The Wizard of London (16 page)

Sahib
cleared his throat awkwardly; Selim just laughed, deep in his throat.
“You saw us as we seem to be—”

“Are,”
Sahib corrected dryly.

“Are,
then—when we are Warriors of the Light,” Selim concluded.

“Though
how Nan happened to slip over into a persona and power she should not have
until she is older—much older—I cannot imagine,”
Mem’sab added, with a note in her voice that suggested that she and Nan
would be having a long, a very long, talk at some point in the near future.
Then she sighed. “Pray heaven I will not need to begin teaching you
ancient Celtic any time soon.”

But,
for now, Nan was beginning to feel the effect of being frightened nearly to
death, fighting for the life of herself and her friends, and somehow being
rescued in the nick of time. She stumbled and nearly fell, and Sahib sent Selim
in search of a cab. In a good neighborhood like this one, they were not too
difficult to find; shortly, both the girls were lifted in to nestle on either
side of Mem’sab, birds tucked under their coats with the heads sticking
out, for Nan had left Neville’s hatbox and was not at all inclined to go
back after it. And in the shelter of the cab, Neville providing a solid oblong
of warmth, and the drone of the adult voices above her head, safe at last, she
found herself dropping off to sleep.

But
not before she heard Mem’sab saying, “I would still like to know
how it was that the child came into her Aspect without any training—and
where she found the Words of Power for invoking the Holy Light.”

And
heard Grey answer.

“Smart
Neville,” she said in her sweetest voice. “Very smart Nan.”

***

The
children and birds were tucked up safely in their beds, and Sahib had gone out
for that “private word” with the one who ostensibly owned Number
Ten. He had taken both Selim and Agansing with him, leaving Karamjit and
Isabelle herself to stand watch over the house. Karamjit had made the rounds,
reinforcing his shields and wards, and she had gotten out the set of Elemental
Wards given to her a long time ago, before she had left for India, and placed
them at the cardinal points of the grounds. She had no way of knowing on her
own if they were still powerful, those little four-colored pyramids of stone
and glass, but she had faith in the friends who had given them to her. She had
seldom had to use them, twice in India, once in England, but never since her
return.

The
troubling thing about this was that she was not altogether certain the incident
had been one man’s ill-conceived attempt to clear his property of the
evil that haunted it. In fact, the more she thought about it, the less likely
that seemed. She sat in her favorite chair beside the fire, and though the fire
was warm, her spirit felt chilled by the prospects of
that
eventuality.

“Karamjit?”
she said to the shadow standing at the window. “Are you as uneasy about
this evening as I am?”

“At
least, Shining Star,” he replied grimly. “We have not ended what
this night began. And the thing behind that door may be the least and most
obvious of the evils we face. Sahib is returned.”

She
leaped to her feet as the front bell rang, and with Karamjit behind her,
hurried to the front hall.

“Not
here,” Frederick said,
sotto voce
, as he handed his hat, coat,
and gloves to Sia to take away. She nodded, and all five of them returned to
the warmth and privacy of his study.

“The
bird,” he said succinctly, as he settled into his chair, “has
flown. Not only that, but he was a bird in false feathers. I am reliably told,
and Selim has verified, that there was no deception on the part of our
quarry’s servants, that Mister Benson has not been resident in his
townhouse for a month. He has been salmon fishing in Scotland, and knowing the
gentleman’s sporting reputation, that is not an opportunity he would have
forgone even for a death in the family. So whoever it was that
called
himself Benson had no right to that name and no
financial
interest in
the property.” He grimaced. “We have, as young Nan would say, been
gammoned.”

Isabelle
took a deep breath. “Which leaves us with the question of why someone
would lure those two children there. If Nan had not told Karamjit where she was
going—we would not have known where they were until they were
found.”

“Which
would not have been until morning.” Frederick’s eyes were dark with
rage. “And we know what state they’d have been in at best. If they
had lived. At least four people who remained overnight in that room have died,
and several more have gone mad.
Someone
wanted those two children dead
or insane. Specifically those two children, and not you as well, my heart,
because the cabby was sent at a time when you were away from the school.”

Isabelle
felt her eyes widening, and a cold rage welling up in her heart. “So we
have two linked mysteries to unravel—who and why.”

He
nodded. “And when we have those answers, we need something more. We need
to know what we are going to do about it.”

A
deep growl, like that of an angry lion, interrupted him. “Only let me
have my hands upon the dog, Sahib,” said Karamjit.

“And
I,” added Selim darkly. “The Prophet does not forbid—”

“Peace,”
Agansing said unexpectedly. “This has a larger shape than someone who
wishes harm to our children. Perhaps it is not what they
are
, but what
they may
become
that is at issue here. That they may be a great threat
in the future. Perhaps we should first see if other such children have
been—negated—of late. If so, then we deal with someone who takes
the long view, and is willing to eliminate opposition before the opposition is
more than a potential.”

Isabelle
wrinkled her brows. “But how can we possibly discover that?” she
protested. “It would be like trying to find footprints after the tide has
washed them away! Even if children have been—murdered—how could we
find out who they were and what they could have been had they grown up?”

Agansing
raised an eyebrow. “There is one here who can discover that,
Mem’sab.”

Frederick’s
eyes widened, and Isabelle’s hand came involuntarily to her throat.

“Sarah,”
they said, at the same time.

Agansing
nodded. But it was Karamjit who raised the objection they all felt. “Not
until all other ways have been tried,” he said, in that tone that meant
he would not countenance any other course of action.

“Peace,”
Agansing said again, this time with a suspicion of a twinkle in his eye.
“We are your Long Friends, Lion. When have you known us to do
otherwise?”

Karamjit
visibly relaxed. “Never,” he admitted. “It is my anger
speaking, not my reason.”

Isabelle
closed her eyes a moment, then said, reluctantly, “This does tend to
point in the direction of Magic, rather than the Esoteric, you know.”

Frederick
raised an eyebrow, then sighed. “And you, my heart, are the only one of
us with contacts in those circles. I am loathe to ask it of you, but I can only
suggest that you will need to pursue them.” Then he shook his head and
added with a smile, “It could be worse. It could be the Esoteric rather
than the Magic. And some of our friends are a trial even to my patience.”

Isabelle
thought over the last party they had attended, when Aleister Crowley had swept
in wearing a flamboyant scarlet cape, circled the room without saying a word to
anyone, then swept out again, and as a few people bristled, assuming insult,
Beatrice Leek had announced in a voice loud enough to be heard in all parts of
the room, “Don’t mind Aleister, darling, he’s just being
invisible again.”

Trying
to get any two of that lot to move in the same direction was like trying to
train cats to pull in a tandem harness. “You’re right, as usual, my
love,” she said and put her hand to her temple. “In the meantime, I
am exhausted, and so should the rest of you be. If we sleep on the problem, we
may be given some direction.”

At least, that was
something she could always hope for.

THE next day,
everything was pretty much back to normal, which was both a relief and a bit of
a vexation for Nan. For Sarah, it was unalloyed relief; she had confessed to
Nan last night that she never, ever wanted to see or even think about
“that Thing.” But Nan, like the Elephant’s Child, was full of
“ ‘satiable curiosity” and like Rikki-tikki-tavi, if she
could not get the answers immediately, she was bound and determined to
“run and find out.”

So
when her hour with Agansing came around, before he even opened his mouth to
begin her breathing exercise, she forestalled him with, “Master Agansing,
what
was
that ‘orrible Thing?” And for a very long moment,
there was no sound in the Conservatory but the hiss of the steampipes and the
drip of water.

Now,
at the Harton School it was the policy of the adults to be as absolutely honest
with the pupils as they could. Sometimes the answer to a question was “I
don’t know.” Often, it was, “I know, but I want you to go
find out for yourself, and I will help you.” Very rarely it was “I
don’t think you are old enough to need that answer, but I promise when you
are, I will tell you.” This last was seldom if ever invoked for Nan; as a
streetchild, there was very little she was “too young” to know, and
most of the things under that heading she probably knew already, anyway. The
main use for that particular answer to Nan was to let her know as subtly as possible
that
she
was not to impart that information either, if one of the
other pupils asked her.

So
Agansing merely sighed for the disruption of his lesson, and answered, “I
do not know, Missy Nan. I know that it is old, and we are of the opinion that
it is a thing more of Magic than of spirit.”

Now,
this would be the first time—ever!—that Agansing had used that word
with reference to things Nan’s gran would have labeled
“uncanny.” He had always spoken of “mental discipline”
and “the full use of all of the senses” and “transcending the
physical” and the like. She looked at him uncertainly.

“Thoughtcher
said there ain’t no such thing as magic,” she retorted.

“I
said nothing of the sort,” Agansing replied with unruffled dignity.
“I said that we do not use such a thing, nor use that name. I never said
it did not exist. There are two sorts of ways in which one can manifest
Power,” he continued. “One is to use the Power that is within us
all, which is what we do here, myself, Karamjit, Selim, Sahib, and
Mem’sab. And you, and Missy Sarah, and some of the other children, of
course.”

Odd.
He never had come out to tell her
which
of the other children had
Talents. For that matter, neither had any of the other adults. Briefly, she
wondered why. Was this one of those things she was supposed to find out for
herself? Or was this a reflection of the careful way in which the adults
guarded the privacy of all the children?

“The
second way, however, is to use the Power that exists around us, often through
an intermediary creature, either by means of its cooperation, or its coercion.
That
is Magic.
That
is what Missy Sarah’s parents can do, though we
cannot.”

She
gaped at him. “They can?” This was news to her. She wondered if it
was news to Sarah.

“But
they cannot teach Sarah in the use of her Talents, nor do they have any
understanding of them. This is why she is here.” He shrugged. “At
any rate, we believe that creature is a twisted creature of Magic, something
called an Elemental, although which it could be, or what Element it owes its
form to, we are not equipped to tell. This is why it is not like an ordinary
haunting, which we could banish, with some work. But since it is clearly a
creature either powerful enough, transmuted enough, or both, for ordinary
mortals to see and be affected by, it is quite beyond us to do anything about
it. And I can tell you nothing more on that subject, and very little on the
subject of Magic. You must ask Mem’sab, though she may not answer you.
And now, you will assume the position of meditation.”

Her
mind buzzing, she obeyed. And despite her curiosity eating at her, she kept her
mind on her lessons, enough so that Agansing gave her a “Well done, under
the circumstances. You may go.”

The
next lesson was History, and after that, she helped the ayahs get the little
ones down for a nap. But she kept thinking about Magic…

Now,
given what she had already been learning, she was quite prepared to believe
that the sort of Magic you found in fairy tales was real. What she had
difficulty in grasping was that there was something that Mem’sab and
Sahib
couldn’t
master.

After
some consideration, she decided that she wouldn’t ask Mem’sab about
it. Not just yet. Last night had been hard on everyone; it might be best to let
things settle for a bit before she started asking questions. Especially since
there was no telling just where those questions might lead, because it might be
to a place where she really didn’t want to go.

***

Isabelle
was paying a call on an old acquaintance, and she wasn’t entirely certain
what her reception would be.

It
was an acquaintance she had last seen before she had left, brokenhearted (or so
she had persuaded herself) for India. Somehow, in all the years she and
Frederick had lived in London, she had not been able to bring herself to renew those
old friendships. The one or two from those days who
had
sought her out
had made the first overtures, not she.

But
after all, she was in a very different social circle from theirs, and far lower
in class, as merely the daughter of a country vicar. She had been out of their
social class back then, too—but she had deluded herself for a while that
social distinctions did not matter. The vicar and his family were always
welcome in the homes of the ennobled and wealthy—provided, she
now
knew, that they did not overstep their place, nor (in the case most especially
of a daughter) dare to think they could actually fit in…