The Last American Wizard (18 page)

“The riddle-masters have been
unleashed.”

Jones had spoken in a deep, solemn, and extremely loud voice. Steve jerked awake and instantly threw himself off the bench to the marble pavement. When he’d regained a few of his scattered wits, he turned to the young man. “What the hell are you doing? Channeling James Earl
Jones?”

The young embodiment of the Hanged Man was still seated in the lotus position, his eyes open, but the pupils had rolled up into his head so only the white sclera showed. The deep and sonorous voice rolled out again, “They are flying north. They seek Lucifer, the Morning Star, as was
prophesied.”

“Now that you’re awake, take a look at that.” Old Howard pointed at the statue. The face had changed–it took Steve a couple of minutes to realize that the eyes were sharp and blue, which wasn’t nearly as disturbing as the fact that they were clearly no longer oxidized copper but quite alive. All along the edges of the sweeping cloak, hundreds of small human hands were
appearing.

Their eyes were blue as
well.

Send Money clicked and Barnaby came on. “The Star has chosen to save the Ace of Swords. That’s the good news. The bad news is I can see two stone sphinxes flying in your
direction.”

Steve asked. “How can a stone sphinx
fly?”

“Pretty damn fast, from what I can tell,” the computer answered. “You’ve got about two minutes to work out your defense.”

“MY defense?” Steve protested. “Fighting isn’t really one of my strengths. If you’ve noticed, I’ve generally depended on Ace in that department unless that was temporarily
impossible.”

“Well, think of something fast, because the Master Chief isn’t going to be much help for the next thirty minutes or so.” the computer said. “I’m going to go offline and see if I can pull in a couple of favors, but at the moment, it’s all on
you.”

“That’s comforting,” Steve muttered. He turned to Old Howard. “You were a fighting man. Any
ideas?”

“I’m afraid not,” the ghost said. “Wisdom and Power–that’s their names–usually rest on the steps of the Scottish Rite Temple on 16th Street, and there’s always been too much etheric crap flying around there for me. Looks like the Masons are pissed–what did you
do?”

“Do?” Steve was embarrassed as his voice rose to a bat-like squeak. He coughed and fought his vocal cords back down. “I didn’t do a damn thing, but people have been trying to kill me since I woke up this morning. I’m totally
innocent.”

“Sure, buddy, sure. Whatever you
say.”

Steve glared at the ghost and then turned to Jones. “Can you
do
anything?”

Hamilton’s eyes rolled back into sight; he paused for a
moment as if assessing the situation, and then pulled his legs out of the lotus position. From the curses and groans, Steve guessed that finding his feet tucked high up on his thighs was something
new.

“I take it that your yoga is a bit rusty?” Steve
said.

“Yoga?” The young man panted. “Who the hell does yoga? Damn, I feel like my knees have been ripped out of their sockets.” He looked at Steve suspiciously. “Did you roofie me? I feel like I’ve been beaten and screwed senseless–not necessarily in that order.”

“Absolutely not.” Steve threw a thumb at Old Howard. “You can ask the ghost
here.”

Hamilton stared at him for a second and then burst into laughter. “No, if you’re reduced to using a ghost as a character witness, I guess I’ll have to believe you. What’s going
on?”

“You were the one who warned us,” Steve said. “You don’t remember? A couple of sphinxes–or is that sphinxi? Sphinxettes? Anyway, two of those things with human heads and the bodies of lions are heading our way. Apparently, they’ve got a beef with Ace over
there.”

“Wow, look at those hands go!” Hamilton pointed to where
the blond woman was lying. “Do you think it’s because each hand can see what it’s doing? I’d just get all
confused.”

Steve looked. It was all a bit vague–like something seen through frosted glass–but it did look as if the hundred hands flying over Ace’s unconscious body were efficiently dismantling the tough blonde woman into component parts, and placing the parts into neatly divided piles on the paving stones. He wrenched his eyes away, hoping that this wasn’t the obscene torture it sure as hell looked
like.

“Let’s not get sidetracked,” Steve said. “We’ve got to hold off these seagulls on steroids until Barnaby can work something out. Have you got any defensive magic, or are you just into prophetic warnings?”

“I can make prophetic
warnings?”

“I guess that answers that question.” Steve turned back to Old Howard. “Take yourself up about a hundred feet and let me know as soon as you see
them.”

The ghost looked as if Steve had suddenly begun to speak in tongues. “I can’t
fly!”

“Can you walk through walls?”

“Well, sure,
but–”

“OK, you couldn’t walk through walls when you were alive and you couldn’t fly when you were alive,” Steve said reasonably. “So, the odds are you can fly now that you’re dead, so get the hell up there and play
lookout!”

Old Howard looked thoughtful and then slowly began to rise into the
air.

The smartphone buzzed briefly and when Steve looked at the screen, he saw the now-familiar image of the Fool–the young man with his flower and bindle blissfully walking off a cliff. He thought of the poor kid falling hundreds of feet to certain death and felt a little jealous. The lucky little bastard didn’t have to deal with sphinxes.

Send Money began to play the eerie guitar intro to the Rolling Stones’
Gimme Shelter
. Steve just looked at the screen. Then the phone segued into
Raise Your
Glass
.

Steve said, “Nope. I still don’t get it.” The screen flashed red and
then

“Finally, something rational. From now on, you can lose the cute musical hints,
OK?”

Steve concentrated on the flower on the card and the now- familiar hemisphere appeared. With a bit of concentration, he managed to flip it so that it was overhead like an umbrella and then expanded it so that it covered everything from where they were sitting to the marble ledge where the avatar continued to take Ace apart like a Japanese car factory stuck in reverse gear. All this seemed quite natural–until he realized he had no idea how he’d accomplished
it.

On the positive side, once again, there wasn’t the ripping pain that usually accompanied his use of magic, and it felt as if the shield was stronger. Unfortunately, he’d have to wait until it was sphinx-tested to be
sure.

“Ahoy, Mr.
Idiot!”

Steve shook his head in irritation and shouted up to Old Howard. “I’m the bloody Fool, not an
idiot.”

“Six of one, really. I thought you’d like to know that your adversaries are almost
here.”

“Are you
sure?”

“No, but I don’t usually see stone demons flying about,” the ghost said. “Mind you, they could be pigeons, but then they’d be a couple of big damn
pigeons.”

Steve pulled Hamilton with him as he moved to stand by Ace– or at least the construction kit that had once been Ace. It seemed logical that a smaller shield would be stronger. He had a fleeting thought that logic might not be relevant in this
situation.

Two enormous objects striking the iridescent and, now that he thought about it, somewhat flimsy shield directly above his head, abruptly terminated his digression into magical ontology. He stood frozen in pure terror as the gossamer material flexed inward under the strain of several tons of granite moving at high
speed.

An enormous stone paw–accessorized with long and
extremely sharp stone talons–descended to within inches of Steve’s head before slowing, stopping, and finally
rebounding.

“Wow.”

He glanced over at Hamilton. The young man pointed down at Steve’s feet–his loafers had been driven six inches into the marble paving stones. Wishing he’d thought of it earlier, he created a golden spear, widened it into a pillar, and fitted it so that it supported the shield like a tent
pole.

Steve checked on Ace and regretted it immediately. The statue was putting her back together but the blonde warrior looked like an IKEA corner cupboard in the very first stages of construction. Steve was thankful that the avatar appeared to be doing all the repairs without any sign of blood. It was a small blessing, but he was thankful for anything that made the process more
bearable.

Old Howard floated down and bounced off the top of the shield in the slow-motion way that astronauts used to run on the Moon. He shrugged apologetically and drifted off toward the BMW.

Now that his attention had been drawn outside the shield, Steve looked to see what had happened to their attackers. Each of them was about the size of a Lincoln Town Car and, from the evidence of torn grass, furrowed earth, and toppled gravestones, considerably heavier. One was on her back with her enormous
stone head–complete with elaborate headdress–stuck inside a marble mausoleum about the size of a small vacation cabin. As he watched; she slid ten-inch-long claws up between her neck and the marble enclosure. A short, violent wrench of the leonine forelegs turned the crypt into a cloud of white powder. The other had evidently bounced higher than her twin–she had smashed almost straight down on a relatively new grave and was now climbing grimly
out
of
the
sphinx-shaped
hole
she’d
pounded
into
the
soft earth. After she emerged, she shook herself like a dog to dislodge the decayed remnants of the grave’s previous
occupant.

Once she was sufficiently clean, she spoke. “The Fool is mortal and this mortal is a
fool.”

Her sister responded from the other side of the shield. “Our order has a death mandate made. Thus, for both man and maid, a date with death is
decreed.”

Steve was stumped. All he could think of was an old palindrome about Napoleon so he said, “Able was I ere I saw Elba,” with all the pretentiousness he could
muster.

The two enormous effigies looked at each other, shrugged, and began to advance towards Steve–only slowed slightly by a
tendency to sink up to the knees in soft patches. Steve decided to give up any more attempts at out-emoting them. Clearly, these were
professionals.

Instead, he went straight to his habitual Plan B: insults. “So, I’ve been told that your names are Wisdom and Power. But neither of you wusses had the power to break my shield, and after those landings, I haven’t been impressed your
wisdom.”

The only response was a duet of dark and menacing growls. “OK,
that
might
qualify
you
guys
for
the
bass
section
of
a Ukrainian Orthodox choir, especially with those beards,”
Steve said. “But I didn’t think your specialty was in brute force and empty threats. I’ve been hearing all about how you two are the brainiacs with the unanswerable riddles. I guess my sources were mistaken.”

Now on both sides of the enclosed patio, the sphinxes struck
in unison, taking massive swipes at the shield. Steve could see golden lines appearing where their claws gouged into–well, into whatever
made
up
his
shelter.
He
closed
his
eyes;
he
hadn’t
used the shield enough to get over the ingrained assumption that whatever hit it would end up hitting
him.

When there was no pain and his searching fingers couldn’t
find any deep wounds or arterial bleeding, he opened one eye and then the other. He tested the shield–poking at it in his mind the way a patient pokes a tongue into the space where the dentist has pulled a tooth. It was definitely
weaker.

There didn’t seem to be any good reasons to let the thugs outside know that they could affect his defenses, so he continued to taunt them. “Not all that tough, are we? Can’t even dent a mortal’s miserable little
shield.”

The creature on his left peered at the shield and examined everything inside. Suddenly pointing a claw at Hamilton Jones, she said,

“A man in terrible suffering, Hung by one leg
see,

His head planted in the earth, Feet rooted to the world tree.”