The Gates of Life and Death
The piece of human trash who had run down and killed Delis's father, Chief Superintendent Arthur Bloomfeld, was named Victor Malenkov. As his name suggested, he was of Russian descent. I had first heard news of his prison transfer about a week ago. At the time, I didn't think much of it. I had dug into his background, wondering if he might be connected to the Council, but Stalin and his cronies were pathologically thorough about cutting loose ends, so my efforts yielded little. But now that I had decided to bring Delis into the Syndicate and under my wing, the situation was entirely different. The fact that the final piece of Delis's revenge lay outside my control was deeply unsettling. So, I planned to ambush the prison transport during the transfer and have the Syndicate abduct the scum inside.
Even for me, raiding a heavily guarded prison was out of the question. Pulling off a stunt like that in the middle of London and expecting to get away with it relied far too much on luck. A transport convoy, however, was manageable. A convoy escorted by vehicles and motorcycles from the Metropolitan Police and the Royal Prison Service was something we could easily overturn. With the Syndicate's intelligence network, securing the transfer schedule was trivial. Spreading out a map of London, plotting the timetable, and selecting the perfect ambush point was equally simple.
I chose the Blackwall Tunnel, which ran beneath the River Thames, as the ambush site. Like most underwater tunnels, the Blackwall Tunnel had emergency evacuation alcoves built along the walls of both lanes, and these alcoves naturally connected to the surface or other subterranean structures. My men had obtained the tunnel's blueprints from thirty years ago and identified an evacuation alcove that connected directly to London's sprawling, web-like Underground network.
Pavel and I disguised ourselves as ordinary commuters and entered North Greenwich Station right on schedule. The mid-June London heat was sweltering, which allowed me to blend seamlessly into the crowd wearing a light sundress.
Manipulating the station staff was child's play. A single look into my eyes, and they would break into goofy grins, eagerly babbling whatever information I wanted. It was Delis, who was immune to my Charm, who was the anomaly. Through various experiments on my subordinates and others, I had discovered that I could adjust the intensity of my Charm at will. Though a splitting headache and ragged breathing accompanied higher outputs, at maximum power, my Charm could now force individuals to remember or forget specific facts. For example—
"Excuse me, I have a small favor to ask. Could you forget that we met today?" I would ask with a sweet, apologetic smile.
"Of course, that's no problem at all... Is that really all you need?"
"Then, just one more thing. Could you delete today's CCTV footage for the station as well?"
"Ah, that... I'd love to help, but I don't have the authorization for that..."
My Charm was evolving beyond mere infatuation; it was becoming a weapon of psychological corruption in the truest sense. If this desperate urge to grant my every whim wasn't systemic mental contamination, I didn't know what was. Regardless, there was no reason not to use my unique signature magic, especially since it left no magical traces unless analyzed immediately on-site. Still, of all the people to run into, it had to be a low-level clerk. It was a bit of bad luck, but nothing I couldn't handle.
"In that case, could you bring me someone who does have that authorization?"
"Oh, that's easy! I'll be right back, so please wait here!"
—And just like that, I was able to stroll through the station in ways that would have been unimaginable before. Once the clerk brought his supervisor, I made a captive of him as well, forcing him to prove his utility. Today, I would become an electronic ghost. To be safe, I had him delete not just today's footage, but a whole week's worth of recordings. The investigation authorities were bound to be thrown into utter chaos. It was also a great relief to know that neither of them would ever speak of my existence. If the Ministry of Magic intervened and tried to break the Charm, I could simply kill them before they succeeded. Avoiding contact altogether would have been ideal, but since that was practically impossible, pushing through with minimal risk was the only viable path.
Thus, at noon, Pavel and I entered the tunnel completely unopposed. We prepared to cast our magic just in time for the convoy's arrival. Our weapon of choice was the national relic, Spiegel. While restructuring the Syndicate, I hadn't been slacking off as a mage. Aside from mastering my Charm, how could I call myself a mage if I didn't analyze the very first national relic I had laid my hands on? Over the past month and a half, I had successfully shrunk Spiegel—which had originally been the size of my open palm—down to the size of a thumb.
Who was I in my past life? When it came to observing relics and analyzing their inscribed magic through every method imaginable, no one on the peninsula could match my expertise. My intuition—which could easily be called an occupational hazard—remained as sharp as ever. Now, Spiegel had been modified to be carried with ease while fully retaining its original functions. The national relic, ground down to a size that looked perfectly natural as a piece of jewelry, now hung around my neck as a locket. My personal magical capacity had also progressed during the process. By combining my past knowledge with the new insights gained from analyzing Spiegel, I had significantly improved the stability of the defensive magic I cast on my subordinates. It was now strong enough to easily withstand rifle rounds, let alone a minor car crash.
And so, the moment arrived.
The transmission came from my technical specialist. He was one of the four who had boarded the river cruise with me to escape Kaliningrad.
Finally, the convoy came into view. Without hesitation, I activated Spiegel toward the vehicle in the center of the procession. The magical phenomenon manifested brilliantly around the target point. A sphere of force expanded, threatening to tear apart and swallow everything it touched. The asphalt beneath the vehicle shattered first, and the narrow concrete walls of the tunnel began to be gouged away with a sound like rolling thunder. The vehicle carrying Victor Malenkov hurtled toward the sphere at sixty kilometers per hour, completely oblivious to its doom.
Screeech! Skrrrrt! The front of the vehicle was swallowed by the sphere with a grotesque screech of tearing metal. The dim yellow lights of the tunnel were suddenly eclipsed by a brilliant shower of metallic sparks. I deactivated Spiegel just as the driver's cabin reached the sphere. Having lost the front half of his body, the driver was thrown violently from the wreckage, landing in a bloody heap. The mangled, half-severed mass of flesh slammed onto the asphalt, and inertia dragged it forward, painting a gruesome, bright red skid mark of shredded meat along the tunnel floor.
Crash! Bang! The vehicles following behind piled into one another in a violent chain reaction. The blaring of car horns mingled with the crunch of metal, composing a symphony of impending death.
"Pavel, take the front."
"Understood."
The vehicles further ahead were relatively intact, but they were in no less chaos. I refreshed the defensive magic on Pavel and sent him forward. Every variable had to be kept strictly under control.
"Oh, and leave me a pistol before you go."
I took a handgun from Pavel as he stepped forward. While the Syndicate's smuggling operations had previously focused on luxury goods, we had recently been expanding our portfolio to include weapons. Currently, the largest share of that small pie came from a supply line we had successfully established with the IRA (Irish Republican Army). Though our inventory was still limited, a supply partner completely unburdened by ideology was highly attractive. There was absolutely no downside.
Armed with the Browning pistol favored by our Irish friends, I strolled leisurely in the opposite direction of Pavel. Since the prison authorities had halted traffic themselves to facilitate the transport, our golden window of opportunity was at least five minutes.
The tunnel wind fluttered the hem of my white sundress. I had dressed up nicely for a brief outing, so it was incredibly annoying to have my clothes soiled by the dust of pulverized asphalt, concrete, and metallic debris from the pile-up.
But business was business. I systematically put a bullet through the head of each police officer and prison guard struggling to crawl out of the wreckage. After all, if a mage fights someone with a gun, a mage with a gun wins.
Had this been America, I couldn't have ignored the possibility of bodycam or dashcam footage being streamed in real-time to headquarters. Fortunately, these fellows were cash-strapped Brits, so there was no such concern. Still, I made sure to smash every dashcam I could find. While the trend of mounting external cameras on vehicles in Western nations wouldn't become widespread until the 2000s, these special-purpose vehicles were always an exception.
As I hummed a tune and eliminated the remaining variables, a sudden thought crossed my mind.
Rather than just slaughtering everyone, wouldn't it be better to stage a little chaos?
Sure, why not?
I approached a man who had been thrown off his motorcycle, looking as though he might draw his last breath at any moment. Sensing my presence, he feebly reached a hand out toward me, mumbling incoherently.
"Ugh... Ahhh..."
"Are you asking me to save you? I'm sorry, but I can't do that..."
Saving him would only complicate things, and I absolutely refused to get blood on my white dress. Since he looked like he would die on his own anyway, I decided to use him to throw off the investigation.
I locked eyes with the man, who was desperately clawing at the asphalt as he tried to drag himself out from under his motorcycle.
"Excuse me, what is your name?"
Through experimentation, I had confirmed that addressing a target by name and making a polite request significantly enhanced the efficacy of my Charm. It wasn't a magical amplification per se, but rather a psychological trick that narrowed the distance between myself and my puppet.
As the magic took hold, a barely audible whisper escaped his lips.
"Jamie... Jamie O'Neill..."
To think his absolute priority on the brink of death was answering my question. It was almost comical. But his name brought an unexpected windfall. O'Neill was a classic Irish surname.
"Ah, so you're of Irish descent. In that case, Mr. Jamie O'Neill, I have a favor to ask. Will you do it for me?"
"A favor... Yes, I'll do it..."
I held the IRA-sourced pistol, which had only a single round left after my shooting spree, right before his eyes.
"Could you commit suicide with this? Yes, I would be so grateful if you did."
Ballistics and rifling analysis were well-established sciences even in this era. A pistol that had just killed over a dozen people, which analysis would trace back to the IRA. If this very gun were found in the hand of an Irish-descended police officer who had apparently used the final bullet to commit suicide? It was the perfect piece of fabricated evidence to throw the investigators into a tailspin. The scenario of Jamie O'Neill shooting his colleagues and then killing himself made no sense, given that his body had already been mangled by the crash. Yet, the theory that someone had staged it by placing the gun in his hand also made no sense because the physical evidence of suicide would be too clear. I wondered how the investigators would struggle to reconcile these contradictory clues.
I left only two survivors. I made sure to look both in the eye and ask them to forget me. While I was cleaning up the rest of the scene, Jamie O'Neill, whom I had left to his own devices, still hadn't pulled the trigger. I had assumed he would be dead by now. Driven by curiosity, I walked back to the wrecked motorcycle.
"Hmm..."
His right hand, gripping the pistol, was trembling violently. It seemed to be a disconnect between his mind and his body. His mind was desperately trying to press the barrel against his temple, but his body was fighting tooth and nail to resist. Through my mage's sight, I could see the friction between the two forces manifesting as a brilliant, flickering light. It was a clash between my Charm and his survival instinct.
I've never seen this happen before...
Then again, discovering that my Charm was not omnipotent was significant progress in itself. Even when experimenting on my subordinates, I could hardly order my precious men to commit suicide. The opportunists who betrayed the Syndicate would have been perfect test subjects, but I had been far too busy lately to think of it.
The clash between the two opposing forces grew increasingly violent. His mind forced his mouth open, slowly guiding the barrel inside, but his body violently rejected the action, forcing the line of fire back toward the ground. Death is irreversible. The terror of that irreversibility, engraved deep within the soul, was an instinct that even my Charm could not easily suppress.
In that case, I simply had to suppress his instincts further. I stepped closer to Jamie O'Neill and locked eyes with him once more. At that moment, the path of life this man trod slowly shifted from the gate of life to the gate of death.
...My head is starting to throb.
But it worked. Despite his desperate struggle to keep his mouth shut, his trembling hand firmly shoved the barrel past his lips. I stared straight into his terror-stricken eyes and commanded him.
"What are you waiting for, O'Neill? I told you to kill yourself."
After letting the final gunshot echo through the tunnel, I returned to the center of the convoy to rejoin Pavel. Inside the overturned transport vehicle, our target, Victor Malenkov, lay unconscious with blood streaming from his head. Since our prospective recruit, who desperately craved this revenge, was likely speeding from Oxford to London at this very moment, it was a relief that the bastard hadn't died on us just yet.