Magnus Flyte - City of dark magic

EARLY PRAISE FOR

CITY of DARK MAGIC

This deliciously madcap novel has it all: murder in Prague, time travel, a misanthropic Beethoven, tantric sex, and a dwarf with attitude. I salute you, Magnus Flyte!

Conan OBrien

The most wickedly enchanting novel Ive ever read and also the funniest. A Champagne magnum of intrigue and wit, this book sparkles from beginning to end.

Anne Fortier, bestselling author of Juliet

A story that abounds in mysterious portents, wild coincidences, violent death, and furtive but lusty sex... [this novel] cleverly combin[es] time travel, murder, history, and musical lore.

Publishers Weekly

The riddle of Beethovens Immortal Beloved, alchemy, and clandestine love fuse in this fastpaced, funny, romantic mystery... An exuberant, surprising gem.

Kirkus Reviews

PENGUIN BOOKS

CITY of DARK MAGIC

The manuscript of the book you are about to read arrived in the mail one day at Penguin headquarters in New York with no cover letter. It was written on stationery from the Hotel La Mamounia in Marrakech using a manual typewriter, and postmarked on the Isle of Mull. The return address was simply Flyte, Magnus. When the editors sought details about the author, they found them to be conflicting. He may be American. He may have ties to one or more intelligence organizations, including a radical group of Antarctic separatists. He may be the author of a monograph on carnivorous butterflies. He may live in Venice, Vienna, Vladivostok, or Vermont. City of Dark Magic may be his first novel.

CITY of DARK MAGIC

A Novel

MAGNUS FLYTE

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Pen1emguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in Penguin Books 2012

Copyright Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey, 2012

All rights reserved

Map illustration by Rodica Prato

PUBLISHERS NOTE

This novel is a work of fiction. While some of the place names and family names are real, the characters and incidents are either the product of the authors imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Flyte, Magnus.

City of dark magic : a novel / Magnus Flyte.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-60306-2

1. Music studentsFiction. 2. Prague (Czech Republic)Fiction. 3. Paranormal fiction. I. Title.

PS3606.L98C58 2012

813'.6dc23

2012028676

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The scanning, uploadingic)g, uplo and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

Contents

Prince! what you are, you are by circumstance and by birth. What I am, I am through myself. Of Princes there have and will be thousandsof Beethovens there is only one.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN,
in a letter to Prince Lichnowsky, 1806

It is enough for the tourist to enter the twilit little streets of ancient Prague in the evening, and the same mood will breathe on him as has been felt for centuries by those who tell of the ghosts in Prague houses. It will not seem impossible to him, as he walks the winding alleys, that some of the strange inhabitants with which fantasy has peopled Prague should emerge from the flickering shadows before him.

JAN VANIS,
A Guide to Mysterious Prague

PROLOGUE

T he Save Venice fund-raiser began as these things do, with Bellinis, with tiny toast points topped with squid pt, and with swaying musicians playing the greatest hits of Italian opera beneath a fresco by Tiepolo. Sequined women and tuxedo-clad men stepped out of teak vaporetti onto the private dock at Ca Rezzonico, where, it was hoped, strong drink and the thought of beautiful palazzi sinking into the sands below would lift wallets as easily as a child pickpocket in the Piazza San Marco.

The organizers were salivating, greeting a German fashion designer, an American hedge fund owner, and a dour British playwright. Models had been hired to improve the beauty quotient, since billionaires are not especially attractive up close.

But just after midnight, something had gone terribly wrong. That was when, as one of the carabinieri put it, the cascata dei corpi, or human waterfall, began. It was a minor member of the Saudi royal family who went first, startling everyone around him by emitting a series of hoarse screams and then crashing through a glass window and plummeting out of sight. A billionaire American industrialist, who onlookers at first thought was rushing to save the Saudi, soon joined him. They were the first two.

A honeymooning couple from Youngstown, Ohio, being poled up the Grand Canal were startled to see a series of bodies falling from the windows of the glittering palazzo. Inside, panic was raging and it was generally felt that very few that evening distinguished themselves by bravery. By the time it was over, seven people in formal wear and one waiter were floating facedown in the Grand Canal. Dead.

The city was in a panic, though a panic in Italy means most people still stand around coffee bars drinking espresso and Prosecco. St. Marks was still very crowded.

What had driven these people to suicide? Or were the unfortunate souls already dead when they hit the water? Despite the clamor of an army of international lawyers descendingroy like vultures, demanding the bodies of the dead, Venetian medical examiners were dutifully dissecting and testing the remains, which, since the citys tiny morgue was full, were being housed in the Church of the Redeemer next door. Its cool marble interior was considered a more dignified choice than a nearby fruit warehouse.