(A Charm of Magpies 1)The Magpie Lord (19 page)

Crane looked down at him. The shaman was quivering with tension, and Crane read a flat determination in his face. He turned on his heel and led the way upstairs, two steps at a time, feet echoing on the ancient stairs, ringing through the empty house. The shorter man hurried to keep up.

“This is guesswork, you understand,” Stephen began. “And I’d be pleased to be wrong. Well. Do you recall when I arrived, almost the first thing I said was that this house reminded me of an Egyptian mummy?”

“Yes?”

“Does that ring any bells?”

Crane looked round at him as they strode towards the Long Gallery. “That chap in China. You last winter. Stripped people?”

“Spot on,” said Stephen. “I think this house, this location is a very powerful source, and I think someone is stripping it. That means a human conduit is involved—they have to strip it
through
someone. And I can only think of one way that would work, and that’s if Piper’s power is linked to Piper’s master. The Magpie Lord.”

“He’s been dead for centuries.”

“Lord Crane is dead, long live Lord Crane. There’s power in the Magpie Lord’s bloodline. It’s in the blood, bone and birdspit, as they say, and yes, birdspit is a euphemism. And someone is using your family to tap that power in a way which is extremely dangerous and utterly wrong and very, very effective.”

“Using my family? They’re all dead too.”

“Yes. That’s one reason it’s wrong.”

“I don’t understand,” Crane said. “I’m not magical, I’m not a shaman. Mine was absolutely not a magical family.”

“Not actively, I’m sure, but look at the magpies.” Stephen gestured at the paintings as they passed. “All you Vaudreys are reaching out to them, with your tapestries and tattoos, but they belong to Lord Crane, whoever he may be. They followed your father from birth because he was posthumous, he was born Lord Crane. They began to follow you once you had the title. The fact that they’re still following you now is probably our only chance.”

“How?”

Stephen made a little helpless gesture. “All the power is being stripped out of Piper and out of the Vaudreys, but the magpies are still with you. I’m hoping I can call on that. God knows there’s nothing else for me to call on.”

Crane threw open a door to a small study-like room and went to an old chest. “All the jewellery is in here,” he said, opening it to reveal an assortment of boxes. “Now, tell me what the hell is going on.”

Stephen knelt by the chest but paused before delving into it. Crane squatted down by him.

“This is going to be unpleasant.” Stephen took a deep breath. “Right. Your brother impregnated his own daughter. Whether that was his idea or someone put her in his way…well, he did it. Someone told her, and she killed herself. So that’s a Vaudrey girl with a Vaudrey baby in her belly, both dead, killed by her own hand, buried with shame.” He pulled a box out at random and opened it to reveal a dull necklace of pale stones, which he stirred with a finger before discarding. “Ruth wasn’t just a Vaudrey. She was a witch’s granddaughter. And Gammer Parrott, of all the weapons she could have selected, chose a Judas jack for her revenge. Did someone help her to that decision? Help her to make the jack? I think probably yes. She had a good reputation all her life, and that wasn’t a warlock’s home. No, I think someone steered Gammer to make a Judas jack. And now we have your father and brother, two more Vaudreys, dead at their own hands.”

He took out a couple more boxes, apparently at random, and opened them, blinking at tangles of dull gold chain.

“Perhaps the greatest source of power for a warlock is unused potential,” he went on. “Life that goes unspent, growth that never happens. The strongest human sources of power are suicides—the murder of one’s own potential—and unborn children, the closer to birth the better. ‘Finger of birth-strangled babe’, if you remember your Macbeth.” He emptied another box unceremoniously onto the floor and ran his hands through the treasures without even looking. “In the last two years, we have three Vaudrey suicides, and an unborn Vaudrey child. I’m afraid I don’t believe that’s coincidence.”

Crane tried to assimilate the litany of horrors. Stephen glanced up. “Do you recall what Hector’s ghost was doing with his hands?”

“Trying to pull his head off, it looked like.”

“I think he was trying to hold it on. Remember what happened when you hit him?”

“Vividly.”

“I think someone has taken his head,” Stephen said. “I don’t believe his ghost just happened to start walking. I think someone took his skull and he wants it back.”

He pulled out a couple more boxes. Crane was kneeling by the chest, totally still. He didn’t think he could move.

“Are you all right?”

“No. This is the stuff of nightmares. You think someone has gone into my brother’s tomb and cut the head off his corpse?”

“More than that,” Stephen said. “You told the vicar of your intention to have Ruth Baker reburied. I’m going to guess that her body isn’t in any coffin. That someone has taken it apart and used it, her bones and organs, her child, to strip Piper. That’s probably why the vicar was unreceptive to the idea of her reburial, and actually, I bet it was he who tried to kill you. Nobody wanted you dead until then. But he couldn’t let you discover her coffin was empty.”

Crane gave up trying to sound calm. “You think Mr. Haining is a warlock? He’s a vicar!”

“He didn’t want Ruth dug up. And now I’m really guessing, but I think the reason there was no further attack last night, and the reason for trapping us here this morning, is that he, or his friends, learned I was a justiciar after the second attack. If they had killed you last night, I would have been straight over there, or straight down to London and back mob-handed. But if someone, maybe someone who had the word from Miss Bell, came and told them about me, their best bet would be to stop the attack and keep me here.”

“Baines?” said Crane. “We passed him on the way back.”

“
Who?
”

“Baines. The churchwarden—what is it?”

Stephen’s face was working. “Baines.
Baines
. That’s who he was! Oh, you stupid, self-indulgent
fool
!” He thumped a hand on the floor. “For God’s sake, I thought he was familiar—but I didn’t look at him properly—augh!”

“What is it? Who is he?”

“Hugh Baines,” Stephen said. “He’s a warlock.”

“Dear God. How do you know?”

“Esther, my partner, had a run-in with him. It was a couple of years ago, and I didn’t work on that job, but I should have recognised him—would have if I hadn’t been too busy playing the fool, damn it!”

“Alright. You aren’t perfect. Let it go. So your colleague didn’t catch him?”

“He got away. Vanished, or at least we lost track of him. He must have come up here, I suppose. Miss Bell said there was a new churchwarden when Ruth was buried, didn’t she? So Baines must have taken…the…position…” His voice trailed off. Very quietly, he said, “Oh God.”

“What now?” The look on Stephen’s face gave Crane a sense of sickening dread. “What is it?”

“Mrs. Millway was boring on about the Thwaites’ guests from London who didn’t come,” Stephen said. “I didn’t catch their names. Did you?”

“God, I don’t know. She said it in an annoying way—Lady B, that was it. Sir Peter and Lady B.”

“Bruton. Sir Peter and Lady Bruton,” said Stephen dully, staring ahead despair in his voice. “Baines was Underhill’s man. The Brutons are here. Of course. Of
course
. Underhill planned this whole thing. It’s exactly his style.”

“Who the hell’s Underhill? Who
are
these people?”

Stephen didn’t answer at once. He resumed his search, more urgently, emptying out an ancient leather bag which seemed to be full of loose stones and twisted bits of metal. “Right,” he went on more calmly. “Here is what I think. A very dangerous man called Underhill set this up a long time ago, via, I imagine, Haining and Lady Thwaite, who knew about Piper, about Hector, about poor stupid Ruth. Underhill sent Baines up here as well, to get him away from Esther and help control things. I expect he was the one who got Gammer to make the jack, in fact. Haining refuses Ruth decent burial, Baines is full of sympathy… Easy enough to steer her, half mad with rage and grief. And Gammer died just as it was all coming together. Did she suspect something, I wonder? So that’s Baines, Haining, Thwaite—the Brutons because they were thick as thieves with Underhill, and that makes five. And Underhill would have been the sixth himself, of course, but he’s dead, so they’ve got a sixth warlock up here. I don’t know who that is. Hardly matters, really. They could just be a makeweight with the Brutons and Baines in the group.”

“Why must there be six?”

“You need six for a charnel posture,” Stephen said heavily. “That’s what the bodies are for. They’re raping this house, and they’re using your family’s blood and bone to do it. A charnel posture. But that’s a capital offence, so they have to kill me before I get to them. Hence the horses and the binding to keep you here, because that keeps
me
here, in a sinkhole. And since they’ll have to kill me anyway, they might as well use you, alive or dead, because they can’t risk me giving you any message for Esther. And I can’t do a damn thing about it because there’s no power here!”

He flung away a bag with an excessively forceful gesture that betrayed his nerves and reached into the nearly empty crate for an ancient wooden box.

“If they’re going to kill me anyway,” said Crane, “and you can’t stop them…why don’t you go?”

“No.”

“Stephen—”

“You know what happened to Mr. Merrick in China? Or the horses? They’d do worse to you if I left you alone. Not out of hate for you, nothing so clean, but purely so I’d always know that I saved myself at the price of leaving you to them. I’ve seen it before, Lucien. I’m not going.”

“Yes.” Crane felt his stomach churn at the thought. “I see.”

“And if—
Oh
.”

“What?”

“Here.” Stephen’s hand delved into the jumble of ancient metal and picked out a ring, thick, dull old gold, carved. He held it between thumb and forefinger, face intent, and said again, “Oh.”

“It looks like the one in the portrait. Is it?”

“I think it is. I think it’s
his
.”

“Is it—useful?”
Please
, Crane thought.
Please
.

“Don’t know,” Stephen said. “I’d have to put it on.”

“Well, go on.”

Stephen glanced at him. “It’s his.”

“He’s been dead for two hundred years!”

“I know.”

Crane’s breath hissed. “It’s mine. He passed it down to me, just like the house and the land and the title. You have my permission to use it.”

Stephen bit his lip. “I can’t promise it will work.”

“Just get
on
.”

Stephen took a breath and slipped the ring onto his finger, gripped it with his other hand. He flexed his fingers, moved them. There was a short tense silence, then he shut his eyes, and Crane read the hope going out of his face.

“Anything?” he said, but wasn’t surprised when Stephen shook his head without meeting his gaze.

“Sorry. It’s got some kind of life, but… Well, maybe if there was some power here. But there isn’t.” He took a deep breath. “That’s a blow. I was rather hoping…”

“It was worth a try,” said Crane, not completely convincingly. “Is there anything else you can use?”

“Not here. I’m sorry.” Stephen was staring at the floor. “I was staking everything on that, to be honest. Not that there’s a lot to stake.”

“Well… Hell. Let’s find some weapons. No, leave that on.”

Stephen paused in the act of pulling the ring off his finger. “It’s not going to help.”

“It’s the Magpie Lord’s ring, yes?”

“Yes…”

“Then wear it,” Crane said. “In fact, keep it. It’s yours.”

“You can’t do that,” said Stephen.

“Of course I can. It was mine, I’ve given it to you.”

“It’s the Magpie Lord’s ring!”

“And now it’s yours.” Crane held Stephen’s gaze. “I might be his descendant, but you’re the one doing his work. And…” He reached out and closed Stephen’s hand into a fist, his hand on top of the younger man’s prickling fingers. “I think we could both use a little help with morale at this point.”

“I… God. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say ‘thank you, Lucien’.”

“Thank you, Lucien,” said Stephen faintly. “Well. I’ll have to live through this just to show it off to Esther.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Stephen contemplated the ring on his finger and looked up with a glow in his eyes that brought a smile to Crane’s.

“Thank you, Lucien,” he said again, his voice stronger, and Crane grabbed his shoulder and pulled him over for a hard, almost savage kiss. Stephen returned it fiercely, his hand tangling in Crane’s hair and sending sparks running through his scalp. Tongues clashed, stubble scraped against stubble, and then Stephen’s whole body stiffened with a rigidity that had nothing to do with pleasure.

“They’re here,” he said with utter certainty.

“Hell,” said Crane. “Oh, hell.”