Magic for Nothing

by Seanan McGuire

  Handcuffed to the frame of an unmarked black van, being driven through the English countryside

  “YOU REALIZE THIS ISN’T NECESSARY,” I said, keeping my voice as level as possible. My wrists ached from all the bouncing around. I’d be lucky to get out of this without at least a couple of bone-deep bruises. My things were strapped next to me, and I had to fight not to look at them. I hadn’t seen Mindy in three days, not since I’d arrived in London and started the slow, delicate process of convincing the Covenant that I was as clueless and eager as I appeared.

  She was a smart mouse. She knew what’d she signed up for, and she’d made her peace with the colony before we’d left Portland. There was plenty of food in the bottom of the bag, along with a bottle of water she had the manual dexterity to open. She was fine. She had to be fine. If she wasn’t fine . . .

  My brother had taken six mice to Australia with him, and he came back with five. The Aeslin don’t blame him—the Aeslin never blame their gods for anything—but he blames himself. He probably always will. There’s a flip side to being worshipped by something as innocent and earnest as an Aeslin mouse, and it’s knowing that when something bad happens to them, you were supposed to be able to prevent it. You were supposed to be able to protect them. Failure hurts more than anything.

  Leo made an apologetic face. I swallowed the urge to slap it off. It wasn’t like I could, anyway. Stupid handcuffs. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is standard protocol.”

  “I put up with the chloroform and the weird questions and being woken up in the middle of the night so you could see if sleep deprivation made my story change.” Although if jet lag hadn’t changed it, I doubted a little drowsiness was going to; they hadn’t thought that one through. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on is your story has checked out enough that we’re taking you to the recruitment center,” he said. “The bookshop is a family business, Annie. We’re not equipped to train new people, and even if we were, Mum would never let us keep you there. It’s unseemly.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word used in an actual sentence before,” I said.

  Leo laughed. “I’ll miss having you around. I’m at the recruitment center with reasonable frequency, so I’ll still see you, but it won’t be the same as sharing a bathroom.”

  I eyed him dubiously. I still couldn’t get a good read on him, and if I didn’t know better, I’d assume he was trying to flirt. But he couldn’t be trying to flirt, because no human being with the brains to dress themselves in the morning would think flirting with a girl they had chained to a van’s internal frame was a good idea. “I wouldn’t say we were sharing a bathroom, since your house has five of them,” I said. “I grew up in a carnival. Mobile home chemical toilets are about what I’m used to. Your house was the lap of luxury.”

  “We’ve had it for a long time,” he said, as if the family home wouldn’t fetch several million pounds on the current London real estate market. “It’s going to be fine. The recruitment center is set up for intake and education. They’ll be able to help you avenge your family.”

  “And I’m handcuffed because . . . ?”

  “Because you have to look at things from our perspective for a moment, all right? You came out of nowhere. You went straight for the only safe house we have in central London. Your story checks out, and Lord knows you talk like a carnie, but we have to take precautions in case you’re working for the enemy.”

  “I’m not a wasp,” I said, yanking on my handcuffs as if in punctuation.

  Leo sighed. “There’s a lot more out there than just wasps. Assuming the elders agree that you are who you say you are, you’re going to learn that the world is a much darker and more dangerous place than you ever thought it was. I’m almost sorry you’ve been able to get this far, because you can’t go back. You’re never going to look at the shadows the same way. You’re lost. Just like the rest of us, you’re lost.”

  There was something sad in his voice at the end, like he wished something better for me, something other than this unmarked van ploughing through the British countryside. It was impossible not to feel bad for him. Anger followed close on the heels of my sympathy. He was a member of the Covenant. Even if he’d never done fieldwork, even if he was just a secretary sitting in his safe little bookstore, he was still supporting an organization that killed sapient beings for no good reason beyond “we don’t like them.”

  Dominic had been willing to quit for Verity. Dominic had also been disillusioned, in love, and an orphan: he had no family ties to keep him with the Covenant. Leo was different. Leo had a family. He wasn’t going to walk away, even if I’d been in a position to ask him to—which I was not. My situation was nothing like my sister’s, because I couldn’t start making Leo see things from my point of view, and I wasn’t here to seduce us another turncoat. That’s the sort of battle of attrition we can’t win. I had to pretend to see things the way he did, and pray it didn’t get me killed.

  “My whole family’s dead because of the things that came out of the woods, and nobody believes me when I try to say what happened,” I said. I didn’t have to fake the quaver in my voice. It was born of fear and frustration, not sorrow, but those things can sound suspiciously alike. “I’m already lost. I’m hoping that maybe this is where I can be found.”

  The van shuddered to a stop. Leo smiled.

  “I suppose we’re going to find out.” He stood, the motion exposing the stun gun strapped to his hip—in case I somehow ripped my cuffs free of the van’s frame and went for him, which seemed ludicrous, but was probably standard procedure—and walked, slightly hunched, to the back doors. He hit them with the side of his fist three times. Someone outside knocked back twice. He replied with another three knocks, a pause, and a fourth knock. Code. Lovely.

  The doors opened. Light flooded the van. I squinted, only turning my face partially away; I wanted to see, no matter how much it hurt.

  What I saw was green, the rolling green hills of the English countryside, stretching out toward what seemed like forever. What I saw was a hedgerow of blackberries and brambles and little yellow flowers I didn’t recognize. There was a man standing to one side, ordinary looking, the sort of man I wouldn’t have given a second glance if I’d passed him working in his garden or walking his dog. He looked like he was in his mid-to-late thirties, with sandy blond hair that was going gray at the temples and wire-framed glasses that somehow hid the color of his eyes. They were probably tinted for some reason, maybe to treat a vision problem, maybe because he spent a lot of time seeking out gorgons and making their lives a short, painful experience.

  He looked at me with the slow gaze of the career serial killer, and it took everything I had to keep from shying away. It didn’t feel like he was undressing me with his eyes: that would actually have been better, or at least more familiar. It was like he was checking me for weapons without taking a step toward me. Somehow, I had no doubt this man would be able to spot the knives I usually carried and considered so well-concealed, or the various other tricks of my trade that I’d been forced to leave behind when I flew to London.

  I have never been so glad to be unarmed. There was no question in my mind that this man would have been happy to make me disappear if I’d been carrying so much as a garrote.

  “What’s this, then?” he asked, eyes still on me.

  “Her name is Timpani, and she’s here for assessment,” said Leo. He produced a set of keys and unlocked the cuffs holding me in place. I immediately sat farther back on my bench, rubbing my wrists. I made no effort to hide my discomfort. Anyone would have been uncomfortable in this situation, infiltrator or not.

  Anyone.

  “Where’d you find her?” asked the man.

  “She found us. Her family was killed by a swarm of Apraxis wasps, and someone pointed her at the bookstore.” Leo was talking like I wasn’t there,
but his body was angled to partially block me from the stranger’s view, giving me time to adjust to both the light and my new freedom. He was trying, in his own small way, to protect me. “She checks out as human, carrying no charms or contraband, and I’ve been cleared to bring her for further assessment.”

  “We’re taking in strays now?”

  “Strays with useful skills, yes. Having an American passport and the specific knowledge set for carnival infiltration are useful skills.”

  The stranger was silent for a count of five. Then he turned to me, and said, “Come out of there. I want a better look at you, and it’s not as if you can hide from me forever. Not if you’re planning to train with us.”

  “Sorry,” I said, and scooted down the bench toward the door before standing and hopping out of the van. Leo touched my shoulder as I passed him—a light, reassuring moment of contact. I didn’t look at him. My attention was reserved for the stranger, who was continuing to watch me like he hadn’t yet decided whether I should live or die.

  He cocked his head once I had my feet on the ground. “What’s your name?”

  “Timpani Brown,” I said.

  “Funny name.”

  “Funny parents. Most people call me ‘Annie.’”

  “What, not ‘Tim’?” He smirked. It wasn’t attractive. “I’m Robert Bullard. Security in this place funnels through me. I don’t like your attitude—or I don’t like your face—and they never find your body. How do you feel about that?”

  “I’m here because there’s no one left to miss me,” I said. “Those things took everything when they killed my family. So you can threaten if you want to. I guess you’re going to anyway. But if staying here means I can learn how to keep what happened to me from happening to anyone else, I’m going to stay, and you can learn to live with it.”

  “She’s got you there, Robby,” said Leo. “Annie, Rob’s in charge of security, so when he says something like ‘don’t climb under that fence’ or ‘the third floor is off-limits,’ you have to listen. But apart from that, he’s not going to be in charge of your training, and he’s not going to handle your day-to-day. All right?”

  “All right,” I said, as timidly as I could. “Can I get my things?”

  “Please.”

  My luggage had been assembled to bolster my cover story without overwhelming me in things I’d have to carry. The only piece that was even slightly out of place were the roller skates at the bottom of my suitcase, which were there for my sanity as much as anything else. If they asked me to show them what I could do, skating was on the list, and was a believable carnival skill. Also, I’d lose my mind if I had to play the good little Covenant girl and couldn’t stay in decent shape.

  No one helped me wrestle the suitcase out of the van. Leo looked like he wanted to, but he kept his distance. Probably more tradition, something about the new recruits coming to the Covenant under their own power and without aid. Sometimes the urge to punch tradition solidly in the nose is the only thing that keeps me going.

  “All right,” I said, finally getting my suitcase into a position where I could drag it if necessary. I looked at the rolling hills, trying to ignore the sensation that the hills were looking back. “Where are we going?”

  Robert threw his head back and roared with laughter. Even Leo smiled, although there was less meanness in his expression than there was in Robert’s laugh.

  “Look behind you,” he said.

  The van was behind me, but I took his meaning. Hoisting my suitcase, I moved three feet to my right and looked.

  We were parked on a graveled hilltop, with a small path winding down from our location to the gates of a stately manner home whose green manicured lawn somehow managed to be even brighter than the hills behind me. Topiary dotted the grounds, and I could see the corner of what I assumed was a hedge maze. There were actual standing stones in the field around the path, and the manor house itself looked like, well . . .

  “Shades of Pemberley,” I breathed.

  Leo laughed. “I suppose it would look like that, to an American,” he said. “Welcome to Penton Hall.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Follow me,” he said, and started down the path. I followed him, and Robert followed me, so close that I thought I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.

  I had good reason for my paranoia. I’d known his name was familiar, and as we walked, I realized where I’d seen it before: in Verity’s report on what happened in New York. Robert Bullard was one of the two Covenant agents who’d been whammied by Sarah, when she wiped the memory of Verity from their minds. We don’t know much about how Sarah’s powers work, especially when she’s using them to actively rewrite someone’s ideas about the world. When Robert had seen the footage of Verity on TV, had he thought he was seeing her for the first time? Or had Sarah’s careful lie come tumbling down?

  Maybe more importantly—or at least, more frighteningly—if he was here, did that mean he’d been demoted from fieldwork after his failure in Manhattan? He hadn’t been working alone. Was Margaret Healy here, too? The fact that she was a distant relative shouldn’t make it harder for me to maintain my cover around her, and yet . . . If there was anything about my physical appearance that could give me away, she’d see it, even if no one else would.

  The closer we got to the house, the larger it loomed. It was like something out of a Jane Austen novel, as reinterpreted by Stephen King.

  “One of the topiaries moves, I am out of here,” I said.

  Leo cast me a blithe smile. “It’s all right, I promise. We do not have killer hedges. The worst we’ve produced is a few prize-winning carrots at harvest time, and those won’t kill you, although they may make you wish for a more varied diet.”

  The gates were locked. They were also, judging by their size and the lack of cars visible on the grounds, at least partially ornamental. Leo led us a few feet down the fence, where there was a smaller, wooden door, deeply inset to keep it from offending anyone’s sensibilities.

  “Most of the house rules will be explained once you’ve been assigned to a room and a training schedule,” he said. “The main thing to remember is that, at least for right now, you’re considered a guest. That means you need to be on your best behavior, but that also, people will treat you fairly and be willing to answer your questions.”

  “This is all really complicated,” I said. “I thought it would be more like the movies. I’d show up, and say ‘monsters are bad,’ and you’d hand me a crossbow or something.”

  “Joss Whedon has so very much to answer for,” said Leo, and opened the door.

  Curtains twitched in the windows of the big house as we walked along a decorative pathway to the front steps. By the time we got there, the main doors were open, revealing a palatial hallway. Leo kept going, and so I followed, feeling increasingly like I was walking into a museum. A curator was probably going to appear and offer to give me a walking tour. I would have enjoyed that. It would have been less stressful.

  “All right: answer any questions you’re asked politely and succinctly, consider very carefully before refusing any tests that people want to perform, and remember, I’ll be here for the rest of the day,” said Leo.

  “This is not encouraging me,” I said.

  “It’s not meant to,” said a new voice, and Reginald Cunningham stepped into the hall. He was dressed much more formally than he’d been back at the house, with a buttoned-up suit jacket over his white shirt, and shoes polished until they gleamed.

  “Sir,” said Leo, placing a hand flat across the base of his throat.

  “Sir,” said Robert, with the same gesture.

  Shit.

  Reginald’s private office was almost as large as the kitchen back home. The walls were lined in bookcases, the shelves groaning under the weight of leather-bound volumes. Portraits hung above them—not of Cunninghams this time, b
ut of elegantly-dressed, stiffly-posed people from at least eight different families, their hairstyles and clothing spanning centuries.

  Reginald saw me looking, and said, “With an organization as large and complex as ours, hierarchy is key. We cannot allow our great work to fall to anarchy. These brave men and women have led us as we fought to bring humanity closer to safety, closer to protection. Their names echo through the generations, unsung heroes of the human race. Penton, Fairborn, Carew, McNeil—and yes, Cunningham. I am the second member of our line to hold the august position of minister. You’re very fortunate, you know.”

  “How so?” I asked meekly. Carew. He’d said Carew. One of these people was my ancestor, however many years and generations back. This was where my family came from. No wonder so many of the cryptids we tried to help still referred to us as “that Covenant family.” To an organization like this, a few generations was nothing. Some of the longer-lived cryptids might still be waiting for us to change our minds and go back where we began.

  “You stumbled into my home, and not into one of our other more public strongholds. There are those, Miss Brown, who oppose our sacred work: those who feel the human race should willingly share this beautiful world that we’ve been given with monsters. We must be always on guard for them, and your arrival was . . . ill-timed, in some ways.”

  I blinked. “Why?”

  “Because one of those traitors recently declared war upon us. Do you watch much television, Miss Brown?”

  “Some,” I said, struggling not to let my discomfort show. “I’ve been a little busy recently, trying to track you down. Was there something I should have seen?”

  “A woman, in an indecent mockery of dress, fighting a giant snake.”

  “Oh! The Dance or Die thing. That was special effects, wasn’t it?” I allowed my face to fall. “Wasn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid not. The giant snake was very real, as was the threat she offered to the Covenant of St. George at the end of her performance. A rogue branch of this organization has been protecting the monsters of North America for decades, complicating our attempts to keep its people safe. The deaths of your family members could have been avoided, had we been allowed to serve the New World as we have served the Old.”