Ferdia raises his wand theatrically. “In the name of Adonai the most high—”
Akinbiyi frowns. “I’m not comfortable with this.”
“Tough,” I say. “Second Council of Trent, 1907. The Church officially recognizes sorcery as a legitimate field of research, a valuable tool of social order, and an expression of the omnipotence of the divine will.”
Caxton’s glaring at me. “How’d you get to be such a precocious little brat?”
“I’m a sorcerer. What d’you expect?”
“In the name of Jehovah the most holy,” Ferdia chants in this strange, high-pitched voice. He was always a desperate show-off and now that he’s post-peak it’s getting worse.
I turn to Marvell. “Did you know the present pope had the Gift?”
“He was only at Saint Cyprian’s for a year,” Akinbiyi protests.
“Some people say that’s how he wound up being pope. A couple of other candidates died unexpectedly.”
“Those were just malicious rumors.”
“Is there such a thing as a non-malicious rumor?” Caxton seems to be having one of her rare moments of lucidity. “What’d be the point?”
We all take a few seconds to puzzle over that.
“It’s just a routine contiguity test,” I reassure Akinbiyi. “No animals will be harmed, or supernatural beings invoked. Anyway, you don’t have to watch.”
“This is consecrated ground. And under the terms of the Concordat, the Society of Sorcerers is obliged to seek the diocesan authorities’ consent before any thaumaturgic procedure can be carried out.”
“Thaumaturgic?” Marvell whispers.
“Magical,” I whisper back.
“That could take weeks,” Caxton says.
“I’ll take responsibility for formally identifying the body,” says Akinbiyi. “I’ve worked for Bishop Wallace for more than a year and I’m one hundred percent certain it’s him.”
“So the rumors are true,” I say. “The clergy do sauna together.”
Caxton covers a smile by turning to Ferdia. “I suppose we can do it back at the lab.”
“Great,” Ferdia mutters. “Fine!” And starts throwing stuff back into his case.
Mr. Memory has finished sifting through the documents and is putting them back exactly as he originally found them on the desk.
“Well?” says Caxton.
“There’s correspondence about a boundary dispute between the diocese and a Thomas Stevens.” Mr. Memory passes his hand across the desk, palm down. Half a dozen papers, scattered around, glow briefly. “Stevens claims—”
“What else?”
“A letter of resignation from James Groce, rector of Saint Ebbe’s.” Another document flickers. “A request from the Warden—”
“Anything that isn’t diocesan business?”
“Sermon notes—”
“Give me strength!”
Mr. Memory looks at her, dead puzzled.
“Anything personal?” says Caxton.
“Several anonymous letters.”
A sheaf of papers rises from the desk. Caxton’s glasses go on. Akinbiyi’s too, as he pushes in beside her.
“Did he get a lot of these?” Caxton asks.
“Quite a few since his book was published.” Akinbiyi reaches for a loosely wrapped silk bundle on the desk. “Is that it?”
Like he doesn’t know. “Don’t touch!” I say. “Contiguity—”
“Thank you, Sampson.” Caxton turns back to Akinbiyi. “Was he reading it when you left him last night?”
“Not that I recall.” Akinbiyi takes off his glasses and looks around the room. “But he was holding it when I found him dead.” His eyes widen. “So whoever murdered him—”
“Apparently.” Caxton opens her notebook.
Akinbiyi watches her write laboriously in block capitals. His voice sinks to a dramatic whisper. “They’re trying to tell us something!”
We all stand around watching Caxton print away, until a uniformed jack strolls in to announce that the meat wagon has arrived. Caxton turns to Mr. Memory. “Got everything you need?”
He nods. She turns to me. “Your turn, then. And please, Sampson.” Heavy pause. “Try not to mess it up.”
I’m still doing my offended look when this shiny metal trolley comes crashing through the door with two big, pissed-off-looking blokes in black silk overalls pushing it. I call them dieners, which is just a fancy word for mortuary attendants. Anyway, they barge past Marvell and stop the trolley beside the desk. She nudges me and hisses, “Are they elementals too?”
One of the dieners looks up from putting on a pair of black silk gloves and snarls, “You think we’d be farting around with all this crap if we were elementals?”
Marvell watches them pull silk bags out of a compartment underneath the trolley. I explain, “They’re flesh and blood, so if they touched the body they’d create a new contiguity. Silk’s a magical insulator and black is the densest color.”
“That’s a bit—”
“Literal? Yeah, magic’s dead literal when it puts its mind to it.”
One of the dieners whistles through his teeth as they pull the bags over the dead man’s hands. They lever him out of the chair and onto the trolley, where they cover him with more black silk.
“I have to do time of death now,” I tell Marvell. “You can watch some of it.”
“Doesn’t he do that?” She glances at Ferdia. He goes bright red.
“I’ll explain later!” I whisper.
“How long does it take?”
“Three or four hours.”
“So you’d better stop wasting my time and get on with it,” says Caxton.
We follow the trolley back along the corridor to the entrance hall. The staff are still sitting around their table in the side room, playing with crosses and amulets.
And the girl is standing at the bottom of the staircase. Before anyone can stop her, she darts forward and pulls back the sheet covering the body.
She screams—more like a bird than a human being. The dieners stop dead, unsure what to do. She seems to have frozen there, clutching the sheet to her breast. Her eyes are wide, like she can’t believe what she’s seeing.
Charlie’s beside her. He takes her arm and says, “Come on, love. You shouldn’t see this.”
But she won’t move—maybe she can’t. She’s trembling, and her face is white, and there are tears running down her cheeks. She’s pulling her elbows in to her sides, tighter and tighter like she can’t make herself small enough.
Akinbiyi wades in. Barges past Charlie, grabs her by the shoulders, shakes her. “Kazia!”
For a moment I think he’s going to slap her. She’s staring into his face and it’s like she’s going to fall into his arms. But then she drops the sheet and buries her face in Charlie’s shoulder. He blinks in surprise, then puts his arm around her, and as he leads her into the room where the staff are still staring like owls, I can’t help thinking, why couldn’t I have been on that side of the trolley?
The woman with the red hair whispers to the young kid. He gets up and comes around the table. He looks straight at me as he closes the door. The dieners rearrange the sheet over the body.
“Who was that?” I ask, since nobody else has.
“The bishop’s niece,” says Akinbiyi.
I’m in love.
Chapter Five
Dead Pigs
Imagine, if you can be bothered, a circular, domed room about twenty yards across. Dark wood paneling. Cedarwood floor . . .
And electric lights. Probably the only thing Ferdia and I have ever agreed on. The lighting in the mortuary amphitheaters used to be gas, but you have to burn candles for the actual rituals and turning a couple dozen gas fixtures off and on was always a pain. Modernizing was Ferdia’s idea—he’s always had this delusional image of himself as a go-ahead, cutting-edge sorcerer—and I was tempted to fight it just for the sake of being difficult. But darkness and light at the flick of a swit
ch is pretty cool.
Except for the poor sod who has to change the batteries.
The outer circle is a yard or so inside the perimeter: two concentric copper rings set into the floor, about two feet apart. The dieners are carrying in small round tables and fumbling around with them until the legs engage with notches in the floor around the circle.
Farther in, there’s another double circle, about twelve feet across. Fixed circles can be inflexible; but they save a lot of time messing about with string and chalk.
The service doors swing open for a couple of dieners to wheel in the plinth: brass, with a cluster of dials set into a panel on one side. The silk-shrouded body is already lying on it.
They trundle it across to the center of the inner circle. One of them is in his mid-twenties and still has some close vision: he goes down on his hands and knees and, with a bit of squinting, engages the bolts with more notches in the floor. The dieners’ breath hangs in the cold air as they unwrap the body, naked now. He’s got quite a gut, which moves around like it doesn’t know it’s dead yet.
I give him the once-over, front and back. Marvell is beginning to look queasy; in contrast to the wine-red stains down the back of the body, her face has gone deathly white.
So let’s give her something constructive to think about. “OK, what do you see?”
“Livor mortis. The heart stops beating, so the blood stops circulating and sinks toward the lowest parts of the body.”
She looks around at the sound of footsteps. Mr. Memory has come in and slides along a bench in the gallery. I raise a hand. He gives no sign that he’s seen me, but I know he sees everything; like God, only without the flaky track record.
“But livor starts anything from a few minutes to several hours after death, so that’s not much use.” I can see she’s trying to impress me, and she’s not doing badly. “Was he killed standing up?”
“Ferdia can check the angle of entry tomorrow. The wound to his hand was made trying to defend himself. Let’s say he falls over—”
She grins. “Dead people usually do.”
“His heart stops beating—within seconds if the knife penetrated it. Ferdia can check that tomorrow too.”
“How long before they cut his head off?”
“Can’t tell, but apart from the chest wound the only blood I can see is around his shoulder blades, so he must’ve been lying on his back when they did it. Blood starts tipping out—”
“Not much, though. They must’ve sat him up almost immediately—” Marvell turns to the dieners. “Where’s the dressing gown?”
“Behind you.” One of the dieners nods toward a silk bundle on a bench. She hesitates, waiting for him to bring it. When he just stands there, she goes red and walks over and unwraps it herself.
“Can you see a hole?” she asks, spreading the gown out, like a matador with a cape.
I shake my head.
“No blood down the front. All on the back.” She turns the dressing gown inside out and back again. “Not much though . . . smears, really, and all on the inside . . . didn’t even soak through. Was he naked when he died?”
“Looks like it.”
“Dirty old bleeder!”
Look, I don’t like her: she got me in a lot of trouble. But it’s fun having someone sharp to bounce stuff around with.
“OK then,” I say. “They put the gown on him, carry him . . . well, it’s easiest under the knees and armpits . . . sit him up in the library—”
“No trail of blood. No footprints. Nothing at the gate.”
“Once the heart’s stopped pumping, the body’s like a badly designed vase. If you carry it upright and steadily, it won’t spill.”
I can see where she’s heading, and sure enough . . .
“Could it have been moved . . . you know, by magic?”
“Easier to carry it.”
“Could it, though?”
I look her in the eye. “Do you have any idea how much hard work magic is? That trick with the cards—it was just sleight of hand.”
“What trick? You just chucked them in the fire!”
“Oh, didn’t I finish that?” I make a shape with my fingers. “Hocus-pocus!”
She jumps like she’s been stung in the arse. She sticks her hand in the back pocket of her jeans and pulls out the tarot card I forced on her back in my studio.
La Force. Strength or Fortitude.
“Post-hypnotic suggestion,” I explain. “Every time I say the cue you’ll feel something in your back pocket.”
“Forever?”
“Till I get bored.” Actually, the effect wears off after a week or so. “Akinbiyi says he left him at ten thirty.”
“If you believe him. He scried emergency a few minutes after three.”
I take our friend’s hand. Several deep gashes in the palm. I try to raise his arm, but he’s having none of it.
“That’s the trouble with rigor. This soon after death, all it really tells you is what you know already: that he’s dead.”
“What about body temperature?”
“I’m happy to let you stick a thermometer up his bum if it turns you on, but different people cool at different speeds under different conditions.” I turn to the dieners. “Let’s try between nine last night and three this morning. Six hours . . .”
“What about the tattoo?” Marvell’s leaning over the corpse, pointing to a tiny triangular mark above the right nipple.
“It’s not a tattoo. It’s the Society’s mark.”
She stares at me. “He was a sorcerer?”
“According to that, he was. A novice, anyway. There’s a lot of kids who have the Gift when they’re young, but it never really develops. So they drop out after a year or so and usually move over to the mainstream Church.”
“Why didn’t you tell Caxton?”
“He studied magic, that’s all. Never graduated.”
Saint Cyprian’s started out as part of a secret society in All Souls College, back in the sixteenth century. Ever since then, most bishops of Oxford have been former students. The fact that our friend’s got the mark . . . well, it’s a strong indication that this really is Wallace. But my first loyalty is to the Society and, like I said to Charlie, I need to talk to them before I decide how much to tell Caxton.
Marvell’s still leaning over the corpse. “What d’you mean, a mark?”
“You can remove a tattoo. Take off the skin there—even bite a lump out of him—the mark’ll just pop up somewhere else.”
“So it’s a spell?”
“Nope, it’s an attribute, like hair color. Magically induced. It changes as the novice progresses through his training. See?”
I pull up my shirt so she can see the complex pattern of circles and symbols across my chest. “That’s a full license.”
She peers at me. “You don’t eat enough.”
“You can talk!”
She blinks, and I realize it’s dead easy to hurt her. “The work kind of feeds off you, that’s all.” I pull down my shirt and say, “Right, time for you to go.”
“Sorry?”
“This is what that business with Ferdia was all about. I’m about to invoke a Presence.”
“Huh?”
“An angel. That’s why Ferdia can’t do time of death. He’s post-peak, so he can’t control a Presence anymore.”
“But he can do contiguity.”
“Coz it doesn’t require a Presence. Anyway, you can’t stay.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t have a license.”
“How do I get one?”
“By being Gifted and getting kidnapped by the Society when you were six. This is a secret procedure.”
“What about him?” She’s pointing at Mr. Memory, gazing benignly back at us from the gallery.
“He’s an elemental, instantiated according to Society specifications. Look, thanks to you I’m in enough trouble already—”
There’s clanking noises from underneath. She steps ba
ck as a trapdoor opens in the floor. “I’m not leaving unless Caxton gives me a direct order.”
Plan B, then: right on cue, a platform rises from the basement. There are two dieners on board, steadying a metal trolley. It has four shelves, each packed with severed pigs’ heads, their snouts and ears glistening with ice crystals.
“Bloody hell,” Marvell mutters.
“If you don’t like the smell, get out of the kitchen.”
“No way.”
So on to Plan C: bore her to death. I plant her in the gallery with Mr. Memory and take my time getting tooled up.
There are three forensic amphitheaters in the city mortuary. Ferdia uses the two in the east wing; I get the smaller one in the west wing to run amok. You can’t be forever dragging instruments and materials in and out, so I’ve got a robing room sealed by a spell like the one on my studio door, but without the amateur dramatics.
The door here knows me, so all I have to do is touch it and it swings open. Inside, there’s a teak wardrobe, lined in black silk, containing several complete party outfits: white linen coats, belts, slippers, and paper hats folded and ready to go. Everything’s spattered with symbols embroidered in silk thread, or drawn with ink or blood—mostly mine.
I drop my ring into a drawer, where it won’t interfere with the ritual. I pour exorcised water into the basin and recite the prayers as I wash and dry my face and hands. I scrawl more symbols on the coat and slippers and struggle into them.
Candles. Braziers. Herbs and spices. Two silk-wrapped wands from a box. Cutlery from the array of knives, sickles, lancets, burins, and swords in the cabinet. A silver bowl. Goat’s milk . . .
It’s over an hour before I rattle my way back into the amphitheater. The last of the dieners puts a birdcage down on the floor. As he disappears through the service door he switches off the electric lights, leaving four tall white candles flickering: north, south, east, and west.
Disappointingly, Plan C has failed: Marvell is still sitting beside Mr. Memory in the gallery, one knee bouncing dementedly up and down.
“Cool outfit,” she says. “Ever thought of joining a circus?”
I award that a bleak smile. The official line—that there are significant thaumaturgic reasons for having no mirrors in any room where a ritual is performed—is contradicted by the fact that we use mirrors for scrying. The real reason, of course, is that no sorcerer wants to be reminded that, dolled up in his party outfit, he looks less like a highly trained, massively talented professional wielding supernatural powers than a total prat in a paper hat.
A Dangerous Magic Page 4