassy blue eyes twinkled.

“I
would
say that, actually. This region has a kind of Old World charm. It
feels like people have been using magic around here for a long time.”

“You
know,” Newton said, lowering his voice. “I was thinking about this earlier and
I’ve got some theories I’d like to bounce off you. But that kind of talk will
have to wait until we’re a little more drunk and we’re someplace with a little
more privacy. Classified mission, right?”

“Shut
up and drink,” I said.

And
so he did, and so did I. We drank porters and pilsners and bitters and blondes.
We talked more about our pasts, and our families. Newton told me stories about
growing up in a family of eggheads and spending his summers in camps ostensibly
designed to let kids freely explore intellectual activities with other
like-minded children, but instead they frequently led to some campers getting
caught doing drugs or doing each other. I did my best to reciprocate, but my
childhood was pretty boring until I met Kellar. Still, I tried to provide
Newton interesting anecdotes from my youth. But, no matter what I said, I
always got the impression that I was telling him something he already knew.

Ninety
minutes later we had finished all fourteen beers and were quite happy. We
weren’t totally wasted, since the beers had pretty low alcohol content, but the
world had definitely changed. I was feeling a nice floating sensation, and a
general sense of glee. Everything and everyone in the bar evoked a smile out of
me. Newton’s behavior was basically the same as always, but the drinking had a
more obvious physical effect on him. His cheeks were flushed and his hair was
messier than usual. His glasses comically tilted to one side.

“We
should go,” he said. “I still have a lot of things to talk to you about.” Then
he lowered his voice and said, “But we can’t do it here. These people don’t
have the clearance.”

We
both laughed at that. I had no idea why it was so damned funny, and didn’t
really care. Newton paid our bill, then we went back out into the crisp Dutch
air. Walking took a bit more effort than it had when we came in, but we both
managed to travel the short mile back to our hotel in decent time, and without
drawing any disapproving glares from the locals.

We
went into Newton’s room since it was closer than mine. He got the keycard out
of his pocket and into the lock so smoothly that I might have guessed that he
was still sober. But he promptly stumbled over a pair of shoes he’d left on the
floor and tumbled onto the bed. I had to cover my mouth to hold in the
laughter.

“I’m
not drunk,” he said.

“Right.
Right.” I sat down in one of the armchairs next to the bed and realized that
the room felt like it was starting to tilt, ever so slightly.

“I’m
not drunk!” Newton protested. “I’m just . . . really really
really
buzzed.”

“No,
I believe you. Totally.”

“I
have to avail myself of the facilities,” Newton said, standing. “But when I get
back we have to talk about this magic thing some more.”

“What
more is there to talk about?” I said. Newton walked into the bathroom,
unzipped, and started emptying his bladder without even closing the door.

“History,”
Newton said, loudly above the sound of his pee streaming into the toilet bowl.
“A lot of history is filled with talk of magic and gods and shit like that. And
this region in particular had a strong tradition of folk magic. The existence
of your little club explains a lot. Especially since it seems the Rift has been
here for centuries before it spread to North America.”

“How
about we have his conversation when you’re done?” I said. “This is kind of
awkward.”

Newton
shrugged and kept the flow going. He’s not a big guy, but apparently he has the
bladder of an elephant because it took a while for him to finish. He zipped up
and washed his hands, then he came out of the bathroom and flopped onto the bed
again.

“Anyway,”
he said, “so I was thinking . . . what was I thinking again?”

“History
and magic and gods and shit like that,” I said.

“Yes!
That. So anyway, I was thinking about what if all that mythical nonsense in the
history books came from you guys.”

“That’s
true,” I said.

“And
what kind of spells would a nightcrafter of that era cast?”

“Not
quite the same as today,” I said. “My mentor taught me that magic used to be
the only way a lot of things got done. The first nightcrafters built huge
structures, fought off famine and disease, and overthrew cruel kings. Their
work inspired people.”

“You
make them sound like heroes,” Newton said.

“Maybe
some of them were,” I said. “Things might have been different back then. Hell .
. . they were almost definitely different back then. But don’t think that I’m
saying that all the magicians back in the day were great people. Oh hell no.
Who do you think invented demons?”

“People
did,” Newton said. “Demons are a psychomological . . . a psycho . . .”

I
laughed. “You are totally wasted, Newt.”

“Don’t
call me that. Newt is what kids in grade school called me and I hated it. My
name is Newton, thank you very much. Anyways, as I was saying, demons are just
a psychological manifestation of various innate human fears.”

“Nah,”
I said. “Demons have been a part of human history for thousands of years.
They’re mysterious, dangerous, inhuman creatures that come out of the night and
devour people. Sound familiar?”

Newton
just stared at me. “Uhh . . . maybe?”

“They
were Rift-kind, Newton. They were creatures from the dark that some people had
the misfortune of meeting after a nightcrafter had been casting spells in the
area. The demons of history were very real. People just didn’t know what they
really were.”

“Oh
fine then,” Newton said. “You win that one. What about the magicians we
ordinary people know about? The hocus pocus, abracadabra kind. Where did they
come from?”

“Wannabes
have been around a long time,” I said. “The old nightcrafters would sometimes
do magic in public and people would ooh and aah and believe the nightcrafters
were children of the gods, or gods themselves. Of course you would have some
posers trying to capture some of that glory for themselves. Clever people
figured out how to replicate magic with tricks and mirrors and lies. But you
know the really funny thing about that?”

“Those
fake magicians later ended up getting hanged or burned as witches?” Newton
said.

“Well
. . . yeah that too. But what I was talking about was the fact that the fake
magicians started adding stuff to their acts that nightcrafters
couldn’t
actually do. Take the old trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, for instance.
Nightcrafters can’t do that.”

“Why
not?” Newton asked. “I’ve seen you pull stuff out of the Rift.”

“Inanimate
objects, yes. But if I tried to put any animal into the Rift, when I pulled
them out they’d be dead. I’m not sure exactly why that is, but Kellar made it
very clear that it was impossible. Any creature that gets put into the Rift
doesn’t survive the trip. The spell just doesn’t work that way.”

“That’s
actually pretty damn fascinating,” Newton said. “I’d love to test that.”

“I’m
not
going to help you put poor little animals in the Rift.”

“That’s
not what I meant, man. I meant like bacteria and viruses and microorganisms. It
would be interesting to see if they’re affected too.”

“When
we get back I’ll consider it,” I said.

“Good,”
Newton said. “So, with all this fascinating crap happening in the past and magic
playing a part in the development of mankind . . . why do you want to give it
up?”

“We
don’t need magic anymore,” I said. “We have forklifts and electricity and
satellite communication and UN sanctions. We have science. We have
scientists.
”
I pointed at Newton and smiled.
“The world doesn’t need magic anymore.”

“Then
why are nightcrafters still around?”

“Power,”
I said. “Plain and simple. It’s hard to give up that kind of power. Even if it
isn’t needed for the greater good, it still serves the lesser good. It still
keeps a handful of people at the top.”

Newton
laid his head on a pillow and covered his eyes with his right forearm. “I feel
like I’m going to pass out.”

“I
should get back to my room,” I said.

Newton
peeked out from under his arm. “You don’t have to. You could stay here.”

It
took a few seconds for those words to soak into my alcohol saturated brain. In
the meantime some other, more primal, part of me almost made me say yes. But my
brain finally got around to processing the whole situation and saved me. “I
should really get to my room. If I’m going to puke, I want to do it privately.”

“Good
point,” Newton said.

I
got up and headed to the door. My fingers had just touched the handle when I
heard, “Kal.”

I
turned and saw Newton still on the bed, nearly passed out. “Yeah?”

“This
was fun. We should do it again some time.”

“Sure.
Maybe once we get back home. Goodnight.”

Newton
gave me a sleepy salute and closed his eyes. On the way back to my own room I
wondered if the odd nervousness in my gut was just the beer, or something else.
By the time I was sitting back on my bed, I decided that the fluttery sensation
had nothing to do with alcohol.

Damn
feelings. Pesky things.

The
next day, we got word from the home base that the map data checked out and the
work was excellent. Newton and I tried to be as excited as we could, but the
headaches and nausea dampened our moods a bit. But, considering how much beer
we drank, overall we weren’t doing too badly.

I
had thought that we’d be returning home after the map was finished, but there
was still more work to be done. Dominique sent instructions for me to sniff out
as many other nightcrafters as I could find without getting detected. There was
a problem with that: I couldn’t find any signs of a magic user out in the
boonies where we were. So we left the forests and hamlets behind and went to a
suburb outside of London. I picked that spot because of the high number of
strange incidents that had occurred there over the past couple of years, and
nightcrafters love to be near big cities but just outside the range of all the
bright lights.

Our
base of operations was a little hotel in the city center. We rented out all the
rooms on the top floor to provide us with the best view of the surrounding area
and allow minimum interference for Newton’s machines. Now it was almost sundown
and I was sipping on a cup of hot chocolate, watching Newton type on his
computer. He types faster than anyone I’ve ever met. The clickety-clack from
his keyboard came out at machine gun pace, and he looked totally absorbed in
what he was doing.

“What
are we doing tonight?” I asked him.

“Just
surveillance,” Newton said without missing a beat in his typing. “I’m
configuring something for you to use today.”

“Is
that what the doohickey next to you is?”

Newton
smiled and grabbed the gadget lying next to his laptop. “Yes, it is. This is a
custom sensor package with new firmware based on the information I was able to
gather about you back in the lab. The sensor package is connected to my
computers via a medium-range radio protocol. I can access all the readings from
here and hopefully everything will seem fairly inconspicuous.”

“And
where are you going to put that sensor package?”

“On
you,” Newton said.

“Uh
. . .”

“We’ll
give you a backpack,” Newton said. “I’m not going to strap it to you. Although
that could be arranged if you really want to go that way.”

“That’s
not what I’m concerned about,” I said. “Why do I need the sensors at all? I can
find nightcrafters just fine.”