'Shouldn't we catch a cab?' George said.
'I need the walk,' Caroline said, without looking at him. 'It may help clear my head.'
'Ah, indeed,' Aubrey said. 'We're heading to the university?'
'No.'
That was all they had from her for the next hour.
She marched relentlessly through the streets. When they had to stop to cross roads, her face was set and resentful. If pedestrians were slow, blocking the way, she went to the other side of the street. Aubrey decided she was trying to vent her grief, anger and frustration through physical effort. She was making a good job of it.
After the poor sleep of the night before, Aubrey began to feel the strain of keeping up. He swung along easily enough, but since he didn't know how long they were going to be walking, he couldn't pace himself. His knees and the soles of his feet ached.
He really needed to spend a few days recuperating, restoring his strength, doing some more research into his condition, but events were conspiring against him.
Eventually, they found themselves walking through streets of small factories – metalworkers, cabinetmakers, glassworks. A world away from the cosy, domestic neighbourhood of the Hepworth residence, they were mostly squat, inelegant buildings, many with grubby windows and fenced-off yards. Aubrey saw a famished-looking watchdog studying him intently as they passed and he was confident that Geo. Walsh and Sons, Wheelwrights, was likely to be undisturbed by intruders.
At the end of one such street, beyond a maker of industrial knives, Caroline stopped and they faced a singlestorey brick building, perhaps forty years old.
'You have the key?' Aubrey asked. His throat was dry and painful when he swallowed.
'What do you mean?' Caroline asked.
Aubrey pointed upwards. 'This is the only building in the street with an electrical supply. The doors are large enough for a lorry to drive through. No windows in the building, only skylights. It's at the end of a cul de sac with an abandoned building either side. Perfectly private.' He grinned. 'So I'm assuming it's your father's workshop.'
Caroline didn't answer. She simply opened her bag and took out a key.
The doors were stubborn. 'Let me,' George said. He put his shoulder to one and it screeched open. Caroline insisted that he shut it behind them.
'Disappointing, really,' George said after their eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light. 'I'd expect a master magician's workshop to be a bit more dramatic. Where are the stuffed crocodiles hanging from the rafters? The strange mirrors on the walls?'
The workshop looked like a chemistry laboratory. Aubrey supposed at one time the building might have housed a small engineering works or machine shop. Dusty lathes and turning equipment were clustered at the far end of the room in the shadows, blocking a rear door. Coils of rope hung from hooks on the walls.
The rest of the workshop was filled with three rows of benches. The benches themselves supported forests of elaborate glassware, interspersed with machinery that looked like half-gutted radio receivers and transmitters. Large carboys of reagents caught the light and glowed like a stained-glass window in a cathedral. Pairs of discarded leather gloves, pieces of chalk, crayons and scraps of paper showed that it was a working space. From the disorder it looked as if the owner had simply stepped out for a moment.
Aubrey cleared his throat. 'We should be careful. I'm sure the professor would have some security spells in place.'
Caroline walked to the nearest bench. She reached for a dangling chain and electric light flooded the space. 'I've been here a hundred times. It's perfectly safe.'
Of course, Aubrey thought. No doubt he would have made sure you were safe if you came without him.
He stood still, barely a yard from the doorway, right next to an empty hatstand. He felt the prickling on the back of his neck that signalled the presence of magic, but decided that it would be strange if he didn't have that sensation in such a place. Still, he felt uneasy, and he scanned the workshop, looking for danger.
George stood next to him. 'I'd usually offer to scout around, old man, but I thought I'd wait until you'd given the all clear.'
'Even though Caroline is moving around?'
'Father's notebook will be here somewhere,' she said, standing with her hands on her hips. 'He never took it out of here.'
George took a few steps towards the benches. At that moment, Aubrey happened to look up.
His eyes narrowed. There, in the shadows, near one of the rafters . . .
'Don't move!' he hissed.
George stopped as if rooted to the spot. He knew that tone of voice. 'What is it?'
Aubrey ignored him. 'Caroline,' he called softly, 'would you please stand still?'
'I beg your pardon?' She gave Aubrey a look of exasperation.
'Something deadly is watching us very closely.'
She froze. Only her eyes moved, her gaze darting around the shelves and cabinets.
'Where is it?' George muttered to Aubrey.
'Look up. Carefully. It's in the corner, on one of the rafters, where it can see the whole room.'
'I can't spot anything up there. It's too gloomy.'
'Wait until it moves.'
'What is it?' Caroline said in a low, calm voice.
'A shade,' Aubrey said. 'I've read about them, but never seen one before. A magician detaches a shadow from something and binds it using the Law of Sympathy, so it retains some of the qualities of whatever it once belonged to. They're not very intelligent, but they can be quite lethal. Thin as shadows, they're like flying razors.' He paused. 'Of course, the original owner of the shadow dies.'
'Why isn't it attacking us?' George asked.
'Good question. Caroline, did your father ever make anything like this?'
'He'd never do something that involved cruelty like that.'
'Then it's been put here by someone else.' Aubrey frowned. 'It's probably been ordered to wait until someone finds the professor's notebook, then kill them and report the location of the prize.'
George glanced upwards. 'Oh.'
'If it's not harming us, we should leave,' Caroline said. 'We can come back with help.'
'That's probably best,' Aubrey said. But it's the last thing I'd do, he thought. 'George,' he said, 'what do you have in your pockets?'
George rolled his eyes. Slowly, he felt in his pockets. 'Some coins, a wallet with very little in it, my notebook, a pencil, a pocket handkerchief.'
'Well, that makes two pocket handkerchiefs,' Aubrey said. He'd left all his magical paraphernalia behind. Improvise, improvise, he told himself. He began humming as he looked around the room.
His eyes widened as he saw a shallow rectangular container, about two feet long and a foot wide, on one of the benches. It was filled nearly to the brim with a silver liquid. 'Caroline,' he called softly. 'Can you please look at the bench to your right. Is that a quicksilver bath?'
She glanced at the bench. 'Yes. Father used a lot of mercury in his work.'
'Good, good.' Aubrey glanced up. 'Now, George, I think you should take out any important pages from your notebook. Anything you want to keep, that is.'
'Why?' George removed a few pages and stuffed them in his pocket. 'What are you doing?'
'Plotting, George. Notebook, please.' Caroline stared and Aubrey realised he was grinning. He clamped down on his smile. Everything was clear and sharp-edged as his senses grew almost overwhelmingly alert. He could smell the nitre and the hensbane somewhere towards the back of the room. He could hear crystals forming in one of the beakers to his right. His blood was singing as he thought ahead to what needed to be done.
George shuffled close and handed over the notebook.
'Now, you're not overly fond of that hat, are you?' Aubrey asked.
George took it off mournfully. 'Here.'
'Jacket.'
George slipped out of it, knowing better than to complain.
Aubrey arranged the hat and jacket on the hatstand. 'We must move swiftly,' he said, 'once
it attacks this decoy.' He stuffed the notebook into one of the jacket pockets, but made sure it protruded.
'How are you going to make it attack?' Caroline asked.
'An adaptation of the Law of Sympathy – like to like. George's notebook is quite similar in nature to your father's notebook. Notebooks being notebooks, they share physical qualities, but they also have commonality of purpose. This spell will draw on those similarities and change the appearance of George's notebook until it takes on the appearance of your father's notebook, which, I hope, is somewhere in this room. Otherwise it will be out of range and the spell won't work.'
'I see. Thinking it's seen the notebook it's been waiting for, this shade creature will attack an empty jacket and hat,' George said.
'And we can deal with it,' Aubrey said. He buttoned the jacket. 'Of course, a not-so-empty jacket and hat will be much more tempting.'
This was the easy part. Using a spell he'd perfected through many repetitions, he began to chant softly and ran his hands over the jacket sleeves. Slowly, and to his great relief, the jacket began to swell like a balloon being inflated.
Aubrey heard both Caroline and George inhale sharply when two ghostly hands appeared at the end of the sleeves. They quickly became firm and fleshy, hanging limply.
Aubrey turned his attention to the hat. He put both hands on its crown, then stroked downwards, continuing the spell. He was particularly careful when he intoned the elements setting the solidity of the effect, as this would be important.
'Good Lord,' George said, as a face appeared.
It was his.
Aubrey took a deep breath as a wave of fatigue rolled over him. Caroline began to speak, but he held up a hand. 'The Law of Contiguity. A special variation. The jacket and hat had been touching George, absorbing his Georgeness, if you will. I've drawn on that, added a few elements for appearance and here we are.' Not bad for such a jury-rigged job. 'It's not a real body, simply an illusion, no substance at all. A real body would require much more work than this.' He glanced at George. 'But it will do.'
Aubrey began to tremble and shooting pain ran up and down his legs. He leaned against George.
'Is this a good idea?' George muttered.
'Let's find out, shall we?'
Aubrey limped over to join Caroline. George followed, nervously looking upwards as he went. 'It's still there?'
'Yes,' Aubrey said, without looking up. He studied his reflection in the shiny quicksilver. Perfect, he thought.
He moved aside all the clutter on the bench – papers, beakers, crucibles, a mug half-full of cold tea, a feather duster – putting them on the other benches until only the quicksilver bath was left. With a grunt, he moved this to one end. The quicksilver rolled backwards and forwards.
'Chalk,' Aubrey said, looking around.
'Here.' Caroline put a piece in his hand.
Aubrey smiled his thanks and drew a large rectangle on the surface of the bench. He dropped the chalk into his pocket, then wet his finger in his mouth. With painstaking care, he traced the outline, his finger moving through the air an inch above the chalk line.
Then Aubrey seized the quicksilver bath and upended it onto the bench.
George stifled an oath and stepped back, but the mercury flowed to the edge of the chalk outline and stopped, meeting an invisible barrier. Soon, the shiny, liquid metal lay there, bounded only by a chalk border, making a slab of quicksilver about two feet by two feet, and an inch thick.
'Excellent,' Aubrey said. 'Now for the Law of Opposites. Caroline, would you please hand me those safety matches?'
She had been regarding Aubrey with more than a little scepticism. 'Are you sure you know what you're doing?' she asked as she handed him the box.
'Oh yes. Quite elementary, this part. A minor application of the Law of Opposites. Observe.'
With a flourish, Aubrey struck a match, waggled an eyebrow, muttered a few words, then stuck the lit end in his mouth.
Caroline's eyes went wide, but George gave an exclamation of disgust. 'It's an old trick,' he said to Caroline. 'He mastered it when he was eight.'
Aubrey's cheeks bulged. He pulled the dead match from his tightly closed lips, then leaned over the quicksilver.
With a mighty breath, he exhaled a snowstorm.
Fog rolled across the bench as the heat of the match had been magically transformed into its opposite. Aubrey had not merely conjured a slight chill, either. This was arctic.
Aubrey reached out with a knuckle and rapped on the mercury. 'Good.' He looked at his knuckle and the piece of skin he'd left on the surface of the mercury. 'Ah.'
George held up two pairs of leather gloves. 'You'd better use these.' Fog puffed around his words.
'You too, George. We'll both need them. Now, Caroline, can I borrow your diamond brooch?'
He admired her for the way she simply unclipped it and handed it over. He knew the memento from her father was precious.
He reached out and used the brooch to score a straight line across the middle of the hardened mercury. His breath steamed over the metal as he took one edge. He grunted at its weight, but managed to lift it.
The mercury snapped cleanly in two. 'We now have two mirrors.'
'And what for?' Caroline asked.
Aubrey handed back her brooch. 'A mirror trap, to catch our shade.'
Caroline looked at the two mirrors. 'Perhaps you could have found something in this workshop. After all, Father was not without skill in matters magical.'
Aubrey grimaced. 'I know. I had the highest respect for your father. But blundering around in this workshop would be like trying to use a candle to find a length of fuse in a room full of high explosive.'
She considered this. 'You could be right.'
Aubrey wasn't prepared for how this nod of approval made him feel, as if his heart had given a small, definite hiccup.
He straightened, brought himself back to the task at hand, and looked at George. 'Ready? Time to apply the Law of Sympathy to the notebook. The phantom George will appear as if it has the professor's book, and I'm sure it's been set on guard for just that eventuality.' And such interest makes me very, very curious about the contents of that notebook, too. 'When the shade attacks, we have to manoeuvre so that we catch it between our mirrors. Gloves on, George.'
Even through the thick leather, Aubrey could feel the cold bite of the mirror's edge. He looked up at the shade, then he muttered the remainder of the spell that would precipitate the Law of Sympathy.
Slowly, the phantom George reached for a notebook that was suddenly larger and more dog-eared. The cover had a purple stain and the binding was frayed.
'Father's book,' Caroline breathed.
A blur of movement cut through the air and the top third of the hatstand toppled to the ground. The phantom George stood there, unfazed, lifting the false notebook to its face.
'Now, George!' Aubrey shouted.
The shade was buzzing in a tight circle around the hatstand, a vicious whirlwind, trying to slice the phantom George to pieces. An angry hissing came from the creature as it met little resistance.
Aubrey strained and lifted his sheet of mercury, gritting his teeth at the weight of it. He shuffled until he was about six feet away from the shade. The mirror was heavy and cold, and he had trouble keeping it upright. 'George! Trap it between my mirror and yours!'
He peered around the edge of the mirror and saw that George was in position. He began chanting.
The syllables were long, convoluted and scraped on his already raw throat. The pain in his legs grew worse and his arms started to tremble with the weight of the mercury.
'Good Lord!' George exclaimed. An angry hissing went up. 'It's trying to get out, Aubrey!'
Aubrey couldn't see, but his mirror was suddenly buffeted, as if something had been flung against it. 'What's happening, Caroline?'
'The shade is flying from side to side,' she said calmly. 'Like a rat caught in a drain. Hold fast, George.'
'I am.'
Aubrey crouched behind his mirror and felt another blow. The cold was eating its way through his gloves.
'It's flying faster,' Caroline described. Her voice was dispassionate and clinical, as if she were describing a tennis match. 'I'd say it's frantic. It tried escaping the bounds of the trap but it behaves as if it's been caged. The phantom George has collapsed and the hatstand has been reduced to splinters.'
The hissing and the buffeting began to lessen.
'Aubrey?' George called. 'Are we done?'
'It's gone,' Caroline reported.
'George,' Aubrey called. He longed to rub his temples to soothe the pounding inside his head. 'Bring your mirror over here. Don't look into it.'
Caroline guided George with a firm, clear voice. 'A little to the right, George. Two paces forward. A small one. Good.'
'George.' said Aubrey. 'When we fit the two mirror faces together, can you take both and hold them together? It will be heavy.'
'I'll manage.'
Aubrey held up his mirror, guided by Caroline. For an awkward moment, he and George fumbled, but the two mirrors finally came together with a heavy click.
'Good,' Aubrey said. 'Place them on the bench.'
George shuffled over and eased the mirrors onto the bench. He stood back, removed the gloves and blew onto his hands.
'They've fused,' Caroline said.
There was no crack separating the two sheets of mercury. They had merged into a single, shining slab.
'And that's the mirror trap,' Aubrey said. He leant heavily on the bench. Despite the cold radiating from the mirror, he was sweating. 'But there is one last thing I must do.'
With a sigh, he turned to look around the workshop. 'Perfect,' he said and took a hammer out of a box of woodworking tools. He fumbled a piece of chalk out of his pocket and inscribed a symbol on the face of the hammer.
When he struck, the merged mirrors shattered like glass.
'Now, all the pieces go back into the quicksilver bath. When it melts it will be simple mercury again.'
Blaze of Glory Page 18