A Study in Silks (60 page)

“Stop it!” he growled. “You have to stay hidden.”

Bag that and smoke it, Gypsy boy. Sorry I bothered you. I just thought since you had enough of the Blood to hear me, you might be useful
.

Nick gave up trying to hold the squirming creature still as it crawled out of his pocket and up the front of his jacket. It finished by digging painfully into his shoulder, the tiny talons like needles.

Nick winced. “What do you want me to do?”

The sorcerer
.

“Magnus?”

He took Mouse. Neat as a pickpocket
.

“Mouse?” Nick was beginning to feel like an echo.

The creature flicked its brass wings, the sound ringing like a tiny chime.
Mouse does the indoor work. I’m the outside spy. I can’t exactly fly around a ballroom, so your girl kept me in her shoe bag as backup. Good thing or he’d have both of us
.

Nick’s skull clogged with questions they had no time for. He settled for the basics: Mouse. Gone. Bad. “All right. I’ll follow Magnus on foot, you take the air. I know where he lives.”

Got it
. The bird was off with a musical whirr.

Nick pictured a map of the streets in his head. He was about two miles from Magnus’s home. It stood to reason the doctor would go there with his prize.

With new purpose, Nick slipped through the streets, ears attuned to every footfall. When he got to the steps of Magnus’s town house, he slowed. Nick had no intention of blundering into a trap; nor did he relish the thought of cornering a sorcerer without some kind of plan. He knew what Magnus could do.

The home of Dr. Magnus was still and dark. He crept up the stairs on silent feet, scanning the shadows. Either Magnus hadn’t returned home, or he was sitting inside, waiting.

A memory of pain drained his strength, leaving him panting. Forcing his feet up, step by step, Nick slid a knife into his sweat-slicked palm.

When he reached the top, he paused, listening. Nothing. His senses weren’t as keen as Evelina’s, but he probed inside as best he could and found nothing living. He’d just about convinced himself the place was empty when he heard
metal scrape on metal. He glanced up, expecting to see the bird. Instead, he felt the kiss of a gun barrel beneath his ear.

“You took my key, thief.”

Frustration blanked his mind as he recognized the voice. Striker.
Bloody black hells!

“Didn’t I kill you already?” Nick snapped. Now he knew who had been following him.

“Just left me gammy as an old cart horse, but what’s one more score to settle?” The metal ground against his jaw. “Now where is it?”

Nick pushed away a skitter of fear. “My inside jacket pocket.”

The pressure of the gun went away and a strong hand spun Nick around.
Perfect
. He pushed away, using the momentum to slam his foot into the wound right where he’d previously thrown Evelina’s paper knife. Once Striker was off balance, Nick moved in and struck again. Striker didn’t scream, but made a choking gurgle as he doubled over in agony.

Nick grabbed the gun. It was a blessedly ordinary revolver, not the bulbous monstrosity Striker had the last time they’d met. He checked it. Fully loaded. “How the blazes do you sneak up on anybody in that metal coat?”

“Give me my key,” Striker wheezed.

The last thing Nick wanted was a prisoner, and the key was no use to him. Exasperated, he fished in his pocket and found the chain he had ripped from the man’s neck. He tossed it to him. Striker caught it midair, his face brightening a moment before resuming his usual scowl.

Nick raised the revolver in two hands, wanting to be rid of the fool now. “I’m here to stop a man before he hurts someone I love. Be useful or be gone.”

“And I’ve been hunting the doctor for two solid days but found you. Seems my time hasn’t been a waste after all.” With a swift movement, Striker pulled a second gun from beneath his coat and hit a switch on its side. It came to life with a whirr. It was sleeker than the one he’d had before, and to Nick’s eyes, seemed even more deadly. Blue lightning arced in a glass dome at the top, giving off a faint crackle.

“You ever killed a man before?” the streetkeeper asked.

“Once,” Nick said through clenched teeth, refusing to show fear.

Striker smiled, and in that blue-white light from the gun, it was a ghastly leer. The nose of the hellish weapon didn’t waver. “You get better at it with practice. I would know.”

A sinking feeling took Nick, that same sensation as when a trick went wrong and he knew that a fall was coming. Twenty feet of air and fragile human bones, his stomach somewhere up around his ears.
Oh, bugger, this is it. I’m done
.

There was a moment of regret. So much he’d never done in his short life.

He’d barely finished the thought when his eye caught a gleam from the street. He flicked his gaze up and saw Dr. Magnus there, the streetlight glancing off the silver head of his walking stick.

Nick’s eyes met Striker’s, and he saw his own doubt. Maybe they wouldn’t be killing each other after all.

“I see you two have met,” Magnus said with an amused air. “You’ve been dogging my steps, Mr. Striker. I take it that the Gold King is displeased with me.”

Striker’s face hardened. “I’m not the one he sends if he’s asking you to tea.” He raised the strange weapon, but before he could fire, the doctor raised his stick.

Reflex made Nick duck. He grabbed Striker’s arm, pulling him to the ground at the same moment. Then the front of the house exploded. Shards of wood and brick sprayed into the air. Glass crashed and frame splintered. Pale fire licked down the door, pouring over the steps like something liquid before it was slurped back into the darkness and extinguished.

The flame missed Nick’s boot by inches. His ankle smarted from the heat.

“Holy fardlin’ hell,” Striker cursed, rolling into a crouch and pointing toward the street. “What was that?”

“I think he plans to defend himself,” Nick muttered, scrabbling to take cover behind the porch pillar. Magnus’s shot had badly damaged the front of his house, but hadn’t
breached the door. Nick had the sinking feeling that Magnus had been holding back in hopes of saving his property.

And the doctor was walking toward them now, a thick, dark cloud gathering around him. No light glanced off the buttons of his coat or the silver of his walking stick. Everything around him was stark blackness.

Striker snorted. “Any ideas?”

Nick’s mind scrabbled for something he could use. “He’s smart. He knew he was going to be followed. He waited until we showed ourselves. He’s probably dealt with people trying to kill him before.”

“Like that matters now,” Striker said with contempt. “Any
useful
ideas?”

Nick was dimly aware of noise and lights up and down the street. Neighbors. They didn’t have time to get fancy. “Blow his head off.”

“Heh.” Striker discharged the weapon in Magnus’s direction. It made a kind of
zzooop
noise followed by an iridescent flash. Across the street, a cherry tree blew to smithereens. Striker gave the gun a dirty look. “Range ain’t right yet.”

“What in all the dark hells is that thing?” Nick asked.

Striker gave an evil smile. “Aether disruptor.”

“What is—” He didn’t have time to finish the question. “Watch out!”

While Striker’s shot had smashed the tree, the force of the explosion bounced the energy back on itself. When the rebound careened into Magnus’s black nimbus, the sound was like the rip of a tearing bed sheet. Nick saw the doctor stumble forward, obviously taken unawares. The next instant, the dark cloud around Magnus sparked pale blue, washing him in a ghastly light as he staggered forward.

Nick was hard-pressed to understand what happened next. Magnus thrust out his hands, as if warding off a blow. Squiggling snakes of energy crawled over the nimbus around him, seeming to suck up the shadows Magnus had gathered. The arcing energy wadded into a bright knot of lightning, shooting arrows of electricity into the night sky.

“Bugger,” Striker muttered under his breath. “Bet I’ve made him mad now.”

Magnus wheeled, the pale blue light making a terrible mask of his face. Nick’s stomach turned to ice as the doctor clutched at the swirling, crackling energy Striker’s gun had set loose, and seemed to thrust the sparks into the air.

The door behind Nick flew to pieces with a resounding crack. A foot lower, and it would have been Striker spraying into the air.

“Get off the porch!” Nick cried, dodging out from behind the pillar with the sole intention of leaping out of the way.

Another blast came their way, landing in front of them this time. The force threw Nick backward into the house, mud hitting his face and blinding him. He was dimly aware of sailing clear through the doors into the big room with the worktable and all the books. He landed hard, facedown and skidding across the carpet, coming to rest just in front of Magnus’s peacock chair.

Everything hurt. Deaf, dizzy, he made a vague swimming motion, figuring out where the floor was. The gun was still in a death-grip in his right hand. He supposed that was good. Somehow, he pushed himself up and got his knees under him. His back hurt horribly. When he tried to straighten, he found the left side of his jacket was soaked in warm, sticky blood.

Nick searched for an emotion, but didn’t find any. Raising his left arm was hard, but he managed to peel back his jacket. A huge gash had opened up from his armpit diagonally to his hip. If he had to guess, he’d say that something sharp had caught him in the blast, slicing him cleanly as a kitchen knife. The wound was seeping rivulets of blood.
Will you look at that?

Then he started to feel hot and sick and a surge of terror kicked his heart into high gear. He stumbled to his feet, weaving slightly and grabbing a cloth from one of the side tables and pressing it against the wound. Then he grabbed another cloth, then papers, stuffing whatever he could under his jacket and buttoning it closed. Hurt or not, he still had to rid the world of Dr. Magnus.

He had no idea what was going on in the street. He staggered forward, alternating between an urge to hide and the
need to storm out the ruined doorway and back into the street, revolver blazing. He compromised by listing against what was left of the front doorway and peering into the darkness. The street was all but invisible, drowning in a fog of darkness. Somehow, the doctor’s influence was keeping people away, blocking what was happening from sight. Good. He didn’t want to shoot someone by accident.

And then suddenly Magnus stood right there, halfway down the front walk.

“You’ve become something of a nuisance, Nick with no name,” he said.

Hey!
Nick heard the panic in the bird’s voice. It was near enough to touch his mind. Nick pulled the trigger, but Magnus had vanished. He thought he heard the bullet hit, but he couldn’t be sure. In the next second, he heard the peculiar sound of Striker’s gun.
Zoop! Zoop! Zoop!

Nick ducked, covering his eyes from the flashes, his breath hissing in because it hurt to move. But even through his hands he could see the the air around Magnus catch fire, the bright illumination showing blood-red between his fingers. Whatever Striker’s gun did, it reacted to magic like a spark to gunpowder.

The doctor’s roar of pain escalated into a scream. Nick dropped to one knee, blinking white blotches from his vision. The scream faded to a whimper, and then to silence.

Nick’s skin crawled, the hair on his arms standing straight up. He’d only ever heard that kind of cry once, when a tiger tore open the underbelly of one of the horses.
Gods forgive us
.

A dark shape lay on the ground where Magnus had been. It stank of cooking flesh, a shade too similar to what Nick had eaten for supper. Bile rose in his throat, but he stubbornly swallowed it down. He couldn’t stand the thought of heaving with his side bloody and raw.

Striker stood to the left of Magnus, the gun casting a pool of oscilating blue light around him. With an almost mechanical motion, he reached over and hit a switch. The gun powered down with a whirr.

Nick found his feet and jumped to the soft grass below
with a grunt. There were no stairs anymore. “You got the range sorted.”

Striker rubbed his forehead. “That I did.”

Neither man sounded triumphant, because they weren’t. There was nothing there to celebrate. Magnus was lying on the ground, his chest a burned mass of bone and blood. He’d fallen on one side, his tall hat adrift on the paving stones, his fingers helplessly trailing in the dirt. From his staring eyes, there was no question he was dead. Striker had shot him in the back, blowing his heart through his breastbone.

Well, he wouldn’t be bothering Evelina anymore. Nick bent with a shuddering intake of breath, and searched Magnus’s pockets.

“You robbing the bloke?” Striker sounded more curious than judgmental.

Nick found what he was looking for. A tiny steel mouse. He could just sense a consciousness inside, shivering in terror. He slipped it into his own pocket. “I’ve got what I want.”

Striker hesitated an instant, and then made his own search, letting out a gratified grunt when he found the doctor’s purse.

Nick looked away from the puddle of blood darkening the ground, a sudden foreboding taking him. A few yards away, brass gleamed dully in the uncertain light. The bird lay in pieces, shattered by the force of the blasts. He had no idea if destroying the mechanism freed the deva, or if it was trapped inside a broken shell.

The street was in chaos now that Magnus’s magic was gone. The black fog was lifting and people were streaming out of their houses and coming their way. They would be on them in seconds.

“Come on,” said Striker. “Time to run.”

Forgetting his wound, Nick dropped to his knees, sweeping up the shards of Evelina’s creation. He pulled the kerchief from around his neck, using it to gather the pieces.

“Come on!” Striker repeated, his voice rising.

Nick tucked the kerchief inside his shirt, feeling the bundle of cool brass against the heat of his body.