A Dangerous Magic

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by Donald Hounam


  Maybe it was me. Good-bye, cruel world. Tell everybody I forgive them . . .

  Chapter Nineteen

  Not Heaven

  To my surprise I wake up. Everything’s white and clean. There’s one angel leaning over my leg and a second, with curly black hair, smiling down at me. So this must be heaven.

  “Where’s Kazia?” I ask.

  The second angel stops smiling and I recognize Marvo. The brightness isn’t divine radiance, but the sun streaming through high windows and bouncing off white walls. With a wave of relief, I realize that I’m in a hospital and that the angel fondling my leg is Reg Garston.

  Reg is an old pal of Charlie’s. They smashed windows and made cats and dogs fly when they were kids together; but when Charlie went to Saint Cyprian’s, Reg went to Saint Thomas’s in Lambeth to study healing. It’s less fun than sorcery, but a longer career.

  “Bend your knee,” he says.

  Contiguity again, innit? The fragments of the broken bone remember what it was like to be whole, so the healer just has to talk them back into shape. A good one can reattach amputated limbs. There’s some maniac in America who claims he has transplanted organs—hearts, kidneys—from one person to another, but nobody believes him.

  “You weren’t at the convention,” Reg says.

  “Sorry. Busy.”

  “You’re always busy.”

  I shrug. “Victim of my own success.”

  Reg frowns as he pushes my knee around. “How’s it feel?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “So what happened?” says Marvo.

  I start to tell her, but she holds up her hand and wanders off into a corner with her scryer. So I ask Reg how long I’ve been unconscious and he says thirty-six hours.

  Bloody hell! Healers put their patients into a sort of coma while the cure’s working. It’s partly to keep you still, partly because it’s kind of unsettling to be awake while the bones in your leg are moving around of their own accord.

  Marvo’s got several calls to make, but finally she closes her scryer. Reg is saying, “You ought to make an effort, Frank—muck in more. You’re missing out on a lot of stuff.”

  “Such as?”

  “There’s talk of . . .” He looks around. “Well, sort of a strike. If the Church wants to get rid of us, let’s show people what it’d be like without us. No healers, no scryers, no Ghosts—”

  “Yeah,” says Marvo. “The world’d be a poorer place without Ghosts.” She’s looking straight at me. I’m still feeling a bit fuzzy and it takes me a moment to realize that this is one of her hints about her brother. I’m still trying to decide how guilty to feel about it, when she frowns impatiently and turns to Reg. “Can he walk?”

  “No problem.”

  “Then I’ll let you get dressed, Frank. I’ll be in the corridor.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, but she isn’t listening.

  The door closes behind her and Reg says, “You know your trouble, Frank?”

  “I’m a smartarse.”

  “We’re all smartarses.”

  “Except Ferdia.”

  “C’mon, he’s not a bad bloke. Nah, your trouble is, you think you can do it all on your own—like, you don’t need the rest of us. Here . . .”

  He opens the locker beside the bed and tosses me my clothes, tied up in a neat bundle.

  “I mean, have you got any friends?”

  “I told you, I got a lot to do.”

  “You should ask Marvell out.”

  “You gotta be joking!”

  “Why not? She’s pretty.”

  “You reckon?”

  “She’s another smartarse.”

  I nod. That’s true.

  “And she fancies you.”

  Reg has given me lots to think about, so naturally I decide not to think about it. It’s not like there isn’t a list in my brain. Let’s start with how I wound up in the hospital.

  The jacks tend to steer clear of the Hole unless there are bodies to tidy away. Apparently they were disappointed to find that only one of them was actually dead. Even more disappointed, according to Marvell, when they realized it wasn’t me. They hauled me across to the hospital and tossed me out of the back of the wagon, then took Cigarette on to the mortuary where they pulled the knife out of his back . . .

  “So you want me to take a look at him?”

  Marvell just shrugs.

  “Then what are you dragging me out for?”

  She’s sitting hunched up in her corner of the van in her red coat, with her knee going and this tight look on her face. “Dunno,” she mutters. “Caxton told me to get Ferdia, but he’s been called in by the Society an’ nobody there’ll talk to me. Any ideas?”

  “Maybe they want him to dish the dirt on me.”

  “Anyway, I figured you’d do instead.”

  “Doubt if Caxton’ll see it that way.”

  “Who cares?”

  “I’ll need my case.”

  So she bangs on the roof and barks at the driver to go around by the termite nest. Then she leans her elbow on the windowsill and stares out, her chin cupped in her hand. Her hair’s all tangled, like she hasn’t washed it for ages; and I can see dirt under her fingernails.

  Gerry told me she lives out in Littlemore, with her mother. He didn’t know anything about her dad. When I asked him about what happened to her brother, he shrugged and asked why was I interested anyway? And I said I wasn’t really, just curious . . .

  “You know where we’re going, though,” I say to Marvo.

  “Saint Ebbe’s. The rectory.”

  “What’s his name—that guy Caxton had in . . . the one who sent the spoof note.”

  “Yeah, James Groce. His place. Now shut up and let me think.”

  We’re rattling out toward Summertown and the Ferry Bridge. The sun is still beaming out of the sky and if she wants to sulk that’s fine by me. I realize she’s taking a chance, dragging me in. Caxton really doesn’t want me, but maybe Marvell sees this as some chance to make us all friends again . . .

  Reg is right. Her forehead slopes back and her nose comes to a sharp point, and overall her face makes me think of the aerodynamic locomotives they use on the main line up to Scotland. But once you get used to it, she is . . . maybe not pretty, but kind of cute.

  Not my type, though.

  She says something, but she’s talking into her hand.

  “What?”

  She turns to me. “The bloke they took the knife out of—they found a Lithuanian newspaper in his pocket.” She gives that a moment to stick to the woodwork. “Told you she wasn’t right.”

  “Maybe it’s just another coincidence.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “So where is she now? At the palace?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “C’mon, Marvo—”

  “Don’t call me that! Marvell is good.”

  “Whatever. Just make up your mind.”

  Cigarette was Lithuanian, then. OK, maybe the ASB has a Lithuanian chapter, but I can’t imagine what they’d be doing chasing around Doughnut City after me.

  So chances are that Sunglasses has got nothing to do with the ASB. If it was him that Amber Trickle saw on the riverbank behind the palace, the night of the murder, then it must have been something to do with Kazia. It was her, not me, that he was on the lookout for that afternoon in the cathedral. And it was her again that he was after in the Hole . . .

  Maybe he’s her dad, or something, in which case God knows where Wallace fits in; although there must be documents and no better person to winkle them out than Marvell . . . except that she’s totally narked off with me and anything I ask her will find its way back to Caxton . . .

  I’m still trying to untangle it all when the van pulls up outside the termite nest. My least favorite reception committee is waiting for me: a dozen scruffy-looking priests, waving crucifixes and amulets.

  “Hurry it up,” says Marvell.

  One advantage of
being a sorcerer: you get the best private medical care. I feel a slight stiffness in the leg, that’s all. But I’m not as fast as I’d like when I dash out again with my case. As I throw myself back into the van, a paper bomb hits my head and showers me with what I assume is holy water. The priests cheer, then look disappointed when I don’t go up in a fizz of sparks.

  Marvell just watches with her knee bouncing up and down. She bangs on the roof and as the van pulls away, she says, “It wasn’t me who told Caxton about Cimerez.”

  I want to believe her.

  The rectory of Saint Ebbe’s church is a crumbling modern building jammed up an alleyway, backing onto a high wall that seals off the Hole. Another of Charlie’s lions is on patrol outside and the man himself is lurking behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  I’ve got my usual attack of stage fright, but I take a deep breath and follow Marvell up the narrow staircase to a tiny landing, where Gerry Ormerod is squinting at an old engraving in a black frame hanging on the wall. It shows a teenage boy, tied to a ladder, being lowered by ropes onto a bonfire. We admire it together for a moment and as we turn away I spot the telltale signs that he’s going Blurry: two faint red marks on each side of the bridge of his nose.

  He realizes I’ve noticed. “Don’t tell the chief,” he whispers.

  I nod. He pushes a door open.

  It’s a small bedroom, and it’s a tight fit.

  Let’s start with the woman lying on the floor beside the narrow bed.

  “Alice Constant,” says a voice.

  He’s this miserable-looking little guy in a raincoat, standing by the fireplace, clutching his hat. Remember the elemental Caxton commissioned to find Alice? This is the active twin, who did all the legwork. He’s found what he was looking for, but he doesn’t look very happy about it. I can see the pattern on the wallpaper through him.

  I hear someone gasp behind me and when I look around at Marvo, tears are pouring down her face.

  “I should’ve seen it,” she sobs. “The note an’ everything.”

  Oh yes, Groce’s note: “Leave her alone.” Not a wind-up after all.

  “It’s not your fault,” I say.

  She shakes her head and smears snot across her face with her coat sleeve.

  Tatties. They’re great for spotting things. Trouble is, they don’t always spot everything and, a bit like elementals, when they miss something, they can’t handle it.

  I put a couple of my silver pentagrams on the mantelpiece, then open my case and pull on a pair of gloves. I kneel beside Alice.

  “If it’s anyone’s fault,” I whisper, “it’s mine.”

  Alice’s gray eyes are wide open, staring back up at me like she agrees.

  “The chief’s on her way,” says Gerry. “Don’t move anything.”

  Arsehole.

  You know what’d be good? If I could tell Caxton that I realize I’ve messed up and then if she’d just step back and let me pick up the pieces and examine them and see where I went wrong . . . You know, maybe I’d be able to figure it all out.

  But people like Caxton, they never give me that chance. They just come at me like the ASB or those goons in the Hole, knives flashing.

  I don’t need other people poking sharp objects into me. I can do that myself, in the privacy of my own studio, and get some sense that I can control this and stop it before it all hurts too much.

  Marvo’s turned off the waterworks and is just sniffing and wiping. I guess she feels sorry for Alice. Me, I’m not sure who I really feel sorry for. Probably just myself.

  But Alice is the one who’s dead, still staring emptily upward like the answer’s written on a sheet of paper nailed to the ceiling. I pull her pale green cardigan open and count seven stab wounds to her chest and abdomen. I’d need some pigs’ heads to be precise, but at first glance I’d say she’s been dead for two or three days.

  “And here,” says Gerry. “Careful.”

  A dark-haired man is slumped in an armchair in the corner behind the door. He’s wearing a black clerical vestment, a white dog collar, and a pair of spindly horn-rimmed spectacles with one lens cracked.

  “James Alfred Groce,” says the elemental. “Rector of Saint Ebbe’s church. Born on the fourteenth of May . . .”

  Groce’s right arm hangs over the side of the armchair. His left arm is across his lap and still holds a kitchen knife. Both wrists have spilled blood everywhere.

  “Why’s he wearing his glasses?” I ask.

  Marvo leans past me and pulls a small envelope out of the breast pocket of Groce’s jacket. She draws out a letter—

  “It’s to the Most Reverend and Right Honorable Dr. Nicholas Thackeray, Archbishop of Canterbury . . .”

  “He was wearing them to write that,” Ormerod sneers. He stares down at Groce’s wrists. “And to do the job right: a coward’s way out.” He turns back to Marvo. “Well?”

  Marvo reads:

  “Your Grace,

  “My name is James Groce and I am the rector of Saint Ebbe’s parish church in the city of Oxford. And I wish to confess to the murder of Henry Wallace, Bishop of Oxford.

  “In Exodus 22:18, the Lord instructed the children of Israel: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’

  “Bishop Wallace’s heretical defense of sorcery—”

  Footsteps bang on the stairs and Caxton walks in. She takes one look at me. Her amulet flashes . . .

  “What’s he doing here? I told you to get Ferdia.”

  “The Society called him in about something. Frank was available . . . I left a message.”

  “Well, I didn’t get it.” She’s noticed Groce’s letter. “What’s that?”

  “Looks like a suicide note.”

  “So read it.”

  Actually it’s not very exciting. Groce says he did it and he knows he’s going to hell, but that’s OK because he deserves it. He sounds pretty depressed.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I say.

  Caxton is leaning over Alice, doing her detecting pose; she doesn’t even look around. “Are you still here?”

  So I guess it’s time to go—except that the doorway’s blocked by this little guy in a raincoat, clutching his hat. I can see the stairs through him. He’s the double of the character in the corner, who pushes past me and takes his twin’s hand.

  There’s a change in the light, like the momentary shadow you get when a Montgolfier passes across the sun. I’ve seen this a hundred times, but I’ll never get used to it. Marvo’s staring.

  “Who are you looking at?” the elementals say simultaneously. And a moment later they’ve simply vanished, leaving a faint musky smell. Job done.

  Marvo’s standing there with her mouth open. “Where do they go?” She turns to me. “I mean, you said they were some natural force or something.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So do they . . . what d’you call it, revert? Or just . . .”

  “Evaporate? Dunno. But no elemental’s ever claimed to have come back from anywhere, or given any sign of knowing about events that took place before they were instantiated.”

  She’s shaking her head. “But they’re so like real people.”

  Well, yes.

  Caxton’s got the letter and she’s going through this pantomime of checking it. “Right,” she says at last. “I guess that wraps it up.”

  “You can’t be serious,” I splutter.

  “Sampson, you’ve been a pain in the neck since the first day you came to work for me—”

  “Yeah, but I don’t work for you.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean!” She points at the door.

  “You never liked me,” I say. “Did you?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?” She takes off her glasses. “But for what it’s worth—and this is just between you and me and your girlfriend”—Marvo turns bright red. Wow!—“I dislike you less than I do Ferdia. You’re sharp—you can be quite funny. But you’re a nekker . . . and nekkers screw up everything they touch.”


  Without her glasses, her eyes are pathetically small, with red rims. She looks, I dunno . . . defenseless and bewildered. Like she’s scared of all the stuff that she can’t see properly.

  She’s right up close to me and even if she can’t focus, she’s staring straight at me. She points at her eyes. “I’ve got nekkers to thank for this.”

  OK, here’s the story. Well, myth, actually. I mean, it’s bollocks but people swallow it . . .

  A couple thousand years back—long before the Society of Sorcerers was there to stop silly things happening—there’s this Greek magician called Empedocles. Basically he’s just some nutter farting about in a cave halfway up a mountain or something. And he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

  Just a myth, right? But the way it goes, one night he’s bored or he’s had too much to drink and he starts summoning up demons.

  All of them.

  It’s a messy few days. Falling stars, thunderbolts, rivers of blood, plagues of frogs. Maybe there’s some other magicians who come around and sober him up, and eventually he gets the stopper back in the bottle.

  But a hell of lot of people have died, or just vanished. And almost all the survivors are stone blind. So they stumble around for a while tripping over each other, but gradually they find a way to survive. Obviously there’s a lot of things they used to do to pass the time that they can’t do anymore, so they have to find what amusement they can . . . And a year or so down the line there’s kids being born, and they can see.

  Except they’ve got the Blur. They don’t go blind; but once they hit twenty or so, they can’t make out anything close-up.

  And that’s how it all started. Sez the myth. Which I don’t buy for a second.

  Still, if Caxton wants to believe it, this isn’t the time to talk her around.

  “I’m sorry, Beryl,” I say.

  I’m not sure whether she’s more astonished by the apology or by me using her first name. Anyway, she blinks at me. And I realize that because she’s half blind and needs Marvo to see anything this close, I always treat her like she’s stupid. And that’s unfair because she’s good at what she does, she’s not on the take, and she usually treats Marvo OK. She’s not that bad with Ferdia either, even if he is a nekker too, as well as an arsehole.

 

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