Four years ago I was sitting in front of the fire on a winter night. There was a storm shrieking outside and doors rattling through the house and a fire burning that seemed to have mocking faces hidden in its depths. Alan was sitting by the fire playing with his dinosaur cards and trying to talk to me. I couldn’t think of a word to say to him. Marie had been dead less than a month.
I thought the pounding on the door was part of the storm but it continued, insistent and purposeful, and eventually I went to check.
I never even had the chance to invite her in. Olivia came out of the storm and out of my dreams, running into the room toward the fire as if it was the first warmth and light she had seen in years.
She looked so much older, she looked so wild and scared, I barely noticed the bundle that she let fall on the floor. I thought it was a bundle of possessions, perhaps a bundle of rags. I didn’t know. I didn’t think it mattered. Not with Olivia come back to me and so afraid. I held her hands and they were like claws. She was talking about magic and demons and darkness even as I tried to warm her, to reshape her hands into a shape that felt more human. I thought it was simply madness.
I didn’t pay attention. I am ashamed to write this now, but I was—I think I was happy. My dreams had come true. She was back, and we could heal each other. I had a wife again, and hope.
If I had only known.
While I was looking into Olivia’s mad eyes and dreaming, my son left his game and his place by the fire. I didn’t even notice as he went toward what I had thought was a bundle of rags. I didn’t notice as he turned it over and drew back the blanket, lifted it carefully in his small arms.
I only noticed when he spoke.
“Look, Daddy!”
Then, too late, I turned around. I did not know what I was seeing, but even then I felt a sudden lurch of shock and dread. I felt as if I had looked away at a crucial moment and my child had fallen into the fire and been horribly burned.
I saw my son, my Alan, my darling boy, and in his arms a creature with staring, terrible black eyes. Something that had not stirred or cried out even when Olivia threw it on the floor.
“Daddy,” Alan said, glowing. “It’s a baby.”
The first entry stopped there, a line drawn decisively under the last words in blue ink that had bled slightly into the paper. Mae risked a look up at Nick. He was standing against the attic wall, a little hunched in because of the slope. He hadn’t moved, and his face was as still and cold as ever.
“How’re you,” Mae said, and swallowed. “How’re you feeling?”
She realized an instant later that this was probably the wrong thing to say to Nick, but he met her eyes and answered readily enough.
“Surprised.”
“Uh, surprised?”
“Yeah,” Nick said roughly. “I didn’t know that was how he thought about me. Makes sense, though.”
It did make sense. The little paper book felt too heavy in Mae’s hands as she thought of that poor man with his dead wife and his son suddenly in danger, thought of a silent child with empty eyes. She couldn’t argue with Nick, couldn’t even blame Daniel Ryves.
He’d had every reason to hate it.
“Don’t think anything bad about him,” Nick ordered. “He never let me see what he thought. I always—believed he liked me.”
Nick seemed to pause, a faint clicking in his throat as he swallowed, to find the right words. Mae stared up at him helplessly and wished she knew how to read him. She thought she could fix this situation if she just knew what was going on.
“C’mon,” he said to her eventually. “I’ll run you home.”
Mae hesitated and then saw how the sky outside had dimmed, sunlight leaching away until what had been a soft gray sky turned steely. She’d only just have time to change and grab something to eat before Alan arrived at her house to take her to the Goblin Market.
They went down the attic stairs, the old wood so worn with age that the stairs groaned softly instead of creaking under their feet.
When they reached the hall, the kitchen door was flung wide, a summer breeze flooding in. Mae only had time to think that Alan was home early and had left the back door open and to feel an unreasonable rush of panic, as if they’d been caught doing something wrong.
Then Nick broke from her side in a sudden violent spring, and the thin figure standing at the kitchen table with his back to them turned, and it wasn’t Alan at all.
It was Gerald.
“Wait,” Gerald called out.
Nick did not pause, but he did turn so he was circling Gerald like a predator waiting for the right moment, instead of like a predator leaping straight for his throat.
“Sorry to intrude,” Gerald continued, his voice losing its note of urgency and becoming pleasant. He slid his hands into his pockets and blinked in a slow, friendly way, apparently unfazed by Nick’s glare.
More than anything, Mae hated the way he taunted them by being polite. She hated that she kept almost believing in his act.
“Not at all,” Nick murmured. “Make yourself at home. Sorry for being such a shocking host—I can’t offer you any refreshments, and I’m probably about to stab you in the liver. What do you want?”
Gerald’s calm smile didn’t even flicker.
“Well, I want the Obsidian Circle ring back.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “This ring?” He touched the back of his hand to his mouth, ring pressed to his lower lip as he smiled. “But I’ve just decided I like it.”
“I didn’t come for it today,” Gerald said mildly. “I came for Alan.”
Light broke apart the sky, a single brilliant ray of sunlight or summer lightning. Its reflection struck off the kitchen tap and spun through the air, a stark line of pure white light turning solid as a dream made steel.
A long bright knife landed in Nick’s hands and against Gerald’s throat.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Nick snarled. “I’m just looking for a reason to kill you. Stay away from my brother!”
Gerald stepped forward, into the knife. Mae couldn’t see Nick’s face, but she guessed that Gerald’s move startled even him, because he took a step back.
“I didn’t come here to hurt him,” Gerald promised, and Nick’s tense shoulders relaxed just a little. He took another step back as Gerald stepped forward.
The knife disappeared like a light going out, leaving nothing but shadows in Nick’s hands. Gerald reached through the shadows and laid his hands against Nick’s chest. Between his fingers and Nick’s T-shirt there were sparks, as if someone had left a wire exposed and bursting into electric life in the space between them.
The flare of magic knocked Nick flat on his back on the kitchen counter, Gerald’s hands still pressed against his scorched gray shirt as he leaned over Nick and said, “But I have no problem with hurting you.”
Mae hadn’t been scared once she recognized Gerald. She was scared now.
What scared her even more was the fact that while she was quietly panicking and wondering whether she could possibly use a kettle as a weapon against a magician, Nick didn’t look scared at all. He lay there breathless and with his hair blown back, as if he’d been hit by a sudden blast of wind indoors, and said coolly, as if he was observing a fact that was only slightly interesting, “You shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Nick’s eyes were flat and dark as lakes at night. He didn’t look in the least alarmed, even as threads of fire crept over Gerald’s hands, flames licking at his wrists and wrapping around his fingers in bright lines. In fact, Mae realized, Nick’s lips were curling up in a smile.
Then she followed Nick’s calm gaze and understood why.
Behind Gerald stood Alan, with a gun pointed at the back of the magician’s head, face flushed from the outdoors or maybe because he’d seen the open door and come running.
“Let’s see if you have spells set against bullets,” Alan suggested, and fired.
The crack of the gun in the quiet kitchen was terrifyin
gly loud. Gerald flinched, but that was all. Mae had seen this happen once before, seen bullets bounce off a prowling wolf who’d later turned back into a magician.
Alan must have seen it a hundred times.
“I guess you do,” he said. “Too bad.”
“After you shot down members of our Circle in our home? I always have spells set,” Gerald informed him without turning. “What’s your plan now, Alan?”
“Improvise,” said Alan, and popped his left wrist sheath. A long blade glittered, sharp and wicked, between his fingers. Gerald spun around to deflect the knife blow, power shimmering in his palms, and magic caught Alan’s knife and held it still.
Nick rose from the counter already drawing his sword.
“Can I kill him now?” he demanded.
“No,” said Alan, popping his other wrist sheath. He got the point of his blade against Gerald’s stomach and they stood locked for a moment, magic against blade, looking into each other’s eyes.
“I came to talk to you,” Gerald whispered. “Just to talk.”
“Really,” Alan said. “So why were you trying to burn Nick’s heart in his chest?”
“He attacked me,” said Gerald.
“If I’d attacked you, you wouldn’t be whining about it,” Nick growled. “You’d be dead.”
“Besides,” Gerald continued, ignoring Nick completely, his eyes on Alan. “That’s not his body, is it? That’s not his heart.”
“That’s my brother,” Alan said, very soft.
The fire shining from Gerald’s palms shimmered a little, light faltering as if he’d been speaking and his voice had wavered. Mae narrowed her eyes and watched him closely.
“I’ll stand down if you will,” said Gerald.
Alan nodded slowly, and withdrew his knife as the magic ebbed away out of Gerald’s hands. He rolled up his sleeve and replaced the knife in his spring-loaded wrist sheath, not looking at it as he did so, the movements practiced and smooth. He held Gerald’s gaze the whole time.
“Nick, put the sword away,” said Alan without a glance at Nick.
Nick hesitated, sword a silver arc of light in the dim kitchen. There was something about his pale face in the near dark that made Gerald shudder slightly and turn his eyes away.
“Now,” said Alan.
Nick put his sword away and turned his back on Gerald, stalking clear across the room from him to lean against the wall, arms folded, and glare.
“Takes orders well, doesn’t he?” Gerald observed. “They were made for it: They don’t know how to do anything else. Do you think that’ll keep you safe? All they know is obeying and betraying humans, crawling and then turning like worms. Pain and power is all they can give you. It’s all they are. He’ll turn against you in the end. Don’t you know that? Or is the power worth so much to you that you’ve let this treacherous, bloodthirsty thing loose on the world and you don’t even care what it will do?”
There was a blur of motion. Then the punch connected and Gerald went crashing onto the floor. He sprawled and hit his head against the washing machine.
For a moment Mae was sure it had been Nick: The movement had looked like one of Nick’s, like something savage breaking its leash.
It wasn’t Nick. Nick was still at the far end of the kitchen, leaning against the wall.
Alan stood over Gerald’s crumpled body. He had gone white.
“Shut your mouth,” he said. “That’s my little brother you’re talking about.”
Gerald touched his mouth delicately with the back of his hand. The gesture looked just like that of an ordinary person, a ginger touch to assess the damage, but when he drew his hand away from his mouth it was healed, the splash of blood looking out of place on his unharmed mouth. It didn’t look like real blood now, somehow.
It looked like he was playing a game.
“Struck a nerve, did I?” Gerald asked from the ground.
“Obviously,” said Alan. “Is that what you came here to do?”
Gerald climbed to his feet slowly, not making any sudden movements, as if he wanted a wild animal to come closer to him.
“I came because I wanted to make a proposition to you,” he said. “I can’t do it with the demon here.”
They were watching each other the same way they had before, with magic and a knife between them.
“Aren’t you curious?” Gerald asked, after a long moment.
Alan’s mouth twisted into a shape a shade away from a smile. “Always,” he admitted. “Nick, do you maybe want to go work on your car? Just for a little while?”
“What?” Nick demanded. “No.”
He shifted his stance, braced against the wall as if Alan would’ve had a chance if he tried to push him physically out of the room.
“It won’t do any harm to hear what he has to say.”
“It’ll do you some harm if he fries the meat off your bones,” Nick countered. “I’m not leaving you alone with him.”
“I won’t be alone,” said Alan. “If Mae agrees to stay with me.”
He turned his eyes to Mae, and she started. She was almost shocked at being addressed, as if she’d been watching a play and suddenly one of the actors had spoken to her.
“I have to confess I probably won’t be much help,” she said. “My big plan to save Nick before you arrived was to toss a kettle at the magician’s head.”
Alan grinned. “You willing to defend me with a kettle?”
“Putting your faith in my awesome kettle-wielding skills doesn’t strike me as your brightest idea ever.”
“I think I could do a lot worse,” said Alan, and looked back at his brother. “Nick. He’s determined to talk to me, and I’d like to know what he has to say. You’ll be within earshot.”
“And what,” Nick retorted, “I’m supposed to come running when you start screaming?”
“Come running when I start shooting,” said Alan.
Nick’s mouth turned up at one corner, though whether that was at his brother or at the thought of shooting, Mae didn’t know.
“Nick,” Alan said. “Go.”
He looked at Alan and reached behind him, fingers curling around the hilt of his sword. The gesture might have been Nick seeking reassurance, Mae thought, like a child clutching at a favorite toy.
Or he might have been thinking of using it.
“I don’t like what you’ve done to me,” Nick told his brother, his voice ugly, and moved fast.
He went for the door and stalked out, slamming it shut behind him. The crash of the door was the only sound in the kitchen for a moment.
Then Mae moved past the counter to stand shoulder to shoulder with Alan as they faced the magician.
Gerald, clearly unimpressed by the awesome threat they presented, took a seat at the head of the kitchen table and stretched his long legs easily out before him.
“You seem to expect things from him that he can’t possibly give you,” he observed. “That’s almost cruel.”
“Yes,” said Alan. “I know.”
Mae sat down, leaning her elbow against the table and her chin against her fist and training her gaze on Gerald. She’d noticed that her mother’s clients often found a direct unblinking stare very disconcerting.
Gerald looked back at her, eyes bright blue and tranquil.
“Do you love him?”
“Who?” Mae demanded, then closed her eyes and cursed herself as she realized that Gerald had of course been talking to Alan.
When she opened them, Gerald looked a little amused. Alan seemed not to have noticed.
“Alan,” said Gerald, “do you love him?”
“It’s none of your business,” Alan replied. “But as a matter of fact, I do.”
Gerald tilted his head, giving Alan what seemed to be a genuinely sympathetic look. “That must be terribly difficult.”
“Don’t you love your family?” Alan asked mildly.
Gerald actually flinched. “No, I don’t,” he said. “But that’s not important.”
“Oh,” said Alan, soft, making it clear he knew he’d scored a point.
“What’s important is your demon,” Gerald told him, his eyes narrowing. “And what he’ll do.”
He clicked his fingers, and light came streaming in from unexpected places, under the back door when there was no daylight left outside, filtering like steam from the kettle.
“He never does anything like this,” Gerald murmured, “does he? His magic’s not for anything beautiful or kind. Do you know that storm he created in Durham killed two people?”
Alan was leaning against Mae’s chair, because it always took him a moment to stand up, and with a magician in the room they might not have a moment. She felt the single tremor run all along his body.
“Alan didn’t kill them,” Mae snapped. “And how many innocent people have you killed?”
Gerald nodded and smiled in her direction. Magic light touched his face softly, the rays gentle and playful as if they were the fingers of someone who loved him.
“People die so I can have my magic. People die so you can have your brother,” Gerald said. “We’re the same, Alan Ryves.”
“Are we?” Alan murmured.
When the light glanced off Gerald’s eyes, they turned a brilliant, dazzling blue. “I think so,” he murmured back. “We’re both willing to sell our souls for a price. And neither of us is stupid.”
“Who would you consider stupid?” Alan asked.
Gerald answered, “Arthur.” His mouth twisted. “My former ever-so-fearless leader. The one who put a demon in a child and then managed to lose it. He was stupid enough to unleash a demon on this world and never care about the consequences, but you’re not. Don’t tell me you haven’t had doubts.”
“Don’t waste your time telling me how I feel,” said Alan. “Get to the point.”
“I am not Black Arthur. I’m the one who has to deal with the mess he made. And I need you to help me.”
“To deal with Nick?” Mae demanded.
“I told you I’m not stupid,” Gerald said. “I can see Nick is trying. He owes you, doesn’t he? I can see he’s well-disposed toward you, and you.” He glanced at Mae. “And Jamie,” he said, his voice changing a little on the name. “That doesn’t change the fact that he calls down storms whenever he gets angry, and the death of half a world would not disturb him. How can you justify setting him free?”