The Demon's Lexicon

9 Chains

“ALAN,” NICK SAID. “DON’T BE A FOOL.”

He did not think he had ever been so angry in his life. He’d been the one to catch the magician. He’d carried him over his shoulder through the streets of Salisbury with Jamie on his heels, explaining to anyone who questioned them that the unconscious man was Jamie’s cousin, and he had fits. Nick had trussed the magician up in iron, mostly bike chains he’d stolen, and thrown him in the boot of the car.

Nick had caught the magician. He should get to decide what to do with him.

Alan ran a hand through his hair as he always did when he was worried, leaving a fuzz of curls in the wake of his fingers as if he felt the outside of his head had to express the turmoil inside. “I’m trying to think of what’s best for everyone.”

“I don’t care what’s best for everyone!” Nick snarled. “I only care about what’s best for you.”

Jamie flattened himself against the wall, and even Mae jumped. Only Alan continued to look tired and unaffected, and Nick was frustrated enough to wish for a moment that his brother would just this once be like everyone else so Nick could scare him enough to do what he wanted him to do.

“The Circle may know by now that we have him,” Alan said slowly. “They’ll be on the alert.”

“There were no other magicians around to see us take him. Don’t you think I looked? Let’s kill him now and get the mark off you,” Nick argued. “Before they notice he’s gone and send something after him.”

“We can’t kill him yet. We need two magicians, and we won’t be able to surprise the Circle again. We need to get information from this one before we kill him.”

Nick did not know what to do. Alan insisted on acting as if Jamie’s life was worth as much as Alan’s, and no matter how much Nick disagreed, he knew with a wrench of furious despair that he was powerless to change Alan’s mind.

“Alan,” he said at last. “I swear I’ll catch another magician. I’ll do whatever you want. Only let me kill this one now and get the mark off. Alan. Please.”

When Alan looked at him steadily, Nick had to look away. Alan knew Nick, and knew what Nick was thinking: that he would try to catch another magician, but he might fail, and what did broken promises matter if Alan was safe?

“I don’t think we should take my mark off now,” Alan said at last. “I think we should take off Jamie’s.”

“Oh no,” Nick breathed. “No.”

If Alan thought for a moment that Nick would let Jamie be saved while Alan was still in danger, he was dreaming. Nick opened his mouth to say so.

Unexpectedly, Jamie spoke. He said, “No.” Everyone looked at him and his mouth quivered, but he pressed his lips together for a moment and went on. “You wouldn’t have a second-tier mark if it weren’t for me. We wouldn’t have this magician if it weren’t for you and Nick. It wouldn’t be fair to — I want you to go first.”

“Thank you, Jamie,” Nick said savagely. “At least somebody is showing some sense—”

“Shh,” Mae ordered, speaking for the first time. She was leaning against the wall, studying their prisoner, and now her eyes narrowed. “I think he’s waking up.”

Everyone fell silent and stared at the magician, who was chained to a chair in the middle of their sitting room and was now stirring.

He was very young, as magicians went. Nick usually only saw magicians in their true forms after he or Alan had managed to kill one, but he did not think any of the corpses had been as young as this. He looked about twenty, but Mum could not have been much older when she joined the Obsidian Circle. Youth did not make him any less dangerous.

It did make him look less dangerous, and he was not a very threatening specimen in any case. The magician had a shock of sandy hair, standing up on his head and then falling into his eyes like the petals on a rather floppy daffodil, and beneath the sandy mop he had a narrow, inquisitive face. There was something about his features, perhaps his long, pointed chin, that vaguely recalled a fox. Apart from that he had a friendly, freckled face, the face of a young man whom old ladies would instantly trust.

He opened wide gray eyes, blinked, and looked dismayed.

“Oh Lord,” said the magician. “Now I am in the soup.”

Nick was not in the least worried about himself or Alan. They knew what magicians were. He was worried about Mae and Jamie, and what their reaction was going to be once they got over the revelation that magicians looked and acted entirely harmless, entirely human. Until they didn’t.

“We’re going to kill you,” he said deliberately. “There will be no negotiation. I want to kill you now, but others of the group think you might have information we need. So we’re going to have to torture you first.”

He added the last sentence so Mae and Jamie could know the worst at once and deal with it however they had to. He didn’t want to have to cope with hysterics later.

“I think I could be persuaded to offer you some information without being tortured, if it’s all the same to you,” the magician said. He had a rueful way of talking, as if inviting sympathy, and a soft Irish accent.

Nick did not often have much use for his switchblade, since the moment it took to flick the weapon open could be a moment that made the difference between life or death. Now he felt he could take his time, and he appreciated the cold, quiet snick the knife made opening, and the way the magician’s face paled as he heard it.

“Talk.”

“My name’s Gerald,” the magician said promptly. Again his rueful voice asked them all to laugh a little at the name and see him as a little more human.

His shrewd, friendly eyes traveled over them all, making eye contact and assessing weaknesses. He didn’t even look at Nick, which confirmed Nick’s opinion of him as intelligent. He looked at Alan for a long moment and did nothing, looked at Mae and smiled bravely, and then let his eyes settle on Jamie.

“We don’t care about your name, magician,” said Alan. “Any more than you cared about the names of the people you’ve killed.”

Gerald looked genuinely indignant. “Killers? Is that all you think magicians are?”

“Not really,” Nick said, playing with his switchblade. “If I did, I’d think I was a magician.”

He knew he should shut up. Mae and Jamie were looking from Nick with his knife to Gerald chained in his chair. He knew they were making comparisons.

“I was born a magician,” Gerald said. “It isn’t about anything you do. It’s in the blood. You’re born with the call toward magic, toward power, and one day, no matter what you do, the magic will find you.”

He looked from Jamie to Mae as he spoke, Mae who loved knowledge as much as Alan did, and obviously he found enough encouragement in her face to go on.

“People think we can’t do much magic without demons, but that’s not true. The power that makes calling them easier shows itself in other ways. When I was a child, strange things happened around me all the time. The Obsidian Circle came to recruit me. Nobody had ever understood me before, but I’d always been a magician. One of my ancestors ruled half his country with his power. Magicians see the world differently. Everything is gray and flat and cold, nothing means anything, until you have the demon in your summoning circle and you have some control of the world at last.”

“It’s nice that you feel fulfilled by feeding people to demons,” Alan said mildly. He took a knife from his boot and turned it over in his hand, watching his blade catch the light. “Have you got anything useful to say, or do you need encouragement?”

Nick saw Jamie glance, startled, at Alan’s hard eyes. Soft-spoken Gerald must have been looking better by the minute. If they silenced Gerald now, though, they would look even more brutal.

“It’s not like your Market is as pure as the wings of a dove,” Gerald said sharply. “Do your friends know what it takes to prop up the Market? You’re funded by blood money!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick said, bored. “But I know it’s not useful.”

“It’s not always a question of feeding people to the demons, either,” Gerald said, still looking at Mae. “Some people want it. Some people ask for it.”

Jamie’s voice was small but fierce, and it made Mae’s intent concentration on the magician waver for the first time. “I didn’t.”

“Then I’m sorry,” Gerald said, and he sounded sorry. “I didn’t send a demon after you. I wouldn’t do something like that. Surely you know that there are people in this world who hate their lives, who don’t seem able to live them, who seem able to do nothing but drag themselves through a succession of endless unpleasant tasks until they die? You’ve seen people like that. You know them. Don’t tell me that you don’t.”

Mae hesitated, and with hesitation was lost. “I do, but—”

“Don’t you think people like that might trade the lives they don’t know how to use for what they want? Demons don’t come as invaders. They offer people something they want, whether it is money or oblivion or a night that makes these people feel alive as nothing else ever has. And when those people choose to give in, the world gets something in exchange. Demons have lived for centuries; they are wise and powerful, they can give so much back to the world—”

“They can give you such power,” Alan said. “Your Circle marked Jamie and me. Neither of us were willing. I don’t think any of your victims would be willing if they understood what they were agreeing to.”

Mae cleared her throat. “So sometimes they do agree?”

“Sometimes they do,” Alan had to confess.

“I don’t unleash demons on unwilling victims,” Gerald went on, clearly trying to throw enough conviction into his voice to carry both Mae and Jamie with him. “I’m sorry you were marked.” His voice trembled. “Are you really going to torture me?”

He looked directly at Jamie, who looked as panicked as if someone had handed him a thumbscrew and was waiting with an expectant air. “No,” he said, almost wildly. “No, I can’t. I couldn’t possibly.”

He turned his face away from Gerald and fixed Alan with a look of appeal. Alan stood, limped over to him, and placed a hand on Jamie’s thin shoulder. The gesture might have been more reassuring if Alan hadn’t had a knife in his other hand.

“Don’t worry,” Alan said. “You don’t have to. I can do it.”

He looked strained as he said it, but he did not hesitate. Nick was sure Alan didn’t like it, as sure as he was that Alan would do it if he had to.

When Mae spoke, it caught everyone off guard. “If it will help my brother. If it’s for Jamie and — and you,” she said, and faltered for a moment on seeing Alan’s look of startled happiness. “Then I can help. I can do it too.”

It surprised Nick enough to make him smile at her. She looked ill, but she kept her chin up and her shoulders back and met Nick’s eyes with an unflinching gaze. The girl might have an unsettling crying habit, but she was pure steel.

“You don’t have to do it either,” Alan said. “I can handle this on my own. I’ll get my things.”

As the door shut behind him, Nick knew how things would go: Alan would collect his box of instruments and have a few moments to himself so he could try to deal with what he had to do, and he wouldn’t be able to deal with it, and then he’d do it anyway. He would look white and strained and later he’d be sick, but he would never hesitate.

“I can do it,” Mae said, as the door shut behind Alan. She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself.

Nick had to work fast.

“I know that both of you can do it,” he said. Then he strolled over to Gerald, leaned in as if he was going to whisper a secret, and spoke in a perfectly audible voice. “But I want to do it.”

Gerald flinched at how close Nick was, and avoided his eyes. He was almost squirming in his chains to get away from Nick, and for the first time it occurred to Nick that he might be as badly frightened as he seemed.

If he was frightened, it was all to the good. He could be scared into telling them what he knew. It would please Alan if he could be spared unnecessary pain.

Nick slid into the man’s lap, getting as close as he could so he could scare him worse, listening to the scared hitch of Gerald’s breathing. He tossed his switchblade into the air and caught it, near the corner of Gerald’s eye, and saw the magician’s eyes swivel in an attempt to keep the knife in sight.

All Nick had was a knife. He had to do this quick, and rough, before Alan returned.

“Do you think I won’t do it?” he asked, his voice low in the man’s ear.

No matter where Gerald looked, he kept his eyes resolutely away from Nick’s face. Nick stroked the blade idly down Gerald’s cheek and the man shuddered. Nick had been right. He was terrified.

“I’m sure you will,” Gerald said, his voice shaking.

“How many of you are there?”

“Twelve!”

That was a good size for a magicians’ Circle. There were often fallings-out among magicians, power plays that left a Circle decimated. Black Arthur must be a strong leader to keep eleven others in check.

“The Circle’s moving to London. Where are you moving?”

Gerald swallowed, hesitating. Nick slashed a line across his cheekbone and the magician made a sharp, pained sound. Nick intended to show him he meant business, and the cut was deep. Blood welled in the gash and streamed down Gerald’s cheek. Nick recognized the gasp behind him as Jamie’s, and when he heard the sound of someone rushing to the bathroom and retching he wasn’t particularly surprised. Alan hated to see people hurt too. If they had grown up differently, Alan might have been as squeamish as Jamie.

“Central London,” Gerald gasped out. “I don’t know where exactly, I swear. I think our master bought a house near one of the big parks.”

The door opened again. Nick was somewhat surprised that Jamie had been able to come back this soon.

“And Black Arthur’s still your leader.”

“If Arthur’s alive, he’s the leader,” said a voice behind Nick. “That’s Arthur’s way.”

Nick looked over his shoulder and saw his mother. She seldom came downstairs unless Alan coaxed her, but she was here now, as if she had sensed that something momentous was happening. She was wearing a black shirt and trousers, and she had pushed her hair back from her face. It made her look almost normal.

Gerald was able to look at her. He stared at her with his mouth open, and she smiled snd "0%at him. The confident, amused smile looked like someone had pasted the mouth of another woman onto her wan face.

“You know who I am, then.”

“Lady Livia,” Gerald breathed.

Mum kept smiling. “That’s what he used to call me. You were after my time, I think.”

“Yes. I had nothing to do with what was done to you,” Gerald said, bloody but maintaining his calm.

Nick felt his lip curl. “He claims to be innocent of most things.”

Mum glanced over at Nick fleetingly. Her odd smile did not leave her lips, though her eyes were suddenly fixed and cold. She made an abrupt gesture of dismissal, as if she still called demons and had one in her power, and then she looked away from Nick immediately.

It was best to humor her. Nick flipped his bloody knife closed and swung lightly off Gerald, moving to the point farthest away from her in the room. Mum approached Gerald, walking lightly, and came to kneel at his feet.

“Innocent?” she repeated, her smile looking more fixed and strange than ever.

She pulled her shirt down, revealing an expanse of dead-white skin and, over her heart, black against the smooth whiteness, the sigil of the Obsidian Circle. It reminded Nick of the sign above one of the Salisbury pubs, showing a woman in a giant hand. Drawn over Mum’s heart was a hand, cupping not a woman but the world. There was a suggestion of tension about the fingers of the hand, as if they were just about to clench over the world and crush it.

Mum reached up and drew down Gerald’s shirt, stretching the cotton out of shape. There over his heart was the same hand, holding the same world.

“Nobody who wears this mark is innocent,” Mum whispered.

Gerald, blood still running down his face, sagged a little in his chair. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”

“No,” said Mum. “I don’t owe you anything. How is Arthur?”

“I don’t think he’s changed,” Gerald said. “He talks about you, often. He never wanted to hurt you. He chose you—”

Mum laughed and leaped to her feet lightly, as if she were young. “I chose him. That’s the problem with wanting someone who will change the world for you. Choose a man with that much power over the world, and all he really wants is more power.” She turned away and went over to Mae, standing so close to her that she could have slipped an arm around her waist.

“It’s probably best to change the world yourself,” she added. “Nobody should risk being a sacrifice.”

It was strange seeing Mum lean close to Mae, as if she was a normal woman with someone she liked, but Nick didn’t have time to think about that. Alan would be back soon. He flipped open his knife again and gave Gerald a meaningful look.

“What else do you want to know?” Gerald asked wearily.

“When does the Circle plan to move to London?” Nick demanded.

Gerald hesitated.

Nick moved forward, relentless as the tide. He leaned down to Gerald and closed his free hand around the magician’s throat.

“I’ve been talking a lot about my feelings recently,” he informed Gerald in a conversational tone. “I don’t really get scared. Want to know what else I don’t feel?”

Gerald’s voice was a whisper through the vise grip on his throat. “What?”

Nick trailed his knife down the cotton of Gerald’s T-shirt until the blade rested against Gerald’s stomach. The magician trembled and closed his eyes. Cut someone in the belly, and they could live for hours afterward. They just wouldn’t like life much.

Nick leaned closer to Gerald, laughed in his ear, and murmured, “Pity.”

“Nick!” said Alan from the doorway. “What are you doing?”

“Saving you some trouble,” Nick answered, and then looked over his shoulder.

Alan had one hand clenched on the door frame, knuckles white, as if only his grip on the door was keeping him on his feet. He looked as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

“Get away from him!”

Nick released Gerald’s throat and pocketed his switchblade in one move, abandoning the magician and walking toward his brother. Alan flinched, and Nick stopped.

“What’s the big deal?” Nick asked roughly, not sure what words would help and what words would upset Alan more. “I don’t — I don’t know what I did wrong. It bothers you, it doesn’t bother me, I thought I could do it and you’d be — I thought you’d be happy.”

Alan closed his eyes and swallowed, and something about his face reminded Nick of the way Gerald had looked as he waited for the knife to come down.

“It should bother you,” Alan said in a low voice.

Nick was suddenly furious. He was sick of this whole business. He wanted to kill this man, not chat with him. He wanted Alan to stop telling him what he should do and start telling him the truth; it seemed like his whole life was slipping through his hands and all he had left were lies and rules he did not understand.

He didn’t want to look at his brother. He didn’t need to be here.

“Fine. You deal with this,” he said between his teeth. “You guys have fun. I’m going to go wash all this blood off.”

He watched for Alan’s flinch this time, and then shoved past him out of the door. He climbed the stairs wearily, pulling off a T-shirt that had been grubby from the roofs of Salisbury before he’d spilled someone else’s blood on it. He was so sick of Alan having this mark, so sick of Mae being always around and always on the verge of becoming a problem between him and his brother. Nick wanted all of this over, and the magician dead.

The shower hissed at him like a chorus of snakes when he twisted the knob and set the water running. He got in and bowed his head under the spray.

He was under the water for about a minute when he heard the gunshot.

Nick grabbed for his jeans and realized as he was pulling them on that his knives must have fallen out when he was getting undressed. There was no time to go back for them; he ran down the stairs empty-handed with the shower hissing behind him.

There was a wolf in the sitting room.

It was big and brindled, with thick fur that tufted into white at the places where its hackles rose. Its bared teeth were sharp and yellow. It was circling Gerald’s chair, and from deep within its barrel chest rose a long, continuous snarl. It was too big, its teeth too sharp, and the snarl too menacing. It was probably a magician whom some demon had given enough power to make a very convincing illusion. Convincing enough to kill.

Gerald’s voice was shaking. “Let me loose! The Circle will kill me before they let me talk. Don’t let me die without a fight. I can help you. Let me go!”

Mum was backed into a corner with Mae and Jamie, as if the wolf had herded them there. Alan was standing by the magician’s chair with his gun trained on the wolf. Nick edged forward, scooping up a discarded chain from the pile they’d used to truss up Gerald, and saw the wolf’s head move a fraction. It fixed its yellow eyes on Alan and snarled.

Nick had already heard a gunshot. Alan did not miss: If the wolf was not dead, then it was bulletproof.

The wolf’s snarl became a stuttering, ugly growl that sounded like a dying car engine. Its haunches bunched up for a spring.

Nick wrapped the end of the chain around his fist and lunged forward. He brought the chain down hard against the wolf’s back and heard the animal yelp, then yanked the chain back, over his head, and as the wolf swung to face him he dived for it before it could leap at him. They went down together, the wolf’s growl reverberating through its body and its body crashing down on Nick’s. Its claws scored burning lines down Nick’s chest, and its teeth snapped an inch from his face.

He threw his chain over the creature’s head, caught the other end and twisted the makeshift choke chain hard in both hands. The wolf choked, the cold weight of the chain hurting Nick’s hands. He kept almost grabbing big handfuls of fur and the wolf lunged, trying to find a way to breathe, shoving hard against the single barrier of the chain.

The sound of Alan’s gun rang out again, even though he must know by now it wouldn’t work. Nick turned his face to one side and felt the wolf’s hot breath on his face, felt its teeth graze his cheek. He pulled the chain tight with both his hands and tried to hold the wolf at arm’s length while the creature snarled and tried to throw itself at him. Nick pulled the wolf on top of him, rolling with it in a nightmare of claws and straining muscle, trying to wrestle it and strangle it at once. The wolf twisted its head around and sank its teeth in Nick’s wrist.

Nick did not have time to scream. He pulled the choke chain closed, a band of iron around the wolf’s neck. A howl was choked off in the wolf’s throat and the fierce thrashing of its body started to seem less like an attack and more like desperation. It kept trying to breathe. Pain lanced through Nick’s arms with the effort of keeping the chain tight and ever tighter, the wolf’s eyes were bulging in its head, and suddenly it collapsed forward against Nick’s chest.

Instead of a wolf, a woman fell against Nick, her long hair tumbling into his face. He pushed the body off him and sat up with difficulty, his arms suddenly feeling weak, and let the chain slip out of his hands.

It occurred to him when it was too late that if he’d only had his sword, if he’d been able to make her bleed before he killed her, he could have used her blood to paint over Alan’s mark. Alan would have been safe.

He climbed wearily to his feet, unsurprised to see Jamie and Mae staring at him with shocked faces. They weren’t used to death yet. Mum turned her eyes away when he glanced at her. She looked sick.

Alan grabbed his shoulder and spun him around with one hand. He looked furious.

“Where is it?” he demanded, his eyes blazing. “What have you done with it?”

“What?” said Nick. “What are you talking about?”

“Your talisman!” Alan shouted. He was shaking. “Do you know what could have happened? How long have you had it off? Tell me you just took it off now, Nick. Tell me that much.”

Of course. His talisman. Now that Alan said it, Nick was completely aware that it was gone. In some corner of his mind he’d known for some time that the small, constant burden had been lifted. Its irritating presence had been an absence ever since — ever since—

“I took it off to call Liannan,” he said slowly. “I left it in a building site.”

Color drained from Alan’s face, his veins standing out like blue lines struck across white paper. “You haven’t worn your talisman for a week.”

“You gave your talisman away.”

“I—” Alan lowered his voice. “I didn’t throw it away! I meant it to be for a couple of hours. A week, Nick! Anything could have happened. God.”

Now that Nick had killed something, he felt better. He’d done something at last, something useful, and even though his arms ached and his wounds stung he felt calmer; some of his simmering rage had burned away in the fight. Alan was worried about him, and that wasn’t bad either.

“Sorry,” he offered at length. “I’ll get one later.”

Alan was hanging on to his shoulder as if Nick had almost walked out into traffic and Alan had only just been able to catch him in time. As Nick spoke he breathed out deeply, once, and shut his eyes. He slipped out of Alan’s grasp as gently as he could and stood watching him uncertainly, wondering what he’d done wrong now.

“You’re lucky your big brother learns from his mistakes,” Alan said at length. “Come on upstairs. I got some spares at the Goblin Market.”

He limped toward the door and Nick followed him for a few steps, then stopped. Alan threw a glance over his shoulder that was more silent command than look; Nick took another step forward without even thinking.

“Wait,” he said. “There could be more magicians around. We shouldn’t leave this one alone with two tourists and her.”

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Alan looked mildly amused. “We’re just going upstairs.”

“Yeah, we can handle this,” Mae said, her voice calmer than she looked, and Nick felt like admiration was being dragged out of him against his will. “Olivia will stay with us.”

She smiled at Nick, and he kept his face chill and expressionless so she would transfer her smile to Alan. She did transfer her smile to Alan, that was the thing: If there had been no hope for Alan at all, it would have been less of a dilemma.

Nick let them smile at each other and leaned back against the wall, examining the claw marks of the wolf. The deepest were on his stomach, on one side of his belly button. Nick looked at the red grooves and was distantly pleased that the wolf had been too busy trying to bite him to claw him open. Intestines belonged on the inside.

The room was a mess. Chains were scattered about the place, the rug was twisted like bedsheets after his fight with the wolf, and their prisoner seemed on the point of hysterics. The other magician lay crumpled at Gerald’s feet.

“We could just kill him now,” Nick said, and watched the slow shudder work its way through Gerald’s body, from shaking shoulders to trembling lips.

Alan looked impatient. “We can kill him for Jamie.”

“No,” Nick snarled.

Alan looked at him for a long moment, as if by making Nick his single focus he could somehow keep him safe, and then his strained face smoothed out. “We can talk about that later,” he said softly. “First let’s just go upstairs and get that talisman. We’ll only be gone a minute, and — I want you to have it. I don’t want you in any danger.”

“Good luck with that one. I just strangled a wolf to death five minutes ago,” Nick said gruffly. Alan smiled, and they both understood that Nick had given in.

Just on this one thing. He’d come and get a talisman if it made Alan feel better, but he wasn’t going to put up with any of this nonsense about Jamie going first. Alan had sacrificed enough for Jamie already.

“C’mon,” said Alan, and Nick moved to follow him.

“This is just a thought,” Jamie called after them. “But while you’re up there, you might see if you can find a shirt.”

When they went into Alan’s room, Nick could not help casting an uneasy eye over Alan’s bookshelves. He hadn’t had a chance to put Alan’s precious photo back in its hiding place yet, and he had a sudden moment of foreboding. If Alan tried to sneak a look at the stupid picture he liked gazing at so much, he’d find out what Nick had done.

It didn’t matter if he did find out. Nick had a right to discover the truth, but somehow he didn’t like the idea of how Alan would look at him if he knew.

He turned deliberately away from the bookcase and occupied himself shrugging into one of Alan’s baggy old T-shirts, lying slung over a chair. He went to lean against the wall, looking out of the window where the sun was going down, the sky brimming dark blue over the gray roofs of London.

Alan knelt down by his wardrobe and took out the box where he kept his protective charms, beginning to sift through them slowly and thoughtfully as if he was telling rosary beads. Or as if he was afraid to look up.

“I’m serious about taking Jamie’s mark off,” he said slowly.

“You’re being stupid.”

“You don’t understand—”

“Yeah, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why you’re being stupid!”

Nick’s voice rose in a shout, a harsh, flat sound like a whip cracking or a door slamming. If he’d been shouting at anyone but Alan he knew he would have seen the effect of the shout: seen the sound seep into their bones and make them shudder, make them give in.

It was different with Alan. Threatening him wouldn’t work; he didn’t seem to care about saving himself. He would have to find some other way to make Alan do what he wanted. Nick looked at his brother and suddenly felt icy calm.

He knew what threat to use.

“Here it is,” Alan said in a quiet, pleased voice, as if Nick hadn’t shouted at him a moment ago. He got to his feet with his usual care, a flash of pain drawing a deep line between his brows, then smiled and limped over to Nick.

The talisman was dangling from Alan’s left wrist like a bracelet. There was a crawling sensation of dread in Nick’s stomach just looking at it, but when Alan beckoned, he bowed his head and let his brother slip the talisman around his neck. He felt like an animal going back into harness.

The talisman burned where it touched his skin. Nick set his teeth at the return of the dull, constant pain and looked into Alan’s face, which showed uncomplicated relief.

“Do you know what I’ll do if you don’t take that mark off?” he asked. He did not shout this time. He lowered his voice so it was a very private and personal threat, a soft promise of pain.

Alan recognized it. “Nick,” he said, startled and a little pleading.

Nick had to make him understand.

“You care so much about Mum? She was an Obsidian Circle magician. She still has the sigil. Her lifeblood would save you.”

Alan took a quick, unsteady breath, his thin chest rising and falling sharply. He was trembling.

“I’d do it,” Nick swore to him. “I’d trade her for you. I’d do it in a heartbeat. I won’t let you die!”

Alan’s mouth twisted viciously. “Why not? More useful to you than Olivia, am I?”

He was watching Nick in the same hurt, horror-struck way he had when he’d seen Nick with the magician. Nick looked away and out of the window again, to where the sun was sinking, shadow closing its claws over the houses one by one. He fought with black incomprehension: Alan wanted a particular response from him, and he didn’t know what it was.

“Well — well, you are more useful than she is,” he said haltingly.

“How can you—,” Alan began in a furious voice.

He was interrupted by the sound of Mae screaming. It wasn’t a scream for help. It was the scream of someone in pain.

Alan palmed the knife from his wrist sheath and held it out before Nick could say a word. Nick closed his fingers around the hilt and ran, taking the stairs three at a time, and bolted into the sitting room, throwing open the door and running almost directly into Mum.

She flung up an arm as if Nick was the threat.

“Don’t touch me!”

“I don’t want to touch you!” Nick snarled. “What happened?”

Mum didn’t bother replying. It was pretty obvious what had happened. Their sitting room was torn apart. Someone had broken the window and shredded the rug. Mae was lying at an awkward angle on the floor with blood all over her face, struggling to get up as Jamie tried to push her down. The chair that had contained Gerald the magician was on its side, the chains that had bound him were a gleaming silver path that pointed to the shattered window.

Outside the window and utterly beyond reach was a huge bird, the curving shape of amber wings outlined in the setting sun, flaring gold as he flew. Nick imagined that its talons were fairly impressive as well, judging by what the creature had done to the rug and Mae’s face.

“Mae,” Nick said. “Are you—”

Alan stumbled down the last step on the stairs and was almost instantly at Mae’s side. Nick fell silent and went for the first-aid kit, passing it to Alan without a word. Alan accepted it with a nod, murmuring comforting nonsense to Mae as he taped the cut across her cheek carefully closed. Mae stopped fighting to get up and bore the taping without a sound, and Nick watched her whisper reassurance back to Alan, watched their shared smiles.

“I’m really okay. Thanks,” Mae murmured, low and grateful, Alan’s musician’s fingers held lightly against the curve of her jaw. “He turned into a freaking bird. I couldn’t believe it!” Her voice turned frustrated. “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t do a thing.”

“It’s not your fault,” Alan assured her.

He was right. There was nothing she could have done. If Gerald could transform into an animal, he had a whole lot more power than Nick had thought. He had so much power that it must mean he’d wanted to be captured.

He’d wanted to be brought here.

They’d been played for fools. And that wasn’t even the worst part.

Nick gazed with building fury at his brother, bent solicitously over Mae and acting so very concerned.

He said, “You did this.”

Alan stood up at once. “Come outside,” he said, in that calm, reasonable voice of his. Nick strode forward and grabbed Alan’s elbow, dragging him to the front door and only stopping when his brother almost fell on the threshold.

He steadied Alan with his free hand and then stepped back. For a moment his throat was too tight to find words.

“You did this,” he repeated at last.

He remembered Alan’s face, smoothing into a bland mask when Nick refused to let him take Jamie’s mark off. We’ll only be gone a minute. I don’t want you in any danger. He’d been worried, and he’d used that to make Nick do exactly what he wanted. Once he’d brought Nick upstairs, he’d kept him upstairs with that little line about Jamie. He’d known Nick would argue with him.

He’d deliberately let the magician go, and now he was facing Nick with that careful look on his face, trying to calm Nick down without actually giving anything away, waiting to see what lie would work this time.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you got the only two people capable of restraining that magician out of the room! You did it, and you did it on purpose, because you wanted to keep the demon’s mark that is going to kill you. I know all that. I just don’t know why. And I want to know why, Alan. I’m going to know why.”

Alan looked at Nick’s face and obviously saw that denials weren’t going to do him any good.

“Because of what that messenger said,” he answered quietly. “Because I have a plan. Would you rather I didn’t have one?”

Nick grabbed the collar of Alan’s shirt and pushed him up against the door frame with one hand.

“I’d rather you didn’t get yourself killed!”

Alan looked up at him, pale and silent, and Nick realized how this would look to anyone watching. A crippled boy, stumbling and obviously upset, being menaced by a vicious thug. He felt vicious; he would’ve hit Alan if that would have made him stop.

Only he knew his brother. Pain didn’t scare him, and nothing could make him stop.

“Mum’s not worth this,” he snarled. “Nothing’s worth this.”

“Some things are.”

Nick did not shake him, no matter how much he was tempted. He let go of his brother’s shirt and stepped back. He thought Alan looked a little relieved.

“It won’t take long for Gerald to report back to the Obsidian Circle,” Nick said. “They’ll be coming soon. We can’t be here. Do you have a plan for that?”

He glared at his brother, and Alan looked back, pained but still calm, still plotting something.

“I do,” said Alan. “I told you I needed to see what Merris was experimenting with. She lives on the Isle of Wight. We can go there. We can escape the magicians that way.”

Nick looked away from him then, leaning his cheek against the steel door frame and looking out onto the narrow gray street, just another street among the hundreds of streets he had lived on and would never see again. Alan was still thinking about the best way to help Mum, and then it would be the best way to help Jamie, and all Nick wanted to do was take Alan and run. If they kept moving, maybe the magicians wouldn’t get a chance to put the last mark on Alan and finish him off. Nick didn’t care about anything else.

He opened his mouth and could not find words.

Alan held him in that moment of silence with a look.

“Nick,” he said quietly. “I’m going. You can’t stop me. If you raise a hand to me I’ll shoot you in the leg. I’m going to Merris’s because I need her help and nothing you can say will change my mind. You don’t have to come with me.”

“Yes, I do,” Nick snapped.

What a stupid thing for Alan to say. They had never been separated for longer than those few days last Christmas; Nick always knew where Alan was and usually knew that he was close. That was how things were and how they were going to stay. Alan was his brother, and if he was set on carrying out his little plan, risking himself to save Mum, then Nick had to be with him to make sure he was safe.

Alan looked almost too worn out to smile but he did anyway, a faint, sweet smile that lingered in his eyes. “All right.”

He nodded slightly, as if they were businessmen who had come to an understanding. Then he turned and went back into the hall, limping a little more than usual, as if he was carrying something heavy. Nick followed him. It was clear that Alan needed to be watched. He’d meant what he’d told Alan: He would sacrifice Mum if he had to.

It didn’t matter what Alan wanted. It only mattered that Alan lived.