Ptolemy's Gate (38 page)

“Good. Then it is time to act. My friends, Hopkins here is a
marvel
, an absolute gem. He breathes ideas like you and I gulp air; he dreams 'em in his sleep, digests 'em with his dinner. It was
he
who first noticed the unique properties of the afrit Honorius. Isn't that right, Clem?”

Hopkins gave a little smile. “If you say so, sir.”

“Hopkins and I immediately observed that the demon
inhabited
Gladstone's bones. It was not a mere guise, an illusion of essence: the skeleton was
real.
The demon had mingled with the actual bones. An ambitious idea occurred to us: why not summon a demon into a
living
body—specifically, the living body of a magician? If the magician could control the demon, and use its power—what wonders he might perform! There would be no more need for pentacles, for fiddling about with runes and chalks, no more risk of fatal errors! Indeed, summoning itself would soon become unnecessary!”

Kitty had learned enough from Mr. Button to realize the radical nature of this proposal; she knew enough to share Mandrake's utter disbelief. “But the risks are far too great!” he was saying. “That commoner in your workroom—he heard the demon talking in his head! It would have driven him mad!”

“Only because he did not have the
will
to suppress the demon.” Makepeace was impatient now; he spoke quickly. “With individuals of intelligence and strong personality such as
us
, the effect will be harmonious.”

“You don't mean you're
all
going to take this risk?” Mandrake protested. “Surely not! The effects might be catastrophic! You don't know what might happen.”

“Oh, but we do, we do. Hopkins summoned a demon into himself two months ago, John. He has suffered no ill effects. Isn't that right, Clem? Tell them.”

“That's right, sir.” The scholar seemed embarrassed to be the focus of attention. “I summoned quite a powerful djinni. When it entered, I felt a certain struggling, like a living worm inside my head. But I merely had to concentrate and the demon accepted the inevitable. He is thoroughly quiet now. I hardly know he's there.”

“But you are able to call on his power and knowledge, aren't you, Hopkins?” Makepeace said. “It is really quite remarkable.”

“Show us!” the female conspirator whispered.

“Yes, show us! Show us!” Around the table the plea was taken up, over and over. Each face shone with furious, avid hunger. To Kitty they seemed wicked, but also helpless, like nestlings waiting to be fed. She was filled with a sudden repulsion; she longed to get away.

Makepeaces eyes were glittering slits; he nudged the scholar's arm. “What do you think, Hopkins? Show them a little, just to whet the appetite?”

“If you think it appropriate, sir.” The scholar took a step back, bent his head in concentration. Then, without apparent effort, he rose into the air. Several of the conspirators gasped. Kitty glanced at Mandrake; he was watching openmouthed.

Hopkins rose six feet above the floor, then drifted off, away from the table. When he was some way distant, he raised a hand, pointing it at an alabaster statue on the far side of the hall. It showed a bald, stocky magician smoking a cigar. There was a flash of blue light—the statue exploded in a shower of sparks. The ginger-haired magician whooped with excitement; the others stood and clapped, or banged the table in wild joy. Mr. Hopkins rose higher, toward the ceiling.

“Show them something else, Hopkins!” Makepeace called. “Put on a show!”

Everyone's eyes were craning upward. Kitty took her chance. Slowly, slowly, she backed away from the table. One step, two … No one had noticed; all were watching the scholar perform acrobatic feats high against the ceiling, trailing gouts of flame from his fingertips….

Kitty turned and ran. At the end of the hall the double doors were open. Her feet were noiseless on the thick, soft rugs. Her hands were tied, which made the running awkward, but in seconds she was through—out into a corridor of stone, with oil paintings on the wall and glass cases with ornaments of gold.… She headed right; the corridor ended at an open door.

Kitty plunged through. She halted, cursed. An empty room, perhaps an official's study: a desk, a case of books, a pentacle on the floor. It was a dead end.

With a gasp of frustration, she turned, ran back the way she had come—along the corridor, past the double doors, around another corner—

—and collided full pelt with something hard and heavy. Thrown to the side, she instinctively tried to break her fall with an outstretched hand—but her arms were bound, she could not do so; she landed heavily on the flagstones.

Kitty looked up and caught her breath. A man stood over her, framed against the ceiling globes; a tall man, bearded, dressed in black. Bright blue eyes considered her, black brows runkled in a frown.

“Please!” Kitty gasped. “Please, help me!”

The bearded man smiled. A gloved hand reached down.

In the Hall of Statues Mr. Hopkins had returned to earth. The faces of the conspirators were filled with wonder; two of the men were pulling rugs away from the center of the room. As Kitty was brought in, half choked, hanging suspended by her collar from the bearded man's upraised grip, they stopped and dropped the rugs again. One by one, everyone turned to look at her.

A deep voice spoke at Kitty's shoulder. “What about this girl? I caught her making for the street.”

The ginger-haired man shook his head. “Blimey. Didn't even notice she had gone.”

Mr. Makepeace stepped forward, a petulant frown upon his face. “Ms. Jones, we really have
no
time for such distractions.…” He scowled, shrugged and turned away. “At first her presence amused me, but to be frank she interests me no longer. You may kill her.”

23

N
athaniel saw the mercenary dump Kitty on the rug; he saw him fling back his cape, reach into his belt, and draw forth a long knife, curved like a scimitar. He saw him reach out to clutch her hair, lift up her head, expose her throat …

“Wait!” Nathaniel stepped forward; he spoke with as much authority as he could muster. “Don't touch her! I want her alive.”

The mercenary's hands paused. He looked up at Nathaniel with his steady pale blue eyes. Then, slowly and very deliberately, he continued to pull Kitty's head back and bring the knife around.

Nathaniel cursed. “
Wait,
I said.”

The conspirators were watching with some amusement. Rufus Lime's pale, damp face grimaced. “You're hardly in a position to be so lordly, Mandrake.”

“On the contrary, Rufus. Quentin has invited me to join your company. And after seeing Mr. Hopkins's remarkable demonstration, I'm delighted to agree to that proposal. The results are most impressive. That means I'm one of you now.”

Quentin Makepeace had been busy unbuttoning his emerald frock coat. His eyes were narrowed, calculating; he looked at Nathaniel askance. “You have decided to fall in with our little scheme?”

Nathaniel met his gaze as calmly as he could. “I have indeed,” he said. “Your plan is an act of genius, a masterstroke. I only wish I'd paid more attention to you when you showed me that commoner the other day. But I intend to rectify that now. In the meantime, strictly speaking, the girl is still
my
prisoner, Quentin. I have … plans for her. No one touches her, save me.”

Makepeace rubbed his chin; he did not answer. The mercenary adjusted the knife a little in his hand. Kitty gazed sightlessly at the floor. Nathaniel felt his heart thudding against his chest.

“Very well.” Makepeace moved suddenly. “The girl is yours. Put her down, Verroq. John, you have spoken well and have confirmed my good opinion of you. But take heed: words are easy—actions are better! In a moment we shall free you and watch as you bond with a demon of your choice. But first I shall prepare for my own summoning! Burke! Withers! Clear those rugs away! The pentacles must be readied!”

He turned to issue further orders. Without expression, the mercenary loosened his grip on Kitty's hair. Nathaniel, conscious of hostile eyes upon him—Jenkins and Lime in particular were watching with undisguised suspicion—did not hasten to her side. She remained where she was, slumped on her knees, head lowered, hair hanging over her face. The sight pierced him.

Twice now that evening Kitty Jones had nearly died, and all because of what he'd done. Because
he'd
found her, because
he'd
wrenched her out of her quiet new life and brought her with him, just to satisfy his selfish curiosity.

When, in the theater, the Inferno struck her, Nathaniel had thought her dead. Sorrow had overwhelmed him; he had been almost unmanned with guilt. Despite the mercenary's harsh warning, he had flung himself beside her, and only
then
realized that she breathed. For the next hour, while she remained unconscious, his sense of shame had slowly grown. Little by little he began to recognize his folly.

Already, in the last few days, he had begun to detach himself from the name of Mandrake, from the role that for years had become a second skin. But only with the events in the theater did that detachment become a true separation. The two key certainties that governed him—his belief in the invulnerability of the government and in the essential virtue of his motives—were dashed from him in a matter of moments. The magicians were overpowered. Kitty was struck down. Both came at the hand of Makepeace, and it was with horror that Nathaniel recognized, in that callous, indifferent hand, a reflection of his own.

At first the enormity of Makepeace's crime almost blinded him to its nature: the theatrical panache of the coup, the bizarre perversion of the demons within the body, all the silly talk of genius and creativity helped divert attention from the banal reality of the truth. It was nothing but another cold, ambitious little man playing for power. No different from Lovelace, or Duvall or—and at this thought Nathaniel felt a chill upon his spine—from Nathaniel's
own
musings that very evening, as he sat in the car and dreamed of seizing the Staff and putting an end to the war. Oh, yes, he'd
told
himself it was for the right reasons, to help the commoners and save the Empire, but where did such idealism end? With bodies like Kitty's lying on the floor.

How naked and obvious Nathaniel's ambition must have been! Makepeace had seen it. Farrar, too. Ms. Lutyens had understood it and walked away.

No
wonder
Kitty had treated him with such disdain.… As he had watched over her body in the Hall of Statues, he had come to share her contempt.

But then she had woken, and with his relief came new determination.

The conspirators were busy. Back and forth across the room they scampered, bringing out the paraphernalia of summoning: candles, bowls, herbs, and flowers. In the center of the hall the heavy rugs had been pulled clear and unceremoniously dumped to one side. Several pentacles were revealed beneath, beautifully inlaid in mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli. Makepeace stood within one, stripped down to his shirttails, pointing, pouting, issuing shrill commands.

Kitty Jones still crouched as before.

Nathaniel strolled forward, bent at her side, and spoke softly. “Kitty, get up.” He extended his bound hands. “Come on. That's it. Sit over here.” He pushed aside a heavy chair of redwood, and helped lower her down. “Rest there. Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Then wait. I'll get you out of this.”

“How's that exactly?”

“Trust me.” He leaned against the table, appraising the situation. By the door the mercenary stood, arms folded, gazing implacably toward them. No possibility of escape there. The conspirators themselves were feeble; it was easy to see now why Makepeace had recruited them. He had chosen the weak, the unpreferred, those eaten away with jealousy and malice, who would seize the opportunity but never be a threat to him. The playwright was a different matter, a formidable magician. Without his demons, Nathaniel was helpless.

Makepeace … He cursed again his own stupidity. For
years
he had suspected the presence of a traitor high in government, someone connected to both the Lovelace and the Duvall plots. Four magicians had been needed to summon the great demon Ramuthra back at Heddleham Hall—the fourth had never been seen, save for a fleeting glimpse in an open-topped car—a flash of goggles, a red beard … gone. Makepeace in disguise? Easy to imagine now.

During the golem affair Nathaniel had been surprised how easily the playwright had discovered the location of the fugitive Kitty: that must have been Hopkins, then—Makepeace's contact with the Resistance. Nathaniel ground his teeth. How
swiftly
Makepeace had won him over, used him as an ally, played him for a fool. Well, the matter wasn't over yet.

Stony faced, Nathaniel watched Mr. Hopkins hurrying past to obey his leader's orders. So
this
was the mysterious scholar he had sought so long! A demon's power coursed through the villain's body—of that there was no doubt. But the meek little man would hardly be a match for Cormocodran, Ascobol, and the others if Nathaniel could only bring them to his side. Yet while Hopkins worked his mischief here, the incompetent djinn were a mile away, waiting vainly for him at the Ambassador Hotel!