“Can’t help myself, Bartimaeus.” The spaniel raised a hind leg and scratched herself nonchalantly behind one ear. “It’s all this undercover work. It’s becoming second nature to me. You should think yourself lucky you’re not sitting under a lamppost.”
I did not dignify this remark with a response. “So where’ve you been?” I said. “You’re two hours later than agreed.”
The spaniel nodded wearily. “False alarm at the silk warehouses. Pair of foliots thought they’d seen something. Had to search the whole place thoroughly before giving the all clear. Stupid first-timers. Of course I had to reprimand them.”
“Nipped their ankles, did you?”
A small crooked smile flickered across the spaniel’s muzzle. “Something like that.”
I shifted across to allow Queezle a bit of room on the center of the plinth. Not that it was any less damp there particularly, but it seemed a comradely thing to do. She shuffled up and huddled alongside.
“Can’t really blame them,” I said. “They’re jumpy. It’s all this rain. And what happened to Zeno. Being summoned night after night doesn’t help either. It wears your essence down after a while.”
Queezle gave me a side glance out of those big brown puppy-dog eyes. “Your essence, too, Bartimaeus?”
“I was speaking rhetorically. I’m all right.” To prove it I arched my back in a big luxuriant cat stretch, the kind that runs from whisker tip to tail tuft. “Ahhh, that’s better. Nope, I’ve seen worse than this and so have you. Just some pumped-up imp lurking in the shadows. It’s nothing we can’t handle, once we find him.”
“That’s what Zeno said, as I recall.”
“I don’t remember what Zeno said. Where’s your master tonight? Safely under cover?”
The spaniel gave a small growl. “He claims to be within signaling distance. The Whitehall office, allegedly. In fact, he’s probably holed up in some magician’s bar with a bottle in one hand and a girl in the other.”
I grunted. “That sort, is he?”
“Yup. What’s yours like?”
“Oh, the same. Worse, if anything. He’d have girl and bottle in the same hand.”5
The spaniel gave a sympathetic whimper. I got slowly to my feet.
“Well, we’d better swap circuits,” I said. “I’ll start by patrolling up to Soho and back. You can head between the posh shops down Gibbet Street to the Museum district behind.”
“I might rest a bit,” Queezle said. “I’m tired.”
“Yes. Well, good luck.”
“Good luck.” The spaniel rested her head gloomily across her paws. I trotted out into the driving rain, to the edge of the plinth, and bent my legs, ready for the off. A little voice sounded behind me: “Bartimaeus?”
“Yes, Queezle?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“What?”
“It’s just … well, it’s not just the foliots. I’m jumpy, too.”
The cat trotted back and sat beside her for a moment, curling its tail around her affectionately “You don’t need to be,” I said. “It’s already past midnight and neither of us has seen anything. On every occasion when this thing has attacked, it’s done so by midnight. Your only fear should be the boredom of a long, tedious vigil.”
“I suppose so.” The rain drummed all around, like a solid thing. We were cocooned within it. “Between ourselves,” Queezle said softly, “what do you think it is?”
My tail twitched. “I don’t know, and I’d rather not find out. So far it’s killed everything it’s come across. My advice is keep vigilant watch, and if you see something unusual coming, scamper the other way pronto.”
“But we have to destroy it. That’s our charge.”
“Well, destroy it by running away.”
“How?”
“Um … Make it chase you, then lure it into heavy traffic? Something like that. I don’t know, do I? Just don’t do what Zeno did and attack it head on.”
The spaniel heaved a sigh. “I liked Zeno.”
“A little too eager, that was his trouble.”
There was a heavy silence. Queezle said nothing. The incessant rain beat down.
“Well,” I said at last. “I’ll see you.”
“Yes.”
I hopped down from the plinth and ran, tail out, through the rain and across the waterlogged street. A single jump took me up onto a low wall beside a deserted café. Then, in a series of leaps and bounds—wall to porch, porch to ledge, ledge to tiles—I negotiated my athletic feline way, until I had sprung up onto the guttering of the nearest, lowest roof.
I took a quick look back, down into the square. The spaniel was a forlorn and lonely speck, hunched in the shadows beneath the horse’s belly. A gust of rain blocked her from my view. I turned and set off along the roof crests.
In that part of town, the ancient houses huddled close together, leaning forward like gossiping hunchbacks so that their gables almost met above the street. Even in the rain, it was thus an easy matter for an agile cat to make its way swiftly in whatever direction it fancied. And so I did. Anyone lucky enough to be peering out of their shuttered window might have glimpsed a flash of gray lightning (nothing more) leaping from chimney pot to weathervane, streaking across slates and thatch, never putting a paw wrong.
I halted for a breather in the valley between two steeply pitching roofs and scanned the skies longingly. It would have been quicker for me to get to Soho by flying, but I had orders to remain near the ground, keeping my eye out for trouble there. No one knew exactly how the enemy arrived or departed, but my master had a hunch it was somehow earthbound. He doubted it was anything like a djinni at all.
The cat rubbed some moisture from its face with a paw and prepared for another jump—a big one this time, a proper road’s width. At that moment, everything was illuminated by a sudden burst of orange light—I saw the tiles and chimney pots beside me, the lowering clouds above, and even the raindrop curtains hanging all around. Then darkness fell again.
The orange Flare was the agreed emergency signal. It came from close behind.
Queezle.
She had found something. Or something had found her.
The time for rules was past. I turned; even as I did so, I made the change: an eagle with black crest and golden wingtips launching itself in haste into the sky.
I had traveled only two blocks from the place where the portly horseman guarded the seven roads. Even if she had moved, Queezle would not be far away. It would take less than ten seconds to get back. No problem. I would be in time.
Three seconds later, I heard her scream.
16
The eagle hurtled down out of the night, angling painfully into the teeth of the gale. Over the roofs to the lonely crossroads, down to the statue, I alighted on the edge of the plinth, where rain spattered harshly against the stone. Everything was exactly as it had been a minute or two before. But the spaniel had gone.
“Queezle?” No answer. Nothing but the howling of the wind.
A moment later, perched on the horseman’s hat, I scanned the seven roads on each of the seven planes. The spaniel was nowhere to be seen; nor were there any djinn, imps, hexes, or other magical effusions. The streets were deserted. I was quite alone.
In doubt, I returned to the plinth and subjected it to a minute inspection. I thought to detect a faint black mark upon the stonework, roughly where we had been sitting, but it was impossible to tell whether or not it had been there before.
All of a sudden I felt very exposed. Whichever way I turned on the plinth, my back was vulnerable to something creeping up quietly out of the rain. I took off promptly and spiraled up around the statue, the crashing of the raindrops thrumming in my ears. Up above rooftop level I rose, safely out of reach of anything lurking in the street.
It was then that I heard the crash. It wasn’t a nice, restrained sort of crash—like a bottle breaking on a bald man’s head, say. It sounded rather as if a large forest oak had been uprooted and tossed casually
aside, or an entire building had been swatted impatiently out of the path of something very big. Unpromising, in other words.
Worse still, I could tell the direction from which it came. If the rain had been just a little louder, or the crashing just a little quieter, I might have been able to misjudge it and head off bravely to investigate in the wrong direction. But no such luck.
Anyway, there was always the small possibility that Queezle might still be alive.
So I did two things. First, I sent up another Flare, hoping against hope that it would be spotted by another watcher in our group. The nearest, if memory served, was a foliot, based somewhere down near Charing Cross. He was a meager individual, devoid of valor or initiative, but any reinforcements would be welcome now, if only as cannon fodder.
Next, I proceeded in a northerly direction, at chimney height along the road from which the sound had come. I was heading for the museum quarter. I flew about as slowly as an eagle can without falling out of the air.1 All the while I scanned the buildings below. It was an area of luxury shops, small, dark, discreet. Old painted signs above the doors hinted at the delights within: necklaces, rolls of silk, jeweled pocket watches. Gold featured prominently in this district, diamonds likewise. It was to these establishments that magicians came to buy those little extras that emphasized their status. Rich tourists flocked here too.
The tremendous crash had not been repeated; all the shop fronts seemed healthy enough, their alcove lights burning, their wooden signs creaking in the wind.
Rain fell around me, down into the street. In places the cobbles had disappeared beneath the stippled surface of the water. There was no sign of anyone, mortal or otherwise. I might have been flying above a ghost town.
The road widened a little, to pass on either side of a small circle of grass and pretty flowers. It seemed an incongruous sight in the narrow street, perhaps a little out of place. Then you noticed the old broken post in the center of the grass, the flagstones hidden among the flowers, and realized its original purpose.2 Tonight it was all looking very water-blown and windswept, but what interested me, and made me circle around to land upon the post, were the markings in the grass.
They were footprints, of a sort. Large ones. Vaguely spatula-shaped, with the imprint of one separate toe visible at the wider end. They crossed the grass circle from one side to the other, each print driven down deep into the earth.
I shook moisture from my head feathers and drummed my claws against the post. Perfect. Just perfect. My enemy wasn’t just mysterious and powerful, he was big and heavy, too. The night was getting better and better.
I followed the direction of the footsteps with my eagle eye. For the first few steps beyond the grass they were still partially visible, as indicated by a desultory trail of deposited mud. Beyond that they disappeared, but it was clear that none of the shops on either side had suffered from the attentions of any marauder. My quarry was evidently heading elsewhere. I took off and continued on along the road.
Gibbet Street came to its end at a wide boulevard that ran from left to right into the darkness. Directly opposite was a tall, imposing fence of metal railings, each post twenty feet high, two inches thick, and of solid iron. There was a set of double gates in the fence, and these were hanging open. In fact, to be accurate, they were hanging open off a nearby lamppost, together with a substantial portion of the adjoining rails. A great twisted hole gaped in the fencing. Something had ripped it in two in its hurry to get inside. How nice to be so eager. By contrast, it was with extreme reluctance that I approached, flying slowly across the street.
I alighted on a wrenched and tortured tip of metal. Beyond the ruined gate was a broad driveway leading up to an expansive flight of steps. Above these was a giant portico of eight imposing columns, attached to a vast building, tall as a castle, dull as a bank. I recognized it of old: the fabled British Museum. It stretched outward in either direction, wing upon wing, farther than my eyes could see. It was the size of a city block.3
Was it me, or was everything fairly big around here? The eagle fluffed up its feathers vigorously, but couldn’t help feeling rather small. I considered the position. No prizes for guessing why the unknown, big-footed and evidently rather strong enemy had come here. The museum held enough material worth destroying to keep it busy for a week. Whoever wished to heap embarrassment upon the British government had chosen well, and it was safe to say that my master’s wretched career would not continue much longer if the marauder completed an uninterrupted night’s work.
Which of course meant that I had to follow it inside.4
The eagle glided forward, low over the driveway and up over the steps, to land between the columns of the portico. Ahead was the great bronze door of the museum; typically, my quarry had decided to ignore it and had staved its way through the solid stone wall instead. This sort of thing wasn’t stylish, but had a bowel-looseningly impressive quality that made me spend a couple of extra minutes engaged in flagrant delaying tactics such as checking the rubble of the portico carefully for danger.
The hole in the building gaped wide and black. From a respectful distance, I peered inside, into a lobby of a kind. All was still. No activity on any plane. A tumble of shattered wood and masonry and a splintered sign cheerfully proclaiming WELCOME TO THE BRITI showed where something had shoveled its determined way. Dust hung thickly in the air. A wall on the left had been broken through. I listened hard. In the distance, behind the pummeling of the rain, I fancied I could hear the distinctive sound of priceless antiquities being broken.
I sent another Flare into the sky in case that shirking foliot chose to glance in my direction. Then I made my change and stepped into the building.
The ferocious minotaur5 glanced imperiously around the ruined lobby, steam rising from its nostrils, its clawed hands flexing, its hooves pawing at the dirt. Who dared challenge it? No one! Well, because, as expected, there was nothing in the room. Right. Fine. That meant I had to try the next one. No problem. With a deep breath, the minotaur tiptoed tentatively through the debris to the splintered wall. It peeped around with great caution.
Darkness, rain drumming on the windows, amphorae and Phoenician pots lying scattered on the floor. And somewhere distant—breaking glass. The enemy was still several rooms ahead. Good. The minotaur stepped bravely through the hole.
The next few minutes saw a rather slow game of cat and mouse, with this process repeated several times. New room, empty, sounds farther on. The marauder went on its merrily destructive way; I trailed uncertainly in its wake, less keen than I strictly might have been to catch up with it. It wasn’t exactly your traditional Bartimaeus panache, I’ll admit. Call me overcautious, but Zeno’s fate lay heavy on my mind and I was trying to think of a foolproof plan to avoid being killed.
The extent of the carnage I was passing made it seem unlikely that I was dealing with any human agency, so what would it be? An afrit? Possible, but oddly out of style. You’d expect afrits to use lots of magical attacks—high-class Detonations and Infernos, for instance—and there was no evidence of anything here except sheer brute force. A marid? Same again, and surely I’d have sensed their magical presence before now.6 But I was getting no familiar feedback. All the rooms were dead and cold. This was in line with what the boy had told me about the previous attacks: it did not seem that spirits were involved at all.
To be absolutely sure, I sent a small magical Pulse bubbling ahead of me through the next jagged hole, from which loud noises were emanating. I waited for the Pulse to return, either weaker (if no magic lay ahead) or stronger (if something potent lurked in wait).
To my consternation, it did not come back at all.
The minotaur rubbed its muzzle thoughtfully. Odd, and vaguely familiar. I was sure I’d seen this effect somewhere before.
I listened at the hole; once again, the only sounds were distant ones. The minotaur sneaked through—
And came out in a large gallery, double the height of the other rooms. The ra
in beat against tall rectangular windows high up on either side, and from somewhere in the night, perhaps some distant tower, a faint white light shone down upon the contents of the hall. It was a room filled with ancient statues of colossal size, all swathed in shadow: two Assyrian gatekeeper djinn—winged lions with the heads of men, which had once stood before the gates of Nimrud;7 a motley assembly of Egyptian gods and spirits, carved in a dozen kinds of colored stone and given the heads of crocodile, cat, ibis, and jackal;8 huge carved representations of the holy scarab beetle; sarcophagi of long-forgotten priests; and, above all, fragments of the monolithic statues of the great pharaohs—shattered faces, arms, torsos, hands, and feet, found buried in the sands and carried by sail and steamship to the gray lands of the north.
On another occasion, I could have had a nostalgic trip here, looking for images of distant friends and masters, but now was not the time. A clear corridor had been driven halfway through the hall; several smaller pharaohs had already been bunted aside and lay like ninepins in indignant heaps on the margins, while a couple of gods were in closer proximity to each other than they would have cared for in life. But if these had given little trouble, some of the larger statues seemed to be putting up more resistance. Halfway down the hall, and directly in the path that the enemy was taking, rose a giant seated figure of Ramses the Great, more than thirty feet high and carved from solid granite. The top of its headdress was gently shaking; muffled scraping sounds came from the darkness below, suggesting that something was trying to force Ramses from its path.9
Even an utukku would have figured out after a couple of minutes that the easiest thing to do was to walk around something so big and just head off on its travels. But my enemy was worrying away at the statue like a small dog trying to lift an elephant’s shinbone. So perhaps (a positive thought) my adversary was very stupid. Or perhaps (less positive, this) it was simply ambitious—intent on causing maximum destruction.
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