The Rise of the Hotel Dumort Read Free Page B

and souring alcohol pooled on the recessed floor. The head of this stream came trickling down the three steps that led up to the bar. This door was completely gone, reduced to splinters. Beyond that, Magnus saw only destruction—shattered glass, broken tables, piles of debris. Even the innocent chandelier had been beaten down from its perch and lay in pieces on what was left of the dance floor.
    But this was not the worst of it. Sitting in the wreckage on one of three unbroken chairs was Aldous Nix, the High Warlock of Manhattan.
    “Magnus,” he said. “Finally. I’ve been waiting for an hour.”
    Aldous was old—even by warlock standards. He predated the calendar. Based on his recollections of things, the general consensus was that he was probably just under two thousand years old. He had the appearance of a man maybe in his late fifties, with a fine white beard and a neatly trimmed head of white hair. His mark was his clawed hands and feet. The feet were disguised by specially made boots, the hands by the fact that he almost always kept one pocketed and the other wrapped around the silver ball handle of a long black cane.
    That Aldous sat there in the middle of the wreckage was a sort of accusation.
    “What have I done to deserve this honor?” Magnus said, carefully stepping onto the mess on the floor. “Or have you always wanted to see a deconstructed bar? It is something of a spectacle.”
    Aldous knocked a bit of broken bottle away with his cane.
    “There’s better business to be done, Magnus. Do you really want to spend your time selling illegal liquor to mundanes?”
    “Yes.”
    “Bane . . .”
    “ Aldous . . . ,” Magnus said. “I’ve been involved in so many problems and battles. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live simply for a while and avoid trouble.”
    Aldous waved his hand at the wreckage.
    “This isn’t trouble,” Magnus said. “Not real trouble.”
    “But it’s also not a serious endeavor.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy life a little. We have forever. Should we really spend all of it working?”
    It was a stupid question to ask. Aldous probably would spend all of eternity working.
    “Magnus, you can’t have failed to notice that things are changing. Things are afoot. The Great Mundane War . . .”
    “They always get into wars,” Magnus said, picking up the bases of a dozen shattered wine glasses and setting them in a row.
    “Not like that. Not so global. And they are approaching magic. They make light and sound. They communicate over distances. It doesn’t worry you?”
    “No,” Magnus said. “It doesn’t.”
    “So you don’t see it coming?”
    “Aldous, I’ve had a long night. What are you talking about?”
    “It comes, Magnus.” Aldous’s voice was suddenly very deep. “You can feel it all around. It’s coming, and everything will break apart.”
    “ What’s coming?”
    “The break, and the fall. The mundanes put their faith in their paper money, and when that turns to ash, the world will turn upside down.”
    Being a warlock certainly didn’t preclude you from going a little funny in the head. In fact, being a warlock could easily make you go a little funny in the head. When the true weight of eternity really settled on you—usually in the middle of the night when you were alone—the weight could be unbearable. The knowledge that all would die and you would live on and on, into some vast unknown future populated by who knew what, that everything would always keep falling away and you would go on and on . . .
    Aldous had been thinking about it. He had the look.
    “Have a drink, Aldous,” Magnus said compassionately. “I keep a few special bottles hidden in a safe under the floor in the back. I have a Château Lafite Rothschild from 1818 that I’ve been saving for a sunny day.”
    “You think that’s the solution to everything, don’t you, Bane? Drinking and dancing and making love . . . but I tell you this,