The New York Magician by Jacob Zimmerman Read Free Book Online Page A

then took it automatically.
    "Uh. You're welcome. Package ... ?"
    "Yes. I'd hoped you'd get this to me within the hour, and all set, plenty of time. Thank you." I walked around the table towards the door. He followed, still looking around himself with a confused look but willing to be led. I nodded to him and ushered him out without touching him before locking the door and returning to the living room and seating myself on the sofa. There was a mirror on the wall opposite, a tall thin one that might have passed for decoration. I faced it.
    "Old One?"
    In the mirror, I nodded, my eyes glowing slightly. "Yes."
    "Why don't you tell me what this is about?"
    So I settled back onto my couch and listened to the tale.
    * * *
    The streets of Manhattan channel the flows of humanity, gutters of intellect and emotion on the feast of interaction that is urban life. Walking east towards Central Park from the 1/9 train I reached out with what senses I have and those I have stolen, but felt nothing out of the ordinary.
    The Djinn's story has brought me here. He is gone, into a random commuter in the 14th Street Subway Station without a backwards glance, merely an assurance in my head that he will know to find me if I am successful. I reached a hand into my coat to touch the talismans for reassurance, feel their energy slick and warm near me. Bobbi-Bobbi's spearhead crackled strangely.
    I passed the Museum of Natural History, settled in for the night in its small but comfortable block of parkland. The Planetarium building was a riot of glass and light on the north side, drawing my eye as I walked on towards Central Park.
    The Park itself was dark, but not completely. Not the lethal anarchy of even ten years ago, Central Park now held strollers, the curious, the amorous, and even tourists. I slipped into the interior, heading for the eastern side of the Reservoir, where the Djinn had said to look. Still nothing to feel, nothing to See or Hear.
    But perhaps a half-kilometer short of my goal, all that changed.
    I stopped short, there on the paved ribbon of the Park Drive, looking eastwards into the gloom. There was a presence there, some distance off but definitely in the direction I was heading. I'd never felt its like, but it was muted, somehow. A muffled basso drone of power.
    I continued on, reaching the Reservoir, and circled it until I reached the closed and locked access point, iron door solidly shut in masonry stone. A maintenance access only.
    The pocket watch flared, once, beneath my coat. There was a groaning shriek of metal and the door opened to let me slip inside and struggle to pull it shut. No-one noticed me inside my shield of ripples, the watch holding me invisible, but the sound might have gotten out. I hadn't thought of that. A few moments of waiting brought no response, however. I turned, pulled a mini Maglite from my coat, flicked it on and headed down the narrow steel stairs.
    The pumping station wasn't quiet. I can't imagine it would ever be; its silence would imply New York's death, the water stopped. A constant moaning roar pervaded the space, which is lit somewhat indifferently. Gigantic shapes of piping, valves and locks huddle at the bottom of the space, much taller than a person, creating valleys and hummocks of shadow and steel. I let myself out of the access stairway and look around. There was an operator's booth visible down the gallery, some fifty meters distant, lit much more brightly than this sullen open space. I didn't see anyone in it, but if they're there, they wouldn't see me out here in the dimness. I stepped to the middle of the room and looked around myself at the pipes.
    Then I Looked at them.
    In my gaze, they changed. Sharply defined edges vanished; straight lines wavered. The ranks of industrial machined forms shimmered in my vision, settling into a row of gigantic squared stone shapes, no two alike, with the steel pipe visible at their heads and feet where it disappeared into the wall.
    Sarcophagi,