Everyone fell silent and stared at the magician, who was chained to a chair in the middle of their sitting room and was now stirring.
He was very young, as magicians went. Nick usually only saw magicians in their true forms after he or Alan had managed to kill one, but he did not think any of the corpses had been as young as this. He looked about twenty, but Mum could not have been much older when she joined the Obsidian Circle. Youth did not make him any less dangerous.
It did make him look less dangerous, and he was not a very threatening specimen in any case. The magician had a shock of sandy hair, standing up on his head and then falling into his eyes like the petals on a rather floppy daffodil, and beneath the sandy mop he had a narrow, inquisitive face. There was something about his features, perhaps his long, pointed chin, that vaguely recalled a fox. Apart from that he had a friendly, freckled face, the face of a young man whom old ladies would instantly trust.
He opened wide gray eyes, blinked, and looked dismayed.
“Oh Lord,” said the magician. “Now I am in the soup.”
Nick was not in the least worried about himself or Alan. They knew what magicians were. He was worried about Mae and Jamie, and what their reaction was going to be once they got over the revelation that magicians looked and acted entirely harmless, entirely human. Until they didn’t.
“We’re going to kill you,” he said deliberately. “There will be no negotiation. I want to kill you now, but others of the group think you might have information we need. So we’re going to have to torture you first.”
He added the last sentence so Mae and Jamie could know the worst at once and deal with it however they had to. He didn’t want to have to cope with hysterics later.
“I think I could be persuaded to offer you some information without being tortured, if it’s all the same to you,” the magician said. He had a rueful way of talking, as if inviting sympathy, and a soft Irish accent.
Nick did not often have much use for his switchblade, since the moment it took to flick the weapon open could be a moment that made the difference between life or death. Now he felt he could take his time, and he appreciated the cold, quiet snick the knife made opening, and the way the magician’s face paled as he heard it.
“Talk.”
“My name’s Gerald,” the magician said promptly. Again his rueful voice asked them all to laugh a little at the name and see him as a little more human.
His shrewd, friendly eyes traveled over them all, making eye contact and assessing weaknesses. He didn’t even look at Nick, which confirmed Nick’s opinion of him as intelligent. He looked at Alan for a long moment and did nothing, looked at Mae and smiled bravely, and then let his eyes settle on Jamie.
“We don’t care about your name, magician,” said Alan. “Any more than you cared about the names of the people you’ve killed.”
Gerald looked genuinely indignant. “Killers? Is that all you think magicians are?”
“Not really,” Nick said, playing with his switchblade. “If I did, I’d think I was a magician.”
He knew he should shut up. Mae and Jamie were looking from Nick with his knife to Gerald chained in his chair. He knew they were making comparisons.
“I was born a magician,” Gerald said. “It isn’t about anything you do. It’s in the blood. You’re born with the call toward magic, toward power, and one day, no matter what you do, the magic will find you.”
He looked from Jamie to Mae as he spoke, Mae who loved knowledge as much as Alan did, and obviously he found enough encouragement in her face to go on.
“People think we can’t do much magic without demons, but that’s not true. The power that makes calling them easier shows itself in other ways. When I was a child, strange things happened around me all the time. The Obsidian Circle came to recruit me. Nobody had ever understood me before, but I’d always been a magician. One of my ancestors ruled half his country with his power. Magicians see the world differently. Everything is gray and flat and cold, nothing means anything, until you have the demon in your summoning circle and you have some control of the world at last.”
“It’s nice that you feel fulfilled by feeding people to demons,” Alan said mildly. He took a knife from his boot and turned it over in his hand, watching his blade catch the light. “Have you got anything useful to say, or do you need encouragement?”
Nick saw Jamie glance, startled, at Alan’s hard eyes. Soft-spoken Gerald must have been looking better by the minute. If they silenced Gerald now, though, they would look even more brutal.
“It’s not like your Market is as pure as the wings of a dove,” Gerald said sharply. “Do your friends know what it takes to prop up the Market? You’re funded by blood money!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick said, bored. “But I know it’s not useful.”
“It’s not always a question of feeding people to the demons, either,” Gerald said, still looking at Mae. “Some people want it. Some people ask for it.”
Jamie’s voice was small but fierce, and it made Mae’s intent concentration on the magician waver for the first time. “I didn’t.”
“Then I’m sorry,” Gerald said, and he sounded sorry. “I didn’t send a demon after you. I wouldn’t do something like that. Surely you know that there are people in this world who hate their lives, who don’t seem able to live them, who seem able to do nothing but drag themselves through a succession of endless unpleasant tasks until they die? You’ve seen people like that. You know them. Don’t tell me that you don’t.”
Mae hesitated, and with hesitation was lost. “I do, but—”
“Don’t you think people like that might trade the lives they don’t know how to use for what they want? Demons don’t come as invaders. They offer people something they want, whether it is money or oblivion or a night that makes these people feel alive as nothing else ever has. And when those people choose to give in, the world gets something in exchange. Demons have lived for centuries; they are wise and powerful, they can give so much back to the world—”
“They can give you such power,” Alan said. “Your Circle marked Jamie and me. Neither of us were willing. I don’t think any of your victims would be willing if they understood what they were agreeing to.”
Mae cleared her throat. “So sometimes they do agree?”
“Sometimes they do,” Alan had to confess.
“I don’t unleash demons on unwilling victims,” Gerald went on, clearly trying to throw enough conviction into his voice to carry both Mae and Jamie with him. “I’m sorry you were marked.” His voice trembled. “Are you really going to torture me?”
He looked directly at Jamie, who looked as panicked as if someone had handed him a thumbscrew and was waiting with an expectant air. “No,” he said, almost wildly. “No, I can’t. I couldn’t possibly.”
He turned his face away from Gerald and fixed Alan with a look of appeal. Alan stood, limped over to him, and placed a hand on Jamie’s thin shoulder. The gesture might have been more reassuring if Alan hadn’t had a knife in his other hand.
“Don’t worry,” Alan said. “You don’t have to. I can do it.”
He looked strained as he said it, but he did not hesitate. Nick was sure Alan didn’t like it, as sure as he was that Alan would do it if he had to.
When Mae spoke, it caught everyone off guard. “If it will help my brother. If it’s for Jamie and—and you,” she said, and faltered for a moment on seeing Alan’s look of startled happiness. “Then I can help. I can do it too.”
It surprised Nick enough to make him smile at her. She looked ill, but she kept her chin up and her shoulders back and met Nick’s eyes with an unflinching gaze. The girl might have an unsettling crying habit, but she was pure steel.
“You don’t have to do it either,” Alan said. “I can handle this on my own. I’ll get my things.”
As the door shut behind him, Nick knew how things would go: Alan would collect his box of instruments and have a few mo
ments to himself so he could try to deal with what he had to do, and he wouldn’t be able to deal with it, and then he’d do it anyway. He would look white and strained and later he’d be sick, but he would never hesitate.
“I can do it,” Mae said, as the door shut behind Alan. She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself.
Nick had to work fast.
“I know that both of you can do it,” he said. Then he strolled over to Gerald, leaned in as if he was going to whisper a secret, and spoke in a perfectly audible voice. “But I want to do it.”
Gerald flinched at how close Nick was, and avoided his eyes. He was almost squirming in his chains to get away from Nick, and for the first time it occurred to Nick that he might be as badly frightened as he seemed.
If he was frightened, it was all to the good. He could be scared into telling them what he knew. It would please Alan if he could be spared unnecessary pain.
Nick slid into the man’s lap, getting as close as he could so he could scare him worse, listening to the scared hitch of Gerald’s breathing. He tossed his switchblade into the air and caught it, near the corner of Gerald’s eye, and saw the magician’s eyes swivel in an attempt to keep the knife in sight.
All Nick had was a knife. He had to do this quick, and rough, before Alan returned.
“Do you think I won’t do it?” he asked, his voice low in the man’s ear.
No matter where Gerald looked, he kept his eyes resolutely away from Nick’s face. Nick stroked the blade idly down Gerald’s cheek and the man shuddered. Nick had been right. He was terrified.
“I’m sure you will,” Gerald said, his voice shaking.
“How many of you are there?”
“Twelve!”
That was a good size for a magicians’ Circle. There were often fallings-out among magicians, power plays that left a Circle decimated. Black Arthur must be a strong leader to keep eleven others in check.
“The Circle’s moving to London. Where are you moving?”
Gerald swallowed, hesitating. Nick slashed a line across his cheekbone and the magician made a sharp, pained sound. Nick intended to show him he meant business, and the cut was deep. Blood welled in the gash and streamed down Gerald’s cheek. Nick recognized the gasp behind him as Jamie’s, and when he heard the sound of someone rushing to the bathroom and retching he wasn’t particularly surprised. Alan hated to see people hurt too. If they had grown up differently, Alan might have been as squeamish as Jamie.
“Central London,” Gerald gasped out. “I don’t know where exactly, I swear. I think our master bought a house near one of the big parks.”
The door opened again. Nick was somewhat surprised that Jamie had been able to come back this soon.
“And Black Arthur’s still your leader.”
“If Arthur’s alive, he’s the leader,” said a voice behind Nick. “That’s Arthur’s way.”
Nick looked over his shoulder and saw his mother. She seldom came downstairs unless Alan coaxed her, but she was here now, as if she had sensed that something momentous was happening. She was wearing a black shirt and trousers, and she had pushed her hair back from her face. It made her look almost normal.
Gerald was able to look at her. He stared at her with his mouth open, and she smiled at him. The confident, amused smile looked like someone had pasted the mouth of another woman onto her wan face.
“You know who I am, then.”
“Lady Livia,” Gerald breathed.
Mum kept smiling. “That’s what he used to call me. You were after my time, I think.”
“Yes. I had nothing to do with what was done to you,” Gerald said, bloody but maintaining his calm.
Nick felt his lip curl. “He claims to be innocent of most things.”
Mum glanced over at Nick fleetingly. Her odd smile did not leave her lips, though her eyes were suddenly fixed and cold. She made an abrupt gesture of dismissal, as if she still called demons and had one in her power, and then she looked away from Nick immediately.
It was best to humor her. Nick flipped his bloody knife closed and swung lightly off Gerald, moving to the point farthest away from her in the room. Mum approached Gerald, walking lightly, and came to kneel at his feet.
“Innocent?” she repeated, her smile looking more fixed and strange than ever.
She pulled her shirt down, revealing an expanse of dead-white skin and, over her heart, black against the smooth whiteness, the sigil of the Obsidian Circle. It reminded Nick of the sign above one of the Salisbury pubs, showing a woman in a giant hand. Drawn over Mum’s heart was a hand, cupping not a woman but the world. There was a suggestion of tension about the fingers of the hand, as if they were just about to clench over the world and crush it.
Mum reached up and drew down Gerald’s shirt, stretching the cotton out of shape. There over his heart was the same hand, holding the same world.
“Nobody who wears this mark is innocent,” Mum whispered.
Gerald, blood still running down his face, sagged a little in his chair. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”
“No,” said Mum. “I don’t owe you anything. How is Arthur?”
“I don’t think he’s changed,” Gerald said. “He talks about you, often. He never wanted to hurt you. He chose you—”
Mum laughed and leaped to her feet lightly, as if she were young. “I chose him. That’s the problem with wanting someone who will change the world for you. Choose a man with that much power over the world, and all he really wants is more power.” She turned away and went over to Mae, standing so close to her that she could have slipped an arm around her waist.
“It’s probably best to change the world yourself,” she added. “Nobody should risk being a sacrifice.”
It was strange seeing Mum lean close to Mae, as if she was a normal woman with someone she liked, but Nick didn’t have time to think about that. Alan would be back soon. He flipped open his knife again and gave Gerald a meaningful look.
“What else do you want to know?” Gerald asked wearily.
“When does the Circle plan to move to London?” Nick demanded.
Gerald hesitated.
Nick moved forward, relentless as the tide. He leaned down to Gerald and closed his free hand around the magician’s throat.
“I’ve been talking a lot about my feelings recently,” he informed Gerald in a conversational tone. “I don’t really get scared. Want to know what else I don’t feel?”
Gerald’s voice was a whisper through the vise grip on his throat. “What?”
Nick trailed his knife down the cotton of Gerald’s T-shirt until the blade rested against Gerald’s stomach. The magician trembled and closed his eyes. Cut someone in the belly, and they could live for hours afterward. They just wouldn’t like life much.
Nick leaned closer to Gerald, laughed in his ear, and murmured, “Pity.”
“Nick!” said Alan from the doorway. “What are you doing?”
“Saving you some trouble,” Nick answered, and then looked over his shoulder.
Alan had one hand clenched on the door frame, knuckles white, as if only his grip on the door was keeping him on his feet. He looked as if someone had punched him in the stomach.
“Get away from him!”
Nick released Gerald’s throat and pocketed his switchblade in one move, abandoning the magician and walking toward his brother. Alan flinched, and Nick stopped.
“What’s the big deal?” Nick asked roughly, not sure what words would help and what words would upset Alan more. “I don’t—I don’t know what I did wrong. It bothers you, it doesn’t bother me, I thought I could do it and you’d be—I thought you’d be happy.”
Alan closed his eyes and swallowed, and something about his face reminded Nick of the way Gerald had looked as he waited for the knife to come down.
“It should bother you,” Alan said in a low voice.
Nick was suddenly furious. He was sick of this whole business. He wanted to kill this man, not
chat with him. He wanted Alan to stop telling him what he should do and start telling him the truth; it seemed like his whole life was slipping through his hands and all he had left were lies and rules he did not understand.
He didn’t want to look at his brother. He didn’t need to be here.
“Fine. You deal with this,” he said between his teeth. “You guys have fun. I’m going to go wash all this blood off.”
He watched for Alan’s flinch this time, and then shoved past him out of the door. He climbed the stairs wearily, pulling off a T-shirt that had been grubby from the roofs of Salisbury before he’d spilled someone else’s blood on it. He was so sick of Alan having this mark, so sick of Mae being always around and always on the verge of becoming a problem between him and his brother. Nick wanted all of this over, and the magician dead.
The shower hissed at him like a chorus of snakes when he twisted the knob and set the water running. He got in and bowed his head under the spray.
He was under the water for about a minute when he heard the gunshot.
Nick grabbed for his jeans and realized as he was pulling them on that his knives must have fallen out when he was getting undressed. There was no time to go back for them; he ran down the stairs empty-handed with the shower hissing behind him.
There was a wolf in the sitting room.
It was big and brindled, with thick fur that tufted into white at the places where its hackles rose. Its bared teeth were sharp and yellow. It was circling Gerald’s chair, and from deep within its barrel chest rose a long, continuous snarl. It was too big, its teeth too sharp, and the snarl too menacing. It was probably a magician whom some demon had given enough power to make a very convincing illusion. Convincing enough to kill.
Gerald’s voice was shaking. “Let me loose! The Circle will kill me before they let me talk. Don’t let me die without a fight. I can help you. Let me go!”
Mum was backed into a corner with Mae and Jamie, as if the wolf had herded them there. Alan was standing by the magician’s chair with his gun trained on the wolf. Nick edged forward, scooping up a discarded chain from the pile they’d used to truss up Gerald, and saw the wolf’s head move a fraction. It fixed its yellow eyes on Alan and snarled.