The book’s title confused her at once. It read The Sleeping Plague and the Origin of Magic. Below, written in red ink, was a note that read BANNED BY ORDER OF THE CROWN, suggesting that there were only a handful of copies in existence. The Church and the Government, if Gwen recalled correctly, had considerable powers to ban publications they didn’t like, something that had often led to embarrassment. Even Gwen had heard of the shady circumstances behind the death of John Wilkes. Concealing the book in a larger tome, she found a private seat and opened the volume. It launched straight into text at once.
The origin of magic has confused numerous scholars since Professor Cavendish outlined the principles of magic thirty years ago. In theory, magic should have existed throughout the ages, but historical accounts of magic simply do not match the discoveries of Cavendish and his fellow researchers. The power to turn men into frogs, to kill someone at a distance through symbolic magic and powerful curses simply does not exist. Merlin’s legendary magic remains unmatched by modern-day sorcerers. And no attempt to summon the devil from his fiery realm has succeeded.
Gwen frowned, puzzled. She had heard about the misconceptions surrounding magic; John Wellington Wells and his friends had made a fortune exploiting the ignorance of common people, but she was surprised to see that they’d existed for so long. But maybe that wasn’t surprising. People had believed in magicians long before real magicians had come into existence. She skimmed through a section relating to Darwinists – or what had probably become the Darwinists, once Charles Darwin had outlined Darwinism – before coming to the meat of the matter. It took her several moments to understand what it said.
The general belief that magic is limited to the upper classes is demonstrably incorrect, as is the belief that magic is somehow limited to Britain. Indeed, there are very definite signs that there are French, Russian and even Turkish magicians. This leads us to consider that the origins of magic are nowhere near as clear-cut as suggested by Professor Cavendish. We must therefore ask ourselves the obvious question. What do all magic-users have in common?
On the face of it, the only thing that they appear to share is that they are all human. There have been no reported cases of magical animals or even humans who can shift into animal forms. What else do they have? There are both male and female magicians; there are magicians from all civilised countries; there are old magicians and young magicians…what do they have in common? Careful research suggests that there is one factor linking all magicians together.
During the Seven Years War, doctors in Britain became aware of something that became known as the Sleeping Plague. The victims would act as if they had been mesmerized, muttering to themselves or sleepwalking through life. Some of the victims, the ones with wealth and servants, were put in bed and left to recover on their own. Others, without money or property, died while they were affected with the plague. They were unable to take care of themselves. The plague seemed to fade as quickly as it had arrived, leaving a mystery that baffled doctors.
But one thing is clear. Every known magician was either affected by the Sleeping Plague, or is descended from someone who was affected with the Sleeping Plague. It has proved hard to gather information from the poorer sections of society, but I believe that the evidence connecting the two factors is impossible to refute. The Sleeping Plague created the first magicians – and the reason there were more upper class magicians than lower class is that upper class people were cared for while they were affected by the Plague.
Gwen stopped reading in shock. The writer hadn’t known about werewolves – they’d been isolated around 1810, if she recalled correctly – but his words made sense. Charles Darwin hadn’t written for at least two decades after Perivale had studied the Sleeping Plague, yet he’d never even considered the possibility that there might be a connection. Darwin had believed in the survival of the fittest, with magicians on top of a triangle that led down to the lower orders. He had provided the justification Lord Blackburn and his fellows used to keep themselves on top of the pile.
And that meant…what?
She pulled herself to her feet, carefully returned the book to the shelves, and settled down to more mundane studies. Inside, her mind was spinning. She needed advice, but whom could she trust? Master Thomas wouldn’t listen to her…
Gwen called for a servant and asked him to deliver a message. She needed to see David anyway, if only to check up on him and Laura. And there was no one else she trusted who could give her advice. In all of her life, isolated from her peers, she had never felt so alone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jack watched Gwen floating off into the darkness and shook his head, sadly. She’d need time to process what she’d learned, time she might not have. Jack had no illusions about Master Thomas’s capabilities; the old magician might have had his own reasons for leaving his apprentice on her own. God alone knew what he might have in mind, but Jack doubted he’d approve of it when he finally found out. Standing up, he smiled as he saw Lord Blackburn – his task completed – heading out of the farm and back towards Cavendish Hall.
He must have finished quickly, Jack thought, as he walked back to the hatch. Gwen would not have approved of what he had in mind, but there was no other choice. He’d returned to the farm once since discovering its current location and he was pleased to discover that the supplies he’d hidden on the rooftop were still there. It was disappointing – if he’d known that there was a rogue magician on the loose, he would have ensured that there were guards on the rooftops – but perhaps it was understandable. High Society – at least the part of it that had no magic – would have disapproved strongly of the farm. The whole idea was repulsive.
Jack scowled as he unpacked the gunpowder and reopened the hatch. It hadn’t taken long for him to realise that High Society was composed of hypocrites, even before he’d discovered the truth of his own origins. Men were allowed to go out drinking and whoring as much as they liked, while raising hell if an unmarried woman happened to be seen alone with an unmarried man. And when there were little accidents – illegitimate children – very few noblemen had the decency to arrange for their upbringing. King George might be a fat and thoroughly useless roly-poly of a man – with an inability to keep his sausage in his pantaloons – but at least he did take care of his bastards. It was a pity that the same couldn’t be said of most of his more ardent supporters. There were quite a few children of middle-class men who had been born on the wrong side of the blanket.
The interior of the farm was as dark as ever. Jack checked the sentries and was relieved to discover that they were both still sleeping it off. He hadn’t killed them in front of Gwen, if only because he didn’t know how she would have reacted to outright murder. Lord Blackburn had clearly missed their slumbering forms, something that wouldn’t please Master Thomas when he discovered the truth. Jack made a mental note to ensure that Master Thomas found out, in the hopes that Lord Blackburn would find himself in hot water. The Charmer deserved to feel lonely and afraid at least once in his life. His crimes were far worse than anyone else Jack knew – and, unlike Master Thomas, he didn’t even have the excuse of upholding the established order.
Jack placed the gunpowder, lit the fuse and floated up and out of the farm. The first glimmer of dawn could be seen along the horizon as he rose in the air, heading back towards the Rookery. London slumbered below him, the streets as empty as they ever were, with only a handful of drunks sleeping off their night’s boozing in the gutters. It wouldn’t be long before the Bow Street Runners started feeling their collars. The workhouses were always short of men for manual labour and convicts were cheaper to feed than free men. Jack had learned to hate the system a long time before he’d finally deserted Master Thomas and the Royal College. It did him no honour to recall that he’d once had a great deal in common with Lord Blackburn.
There was a thunderous roar as the gunpowder exploded below him. Jack smiled as the shockwave caught him and pushed his body through the air, a fireba
ll rising up to challenge the dawn. Below, he caught sight of men staring at the flaming remains of a once-proud building. The fire brigade would probably be called off before they could find any evidence of what had actually occurred inside the building, although Jack hoped that a few pointed questions would be asked. Lord Blackburn and his fellow Darwinists might find themselves having to answer questions from those they considered their inferiors.
The thought of Lord Blackburn spurred him on through the air. Down below, the Charmer had turned to stare at the fire, almost certainly aware that he’d escaped death by seconds. If he’d lingered with the girls – Jack was sure that some of the magicians cared about the women, even if they didn’t think of them as anything like a wife – he would have died in the explosion. Jack dropped down towards him and landed behind the Charmer, allowing the sound of his landing to echo through the air. Lord Blackburn spun around, one hand on his cane, and saw him. He didn’t seem to recognise Jack. But then, it had been years since they’d seen one another and he might not have realised that Jack had been flying. Footpads loved to hide until they could surprise their targets.
Jack grinned, nastily. “Well,” he remarked, “here’s a well set up follow indeed. Sir; your money or your life.”
Lord Blackburn’s eyes narrowed. “I have a better idea,” he said. Charm flowed into his voice, dark and powerful. It would have hit a mundane person like a hammer, leaving them aware of the Charm, but unable to fight it. “You can go and drown yourself in the river.”
Jack had to exert himself to stand his ground, but he had the pleasure of seeing Lord Blackburn’s eyes widening before he stepped forward. “I took the precaution of blocking my ears,” he lied, smoothly. “Your magic is powerless if I don’t hear you, isn’t it?”
Lord Blackburn lifted his cane, almost as if it were a sword. It clicked ominously, the wood falling away to reveal a blade. Jack was almost impressed, even as he caught hold of the sword-stick with his magic and snatched it out of Lord Blackburn’s hands. The Darwinist’s eyes opened wide as he realised who he was facing, and then he turned to run. Jack’s magic caught him before he managed to travel more than a yard, yanking him up into the air and turning him upside down. He would have expected the Charmer to try his Charm – after all, he had nothing to lose – but Lord Blackburn merely stared at him. Jack made a show of stroking his chin in contemplation, keeping one ear open for the Bow Street Runners. He was mildly surprised that they hadn’t shown up already. The people who lived in this part of London were actually important.
“You know,” Jack remarked, almost conversationally, “your logic says that magicians are superior to mundane people, and more powerful magicians are superior to less powerful magicians. By that logic, you should be genuflecting at my feet by now.”
Lord Blackburn glared at him. “You think I’ll ever kiss your feet?”
“I’d be worried about you if you wanted to,” Jack mocked. “My feet do get pretty smelly after a week of actually working for a living – but then, you wouldn’t know much about that, would you? What use is Charm to the Army?”
“If you think you can intimidate me,” Lord Blackburn began, “you are wrong...”
“I’m sure that I am not wrong,” Jack countered. “Your entire philosophy speaks of a deep-seated insecurity. And yet you have the power to twist men’s minds around and turn them into your slaves. Do you still have the harem of women you turned into your devoted servants?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything,” Lord Blackburn said. “You might as well kill me now and save yourself some trouble.”
Jack shrugged. “And why would I want to kill you?” He asked. “You’re worthless to me. You’re beneath my notice, just like the men and women you trample on every day – the men and women you twist with your Charm. I don’t care about you, My Lord; I merely want you to pass on a message to Master Thomas. You can do that for me, can’t you?”
Lord Blackburn gasped in pain as Jack let go of him and he came down face-first in a puddle. Jack hadn’t cushioned the blow at all. The Charmer staggered to his feet, blood pouring from his nose, and came forward. Jack held up a hand and stopped him in his tracks. Charm was very useful in the hands of a skilled Charmer, but it was useless against someone with the strength of will to resist it. And it didn’t really add to a Charmer’s ability to fight. No wonder Lord Blackburn, unlike most of the Sorcerers Corps, had never served a term with the Army. Charmers were of very little use on campaign.
“In fact, you can be the message,” Jack said. He lifted one arm and Lord Blackburn was hurled backwards into a hedge. “I’m coming for him.”
He threw himself up into the air, leaving Lord Blackburn behind. The Charmer would have to explain himself to Master Thomas, even though – for once – it hadn’t been his fault. A man like Lord Blackburn would be offended that his enemy hadn’t thought him worth the effort of killing. Jack was curious to know what manner of lie Lord Blackburn would invent to explain it to himself, but there was no way to know for sure. Lord Blackburn’s Charm was powerful enough to prevent him from being Charmed in turn.
The sun was rising into the sky and so Jack headed back to the Rookery. He’d established a handful of small apartments scattered on the edges – no one asked questions in the Rookery, as long as one paid in cold hard cash – and one of them was nearby. Out of habit, he hadn’t told many people about them, let alone their locations. If someone was arrested – and recognised – the Bow Street Runners would do whatever it took to get information from them, so the less they knew the better. Jack dropped down to the ground in an alleyway, adjusted his coat, nodded to a handful of drunken men who would hopefully decide that he was a figment of their imagination, and strode out onto the streets. The Rookery seemed quieter than usual, he noted, absently. Alert for trouble, he walked up to the tenement and headed inside. There were no night watchmen in the Rookery. The very idea was absurd, if only because the people living in the building were too poor to have anything worth stealing. Jack wrinkled his nose as he made his way up a creaky staircase, wondering if it would collapse under his weight. The Rookery wasn’t big on public safety either.
He pressed his hand against the lock and it clicked open. There had only ever been one key – at least officially – and he’d given it to Olivia. The young girl had needed somewhere to bed down away from Lucy’s brothel – some of Lucy’s customers might have thought that she was a whore – and Jack had given her permission to use the apartment. She’d been grateful, although Jack had been amused to note that she’d searched the room the moment he’d left her alone in it. Old habits learned on the streets, living from hand to mouth, were the hardest to overcome.
“You’re back,” Olivia said. She looked as if she hadn’t been sleeping well, much to Jack’s surprise. The young girl knew enough to catch sleep whenever she could. “I thought you’d be busy with her until later.”
Jack frowned, opening one of the bags he’d left in the room. It was a shame that magic couldn’t supply extra energy, but no one had ever discovered a talent that offered anything of the sort. Infusers had tried to infuse energy into water, yet the first time someone had drunk the potion the results had been lethal, putting a stop to that. And the potions supplied by street magicians were little more than coloured water.
“She had to go home and think about it,” he said, briefly. He’d half-hoped Gwen would join him at once, but it hadn’t been too likely. After all, he had attacked her brother’s dinner party and forced her to show off her powers in front of his guests. A noblewoman with magical talents tended to keep them to herself; Gwen had been forced to display them all, shattering whatever claim to normality she had had in the battle. “I don’t know which way she’ll jump.”
“I didn’t like her,” Olivia said. The child’s voice was dismissive, but firm. “She looked at me as if I wasn’t there.”
“I thought that was what you wanted,” Jack reminded her. “You know that attracting attention could
be dangerous.”
He studied the young girl for a long moment. Lucy had been treating her almost like a daughter – Lucy had never had any children, even before she’d discovered her talent – and Olivia was putting on weight. A few more years and she would be unable to pass for a boy any longer, and then the trouble would start. Most women on the streets had to find a male protector – a pimp – or they’d rapidly find themselves being victimised by other men. If Olivia ever developed her talent, perhaps she would be able to carve out a niche for herself, but that carried its own risks. Master Thomas’s men might come for her and take her away to the farms. The building he’d destroyed wouldn’t have been the only farm in London.
“I just didn’t like her,” Olivia repeated. “What does she want with us?”
“Truth, perhaps,” Jack said, after a moment. He pulled on a different overcoat and checked his appearance by glancing up and down at himself. There was no point in installing a mirror, if only because it wouldn’t be there when he came back to the apartment. Jack knew of people who had had to watch helplessly as hawkers sold off their property, stolen from them by thieves and placed on sale. The Rookery had one law, the law of the strong. Lord Blackburn would have approved. “But she will have to make her own mind up. We can’t force her into a decision.”
Olivia stood up and picked up her coat. “I think that she will betray us,” she said, firmly. “You shouldn’t trust her so much.”
“I showed her nothing, apart from one talent,” Jack said. Olivia sounded almost as if she was jealous. But that was absurd. “There have always been rumours of Healers. Lady Gwen won’t be able to lead the Runners to our lair, for the very simple reason she never saw it. She cannot really hurt us.”
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