A Shadow Bright and Burning (14 page)

The creature's roar reverberated through my bones as I lifted my arms to welcome him. I was shaking.
Come for me, you bastard,
I thought.
If you enjoyed the taste of that little girl, just see what I'll do for you.

“Come on,” I said through my teeth. The tentacle appeared above me, poised to strike.

“Howel!” Magnus shouted.

Every inch of my body, from the roots of my hair to the bottoms of my feet, hummed with energy. I let the power have its way.

The world exploded in flame, the heat glowing blue and then scarlet. I looked up and up as my column of fire rose twenty, thirty, forty feet. A shattering, beastly cry erupted in the air above. I smelled sulfur. Something struck me hard and sent my body rolling along the ground. A million stars exploded in my vision. I felt horribly cold and fell into blackness.

I
WOKE IN BED, A DAMP
cloth on my cheek. Fenswick stood beside my pillow, his mouth pursed in a sour expression as he twitched his ears.

“So you're awake at last.” He didn't sound pleased.

When I sat up, the room swirled before me. I sank back down onto the pillow. A candle burned on a table beside my bed, and I focused on the orange flame. I was alive, somehow. Was I whole? My arms and legs worked, and I studied my hands, forearms, chest, but found no scars.

“You're not marked,” Fenswick said as he pulled on a silk bell cord. “He struck you with the wrong side of his tentacle. Or the right side, from your perspective.”

“How did I get here?”

“Magnus carried you back through the ward.” My face warmed a bit.

“What happened to Korozoth?” The door opened, and Agrippa entered, followed by all the Incumbents. Magnus and Cellini perched at the foot of my bed; Dee, Wolff, and Lambe remained nearer the door. Blackwood stood with his back to the wall, apart from all of us. As usual.

Fenswick took my face in his paw and snapped his fingers before my eyes.

“She's fine. I've no earthly idea how,” the little creature grumbled.

Agrippa clasped the bedpost and came to my side. “You have violated every directive the Order could ever give!” He grabbed my hand and kissed it. “And you are everything I hoped you'd be.” His eyes shone with tears. “Everything.”

“What happened to Korozoth?”

“He retreated.” Magnus knelt beside Agrippa. “You sent him packing. Should've heard the old boy roar and scream. He disappeared in the air, vanished like the shadow and bloody fog he is. He's never run like that before.”

The boys came closer, all except Blackwood. He didn't even smile. He was probably just angry because I'd disobeyed him and gone through the ward for…

“Rook.” My throat was dry. Wolff poured water from my china pitcher and handed me a glass. “Is Rook all right?”

“He never left,” Magnus said. “They found him outside, in one of the horses' stalls. He'd tied himself to a post.”

“What?”

“He said he'd felt the urge to run to the damn beast, so he went down to the stables. Said he knew we'd keep you safe, but he didn't want to go and get himself killed and have you worry. We found him a few hours ago. Looked as if he'd had a rough night, poor devil. He was soaked in sweat.”

Rook had been secure the entire time. I collapsed onto the pillow again and closed my eyes. The relief was sweet. But then, with a pang, I remembered Charley.

“If Korozoth comes back…”

“You will not fight him again until you're commended,” Agrippa said sternly. “You were brilliant, but you were also lucky. The Order was only just able to forgive what happened. That goes for the rest of you,” he said, specifically to Magnus. “From now on, you do as you're told or face being excommunicated.” The boys grumbled their agreement.

Magnus pointed his stave toward the ceiling. “To Henrietta Howel!” The boys cheered, all except Blackwood. Fenswick spooned some powder into my glass of water. Drinking it down, I discovered I couldn't keep my eyes open. Everyone's faces blurred. Sighing, I relaxed into my pillow and watched the candle flame burning beside me. It grew smaller and flickered feebly. In my drugged state, I imagined that the darkness itself cupped a hand around the light. I giggled at the absurdity of that idea and slept.

R
OOK BRUSHED A STRAND OF HAIR
from my face. “Nettie?” he whispered. He was robed in blackness. It hung from his shoulders and moved along his skin like folds of drapery.

“You were safe,” I sighed, reaching up to touch him. He grabbed my fingers, kissed them. The ease with which he did it thrilled me.

“Better than that. I'm free now. Can you see it?”

The shadows buoyed me up, and I floated on a dark, depthless sea. Rook hung suspended above me, his solid black eyes gleaming. We were two small objects spinning in a void. Exhausted, I fell back onto my bed.

“Rest now,” Rook whispered. “But come to me tomorrow. You will come, won't you?”

“Of course,” I said, rolling over and gazing at the last dying spark of the candle. The rich, velvet darkness extinguished it, and the dream vanished with the light.

H
ARGROVE SAT ON THE EDGE OF
my vanity table, still wearing that ridiculous red-and-purple-and-orange coat. “So,” he said. “You're a little fireball. I should have known.” He took a bite out of the crisp red apple he held in his hand. “You really should come and see me. It's about to get much harder for you.” He picked up a glass bottle of scent, sprayed some, and made a face.

“Go away and let me sleep,” I grumbled, sitting up in bed. My room filled with that dream mist again. Everything appeared cloudy, except the magician. He slid down and stood by my bedpost, eating the apple to the core.

“Stupid thing, you can't even imagine what you're in for. Come to me tomorrow, and I'll help you. It'll be your reward for trying to save little Charley.” His smug expression vanished. He sighed. “Yes. It was my own fault. I never remember to count heads.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You must come. The information I have is delicate. You'll want it.”

“Go away and let me sleep, Jenkins Hargrove,” I grumbled, fluffing my pillow.

“All right. Here.” He threw the apple core at me, and I leaned up to catch it.

A
N INSTANT LATER,
I
WOKE.
T
HE
room was empty, both of mist and of magicians. I sat up with a groan.

I didn't scream when I discovered the apple core in my hand. But I certainly wanted to.

I shouldn't be here,
I thought as I returned to Jenkins Hargrove's home the next day. Part of me wanted to turn around, to ignore the magician's
visitation
the night before. But this was twice now he had come to me in a dream, twice he had spoken to me. And that trick with the apple—how had he done it?

He'd said he had delicate information. Fine. I would listen, and then I would tell him never to come to me again.

I'd been given the morning off to rest, and it had taken a great deal of work to be allowed outside to walk about the neighborhood, to take in the air. They would miss me before too long. I knew I must hurry.

Rounding the corner, I looked about for the poor Unclean man. I'd brought a coin and a piece of bread to give to him, but he was no longer at the wall. Perhaps he'd moved on. Perhaps something had happened. What a horrible thought. I prayed someone had taken pity on him.

Steeling myself, I swept up the wooden stairs and knocked at the magician's door. A chorus of small voices told me to enter. As before, Hargrove burst through the curtains, bent over in his old-man act.

“Come in, dear lady, and 'ave a look upon your future. We are but 'umble— Oh, it's you.” He popped and cracked his bones back into place. “You might inform me when you're planning on a visit. It takes me a minute to get my spine all out of order for that entrance.” He sat at the table, fluffing his coat.

I spotted Charley's little brother and sister, their faces swollen from crying. “I'd like to speak to you privately.”

“Shall I send the children to the parlor or the library?” he drawled, looking about the cramped single room. Noting my lack of amusement, he clapped his hands and said, “Take what totems you've finished and go out onto the street. Go, hawk the wares.” They gathered their pieces and trundled outside. Once they'd gone, Hargrove beckoned me to join him. “How may I serve you? A tarot read? A fortune told? Would you like me to fix your overlarge front teeth?”

He said nothing about the apple. I thought of three different ways to start the conversation. None of them came out of my mouth.

“Well?” Hargrove said.

“I…I'm here to see if there's anything I can do for the children,” I said lamely. My lie was part cowardice, part hope. Perhaps there was a logical explanation for the apple. Perhaps my vision of him really
had
been a dream, like my dream of Rook. Nightmares brought on by too much stress.

He leaned back in his chair. “More charity?”

“Yes.” I fiddled with the strings of my reticule.

“You're the sorcerers' long-awaited prophesied one, aren't you? I should think vanquishing the Ancients will be a great help to my children.”

I started. “How did you know?”

“Please don't insult my intelligence,” he snapped. “I'm aware of the sorcerers' absurd antics. Why they should get a nice, juicy prophecy is simply beyond me. Sorcerers are stunted, timid children without the stomach to go beyond the boundaries of the possible.” He laid his hand on the table, then took it away, revealing the card of the woman holding a wand, her hair flying behind her in a great breeze. The card read,
The Queen of Wands.
“You want to help my children? Let me tell your fortune. Tuppence a pop.”

“All right.” I sat down heavily in relief. He wasn't going to talk about the dream.

He snapped his fingers and produced two more cards out of thin air. The first one showed a happy boy with one foot hanging off a cliff, a little dog at his heels.

“The Fool, my dear, signifies the beginning of an adventure or journey of some kind. The Fool is you.” He smiled at this veiled insult. “After that, we have the Queen of Wands. You might think this obvious, you being a lady sorcerer and all. But really, the Queen signifies reaching a new stage in your development, able to understand your past and look to your future.”

“That's nice.” My voice sounded dull.

“Yes, roses and hugs and puppies. But look,” he said, and threw down the third card to reveal that grim, capering skeleton dancing down the road, its skull mouth open in a great cackle. “Death. Don't misunderstand,” he said when I flinched. “The Death card means a great change approaches. Your life will forever alter.” He pulled at his graying beard and winked one dark eye. “Her Majesty will commend you, and you'll be the most revered and beautiful sorcerer ever to have all her dreams come true, huzzah, hurrah, biscuits and cocoa.” He produced another card from his great purple sleeves and placed it atop the other three. The card showed a boy and a girl locked in an embrace. “Ah, the Lovers. An inner struggle between two things. And now, one more.” Down came the picture of the little man in the pointed hat making a toy soldier dance. “The Magician. It can signify taking control of your life. Or, in this case, it can be quite astoundingly literal.” The cards vanished into the folds of his sleeves.

“Is that it?” I asked, wary.

He shrugged. “Those are the cards that spoke to me. Is there something else you wanted?”

I couldn't do it. Perhaps it was cowardly, but if he wasn't going to bring it up, then I wasn't going to tempt fate. I'd write the whole dream off as a peculiar occurrence and leave it at that.

“Thank you for my fortune,” I said, opening my reticule and placing the pennies on the tabletop.

“Your hands are trembling,” he observed.

“Last night was quite an ordeal,” I muttered.

Hargrove flipped the pennies into the air, and they disappeared. “Yes. Korozoth makes for a rather destructive guest. But they're saying you sent him away, with those unique fire abilities.” He pulled at his beard. “Such a talent. Where did you come by it? I wonder.”

“Goodbye,” I said, turning for the door.

I was almost out when he said, “Thank you for your interest in the lives of little people, Miss Henrietta Howel.”

Part of me screamed to leave, but it was too late for that. I released the doorknob. Slowly, I turned back to him. “How did you know my name?”

“Oh, Lord Blackwood said it when you were last here, didn't he?” he asked in mock innocence.

“No. He never used it.” That sick, knotted feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. There was no avoiding it. “And I didn't tell it to you in my room last night. In the fog.”

Hargrove hummed. “I wondered when we'd come to that topic of conversation.”

The room seemed to spin about me. “How were you able to do it? How could I have caught that apple core while in a dream?”

“My dear, you may not like the answers to those questions.”

“I knew you recognized me the first time I met you on the street. You tried to hide it, but I saw.” I came toward him, my heart hammering.

“Oh, my little blossom, we're at the start of such a slippery journey.” He picked up the foul-smelling gin and took a swig. “I didn't want to do this,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, “but I owe him that much.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Yes, I recognized you, but not from a previous encounter. No, it was
who
you looked like—that was the killer.” He took another swig, wincing as it burned on the way down.

“Who do I look like?”

“Your father, obviously.”

I sat down heavily in a chair. How on earth could this dirty London magician have known my father? “That's a lie.”

“William Howel. A Welsh solicitor living in Devon with his lovely young wife, Helena, née Murray, and his widowed sister—let me think, what was her name? Anne, Amelia, Agnes. Yes, Agnes. He looked just like you, dark complexion, dark eyes and hair. Drowned. What was the story, in a boating accident? Almost seventeen years ago. What a tragedy.” He looked at me with cold, laughing eyes. “Have I hit the mark?”

My hands felt numb. “How could you have known him?”

“Your father was a magician, Henrietta Howel. As are you.”

I was on my feet before I could think. Gripping the edge of the table for balance, I said, “He couldn't have been. He practiced the law, not magic.”

“The magical arts don't pay much, as you see,” he said, gesturing to his squalid living conditions, “but they're a fine place for a talented dabbler. Your father was exactly that; your aunt Agnes as well. You're shocked. Didn't know women could be magicians? It's rare, but the potential is there. It all boils down to blood. And you should never try boiling blood, incidentally, for it's a disgusting mess.” He offered me the bottle of gin. I refused, though I craved a drink. “It's even rarer that a girl from a sorcerer family inherits her father's ability. You've no sorcerer parent, so how would you explain your newfound status? A prophecy?” He blew a loud, wet, and rude noise. “You're a magician living a most magnificent lie. Which is why,” he said, leaning in closer, “I feel a stupid urge to help you.”

I was a magician. A low, dirty, common magician. Not a sorcerer. Not the prophecy. The thoughts appeared and disappeared in my mind like ripples of water. I couldn't hold on to them.

“How did you know my father?” I could hear my voice rising.

“We met when he came to London to see about joining our Guild. Magicians are disorganized creatures, but for a time we did discuss having another go at a Guild, much like the sorcerers' Order. Never worked, though. Most people didn't remember to show up for meetings. Or they'd turned themselves into a teacup and couldn't make it. That was when the illustrious magician Howard Mickelmas presided.” He sloshed the gin bottle back and forth, lost in thought. “I must say, it was nice meeting you upon the astral plane. I haven't conversed with a fellow magician in that way since before the ban on apprenticeships.”

My head swam. “Astral plane?”

“Another magician trick. Our souls may leave our bodies and wander the spirit dimension. Sorcerers can't do that. That's how I got into your room and gave you that delicious apple. Anyway, we're getting off topic. Suffice it to say I knew your father, and after his death, Agnes told me that Helena had given birth to a daughter and that the poor widow had died from complications in the delivery. We fell out of contact after that, and I thought no more of it. Until all this happened.” He leaned over the table. “Which is why I'm trying to help you. You're in a dangerous position.”

“Yes, because of the Ancients,” I croaked.

“No, because of monsters closer and more cunning than old R'hlem could ever be. If they discover that you're really a magician…”

“Don't threaten me,” I snapped.

“Threaten? Why should you feel threatened? After all, no one's ever tortured you. No one's forced you into giving the locations and names of other magicians, so they can be added to the sorcerers' files on magic-born.” He rolled up his long sleeves and extended his dark, wiry arms toward me. White and gray scars lined his skin, along with old, cauterized wounds that looked suspiciously like burn marks. My hand flew to my mouth. “No one's told you, have they, that magicians are demented versions of sorcerers? Or even worse, that we're the descendants of the devil himself? But I'm certain you'll never face that. After all,
you
can perform their magic.”

Blackwood had said that magicians were evil, his face twisted in disgust. Agrippa had spoken freely about how horrid they were. Magicians were obscene, deceitful, dirty….

“I can't be one of you! I'm a sorcerer!” I knocked the chair over as I backed away. My legs were so weak I almost stumbled. “This is a trick. You're trying to get money, like you did on the street. Liar!”

“I can hear your terror,” Hargrove said, sneering as he rose. Perhaps I'd wounded his pride. “You're right to be afraid. Do you know what they'll do when they find out you're a magician?” His voice turned cold. “They'll toss you out of that nice house and onto the street. They'll drag you before the queen and have you put your name down as a potential threat. And if you so much as breathe in a manner they don't like, they'll cut all your pretty hair from your pretty head and bind you in chains. And they'll take you out on a cold gray morning and sweep a shining ax through the air and straight into your pretty little—”