Fearless (12 page)

The buildings stood behind the same wrought-iron fence that had surrounded them for centuries, like the remnants of an enchanted city. The gate was closed at sunset. Fox listened into the night before she swung herself over. The guards patrolling the grounds had been performing this duty so long, they should have been granted honourable retirement years before. All they were guarding, anyway, was a myriad of old books and the scent of the past, which mingled reluctantly with the perfume of progress.

Towers and gables of pale grey stone. Dark windows reflecting the light of the two moons. Jacob loved Pendragon’s labyrinth of learning. He’d spent endless hours in the Great Library, listening to lectures about Leprechauns or the dialects of Lothian Witches in the old auditoriums; practised a few new (and surprisingly dirty) feints in the fencing hall; and realised time and time again how much more eagerly he wanted to understand this world than the one he’d been born into. All the years he’d spent finding lost magical treasures made him feel like the guardian of a past the people of this world no longer valued.

Most windows in the history department were dark, like those of the other buildings. Only one, on the second floor, was still illuminated. Robert Lewis Dunbar loved working late into the night.

He didn’t even lift his head when Jacob walked into his office. Dunbar’s desk was so littered with books that it was difficult to spot him behind them all, and Jacob wondered what century he’d lost himself in this time.

Being a talented historian as well as the son of a purebred Fir Darrig was not easy. It meant he’d had to be more brilliant than any human colleague, but that had never been a problem for Dunbar, in spite of the rat’s tail and the very hairy skin his father had passed on to him. Dunbar had not inherited the pointy snout, luckily – his mother’s beauty had given him a halfway-decent face. Most Fir Darrigs came from Eire, Albion’s belligerent neighbour island. They were able to make themselves invisible, and they had – although few people knew this about them – photographic memories.

‘Jacob!’ Dunbar still hadn’t lifted his head. He turned the page he’d been reading and scratched his hairy cheek. ‘’Tis one of the mysteries of this universe why the regents of our university employ night guards who are as blind as they are deaf. Luckily, your pirate’s gait is unmistakable. And I of course did not hear you, Fox!’ He looked up and gave her a smile. ‘By Pendragon’s sword, the vixen is all grown up! And you still endure his company?’ He closed the book and gave Jacob a taunting look. ‘What are we looking for this time? A Habitrot shirt? A gryphon hoof? You should consider a change of career. Light bulbs, batteries, aspirin – those are the words that bring magic to these times.’

Jacob approached the desk and scanned the books Dunbar disappeared into every night, like a paper landscape. ‘
The History of Mauretania
. . .
Flying Carpets
. . .
The Realm of the Magic Lamp
. Are you going on a trip?’

‘Maybe.’ Dunbar caught a fly and popped it into his mouth. A Fir Darrig could never resist a passing insect. ‘What’s a historian to do in a country that only believes in the future? What good will come of it if we allow our lives to be run by cogwheels and pistons?’

Jacob opened one of the books and looked at the illustration of a flying carpet carrying two horses and their riders. ‘Believe me, this is just the beginning.’

Dunbar gave Fox a wink. ‘He so loves playing prophet, doesn’t he? But whenever I ask him exactly what he sees in the future, he evades the question.’

‘One day I may tell you.’ There was nobody whom Jacob would have more liked to tell about the other world than Dunbar. Whenever he saw his friend, Jacob pictured his myopic eyes going wide at the sight of a skyscraper or a jet plane. Although Dunbar was critical of progress in this world, Jacob didn’t know anyone who had as much knowledge and wisdom and still possessed the insatiable curiosity of a child.

‘You still haven’t answered me.’ Dunbar took a pile of books and carried them to the dark bookshelves that lined every wall of his study with printed knowledge. ‘What are you looking for?’

Jacob put the book on flying carpets back on the desk. He wished he were on the hunt for some harmless magical object like that.

‘I am looking for the head of Guismond the Witch Slayer.’

Dunbar stopped so abruptly that one of the books slipped from his arms. He bent down and picked it up.

‘You’d have to find his tomb first.’ His voice sounded unusually cold.

‘I found it. Guismond’s corpse is missing its head, its heart, and its right hand. I believe he had his head sent to Albion. To his elder son.’

Dunbar pushed the books into the shelf, one after another, without saying a word. Then he turned around and leant back against their leather spines. Jacob had never seen such hostility in Dunbar’s face. He was wearing his usual long coat, which hid his rat’s tail. Only its bright red colour gave away the Fir Darrig. They never wore any other colour.

‘This is about the crossbow, isn’t it? I know I’m in your debt, but I will not help you with this.’

A few years back, Jacob had rescued Dunbar from a bunch of drunken soldiers who’d thought it amusing to set his fur on fire. ‘I’m not here to call in a debt. But I have to find the crossbow.’

‘For whom?’ Dunbar’s fur stood on end, like that of an angry dog. ‘Farmers are still ploughing up bones from the old battlefields. Have you traded your conscience for a sack of gold? Do you, at least every now and then, think about what you’re doing? You treasure hunters turn the magic of this world into a commodity only the powerful can afford.’

‘Jacob is not going to sell the crossbow!’

Dunbar ignored Fox’s protest. He returned to his desk and leafed absent-mindedly through his notes. ‘I know nothing about the head,’ he said without looking at Jacob. ‘And I don’t want to know anything. I’m sure you’ll ask others, but I am hopeful nobody can give you the answer you’re looking for. Luckily, this country has lost its interest in black magic. There’s at least that to be said for progress. And now you must excuse me. I have to give a lecture tomorrow on Albion’s role in the slave trade. Another sad Chapter.’

He sat down behind his desk and opened one of the books in front of him.

Fox shot Jacob a helpless look.

He took her arm and pulled her towards the door.

‘Forgive me,’ he said to Dunbar. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’

Dunbar didn’t look up from his book. ‘Some things are best never found, Jacob,’ he said. ‘You’re not the only one who likes to forget that.’

Fox wanted to say something, but Jacob pushed her through the door.

‘I forget less often than you think, Dunbar,’ he said before pulling the door shut behind him.

What now?

He looked down the dark corridor.

Fox’s face held the same question. And the same fear.

A swaying lantern appeared at the end of the corridor. The night watchman carrying it was nearly as old as the building. Jacob ignored his puzzled look and simply walked past him without a word.

It was a clear night, and the two moons speckled the roofs with rust and silver. Fox spoke only once they’d reached the iron gate.

‘You always have a second plan. What is it?’

Yes, she knew him well.

‘I’ll get some blood shards.’ He started to swing himself over the gate, but Fox grabbed his arm and pulled him back. ‘No.’

‘No what?’ He didn’t mean to sound that irritated. But he was dog-tired, and he was thoroughly sick of running away from death.
You’re forgetting something, Jacob. Fear. You’re scared.

‘I have to find the head, and I have no idea where to look, not to mention the heart and the hand. The only man I thought could help me thinks I’m a ruthless thug now, and the way things stand, I myself will be lying in a coffin in less than two months.’

‘What?’ Fox’s voice broke, as though the truth lodged in her throat like a splinter.

Damn it, Jacob!

She shoved him into the iron gate. ‘You said you didn’t know!’

‘I’m sorry!’ Reluctantly, she let him embrace her. Her heart was beating fast, nearly as fast as when he had freed the vixen’s leg from the trap.

‘Knowing it doesn’t change anything, does it?’

She struggled free.

‘Together,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t that the plan? Don’t ever lie to me again. I’m sick of it.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE FIRST BITE

S
ome things need to be sought in the filth. Sinister things, found by following the scent of poverty to the dark streets beyond the gaslights and the stuccoed houses, to back yards stinking of refuse and bad food. Jacob asked for directions from a man sitting on his front steps and squeezing silver dust from a captured Elf. Elven dust. A dangerous path to escape the world.

There was nothing ominous about the windows of the shop the man sent them to. It was way past midnight, but what Jacob was after was best purchased under the cover of night anyway. In Albion, trade in magical objects and substances was strictly regulated. Still, nearly anything that was available on the mainland could also be found here, if only one looked in the right places.

The screams of a Hob sounded through the door when Jacob knocked against the frosted glass. The Albian variant of the Heinzel had carrot hair and much longer legs than its Austrian kin. The woman who opened the door was trying hard to look like a Witch, but she had the round black pupils of a human, and the herbal perfume she’d sprinkled deep into her bosom didn’t smell anything like Alma’s forest scent. The Hob was sitting in a cage above the door. Hobs were good guards as long they were fed regularly, and their mood was barely worse in a cage than when they were free. The creature’s red eyes clung to Fox as she stepped into the shop. The Hob could smell the shape-shifter.

The fake Witch locked the door while she appraised Jacob’s clothes. The cut and fabric seemed to whisper ‘money’ to her, and she gave him a smile as fake as her perfume. The shop reeked of dried moor lilies, which wasn’t a good sign. They were often passed off as Fairy lilies, and the fungus-sponges that hung from the ceiling were sold as an aphrodisiac, even though the only effect they had was lifelong hallucinations. But among the items on the shelves, Jacob did spot a few things that had real magical properties.

‘And what can Goldilocks do for you two darlin’s?’ Her hoarse voice gave her away as a lentil-chewer. The Cinderella addiction . . . for a few hours of princess dreams. Goldilocks gave Fox a sleazy smile. ‘Need something to fan the old flames? Or is there someone in your way?’

Jacob would have loved nothing more than to give her an infusion of her own deadliest potion. Her locks were indeed golden – the kind of sticky gold that fake Witches liked to concoct to colour their hair and lips.

‘I need a blood shard.’ Jacob dropped two thalers on the grimy counter. His handkerchief was becoming quite unreliable at producing them. It was so thin in places that he would soon have to start looking for a new one.

Goldilocks rubbed the coins between her fingers. ‘There’s five years’ hard labour for selling blood shards.’

Jacob put another coin in her hand.

She dropped the money into her apron pocket and disappeared behind a threadbare curtain. Fox’s eyes followed her. Her face was pale.

‘They don’t always work,’ she said without looking at Jacob. Her voice sounded as rough as the lentil-chewer’s.

‘I know.’

‘You’ll lose blood for weeks.’

Her look was so desperate, he wanted to take her into his arms and kiss away the fear on her face.
What are you doing, Jacob?
Was the garbage on the shelves fogging his senses? All the love potions and cheap amulets, the finger bones that were supposed to bestow lust and love? Or was this another effect of his fear of death?

Goldilocks returned with a paper bag. The glass shard Jacob took out of it was colourless and a little bigger than the bottom of a bottle.

‘How do I know it’s real?’

Fox took the shard from him and ran her fingers over the glass. Then she looked at the fake Witch. ‘If he’s harmed in anyway, I will find you,’ she said. ‘No matter where you hide.’

Goldilocks sneered. ‘It’s a blood shard, honey. Of course it’ll harm him.’ She took a vial from her apron and put it in Jacob’s hand. ‘Rub this on the wound. It’ll slow the bleeding.’

The Hob stared through the doorway before his mistress shut and locked it behind them. A rat scampered down the dark alley, and in the distance Jacob and Fox could hear the wheels of a cab rattling over the cobblestones.

Jacob stepped into the nearest doorway and pushed up his sleeve. Blood shards. He’d never used one himself, but Chanute acquired one once, when they’d been hunting for the wand of a Warlock. To use the blood shard, one had to picture the item one was looking for as exactly as possible and then cut the shard deep into the flesh until the object appeared in the glass, hopefully also showing its location. Blood shards only revealed objects that had been touched by dark magic, but the Witch Slayer’s head definitely had enough of that.