Nick bared his teeth at her in a silent snarl and turned away from the mirror.
Alan read out the directions Merris Cromwell had given him as Nick tried to work around the London lunch hour traffic. Nick didn’t like Merris much, but since Alan had helped her at the Goblin Market last October, they’d never had to crash in shelters or hostels while they looked for a place to stay. Nick wasn’t sure if she had contacts everywhere or if problems simply slunk away in the face of her formidable efficiency.
If the Market had been a magicians’ Circle, blasphemous though the idea might be, Merris would have been the Circle’s leader.
She was connected even though nobody knew where she came from, rich even though nobody knew where she got her money. Nick thought she might be the only person in the Market hiding as many secrets as they were.
Nick looked at a map and took a detour by Westminster so Alan could get a preview of the doubtful delights he would soon enjoy. They passed the square-spiked silhouette of Westminster Abbey, and stone saints peered down at them while Alan began to tell himself interesting historical facts, because Nick didn’t care. The spire of Big Ben and the curve of the Circle went by in a smooth line, and as Nick turned the car into less traffic-choked channels, Alan gave a happy sigh and started talking about dinosaur exhibits in the Natural History Museum.
“I’ve changed my mind,” said Nick. “The demons can have you.”
He was glad that Alan seemed so pleased. Nick had not really remembered London, and looking around it now, with old and new buildings jostling each other at every turn and no street empty, he was feeling a distinct sense of foreboding.
Demons liked cities. Cities meant victims, and London was teeming with bodies for the taking. Nick thought he might have made the wrong decision choosing this place, but it was too late now.
Camden town opened up into a broad gray road, with a small cinema on one side, some restaurants and a gray building that said AMERICAN METHODIST CHURCH in large metal letters outside. A fine drizzle started as they drove up one of the narrow side streets and stopped in front of their new home.
The drab brown front of the house made it look as if it had been built from rusty spare parts. Someone always put lace curtains in the windows of dreary houses, and Nick was unsurprised to see the curtains making their attempts in every window of this place. There was a china garden gnome on the doorstep, wearing a desperate, crazy smile.
“It’s not so bad,” Alan said.
“You never take me nice places anymore, baby,” said Nick, and was mildly gratified by Alan’s ring of laughter, like a living bell that had been caught by surprise when it was struck.
When he got out, he opened Mum’s door without thinking, and she shuddered away from him. Alan knelt on the wet pavement beside the car and reached out his hand to her.
“Olivia,” he coaxed. “We’re here. We’re home.”
“For now,” Nick muttered, going over to the boot and getting out the first box of Alan’s books.
He hefted it in his arms and put the box down only to retrieve the keys. Someone had carelessly put a dark closet where the hall should have been, but the staircase was broad and, more importantly, had a sturdy-looking wooden banister for Alan to lean on. When he got up the stairs he saw there were three bedrooms, which was always good news. Nick allocated the bedroom farthest away from the other two to Mum, and when he went into the other rooms, he saw there was a bookcase built into the wall of one. That room clearly had to be Alan’s. Nick put the box down and palmed the knife from his boot to cut the packing tape. He began to shove books on the shelves. It might be a few minutes before Alan got Mum calmed down.
Nick was putting down the last book in the first row when it fell.
There was a white flutter from the yellowed pages of an old book, and then, on the tired-looking carpet, lay a picture of a girl.
The girl looked older than Nick, in her late teens or perhaps twenties, with curly blond hair and a bright smile. She was wearing a loose, flowing shirt, in the kind of retro style Alan’s girls often affected, and she looked as if someone had just told her a joke.
It occurred to Nick that this picture was what Alan had been thinking of when he was standing gazing into their car boot. As soon as he was alone he’d gone straight to it, as if being near to it—even if he couldn’t see it—was his only possible source of comfort.
He hadn’t come to Nick.
Alan was sentimental enough to keep pictures. The couple of girls who’d actually been his girlfriends had been awarded a place of pride in his wallet. He had a school picture of Nick and the picture of Mum and Dad on their wedding day framed by his bedside.
It was keeping a secret from Nick that was different. He’d kept only one secret from Nick before: the letters he used to rise early for and collect from the postbox. Nick rose even earlier to cut them up, and eventually they had stopped coming.
Nick wondered if this was a picture of the letter girl. He picked it up and looked her over more closely, but he couldn’t see anything special about her. The letters had been more than a year ago. Why should Alan still keep her picture? He flipped it over and looked at the back. TONY’S PHOTOS was printed there in gray, but over that in a black sprawl was the name “Marie.”
Nick heard Alan’s limping step up the stairs in plenty of time to put the photograph back where he had found it, and when his brother came into the room, he saw Alan look at the shelf in alarm.
There was no innocent explanation, then.
Alan had not forgotten that the picture was in the book. He had not bought a book with a picture already inside it. He had deliberately hidden this girl, this Marie, away from him.
Nick remembered the girl’s smiling face and scowled, staring at the floor. He felt intensely uncomfortable. It seemed wrong that this girl should matter to Alan, when Nick didn’t even know who she was. What was so important about her, that he had to hide her from his own brother?
Nick planned to find out.
That night Nick slept on the kitchen floor in their new home. The cork tiles were curling up at the edges like pieces of old bread, rough against his stomach when his T-shirt rode up, and he hadn’t brought down a pillow because he didn’t want to be comfortable. He dozed uneasily, feeling like a guard dog unable to rest because he had to be on the alert for dangers outside.
But it wasn’t anything outside that he was waiting for.
He was in one of the dark places between sleep and simply having your eyes shut when he heard the sound of the front door clicking softly open. His body moved before he thought: He crossed the hall in two swift strides, fast and soft as a predator. He always found it easier to hunt than think.
When he launched himself at Alan, he did think: He remembered to strike on Alan’s left side. They went tumbling into the grass of the front yard, and Nick landed crouched beside his brother. He’d been careful not to hurt Alan’s leg, not to even touch it, and now he felt so angry he wished he’d done it after all.
“You’re not leaving,” he snarled.
Alan lay flat on his back, looking up at the sky. The full moon caught his glasses and made the edges flash brief silver. “If they can track me,” he began, “it’s not safe—”
Nick laughed harshly. “When have we ever been safe?”
How safe would Alan be, he wanted to demand, by himself and with a demon’s mark? Maybe he would be all right; Alan could take care of himself, but Nick wasn’t about to take that chance. Nick wasn’t about to let him go.
Nick was breathing fast and his vision was blurred a little, turning the edges of the night hazy and pale. He felt as if he’d been exercising too hard. He was just angry at the thought that Alan could leave, so easily, for any reason at all.
Alan sighed and sat up, drawing his good leg up to his chest and linking an arm around it. Nick knew this look from the days when Mum had her screaming fits, or when a teacher wanted to talk about Nick’s reading. Alan looked tired and unhappy, and t
he expression fit on his face too comfortably, as if he was used to feeling that way and didn’t let it affect him too much. He was too busy being concerned about what other people might feel.
“Nick,” he said gently, “it isn’t that I want to go. It wouldn’t be for very long. Just until the next Goblin Market, just so that you and Olivia would be safe.”
Mum was the one the magicians were after, the one they’d always been after. Mum was the one who’d caused all this, and in spite of everything, Mum was the one Alan was worried sick about.
“I’ll leave her,” Nick said.
The night seemed very still suddenly. Nick stayed crouched and watchful, waiting for Alan to make any movement, willing him to give in. Alan shut his eyes and swallowed, looking so disappointed in Nick and so scared. For their mother.
“I swear I will,” Nick said, voice low, threatening and promising, meaning every word. “If you go, I’ll leave her. I’ll come find you. What do you think would happen to her if we both left?”
Nick didn’t lie. He’d seen Alan lie to people his whole life and every time he opened a book he saw words twist across pages, their meaning slipping away from him. Words were treacherous enough without him telling lies.
When he said something, he knew Alan would believe it.
Alan opened his eyes and looked at Nick. His eyes were bleak.
“All right, Nick,” he whispered. “I won’t go.”
Nick spoke with difficulty. “All right.”
He grabbed the bag Alan had been carrying, climbed to his feet, and went to the door without casting another look at his brother still sitting in the grass. He was tired, and he didn’t want to think anymore about Alan trying to leave.
When he dropped the bag into Alan’s room, he saw his brother had left a note on his pillow.
Nick sat on Alan’s bed and tried to read it. He needed to concentrate to read, and his mind was all over the place, thoughts wild and tangled, and the words went wild and tangled too. They looked like nothing but inky thorns spreading across the blank white page.
He caught one sentence, which was I’m going to a place where I know I will be welcome.
It made him remember the picture of that girl and look across the room. There was only one gap to be seen in the crowded bookshelves. Alan had planned to leave him, but he’d meant to take the book and the hidden picture wherever he went.
Nick stared at the letter and felt that sharp urge to hurt something again. He palmed a knife and cut it up, once, twice, three times until the words were gone and the letter was nothing but tattered white fragments.
A slight noise made Nick lift his head. He saw Alan hesitating in the doorway. He couldn’t read his face any more than he could those words. He wondered how long Alan had been standing there, watching Nick slice up his good-bye letter.
They looked at each other without speaking, and in the silence Nick wondered if Alan had told him another lie: if he’d wanted to go to that girl. If he did want to leave, after all.
Alan cleared his throat. “You were right. I was being stupid.”
“No kidding,” Nick said roughly.
“I panicked when that message came,” Alan explained, leaning heavily against the door frame. “I couldn’t help it. I don’t want to be a danger to you, and I don’t know what to do. But if they tried this, they’ll try something else. Running away won’t solve anything. I have to think of a plan. I have to do something to settle this once and for all.”
Alan’s voice gathered determination as he spoke. If he thought he was going to change Black Arthur’s mind then he was dreaming, but it was familiar and soothing for Nick to see his brother ready to plan their way out of every situation.
Alan picked up the bag Nick had carried upstairs, and Nick crossed the room to take it from him.
“Give me that. I’ll put your stuff away.”
“Thank you,” Alan said, smiling at him. He reached out and took the book with the hidden picture from a side pocket, smoothing his fingers—born musician’s hands, Dad had always said, long fingers that touched everything lightly—with absent affection over the cover. “I’ll take this. I’m reading it.”
He limped over to his bed, still holding the book. Nick was quiet, methodically putting away all the clothes and weapons Alan had packed, erasing any trace of the fact that Alan had meant to leave.
“I’m sorry about this,” Alan said softly, surprising him. “I won’t let you down again.”
Nick didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what Alan was talking about; it was ridiculous. Alan didn’t let him down. He’d never once done that.
“Stop being stupid.”
Nick glanced over at his brother. Alan was looking serious and a little sad, standing beside the bed with the pieces of his letter scattered around his feet and his fingers tracing restless patterns over the cover of that book.
“Yeah,” Alan said, and smiled at him with an obvious effort. “I’ll try.”
4
The Goblin Market
STOP SULKING,” ALAN SAID AS HE PARKED THE CAR.
Nick was not sulking. He simply did not know why Alan exercised his considerable intelligence to achieve such stupid goals. He’d fabricated enormous lies, he’d pleaded and he’d twinkled energetically at old ladies, all in order to get Nick into school. Where Nick had no desire to be, because school was a waste of time. It meant dozens of teachers hassling him about being dyslexic, and it meant Alan working full-time when Alan wanted to go to college. If Alan would just let Nick work full time in the garage, then Alan could go to college and Nick would never be saddled with any more reading, and everyone would be happy.
Only Alan was a stubborn idiot who refused to see reason, and he had actually forced Nick into a school uniform.
Nick said nothing. He was trying to rumple his uniform by sitting still and directing the sheer force of his hatred at it.
“You are sulking,” Alan said into the vacuum of Nick’s stony silence. “You shouldn’t be. You need to complete your education and besides, a man in uniform always looks dashing.”
Nick gave him the kind of look he felt a word like “dashing” deserved.
Alan frowned and said, “I do wish you’d eaten breakfast.”
Nick’s view of his new school, a brown institutional building as square and basically uninspiring as a brick, was suddenly obscured by a girl. She was platinum blond and slim in a schoolgirl skirt.
He supposed there was something to be said for the uniform after all.
“Just to please you, I will,” Nick said, and nodded in the girl’s direction. “Don’t you think she looks like breakfast?”
While Alan checked a smile and began a lecture on speaking of women with respect, Nick snagged his bag and got out of the car. Alan leaned over the passenger seat.
“Remember,” he called. “Just be yourself, and everyone will love you!”
Nick rolled his eyes and made a rude gesture, and Alan drove the car away laughing.
Slouching toward his scholastic fate, Nick caught the blonde’s eyes while they were sliding over him, and held them. Then he winked.
There were enough pretty girls to keep Nick entertained for most of the day. The last class was computers, and while the teacher was droning on, Nick typed “Tony’s Photos” into the search engine.
Luck was with him. He only had to scroll down past half a dozen Tonys who wanted to share their holiday photos with the world before he found a shop in England. Miraculously, it was not a chain. The small website, boasting a chubby and somewhat manic-looking baby, informed him that it was located in Durham.
They had never even lived in Durham—but last year they had lived in Sunderland, thirteen miles away. On the day after Christmas, Alan had disappeared for four days, talking about a Sumerian stone tablet that he’d been called in to examine. Mum had not come out of her room for the entire time Alan was away, and she would not have eaten if Nick had not gone upstairs and forced food down her throat
. She’d screamed the entire time Nick was touching her.
Whenever Nick had made a noise in the house, he’d known his mother was listening for it, frozen and panting as if she were a hunted animal. Alan was the one always talking, turning on the TV and the radio, bringing home the weird people who were their only guests. Nick had stopped turning on lights and appliances because it wasn’t worth the bother of sending Mum into hysterics. The house started to seem shut off from the rest of the world, darkness and silence pressing all around until Nick felt as if he could not get out. He wanted to leave, he needed to buy groceries, but he sat on the stairs and waited in the dark.
Winter light had come in with Alan as he opened the door. Nick had looked up from his place on the stairs and said, “You can’t do this again.”
Alan went pale and answered, “I won’t.”
During the four days of darkness, it had never occurred to Nick that Alan could possibly have been lying, or could possibly have abandoned them for his own reasons.
It was occurring to him now.
Nick took down the address and phone number of Tony’s Photos in Durham, and then closed the window.
The next day at school Nick went and found his new crowd. There was a large bike shed around back of the school, which looked like a concrete block with a sheet of tinfoil on top. He’d seen it yesterday and known at once that this was the place.
Sure enough, there were three boys there already, two of them smoking. One dropped his cigarette on the gravel as soon as he saw Nick. He’d be no trouble. Nick raised his eyebrows, saw the boy’s eyes drop in embarrassment, and turned to the boy who’d kept smoking.
“Nick Ryves,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”
He threw out the words like a challenge. He’d found that was the best way to start things, since it always ended up that way in the end.
The boy eyed him with what Nick thought was an unusual amount of hostility to start off with. Usually it took Nick a couple of weeks to antagonize people to that degree.
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