Her remote controls, one for TV, one for DVD player, have been wrapped in plastic, likewise clay-smudged and fingerprinted.
More inverted mugs, and a smattering of coffee cups and saucers, congregate on a card table, along with a tall vase topped by a precarious-looking round wooden board. A quarantaine of rosettes dries atop this board, the same rosettes that, when fitted with brass pins and painted Tudor red, will adorn the vests and doublets of the acting cast of the Renaissance festival to distinguish them from unpaid costumed enthusiasts. That is to say, when a drunken Landsknecht in rather convincing armor barfs on your lady fair, the lack of said rosette upon his breast will mark this as an unsanctioned event and indemnify both the festival and the troupe of professional improvisers that animate its lanes.
“Which kind am I?” she says.
Meaning plodder or intuitive.
“A bit of both, like me,” he says. “But more intuitive, I think.”
Her brow wrinkles, and although she doesn’t look away from the exercise in her palm, it’s clear she wants more explanation.
“An intuitive just does it, doesn’t need as many implements, can do small things almost immediately. Like what you’re doing. An intuitive is more luminous, must in fact be luminous from the start.”
“And a planner?”
“Plodder.”
“Plodder.”
“They hate that word. And some of them are a bit contemptful and jealous toward intuitives.”
“Sounds like you’re a bit contemptful of them. Plodder is an ugly word. What do they call themselves?”
“Disciples is the preferred term when they differentiate, but they don’t differentiate the same way. They see themselves as disciplined and those who don’t spend their lives bent over books as lazy. Thing is, they’re all geniuses. The plodders. To come at magic without luminosity, you have to be smart enough to work for Apple or IBM or crack codes for the CIA, and a few of them do. Their books are much more complex, more like rocket science; more glyphs and formulas, though one of them would say formulae. They think their way into belief, crack the code of magic and understanding with brainpower. They aren’t all luminous at the start, but they get there; they make a fire with sticks where naturals already have a fire. But the payoff is that they can do really big, astounding things. Think of it as learning a language with books and tapes versus being born in that country. Nonluminous plodders are like non-native speakers. But English was Nabokov’s second language, and he wrote Lolita. Or was it his third language? He spoke French, too.”
“Nabokov, huh? Was that a jab?”
“At who?”
She raises an eyebrow, keeps moving the shard.
“Oh, right.”
I forgot you’re a sex offender.
“Not consciously.”
Anneke is officially a witch, albeit a novice. The first time she jiggled that penny, Andrew felt the small tingle of magic waking up. She collapsed and sobbed afterward, but that was not unusual. He had a similarly emotive reaction the first time he spun a pop top. The first spell is usually some light levitation. Small magic, admittedly, a mustard seed from which some build mountains.
He leans forward just a little so the black iron conical stove behind her appears to top her head like a witch’s hat. Sandalwood incense leaks smoke behind her. He leans the other way so it appears to come from her nose.
“What are you doing?” she says, her concentration split, Abraham Lincoln dead again on dull copper in her hand.
“Sorry. Nothing.”
She tosses the penny into a broken mug full of coins, lights a cigarette, gives him one. He totters the lighter out of her hand, levitates it into his.
“Show-off. Can you light it?”
“It’s a more precise motion, takes more strength.”
“Yes, but can you?”
“Burns more gas.”
She squints her eyes at him.
“Magic burns fuel. Continuous spells burn fuel continuously. Spikes in magic use can disrupt those spells. Think of an outlet, energy surges.”
“Continuous spells? Like what?”
“Health. Youth. Luck. One well-cast luck spell in Vegas and a user can clean up. Only not in the MGM Mirage casinos—Mandalay Bay, Bellaggio, I forget the rest but I have a list—they have users working for them, kicking others out. Or worse.”
“Youth, huh? You running one of those right now, Mr. Looks Thirty-Five?”
“You should know. Try to detect it.”
She closes her eyes.
“Open them and think about what you want to know.”
Now she looks at him, really looks at him. Then she feels it, subtle as cat’s breath. The hairs on her forearms stand up just a little.
“You vain motherfucker. So you can’t flick the lighter or you’ll get liver spots?”
“I’m a bit stronger than that,” he says, and the lighter sparks, lights up, Andrew smiling with his hands behind his head. “It’s just that I have to focus more. It’s easier just to light it by hand. It’s like Skype.”
“Excuse me?”
“Skype. It’s…”
“I know what it is, what’s the relevance?”
“I used to have a crystal ball.”
“Sounds like a song title.”
He sings.
He pauses.
“Can’t think of a rhyme?”
“No.”
“Just say it.”
“It was a bit of a pain in the ass. The other person had to have a glass something-or-other with exactly the same spell cast into it, and you both had to concentrate; if you got distracted, the image faded or distorted or went away. You’re about to ask if my fishbowl rang, and it did. Really, it quivered when the other person wanted to talk, but I taped a little bell to it.”
“I was going to ask if there was a fish in it.”
“There used to be, before I enchanted it. I’m not good with fish.”
“No, you’re good with cars and dead people. And you’re intuitive, like me. Who’s a plodder?”
“I know one.”
“Powerful?”
“Scary powerful. Young, too. Lives in Lincoln Park. Chicago. And she’s working on a project for me right now.”
22
Chicagohoney85: The Mikhail Dragomirov you’re looking for is Mikhail “Misha” Yevgenievich Dragomirov. Born December 1943. He was one of the few non-Jewish members of a crime organization that came over during the détente of the early eighties. He lived in Brighton Beach, which some called Little Odessa, but he wasn’t from Odessa. He knew these guys from the army. His family has long ties to the Russian military, most notably with the great-uncle Mikhail Dragomirov he was probably named for, a Sean Connery–looking geezer who wrote extensively on 19th-century tactics. Died of heartbreak in 1905 when the Japanese kicked Russia’s ass with 20th-century tactics. The dad, Yevgeny, was no slouch, either. Fuckton of medals in WW2. Tank commander, T-34. Only an efreitor, like a corporal, but survived three bullet wounds, crawled out of two burning tanks and killed more Germans than bad Bratwurst. Serious badass.