(A Charm of Magpies 1)The Magpie Lord (3 page)

He moved awkwardly forward, without rising. He was, Crane saw, pushing the thing along the floor, but pushing apparently without touching it, his fingers still clawed above it.

It came closer, and the hairs were standing on Crane’s arms. The air was feeling greasy and dry and dirty and foul, like a filthy old sheepskin. He tried to recoil, and was held down hard.

“Don’t move, now,” muttered Merrick.

Day had the thing in front of Crane’s face.

It was gnarled wood, carved in a roughly humanoid shape, riddled with holes. It seemed to be pulsing slightly. It looked as though it would feel oily. It was on some indefinable level utterly obscene, and Crane was overwhelming, painfully frightened of it. He pulled his head back.

“Steady,” whispered Merrick. “Come on, Vaudrey, you’ve done worse.”

But he hadn’t, nothing worse than this, because as Day moved his hand away, the malevolence of the thing poured out in a flood of foul cancerous air that flooded into Crane’s nose and mouth and eyes. He knew he was screaming and thrashing, he could feel Merrick’s grip putting pressure on his elbows and knees, but he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand another second. The malignancy was all-consuming, shrivelling his soul to a single point of unbearable pain, and he was fighting Merrick hard, and Day was simply sitting there, probing the device with the twisted needle. Crane cursed him, the fucking vicious ginger dwarf, what the hell had he ever done to him, and Merrick, whose fucking fault this was, and himself, in the foulest language at his command, crying, begging, until Day spoke, in a voice that he could hardly hear through the filthy miasma around him.

“This will hurt.”

The agony came like a knife, pulsed through Crane’s chest and back and arms and upper thighs like screaming burning fire…

And then it didn’t.

Stephen sat back on his heels and wiped his forehead as Lord Crane slumped forward, boneless. The manservant Merrick straddled his back, white and sweating, blood drooling from his nose where Crane had landed a blow earlier. He glared down at his master and over at Stephen with a murderous look.

Stephen dropped the gnarled piece of wood to the ground and took a very deep breath.

“You can get off him. It’s done.”

“My lord?” said Merrick, releasing Crane’s arms. “My lord?”

There was a sort of muffled sobbing from where Crane’s face rested in the carpet. His body was shaking.

Merrick clambered off his back and peered down. “My lord? You all right?” He looked up at Stephen, eyes full of lethal promise. “What did you do to him?”

Crane made a grunting noise, lifted his head, pushed himself up onto his knees. There were tears in his eyes, and a huge grin on his face.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Oh my God, it’s gone. It’s gone. Oh God, Merrick.” He lunged forward and grabbed the startled manservant, hugging him hard. “You bloody genius, getting a shaman. Pulled my arse out of the fire, again. I love you. And you,” he said to Stephen. “You’re a god-damned magician. Well, exactly, that’s what you
are
, a magician! Oh my God, a shaman, and it worked. It’s
amazing
. Do you know, I never noticed what a beautiful room this is. Just look at that carpet! You need to see it close up to appreciate it, of course. Lie on it, that’s the dandy.”

“What’s wrong with him?” demanded Merrick.

Stephen rose. He felt drained. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just euphoria. He’s been fighting that thing very hard for a long time, and he’s gone the other way. He’ll calm down.”

Crane bounced to his feet, grabbed Stephen’s hand, gave a startled jolt, and shook it vigorously. “You’re
wonderful
. And your hands are wonderful. Merrick, you should try this, they’re like…lots of little bubbles. Champagne! Hands like champagne! Do you know, Day, there’s a house in Shanghai where they import champagne and what they do, they pour it over your—”

“The shaman does
not
want to hear about that,” Merrick put in hastily. “Sir—”

“Fresh air,” Stephen said firmly. “Is there a garden?”

They wrestled Crane’s coat on and walked him down the back stairs, to avoid notice, and round to the private garden of the mansion block. It was a stunning April night, still warm, with a large yellow moon hanging over the London sky. There were a few shadowy figures moving around, fellow residents taking the air. Completely oblivious to them, Crane leapt onto a bench and began to declaim in what sounded to Stephen like Chinese.

“What’s that?” he asked the manservant.

“Poem about the moon. He doesn’t do poems till the third bottle, mostly. How long’s this going to last, sir?”

“Not long,” Stephen assured him. “It’ll do him no harm. In fact, I imagine he’s having a marvellous time. Is that still about the moon?” he added. He didn’t understand a word, but Crane’s tone transcended language.

“Not that bit, sir, no. Gawd, I hope nobody round here speaks Shanghainese. Oi, you, my lord, get down from there.”

“Look at the lovely flowers, Lord Crane,” Stephen suggested. Merrick gave him an incredulous look, but Crane leapt down from the bench and began to investigate the flowerbeds with enthusiasm. Magician and manservant fell into step behind him.

“I thought we were in trouble there,” said Merrick. “You saved his life, sir.”

“Probably.” Stephen sounded no more enthusiastic than he felt. He jammed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “Mr. Merrick…in what capacity do you serve Lord Crane? What do you actually do?”

“Manservant,” said Merrick.

“Everything!” Crane span round, arms wide. “Factotum, man of all work, business partner, bodyguard. My second self. He speaks with my voice. Or do I speak with his voice? Which way round is it?”

“You speak a lot of rubbish,” said Merrick. “Go on, look at the pretty flowers. Something to say, sir?”

Stephen rubbed his chin. “The Judas jack didn’t happen by accident. Someone made that thing to kill. It’s a murder weapon.”

Merrick gave him a long, level look. “A shaman murderer. After his lordship.”

“Yes.”

“Going to have to do something about that, then.”

“Yes. I need to think. And to talk to him when he’s not so…exhilarated.”

Crane looked round to see the two men staring at him. He flashed Merrick a gleeful grin. “Are you talking to the shaman? Has he cheered up yet? If I had hands like that, I’d be cheerful
all the time
.”

“I bet you bloody would,” Merrick told him. “Shut up.”

“You should smile more,” Crane added to Stephen. “You’d be quite pretty if you weren’t so miserable.”

Merrick made a stifled noise and started talking in rapid Chinese.

Stephen propped his back against a tree trunk and flexed his hands, stretching the tendons, watching master and man. Crane, tall and lean, was standing on one leg, face alight with glee, pale blond hair shining silver in the moonlight. Merrick, shorter, grizzled and bright-eyed, was shaking his head but grinning.

Euphoria was like drunkenness in some ways.
In vino veritas
. Stephen had no idea what Crane was saying, but it didn’t map onto how he imagined Hector Vaudrey in the grip of euphoria, if the man had been capable of it at all.

Stephen closed his eyes and cursed internally. It would be a great deal easier to walk away if Lucien Vaudrey was cast in the same mould as his brother Hector, and he wanted to walk away, very badly.

He needed to clear his mind. He listened to the Chinese syllables for a few moments more as he calmed his breathing, the distorted vowels sliding up and down the tonal scale in a deeply alien way. Then he stretched out his hands and let his fingers do the hearing.

The etheric flow rushed past, tingling through his nerve endings. Crane’s effervescent, unnatural hilarity bubbled through the ether, whisking away the remnants of the jack’s stain. Merrick was a solid presence, earth to Crane’s air, blocking the flow. The tide was coming in up the Thames, not far away, and he sensed salt water rippling, the surge of boats, wet wood and sailcloth, the quiet throb of the garden around him, but mostly he could feel Crane, sharp and silver, standing out from the surrounding world like a knife in a drawer full of wooden spoons.

Champagne hands
, he thought, as he fell into the ether.

“Mr. Day?”

Stephen blinked himself out of his reverie and glanced at the moon. He wasn’t sure how long he had been there, pulling strength from the etheric flow that ran through him, but he felt rather better. There was a distinct chill in the night air, and Crane was looking at him, slightly puzzled, and definitely sober.

“Yes,” he said. “I beg your pardon, I was thinking. How are you feeling, Lord Crane?”

“Normal. Not consumed by misery. Not going mad. My arms hurt like blazes, and I’m embarrassed to recall that I said a variety of offensive things to you, but otherwise I’ve never felt better. I’ve spent the last two months under a shadow, and I’m only realising how dark it was now it’s lifted. I owe you a very great deal, Mr. Day. I understand your repugnance at my family name, but…”

He held out his hand. Stephen hesitated, but forced himself to take it. He watched Crane’s face as bare skin touched and saw no repulsion there, just startled interest.

“That’s still remarkable, even when I’m in my right mind. What
is
it?”

“Hard to explain.” Stephen had no intention of explaining. “I work with my hands.”

“It’s…magic?”

“Could we go inside? If you’re not too tired, there are some things I think we need to discuss.”

Chapter Four

The Judas jack was lying on the floor where Stephen had dropped it. It looked like a piece of gnarled old wood, nothing more. Crane prodded it with the toe of his shoe.

“Don’t touch it,” Stephen told him. “I’ll get rid of it.”

“Thank you,” said Crane. “You know, I feel in need of a drink. I don’t suppose that would be acceptable?”

“Ah… Yes. Thank you.”

Crane hesitated. “I’ve no idea what we have other than wine, whisky, brandy and port. Water?”

“Wine, thank you.”

“You drink wine? Really?”

“Yes…why not?”

“Shamans don’t,” said Crane. “Yu Len would storm out of the room leaving curses in his wake if I defiled his spiritual purity with this particularly good Burgundy.”

“I’m not a shaman.” Stephen tasted the wine he was handed. “Fortunately.” He didn’t often drink good wine, but he had no trouble detecting the quality here.

“What are you, exactly?” Crane enquired.

“A practitioner.”

“Practitioner. What does that mean?”

“It describes what I do, in a way that’s meaningful to other people who do similar things,” said Stephen. “There are other words with which you’re doubtless more familiar.”

“So I, as a layman, might call you a witch or a warlock?” suggested Crane, and immediately held his hands up in apology before Stephen could utter his angry response. “I beg your pardon if that was offensive, I really didn’t mean to insult you.”

Stephen took a calming breath. “A warlock is something else. I’m not a warlock.”

“Noted.” Crane sipped his wine. “Mr. Day, while you were, ah, thinking, Merrick told me what you said.”

“Oh,” said Stephen. “Yes.”

“Is someone trying to kill me? By means of…practice?”

“Craft, actually, which is a slightly different thing. But yes. Someone set out to commit murder, and may try again.”

“That’s not a very inviting prospect.”

“I don’t suppose it is.” Stephen produced a crumpled black and white feather from his pocket. “Tell me the significance of this.”

“Where did that come from?”

“Out of the jack. Judas jacks work by a method called sympathy. Normally a jack might contain a lock of hair, nail clippings…”

“I think I know the principle,” Crane said, somewhat to Stephen’s surprise.

“Really? Well, yours had a magpie feather.”

Crane shrugged. “It’s the family badge. There are magpies carved all over the house, magpies in the family portraits, that sort of thing. My father’s—my—signet ring. The grounds of Piper are infested with the things. Come to that,
piper
is a country word for magpie. It’s very much a family symbol.”

Stephen had been afraid he’d say that. “No intense personal significance to you?”

“Nothing I can think of. Apart from the tattoos, I suppose.”

“You have tattoos?” Stephen had little direct experience of the nobility, but he was fairly sure they weren’t meant to be inked like common sailors. Then again, they weren’t supposed to swear like common sailors either. Lord Crane was definitely not meeting his expectations of aristocracy, or of the Vaudreys, come to that.

“I do.” Crane’s tone was unapologetic.

“Of magpies? May I see?”

Crane paused for a second. Then, moving deliberately, he undid his cufflinks and tossed them onto a side table, so that the gold clinked. He unbuttoned his shirt unhurriedly and shrugged it off in one fluent movement.