She looked at him.
“Ah. That interests you. I get a result.”
Kitty felt her heart beating wildly in confusion and anger. “What are you talking about? You’re trying to set me up. Get me arrested for conspiracy or—or something….”
He smiled; his skin stretched tight against his skull. “Ms. Jones. That is not the idea at all. I am not rushing you into anything. Listen. My name is Pennyfeather. Here is my card.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and handed a small business card to Kitty with a flourish. It was decorated with two crossed paintbrushes above the words T. E. Pennyfeather, Artists’ Materials. There was a telephone number in the corner. Uncertainly, Kitty took it.
“Good. I’m going now. Leave you to your walk. Good day for it. Sun coming out. Ring if interested. Within a week.”
For the first time, Kitty made an attempt at being polite, without quite knowing why. “But, Mr. Pennyfeather,” she said. “Why should you help me? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, but it will. Ahh! What—?” His cry was occasioned by two young men—evidently magicians from the expense of their clothes—who, in striding down the street, laughing loudly and tucking into lentil takeaways from the Persian café, had barged right past him, knocking him almost into the gutter. They proceeded merrily, without a backward glance. Kitty stretched out a hand to steady the old man, but drew back at the flash of anger in his eyes. He righted himself slowly, leaning heavily on his stick and muttering under his breath.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Ah, those—they think they own the place. As—as perhaps they do. For the moment.” He looked along the Embankment; away into the blue distance people went about their business, visiting stalls or passing up into the cluttered side streets. On the river, four tethered coal barges drifted downstream, the bargees reclining and smoking on the side. The old man bared his teeth. “Few of these fools suspect what flies above them in the open air,” he said. “Or guess what hops behind them in the street. And if they guess, they dare not challenge it. They let the magicians strut among them; let them build their palaces upon the broken backs of the people; let them tread all notions of justice into the mud. But you and I—we have seen what the magicians do. And what they do it with. Perhaps we are not as passive as our fellows, eh?”
He smoothed down his jacket and grinned suddenly. “You must think for yourself. I will say no more. Only this: I believe your story. The whole of it—of course I do—but most particularly about the Black Tumbler. Who, after all, would be so stupid as to make that point up if they had no injury? Ah, this is what is so interesting. I will await your call, Ms. Jones.”
With that, the old man turned on his heel and made off at a brisk pace back up the side street, stick tap-tap-tapping on the cobbles, ignoring the sharp entreaties of an herbalist standing in the doorway of his shop. Kitty watched him until he turned onto the Strand and out of sight.
Waiting in the darkness of the cellar, Kitty drifted through the events of long ago. How distant it all seemed; how naive she had been, standing in the courtroom demanding justice. She flushed angrily: the memory was painful even now. Justice from the magicians? The very idea was laughable. Clearly, direct action was the only feasible alternative. At least they were doing something now, showing their defiance.
She glanced at her watch. Anne had been gone in the secret chamber some time. In total, eleven new magical artifacts had been stolen on Founder’s Day—nine minor weapons and two jewels of unknown purpose. Now Anne was storing them away. Outside, the rain had intensified. During the short walk from the art shop to the deserted courtyard, they had all gotten soaked. Even in the cellar they were not safe from the water: a steady stream of drips was falling from a deep crack in the plaster ceiling. Directly below sat a black bucket of extreme age. It was almost brim-full.
“Empty it out, would you, Stanley?” Kitty said.
Stanley was sitting on the coal bin, shoulders hunched, head pressed on his knees. He hesitated just a moment longer than necessary; finally he jumped down, picked up the bucket and steered it, with some difficulty, to a grille beside the wall. He sluiced the water away.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t get that pipe fixed,” he growled, returning the bucket to its position. The maneuver had taken only a few seconds, but already a small puddle had gathered between the worn bricks of the cellar floor.
“Because we want the cellar to appear unused,” Kitty said. “That’s obvious.”
Stanley grunted. “The stuff’s sitting useless in there. It’s no place for it.”
From his station near the entrance arch, Fred nodded. He was fingering an open flick-knife in his hand. “Should let us go in,” he said.
At the far end of the little room, which was only dimly lit by a single bulb, a pile of logs had been precariously stacked. The wall behind it appeared solid, if a little crumbling, but they all knew how the mechanism worked: how a metal lever could be depressed into the floor; how, at the same time, the brickwork above the logs could be made to swing open at a touch. They knew the dull grating noise, the cold, chemical smell emanating from inside. But they didn’t know exactly what the secret recess contained, as only Anne, who was the quartermaster of the group, was allowed into their leader’s chamber. The others always remained outside, on guard.
Kitty shifted her back against the wall. “There’s no point using it all yet,” she said. “We need to save as much as possible, wait till we have more support.”
“Like that’s ever going to happen.” Stanley had not returned to the coal bin, but was pacing fretfully around the cellar. “Nick’s right. The commoners are like oxen. They’ll never do anything.”
“All those weapons in there,” Fred said wistfully. “We should be doing more with them. Like Mart did.”
“Didn’t do him much good,” Kitty remarked. “Prime Minister’s still alive, isn’t he? And where’s Mart? Food for the fishes.”
She’d intended it to wound, and it did. Stanley had been close friends with Martin. His voice rose a pitch, harsh and resentful: “He was unlucky. The sphere wasn’t strong enough, that’s all. He could have had Devereaux and half the cabinet. Where’s Anne? Why can’t she hurry up?”
“You’re kidding yourself.” Kitty pursued the point bitterly. “Their defenses were too strong. Mart never had a chance. How many magicians have we killed in all these years? Four? Five? And none of them any good. I’m telling you, weapons or not, we need a better strategy.”
“I’ll tell him you said that,” Stanley said. “When he gets back.”
“You would, you little sneak.” Kitty’s voice was scathing. Even so, the thought of it made her shiver.
“I’m hungry,” Fred said. He pressed the button on the hasp of his knife, flicked out the blade again.
Kitty looked at him. “You had a massive lunch. I saw you.”
“I’m hungry again.”
“Tough.”
“I can’t fight if I’ve not et.” Fred suddenly leaned forward; his fingers twisted, blurred; there was a whizzing noise in the air, and the flick-knife buried itself in the cement between two bricks, three inches above Stanley’s head. Stanley slowly raised his head and considered the quivering handle; his face was a little green.
“See?” Fred said. “Lousy shot.” He folded his arms. “That’s because I’m hungry.”
“It seemed pretty good to me,” Kitty said.
“Good? I missed him.”
“Give him his knife back, Stanley.” Kitty suddenly felt very tired.
Stanley was struggling unsuccessfully to pull the knife free of the wall when the hidden door opened above the log pile and Anne emerged. The small bag she had taken in with her was nowhere to be seen.
“Squabbling again?” she said tartly. “Come along, children.”
The walk back to the shop was just as wet as the outward journey, and the spirits of the group were lower than ever by the time they arrived. As they entered in a gout of spray and steam,
Nick ran forward, his face shining with excitement.
“What is it?” Kitty asked. “What’s happened?”
“Just got word,” he said breathlessly. “From Hopkins. They’re coming back within the week. Going to tell us something of the first importance. A new job. Bigger than anything we’ve ever done.”
“Bigger than Westminster Hall?” Stanley sounded skeptical.
Nick grinned. “Saving Mart’s memory, bigger even than that. Hopkins’s letter doesn’t say what, but it’s going to shake everything up, he says. It’s what we’ve always wanted, every one of us. We’re going to do something that’ll transform our fortunes at a stroke. It’s dangerous, but if we do it right, he says, we’ll knock the magicians off their perch. London will never be the same again.”
“About time,” Anne said. “Stanley, go and put the kettle on.
15
Picture the scene. London in the rain. Gray sheets of water tumbled from the sky, breaking upon the pavements with a roar louder than cannon fire. A strong wind buffeted the rain this way and that, blowing it under porches and eaves, cornices and capstones, drowning each possible refuge with a freezing spray. There was water everywhere, bouncing off the tarmac, swilling along the gutters, congregating in basement corners and above the drains. It overflowed the city’s cisterns. It cascaded horizontally through pipes, diagonally across roof slates, vertically down walls, staining the brickwork like sweeping washes of blood. It dripped between joists and through cracks in ceilings. It hung in the air in the form of a chill white mist, and above, invisibly, in the black reaches of the sky. It seeped into the fabric of buildings and the bones of their cowering inhabitants.
In dark places underground, rats huddled in their lairs, listening to the echoes of the drumming overhead. In humble houses, ordinary men and women closed the shutters, turned lights on and clustered about their hearth fires with steaming cups of tea. Even in their lonely villas, the magicians fled the endless rain. They skulked to their workrooms, bolted fast the iron doors and, conjuring clouds of warming incense, lost themselves in dreams of distant lands.
Rats, commoners, magicians: all safely undercover. And who could blame them? The streets were deserted, all London was shut down. It was close to midnight and the storm was getting worse.
No one in their right mind would be out on a night like this.
Ho hum.
Somewhere amid the driving rain was a place where seven roads met. In the center of the crossroads stood a granite plinth, topped by a statue of a large man on a horse. The man waved a sword, his face frozen in the midst of a heroic cry. The horse was rearing up, back legs splayed, front legs out. Perhaps it was signaling dramatic defiance, perhaps it was preparing to hurl itself into battle. Perhaps it was simply trying to dislodge the fat bloke on its back. We’ll never know. But see: under the belly of the horse, sitting right at the center of the plinth, its tail tucked elegantly against its paws—a large gray cat.
The cat affected not to notice the bitter wind that rippled its sodden fur. Its handsome yellow eyes gazed out steadily into the murk, as if piercing the rain. Only the slight downward tilt of its tufted ears signaled dissatisfaction with its circumstances. One ear flicked occasionally; otherwise, the cat might have been carved from stone.
The night darkened. The rain intensified. I tucked my tail in grimly and watched the roads.
Time trickled on.
Four nights is not a particularly long time even for humans, let alone for us higher beings from the Other Place.1 Yet the last four nights had really dragged. For each one of them I had been patrolling the central regions of London, hunting for the unknown marauder. I’d not been alone, admittedly; I had the company of a few other unlucky djinn and a barrel-load of foliots. The foliots in particular had caused incessant trouble, forever trying to bunk off by hiding under bridges or slipping down chimneys, or getting startled out of their skins2 by thunderclaps or one another’s shadows. It was all one could do to keep them in line. And all the while it had rained continually, hard enough to cause a canker in one’s essence.
Nathaniel, needless to say, had not been sympathetic. He was under pressure himself, he said, and he needed results soon. In his turn he was having difficulty marshaling the small group of magicians from his department who were providing the other djinn for the patrols. Reading between the lines, they were openly mutinous, disliking being ordered around by an upstart of a youth. And let’s face it, who could blame them? Nevertheless, each night djinn and foliots alike assembled glumly on the gray slate roofs of Whitehall and were directed out on our patrols.
Our aim was to protect certain prominent tourist regions of the city, which Nathaniel and his immediate superior, a certain Mr. Tallow, considered under threat. A list of possible sites was given to us: museums, galleries, swanky restaurants, the aerodrome, shopping arcades, statues, arches, and other landmarks.… Taken in toto, it pretty much accounted for most of London. This meant we had to work our interlocking circuits continuously all night to have any chance of keeping check.
Not only was this tedious and tiring (and very wet), it was also an unnerving business, since the nature of our opponent was both mysterious and malign. Several of the more nervy foliots began a whispering campaign straightaway: our enemy was a rogue afrit; itself was—worse—a marid; it wrapped a cloak of darkness around it at all times, so its victims could not see their deaths approaching; no, it destroyed buildings with its breath;3 it carried with it the odor of the grave which paralyzed human and spirit alike. To improve morale I tried starting a counterrumor that it was nothing but a small imp with a grouchy personality, but this, sadly, didn’t stick; the foliots (and a couple of the djinn) went out into the night wide-eyed and tentative of wing.
One small bonus for me was the appearance, among the djinn, of none other than my old associate from my days in Prague—Queezle. She was newly enslaved to one of the other magicians in Nathaniel’s department, a sour and desiccated individual named Ffoukes. Despite his strict regime however, Queezle retained her old vigor. We made it our business to hunt together wherever possible.4
The first two nights of hunting, nothing happened, except for two foliots getting swept away while hiding under London Bridge. But on the third night, loud crashing sounds were heard shortly before midnight, emanating from the west wing of the National Gallery. A djinni named Zeno was first on the scene, with me not far behind. Simultaneously, several magicians, including my master, arrived in a convoy; they encased the gallery in a dense nexus and ordered us into battle.
Zeno displayed admirable bravery. Without hesitation, he flew straight to the source of the disturbance and was never seen again. I was close on his heels, but owing to a dicky leg and the complex layout of the gallery corridors, lagged behind, got lost, and didn’t manage to reach the west wing until much later. By this time, having wrought considerable damage, the marauder had departed.
My excuses cut no ice with my master, who would have worked some inventive punishment on me had I not had the protection of knowing his name. As it was, he vowed to encase me in an iron cube should I neglect to engage the enemy next time it appeared. I made soothing answers, perceiving he was addled with anxiety: his hair was disheveled, his cuffs hung limp, his drainpipe trousers sagged loose upon his frame as if he had lost weight. I pointed this out to him in a sympathetic sort of way.
“Eat more,” I advised. “You’re too thin. Currently, the only bit of you that’s growing outward is your hair. If you don’t watch out, you’ll overbalance soon.”
He rubbed his red, sleepless eyes. “Will you stop going on about my hair? Eating is for people who have nothing else to do, Bartimaeus. I’m living on borrowed time—as are you. If you can destroy the enemy, all well and good; if not, at least get some information about its nature. Otherwise the Night Police are likely to take charge.”
“So? What’s that to me?”
He spoke seriously. “It’ll mean my downfall.”
“So
? What’s that to me?”
“Everything, if I bind you into the iron cube before I go. In fact, I’ll make it a silver one—even more painful. And it’ll happen, unless I get results soon.”
I ceased arguing then. There was little point. The boy had changed somewhat since I’d last seen him, and not for the better. His master and his career had worked an unpleasant alchemy upon him: he was harder, harsher, and altogether more brittle. He also had even less of a sense of humor than previously, which was itself a remarkable achievement. One way or another, I looked forward to the end of my six weeks.
But until then, surveillance, danger, and the rain.
From my position beneath the statue, I could see down three of the seven roads. Each one was lined with swanky shop fronts, dark and shadowy, secured by metal grilles. Frail lamps shone in alcoves above the doors, but the rain was stronger than the light, and their radiance did not travel far. Water sluiced along the pavements.
A sudden movement in the left-hand road: the cat’s head turned. Something had dropped onto a first-floor window ledge. It perched there for a moment, a black smudge in the gloom—then, in a single sinewy movement, poured itself over the ledge and down the wall, zigzagging through the grooves between the bricks like a thin rope of hot treacle. At the base of the wall, it dropped onto the pavement, became a small black smudge again, grew legs, and began to splitter-splatter along the pavement in my direction.
I watched all this. I did not move an inch.
The smudge reached the crossroads, waded through the spreading puddles, and jumped onto the plinth. Here it was fully revealed as an elegant spaniel with big brown eyes. She halted in front of the cat, paused, shook herself vigorously.
A shower of water sprayed out and hit the cat directly in the face.
“Thanks for that, Queezle,” I said. “You must have spotted I wasn’t quite wet enough.”
The spaniel blinked, stuck her head coyly on one side, and gave an apologetic bark.
“And you can drop that old routine right now,” I went on. “I’m not some human dunderhead who’s going to be charmed by limpid eyes and a clot of wet fur. You forget I can see you quite clearly on the seventh plane, dorsal tubes and all.”