As she sank into her hot bath, with her hair piled high on her head and the scent of musk surrounding her from the perfume oils and special herbs she always put in the water, the first thing that came into her mind was this.
They know you are here, now, and they know what you are.
They might not know who, but they would know what, or at least, they would know that an Earth Master walking the dark path was hunting their precious dancer.
It is only a matter of time before they find another Earth Master to hunt you.
It was true that Earth Mastery tended to come to those who were reluctant to venture into cities, and for good reason. What human beings did to the Earth in their cities left it fouled and poisoned, and Earth Masters felt that acutely. Still, given that there was an urgent need, one could be persuaded in time. It all depended on how organized the Elemental Masters were, hereabouts. If they were highly organized, as they were in, say, Germany, it would not take long at all. If, however, they were as chaotic and anarchistic as they were in Russia . . . it might take a year.
So assume that you have between two weeks and six months. Unless . . . you find something else to distract them with.
Thus came the advice of those shrewd old men from their decades of chicanery, backstabbing, Machiavellian schemes. Find something else to distract them with. They will have a hard time fighting a battle on two, or even three fronts.
She frowned, pursing her lips. This could be a problem. If she were back on her home ground, she could have had a dozen distractions for them already. And she had already tried making one of the dozens of admirers around the dancer besotted . . .
Wait . . .
She nodded to herself. Yes, that was one thing she had not tried. She had been working with men who were already attracted to the girl. What she had not tried was creating a crazed and infatuated admirer.
Yes. That would work. But she needed another front to work on. If only she was back east of Germany! Then there would be people who knew she was the real Nina Tchereslavsky, and—
Wait—
Of course!
She sank down into her bath with a smile of satisfaction. There would be several cables to send today. She would have to be sure to send them from different offices to avoid drawing attention to herself or to her servants. This trap should come as a complete surprise.
And it should, ideally, ensure that all of her enemies would be so very busy that they would not see her real attack coming.
Because I don’t have any hands, nor voice, that’s why! the cat said with irritation to Nigel. If I could work most Earth Magic, don’t you think I would have done so to make sure my wife and child were taken care of? Maybe some of you can wield your power just by sitting down and thinking hard, but I can’t, and I never could. I needed physical implements and I needed the chants I was taught.
“If he can’t, he can’t, Jonathon,” Wolf said with a deep sigh. “I must say, I sympathize. I’m rather in the same pickle.” He fanned his wings. “No thumbs, don’cha know. Heaven knows I’ve tried, but when you can’t pick up both the wand and the cup at the same time . . .”
See? Even the bird understands.
Wolf gave the cat an evil yellow eye and made sound like a rude little boy.
“Curse it,” Jonathon said with passion. “I don’t know any Earth Masters.”
I was the only one in this part of the country, old lad, the cat said, wearily. I am afraid this is going to have to be done the hard way. The letter-tree.
Wolf groaned. Jonathon nodded reluctantly. “All right. I’ll do my lot. Wolf, you get Arthur to do yours; I expect he and Nigel know pretty much the same circle of magicians?”
“Identical,” Wolf replied, and sighed. “Bother. This could take a month.”
“Or more.” Jonathon’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Once we find an Earth Master, we will have to persuade him this truly is an urgent situation in order to get him inside a city. Only the Dark Walkers like what happens to the Earth inside a large city.”
“Truer words,” Wolf grumbled.
They were all sitting in Ninette’s dressing room, waiting for Ailse to escort her to the theater. It had been agreed that she was not to go anywhere alone from now on. Not that she had done so very much before, but it was even more imperative now. Jonathon had already set the Fire Wards around her flat; Nigel was setting the Air Wards now.
At that moment, the subject of their concern arrived, along with the little Scots maid. And Ailse had a very determined expression on her face that made Jonathon’s eyebrow rise. His curiosity was further aroused by the expression of excitement on Ninette’s face.
He wasn’t the only one to notice. “Do I sense a conspiracy?” Wolf exclaimed, standing up straighter on his perch on the back of a folding chair.
“Summat,” Ailse said shortly, and turned to Jonathon. “I’m thinkin’ sir, that ye’ll be havin’ more sense than Master Nigel and Master Arthur. You too, Master Wolf, Master Thomas.”
“Sense about what, exactly?” Jonathon asked warily.
“She wants to teach me to shoot!” Ninette burst out, her cheeks very pink now. “I think this would be a very good idea!”
“Shoot?” Jonathon exclaimed, startled. “You mean, a firearm?”
Ailse glared at him “No, a knittin’ needle, ye gurt booby!” she snapped, clearly having lost her temper. “Of course I mean a firearm!” She opened her purse and removed one of the biggest handguns that Jonathon had ever seen, wielding it with all the calm of an expert. “This lad, t’ be precise, or one like it. Me ald father taught me afore I left home,” she added with pride. “And me brother brought me this from America, aye. But ’twas me granny as told them t’teach me. ‘There’s nothin’ dark and fearsome can stand against Cold Iron, Silver or Blessed Lead,’ she said, and Father allowed she was right.” To Jonathon’s dumbfounded astonishment, she expertly broke the revolver and spilled six cartridges into her hand. “Two each,” she said with pride. “There be the Cold Iron.” She held up one with a business-end of a dull black. “Tricksy, those. I mun be sure they dinna rust i’ the revolver, an’ this near t’ sea, that isna an easy thing. Here be the Silver—” This time the bullets she held up were as shiny as a proud housewife’s best cutlery. “An’ those I mun be polishin’ every day too. An’ this is th’ Blessed Lead.” These looked ordinary enough at first. “Cast from the lead from the roof of our own kirk, with pastor’s own blessin’ on ’em, and look—” She turned the bullet to face Jonathon and he saw that the soft nose of it had been cut and cut again “—Saint Andrew’s own blessed cross on it, d’ye ken.”
Jonathon knew a little about firearms, as did most stage magicians, and he knew about the practice of cutting a cross into the nose of a bullet to make the soft lead spread more when it hit a target. He blinked. “Saint Andrew’s own blessed cross” was likely to be hell on earth for anything those bullets struck . . .
“She’s very good!” Ninette said, her eyes shining. “Really! I would feel ever so much safer if I knew how to shoot and had a gun!”
Jonathon considered this, carefully, and it wasn’t only supernatural entities that he was thinking about when he considered the dancer with a revolver in her hands. Earth Magic was also the magic of animal instincts. If he was an Earth Master, and he wanted to eliminate a pretty young dancer, one with many admirers . . .
“I am going to argue in your favor,” he said carefully, “if you both promise me one thing.” He turned first to Ailse. “I want you to make sure that she is deadly with this thing. She cannot afford to miss and she cannot afford to have it taken from her. Do you understand me?”
The Scots girl pursed her lips grimly. “Aye,” she replied. “An’ that I can do, if ’tis in her t’ be a shot.”
“And you—” He rounded on Ninette. “You must be ready to shoot to kill, without pause, without hesitation, if you ever have to take that thing out. There will be no time for second thoughts, no squeamishness. Whoeve
r this is might well use someone—” He thought for a moment, then decided that being blunt was the only answer. “—might well use one of those men that throng your dressing room as an instrument. If that happens, there will be no question of guilt or innocence, no mercy. You will have to kill, or be killed. Or . . . worse,” he added with conviction. “The object might be to carry you off to much worse than simply death. And I do not mean mere rape.” Ailse went scarlet with embarrassment at the word, but he went ruthlessly on. “I mean dissolution. Terror. Horror, such as you cannot imagine. These magics that we use are primal forces and as such, they have all the raw power of the tempest, the volcano, the earthquake.”
He hoped—in fact, he prayed—that Ninette, child of Montmarte as she was, was near enough to the violence that could be in those streets that she would truly understand what he meant, and would be willing, able, to be just as violent to ensure her own safety.
Her eyes became very thoughtful, and a bit distant. He sensed she was looking deep into her memory. Her expression darkened, and he felt hope.
“I am no hothouse flower, M’sieur,” she said, quietly. “I am the—the cabbage grown on the windowsill of a garret, so that one might eat. There were Apache-gangs in my street. I have sometimes had to run home very fast to avoid the absinthe-drinkers, the hashish-smokers, the procurers with knives. I know how evil can wear a friendly, even a familiar face. Yes, M’sieur Jonathon. I can shoot to kill.”
The cat, silent until now, growled a little. A few of those limped home when I got done savaging their ankles, he added. I may not be a mastiff, but I can probably give her a moment or two more to aim.
“All right,” Jonathon said, with a slow nod. “I will make sure Nigel and Arthur have no objections. And I myself will go out and get you a revolver.” He eyed the monster in Ailse’s hands. “But not quite that big. You don’t have the wrists for it, Ninette. I won’t get you a ridiculous little lady’s gun, but I will get you something you can handle.”
“An’ the bullets!” Ailse said, instantly. “Cold Iron, Silver, and Blessed Lead.”
He raised his eyebrow again, and Ailse blushed. “I am an Elemental Master,” he reminded her. “I think I can manage. Even in so seemingly hardheaded and ordinary a city as Blackpool.”
It took relatively little effort to get the Silver and Cold Iron bullets. It was the Blessed Lead that proved to be the sticking point. There were not many churches, even in wicked Blackpool, that were willing to part with a bit of their lead roofing material when someone looking like Jonathon turned up and asked for it. Three times he tried, under various pretenses, and three times he was turned away with varying degrees of suspicion and hostility. And there was no helpful padre, well versed in the ways of Elemental mages, anywhere within the city limits.
He’d have used Ailse’s bullets, except that he had already determined that Ninette could not possibly shoot the monster pistol that Ailse wielded with such dexterity. Her attempts at dry-firing the gun would have put bullets into the sky or the ground at her feet, but never in an assailant. And besides, as the afternoon wore on, he became more determined that he would solve this difficulty. He had the gunsmith who would help them choose a weapon for Ninette and was willing to cast him bullets of the size needed in whatever material he chose to present. While not a mage himself, he knew mages, and ghost-hunters, and a variety of arcane folk; odd requests like this were routine for him. All he needed was the Blessed Lead.
Finally at wits end, he resorted to chicanery. He found a church with a roof badly in need of repair, hired an urchin to shinny up a drainpipe and steal him some, then salved his conscience with a generous donation in the “Repair Fund” box.
By then it was time to rush back to the theater for the evening performance, something which, in the light of what else was going on, had a distinct edge of unreality to it.
He found himself in the wings during Ninette’s turns, and not at all by accident. He watched her closely in the light of his new information, but he could find nothing whatsoever lacking in her skill. If anything, she was better now than she had been when she first started dancing here. That was, undoubtedly, partly practice. But there was something else, too. There was—a sense of joy in her dancing that had not been there before, a feeling that she was giving this performance to her audience, generously and unstintingly.
And the audience was giving back to her.
There was absolutely no doubt of this; if he could not actually see the energies, he could sense their effect on the energies of his own magics. It was not a parasitic relationship; it was a symbiotic one. The audience poured over her their pleasure, their appreciation, their support. She gave back to them happiness, exuberance, joy. It was, perhaps, the most remarkable thing he had ever seen on a stage.
There’s her magic, the cat said, from his feet, startling him. There’s dozens would give their souls for that sort of power.
“I can imagine,” he murmured. “If she chose . . . if she learns how to reach an entire hall, how to do this when she isn’t dancing—”
She could have the world at her feet. Or at least, London. She could fill a lecture hall on whatever subject she wanted, and get people to rush out and support it. She could probably even get elected to Parliament. It’s a dangerous power.
“Terrifying, when you think about it,” Jonathon said darkly.
But she’ll never use it that way, the cat countered firmly. I know my girl. None of that would make people happy.
Jonathon snorted. “Once she figures out that she can use this to get even better presents out of those fools that come backstage—”
She’s giving the presents back.
The cat’s words made him glance down incredulously. “Bosh!”
I’m telling you. Just you drop by and watch. She’s been giving the presents back, keeping only the flowers. See for yourself.
“But—why?” Jonathon managed.
’S’truth. I don’t care about her keeping the presents so long as she doesn’t end up in the bed of some blackguard—but she started handing ’em back about the same time as she discovered this magic of hers.
Jonathon shook his head. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of this bit of information. He turned and left the wings before she finished the dance, going back to his dressing room, shared with the patter-comic and the male half of the sentimental-ballad singers, and stared at his own reflection in the dressing-table mirror for a while.
Finally he shook himself out of his reverie and began carefully applying his makeup. Why should he care what she did or did not do with the presents those idiots pressed on her? Although he had to admit, given everything that was going on now, it was a wise decision on her part. He didn’t think, now that they were all on the alert, that anyone could slip anything magically dangerous past them and into Ninette’s hands, but you never knew. And gems and gold were the provenance of an Earth mage, too. If anyone could exploit such a thing, it would be an Earth mage.
Well if she had hit on that dangerous spot for a potential breech in their defenses, good for her.
He ignored the fact that he felt like gloating. Or rather, he ignored it until the moment that it was appropriate for his evil stage-self to gloat and smirk over his captive. He didn’t quite realize how much he was enjoying himself until she whispered, as she was being locked into the cabinet, “If you cackle, I swear I will not be able to keep from laughing at you.”
After a single glance of outrage, he slammed the door shut with a bit more force than was strictly necessary, and locked it up. He wasn’t that bad, was he?
Yes, it turned out, he was. Nigel intercepted him on his way back to the dressing room. “Just a word. A bit less of the villainy, would you? That’s all right for the pantos, but if you do that too often here, they’ll start laughing and shouting, ‘Look behind you!”’
Chagrined, he savagely wiped his makeup off and headed for the stage door. Or at least, that was his intention.
But his fe
et had a mind of their own, and took him to the door of Ninette’s dressing room. As usual, it was thronged with Lotharios. As he had seen before, they slipped little velvet boxes into her hand or onto the dressing table.
But this time, he caught the by-play with a sense of astonishment, as Ailse collected each box and discreetly gave it back to the giver with a whispered, “Mademoiselle cannot possibly accept this.”
Only once did she make an exception to this. The giver was a little girl, who solemnly presented her with a tinsel ring she must have gotten out of a cracker. With equal solemnity, Ninette accepted it, put it on, admired it, and directed the attention of everyone else in the room to it. Nor did she put it aside when the child had been taken off to an overdue bedtime.
Jonathon slipped away before she could notice him.
16
NINA had her fool, and an excellent choice he was, too.
Terrance Kendal had the acute misfortune of having ambitions that far, far outstripped his abilities, and an ego to match. He had been the only child of a deliberately “invalid” mother who doted on him, and a distant father who worked himself to death, leaving Terrance and said mother just enough money for pretensions of gentility, but none of the substance, like the protagonists in a satirical story by Saki. He had been given airs, but no graces. If he’d had wit, he might have found a place as a hanger-on in the circles to which he aspired, but sadly for him he had none.
Terrance was sent away to school, but alas, it was not Eton or Harrow, or even a second-tier school, a fact which was to cause him embarrassment for the rest of his life. He was encouraged by his mother to believe he was a budding genius, and it came as an embittering experience for him to discover that no one else had this impression. He was large enough and coordinated enough that he was not bullied, but he was no one’s friend, either. He was good enough at sports to survive, but not good enough to prosper. He thought too highly of himself, and made no effort to hide the fact that he felt himself to be the social superior of the entire school. To his face, he was mockingly called “Your Lordship” and behind his back rather less flattering names. He left school as alone as he had arrived.
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