I don’t think Kazia had anything to do with chopping off Wallace’s head: she looked too surprised when she pulled the sheet off his body that first morning. Must’ve been Akinbiyi’s bright idea to stick it in the reliquary and make it look like the ASB dunnit. Kazia’s sword was the first weapon to hand. It never even occurred to Akinbiyi or Groce that a sorcerer’s sword is consecrated . . .
Chop, chop! Wallace’s head rolls away. And me and Ferdia have got a puzzle on our hands.
Kazia is just standing there now, watching me put my boots on. I remember looking into those big, beautiful eyes and getting a sense of a film across them, hiding whatever was going on behind them.
Now it’s like staring at blue shutters. She’s closed down tight.
I haven’t the heart for this. She’s played me for a sucker all the way. She didn’t have to wave a wand or throw herbs around, she just stood there and smiled and watched me bewitch myself. A dark veil that made me blind to what was really going on.
Some people say, if you can just recognize that you’re under a spell, you can step out of it. Not true. I’m sitting here spellbound on the bottom step, like a mouse staring into the eyes of a snake, unable to shake myself free.
Her eyes clear. She reaches for my hand. I pull it away, but she makes a jump and grabs it.
She’s cold. And just as I’m thinking I can warm her, she says:
“Will you help me?”
OK, I wasn’t expecting that. But now that I think about it, this is a girl in a lot of trouble. All her old man’s interested in is business: if he can get her back to Lithuania he can make a fortune milking her Gift while it lasts. If she goes to the police, they won’t even bother to try her as an accessory to murder. They’ll just hand her over for the Society to dismantle her and barbecue the pieces.
“That story you told me in the cinema,” she says. “About the unlicensed sorcerer you tried to help . . .”
I didn’t tell her how that ended. How he wound up on a bonfire, screaming at me because he thought I’d ratted on him. My fault? No. But I’ve always felt like it was and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Kazia from winding up the same way. Plus, maybe she’d be grateful to a boy who helped her get out of this hole. She’s still got hold of my hand. I let her pull me to my feet.
“I need to get this straight,” I say. “You did stuff like this all the time. Summoned up demons to make women come to Wallace—”
“He told me if I didn’t, I was an unlicensed sorcerer . . .”
“Didn’t you talk to Matthew?”
“I was ashamed.”
She starts to sob. I know what I ought to do. I ought to put my arms around her, but I’m not quite sure what I’d do after that. Probably the wrong thing.
“So you do the magic and Alice rolls up. Only Groce is right behind her and he kills Wallace. You dismiss the demon, right?”
She nods reluctantly.
“I figure Akinbiyi gets hold of your sword and cuts off Wallace’s head. And that severs the contiguity—”
There’s a sound behind me: footsteps on the stairs.
I’m expecting—who? Or what? Akinbiyi? Caxton? A demon? James Groce, bouncing back for a rematch?
It’s just this little kid in a brown school uniform with a canvas satchel slung over his shoulder. He looks about nine and if you passed him in the street you wouldn’t even give him a second glance. I’m thinking, who is this guy that she trusts enough to let him know where she’s hiding? And I realize that of course he’s not a real kid; she’s built herself an elemental and he’s already pulling a loaf of bread and a flask of water out of his satchel.
“What about me?” I ask. “Why the hell didn’t you talk to me?”
“I tried to tell you—”
“When?”
“But then I saw my father and I was scared.”
I’ve been trying to stay calm and not spook her, but I can feel myself starting to lose it. “So you just hide out in here like a ferret down a hole and think—what? That some knight in shining armor is going to figure out where you are, and ride in and rescue you? How stupid can you get?”
“I told you, I was ashamed.”
“Didn’t you trust me?”
“Why should I? You work for the police.”
I laugh. “Not anymore. Everything’s messed up. I exhumed Groce—”
And suddenly I realize how Marvo feels when one of her insights comes whizzing in out of nowhere, because the thought hits me like a train: it had to be Kazia who sent the demon to talk James Groce into killing himself and Alice!
“Frank, why?” She’s staring intently into my face. Her hand is on my arm. I’ve got this feeling that she knows everything that’s going through my head.
“I don’t know, I thought—Christ, I don’t know what I thought! But I brought him back to life.”
After a few seconds she asks, “Did he tell you anything?”
“Enough. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I had to do it—don’t you see? If the police found him and he told them what happened that night . . . It wasn’t my fault, but you know what they’d do to me. And he did kill Henry.”
“But what about Alice?”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I could say, “Oh yeah?” But I don’t. Apart from anything else, I realize that if I hadn’t spooked Alice by doing that stupid trick with the mouse, maybe she wouldn’t have run off, and maybe she wouldn’t have found herself in the way of Groce’s knife.
Kazia is watching me carefully. “So what are you going to do?” I can’t help noticing that her grip has tightened again on the hilt of the sword. One swipe and I’m luncheon meat.
Everything is screaming at me: run for it, Frank!
But I can’t.
You don’t choose to be Gifted. It seems like fun at first, when you’re setting things alight and making your friends break out in spots. But then you notice that people are scared of you. They resent the fact that you can do these tricks and they can’t. They’re afraid you’ll turn them into something slithery.
The only people you can really talk to are other sorcerers—and they all turn sniffy on you when you do stuff they can’t. And every sorcerer I ever met is scared of talking about the one thing that’s on your mind day and night: how long will this last . . . and then what?
There’s that physical Hole in the middle of Doughnut City. And there’s the mental hole where every sorcerer lives, cut off from the rest of the world. What do you think my studio’s about?
In Kazia’s shoes, would I have done any different? I don’t care what she’s done. I’m not leaving her skulking down here like a cornered rat.
“I’ll get you out of here.”
She raises the sword. “I’m not going with my father!”
“Did I say that? I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.”
It’s not like anybody’s looking for me right now. Caxton doesn’t give a damn, and Matthew and the Society think I’m back at the termite nest, packing for the hike to Rome. But Kazia’s old man’s on her tail, and it’s just a matter of time before the jacks start looking for her.
“I’ll get you out of Oxford, anyway.”
The train’s no good: the Society keeps an eye on the station. But I figure I can organize a trip on a barge down to London, no questions asked.
“What about you?”
Me? I realize with a shock that I’m a hair’s breadth from getting what I want. That can’t be right . . .
“I’m coming with you, if you’ll put down the sword.”
I’ve got no reason to stay in Oxford. My fan base is shrinking. It’s only a matter of time until the Society finds out about Groce’s resurrection and starts gathering wood for a fire, so the more distance the better.
I check my magic watch. “I gotta do some stuff.”
“Will you scry me?”
“It’s not safe. I’ll come back tonight. Late, when it’s quiet.”
The sword rattles on the tiles. Her hand brushes my cheek. Her lips are soft.
I’m not saying this isn’t stupid or dangerous. But it could be fun.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Vade retro Satana!
Lots to do. I go over my studio again, making sure every trace of the procedure to reanimate Groce is gone. Finally I stop to catch my breath. I take Kazia’s silver disc from around my neck: the last thing she gave me after several increasingly interesting kisses.
It’s weird, kissing. I don’t know what else to say about it. I mean, you eat and swallow through your mouth for all your life and suddenly there’s this new game. I’m not saying I don’t like it. Actually, I like it a lot. But it’s weird, that’s all.
Anyway, I recognize the design engraved into Kazia’s talisman as one of the pentacles of Jupiter, which offers, among other things, protection against all earthly dangers.
But I’m thinking: there’s still something not right about all this—like I haven’t got the full story.
From the moment I first saw her, I’ve had this fantasy that maybe Kazia fancies me as much as I fancy her. OK, I’m delusional. I realize that the obvious reason she hung around with me was because I was useful: she could find stuff out from me that nobody else would tell her, and I was too starry-eyed to see what she was playing at.
So if all the cards are on the table now, why’s she still willing to run off with me? I know she’s got her dad on her tail, but there’s something else and I think I understand what it is . . .
I got nine years at Saint Cyprian’s. A library full of grimoires. Herbs, spices, and animal parts, all there for the asking. Masters and fellow students just itching to jump in and show me what I was doing wrong.
Kazia grew up waiting for a knock on the door. She saw her mother fried. She got dragged off to a strange country by some bloke she didn’t even know. Then she spent ten years doing creepy stuff for a dirty old man.
Sure, there’s still something not right . . . but she needs a friend. I’m a sorcerer and I’m in trouble. That’s common ground.
Anyway, I need all the protection I can get. I hang Kazia’s pentacle back around my neck and try to scry Matthew. I’m not sure what I’m going to tell him—and I don’t have to come up with anything. The duty officer at the Society isn’t pleased to hear from me; he tells me that Matthew is out and nobody knows where to find him.
Somewhere along the line, I can’t fight sleep off anymore. I dream that I’m standing at an open window and there’s this bird, not so much fluttering as hovering. And not so much a bird as a fish: just the head, floating there, watchful but not afraid, a couple of inches from my hand . . .
I wake up and tidy some more. I try Matthew again, but he’s still out.
It’s dark outside and I can’t wait for him. I grab all my money and a lump of gold. I pick up my case—then put it down again. I spend ten minutes staring at it, feeling guilty about Matthew. But it’s too conspicuous for where I’m going. I pull out a few things I might need—sachets of spices, a flask of exorcised water, a couple of wands, two knives—and wrap them in silk and stuff them into a backpack. I leave my scryer; it’s not like I want to talk to anybody.
I throw a change of underwear and a toothbrush in on top. I say good-bye to my door and climb out over the wall.
I dug up Marvo’s address ages ago, but it takes me a while to find the place, off a narrow street around the back of Littlemore. There’s a rotting wooden gate, hanging by one hinge, and a narrow path, knee-deep in wet grass and overhung with dripping branches.
I stumble up to the house and stoop under a mass of ivy enveloping the entire front of the house. No lamps on inside. It takes several minutes knocking before that changes. The door opens.
Marvo’s mum is older than I’d expected. She’s wearing Marvo’s red duffle coat over a nightdress and slippers. Gray hair all over the place. Glasses on a string around her neck. Oil lamp in one hand. Kitchen knife in the other.
When I tell her who I am she nods, as if that explains everything. “Magdalena is still at work.”
“I’ll wait for her.”
“If you want.”
And the old bat slams the door on me.
Ten minutes later I’m still sitting on the doorstep, wondering how long I can afford to hang around before I go to pick Kazia up, when the door opens again. Marvo’s mum still has the oil lamp, but she’s replaced the kitchen knife with a Saint Benedict amulet.
“All right.” I get an Irish accent. “In there.”
I step into the front room and she closes the door on me, leaving me in darkness. I stuff my hat in my pocket and drop my backpack on the floor. More time passes. It feels colder inside the house than it did outside. I find a box of matches and light a lamp.
I look around at an old sofa and armchairs with the covers worn through. A battered piano with the ivory missing from a couple of the keys. The usual picture of the pope looking relieved that he doesn’t have to live in a dump like this. A table with a dish of sweets, a spare pair of thick spectacles, and a magnifying glass.
I peer at a photograph on top of the piano. A plump kid, maybe eight or nine, grinning back at me like he’s pleased because he thinks I’m going to do what his big sister wants and find out who killed him. I run my fingertip down the black silk ribbon pasted over one corner of the image.
This is all rather sad and I’m just beginning to think I should get going, when hooves rattle on the road outside. I peer out through the ivy hanging over the window and see Marvo stepping down from a jack van. I hear the front door open. Her mum’s voice:
“It’s the freak.”
Whispering. The door to the room opens.
“What do you want?” says Marvo.
“I came to say good-bye.”
So I’ve nearly finished my story and Marvo is sitting there staring at me. She points at the pentacle around my neck. “Did she give you that?”
Before I have to answer, the door opens and her mother says, “Are you still here?”
“It’s all right, Mum.”
The old bat doesn’t take the hint. She just stands there rubbing the amulet between her thumb and index finger, muttering under her breath.
Marvo whispers to me, “You said you couldn’t have female sorcerers.”
“Well, I was wrong.”
“I warned you . . .”
“You should’ve warned me louder.”
She turns to her mother. “Did you read that story in the paper the other week? This guy in Brighton loses all his money at the races. He heads down to the harbor, jumps in this flashy yacht he’s got, sails out a hundred yards, loads up a shotgun, and puts a couple of holes through the hull.”
I’m wondering what this has to do with me. Marvo plows on:
“People on the beach, they hear the bang. Look up, see him sinking. Someone goes out in another boat and the mad bloke jumps out on deck, waving the shotgun and threatening to shoot them if they come any closer.”
I’m not really interested in this. “Why couldn’t he just blow his brains out in the first place and save everybody a lot of trouble?”
“Wrong question. The real question is, how d’you rescue someone who doesn’t want to be rescued?” She folds her arms across her chest and massages her own shoulders. “Are you cold?”
“Frozen. I gotta get going.”
“Sooner the better,” says the shadow in the doorway.
“Mum, will you get out?” Marvo turns back to me. “Where will you go?”
“London first—easiest place to disappear.” I don’t like to say what I’ve got in mind: it doesn’t sound so hot, spoken out loud. “I thought maybe we could get to Lithuania . . .”
“Frank, that’s a stupid idea. Have you even got a passport?”
“There’s ways.” I waggle my fingers. “How bad can it be?”
“There’s something she’s not telling you.”
“I’m sure there is.” I pull out
my hat and put it on. “Maybe I should go back and try Matthew again—”
“No, Frank.”
“Why not?”
“I dunno.”
So I’m waiting for her to explain, but she doesn’t. “What’s going on?” I ask. “Marvo?”
She has to think for a moment. “It’s like you’re putting him in this impossible position.”
“I don’t get it.”
“So don’t worry about it.” She shrugs. “Have you told me everything?”
“Sure.”
“Coz I’m on your side, whatever happens.”
“Why?”
There’s a long silence, just her mother muttering to herself in Latin: “Vade retro Satana! Numquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas.”
Begone Satan! Never tempt me with your vanities. What you offer me is evil. Drink the poison yourself.
I say, “Reg Garston said—”
“Yeah?” And when I still don’t say anything, “Said what?”
I mumble, “Something about you fancying me.”
“Well, he’s a fool!”
“I suppose. Anyway, you can’t—I mean, it’d be stupid!”
Yeah, I know—not the smartest thing to say. It sort of slipped out. Her mouth has fallen open, and she’s just staring at me like she’s suddenly realized her mum’s been right about me all along.
“I didn’t mean that.”
But it’s too late. She’s on her feet, and I’m trying to find some way to explain.
“I said I’d help her.”
“Then you’d better get on with it. Good-bye, Frank.”
She pushes her mother out into the hall ahead of her. I hear footsteps going up the stairs.
I stand there, looking around the room. What is it about people? Why do they always get hold of the wrong end of the stick? Sean is smiling back at me from his picture, like he’s congratulating me on being so clever. Well, there’s no point hanging around here now. I pick up my backpack, blow out the lamp, and step into the hall.
“I never used the word ‘freak,’ ” says a trembling voice.
I can just see her in the dim light seeping in through the glass of the front door, a dark shape huddled at the bottom of the stairs. She’s got her arms wrapped around her knees and when she looks up at me I can see tears glistening on her cheeks.
A Dangerous Magic Page 24