Ptolemy's Gate (59 page)

Kitty shut the atlas cover; spirals of dust rose up and drifted in the light. “You are very kind, but that door's closed to me now. My studies were always directed toward summoning one particular …” She paused. “I had one particular objective in mind. And two nights ago Nathaniel accomplished it for me. In all honesty, I wouldn't know how to follow on from that.”

There was silence in the room. All at once Ms. Piper looked at her watch and gave a little cry. “Recess is almost over! I must go. Heaven knows whether we can make any headway this afternoon.” She sighed heavily as she stood. “Ms. Jones, after a single morning I am already close to throttling the commoners' entire delegation. A single morning! And we are barely started. The outlook could hardly be worse. I really don't believe we shall be able to cooperate at all.”

Kitty smiled and sat back in her chair. “Keep trying,” she said. “It's possible. Not easy, but it's possible.You'll be surprised what you manage to achieve.”

38

D
ying was the simple part. Our main problem was catching Nouda's attention.

We stood, the two of us, in our single body, directly beneath the middlemost dome. This was the place to lure him to, the epicenter, the place of maximum iron. But Nouda was too big, too noisy, too confused and desolate to be easily lured. Back and forth he lurched on his mess of limbs, trampling stalls and kiddies' rides and stuffing trees at random into his gaping mouth. He undertook this serious work with admirable conviction, and none of his eyes were turned our way.

Flying was out for us now. Even bounding would be a stretch. It took most of my remaining energies to keep the boy upright. Left to his own devices, he'd have crumpled to the floor.

So we stopped where we were, and shouted instead. Or at least I did, with the kind of cry that triggers Tibetan avalanches.
¹
“Nouda! It is I, Bartimaeus, Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty and the Serpent of Silver Plumes! I have fought a thousand battles and won them all! I have destroyed far greater entities than you! Ramuthra fled before my majesty. Tchue cowered in a crack in the earth. Hoepo the Thunder Snake ingested his own tail and so swallowed himself rather than taste my fury! So then, I challenge you now. Come face me!”

No answer. Nouda was busily munching on some of the exhibits in the Grotto of Taxidermy. The boy ventured a tentative thought.
Does that count as a goad? It was essentially straightforward boasting, wasn't it?

Listen, a goad's anything that provokes or incites an enemy and—Oh, look, it didn't work, did it? We're running out of time. Another few steps and he'll break outside.

Let me have ago.
The boy cleared his throat. “Cursed demon! You have met your end! The Shivering Fire awaits you! I shall spread your vile essence across this hall like … um, like margarine, a very thick layer of it….” He hesitated.

Ye-es …
I'm not sure he'll pick up on that analogy. Never mind, keep going.

“Cursed demon—
attend to me
!” The pity of it was that the boy's voice was desperately faint and growing fainter. I could barely hear it, let alone Nouda. But he finished up with a very effective extra, namely a bolt of force from the Staff that jabbed Nouda sharply in the rear. The great spirit responded with a roar; he rose up, limbs twitching, bulb eyes questing. All at once he saw us and sent multiple bolts crashing all around. His aim was lousy. One or two landed a few meters distant, but we stood firm. We did not budge.

The great voice: “Bartimaeus! I
see
you.…”

The boy whispered something in reply, too weak to hear. But I read his mind, spoke the words for him. “No! I am Nathaniel! I am your master! I am your death!”

Another burst of white energy pricked Nouda's essence. He hurled a stuffed bear aside and turned in ponderous wrath. He came crawling toward us—a colossal shadow, alien to this world, sundered from the other, blocking out the light.

Now
that's
what you call a proper goad
, Nathaniel thought.

Yeah, it wasn't bad. Right, wait till he's on top of us, then we break the Staff.

The longer it takes, the better. Kitty—

She'll get out, don't worry.

The boy's strength was failing, but his resolution was undaunted. I felt him summon his remaining powers. Steadily, calmly, muttering under his breath, he loosed the bonds restraining Gladstone's Staff until, all at once, the hopes of the entities trapped inside were raised: they pushed, strained, pressed against the remaining loops of magic, desperate to be free. Without my assistance, Nathaniel could not have controlled them—they would have instantly broken through. But Nouda was not yet where we wanted him. I held the Staff in place. There was nothing now to do but wait.

According to some,
²
heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking. I've made a long and successful career out of running away at the decisive moment, and it was with some considerable regret, as Nouda bore down upon us, in that soaring tomb of iron and glass, that I realized I didn't actually have this fallback option. I was bound to the boy, essence to flesh. We were going out together.

The nearest I'd ever come to this dubious last-stand business before was with Ptolemy—in fact, he'd only prevented it with his final intervention. I suppose, if my old master could have seen me now, he'd probably have approved. It was right up his street, this: you know—human and djinni united, working together as one, etc, etc. Trouble was, we'd taken it all a bit too literally.

Bartimaeus
… The thought was very faint.

Yes?

You've been a good servant….

What do you
say
to something like this? I mean, with death bearing down and a 5,000-year career of incomparable accomplishment about to hit the fan? The appropriate response, frankly, is some sort of rude gesture, followed up by the loudest of raspberries, but again I was stymied—being
in
his body made the logistics too cumbersome to bother with.
³
So, wearily, wishing we had some kind of maudlin sound track, I played along.
Well, um, you've been just dandy too.

I didn't say you were perfect …

What?

Far from it. Let's face it, you've generally managed to cock things up.

WHAT?
The bloody cheek! Insults, at a time like this! With death bearing down, etc. I ask you. I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves.
Well, since we're doing some straight talking, let me tell you, buddy—

Which is why I'm dismissing you right now.

Eh?
But I hadn't misheard. I knew I hadn't. I could read his mind.

Don't take it the wrong way …
His thought was fragmented, fleeting, but his mouth was already mumbling the spell.
It's just that … we've got to break the Staff at the right moment here.You're holding it in check. But I can't rely on you for something as important as this. You're bound to mess it up somehow. Best thing is … best
thing is to dismiss you. That'll trigger the Staff automatically. Then I
know
it'll be done properly
He drifted. He was having trouble keeping awake now—the energy was draining unhindered from his side—but with a final effort of will, he kept speaking the necessary words.

Nathaniel—

Say hello to Kitty for me.

Then Nouda was upon us. Mouths opened, tentacles slashed down. Nathaniel finished the Dismissal. I went. The Staff broke.

A typical master. Right to the end, he didn't give me a chance to get a word in edgeways. Which is a pity, because at that last moment I'd have liked to tell him what I thought of him. Mind you, since in that split second we were, to all intents and purposes, one and the same, I rather think he knew anyway.

 

O
f the first few hauntings I investigated with Lockwood & Co. I intend to say little, in part to protect the identity of the victims, in part because of the gruesome nature of the incidents, but mainly because, in a variety of ingenious ways, we succeeded in messing them all up. There, I've admitted it! Not a single one of those early cases ended as neatly as we'd have wished. Yes, the Mortlake Horror was driven out, but only as far as Richmond Park, where even now it stalks by night among the silent trees. Yes, both the Gray Specter of Aldgate and the entity known as the Clattering Bones were destroyed, but not before several further (and I now think unnecessary) deaths. And as for the creeping shadow that haunted young Mrs. Andrews, to the imperilment of her sanity and her hemline, wherever she may continue to wander in this world, poor thing, there it follows too. So it was not exactly an unblemished record that we took with us, Lockwood and I, when we walked up the path to 62 Sheen Road on that misty autumn afternoon and briskly rang the bell.

We stood on the doorstep with our backs to the muffled traffic, and Lockwood's gloved right hand clasped upon the bell pull. Deep in the house, the echoes faded. I gazed at the door, at the small sun blisters on the varnish and the scuffs on the letter box, at the four diamond panes of frosted glass that showed nothing beyond except for darkness. The porch had a forlorn and unused air, its corners choked with the same sodden beech leaves that littered the path and lawn.

“Okay,” I said. “Remember our new rules. Don't blab about everything you see. Don't speculate openly about who killed who, how, or when. And, above all, don't impersonate the client. Please. It never goes down well.”

“That's an awful lot of don'ts, Lucy,” Lockwood said.

“I've plenty more.”

“You know I've got an excellent ear for accents. I copy people without thinking.”

“Fine, copy them quietly
after
the event.
Not
loudly,
not
in front of them, and
particularly
not when they're a six-foot-six Irish dockworker with a speech impediment, and we're a good half-mile from the public road.”

“Yes, he was really quite nimble for his size,” Lockwood said. “Still, the chase kept us fit. Sense anything?”

“Not yet. But I'm hardly likely to, out here. You?”

He let go of the bell pull and made some minor adjustment to the collar of his coat. “Oddly enough, I have. There was a death in the yard sometime in the last few hours. Under that laurel halfway up the path.”

“I assume you're going to tell me it's only a smallish glow.” My head was tilted to one side, my eyes half closed; I was listening to the silence of the house.

“Yes, about mouse-sized,” Lockwood admitted. “Suppose it might have been a vole. I expect a cat got it, or something.”