A Charm of Magpies 03 Flight of Magpies (15 page)

“The justiciary. The job. You’re going to die. You can’t even trust your fucking Council not to kill you now. I know I shouldn’t ask you this, but I am asking, I’m begging. Please, will you just leave this sodding miserable job before I lose you?”

“Sssh.” Stephen wrapped his arms round Crane’s broad chest, holding them together, with no regard for the Golds or anyone else. “Ssh. Stop. It’s all right. It will be all right.”

They held on to each other for a moment more, until Crane took a very deep breath and pulled away a little. “Stephen…”

“Just a moment.” Stephen sat back on his heels. “Firstly, don’t say any more about that. I know what I have to do, and it’s my decision alone. I don’t want anyone, including you, thinking otherwise. So leave it to me.” He waited for Crane’s brief, reluctant nod. “Secondly, don’t even
presume
to complain about me getting myself killed when you stood there hurling insults at Lady Bruton with us both helpless! Good God, Lucien—”

“I saw Saint outside the window, behind Pastern,” Crane interrupted, sounding rather more in command of himself. “I wanted everyone’s attention on me rather than on her manoeuvring, or Merrick unlocking the door. And I was hoping that if Merrick heard me, he’d know to kill the painter first, and where he was. Under the circumstances, I thought I was a model of tact.”

“Tact,” Stephen repeated. “Right. Well, I suppose that makes sense. Though you were quite offensive to her earlier.”

Crane shrugged. “I’m quite an offensive man.”

“You are.” Stephen watched Crane’s eyes. “And thirdly…what you said, before, to me…”

“I meant it.” Crane took his hand, long fingers curling around Stephen’s. “It was under duress, admittedly, in that I had no reason to believe that we were going to survive, but I meant it. All yours, Stephen. I do not want to be without you.”

“Nor do I.” Stephen gripped his hand. “Not ever.”

Crane reached out to cup his cheek. “I suppose I can’t kiss you, under the circumstances, but—”

“
Sod
it,” Stephen said, and pulled him forward, and if part of his mind was shamefully aware of Esther and Dan and even Saint, it was not enough to stop him focusing on Crane’s mouth, hard and demanding and needing him so much. He ignored the sour taste, the sweat and blood and the dry tang of ink, and everything else as they kissed with savage abandon, Crane’s hands sliding under his torn jacket to span Stephen’s chest, Stephen grasping handfuls of sleek hair, until they finally broke apart for lack of air.

“I saw how you see me, back then,” Crane murmured in his ear. “I had no idea I was such a handsome devil.”

“Yes, you did,” Stephen said. “And I saw how you see me, and I do not look like that.”

“Like what?” Crane’s grin was devilish. “Noble? Beautiful? Fuckable?” Stephen felt himself redden. Crane ran his thumb over Stephen’s mouth, probing inwards. “Unbreakable to everyone else, and so wonderfully pliable to me?”

Esther coughed, loud and harsh, from across the room. Stephen pulled back, with an internal cringe that he hoped Crane didn’t see.
No more apologising.

“If we could look at business,” she said, approaching, “there’s a floor full of corpses to be dealt with, one of whom looks very like George Fairley, except with his head off. I could use your attention, Steph.”

“It is Fairley.” Stephen got up, extending a hand to Crane, who winced as he rose. “He’s been working with Lady Bruton since April at least, probably earlier. Supporting John Slee’s campaign against the justiciary in order to weaken us. Causing trouble behind the scenes in the Council. I’ll bet he set up that business with Waterford in order to provoke Saint. I’m quite sure it was his idea to get the painter attacking policemen. He’s been striking at the whole justiciary to get at me.”

Esther nodded slowly. “Do you know, I’m not very happy about that.”

“No, nor am I.”

“Really very unhappy,” Esther added.

“Yes.”

“Shall we make some other people unhappy?”

“Oh, I think so.” Stephen thought he’d spoken calmly enough, but Esther’s mouth curled in an unpleasant smile, and he saw a look flash between Crane and Merrick, one that said,
Trouble
.

He rather liked the idea of being trouble. It was about time.

“Saint,” he said briskly. “How’s she doing, Dan?”

“Fine, Mr. D,” Saint called out. “Banged me arm a bit, that’s all.”

“It’s broken in two places,” Dan put in. “I’ll fix it up once I can put it into a proper splint so it mends straight.”

“Perhaps you should take her off to the surgery then, and we’ll meet you there later.” He looked round at the bodies. “Though I might need you, Mr. Merrick—”

“Yeah, no,” Saint said. “I’m going with Frank. And if you’re bollocking the Council, I’m coming. Ain’t missing that.”

“Don’t be insubordinate, Saint,” Esther said. “That said, I want Dan with me, Steph. I’d hate to be sick on John Slee without support.”

“Merrick and I intend to see this, so that’s a full house,” Crane said. He was stooping over the painter’s body, pulling a torn paper out from the man’s blood-soaked coat with distasteful care. “Do you want this?”

“What is it?” Stephen asked.

“I imagine it’s the picture they were using to control Pastern. Can you use it?”

“I already know what he looks like,” Stephen pointed out. “What would I do with a picture of him, frame it?”

“Oh, tut, Stephen.” Crane strolled over, holding the damp sketch out. “Of course it’s not of Pastern.”

Stephen took the paper. It was crumpled, slightly warm from being carried next to the painter’s body, a little uncomfortable to his fingers with the remnants of the power drawn into it, stained with blood. It showed a sturdy, serious young man, with a determined set to his jaw and a firm mouth. There were several long deliberate rips in the paper, running down almost to the image itself.

“Who’s this?”

“Pastern’s weak point,” Crane said. “The chap he was protecting. Doesn’t look like much to me, but there’s no accounting for taste.”

“Good Lord,” Stephen said. “I assumed… Well.”

“Hopefully you can find a way to use this fellow against the little shit. I owe him a nasty moment.”

“So do I. Later, though.” Stephen looked round, at Dan Gold stretching, Merrick helping Saint up with protective care, the bodies on the floor. “For now, we need to go to work.”

Chapter Thirteen

They commandeered a cab somehow. God knew what Mrs. Gold had done to make the cabman take them all, plus Fairley’s head and Lady Bruton’s body wrapped in a bit of old sacking, though Crane very much doubted the man knew quite what he was carrying.

They were a disreputable set. Stephen bruised and battered; Merrick’s shirt quite burned away, his jacket in tatters. Saint, in boy’s clothes, looked very like someone who’d lost a fight. Blood caked her fingertips where she had done good work with her nails on Lady Bruton’s face. She was rather pale with her arm in its makeshift and temporary sling, but had indignantly refused Gold’s repeated suggestion that she should retreat to the surgery. The probably future Mrs. Merrick did not wait at home.

Crane’s shirtfront was splattered with blood and ink. Other than that he had no idea what he looked like, but for the sake of vanity he hoped it was better than he felt. Every part of him still ached, with an immense wrongness, a disturbing sense of invasion. Considering how many people aspired to be the Magpie Lord, Crane thought, it was ironic that he would give a substantial proportion of his fortune to make sure that never happened again.

Esther Gold, though undamaged, looked as though the jolting motion of the cab was disagreeing with her. Only her husband seemed unmarked by the last hour. He was watching Crane with the expression of a man who was carefully not saying
I told you so
. Crane made a mental wager with himself how long he would keep that up. He doubted it would be long.

The hackney took them to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Council building, where Crane had left Stephen so often. This time, he was going inside.

Stephen plucked Fairley’s head off the floor with disturbing insouciance, and hopped out of the cab after Esther. Merrick handed Saint out of the door with courtly care, then grabbed Lady Bruton’s body and hauled it like a sack of flour. The rough shrouding was stained with ink. Dan Gold made a disgusted noise.

“Think of her as a patient you can’t kill,” Crane suggested.

“You are an appalling human being and a bad influence,” Gold said. “And I
told
you—”

They followed the others into the Council building, where a stir was already growing. Esther and Stephen marched forward, Gold hurrying to catch up with his wife. Crane, Saint and Merrick stayed back, watching, as practitioners flocked and the shouting began.

“Look at that, headless chickens,” Merrick remarked. “Not much use, this lot, are they?”

“Oi!” said Saint.

“Present company excepted.” They exchanged a grin.

“Wedding on, is it?” Crane enquired.

Saint sniffed. “Might be. Dunno.”

Crane gave a luxurious stretch. “Oh, Merrick, Merrick.
How
I shall enjoy this.”

A set of large doors swung open, and Esther and Stephen were finally ushered into a large room with long tables at one end, evidently the room in which business was conducted. Crane, Merrick and Saint followed, shoving their way through the crowd, Merrick dragging Lady Bruton’s body, which he dumped in front of the table. An increasing number of practitioners were clustering outside, pushing their way into the room, listening for all they were worth.

Crane established a place at the back with Dan Gold to one side, Saint and Merrick to the other. Stephen stood in front of the table of Councillors, flanked by Esther and a burly man Saint identified as the justiciar Macready. Stephen was stiff with anger, gesturing impressively with Fairley’s still-dripping head, and not letting anyone else get a word in, and Crane wondered how it was possible that he could desire anyone under those circumstances, let alone quite so much.

“Furthermore,” Stephen was saying, “Fairley was for months participant in a plot to murder that man over there—”

“What— Who the devil’s that? He’s not a practitioner!” a Councillor protested. “What are they doing here? Get those people out at once!”

Stephen looked round to Crane. “Would you mind introducing yourself?”

“Of course.” Crane peeled himself off the wall and walked forward, unhurried, eyeing the row of worried faces. “My name is Lucien Vaudrey, Lord Crane of Lychdale and Viscount Fortunegate.” That had been the Magpie Lord’s title. There was a little ripple of murmurs across the room, a few audible gasps. “We’ve met, Mrs. Baron Shaw, at the house of Mr. Eadweard Blaydon. I have the honour of giving away Blaydon’s bride at his forthcoming wedding.” More whispers; that was a well-known name. Mrs. Baron Shaw nodded without looking up, since her head was propped on her hands. “Today Mr. George Fairley, your colleague, a member of this Council, abducted me and attempted to murder me.” He planted his knuckles on the table in front of the man he’d identified as John Slee, and leaned forward. “Would you care to explain that?”

Slee spluttered hopelessly. Stephen said, “Thank you, Lord Crane,” and after a moment Crane straightened and strolled back to Merrick. He would have liked to vent his feelings, but this was Stephen’s show, and really, his diminutive lover was making a rather good fist of things.

“A member of the House of Lords! An earl of this land!” Stephen said with rising volume. “And a member of the Council attempted to murder him today, as part of a plot that was running for months, under your noses, in alliance with notorious warlocks, and
you
, Mr. Slee, did not even notice that Fairley was making you his dupe! So kindly don’t attempt to shout me down from a position of authority now, because to my eyes, this Council has very little authority left.” Stephen took a deep breath as a murmur of support rose from the watchers. “And
furthermore
—”

“I like the way he says ‘furthermore’,” Merrick observed quietly. “Cos you can tell he means ‘wankers’.”

Dan Gold choked. Crane said, “I like to think I’ve had an influence on him.”

“That you have,” Gold said. “Have you thought about what happens next, once he’s been summarily dismissed?”

“He won’t be.”

Gold gave him an incredulous look. “Are we in the same meeting?”

Stephen, who was now speaking with lethal clarity about Inspector Rickaby, chose that moment to slam Fairley’s head on the table, right in front of John Slee. The Councillor recoiled so violently his chair tipped backwards, and he had to flail to recover his balance.

“He won’t be sacked,” Crane said.

“Oh, you think they’ll kill him?”

“He’ll be promoted.”

“What?”

“Ten guineas on it.” Crane recalled that the Golds were not wealthy, and added, “Ten guineas to a shilling, it’ll be a promotion. They’ll want him running the justiciary, not leaving it.”

“You’re mad,” Gold said. “In fact, you’re on.” He paused. “Am I going to lose a shilling?”

“Well,
I
wouldn’t bet against my lord,” Merrick said, in a fatherly tone.

Stephen seemed to have run out of breath, so Esther took over the shouting, with impressive force and volume. Crane watched the Council and the crowd, tracking the expressions of shock, shame, fascination, anger; the movements that left John Slee isolated at the table. A little gaggle of supportive faces was gathering near Saint now, other people pushing forward, nodding, and he saw the Councillors notice them.

Stephen was going to keep his job. Crane was going to win his bet, and he wished, with all his heart, that he was going to lose.

In the end, they called it quits.

“Four months,” Crane said, collapsing on the sofa in the Strand, not caring what his filthy suit did to the upholstery. He extended an arm for Stephen to collapse on top of him. They had left Merrick and Saint with Dr. Gold for mending. “Four more months.”

“Or until we have six new justiciars in place, whichever comes first,” Stephen repeated. “I’ll leave the minute we have them. If we can dragoon people in from the provinces while we take on some more juniors, it could be no more than a month. I’m sure that the Council will pay up to make that happen. I didn’t make a lot of new friends there today.”

“I think you did,” Crane observed. “Slee didn’t seem to have many allies, and you drew his teeth for good. I imagine that pleased a few people. Nice work with the head, incidentally.”

“That was not me,” Stephen protested.

“Fairley’s head rolled face first into Slee’s lap by sheer chance?”

“I didn’t say it was chance, I just said it wasn’t me. No decent practitioner would use his skills to do such a disgraceful thing.”

“I’m terribly sorry. Who was it, then?”

“Mrs. Baron Shaw, of course.” Stephen flopped an arm over him. “Anyway, with six new justiciars and Macready leading the whole team until—or if—Esther’s ready to come back and take over, I can leave with a clear conscience.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Good Lord, Lucien. I’m going to stop being a justiciar. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this.”

“I am.” Crane took a deep breath. “Stephen, listen. If you’d rather go back, take the position they offered, withdraw your resignation…I want you to do it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I shouldn’t have asked. It was unfair. You do what’s right, you always have, you always will. I don’t want to see you do otherwise. If I made you choose—”

“You gave up Shanghai for me. I never asked you to. You just did it, for me.” Stephen twisted round, looking steadily into Crane’s eyes. “I told you I’d make my own decision on this, and I have. I’ve given the justiciary the best part of a decade. I don’t even think it’s a bad thing to leave now. I’ve too many enemies and too much history. They need new blood, and a fresh start. And a scapegoat for the Met, as well. I don’t suppose I’ll be popular there once the police know what happened to poor Rickaby. So it’s not bad for the justiciary, and it’s right for us, and as for me… I don’t know what I am if I’m not a justiciar, but I think I’d like to find out.”

“Whatever else you are, you’re mine.” Crane tightened his arm. “Be in no doubt of that.”

“Your kept man. It’s no good snorting like that, I’m as poor as a church mouse, and you know it.”

“I trust you don’t intend to fret about that. What’s yours is mine, and vice versa. You know it’s trivial.”

“I don’t know that,” Stephen said. “But…I’ll try to.”

“Talking of you and me…” Crane took his hand, feeling the electric tingle. “Do we need to discuss what happened?”

“The Magpie Lord happened,” Stephen said, in the tone that he used to close subjects down. “I feel strongly that it, or he, shouldn’t happen again, for both our sakes.”

“You and I—”

“You and I are together already. We don’t need your ancestor’s intervention.”

“It made you powerful,” Crane observed.

“No, it didn’t. It made me something that I’m not and you’re not. I don’t want your power, Lucien, and certainly not at that price. Although I did quite like being tall,” he added. “Don’t you get dizzy?”

Crane reached over and kissed his hair. “I adore you, you know.”

Stephen snuggled back into him with a satisfied sigh. “Dan’s getting the ring sealed in iron before it goes in your vault. We won’t see it again.”

“Good.” Crane stroked a thumb over Stephen’s hand. “I want to replace it.”

“With what?”

“Something a great deal less terrifying. I liked you wearing my ring, even if it was
his
. I thought you might wear one that was entirely mine.” Crane brought Stephen’s flaring fingers to his lips, their electric tingle strong to the edge of pain. “I rather wondered about a matching pair, actually. I haven’t bought any jewellery in some time.”

Stephen’s eyes were wide and gold. Crane smiled down. “Yes?”

“Yes, my lord,” Stephen whispered. “Always, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Crane said, and pulled him over for a long, deep kiss. Stephen clung to him, breathing hard, trembling, and Crane kissed him with all the force at his disposal, inhaling his scent and feel, crushing the slight body close till Stephen indicated protest.

“Lucien, I love you, and I would like nothing more than to hold you for hours and then ride you till we’re both exhausted, but you stink of blood and I can’t stand it any more.”

“God, you’re fussy,” Crane muttered. He hauled them both up, feeling the ache in his bones, and they went through to the bathroom. Stephen began to strip off his stained clothes, but Crane hesitated.

“What is it?” Stephen asked, and then, “Oh.”

“They didn’t come back.”

“No.”

“There was ink all over Lady Bruton and it stayed there. Do you think—”

“I don’t know. You could find out by looking.”

“Oh, fuck.” Crane undid his shirt rapidly, because he didn’t want to undo it at all. He pulled it off, then cursed, staring at himself in the mirror. “Shit.
Shit
.”

No magpies. The tattoos that had adorned his body for so long were gone as though they had never been. He pushed down his trousers, saw his thigh and hip bare of ink. “Fuck. I’ve lost them all.”

“No, you haven’t. The one on your back’s still there, the big one.” Stephen peered around him. “But only that.”

“Christ.” Crane stared at himself, feeling ludicrously bereft. “My tattoos. That’s years of my life, my memories, just gone from me. Vanished.”

“Yes,” Stephen said. “I know.”

Crane pulled him close, breathing out hard. He could feel the future spinning out before both of them without certainty, an endless choice of paths now.

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” he said. “A new start. Quite literally a clean slate. Except I’ll have to get another one done, damn it. I did think I’d done with needles.”

“Uh, why?”

“One for sorrow? I’m damned if I’m wandering around with that on me.”

“But it’s not one for sorrow.” Stephen turned slightly, showing Crane the single bird that still perched on his own shoulder blade. “Between us, it’s two.”

Crane reached out and ran a finger down the magpie on Stephen’s skin. It shuffled its feathers and pecked at him as Stephen shivered. “Yes. Yes, it is, isn’t it? I suppose that’ll do.”

Himself and Stephen. Merrick and Jenny Saint, however that would play out. A few more months in England, and then freedom to go wherever the wind took them, to show Stephen the life he had been missing and find out what happened next.