“He thinks all this stuff about rounding us up and barbecuing us for playing with demons is a distraction from the Church’s true mission, whatever that may be. In particular, he defends local boy made good, Oswald Devereaux—”
“That’s . . . Saint Oswald?” says Marvell.
“One and the same.”
“My mum’s always goin’ on about him. He was beheaded, right?”
Mr. Memory starts up. “During the great witch panic of 1493, Saint Oswald refused to leave Oxford. He was dragged from the altar and beheaded on the cathedral green.”
Marvell gestures toward the headless corpse behind the desk. “Coincidence?”
Caxton tosses her a pair of silk gloves. “See if he’ll let go of it.”
Marvell pulls them on and turns to the corpse.
There’s something fundamentally wrong about a headless body. I saw one when I was studying sorcery at Saint Cyprian’s and I remember thinking: if I look away, by the time I turn back someone will’ve fixed it.
Careful to avoid looking at the bloody stump, Marvell takes the book in one hand and the dead fingers in the other, and pulls gently. The book moves . . . and the entire left arm with it. The chair creaks. She grabs the thumb lying on top of the book and levers it upward. It straightens reluctantly, releasing the book. She leaves the left hand resting against the edge of the desk and leans across, still trying to ignore the disgusting mess next to her face.
“Rigor mortis?” I ask.
“Some. Want a go?”
She pulls at the book again. It slips easily out of the fingers of the right hand.
“There’s a thumbprint here, Chief.” She’s pointing to a brown smudge on the page.
Caxton nods indifferently, probably to cover the fact that she can’t see it.
The technical name for the condition is presbyopia, by the way, but that’s a right mouthful, so everyone just calls it the Blur. What happens is, after you’re twenty, your eyes start to go. You can’t read in poor light; things in the distance are still clear, but your close vision goes all fuzzy and you get these blinding headaches. There’s nothing healers can do about it and by the time they’re twenty-five, most people have gone Blurry and need thick glasses to see anything less than a couple of yards away. By the time you’re thirty, you’re in big trouble. Like I said, Caxton’s well past that, and she’d be helpless without Marvell to see things up close for her.
“Blood on the left palm—he was stabbed there.” Marvell raises her own hand defensively, in front of her chest, to demonstrate. “He couldn’t’ve been holding the book in that hand when it happened. An’ I’d be dead surprised if he picked it up afterward . . .”
I peer over her shoulder as she pulls the dressing gown open. No Adonis, whoever he was. Broken veins. Liver spots. Black body hair turning gray across the sagging chest . . .
And Caxton may be half blind—even with her glasses on—but if she’d not let the absence of a head mislead her and taken the trouble to open the dressing gown, there’s something else she might have noticed.
“He wasn’t killed here,” Marvell says. “No blood anywhere in the room.”
Caxton nods. “Killed somewhere else, brought here, sat at his desk, the book stuck in his hands—”
“Cause of death?” I ask.
“Are you stupid?”
“He was stabbed first.” I’m pointing at a black crust of dried blood over the heart. Caxton slaps my hand aside and leans in to stare, eyes screwed up, mouth open.
I’d probably feel sorry for her if she wasn’t such a total pain and if the sharp corner of her security ring hadn’t scratched the back of my hand. Like I said, I just seem to get up her nose.
“How old was the bishop?” Marvell asks.
“Henry Alfred Wallace,” says Mr. Memory. “Born August 13, 1958—”
“Fifty-five then.” Caxton cuts the elemental off as she closes over the dressing gown.
“Anyway,” I suggest. “Shall we see if it really is Wallace?” I’ve dragged a small table out from the wall and I’ve got my case open on it. I don’t feel sick anymore and this is beginning to look like it might be fun. I’m unwrapping a small brass brazier when the door opens behind me and a familiar voice whines:
“What’s he doing here?”
Won’t you give a big Doughnut City welcome, please, to Ferdia McKittrick! He’s tall. He’s handsome—at least, Marvell is giving him a sort of glassy stare. His tonsure—that’s the bald patch shaved into his hair—is so perfectly circular that I’m convinced a personal demon flies in every day to touch it up.
There’s a lot of money in Doughnut City, which means a lot of sorcerers—maybe a dozen or so. I don’t have anything to do with them, but I know there’s one at the big Ghost factory out at Cowley and a couple more coming up with Bright Ideas around the industrial estates. The corporation has one, even if he’s rubbish, and there’s another who wanders around the hospitals, trying to prevent the healers from killing too many patients.
There’s a few vanity sorcerers, working for rich bunnies. Then licensed cosmetic sorcerers, private detectives, and treasure-hunters taking money off idiots who ought to know better.
The jacks use two of us, mostly for forensic work: me and Ferdia. He’s an arsehole. He’s twenty-one . . . and he’s post-peak. Past it. Over the hill. A waste of space.
“I told Marvell to bring Sampson,” says Caxton. “I don’t want any mistakes on this one.”
“I can manage.” Ferdia gives Marvell the once-over as he swaggers over to the table and puts his case down beside mine. He sweeps up all the sachets of herbs I’ve laid out and dumps them back in my case.
“Hey!” I squeal. It’s against Society protocol to handle another sorcerer’s gear—
Oh, the laughs we had with that one back at Saint Cyprian’s: “Sir, Jenkins is handling my gear again!”
Anyway, Ferdia ignores me. He sticks my brazier back inside my case, slams the lid—and jumps back as it growls at him.
I’m pissed off; but I don’t need a fight and the cat back in my studio is missing me. I’m just reaching for my case when Ferdia grabs my pentagrams from the mantelpiece.
“Fat lot of good these’ll do you!” He tosses them at me. I catch one but have to chase the other across the floor.
“And you can stick that outside while you’re about it.” Ferdia’s pointing at a small round mirror hanging on the wall to the right of the door.
My instinct is to suggest somewhere else to stick it, but my better nature prevails. I pocket the pentagrams and park the mirror in the corridor, and I’m just stepping back into the library when the young guy with the bleached hair—the one we saw poking around in the bushes outside—wanders in through the French windows. He’s Gerry Ormerod, one of Caxton’s sergeants. “There’s a gate open.” He’s got this high, squeaky voice.
“Where?” says Caxton.
“Down by the river.”
Caxton turns to Marvell. “Do you want to check that out for me?” She nods in my direction. “Take Sampson.”
“I’ve got stuff to do.” I grab my case and head for the door.
“Get back here, you little creep!”
“You’ve got the boy genius.” I nod toward Ferdia. “How much magic do you need?”
“That’s for me to decide.”
I point at Marvell. “Look, you send her to drag me out when I’m in the middle of something important—”
“Such as what?” Caxton looms over me like a building.
I prefer not to admit what I’m up to, so I stare down at the floor like I’ve seen something important there.
“Just shut up and do what you’re told!” Caxton jabs a forefinger the size of a bread roll into my chest and nearly knocks me over. “If I get any more lip from you I’ll put in a complaint to the Society—and I think you’re in enough hot water already. Am I right?”
Marvell’s standing there with her mouth open.
Another jab. “I s
aid, am I right?”
I nod reluctantly. There’s stuff I could do—make Caxton’s nose bleed, make her break out in spots—but she’d know it was me. “Yeah, OK.” I put my case down.
Caxton turns to Marvell. “So what are you waiting for?”
Marvell’s eyes flicker toward me, then to Ferdia. He gives her—well, I think it’s supposed to be his sympathetic look, but it’s more like bad constipation.
“Yes, Chief.”
“And try to keep the skinny little freak out of my hair.”
“That’s not my job.”
“Do it anyway.”
As I step past him, through the French windows, Gerry murmurs, “Wish I had a fan club like yours.”
Out on the terrace, I button up my jerkin and jam on my hat.
“Told you it was cold,” Marvell reminds me.
As we stumble down the brick steps onto the lawn, a couple of sheep run off. The rich have elementals to keep the grass down; the merely prosperous make do with sheep. The poor don’t have lawns.
There’s a cold glow in the eastern sky. Despite rumor to the contrary, I don’t shrivel up and crumble into a tiny pile of dust at the first glimpse of the sun; but I never feel quite safe in daylight. From the other side of the lawn, I look back at the palace. The brightening sky is reflected in the French windows, the broken pane black like a missing tooth. When I glance up at the second floor, I can see a face staring down at me. Blonde hair, cropped dead short.
The face disappears after a moment. As I follow Ormerod into an alley between yew hedges, hugging myself to stay warm, there’s the sound of running feet.
This bloke is scurrying across the lawn after us. I put him in his early twenties, wearing ecclesiastical gear—nice if you like purple—and with a pair of rimless spectacles bouncing on a cord around his neck. “Edward Akinbiyi,” he pants. “I’m Bishop Wallace’s secretary.” A big ring glistens on his middle finger as he sticks out his hand.
I step away. “Not while I’m working.”
Akinbiyi makes a face. But so what? Let him think I’m being obnoxious. In this line of work, you don’t shake hands with possible witnesses or suspects; it can mess up the magic.
“Do you need any assistance?”
“Nope.” Marvell heads off after Ormerod.
“I left the bishop downstairs in the library around ten thirty,” Akinbiyi says as he follows her. “He had some personal letters to write.”
“Did you tell DCI Caxton that?” Marvell asks.
“Of course.”
She catches my eye. I guess we’re both asking ourselves the same thing: if he told Caxton, why’s he telling us? And Marvell has another question:
“Isn’t that what he hired you for? Letters and stuff.”
“No, I just do official correspondence and administration. Bishop Wallace had perfect close vision.”
“How come?”
“I suppose he was one of the lucky ones.”
Luck has nothing to do with it, but I decide to keep my mouth shut. “How long have you been here?” I ask.
“Just over a year. Before that I held a curacy in Nigeria.”
I nod. “I wrote an essay once on egba ogwu—”
“I’m Yoruba and I disapprove of witchcraft.”
I could explain that sorcery is different from witchcraft, but he’s too busy rabbiting on about how he found the body and called the jacks. Maybe he wants a medal.
We do another set of steps and a gravel path. The palace grounds end at a line of spiked iron railings, about six feet high and set in a low brick wall. A couple of uniformed jacks are standing around beside an open gate that leads to the towpath beside the river. I can see half a dozen red and white lights and the dark outlines of a tug and a string of barges heading downstream.
Just inside the gate, Charlie is on his knees with his arm around a figure sitting on the grass: a young guy wearing a blue anorak and trousers, his head buried in his hands, sobbing fit to die.
“Security elemental,” I whisper to Marvell.
They do what it says on the tin. They can work twenty-four hours, seven days a week. They can see in the dark and hear a flea fart. They don’t need to be fed or watered, although I think they appreciate a pat on the back every now and then. They never get bored and they don’t need to be paid or pensioned. You just pay a rental to the supplier, to cover instantiation and maintenance. When the job’s done, he dismisses them. Poof!
Charlie gets to his feet. “I can’t get any sense out of him.”
“Any ideas?” says Marvell.
“Someone got in.”
“How? I mean, if he’s a security elemental . . .”
If you really want to know about elementals, Charlie’s your man. A lot of sorcerers go into elemental work when their Gift is taken away and they can’t control full Presences anymore. Basically it’s repetitive work with the occasional laugh and no personal risk.
But Charlie just shrugs hopelessly. I stroll over for a closer look. I like elementals. You give them something to do and they just get on with it, no fuss. You ask them a question and they give you a straight answer. They don’t whisper stuff behind your back or try to make you look like a fool.
The trouble is, they’re emotionally insecure. If anything goes wrong they fall totally to pieces. I kneel beside him and put my hand over his. Like all elementals, he’s stone cold. He looks up at me, his face wet with tears.
“It’s just an elemental,” Ormerod mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose hard between two fingers.
The guard buries his face in his hands and sobs helplessly. I pat him on the shoulder because I can’t think of anything better to do.
“It’s all right,” I say. An obvious lie.
Marvell has wandered out through the gate to the towpath, but the ground is bone dry so there’s no chance of footprints. Akinbiyi is just standing there, watching her. Charlie is rolling a cigarette. There’s no point in asking if the guard will calm down enough to make sense. They never do. He’ll just have to be put down.
I turn to Akinbiyi. “Who has clearance?”
“All the staff.” There’s a tiny flash of red as he holds out his right hand to show the security ring on his middle finger.
“The body in the library didn’t have one of them,” Marvell calls.
“The spell would be in the stone of his episcopal ring.” I glance down at my own ring, a gold band etched with symbols and set with a small sapphire. When I’m not trying to impress tatties that’s my preferred way of getting through police lines.
“He wasn’t wearing any sort of ring.”
“I’m sure he was wearing it when I left him.” Akinbiyi is looking deeply perplexed. He jumps as Charlie strikes a match.
“What if someone was carrying the bishop’s body?” I ask Charlie. “Would the elemental let them through?”
He shakes his head. The wind snatches a cloud of smoke from his mouth as he takes my arm and leads me away. He whispers, “What about sorcery?”
Akinbiyi heard that. His eyes are like saucers.
“What about a stolen ring?” I suggest.
Charlie shakes his head. “A ring’s only effective if the right person’s wearing it. Like I said: sorcery.”
“OK, but don’t say anything to—”
“What are you two muttering about?” Marvell’s down at the river’s edge, clutching a tree branch with one hand while she leans out to peer along the bank. Behind her, the gas lamps are still glowing where Seven Bridges Road crosses the river just west of the railway station.
I turn my back on her and whisper to Charlie. “Not till I’ve spoken to the Society.”
Akinbiyi has wandered through the gate to join Marvell. “What are you looking for?”
“A boat.”
“Bit cold for a pleasure trip,” I suggest.
Nobody laughs. The branch creaks ominously as Marvell leans out over the rolling brown water. She catches my eye: “I know what you’re hoping.”
She pulls herself back to safety.
“Never even crossed my mind.”
Honest.
Chapter Four
Love
Back in the library, there’s the smell of herbs burning on cedarwood.
Caxton is standing in front of the fireplace, treating the world to her thoughtful look as she squints up at an oil portrait of a middle-aged, self-satisfied-looking bloke in episcopal robes.
“That’s him, right?” Marvell turns to Akinbiyi. “How long ago?”
“Two years. It was painted just after his appointment.”
If that is him in the chair, he’s put on weight since then. The figure in the portrait has black hair, worn quite long, and a hint of a smile, like he knows it’s all a joke—or maybe he’s just remembered something nobody else knows. Like where the money’s stashed.
Mr. Memory is standing beside the stiff, lifting documents from the desk one by one and reading them. He’ll remember the position and contents of everything; he can even re-materialize stuff for you to examine yourself. I give him a big smile, but he doesn’t respond. He pulls the sheet of paper out of the typewriter, pores over it, then puts it aside to hang in midair. A nice little touch of Charlie’s.
“All right,” Ferdia announces. “I’m ready.”
He’s wearing a white linen apron, embroidered with symbols, and a square paper hat with one of the names of God, “EL,” written on it. He’s got a small brass brazier burning on the table beside a couple of knives, a hazel wand, and various porcelain dishes and paper sachets. The painted cherubs on the ceiling stare down apprehensively at the wisp of smoke spiraling toward them.
“I’m about to test for contiguity.” Ferdia turns the dazzling light of his personality on to Marvell. “If any two objects ever touch each other, they retain an affinity that a sorcerer can detect. I can tell you if a knife inflicted a wound, or if a bullet was fired from a particular gun.” He gestures at the table, apparently for her benefit alone. “I have two samples of hair—one from the body and the other from a brush in Bishop Wallace’s bedroom . . .”
Marvell manages to look interested. Akinbiyi looks unhappy.
Caxton mutters, “Just get on with it.”
A Dangerous Magic Page 3