The Fire Rose

CHAPTER FIVE

Paul du Mond had never been so certain of anything in his life as he was certain that Jason Cameron had no intentions of teaching him anything further. As he left the Firemaster's private sanctum and heard the lock clicking shut behind him, he allowed his mask to drop and felt his lips contorting in a silent snarl.

He knew why Cameron didn't plan to teach him anything more; the man was afraid that once Paul advanced past the stage of mere Apprentice, he would quickly outstrip his teacher.

Paul's anger ebbed enough that a smirk passed over is lips. Cameron should fear him; he had more ambition than the Firemaster, and fewer scruples. Not that there were many who would say that Cameron was anything but unscrupulous, but Paul knew his employer, and he knew that there actually were things that Jason Cameron would not do. He would not take advantage of someone who was, in his estimation, truly innocent, for instance. So far as Paul was concerned, the world was against him, and anyone was fair game. No point in thinking anyone was innocent; even the tiniest children were supreme manipulators, using their big eyes and ready tears to extract what they wanted from unsuspecting adults. In some ways, the Catholics with their doctrine of Original Sin were more enlightened than the modern scientists.

That fellow Charles Darwin was right; it was a world of fang and claw, and not even infants were innocent, for they were as selfishly interested in survival as any adult. Only the fit survived, or deserved to survive.

The only way of succeeding in the world was to use every weapon at his disposal, use those weapons ruthlessly and without remorse, for without a doubt, given a change in circumstances, those weapons would be used on him by someone else. Paul had seen the truth of that in his own life, which was the surest measure of what was true.

So Cameron did well to fear him, fear what he would do if he ever became the Firemaster's equal. He would not, as Simon did, allow the situation to endure in stalemate. He would eliminate his rival, quickly, and efficiently. Cameron admired the horse—well, Paul admired the shark, the tiger, and the cobra, the most efficient killing machines in Nature. They wasted no motion, no time; if there was a chance to kill when the prey was unaware of the hunter's presence, that was the best moment to strike.

He retired to his own quarters and shut the door behind him. As luxurious as he cared to make them, they were no reward—everything in them belonged to Cameron and could be taken back at a moment's notice if du Mond failed to demonstrate the appropriate level of gratitude and servility. There was very little here that was his own, and Cameron never let him forget it. Everywhere he looked he saw Cameron's hand, Cameron's taste, Cameron's signature red and gold. He lived surrounded by those colors, even in his own bedroom, branding him as Cameron's property.

But Cameron was not God and he could not be everywhere; his sure influence extended only as far as the borders of this estate. Now that the man himself was confined, so was his power—and Cameron had taught Paul enough that du Mond knew how to make certain that influence did not follow him when he left the estate.

Cameron' s business sent him into San Francisco overnight or for two or three days about once a month. He was due for just such a trip in another few days. With the addition of the girl to the household, the trip might be sooner than usual. There were bound to be things that she needed that Cameron had not thought of, and things that Cameron needed he had not anticipated. There would be "special" packages to deliver, and to pick up.

He would occupy Cameron's city flat most of the time; he would certainly sleep there. But during the day, he would carry out at least one errand of his own.

Just to be ready, tonight before he went to bed he'd pack his valise, so be could leave on a moment's notice.

If Cameron would not teach him, share the Power with him, there was someone else who would.

Paul du Mond went directly to the office attached to his suite. He did have work to do, as he had told Cameron, and he had better get to it in case Cameron could see him. There were books to order, routine business-letters to write, invitations to politely refuse, pleas from various charities to deal with, all the minutiae of a wealthy man's life to handle. Once or twice, something amusing would cross his desk—such as the time that one of Cameron's paid companions tried a spot of blackmail—but mostly it was boring work, which was precisely why Cameron had always left it to him. The important correspondence, such as missives from other Masters, du Mond never saw.

On the desk was one of the new type-writing machines, but tonight du Mond had pushed it aside in favor of pen and ink. Only completely trivial letters were written on the machine; Cameron preferred the personal touch for anything else.

Did the Hawkins girl have as elegant a hand as Paul did? He doubted it. He knew that his calligraphy was so perfect as to seem artificial, and he always knew how to choose precisely the right words, whether dealing with a hopeful clergyman looking for a contributor, or an equally hopeful socialite hoping to attract Jason to her soiree. Perhaps he could not read the manuscripts Cameron needed, but neither could the Hawkins girl replace him. Cameron needed his skills too much to be rid of him.

Especially now.

He had learned to keep his feelings hidden around Cameron a long time ago, but he could never look at that strange man-wolf mask without a mingling of fear and satisfaction. The fear was natural enough; how could any sane human look at what the Firemaster had become and not feel fear and revulsion? But satisfaction—that was a bit more complicated. There was certainly satisfaction in seeing how Cameron had at last overreached himself and come to grief. There was more in seeing that now the man's essential nature was reflected in his appearance. Cameron was a predator; well, now he looked like one. There was more satisfaction in knowing that Cameron could no longer be at the center of a glittering round of dinners, theater engagements, and parties. Paul had often seethed with resentment and envy as Cameron took his private railcar into the city for a weekend of amusement; now Cameron was bound more firmly to the estate than he. He held all the cards now, and all the control. Let Cameron go on pretending otherwise; it was Paul who would write the program for this little play.

When the end to this relationship came, it would come when Paul du Mond chose—and in the manner of his choosing.

With a smile, he sat down at his desk, removed an engraved invitation from the waiting basket, and selected a piece of rich, cream-colored paper with Cameron's own watermark.

He dipped a pen into the inkwell, thought for a moment, and wrote the first word of Cameron's gracefully worded refusal of yet another dinner-party.

"I'm going to need you to go into the city for a few days."

Once again, the Firemaster's study was shrouded in darkness although it was a bright afternoon outside, and Cameron himself was nothing more than a darker form amid the shadows of his chair. Du Mond simply nodded.

"You'll take the private carriage," Cameron continued. "You'll be bringing back a quantity of packages for me, and I want you to have somewhere safe to keep them until you return."

That meant he would be picking up occult and Magickal supplies; otherwise he would have brought them to the apartment instead. But Cameron had greater protections on the railway carriage than on the apartment, now. In the past, that had not been the case, but since the accident he could not go into the city to renew the apartment's Shieldings himself, and he did not trust Paul to do so. Now, when he dared not take the risk of an enemy tampering with his belongings, he had Paul use the carriage as his storage-depot.

That was fine with du Mond, since the carriage was infinitely more convenient and comfortable than the small buggy he would otherwise have used. In a downpour, the buggy was decidedly damp and cold, and du Mond did not have the Elemental Mastery required to make it otherwise.

"There are a number of things that will be arriving by train, so I will need you to remain in the city until they appear," Cameron went on. "You'll use the apartment, of course, and I trust you'll find ways of amusing yourself."

The sardonic tone of his voice said without words just how he expected Paul to amuse himself. It tickled Paul's fancy to know that Cameron hadn't the least idea how far his assumptions were off the mark. Not that he wouldn't have the kind of amusement Cameron assumed, but the style would be vastly different from Cameron's own.

Perhaps when he had broken free of Cameron, he'd make his amusements permanent...

Then again, perhaps he'd better not. Slavery was illegal, no matter what the Chinese slave-dealers believed.

Too bad, too.

"These will be complicated errands, and they may take the entire week to complete, so I will not expect you to return for at least five days. If it looks to you as if you may be staying longer than a week, send a messenger, but otherwise don't bother."

Cameron didn't mean a human messenger, of course; Paul had mirror-mastery enough to send a message that way. Paul nodded. "Your correspondence is completely up to date," he offered. "I'm ready to leave."

"Good, then anything that comes in during the week can wait until you return," Cameron replied promptly. "I've already sent down orders to have the carriage ready; it will be waiting for you down at the siding at any time after two."

That meant, of course, "Be down there at two on the dot." The telegraph on Cameron's desk let him communicate with every stationmaster up and down the line and with the switchyard in San Francisco. The track would be clear of traffic at two, but probably not at two-thirty or three. If he wanted to get into the city rather than sit on the siding for hours, it behooved him to get himself down there and on that carriage at two, precisely.

He nodded again.

"That should be all, then, unless you have any questions." Cameron's voice told him the Firemaster had already dismissed du Mond from his thoughts and was on to other things.

"No," Paul replied, and took himself out. He wondered, as he opened the door to the landing, if Cameron had noticed the absence of the word "sir." Possibly. But just at the moment, subservience stuck in du Mond's throat, and he could not bring himself to offer the word to someone who looked like a creature in a circus freak-show.

Now that he was out of the office and he could read the face, he pulled his watch from its vest pocket and checked the time—which was set every morning by the big clock in the hall, which in turn was always set by railway time. How like Cameron! It was barely one-thirty. He would have had just enough time to run upstairs and throw a few things into a bag, if he had not already packed.

As it was, he was able to go upstairs at a leisurely pace, get his valise, and make his way to the elevator without breaking into an undignified trot. The elevator deposited him at the siding-platform just as the train-carriage itself backed into view, huffing and hissing. The brakeman saw him and waved to him; he waved back. He made it a point to be on friendly terms with these men, who knew nothing of Cameron's Magickal activities. For one thing, the engine was a creature of Fire, and Paul was quite certain Cameron had a Salamander on board to see that all went well with his precious vehicle, which meant the Salamander could spy for him, too. For another, these men had it in their power to make his trips to and from the city less comfortable than they could be. They did not have to report difficulties with Paul back to Cameron; they had ample means of revenge in their own hands. They could "forget" to take on water for the carriage when they took it on for the engine; they could "forget" oil for the lamps or fuel for the stove. They could "decide" that they were not comfortable with the margin between scheduled trains, no matter what Cameron decreed; they could wait at the switch for hours until a "safe" margin occurred, with Paul sitting in a cold, dark, velvet-upholstered box.

Paul did his best to be cooperative and undemanding, which was the best way to deal with them. Rail people often preferred cargo to passengers; cargo didn't make difficulties. Paul acted like smiling cargo, which seemed to suit them.

The engineer applied the brakes, and the wheels emitted their metallic screaming. As soon as the train had squealed and screeched to a full stop, he swung aboard, throwing his valise up onto the top step ahead of him. That earned him a grin of approval; the one thing a railroad man hated worse than anything was a wasted minute. Paul had barely time to open the door into the carriage itself when the train was in motion again.

None of the lamps were lit since it was still brilliantly sunny, but a small fire was going in the stove to take the chill off the car, and Paul saw with approval that refreshments had been stowed in the proper places. Good; a whisky and soda would be just the thing right now, with perhaps a cigar and a light snack.

But first he checked the safe, cleverly concealed in the sideboard.

As he had expected, there was a slim, pale envelope containing his instructions, and a packet of banknotes. He raised an eyebrow when he saw that in addition to the banknotes there was a supply of gold coins. Evidently some of the people with whom he was to deal did not trust paper money.

He took out only the envelope; the rest could wait until he arrived in the city. He poured himself a whisky and splashed in the soda, making certain with long habit that both bottles went back into their respective "cradles" before be closed the liquor cabinet. He took the letter and the glass back to his favorite chair and sat in the sun, sipping and reading, while the train clattered through an endless sea of trees. The whiskey in his glass trembled and the vibration of the car made even his bones hum—but by now he was so used to it that it was merest background, like the humming of bees in the summer.

Some of his errands were routine, but there were three that were not—trips to three different Chinese emporia. This, according to his instructions, was where he was to take the gold. In one, he was to purchase books that were waiting for him, in the second to purchase rare herbs.

In the third he was to hand over a specified amount of coin for a sealed packet, and was not under any circumstances to break the seal.

Interesting. All three errands could only have to do with Magick, though this was the first time he had been instructed to pick up a sealed package. Presumably Cameron had always gone after such items himself in the past. Just because the package came from the shop of a Chinese did not mean that the Magick was from the Orient, however. The Chinese, like the Jews, had a remarkable talent for acquiring things, and this package could contain anything from an African artifact to the ceremonial dagger of Giles de Rais.

He would have to make inquiries about the shopkeepers. They might be a resource he would need later.

The rest of the errands were much like others he had run in the past, except for one small item; among the other items Cameron wanted from the apothecary was a remarkable quantity of laudanum, and for the first time since Paul had known him, a small amount of morphia.

So, Cameron needed opiates, did he? Perhaps that hybrid body of his was giving him pain. And perhaps that sealed packet was not Magickal at all, but was the pure opium, straight from the poppy-fields of China. It wasn't illegal, but Chinese White was much purer and stronger than the stuff doled out by pharmacists and mail-order houses. Du Mond smiled, for if Cameron was clouding his mind with drugs, the situation could only be advantageous for du Mond.

He made a mental note to watch Cameron for any signs that the man was at less than optimal condition, and to take advantage of it if he was.

There were new errands, but they were obviously at the behest of the new employee, the Hawkins girl. There was a second handwritten list, a short one, in a hand he did not recognize. It was not as good as his, though it was legible enough. It certainly would not do for writing to important or influential people. In this, at least, his position was secure.

An endless parade of trees flew past the windows of the carriage. The train did not slow or stop as they neared the switch to the main line; evidently the way ahead was clear and they would not have to wait for scheduled traffic to pass. That was excellent; as they rolled onto the main line with the distinctive click-pattern that heralded a switch, the engine accelerated. At this rate, they would be in San Francisco well before sundown, and he would be in Cameron's town apartment shortly after that. All of Cameron's employees were well-trained to a nicety; the personnel at the switchyard would have a cab waiting for him, the driver already paid and briefed on where to take him. The poor little Hawkins girl, should she take advantage of an excursion to the city, would probably be speechless, she would be so overwhelmed. But this was how the very wealthy lived; so surrounded and insulated by attentive employees that they need never think or plan for themselves.

Cameron hadn't allowed such luxury to soften him, at least not until now. But what luxury could not do, perhaps pain, and the drugs he took to conquer it, would.

The remainder of the journey passed uneventfully. Even when the trees gave way to a cliff-side view of the ocean below, du Mond ignored it. Paul had made this trip too often to be impressed by the scenery; he renewed his whiskey-and-soda, sipped it while he read a book from the innocuous selection provided in the bookcase at the end of the car. Jonathan Swift was acerbic enough to suit his mood, so he was pleasantly occupied until the abbreviated train pulled into the switchyard and was sent to its own special siding.

Moments later, he was in a horse-drawn cab on his way to Cameron's apartment in one of the fashionable sections of the city, up against the base of "Nob" Hill—which had gotten the nickname because so many of the "nobs," or members of the wealthy elite, had built their mansions there.

Cameron's "apartment" was not the type of dwelling du Mond would have characterized as such. It was one of a block of similar townhouses, all owned by those who either had manors in the country and did not want to duplicate them in the city, or were wealthy bachelors who entertained only a few friends at most and did not want the burden of an enormous house. They were built so closely together that there was hardly room for a cat to pass between them, and their fronts were virtually identical. They differed only in color, variations on chaste tan, rose, and brown, all trimmed in demure white.

The cab let du Mond off at the western corner of the block at the intersection of Powell and Pine; a most desirable location, since the setting sun could shine in the windows on that side. That gave Cameron windows letting in light and air on two sides, an amenity shared only by the other corner townhouses. Carrying his valise, Paul walked up the steps, to be met at the door by one of the two manservants here. A cook and a maid rounded out the staff; a pleasant change to have humans to wait on him, rather than Cameron's invisible Magickal servants.

The man took his bag at once, allowing du Mond the leisure to check and see what, if any, changes had been made to the downstairs dining room, parlor, and billiard room. He already knew that the study and smoking room would be intact; Cameron allowed no meddling there.

A few new ornaments and a new Chinese rug graced the parlor; the chairs had been replaced in the dining room, and high time, too. They had been old-fashioned when Cameron was an Apprentice himself, and sentimental attachment to a piece of furniture did not become a Master of the Elements. In the billiard room an additional game echoed an increasing Oriental influence—a chess set of carved ivory from India, in which each of the pieces was graced with balls of filigree so delicate it looked like lace, balls that held carved balls within carved balls. Paul picked up the king, which had seven balls nested one inside the other; he'd heard of these carvings, which were made from solid pieces of ivory and carved by master artisans so that the balls moved freely inside each other, but he had never seen one. He marveled at it for a moment, then put it down. He did not lust after such things; his pleasures were in areas Cameron would consider less intellectual.

By now the manservant would have unpacked his valise and put everything away in the guest bedroom—which, to be honest, was every bit as opulent as Cameron's own. There would be time enough to refresh himself before dinner—and after dinner, he would see about a little of that entertainment he had promised himself.

He smiled, imagining what the Hawkins girl would think of what he found entertaining.

Du Mond knew better than to count his winnings; enough that he had won, there was no point in exciting the envy of those around him to the point that they might consider helping themselves to his good fortune. He hadn't even used much Magick to influence the outcome of the cockfight, which made the win all the sweeter. He'd simply observed that the bird he chose demonstrated a certain berserk rage when presented with the least glimpse of another rooster; it literally flung itself at the bars of its coop in an effort to get at the interloper, ignoring the possibility of injury. It demonstrated all the mad fury of a goshawk rather than a rooster, and pain obviously did not affect it when it was in a fighting rage. All he'd done was to work that temper up to the boiling point, so that when the birds were released, his launched itself without any preliminaries straight at his rival.

Well, now he had more than enough cash to ensure his amusement for the next week without depleting any of his accounts. He could have used Cameron's money, of course; the man had given him a generous allowance for entertainment. But he disliked the notion; Cameron could have a Magickal trace on the bills themselves, and du Mond did not want that kind of information in Cameron's hands.

Enough people had backed the same bird that his winning was nothing out of the ordinary, and no one paid much attention to him as he stood at the payout window for his reward. Behind him, another fight had already begun, and shouts, curses, and cheers rendered speech impossible. Paul paused to consider doubling his winnings yet again, but the effluvia of sweaty, unwashed bodies, stale beer, cheap cigars, and blood suddenly seemed too much to bear.

Du Mond stuffed his winnings in his inside coat pocket, and left the cockpit while his luck was holding. On the way out, he tipped the owner of his winning bird a generous ten dollars; the awkward country-bumpkin took it and made it vanish with a speed that told du Mond that the man was no more a country-clod than du Mond himself was. He stepped out into the street and moved aside from the door, out of the path of traffic. He gazed up and down the street, at the garishly-lit businesses, the river of men—

Now, the question was—should he go looking for a girl now, or later?

Now, he decided. Go while his luck was still in.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and assumed a slouch that changed his silhouette entirely, then set off down Pacific Street towards the docks and deeper into the district they called the "Barbary Coast." Here were all the things that the good women of the stately homes on Nob Hill despised—the cockpits and dogfights, the gambling dens, the hundreds of taverns, the bawdy-houses, bordellos, and brothels. But this was not to say the district was entirely poor—and many of those good women would faint dead away if they discovered how many of their sons and husbands visited some of the more discreet and luxurious of those Houses on this street. There were none of those in this end of the Coast; as Paul looked up, he saw plenty of second-floor windows with women lounging out of them, calling and beckoning to those below, something that never would happen at the better Houses.

Nor was it to say that the district was wealthy; down sidestreets were the opium dens, squalid, filthy holes where men (and sometimes women) paid for the privilege of lying on a wooden bunk stacked three high, leaning on one hip, and smoking a little sticky ball of gum-opium until they either passed into unconsciousness, nausea, or both. The smoke in those places was so thick that a man walking erect between the bunks stood a good chance of passing out himself from the narcotic fumes.

Down other alleyways were the cribs, the lowest places of prostitution in the city, tiny little closets just large enough to hold an excuse of a bed and a girl to lay in it. "Girl" was a euphemism; most of them were aged far past their years, riddled with disease, drugs, or drink, subhuman creatures a year or less from their own demise. Many, many of them were Chinese; they would strip to the waist and press themselves against the wood slats of their windows, calling out the only words of English they knew. "One bittee lookee, two bittee feelee, three bittee dooee!" The only thing lower than a crib-girl was a street-girl, one who would service her clients in the alley because she had nowhere else to take them.

What Paul sought was in between those two extremes, and he knew just where to find it. He had a selection of three merchants he patronized, though given the current interest Cameron was showing in things Oriental, it would be best to avoid the place in Chinatown. That left Giorgio's, or the Mexican's.

The Mexican's was nearer, which was what decided him.

The entrance to the Mexican's place was a single narrow door in between the entrances to a bar and a peep-show. Recessed in an alcove, a passerby probably wouldn't notice the door unless he was looking for it, which was how the Mexican liked it. The Mexican's given name was Alonzo de Varagas, but he didn't like anyone to use it. Except for this little venture, which was what had made him the money to become a respectable shop owner outside the Barbary Coast and still kept Senora de Varagas in silk and pretty jewelry, he no longer had anything to do with the clientele of Pacific Street.

Paul knocked on the door, which opened just enough to permit the suspicious eyes of the doorkeeper to examine him. Then the door opened wide, and Diego grinned whitely at him in the light from a gas-lamp, gesturing him inside with a flamboyant fling of his arms.

"Hey, Mister Breaker! You come on in, we got a special one for you!" the man said, happily, and spat on the sidewalk before closing the door. "Damn! Good thing you get here, boss begun to think he might have to break her himself!"

The door gave access immediately to a narrow staircase leading up, lit by three gas lamps. Paul went up ahead of Diego, half turning so he could talk to the man. "Is she giving you trouble?" he asked hopefully.

Diego shook his head, but to indicate that she was, indeed. "She wake up from the happy-juice, next thing, she be prayin' and cryin'—you know how boss hates the ones that pray an' start callin' on the Virgin."

"I know." It was a constant source of amazement to him that a procurer like Alonzo had trouble with girls who wept and prayed. Perhaps they reminded him of his wife—who tolerated the fact that he had this little business on the side so long as he didn't sample the merchandise himself. Hence, Alonzo's dual quandary with "breaking" this particular girl.

Du Mond was a man with a talent, and it was a talent the Chinaman, the Mexican, and the Italian all found useful. He was a "breaker," which was the name by which they knew him. The procurers themselves were not brothel-keepers; they supplied girls to the Houses up and down the street. The Chinaman usually bought his back in his homeland; Alonzo specialized in bringing mestizos and Indians up from Mexico. The Italian ran his business a bit differently; he recruited bored country-girls from Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana by promising them something other than a life of drudgery married to a dirt-farmer, or Chicago shop-girls tired of waiting on surly customers.

Given the Mexican's problems with "breaking" girls who cried and prayed, Paul would have expected him to be the one recruiting in the Grain Belt, but evidently Alonzo's conscience never bothered him about recruiting his own countrywomen for a life of sin.

The Chinaman's girls thought they were coming to America to be given to husbands; the Mexican women were told that they would find easy jobs in the households of gold-rich families. And as for the girls garnered from the fields of Indiana and the shops of Chicago, Giorgio posed as a businessman setting up a rival to the Fred Harvey chain on the West Coast; the girls expected easy work waiting tables with big tips in gold nuggets from men who hadn't seen a woman in months.

What they got, was a dose of morphia; they woke up to find their virginity had been taken by men who had paid highly to have it, even from a semi-conscious and unresponsive body. What happened then depended on the girl. The Chinaman seldom needed the services of a breaker; most Chinese girls seemed to resign themselves to their concubinage readily enough. Giorgio preferred to break his girls to the trade himself, but often enough he had more than one who was making trouble, and a man could only do so much in a day. The Mexican girls seemed divided into three types; the ones that gave up, the ones that fought, and the ones that prayed.

They would all end up in the same position in the end; Paul never could figure out why they didn't just resign themselves and make the best of the situation. If a girl played her cards right, she could end up a madam with a house of her own, or even married to a client. But she had to be smart and she had to learn how to play the game quickly, before her looks went. And she had to stay away from drugs and drink, or her looks would go even faster.

"So we've got a weeper, hmm? Well, maybe she'll turn out to be a fighter, too." He preferred it when they fought; they often thought that because he wasn't built like a prizefighter, he couldn't overpower them, and it increased his pleasure to prove them wrong.

It was his job to break them like untamed horses; to prove to them that not only did they have no choice in their new profession, but that he was infinitely worse than any customer they were ever likely to service. The unspoken threat was that unless they proved tractable, he would get them.

He was popular as a breaker because be didn't need to slap the girls around and possibly damage them to break them. He had an infinite number of ways to hurt them that didn't leave any marks. Some of them used nothing more than words; he couldn't use those on the Chinese girls, but his Spanish was as fluent as Alonzo's, and it was words he most often used on the Mexican's girls. By the time he was through flaying them with his tongue, they were convinced that they had brought this life of sin upon themselves, that they were already so black with sin that God had turned His back upon them.

He would pay for this privilege, of course; the exclusive use of a girl wasn't something easy to come by on Pacific Street. But the cost was a fraction of what such a privilege would have demanded in a House. He would be only the second man to touch these girls, which vastly reduced the all-too-real risk of disease.

The girl looked up quickly as he opened the door, which had neither latch nor handle on the other side. She had been kneeling—obviously praying—as far from the bed in the corner as possible. In the light from the single dingy, metal-barred window, her face was swollen and tear-stained, and she tried to cover her nakedness with her hands. That was all there was in this tiny closet of a room; the naked girl, the undraped, iron-framed bed bolted to the floor, and four bare walls with bare wooden floor. There was a single gaslight, too high on the wall for her to reach.

He smiled. He would try words, first.

"Hello, little whore," he said, in clear Spanish, his voice smoother than honed steel and just as cold and sharp. "I am your master now."

The first session had gone quite well; Paul was pleased as he gave the special knock that alerted Diego that he wanted out.

"Well?" the little Mexican asked, as he closed the door on the semi-conscious girl.

"Five or six days, Paul said, truthfully. "Not more than that. Today she cried, tomorrow she might fight or weep more; maybe the day after, too. Then she'll begin wearing down, and she'll have it in her head that she's dirt and there's nowhere else that would have her but a whorehouse. She'll probably start drugging once she gets into a House, though. The religious ones usually do."

Deigo shrugged. "Not our problem," he said, dismissively. "Whoever paid for her can worry about that. We'll be seeing you for the next week, then?" He held his hand out, palm up.

"Probably." Paul counted out enough cash to cover the week, then some over. "I'll need the usual."

"The usual," was for Deigo to dig up well-used clothing in Paul's size, send it to the Chinese laundry, and have it waiting here for him. Even if Cameron "followed" him here, the man's fastidious nature would never allow him to keep a more direct eye on his Apprentice. And the moment Paul left here on errands of his own, clad in shabby clothing that had never come within Cameron's reach, there was no way the Firemaster could trace him further.

Besides, as long as du Mond's own clothing remained here, Cameron would probably assume he was with the clothing, if not in it.

"It'll be waiting," Diego replied, without interest. He and his employer had no curiosity about why Paul used their establishment as a way-station. That greatly endeared them to him. Add in the fact that this place was within walking distance of the Nob Hill apartment, and it was altogether an arrangement to du Mond's liking.

But for the moment, with all of his needs satisfied, it was time to get back to his gilded cage. He bade the Mexican goodnight, turned up his collar against the damp and chilly night air, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets to foil petty thieves. Although it was near midnight, the establishments of Pacific street, from the meanest tavern to the Hippodrome, were barely getting warmed up. Some of them were even decked out in electrical rather than gas lights. He wondered what the Coast would look like when electrical lights became cheap enough to use for signage and shook his head.

It was a lengthy walk, but not bad for a man in the physical condition of Paul du Mond. He strode east, watching the traffic around him with a wary eye and wondering what secrets some of those faces held.

One day, soon, he would have the power to find out. And San Francisco herself, the biggest whore of them all, would have a new master.

When he had a number of errands, Paul always solved the difficulty of finding a cab by hiring one for the entire day. They were Cameron's errands, so Cameron's money might as well pay for them. He ran the more mundane chores first, and they took him all over town before it was finished. Among those was the list the Hawkins girl had supplied, and he took some savage amusement in wondering what her reaction would be if she ever learned it had been him who had purchased her requested supplies—

She'd probably faint from embarrassment alone. He'd like to see her embarrassed, or better still, humiliated. He'd imagined her prim little face superimposed on Lupe's last night. He'd like to have a chance to break her. Damned women, thinking they had a right to careers, taking money out of a man's pocket to do so, getting ideas about equality...

Perhaps he'd have the opportunity, if things worked out properly. She was an orphan; there'd be no one to miss her or inquire after her if she vanished.

Among his errands, he contrived to drop a message in a certain tobacconist's when he bought his own Cuban cigars. Tonight, after Lupe, he would find out if there was an answer to that message.

Meanwhile, the day plodded along like the weary cab-horse, straining its way up the hill of time towards noon, then straining to keep from tumbling headlong down the other side. Why anyone had ever chosen to build a city here, in this maze of hills and valleys, was beyond him. The inhabitants suffered from enough back and foot ailments to keep every purveyor of quack medicine in the country happy. There were no real places to leave a carriage, and even if you found one, it wasn't one where he'd want to leave a horse standing for long. The cable car system that ran up and down the Slot on Market Street had been invented because the life of a trolley-horse in San Francisco was a fraction of one in any other city. They had dropped dead in their traces all the time before the mechanical traction device took over their chore.

Paul, of course, did not have to walk unless he chose, nor suffer the press of the Great Unwashed on the cable cars unless he wished to. He always hired cabs with strong horses with some draft-blood in them; horses that were up to a long day of traversing the streets.

He had stopped by the tobacconist's early; on impulse, on the way back from the final errand of the day, he had the cabby stop there again.

Much to his pleasure there was already a reply to his message—a single slip of paper with three words, none of which would have given the game away even to Cameron. Twelve, the usual. It could have been someone's order, picked up by accident, for boxes of cigars or cigarettes, or any other product the tobacconist sold, which was precisely the point.

None of the parcels he obtained today required the special handling Jason had specified, so he simply left them piled in the hallway with orders to have them sent to the waiting carriage. The cook had prepared an excellent meal, and du Mond settled in to eat it with full enjoyment, now that his duties were over for the day and the evening lay before him.

He had a cab take him as far as the end of Pacific Street that was only risque; what harm, after all, was there in his taking in a bawdy show? He even entered the theater, although he came right back out again as soon as the cab was gone. From there, he walked to the Mexican's, where events proceeded as he had predicted they would.

He was finished by eleven, and the man who left the Mexican's in no way resembled the man who had entered. Seedy cap pulled low over his forehead, hands stuffed in the pockets of his dungarees, warding off the chill with a shapeless, baggy flannel shirt, Paul would not have been recognized by anyone who knew him as Cameron's secretary, and he knew it. All of the clothing was old, threadbare, patched. He had altered his posture, even his gait. He did not bother attempting to find a cab—no one looking the way he did would have money for such a thing, and the use of anything other than his own two feet would only reveal that he was not what he seemed.

It was a long way to the docks at the end of Pacific Street, but that was "the usual." So near water—both in the form of fog drifting in off the Bay and of the Pacific Ocean itself—it was the last place one would expect to see a Firemaster.

Which was why Simon Beltaire had chosen this as a meeting site.

Even if, by some incredible ability, Jason Cameron was tracking Paul by means of the flames of gaslights all across the city, he would not be able to do so on the docks. Nor would a Salamander ever come here, where the Salamander's worst enemies, the Undines, held sway. Humans, of course, could go anywhere they chose, no matter what their Magickal Natures, and if the Undines resented the intrusion of a Firemaster into the edges of their domain, they were wise enough to keep quiet about it.

The docks were silent at this hour. Perhaps someday there would be work around the clock—but not until either science created brighter gaslights or electrical lights became cheaper. For now, this was a good place to meet someone when you didn't want to be seen—although you had to listen carefully, for some of the street-girls brought customers here for the little privacy that the darkness and piles of crates afforded.

Paul walked five steps, paused, and listened before walking five more; in this way he made his way to the end of one of the docks without interfering with anyone's pleasure. It didn't matter what dock he chose; Beltaire would find him easily enough. He chose one that didn't have any boats moored up against it.

He leaned up against a piling, folded his arms across his chest, and waited. Beneath him the water of the Bay lapped against the wooden pilings, and the faint smell of fish and seaweed rose to his nostrils. Fog obscured the surface of the water to a height of about four feet; above the bank of fog, the stars shone down unobscured. Behind him, the sounds of the Barbary Coast drifted down Pacific Street, jumbled together and rendered into mere whispers by distance. Snatches of tinny piano music, shrill laughter, the shrieks of women, the occasional breaking of glass; they all seemed to come to him from another world, across a distance too vast to bridge.

He wished he'd thought to have Diego get him an old duffel coat or a pea jacket; it was cold out here.

"I hope you haven't been waiting too long, Paul."

He didn't start, since he'd been expecting Beltaire, but once again Simon had somehow strolled up behind him without making a sound.

"Not long." He turned; the flare of a flame illuminated Simon Beltaire's elegant face as the man lit himself a cigar.

Beltaire did not use a match, of course.

There was not enough light to grant more than a fleeting glimpse of Beltaire's countenance, but Paul didn't need any light; he and Beltaire were well acquainted with each other. Beltaire, while not circulating among the elite as Cameron did, was still sought after in his own set. While he might well have been as wealthy as Cameron, he preferred not to flaunt that wealth. He could easily have stood as a model for the hearty, football-playing, dark-haired and dark-eyed college hero. His square jaw and cleft chin had been known to cause palpitations in the hearts of shopgirls and jaded professionals alike, sculptural as it was.

"And what has my estimable lupine colleague been doing since last we talked?" The light from the glowing coal at the end of the cigar was hardly enough to show Beltaire's smile, but there was amusement in the man's voice.

Paul gave a basic summary of most of it; Beltaire listened without comment, since it differed little from the last time they had spoken.

Then he casually dropped his real news, and instantly felt Beltaire's attention riveted to him.

"Cameron hired a young woman to read his books to him."

Simon's drawl did not disguise his intense interest. "I assume you do not mean fairy tales."

"He's working up to the important tomes, but he began her with High Magick from the first word," du Mond agreed. "He's found a way around his handicap. She's fluent in several languages, including the archaic forms and supposedly even has a knowledge of hieroglyphics."

"This is going to force my hand; I had expected to have more time," Beltaire said under his breath. Paul smiled; that was what he had hoped to hear.

"Tell me what you know about her," Simon demanded.

Paul complied. "I don't know much," he warned. "Cameron found her himself, hired her himself, and made all the arrangements to bring her here. Her name is Rosalind Hawkins; she's from Chicago, and she has no living relatives. I have to assume she was in some advanced degree program at the university there, given her accomplishments. Perhaps she suffered some change in circumstance that left her destitute and willing to accept Cameron's offer—"

"Never mind that; I can find the facts of the matter out for myself, now that I know where she comes from." Beltaire waved his cigar dismissively. "Once I have the details of her life, then I can decide what to do about her."

"I could get rid of her for you," du Mond offered, hoping that Beltaire would accept the offer. The girl had taken one long walk already; who was to say that something might not happen to her if she made a habit of such things?

"No—no. I want to know what she's made of, first. She could prove to be a useful tool, especially once she begins to understand just what Cameron is asking her to read." Beltaire nodded thoughtfully. "If he revolts her, if he frightens her... that woman's weakness can be turned to serve us. She might even welcome such an opportunity."

He must have sensed Paul's veiled disappointment, for he added in explanation, "I prefer not to discard a possible weapon until it proves useless. It would make things much simpler for us if we can use her against Cameron and avoid drawing attention to you."

Paul nodded, still disappointed, but with his disappointment fading fast. It would be better to avoid Cameron's attention and anger. He might not be the magician he had been before his transformation, but he was still formidable.

"If she proves useless, you may deal with her as you choose," Beltaire continued. "In the meantime, I will find out what I can about her, and you keep me informed. I particularly wish to know if she is released for an excursion to the city. I wish to approach her myself and take her measure. If nothing else, she may give us information we need on Jason's progress." Again, the smile crept into his voice. "I do not believe that I flatter myself when I say that I am remarkably good at temptation."

Du Mond laughed dryly at that, for Beltaire had certainly discovered exactly what tempted him. "I cannot think of anything else that would interest you at this time, Simon."

"Nor can I, and it is getting quite late." Beltaire's voice turned solicitous. "Paul, I do believe it is more than time that I gave you some recompense for your assiduous labor on my behalf. Here."

He passed over a parcel; as du Mond's fingers touched it, he felt paper and string tied about what felt like a book.

"Don't allow Jason to see this, or he'll certainly know where it came from," Beltaire warned. "It is rather in my style. I told you that Jason's way was not the only method of Firemastery. This should get you started on an easier path."

Du Mond's heart leapt with exultation, and with a fierce joy that he had been right. He had been so certain that Jason was prevaricating, that there was another, easier way to become a Master of Elements—one without all the tedious memorization and the mummery.

"I have hesitated this long only because I have been waiting for something to occur that would take Jason's attention off you—and to make certain of your own temperament." Beltaire chuckled. "There are things required on this path that would be repugnant to a weaker man, but I am certain you have the stomach for them."

"I have the stomach for a great deal," du Mond promised. "Thank you. Now, I must continue to play Cameron's errand-boy tomorrow, so if you'll pardon me, I will take my leave of you."

Beltaire touched the brim of his hat with his cane in ironic salute, and faded into the darkness. Paul waited several moments for him to get well on his way, then made his own way across the docks, making certain not to retrace his footsteps.

Diego was still on duty at the Mexican's—du Mond wasn't the only breaker the Mexican used, just the most skillful—and sounds from some of the other rooms led him to believe that his counterparts were hard at work. Diego bowed him mockingly into an empty room where his clothing waited.

It was past one before he was out on the street again and hailing a cab, his precious book tucked into a pocket. It was a leather-bound, handwritten volume, like many of Cameron's treasured books of Magick, and small enough to fit in a coat pocket.

So many important things were small in size.

He hailed a cab, and took it back to Cameron's townhouse—which would not be Cameron's for very much longer—leaving the noise and garishness of the Barbary Coast behind him.

Until tomorrow.