(A Charm of Magpies 1)The Magpie Lord (8 page)

Chapter Eight

The Rose Walk was a long stone pergola through what had once been an ornamental garden. Its roses were bursting into bloom early thanks to the sultry, unseasonable April heat, about which it had been all too easy to forget inside Piper’s clammy walls. It was twilight now. The waning moon was up, the stars were coming out, and Day and Crane strolled through the shadowy grounds towards the long stone walkway, inhaling the night perfumes of flowers and greenery and clean air, laughing.

The evening had been awkward at first. They had eaten in the huge dining room, at the massive oak table, surrounded by portraits of Vaudreys gone, and Day—small, shabby, poor—had looked utterly out of place, and obviously felt it, among the faded ancestral magnificence, as had doubtless been Graham’s intention. Crane, cursing himself for not ordering the meal somewhere less formal, had set himself to put the man at his ease, since God knew this was uncomfortable enough already, and a chance remark about gambling sharps had led to Day’s admission that he had a certain knack with cards. So Crane had produced a pack, and Day had made it sit up and beg. He took a shuffled pack, shuffled twice more, and spread the cards out in suit and number order; shuffled twice more and brought all the face cards together; sent the cards flying from one hand to another in a series of elaborate twisting switchbacks.

Crane had opened another bottle out of respect for the miraculous display, and what had followed was without doubt the most pleasant hour he had ever spent in Piper. Manipulating the cards had visibly relaxed Day, so that he spoke freely about some of his work, and they had ended up exchanging ever more absurd stories, of smuggling and bizarre magical crimes and life in China, killing the second bottle in the process. The wine, Crane noticed, had no effect at all on Day’s small frame.

The evening had become, in fact, ridiculously enjoyable, and Crane found himself increasingly intrigued by the little man who sat opposite him, and decidedly annoyed when they had broken off to search for his brother’s perturbed spirit.

Stephen Day had a keen mind and a puckish sense of humour, with a relish for the absurd. He also had an infectious sideways grin, his top lip catching on a crooked canine tooth, which gave him a foxy look that Crane was rapidly coming to find highly provocative. And the quick flashing light in those tawny-gold eyes had caused Crane to reassess his ideas about inexperience: there was definitely more to Day than he’d thought. It was, Crane reflected, a pity his small, sinewy body was so scrawny, although that in itself was a mystery.

“A pleasant night for a postprandial stroll and a spot of ghost-hunting,” Crane remarked now. “Some time you really must tell me how anyone who eats as much as you stays so thin.”

“I know, I know,” Day said. “I’m eating like a, a—”

“Starving vulture.”

“Thank you. Yes. It’s the house. I’m used to much more lively environments.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“In terms of power, I mean. I can’t draw on any etheric flow, any power in the house, which means I’m stripping myself every time I do anything. Which is to say, burning energy from within myself. As you do when you take physical exercise, but more so.”

“Is that safe?”

“Oh yes, as long as you have plenty to eat and drink. If you don’t, or you try to do too much, it burns fat and then muscle, and eventually bone and brain and skin.” They reached the side of the Rose Walk and, in unspoken concord, turned to walk alongside it. “I stripped myself to the bone last winter,” Day went on, “and very unpleasant it was too. I’m still recovering from that, actually.”

Convalescent
, thought Crane. That explained a lot. He bit back an absurd urge to ask if Day really ought to be working. “What were you doing last winter?”

“Hunting a murderer. On Romney Marshes, which is an etheric sinkhole—nothing to draw on, worse than here. I spent twelve of the nastiest hours of my life playing tag with a killer, around a marsh, in the dark, on my own, trying not to die.”

“Did you catch him? Was he one of you, a practitioner?”

“A warlock. And yes, I found him. I stripped myself well beyond anything I’d have chanced if I hadn’t been fighting for my life. I woke up looking like something out of the Egyptian Room at the British Museum, and weighing about five stone. I couldn’t walk for a month. Lost all my hair. It was vile.”

“So who won?” Crane said. “It doesn’t sound like it was you.” They had reached the end of the Rose Walk. Day peered down it, crossed the end and led the way down the other side, still outside it.

“No, I won,” he said. “I woke up.”

Crane whistled. “I thought I had an adventurous life. Pitched magical battles on Romney Marshes…”

“Have absolutely nothing to recommend them.”

They paced on.

“What’s etheric flow?”

“The ether is…a kind of energy that runs through everything. Through the air, through living things, in greater or lesser quantities. It carries, well, magic.”

“Like
ch’i
?”

“Like what?”

“
Ch’i
. Life force. A sort of energy flow that permeates everything and links the world together.”

“Yes! Exactly. Is that Chinese? Did you learn that from your shaman?”

“It’s a basic principle of Chinese culture.” Crane watched Day’s face with amusement. “Really. Children learn about it. It’s part of medicine. It’s completely normal, everyone knows it exists.”

“Really? So…” They had reached the other end of the Rose Walk, which opened up into an overgrown lawn with a statueless stone plinth at its centre. Day glanced down the passage. “That’s fascinating and I’d love to know more, but I think I need to go in if I’m to have a chance of seeing anything. You don’t have to.”

“We established that I do,” Crane said mildly. “Can we talk while we wait for visitations?”

“Let’s walk the ground,” Day suggested. “Speak up if you feel anything uncomfortable or strange. It’s entirely possible that nothing whatsoever will happen and we’ll just stay out here getting cold.”

Feet echoed on stone as they paced down the dark walk, Crane limiting his long stride to the shorter man’s, skin tingling as he listened for whatever there might be to hear. He felt a quiver of nerves as his sleeve snagged on something, and laughed at himself for a fool almost at once as he brushed away the tendrils of rose.

Day’s face was sharp and intent in the moonlight, hands out, fingers moving gently, like a pianist imagining music. Crane paced by his side, turned when he turned, and took a breath when he relaxed.

“Absolutely nothing,” Day said. “I’m becoming hopeful this was just Miss Brook’s imagination after all. If we sit on that bench, will it collapse under both our weight?”

“Probably.” Crane tested it. “Maybe not. So is that how it works, you draw on the flow, the
ch’i
, to do magic?”

“More or less, yes.”

Crane contemplated that. The stone bench was cold under his legs, and there was a chilly breeze rustling the rose bushes. Day shifted on the bench, curling a leg underneath himself, stretching his hands reflexively. Crane could feel his warmth, very close.

“Can you, ah,
strip
other people?” he asked idly, and felt Day become suddenly still in the darkness.

“Why do you ask?”

“There was a…they called it a plague,” Crane said. “Bodies found looking like, well, Egyptian mummies. Dead. Someone I knew, and had seen two days previously in perfect health, turned up in his bed apparently starved to death. The authorities said it was a plague. The locals said it was a
chiang-shih
, a…damn, what’s the word? Walking corpses that drink blood.”

“Vampire?”

“That’s it. But Yu Len insisted it was
wugu
. Harmful magic. A bad shaman. And from what you just said about stripping yourself…”

“Yes. Well, you’re right, or rather, your shaman knew his business. You can strip other people, or drain them in a number of ways. But it’s utterly illegal. Wrong. It’s more or less the definition of a warlock. Any idea what happened?”

“It stopped eventually. I heard someone had decapitated a corpse in the cemetery which was thought to be the culprit.” Crane looked round. “I’m now waiting for you to tell me there’s no such thing as walking corpses.”

“I’m sure you are,” Day said, and gave his snag-toothed grin as Crane shot him a look. “Let’s just say you’re unlikely to meet one.”

The garden at the end of the long dark passage was a soft grey of waving grass in the moonlight, with the empty plinth squat in its centre, framed by the solid stone pillars of the pergola. Crane wondered what Day saw.

“Since we could be here for a while, and you did say it was a long story, would you tell me about the tattoos?” Day said. “Specifically, about being forced to have one. I’ve been wondering about that for days.”

It was an involved story, veering between farcical and exciting, and Crane knew he told it well. He couldn’t see the smaller man’s face as clearly as he’d have liked, but the shaman was rocking with laughter in the darkness as Crane reached a height of absurdity, making the old stone bench wobble alarmingly. Crane straightened a long leg to brace a foot against the ground, glanced down the passageway, and sucked in a sharp breath that cut off Day’s laughter instantly as he whipped round to look.

The Rose Walk was completely dark, the thick overgrown brambles that wound over and around it cutting off the moonlight, but the figure walking up it was as visible as if it were day. He wasn’t glowing, he was simply there, easily seen, solid.

He was Hector Vaudrey.

Crane jerked backwards on the bench. His hand found Day’s, and he involuntarily gripped it, feeling the instant sharp needling of his skin as a comfort. Day’s fingers closed on his, and Crane heard his rapid, shallow breathing.

Hector was much, much older now. When Crane had last seen him, he was a handsome man in his early twenties. The portrait showed him just a few years later. The figure that reeled and stumbled up the stone path was ageing—still solidly built, but fat replacing muscle, his face lined and pouchy.

And he was insane, it seemed. He shouted silently at nothing Crane could see, raging and cursing, hands grasping the air, thrashing, plucking at his collar, grabbing his hair and pulling it down hard around his temples. He kicked and jerked angrily, stumbling as much sideways as forward.

He was coming towards them. Crane’s entire body cringed away. He couldn’t breathe. His fingers tightened convulsively on Day’s.

“Keep calm,” Day whispered, gently extricating his hand. “Stay here.”

The thing that looked like Hector staggered up the path, fingers dragging at his ears. He put both hands to his neck and seemed to start trying to twist his head off.

Day rose and stepped forward, the bag of salt and iron filings in his hand. Crane took a pace to stand next to him.

“Stay
back
,” Day hissed, irritated.

“No,” said Crane. He spoke as quietly as Day had, but Hector’s head snapped up at the sound. The pale blue eyes that Crane remembered so well focused on him, and the cruel light in them hadn’t changed in two decades. Hector strode forward, suddenly in full control, his face distorted with rage, screaming words that were very nearly audible.

“Get out of here,” said Day urgently. “Go!”

Crane didn’t move, couldn’t. Hector’s arms were out, reaching for him, and the big hands were the size of hams now. He was visibly growing, towering in his consuming rage.

“Stop there, shadow,” Day snarled, stepping quickly in front of Crane, and flung a handful of glittering white dust at the advancing figure. Hector shook his head, batted at the air in front of him as though clearing cobwebs, kept walking.

“You’re making it stronger.
Go
.” Day reached for another handful of salt and iron from the bag, and Hector hit him, a backhander that somehow connected, knocked him off his feet and sent him reeling back into the roses that lined the path on both sides, trapping them.

“
Run!
” Day screamed, and there was real alarm in his voice now as he struggled to extricate himself from the grasping tangle of thorns.

Crane could barely hear him over Hector’s bellows. The dead man, his brother, the monster of his youth loomed over him, roaring the loathing of years, spitting out all the old hate and contempt and cruel promises, seasoned now with bitter, overwhelming resentment.
My land, my inheritance, my life, you stole it, you filth.
His face was dark and mottled with rage, and his jaw was open too wide, cracking, teeth huge pale tombstones in the gaping mouth that lunged forward to devour Crane with darkness.

Crane took a single step to meet his brother and punched him square in the face.

There was a moment of connection as his fist unquestionably met something. Then there was nothing to stop his forward momentum, and he was stumbling right into the monstrous vision, except that the great thing was also reeling back, grabbing at its face.

Its head fell off.

It bounced twice and rolled gently away, coming to rest on its side. The face looked like Hector again, like a human rather than an ogre, and it was weeping.

The headless body staggered and fell to its knees, arms out, patting blindly at the stone. A searching hand fell onto the mass of golden hair by chance. The body hoisted its sobbing head up in the air, positioning it over the stump of neck, ready to put it back on.