by Alexis Davie
“Greeeeat, Xander will take care of you then.” He walked him over to a barstool and indicated that Garrick should sit down.
“Thanks,” Garrick said, though he didn’t appreciate being shown how to sit on a barstool.
The man behind the bar—warlock behind the bar—was shortish and stocky. He had his back to Garrick, cutting fruit. His hair was light blond and curly. Garrick never trusted a blond adult man. He wanted to keep watching him until he turned around and revealed his face, the face of a man who was not only trying to bring down the council essential to the continuation of magical order, but also marry a woman he… cared about. Well, a woman he wasn’t good enough for, anyway. Brinley was going to be such a brilliant witch.
He looked down at the menu to clear his head. Eggs, eggs, eggs. This was just breakfast, surely. Except with lots of fancy sounding additions. Olives in an omelet. Humans really were getting weird.
“Can I start you with a drink?” He had a square jaw, freckles, thin eyebrows, and blue eyes. He looked kind of like a schoolboy. But a schoolboy who would steal your lunch money and then tell the teachers you stole his. “Bloody Mary? Mimosa?”
Well, he knew what a bloody Mary was, at least. And it had vodka in it.
“Bloody Mary,” Garrick muttered. “Thanks.”
“No problem, mate,” Xander said. “Need a moment for the food?”
Garrick nodded. Xander gave him a smile that, in Garrick’s opinions, did not meet his watery little eyes.
What was he doing here? It was pointless. A place for humans. These warlocks had just found a money-spinner. There was no way he was going to find out anything over—he looked at the menu—baked eggs. Fine. He looked up again to get Xander’s attention, and he was in the doorway to the kitchen talking to another man. A slightly older version of himself; fat rather than stocky and wearing a slightly too-tight three-piece suit.
They were shout-whispering, and if Garrick leaned towards them a little and let the dragon take over just the tiniest bit (a skill it took millennia to master, by the way), he could hear them.
“What’s he coming here to talk about?” asked the younger of the two.
“He wouldn’t say. It’s that posh thing, isn’t it? Could probably tell me over the phone, but the old bastard is being cagey. Something about the wedding, no doubt. Maybe he wants more money?” Xander’s father was red faced, his nose slightly too large for his face.
“Well, we have money, Dad, it’s important…”
“I know it’s bloody important, Xander. Whose plan was this in the first place?”
Xander visibly prickled. “I believe we concocted it together…”
“Don’t bloody talk like that, son. Just because you’re marrying a toff, don’t have to go all the way to being one.”
Xander both audibly and visibly huffed. “Dad, it’s about being accepted, you think this suit’s enough? Apart from anything else you’re about to bust out of it.”
The father pulled at his waistcoat, looked put out but hiding it. He glanced down at himself and huffed just like his son.
Brinley would not fit into this family. She was like a beautiful sprite to their ogres.
Garrick closed his eyes for a second. Took a breath. Don’t do anything weird, don’t draw attention…
“When’s he getting here?” Xander asked. “I should change, I’m covered in… bar stuff.” His father looked the younger man up and down and nodded. Xander tried to walk away but was caught by the arm.
“Customer!” There was a moment in which Garrick thought Xander might throw a punch, and then he turned and walked over.
“I’m about to finish my shift,” said Xander, with a grin pretty much super glued to his ugly mug. “Do you have a decision on the food? Or I can pass this on to a colleague…”
“Baked eggs,” Garrick said. “And the Bloody Mary?”
Xander visibly vibrated with this reminder of the two minutes’ work he had forgotten to do. “Coming right up,” he said. He shot his dad a look, then typed the food order into the computer and began making the drink. “One bloody.”
As he thumped the glass down in front of Garrick, thick red juice slopped over its edge. It was on Xander’s hand, and he looked at it with distaste, then up at Garrick. He narrowed his eyes, let them travel slowly down the thin, pale man’s face and torso. He almost seemed to be smelling him with that piggy little nose of his.
“Thank you,” Garrick said, picking up the glass and taking a sip. It was a double, at least. There was a stick in it with a pickle and two olives on. He pretended to be very interested in this.
Xander made a huff kind of a noise again and washed off his hand. He suspected Garrick of something, maybe, or he was just a really bad bartender. Garrick didn’t dare look up from his drink for a while. He pulled the pickle off with his teeth and crunched it.
The bell above the door gave a little tinkle. Garrick looked up automatically at the noise and turned to see who had come in.
He was a tall, thin man. He wore a well-cut suit and a long coat. Gold-rimmed spectacles. He looked to be in his thirties, but they all looked to be in their twenties or thirties. Time showed on them in different ways. He had a bad haircut, mid-brown hair, and, unmistakably, his nose was a harsher version of Brinley’s. His eyes were like hers, too, but a blue-grey rather than her warm green.
Garrick ate an olive and sipped his drink. He knew this was serious, but he felt a little bit like he was watching a play. Behind the counter, Xander was giving his father a look of disgust. He pulled his apron off and shoved it beneath the till. His hands were still wet, and he wiped them on his black trousers.
“Martin,” he said, “a pleasure. Let me just…”
The man who had just come in, Brinley’s father, knotted his brow. He walked with a studied elegance to a booth and slid in. Xander’s father hurried over and squeezed in opposite.
“Mr Montegue,” he said, “apologies for my son, he’s had a hard morning of work… teaching him—”
“Yes,” said Martin, with obvious distaste, “responsibility. You said. I do hope you don’t expect my daughter to mix drinks?”
Xander, out now from behind the bar, was pink-cheeked, though it was hard to tell whether it was embarrassment or anger causing this coloring. His fists were clenched by his sides as he hurried towards the two men.
“Where was Brinley yesterday?” he asked, almost as soon as he’d sat down.
Brin’s dad had his elbows on the table, fingers tented in front of his face.
“Well,” he said, “in light of your son’s recent behavior, Mr Chaffinch…”
Xander’s father put up a hand. The tension was palpable. Garrick wouldn’t be surprised if someone threw a punch. “Youthful hijinks, Mr Montegue. You know what boys are like—”
“Pyromaniacs?” Brin’s dad asked, eyebrows raised, a sardonic smile beginning behind his hands. Xander shifted in his seat.
“That hadn’t happened yet, had it, yesterday when she didn’t turn up…” Xander jumped a little. It looked to Garrick as though his father had poked or pinched him.
“Things got out of hand. You know the youngsters sometimes have trouble controlling their power. We’ve all had little… whoopsies.”
Martin’s arms were crossed now. “My Brinley hasn’t, because I keep her under control. As you should your son.”
Xander let out a bit of a cackle and again seemed to react to a poke from his dad. “Nah, I don’t think you do. I think she refused to come. I think you’re going to screw us on this deal, Martin. We haven’t even seen this bloody book. How do we know it’s even real?”
Martin, Mr Montegue, looked affronted.
“Sorry, sorry my friend. Those high spirits again,” said Xander’s father, trying to smile casually but ending up looking like a sufferer of terrible lockjaw. “Everyone knows your wife— your family has had the book for generations. And the wedding… a beautiful melding of our families… well, it’ll make it all of our
responsibility. And a great one at—”
Martin leaned back, though he didn’t look relaxed, arms still crossed. “And what are your plans for—”
Xander interrupted once more. “Fine, there’s a book, and I want it, and a girl, and I want her. You’re here to up your price, then do it.”
This time, Xander’s father turned to hiss at him, “Son, this is no way to conduct a deal…”
“Oh, Dad, you know the old bugger is broke. Just offer him more. It’s easy. He’s come here for more scraps. And I want to see her, too, a proper date. Candles and that. A hotel. Before the wedding.”
“Not a chance,” Martin said, “that’s not how it’s—”
“Another mil,” Xander’s father dropped in, loudly. Martin spluttered a little. His face paled. He nodded.
“Baked eggs?”
Garrick jumped. He had been tuned in to the booth by the window and forgotten about the… what was it? Branch? “Thanks.”
The eggs looked good, cooked with cream and covered in cheese. There was toast, too, and butter, and fried mushrooms and tomatoes. When had Garrick last eaten? He was always forgetting about food. He shoveled the meal in and drank his glass dry.
The door tinged again, and he barely had to glance over his shoulder to see that it was Brinley’s father leaving. Shit, he had stopped listening because of baked eggs of all things. He would make a terrible spy. Thanks to the men’s silent-movie villain level of exposition, he had a good idea what was going on now. Or at least what was going on with Brinley and her father. But he should have stayed listening for dates. It seemed like Brin’s father would be coming to get her, and soon. But how would he find her? And when was this romantic evening planned?
The thought of the romantic evening made Garrick feel ill.
“Another?” It was Xander’s smarmy, priggish voice. Looking up, Garrick wanted to grab him by the fat throat. But he didn’t. He just nodded.
10
Brinley
The boarding house was on a side street full of tall, crumbling townhouses. The street, which was one way and full of potholes, smelled of sewage and, at points, of pee. London in general, but especially north of the river and in these post-industrial areas, could go from luxury to squalor in less than a quarter mile. Brin had seen so little of the city she had been born in, she realized. She had seen very little of anything but the inside of her father’s dark house—a house that had been her mother’s at one time. She vaguely remembered having clean windows that let in sunlight, and fresh flowers here and there. Cooking smells. Home stuff.
Brinley looked down at the scrap of paper in her hand—number eleven, the other end of the road. She walked into a large, grey puddle. It had a bright, scummy sheen and bubbles around its edges. She felt it sink to her socks through the eyelets of her boots, and then the smell hit her. Rotten eggs. Dead rodents. A clearer honk of sewage.
And there it was, number eleven. It had buttresses on the roof and warped-looking wooden window frames. Under each window was a window box, but all that seemed to live in them were twigs, and in one, a crunched up fizzy drink can. On the building itself, there looked to be bricks that had chipped away at the front. That almost looked spongy… Gingerly, Brin pushed the rusted gate open. Or she tried to. It stuck, and she kicked it. Once she was on the front path, she looked at her hand. Her palm was orange with iron. She was going to need a wash after this adventure.
The wood of the door made only a soft thump under her fist. It was damper than the window frames. She wondered if this Mollie Meitner character would even be able to pry it open, or if it was swollen into its frame. Anyway, there was no answer, so maybe she wouldn’t have to find out.
Brin stepped back, surveyed the doorway. She almost slipped down the four brick steps she had just ascended when her heel found a place a brick was supposed to be but wasn’t.
“Crap!” She grabbed the wall to her side to right herself and then noticed the chain of an ancient looking bell. At least, she assumed that’s what it was. She gave it a tug, this time with the sleeve of her jacket protecting her hand from any errant rust flakes. Inside the house, a bell (and it sounded like an actual bell) ting-ting-tinged. Again, there was nothing for a while, before Brin thought she heard heavily shuffling footsteps.
Mollie Meitner was a short woman as round as she was tall. She looked on the wrong side of thirty, which was unusual for a rich. So she was either unbelievably old or had lived hard to thirty. The pores of her large nose were visible, and her sandy hair was scraped into a bun. She was wearing an apron covered in flour. She looked Brinley up and down.
“Yes, dear?”
Garrick had not been exaggerating when he described the smell of the place. Brinley wasn’t sure she’d ever really smelled boiled cabbage, or boiled socks, for that matter, but she was pretty damn sure this was the reek of both.
“Uh, you have bedsits available?” Brin tried not to contort her face into anything rude while also trying not to breathe in.
“Oh, no,” the woman she took to be Mollie said, shaking her head, which was comically small atop her large body.
“Oh…” Brin was almost relieved and about to take a step back.
“Just single rooms available now, pet. And a week’s rent in advance. How long will you be staying?” Mollie stepped aside, though this left little space for Brinley to squeeze past her.
“It said, for suitable…”
“I’m Mollie,” said Mollie as Brin reached the other side of her. Mollie held out a soft hand, and Brin gave it a squeeze, “and I can fair feel the magic crackling off you. Suitable, suitable, suitable!” Mollie didn’t let go of her hand. Brin suddenly regretted not changing her appearance. It had felt like overkill. She’d need a new name, at least…
Mollie shut the front door, and now she squeezed past Brin. There was a small reception desk in the hall, behind which Mollie wedged herself in a way that looked uncomfortable. The hall was otherwise full of soft furnishings. There were various runners of carpet, all on top of one another, running its length, two small couches, and a very full coat stand.
“Name?” Mollie asked.
Crap.
“Alice,” Brinley said. Then she was silent. She was supposed to be smart, why was this so hard? Mollie, smiling, wrote ‘Alice,’ slowly and in perfect curling handwriting in a yellowing ledger. Then she looked back up at Brinley, who could feel herself blushing. “Hall,” she said too loudly. Well, at least she hadn’t gone with hallway… Alice Hall was probably someone’s name.
“Will you be wanting meals?” Mollie asked, hovering over a new column with her fountain pen.
Still pink-faced, Brin almost said, God, no! but caught herself just in time. Instead she said, “No, thank you, I don’t think I’ll be in too much. And just a week’s stay for now.”
Mollie raised her eyebrows. “Week’s the minimum, most stay much longer. Moving on quickly, are you?”
“I… uh, I might move in with my boyfriend,” Brin stammered, apparently having become a complete moron in the last few minutes. She would truly make an awful spy.
“Oh!” Mollie laughed, showing several old-fashioned gold fillings. “I’m only pulling your leg. Shy one, aren’t you, Alice?”
Brin nodded, tight lipped.
“No,” Mollie said, “it’s just that most who come to stay a week or a fortnight end up here much longer. Got residents we’ve had for decades. I’d say it was my cooking, but I think it’s the rent I charge. Speaking of which?” Mollie turned with a key on a string in her hand.
“Oh, yeah.” Brin put a hand in an inside pocket of her jacket where she was keeping a small portion of the money she had been skimming from her father’s pocketbook for weeks. That was what he got for living a card-free lifestyle. And she’d taken everything she could out with the credit card that had her measly allowance on it and then slipped it down the bars of a drain cover. Back then, just a couple of days ago, she had felt herself an excellent spy.
“A hundred a week,” Mollie said. “That’s everything included.” Brin gave her two fifty-pound notes, and Mollie raised her eyebrows. “Get a lucky scratch card?” Why did this woman ask so many questions?
“I work cash in hand,” Brin said. Pre-empting the next one, she continued, “Waiting tables. The magic helps with the tips…”
Mollie squeezed herself out from behind the counter, and Brinley almost expected a pop like a cork leaving a wine bottle. The larger woman led her towards the stairs, which were as misshapen and rickety as everything else in the place, and began huffing up them. On the second landing, Mollie paused. She wiped her brow with her apron.
“Too many of my own steamed puddings,” she said. “Give me a sec, you’re in the attic.”
As they were waiting in the landing, where there was a table with a pink rotary phone
a bowl of potpourri that only added to the disconcerting scent of the place, a very slight man wearing all black came out of a room. He moved almost silently, as shadow-like as his outfit presented him as being.
“Oh, Mr Belham, you didn’t half give me a fright!” Mollie had started beside Brin. “Alice, this is one of the more permanent residents I was telling you about, Mr Belham. How long have you been here now? Ten years?”
The slight man smiled a slow smile that made his face look like so much clay. “I couldn’t say, Mollie. Ten, fifteen, what does it matter? I’m not going anywhere!”
Mollie nodded. “Seems that way, Mr Belham, seems that way.” Then she gestured towards Brinley. “This is Alice, just here for a week, she reckons.”
Belham did the smiling thing again and held out a slim, limp hand.
“Honored,” he said, and as his hand touched her sheepishly proffered one, his eyes jumped to hers. “We’ll see how long you’re really here,” he said, and then he almost seemed to float down the stairs. There was silence for a moment after this exit.