Fear Her Wrath II: Crucible of Glass

Chapter 37

For the first time in my life, I was grateful for those jazz records dad played constantly when I was younger.

Let me explain.

The old headquarters of Chalice Records had been abandoned for a while. Beginning in the 1930s, the company had produced dozens of albums with the "Marbrose Jazz" sound: melancholy, brassy, and occasionally dissonant, with its signature blending of Hasidic melodies, blues chords, and swing rhythms that came from black musicians playing songs written by Jews in nightclubs run by Sicilian gangsters. Chalice was Montagnese-owned, naturally enough, and it competed with the Ambrosius family's New Mercury Records, which had a more traditional bebop sound. Back when the music business was a Wild West and payola was the way you got anything on the radio, Chalice Records provided a convenient way for the Imperium to launder its illicit profits and find talent for its many nightclubs. It also gave the mobsters of Marbrose City some legitimacy as patrons of the arts—making organized crime seem less like an insidious influence that kept the whole city under its thumb and more like a bit of local color.

Chalice Records still existed, but as jazz sales fell off in the late 20th century, it relocated its offices to less spacious quarters on Coombes Street and switched to mostly marketing its impressive back catalog instead of promoting new talent. It still released three or four new records a year, but the heyday of Marbrose Jazz was over—at least outside the city. Most Montagnese nightclubs still retained a full band to play the classics, and gangsters—or true sons of the Fen like my dad—never got tried of old school jazz and swing.

All that to say, the Chalice Records building seemed like exactly the kind of place you could find lots of vintage recording equipment just laying around for the taking. It was just a hunch, but I felt good about it. So I called the Whippowil. This kind of job seemed like his forte.

And... I kinda wanted to see him again. Just to feel things out.

"Are you always early?" asked Gabriel as I hoisted myself onto the roof.

"For business? Yes. For everything else... not so much."

He cocked his head in that strange, birdlike way that always made me smile. For a moment, neither of us said anything.

"So, the Nightwrath needs some help breaking and entering."

"Yeah. I figure this place probably still has a security system in working order—otherwise the homeless would have moved in years ago."

"You're correct," said Gabriel, running his finger along a wire just below the skylight that was our chosen point of entry. "It's not terribly difficult, though. You could have figured it out yourself."

He used a small pocket knife to disarm the alarm and pry open the skylight as easily as opening a can of soup. After lowering himself into the darkness with his thief's cane, he called for me to follow. I waited until my night vision adjusted, then leapt down after him.

Before it was abandoned, the Chalice Records building was home to several recording studios and a broadcast station, not to mention lots of cushy offices and lounges for the performers. The interior was outfitted in the most glamorous 1930s style—gleaming red-marble floors, wine-colored wallpaper, polished wooden doors, and a chalice motif that seemed to show up on everything—even the doornobs. It was technically designated as a historical building (so the Montagnese family wouldn't have to pay taxes on it), but there was no evidence of any effort at preserving the place. The wallpaper was peeling, the antique furniture was dusty and decrepit, and most of the lightbulbs were missing from their sockets. Not that that mattered—the power was out, and so Gabriel and I crept along the hallways in the dark.

"So, what are you hoping to find?" asked my companion.

"Nothing. I mean, I'm hoping to find a bunch of microphones missing from a recording studio, or a supply closet, or—."