Crane gave him a long look that broke into a reluctant smile. “Thanks.”
“Anyway, it’s perfectly likely the perpetrator of tonight’s attack is not going to be in a position to act,” Stephen added. “With any luck, they’re still on fire. I’m just being cautious.”
“I approve,” said Crane. “And tomorrow we run away?”
“Tactical retreat.” Stephen shrugged off his jacket, and wrapped it back round his shoulders against the chill.
Crane twisted to lie on his side. “I suppose it would be distracting and unprofessional to suggest you join me over here?”
“Yes.”
“It’s going to be a bloody long night, then. Can I get up?”
“No. If you break those wards I’ll choke you myself. They were hard enough to set up the first time.”
“Because there’s no power in this house. Isn’t there some other way for you to get power?”
“Like what?”
“Magic wands. Magic rings. The Holy Grail.”
“You have that here?”
“If I do, someone probably carved a magpie on it. Does it exist?”
“You wildly overestimate the extent of my knowledge,” Stephen said. “As to magic wands and whatnot, there are…artefacts that act as focal points for etheric flow, but I don’t have any to hand, and there’s hardly any flow to focus.” He frowned. “Unless—I don’t suppose you have any of the Magpie Lord’s things?”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. The ring in the picture?”
“Oh, probably,” Crane said. “There’s a pile of ancient jewellery in a room at the end of the Long Gallery, or at least there was. Do you want to go and look, at all?” he added, with a touch of amusement, as Stephen sat bolt upright.
“Yes. Yes, but tomorrow. Or I could— No. Stay in the wards. We’ll look first thing tomorrow. If I find something to call on here, it’ll be a different story altogether.”
“And what if not?” said Crane.
“We run. As planned.”
“Mmm. Could you strip someone?”
“What? No!”
“I meant with permission—”
“No,” Stephen said again. “Sourcing from people is…it’s the definition of a warlock. It’s wrong.”
“Surely in an emergency—?”
Stephen gestured for silence. “Look. You told me that you and Merrick were starving early on, in China. Really starving?”
“Yes.”
“So hungry that you might have been prepared to do desperate things?”
Crane tipped his head back, contemplated the canopy of the four-poster. “So hungry that I did them. Your point?”
“Did you eat human flesh?”
“Did I what?”
“You can always find fresh meat in a graveyard,” Stephen said. “And it’s walking around everywhere you look, if you’re prepared to butcher it yourself. All the meat you could want.”
Crane opened his mouth, closed it again and held up an acknowledging hand. “Right. Fine. You’ve made your point.”
“Exactly. Sourcing from people is wrong.”
“Understood.” Crane frowned. “No, wait. Warlocks are magical cannibals, yes?”
“That’s a…vivid way of putting it.”
“So if stripping people is as repugnant as eating them, how are there such numbers of warlocks as you’ve suggested?”
Stephen sighed. “Ah. Well.” He curled his legs underneath himself. “The thing is, finding sources of power is the main preoccupation of most practitioners most of the time.”
“For you?”
“No. No, I’m one of the lucky ones. I have—” He waved his hands vaguely. “I connect to the flow. I can pull power from the air, simple as breathing, where many of my peers would be gasping like asthmatics. It’s easy for me. And I come to somewhere like Romney Marshes or here, and I realise what it must be like for the rank and file. Constantly gasping and grabbing and desperate. So you’re ready to break the law to feed the need. It’s hateful. I hate it. This house makes me feel sick.”
Crane was watching him closely. “Are you all right?”
Stephen shook himself. “Sorry. I— It bothers me. I haven’t exactly been at my best since I came here.”
“I look forward to your best, then.”
Stephen gave him a tired smile. “You may even get it. Anyway, the point is…power is addicting. It’s hard to drag it out of the ether, but it’s so easy to tap people. Easy, effective, evil. And once one begins, terribly hard to stop, because the sensation of being without power is such a very horrible one. And of course it’s tempting for any practitioner to see the unskilled as lesser—less talented, less able, less worthy of consideration—and if you tap them for power, you start to see them as lesser beings altogether. Cattle, they call them—you,” he amended hastily. “There to feed on. There to use and discard. And that’s a warlock, more or less.”
“Cattle,” Crane said.
“Yes. Sorry.”
“Do you see the unskilled as lesser?”
“No,” Stephen said. “I do a job that makes me hated by quite a large number of my peers, including many who aren’t even warlocks, because I don’t think anyone is entitled to exploit his fellows because of an accident of birth. You’re an earl, I’m a practitioner, both of us were born this way, and neither of us is entitled to feed off other people because of it.”
Crane considered that. “I’m bloody glad you’re here.”
“Really? Because I wish to God we were both somewhere else. Try and get some sleep, Lucien, it’s late. And don’t worry. I am watching you.”
Stephen blinked, and realised it was morning. Golden light streamed through the gaps in the heavy brocade curtains. He was cold and damp and sweaty from sleeping in his suit, his neck and back ached from the cursedly uncomfortable chair, something was trying to attract his attention, and Crane was…
…right in front of him, shaking his shoulder.
“What happened to the wards?” Stephen demanded, jolting upwards.
“Nothing,” said Crane. “They were still burning when I got out of bed thirty seconds ago. Listen.”
Stephen’s brain finally registered the sound that his ears had been trying to tell him about. “What the devil— Who’s screaming?”
“I don’t know. Merrick’s down there finding out.”
Crane started pulling on clothes as he spoke. Stephen hurried to his own room, rapidly changing into his usual clothing, and irritated that he found himself noticing the baggy knees and worn, permanently grubby cuffs. That triggered a thought, and as he jerked his boots on he called, “Wear something you can run in, please. No Savile Row.”
“I don’t get my suits made on Savile Row,” said Crane, emerging in a casual grey tweed that still looked twenty times the price of anything Stephen had ever bought. “Wouldn’t stoop to it. Come on.”
They hurried down the stairs, ignoring Graham and a panicky-looking housemaid who had emerged. Other staff were heading outside for the source of the appalling noise. It was a dreadful sound, an endless, agonised shrieking in multiple voices, inhuman, and as they ran to the stables, they could hear a human voice too, a deep male sound, but sobbing like a child.
Stephen and Crane sprinted through the stable yard together and skidded simultaneously to a horrified halt.
Merrick was gripping the groom’s arms. It was the coachman who had taken them from the station, but his usually surly face was distorted by grief and agony, and tears were running down his cheeks. Merrick was shouting at him but the words were inaudible above the noise the horses were making.
One lay dead in the yard, foam and blood still spilling from its open mouth, eyes and tongue bulging black out of its head. The others were all still alive, unfortunately. Eyes full of blood and fear rolled, swollen tongues protruded with dark sores that split open and spilled out a foul yellow pus, copious slime poured from distended nostrils. The horses thrashed and jer
ked in agony, voiding their bowels in terror, and the screaming went on and on.
Crane grabbed Stephen’s shoulder and yelled over the hellish din, “What—the—devil?”
Stephen tried to reply, had to pull the taller man down to shout in his ear. “Get—rid—of—the—people.”
Crane took a swift look round and saw that most of his staff were standing at the stable gate, frozen in horror. He sent them off with a few sharp words and returned to find Stephen shouting intently to the stableman.
“Equine plague,” he was saying. “Got to be put down. I’m sorry.”
The stableman turned pain-filled eyes on Crane. “They’re in agony, my lord.”
Crane put a hand on his shoulder. “Will you let me do it? Or let me help?”
The stableman’s face twisted, but he looked at the five live horses and gave a brief nod.
Merrick had already gone. By the time the stableman had produced his rifle, the manservant was back from the house with two pistols.
They shot all five horses between them, Merrick, Crane and the stableman, and stood in the suddenly silent yard with the smell of cordite and gun cotton overlaying the stench of manure and blood, and the sound of gunshots and screaming still ringing in their ears.
“Go home, Varry,” said Crane finally. “I’d drink myself unconscious if I were you, but do as you see fit. Take a couple of days. We’ll find out more about this. I will find out, you have my word.”
“Don’t go near other horses for the moment,” Stephen added. “There’s a small chance of contagion.”
Varry looked round at him in horror. “You think I gave this to them?”
“No, no, not at all. I meant it might have got on your clothes from them,” Stephen said hastily. “It’s just a precaution. But in fact, I think all the staff should go home, right now. They should stay away from horses and stay away from Piper for, oh, two days at least, starting as soon as possible. Mr. Merrick, can you get the house cleared in the next ten minutes, do you think?”
Merrick glanced at Crane, said, “Sir,” and disappeared, pulling the devastated stableman with him.
“Why?” asked Crane.
Stephen turned on his heel and walked away from the stink of fear and death without speaking. Crane followed him, stride for stride, as Stephen marched out, over a stretch of unkempt lawn, ignoring the damp grass that quickly soaked his trouser legs, and up towards the lake.
“Why the horses?” said Stephen at last, as though Crane had only just spoken. “To stop us leaving. It’s, what, twelve miles to the railway station? Three hours’ walk. Plenty of time to catch us. Why make them suffer like that? To make us afraid. Why clear the house? Because they’re killers and they’re probably coming here, and I don’t want your servants in the way.”
Crane was nodding impatiently, having worked most of this out for himself. “And who, exactly, are they?”
The sky was blue above, promising another hot day. The light was the clear gold that came just after dawn. The long grass was sparkling with dew, the tall trees surrounding the house looked fresh rather than heavy, the lake glittered blue and silver in the morning sun, its rippling surface brushed by whispering willows, and Crane would have given everything he owned to be back in the darkest slums of London.
There was a sudden flurry as a flock of magpies erupted out of the trees on their left. Crane jumped, and cursed.
Stephen took a deep breath. “I don’t know who they are.”
“Does this feel like Miss Bell?”
“Not at all. This was pure warlockry. Cruelty for its own sake, and to animals, and she’s a hedge witch—a country practitioner. If she was behind that, I’ll resign my commission right now.”
“This is fucking ridiculous,” Crane said. “I have literally no idea who is trying to kill me.”
“I’m not sure anyone is.”
“They were last night!”
“Yes, but they didn’t,” Stephen said. “There was no third attack. But they were able to strike this morning, and they struck at the horses, not you. Let me think.” He pushed his hands through his hair, face alive with intense thought.
Crane kept pace with him, staring at the glittering lake, trying to persuade himself he couldn’t smell gunsmoke and blood.
Then he stopped dead.
Stephen took a few more paces, and looked around. “Crane? What is it?”
“Stephen,” said Crane thickly.
The practitioner was back at his side in two steps. “What?”
“I can’t move.”
Stephen’s face froze. “Can’t move at all? Try and take a step forward.”
“I can’t.”
“Take a step back.”
Crane took a step back and inhaled a deep, shuddering breath. “Christ. God.”
“Did that hurt?”
“No. I just didn’t think I could. What the devil…” He took a step forward, stopped in his tracks again. “What is this? I can’t seem to move at all if I’m going this way.”
Stephen’s hands were twitching and sketching in the air, flitting round Crane’s body. His mouth was set and grim.
“This is a binding. Someone has bound you within the limits of an area. Trapped you within your grounds.”
“Well, can you deal with it please?” said Crane impatiently.
“I don’t think so.”
“What?”
“I don’t have any idea how they did this.” Stephen slid his hands through the air around Crane’s shoulders. His pupils were wide and black. “I couldn’t do this. I can’t break it if I don’t know what it is or how it works.”
Crane took a deep breath, struggling for self-control. “Someone has poisoned my horses and trapped me in my own grounds?”
“Probably different people,” Stephen said. “Why bother with the horses if you could do a binding like this?”
“Why are they doing this at all?”
“I don’t know. I need to think.”
“You need to do something about this!”
“I’m trying,” Stephen snapped. “I’m sorry if I led you to believe I’m omnipotent, but I’m really not.”
“That’s becoming bloody obvious!” Crane snarled back, and swung away, getting himself under control. “Sorry,” he added abruptly. “That wasn’t fair. I’m—unnerved.”
“I know. So am I.”
Crane took a step back from the invisible barrier. There was a flutter of black and white as magpies landed around his feet.
“Bloody things.” He made a cursory kicking movement to scare them off. They shuffled back a few inches, unafraid.
Stephen was watching with a frown. “They’re surprisingly bold.”
The trees were heavy with magpies, and a single bird was right in front of Crane on the path, glaring up at him with jet-bead eyes. “The place is infested,” he said. “If you stand still, they gather like flies.”
“They do, don’t they,” Stephen said slowly. “When you arrived. In the gallery. Have they always flocked to you like that? Even when you were a boy?”
“I don’t really remember the behaviour of birds twenty years ago. Can we talk about the current problem?”
“Could you try to remember?”
“You want to talk about magpies? Now?”
“I’m starting to wonder if it’s all about magpies,” Stephen said. “Yes, now.”
Crane gave him an incredulous look, decided not to argue, and shut his eyes in an effort of memory. “I don’t know. The damn things used to flock round my father, all the time, but—that’s right, never me or Hector. Because of course if any creature came near enough for him to throw a stone at it, he did. So they learned to avoid boys, I suppose. Father got fairly angry about it, he had a pet magpie and he couldn’t understand why they flew away from us. I seem to remember it turned out to be my fault. There, does that explain everything?” he added, with some sarcasm.
“It’s enlightening. Because your father was posthumous. Of
course.”
“What has that got to do with anything?”
Stephen pushed a hand through his hair. “Let me think.”
Crane called on reserves of patience he rarely bothered to tap, and stood, watching Stephen’s face as the younger man thought. It darkened and hardened as Crane watched.
Finally, Stephen looked up.
“I have a few questions,” he said, in what Crane had come to think of as his professional voice, very calm and even. “First. Since your return, have you had intimate relations with anyone up here?”
“Have I bedded anyone, you mean? Not in Lychdale.”
“Do you have any close living relations? Uncle, aunt, nephew, niece?”
“Only if Hector had other children. I’m not aware of any.”
“Can you think of any means by which someone might have got hold of your blood in reasonable quantity? Any serious cuts or wounds? Teeth drawn?”
“No.”
“Blood, bone and birdspit, and it’s not blood or birdspit,” said Stephen. “This is not good. Where’s your brother buried?”
“The mausoleum,” Crane said, not even bothering to comment on the non sequitur. “Round the other side of the grounds. Near the Rose Walk.”
“And was it always this cold in Piper?”
“I can’t say I remember it being so bad, no. I want you to explain this.”
“I will,” Stephen said. “But I don’t want to start till I have time to finish, and we have to hurry. The servants should be out by now, shouldn’t they?”
“With Merrick behind them, I expect so.”
“Can you get rid of him too?”
“I doubt it,” said Crane. “It’s been twenty years and he’s not left me in a sticky situation yet. Why do you want him gone? He may not be magic but I’d still back him against anyone I’ve yet met here.”
“I’m sure,” Stephen said. “But if someone threatened to do to Mr. Merrick what they just did to the horses, is there anything they couldn’t make you do?”
Crane’s face tightened. “Right. He’s not going to take it well, though.”
The Magpie Lord Page 13