The Demon's Lexicon (20 page)

The others were standing in a little knot, trying to keep warm by staying close. It was not yet dawn, and the sea air hit Nick's face like a series of slaps with icy hands.

Alan was holding Mum's hand. She still looked groggy from whatever Merris had given her, and she stood leaning against Alan, the billowing black veil of her hair caught by the wind, flying and settling over them both. Alan was watching Nick, his face to all appearances honestly puzzled and hurt.

Nick was standing as far away from the others as he could without actually standing in the sea.

“There's a bedroom you can sleep in,” Alan offered, his voice tentative. “I'll sit with you in case you need help.”

“I don't need your help,” said Nick curtly. He looked away from Alan and Mum, and his eyes settled on another face.

The sight and smell of the sea was already making him feel a little ill, that and the dread of being completely and humiliatingly helpless again curdling in his stomach. The sound of the wind was like the freezing shout of a hundred angry ghosts. Looking at his family only made him feel worse.

Looking at Mae made him feel a little steadier. She had her face tipped up to study his, determined dark eyes and a stubborn mouth. The way she looked was familiar to him by now, and the better he knew her, the better she looked. He smiled at her, a slow, deliberate smile that made an answering smile curve her lips.

“I'd rather have Mae nurse me,” he drawled.

Even if he hadn't been able to see her, he would have heard the smile in her voice. “Yeah, all right.”

That was when Merris's skipper, Philip, a man with the
close-clipped hair and charcoal-colored suit of a businessman and the worn teeth and yellow tongue of a necromancer, gestured them aboard. The herbs Merris had given Nick were already making him feel a little dizzy, but that was almost a relief; his dread of coming aboard and his fury at Alan both felt distant, wrapped up safe until he could deal with them.

Soon he would be back on land and he would know all Alan's secrets. For now he could only stagger down the steps to reach the bedroom below deck, his hand fumbling at the doorknob. The room was circular at one end, the bed white and plain with cuffs at each corner.

So this was how they transported the possessed. Nick went and lay back on the bed, thankful that he did not have to keep his feet any longer. He stared up at the wooden ceiling and heard Mae come in and shut the door.

“You don't need to use the restraints,” Nick told the ceiling. “I'll be good.”

Mae laughed. “But I was planning to do terrible things to you once I had you at my mercy.”

“Oh,” said Nick. “In that case, go right ahead.”

“No, you've spoiled the moment now.”

“Yeah,” Nick muttered. “I do that a lot.”

So many girls had started off looking at him all shiny-eyed and breathless, and then they'd all been disillusioned. Most had ended up scared. Mae had already been around longer than any of those girls, and she didn't scare easily, but of course it wasn't like that between them.

“Nick,” Mae said, and hesitated.

It was rare enough for her to hesitate that Nick was intrigued. He levered himself up on his elbows and looked at her. She had her back up against the door, her pink hair
mussed by the wind and her cheeks flushed. Which could have been another effect of the wind.

“I was wondering,” Mae continued. “That girl at the Market. Sin. Are you going out with her?”

“No,” said Nick. He didn't really have much else to say, but Mae was staring at the floor and looking embarrassed, so he went on. “I've never really gone out with anyone.”

It had never particularly bothered him either. A night or two with a girl, and then having her go away and the next one come along: it had always seemed like an all-right way to do things.

Nick was surprised that she'd asked; not by the directness of it, because that was her style, but he was surprised that she'd wanted to know.

Since she had, it must mean—he was pretty sure that it did mean—that she preferred Nick. And if she really did…

Mae's eyebrows had come up. She was smiling a bit.

“Oh really,” she said, her voice amused and incredulous. “A complete innocent, are you?”

“Definitely,” Nick assured her, letting his voice slide low. “You can try corrupting me if you like.”

Mae dimpled. “It's no fun if you're asking for it.”

“No, no,” Nick drawled. “Release me, you monster. Your wicked ways shock me to my soul. And yet I find you strangely attractive.”

The boat purred into life, lurching away from the dock and swaying between one wave and the next. Nick shut his eyes in a brief flash of nausea.

“I feel I should warn you,” he said after a moment. “I may be about to get sick or pass out.”

“Uh,” said Mae. “Sexy.”

Funnily enough, it was this exciting news that peeled her off the door Nick had been starting to think she was glued to. She came to stand by the bed, pulling her iPod out of her pocket and fiddling with it, unwinding the earphones coiled around it.

“Maybe what you need is a distraction,” she began.

On impulse Nick reached up and pulled her down to the bed. Mae made a startled sound, half breath and half laugh, and he rolled her over and under him easily, using his strength the way girls sometimes liked him to.

He looked down at her, then leaned in close, feeling her shiver at his breath on her ear, and murmured, “Maybe.”

The morning sunlight was turning the cotton sheets into hot gold; he saw the flash in her eyes under suddenly heavy eyelids and smiled down at her. He was braced over her, his arms supporting his weight, and a sway of the ship and a breath lifted her hips against his. Her breath turned into a shiver, traveling slowly along the length of her body, and she lifted her hands and ran her palms along the tense swell of his arms.

He probably shouldn't be doing this. Alan liked her, and he might be angry with Alan now but he wouldn't be angry forever. Alan was his brother, and he shouldn't be doing this, but Alan had let him get sick and Mae preferred him.

It was all warm, white and gold and that absurd pink, the curves of her and the rumpled lines of the sheets, all blending and blurring together because he was starting to slip out of consciousness.

Mae pushed him gently backward onto the pillows, and he went, throwing an arm over his eyes.

“I'd hate for you to get the wrong idea about me,” he said.
“Under normal circumstances, I swear, I would have copped a feel.”

“I was about to suggest that some music might be in order anyway,” said Mae, valiantly pretending that she was not out of breath, her voice warm and trembling as she had been under him a moment ago.

She put one of the iPod earpieces in his ear, and the other presumably in her own, and settled back down on the pillows. The boat rocked them gently back and forth in a way that Nick might have found soothing if he hadn't felt so ill, and he fought to stay awake as he heard music that sounded in a faint faraway fashion like the drums of the Goblin Market.

“That's kind of nice.”

“Maybe we can go listen to them sometime,” Mae murmured.

“Maybe,” said Nick.

Mae was a warm weight that tilted him slightly to her side of the bed, possibly less because of her weight than because that was where he wanted to be. The sunlight painted dusty gold streaks against the blackness before Nick's closed eyes, and the drums beat in a rhythm with his heart. Mae had one foot tucked under his leg, and as he finally lost consciousness he felt her hand lightly pushing back a strand of his hair. It was pointless, but like the music, it was kind of nice.

The last thing he wondered was whether this counted as her asking him out.

T
HE STREET IN
D
URHAM WHERE
M
ARIE'S SISTER LIVED
felt familiar to Nick. He was aware that he'd never been to Durham before. He didn't recognize the city, but as he pulled his battered car in line with the shining clean vehicles at the pavement edge, it occurred to him that he knew the street.

It reminded him of Mae and Jamie's house, of the houses belonging to school friends or girlfriends whose names Nick did not now recall. There were neatly tended gardens, fresh paint on the doors, and a general sense of well-being about the whole area. Here, suggested the blooming flowerbeds, people were comfortable, families were secure, and above all, children were sheltered.

Nick knew it was an illusion. These people hurt each other as much as all families did, and if magic ever invaded their lives, they would be helpless.

Maybe it was an illusion Alan wanted, though. This place was certainly a contrast to the shabby house Merris had found for them yesterday, close to their old house so they could hunt any magicians whom Gerald might direct there. It was squeezed between a Chinese takeaway, bearing
a broken sign with letters that sizzled and flickered, and a derelict house, its boarded windows staring and blank as dead eyes.

Alan must have wanted more than the girl. He must have wanted a home like this. Nick looked at the house in the same way that he would have sized up an enemy. Then, instead of attacking, he went up to that brightly painted door and leaned heavily on the bell.

If it had not been for her anxious eyes, Nick would not have thought this was the right woman. Natasha Walsh was blond, thin in an attenuated way, and much older than he had expected her to be.

“Are you—who are you?” she asked.

Nick said curtly, “Nicholas Ryves,” and was amazed to see this slim, pastel-cardiganed housewife blossom into a tentative welcome.

“Oh, you're one of Daniel's family! Do come in. Please.”

Nick stepped into a hall, carpeted brown with great pink flowers, and wondered what Alan had told this woman about Dad.

“So you—you said you knew something about Alan,” the stranger said, twisting her hands together.

“You said you saw him last Christmas.”

She pushed open a door and led him into a little sitting room, with cream silk fittings and picture frames glinting brightly on every surface. Nick hovered in the middle of the room, feeling like a clumsy animal who should not be allowed in here, and who would break something in a moment.

“Yes,” she answered. “He spent Christmas here with us. It was so lovely—we were so happy to have him. He played with
the kids. They loved him.” She tilted up her chin, almost defiantly, as if to face pain. “We all loved him, and then he stopped answering my letters.”

He did not stop answering your letters,
Nick thought.
I threw them away. He thought you had stopped caring.

Alan had come away to this place. He'd left him. He'd wanted to leave him.

Nick didn't even know how to feel about this. It was like the fact that Alan had made him sick. His mind kept shying violently away from the idea and the unfocused pain it promised. It was better to be angry. He hated this woman, hated this whole family. They were weak and stupid and they couldn't have his brother and that was all there was to it. He didn't
need
to feel anything else.

He felt a treacherous twinge at the thought of Alan with kids. Alan loved kids. He'd pick them up and a soft, wondering expression would come over his face. No wonder Marie had been such a temptation, with a home like this.

Natasha turned a beseeching face to his. “Do you know Alan?”

“Yeah,” Nick said curtly. “He's my brother.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then said, quite simply, as if anybody should know it was the truth, “Alan doesn't have a brother.”

The little room felt suddenly cold, frozen in its horrible cream and silver, like a wedding cake left in the freezer. Nick found his voice, and it sounded a long way away.

“He may not have mentioned me,” he answered, putting a stone wall of denial between himself and the possibility that Alan had lied about him, had wished him out of existence, “but I've been his brother all my life.”

“Do you mean you're his stepbrother?” Natasha Walsh offered, looking perplexed.

People doubting his relationship to Alan was nothing new, but on top of everything else it seemed like an insult he could not bear.

“No, his real brother,” Nick growled.

She frowned, her expression reminding him of a dozen mothers who'd looked as if they wanted to call the police on him for daring to touch their daughters.

“If this is some kind of joke—”

“I'm not laughing. I'm his brother.”

“You can't possibly be his brother,” Mrs. Walsh snapped. “My sister Marie only had one child. I think I should know.”

Nick stared at her silently, unable to find words. He could only see images, running together in his mind like a slide show. Of Alan's face. Of the face of that smiling girl in the picture, and the mad, cold face of the woman he'd always thought—he'd always
known
—was their mother.

Something about his own face made the woman stop frowning and pick up a picture to display to Nick. It was one of the photographs in silver frames. It showed Dad, big and smiling and wearing a ridiculous mustache, standing next to Marie, who was small, smiling, and wearing a wedding dress. They were holding hands, and Nick, who was used to jealously scanning people for signs of a family resemblance, was held by the sight.

Dad's hands were big, the knuckles large and square, the backs dusted with hair. The girl Marie had hands that were smaller, more feminine, but unmistakably Alan's thin sensitive hands.

It was an enormous relief.

No wonder she'd been wearing old-fashioned clothes in the hidden picture. No wonder Alan had lied. He would not have wanted Nick to know they had different mothers. He would have been afraid Nick would be hurt. He'd been looking out for Nick.

Nick didn't like it, but he understood. Alan had always called Mum Olivia. It made sense that Alan had nothing to do with her really, that he was not tainted by her madness in the least.

“You know who you do look like,” Mrs. Walsh said suddenly. “You look like Olivia. Daniel's first wife. She—” The woman hesitated. “I think they married very young. They were childhood sweethearts and—I didn't know her very well, but she always seemed restless. She ran away with someone else, and after a few years, Daniel and Marie got married. Is—is something wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong,” he snarled. “Everything's fine.”

Nick looked at the picture in Mrs. Walsh's hands and thought of the wedding picture Alan kept by his bedside. Mum and Dad looked so young in that picture, he remembered. They looked younger than Dad in this picture.

Furious panic fragmented the images in Nick's head for a moment. He tried to piece together all this new information until it made sense. It felt like fitting the shards of a broken glass together with his bare hands, but he didn't care if it hurt as long as he could force the world into a pattern he could understand.

So Mum and Dad had been married and separated. That didn't mean anything. Mum had come back to Dad, then, and he'd taken her in because he'd loved her once. That explained why he'd protected a magician. That made sense. It did not mean that anything in Nick's life had changed.

“She came back,” he said, trying to sound calm. “Olivia. She and Dad had me—”

“Marie died fifteen years ago,” Mrs. Walsh blurted out. “I was with her. I was with Alan and Daniel the whole time. You must be about seventeen! I don't know who you are, but I know you're not Daniel Ryves's son.”

She looked upset and suspicious at once as she threw the words in his face, but Nick abruptly ceased to care. She'd told him everything she knew now. She didn't matter anymore. Dad used to keep a lot of pictures, but he'd never seen a picture of Alan when he was younger than four, or of himself when he was younger than one. Mum had returned to Dad—to Daniel Ryves—traumatized, scared, carrying an amulet and a baby.

She'd run away with someone else, and that someone else was Black Arthur, who fed people to demons, who had tortured the woman he was supposed to love until she ran again.

I know you're not Daniel Ryves's son.

Everybody always found it hard to believe that he was Alan's brother, because he was not Alan's brother. He'd never had a brother.

“Do you really know Alan?” Mrs. Walsh asked, her voice trembling. “Can you tell me how he is? Daniel and Alan simply disappeared one day, and I always wondered what had happened to them. And then Alan found me. He called and he wrote and he visited. He was so polite; he was so good. I didn't see my nephew for fourteen years and he came back crippled and saying that his father was dead, and then he vanished. I just want to know if he's all right.”

She looked as if she was going to cry. Alan would have cared.

Nick stared at this woman, Alan's aunt, and realized that this stranger had a better claim on Alan than he did.

The small sitting room and its decorations did not seem frozen anymore. Nick wanted to smash it all. He'd been cold before, but now his blood felt too hot. He was burning up, he was shaking with rage.

The horrible woman's voice changed. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Do you—do you need to sit down? Would you like a glass of water?”

Natasha Walsh moved forward, and Nick grabbed hold of her upper arm. She recoiled from the look on his face.

He'd always known that he scared people sometimes. Clearly it was a talent he'd inherited from his father.

The woman was suddenly breathing hard, in small gasps weighted by fear. “Don't hurt me.”

He hated her. She'd told him that everything he'd ever known about his life was a lie, and he hated her almost as much as he hated that liar Alan. Alan, who belonged in this place, with this woman and her family, and not with him.

Nick put his lips to her ear and whispered, “Why not?”

He shook her hard, and she gave a thin, small scream and tried to break away. She didn't have a chance.

“Let me go,” she pleaded.

“Why?” Nick demanded, his voice rising to a shout. “I don't feel sorry for you. I don't feel anything for you. Why should I?”

He shook her again, her shoulders impossibly thin and frail in the grip of his hands. She stared up at him with terrified eyes that were washed-out copies of Alan's deep-blue eyes and for a moment he couldn't bear it; he didn't know what he was going to do.

Then the picture slipped out of her shaking fingers and clattered onto the rug.

Nick looked down and saw Dad staring up at him.

He let the woman go and bolted out of that warm, comfortable home into the rain.

He had not heard when it started raining, but now the drops pounded against his skin and rattled the roof of the car. He stood with his arms braced against the roof, the rain pulling a slick black curtain of hair over his eyes, and wondered why he didn't just get into the car and drive. It occurred to him that he was not sure where to go. Home had always been an uncertain concept, attached to no particular place and centered on someone who he now knew did not belong to him.

There was no home to go back to. He pressed his forehead against his wet forearms, against the slippery metal of the car roof, and tried to think. It could not be true, not really. There would be no way to live if it was true.

 

He drove back to London eventually, because he could not stay outside that house and he could not think of anything else to do. He was not panicked or running for a bolt-hole like a wounded animal. He felt strangely empty of feelings or ideas, as if someone had slit him open and removed them. He just kept driving.

Alan called this kind of rain cats' paws, and this rain seemed to mark the passing of a nightmarish army of cats. Nick could barely see to drive, and the gray of a pouring sky seemed not to change but to bleed into the gray of a city. He only really noticed that he was in London when the car coughed to a stop on Tower Bridge, and he realized that night had been closing in behind the rain.

Nick got out and went to the front of the car, intending to check out the engine, but the rain hammered all thought from his mind. He stood staring at the car bonnet, the rain distorting the road and the passing cars into a river of ink, the flow broken occasionally by flashes of metal.

He turned away and left the car amidst the indignant honking of other motorists. He started walking through the rain. Within minutes he felt numb with cold, the relentless lashing of rain against his skin becoming as personal a rhythm as his footsteps.

The towers on the bridge loomed like enemy fortresses against a sky gone slate gray with rain clouds and the approach of night. Nick stared up at them and then at the London skyline, the buildings spiky and glittering as stiletto knives. He bowed his head and walked through the driving rain.

He had to walk for a long time to get home. The sky had turned dull, dead black, and his legs had the heavy feeling that meant every muscle would be aching tomorrow. The rain had not stopped falling. As he approached the flickering sign of the Chinese takeaway, the light turned the raindrops silver, and Nick had forgotten what it felt like to be dry.

He came into the house and leaned against the door. The rain drummed outside, and he wondered if he should just go back out and keep walking. He'd known what to do when he was walking.

“Nick!”

He looked up, more because of the light being switched on than at the sound of his name. At the top of the stairs stood Mae, limned by the pale yellow light of a naked bulb.