A Charm of Magpies 03 Flight of Magpies (10 page)

Stephen was at the Council and locked in furious argument with John Slee when the commotion started outside the room. There was already plenty inside.

“You need to do your own damned work, is what I’m saying!” Slee bellowed, thumping the table. “I have never heard such a thing. I don’t pass my work off onto you—”

“You’re being unreasonable, John,” Mrs. Baron Shaw told him. “This is an extremely serious matter—”

“Which is Day’s job to deal with. John is quite right,” Fairley came in. There was a yell from outside, a heavy thump, and a babble of voices. “If it’s so important, Day, why don’t you focus on it and drop something else? You really must learn to manage your time better.”

“How, by creating twice as much of it?” Stephen demanded. “I told you, sir that it is not possible—”

“Then the other justiciars will have to do some work. God knows we have enough of them on the payroll! What is that racket out there?” demanded Slee.

“This is not a debate, sir,” Stephen said through his teeth. “I cannot deal with this alone.”

“Don’t you bloody threaten me, Day.”

“Be quiet.” Mrs. Baron Shaw gestured sharply. “What the devil is going on?” She rose in a rustle of silk and headed for the door. Stephen, jolted from his focus on the argument, realised that the noise was not merely the usual sounds of violent disagreement that could be expected from more than three practitioners in a confined space. It was the sound of trouble.

He caught up with Mrs. Baron Shaw as she pushed the door open, and found himself shoved out of the way by Fairley’s hand between his shoulder blades.

There was a gaggle of practitioners in the hallway, mostly young ones. He could see Janossi, white-faced, and Saint, flushed and terrified. Janossi was holding her, but it looked more like restraint than comfort. There was a red mark on the wall, starting at about six feet up with blood and hair, and dragging downwards. At its base, on the floor in a crumpled heap, was a body.

“Waterford!” said Fairley sharply, and started forward.

That was Fairley’s student, a podgy and rather spiteful youth of limited talents and excellent family. He disliked Saint intensely and rarely missed an opportunity to taunt her.

Stephen looked at the mark on the wall, and Waterford on the floor, blood running freely from his scalp, and Saint’s guilty scarlet.

“What happened?” he asked hopelessly.

There was a babble of voices. Janossi was insisting that Waterford had started it. Saint was shaking her head, teeth digging into her lip. Half a dozen witnesses were insisting, with varying degrees of shock, horror and pleasure, that Saint had, against all the rules of the Council, risen in the air, using her powers, and kicked Waterford in the face so hard that his skull had shattered.

“Well, it clearly hasn’t,” Mrs. Baron Shaw said, from where she knelt by the recumbent man, but nobody was listening.

“I thought so,” Slee was saying with huge satisfaction. “I told you the justiciary are out of control—”

Fairley was shouting too, eyes blazing, finger waving. “Utterly unacceptable. The absolute law of the Council. A justiciar, so called. Arrest her at once. A thief and a killer—”

“He isn’t dead,” Mrs. Baron Shaw pointed out.

“Well, he should have been!” Fairley snapped. “
Could
have been. For heaven’s sake, madam, you cannot defend this.”

“I don’t intend to. This is quite serious enough. Mr. Day, I’m afraid there is no option. As the most senior justiciar present—”

“I know,” Stephen said, watching the blood drain from Saint’s face. He knew exactly what this meant for her. There were witnesses, there would be no sympathy…

“I’ll take her to the cells. Now, Jen.
Kwai-kwai
, understand?”

Saint’s silver-blue eyes widened slightly, and Stephen thanked God for that infuriating habit of Merrick and Crane’s, the Shanghainese words dropped into English so often that one could hardly fail to pick them up. Including
kwai-kwai
, which Crane had assured him meant
Shift your arse.

His hope was that if he spoke as Crane and Merrick would, Saint might act as they would.

“Sir…” Saint’s voice shook, and her eyes searched his.

“
Kwai-kwai
, Jen,” he repeated. “Let her go, Joss, I’ll handle this. It’s all right.”

“It’s very much not all right,” Fairley began, and let out a bellow of rage, because the second Janossi released Saint, she shot upwards and backwards, flipping over the astonished crowd of practitioners, landing for a second on the wall and shoving herself off again, above the crowd and out of the doors that Stephen had pushed open with a thought. Fairley yelled, and let out a bolt of power after her, into the street, and it was with a sense of immense, giddy release to go with his impending doom that Stephen hit him in the balls with a closed fist.

Saint was in the flat when Crane returned from a hasty trip to his lawyers to impress on them the urgency of the search for Lady Bruton. Hannaford and Greene had been recommended to him when he had started looking for the nastiest legal men in London. They performed every task with a dry, impersonal relish that put Crane in mind of a professional torturer at work, and their only ethical principle was not to leave a promise unfulfilled. They had promised Crane information on his quarry by the next morning, and so he strode back along the Strand in a mood of some self-satisfaction, stopping to enjoy a spirited exchange with a cheeky telegraph boy who hailed him insisting that he must be the famously ancient Duke of Portsmouth, or maybe Mr. Gladstone. He even threw a penny to the ever-present street artist who sat by the wall with his sketchbook, scribbling away, and returned to the flat with a sense of well-being that evaporated on the instant as he heard the sound of a woman’s choking, despairing sobs, and Merrick called to him, “We got a problem.”

It was three very long hours later before Stephen let himself into Crane’s flat through the servants’ door.

Crane, Saint and Merrick were all in the kitchen, seated round the table. As the door rattled and opened, both Crane and Saint leapt up. Saint gave a squeal of “Mr. D!” and hurled herself at Stephen as he came in. He staggered back, taking her slight weight with a grunt, hugging her tightly. Crane gave her a full thirty seconds, until his patience ran out, and then plucked her away bodily so he could get at his lover.

“Jesus Christ, Stephen.” His voice shook as he took in Stephen’s appearance. “Who did that?”

Stephen’s cheek was swollen and red. He had a vicious black eye coming, and his top lip was split and bloody over his crooked canine tooth. He gave Crane a quick, somewhat pained smile. “It’s fine.”

“The fuck it is,” said Merrick and Crane in chorus. Crane went on, clenching his fists, “What happened? Miss Saint told us—”

“Yes, about that.” Stephen looked over at his student, who had retreated to stand by Merrick’s chair. “What the devil were you playing at? Assault by practice, in the Council? What in God’s name were you thinking?”

Saint squared her small shoulders. “I’m really sorry, Mr. D. Really, I am. But it was that prick, excuse my French, that
git
Waterford. I was waiting for you, and he just came up and started in on me again. I mean, he calls me a thief, and all the usual stuff, and I didn’t say nothing, but then he started on Mrs. Gold, and I swear to God, Mr. D—”

“Mrs. Gold?”

Saint’s small jaw jutted. “He said he hoped she lost the baby. He said there was enough kikes in London and we don’t need any more. He said he reckoned she couldn’t grow babies proper because Dr. Gold can’t, you know, do it, and just all this horrible, dirty stuff about her and the doctor, and—”

She was tripping over her words. Merrick put a hand on her arm as Stephen gestured for silence. “Enough. Yes, I see. And for that you kicked him in the head?”

Saint stuck out her chin belligerently. “Yeah.”

“This is what I keep telling you, Saint. You have to
think
,” Stephen said. “If you’d put a knee in his groin first, you could probably have punched him in the face as well when he went over.”

“Which is exactly what I said, sir,” Merrick remarked. “See, Jen? Go for the balls.”

“Miss Saint, I trust you realise that your life is about to become utterly intolerable,” Crane said. “I should know, I’ve had the pair of them on my back for months. Sit down, Stephen. Tell us the rest.”

Stephen sat on the offered chair, shrugging off his coat with a wince, as Merrick poured coffee. “Well, Saint left Waterford with a seriously broken nose, a split scalp and a nasty concussion, but nothing more. Head wounds bleed a great deal.” Saint’s shoulders sagged slightly with relief at that. “As she made her exit, Fairley threw a rather nasty bit of practice after her, which in my professional opinion was sufficiently uncontrolled to count as endangering the general public, so I thumped him, er, as discussed. Yes, thank you, Jenny,” he added at Saint’s whoop of glee. “He punched me in the face in retaliation, which was probably fair enough. Then it turned into a bit of a melee. Joss might possibly have got in the way of a few people who were attempting to go after her.”

Saint gave her sharp-toothed grin. Crane frowned. “So physical violence is acceptable in the Council premises, is it?”

“Well, it’s not encouraged, obviously, but practice is the thing that gets you into trouble. A
lot
of trouble. As in, Saint now needs not to be seen by anyone at all—not just justiciary, but anybody inclined to interfere—because there’s a general hue and cry out for her, and if caught, she will be dragged in and punished with extreme severity.”

“She said,” Merrick put in grimly. “Sir, how severe—”

“I just got in rather a lot of trouble myself so we didn’t find out,” Stephen said. “That wasn’t merely fighting by practice in the Council. You clobbered a Councillor’s student, and one who is not a friend of the justiciary. You’re in deep trouble, Saint, make no mistake.”

“And what about abetting the escape of this notorious criminal?” Crane asked. “What did that get you?”

“I’ve been suspended from duty pending investigation—Saint, I expect that sort of language from Lord Crane, not you. That was what took so long. They all had to shout at me and then hold an impromptu sort of court-martial. Nobody could assert I’d done anything apart from fail to take you in, but, really, everyone knew. It wasn’t the most pleasant of afternoons.”

“Oh Gawd, Mr. D.” Saint looked stricken. “You shouldn’t of—”

“Nonsense. It doesn’t matter, Jenny. If you’d been jugged, I’d only have had to deal with that, and we have quite enough to do as it is.” Stephen stretched, rolling his shoulders. “Anyway, at least nobody can expect me to look into these blasted murders now I’ve been suspended, so it may be for the best.”

“Really?” asked Crane dryly.

“Well, it’s where we are, so there’s not much point complaining.” Stephen gave his sore eye a tentative prod and winced. “Now, how much have you told Saint?”

“Some of it,” Crane said. “Some, we thought you might prefer to discuss in private. If you and Miss Saint would like to take the sitting room…”

“Yes, I suppose we— No.” Stephen straightened in his chair, meeting Crane’s eyes, chin up. “Actually, no. That’s foolishness.” He took a breath, steeling himself. “Jenny, uh, you should know, because it is relevant to what’s happening, and in any case you’ll doubtless see, if you and Mr. Merrick are—uh— Anyway, the point is, Lord Crane and I—”

“You’re at it,” Saint said. “I know.”

Crane propped an elbow on the table and rested his hand over his mouth, attempting to hide his amusement at Stephen’s expression. On the other side of the table, Merrick was doing the same thing. Crane caught his eye and had to dig his teeth into his lip.

“Right,” Stephen managed at last. “Er, how?”

“Cos I ain’t stupid?” Saint suggested. “You’re never at home any more, and from what Frank says you’re always here. And you got all these nice clothes now and his lordship is rolling in it, and who else is flush enough to buy you stuff, or wants to? Deduction, that is,” she added, with a certain amount of smugness.

“I can’t fault your logic, Miss Saint,” Crane said. “I was, however, under the impression that you hadn’t said anything,
Frank
.”

Merrick brushed his hand over his cropped hair, distinctly shamefaced. “Yeah. So was I.”

“Oh dear.” Crane leaned back and stretched his legs under the table. “Is it, at all, that you have finally met your match for smartarsery?”

“Oi!” said Saint, and added, hastily, “My lord.”

“No, I don’t think you call him that,” Stephen said.

“No,” Crane agreed. “Not among friends. Merrick only uses that form of address because it amuses him, for his own inscrutable reasons. Lord Crane will do, or whatever you like. All right, enough tomfoolery. It’s nearly eight. I suggest Stephen updates Miss Saint with the magical situation while Merrick and I come up with a way to keep her out of sight, and a plan of attack for when my agents get hold of Pastern and Bruton. We have a great deal to do.”

Chapter Nine

By ten o’clock, the two justiciars were still going over some sort of technical point, and Crane had had enough.

“Excuse me, Miss Saint,” he said, and grasped Stephen’s wrist. “I require Mr. Day. You, with me.”

He pulled, hauling Stephen to his feet and heading for the bedroom. Stephen came without protest but he was pink-cheeked when Crane shut the door behind them.

“Really, Lucien! You couldn’t have made it clearer—”

“She doesn’t care. And if she does, she’ll have to learn not to. I need you.” He pushed Stephen back against the door, gently but firmly. “It’s been something of a day for you, hasn’t it, my love?”

“Yes. It has.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I want you to make me forget about it.”

“I’d be delighted.” Crane could hear the roughness in his own voice.

“You were quite annoyed with me, earlier,” Stephen suggested. His foot slid against Crane’s calf.

“I still am.”

“How annoyed?”

“Punishingly,” Crane told him, and heard Stephen’s breath stutter. “I think you need to make amends.”

Stephen’s eyes were dark gold with desire. Crane slid his hands over the bruised face, down to his shoulders, felt him shake. “Whatever you want, my lord. Anything.”

“Anything?” Crane ran a finger over Stephen’s lower lip, dipping into his warm mouth. “Anything I want, from you?”

“Yes, my lord.” Stephen’s eyes were closed, breathing ragged. “Please.”

“Uh-uh. You don’t get away that easily, sweet boy.”

Stephen’s eyes flicked open, met Crane’s. “My lord…”

“I know what you want. You know what you want. Ask.”

“Oh God.” Stephen swallowed. “I want…iron. Put iron on me. Please.”

Crane let out a breath that he seemed to have been holding, feeling his own arousal surge. “You want iron on your wrists,” he repeated, slowly, because he liked to see Stephen squirm.

“Yes, my lord.”

“You know what that means.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Tell me.”

Stephen shut his eyes again, whispering the words. “I’m powerless. I’m at your mercy. You can do whatever you want.”

That. Dear God, that moment when Stephen gave up his defenses, dropped his shields. Crane wanted to throw him down and have him right there, no games, just pure wild need. He bit it back. “What I want is to bring you to your knees, my beautiful witch. Christ, I need you.”

“Get me to bed,” Stephen said hoarsely.

Crane scooped him up and dumped him unceremoniously on the bed. “Undress,” he ordered, rifling through his bedside drawer for the cuffs. They had used them only twice before, abandoning three other attempts. Stephen had to be in the mood for this game.

By the time he had the handcuffs out Stephen was sitting up, pulling his undershirt off. Crane shoved him onto his back again. “Undress me. No, not with your hands.”

Stephen’s face tensed in concentration, and Crane felt buttons move and cloth shift, his cufflinks falling from his sleeves. He braced his hands on the bedpost for stability as he watched Stephen work, lying naked on his back, face intent. Crane concentrating on keeping his breathing steady as the air warped around him and invisible forces held and pulled and pushed, but he couldn’t help the gasp as a tendril of pressure insinuated itself around his balls, curling upwards to wrap around his rigid cock.

“Jesus, Stephen. One day, I will have you fuck me like that.”

“Me? I mean, really? Um, I’m not sure—”

“Work on it. One day. Not today, though.” Crane stepped out of the clothing pooled on the floor, and moved over Stephen, watching his lover’s wide amber eyes. He picked up the cuffs from the bedside table and dangled the cold iron over Stephen’s body, dragging it along his chest and then down between his thighs, watching him jump and moan.

“Oh God. Not yet, please.”

Crane ran the iron over Stephen’s nipple, dropped the cuffs to one side, and set himself to kissing his way down his lover’s flanks, over his thighs, pushing him back whenever he tried to move, licking and sucking and biting till Stephen’s whole body twitched and jerked in helpless response. He wanted Stephen on the verge of climax before the cuffs went on, and by the time he had two oiled fingers in Stephen’s arse, the smaller man was twisting and thrusting himself towards Crane, pushing down on his hand and gasping his need.

Crane slicked himself with oil and said softly, “Now.”

“Oh.” Stephen stretched his arms over his head, hands together.

Crane took a breath and closed the cuff round Stephen’s wrist. His lover gave a little gasp.

“All right?”

“Fine,” Stephen said through his teeth.

Crane turned the key in the small lock of the first cuff, picked up the second, and snapped it on.

Stephen sucked in a shuddering breath, throat working. He had described the sensation of iron on his wrists as like having a bag drawn tight over one’s head—airless, unnatural, cutting off all sensation—and Crane could believe it, looking at his rigid face.

“Get
on
,” Stephen said.

Crane very deliberately turned the key in the second lock and placed it on the bedside table. “Right,” he said. “If you’re going to be insolent about this. Do I have to remind you of your position?”

“Uh.” Stephen’s eyes were wide and his breath was fast and shallow, but Crane could see his shudder of response at the tone of voice.

“Clearly I do,” he said, and hauled Stephen off the bed, holding his cuffed wrists over his head. He lifted the smaller man, swinging him hard against the wall, and planting his feet on a small chest that stood on the floor, so that Stephen was standing on the chest, face to the wall, hands pinioned above his head, Crane’s other arm locked round his torso.

Stephen grunted as Crane’s body weight leaned hard into him.

“Did you say something?” Crane purred in his ear.

He relished the sensation of having Stephen at a comfortable height. It was rare, because Stephen did not enjoy standing on a box in order to get to Crane’s level, and they both knew it.

“You—” Stephen’s words were cut off by a gasp as Crane shoved his legs further apart.

“I’m going to fuck you like this,” Crane told him. “Up against the wall. Because I can, because I want to, and because there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“No.” Stephen’s voice was strangled.

“No? Was that no, you’re right, I’m in your power? Or no, please, my lord, don’t take advantage of my helpless state?”

Stephen bucked back, as hard as he could, not remotely enough to twist free from the larger, stronger man. “Bastard,” he said breathily.

It was such a precious rarity, to make Stephen desperate enough to swear. Crane clicked his tongue. “Language. I think you meant to say,
Please fuck me against the wall, my lord.
”

“Did not. Let go.”

Crane ran his tongue up Stephen’s neck, feeling him tremble, and pushed against his body, cock seeking entrance. Stephen whimpered. Crane released his grip on Stephen’s chest and ran his hand down to his groin. Stephen’s cock felt like silky steel in his hand, damp and dripping with arousal. He rubbed his thumb over the head, felt Stephen squirm.

“I can’t imagine what you thought I’d do,” Crane murmured. “Half my size, held down, utterly powerless. Why would I not take my pleasure exactly how I choose, without the slightest regard to your wishes?” He shoved forward, so the head of his cock was just breaching Stephen’s arse, heard him cry out.

“Say it,” Crane said.

“Bastard. Bastard. Oh God, please.”

“Say it.”

“Please. My lord.”

“You will ask me for this,” Crane told him. “You will ask me nicely to fuck you against the wall, and believe me, you will come so hard when I do.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Stephen gasped against the paintwork.

“What if I don’t care?” Crane felt Stephen’s cock jump in his hand at that brutal question, and the pure pleasure he took in being mastered. He loved Stephen’s bloody-minded determination, enraging though it often was, and his terrifying powers, and his fierce, fragile pride, but he loved them all the more when Stephen set them aside and surrendered utterly, giving himself to Crane without reserve.

He brushed a kiss over Stephen’s earlobe in lieu of
I love you
, and then, since it didn’t do to be sentimental, turned it to a bite. Stephen yelped, and Crane pressed the length of his own muscular torso against the other’s sinewy back, grinding against him.

“Ask for it,” he said. “You know you want to, and I’ll take you against the wall like a tuppenny whore. Say it.
Please, my lord…
”

“Please. Fuck me. Against the wall, however you want, my lord, do it, please.” Stephen was rubbing urgently back against him. Crane took a tighter grip on his wrists and pushed into Stephen, hissing savage words of command into his ear and grinding him against the wall till his lover cried out his surrender.

He fucked Stephen mercilessly then, holding him clear off the ground at moments, demanding his verbal submission again and again, until Stephen’s whimpers were broken and incoherent and his hips were jerking spasmodically with need.

“Come for me, witch,” he demanded when he could restrain his own climax no longer, and Stephen did, head thrown back against Crane’s chest, and his spasms tipped Crane over the edge so that he emptied himself into Stephen, teeth digging into his exposed shoulder, vision blurring.

He steadied his shaking legs, feeling Stephen’s weight heavy against him as they both gasped for breath.

“God, Lucien,” Stephen said at last, chest heaving. “You are the most colossal degenerate. So am I, I suppose, but I blame you.”

Crane didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was staring at his arms.

Stephen had iron on his wrists. Iron cut off his power, left him helpless. That was the
point
. The magpie tattoos didn’t move when they fucked with iron, because it was Stephen’s power that woke them. They could not move then; they never had before. But the ones on Crane’s body were fluttering wildly now, one on each arm, and as he watched in horrified disbelief, a third hopped down his stomach to where his body was still locked with Stephen’s, and pecked irritably at Stephen’s pale, sweat-damp skin.

“Stephen,” Crane said. “Look.”

Stephen glanced swiftly round, and froze against Crane’s body. “There’s a tattoo on your face.”

“And on my arms. They’re moving. Why are they moving when you have iron on your wrists?”

“That’s a very good question,” Stephen said with careful calm. “Could you possibly remove yourself from me, and we’ll find out?”

Crane did so, with a mutual grunt of effort, and reached for the key to the cuffs.

“No, not yet, leave them on,” Stephen said. “How about mine?”

Crane looked at his shoulder blade as they sat on the bed together. Stephen’s borrowed tattoo was lifeless ink. “Not moving.”

“Just yours.” Stephen peered at Crane’s skin more closely and made a frustrated noise. “I don’t understand this. And I’m not going to, because I have iron on my wrists, so I can’t tell what’s going on with the etheric flow, but if I take the iron off they’ll start moving anyway. Hellfire.”

“I could get Miss Saint,” Crane suggested.

“No! Good God, Lucien, it’s bad enough that she knows you’re bedding me without her finding out that you chain me up to do it.”

“I understand your modesty, but on the other hand, my fucking tattoos are moving! On their own!” Crane heard the rise in his voice, forced calm on himself. “Am I becoming a shaman?”

“Of course you aren’t,” Stephen said testily. “Don’t be absurd.” He took a breath. “Look, this is…worrying, I grant you, and inconvenient, but they aren’t hurting you. I wonder if this is Pastern using the ring. Or Lady Bruton.”

“That sounds bad,” Crane said. “Extremely bad.”

Stephen put a finger to Crane’s skin, where a magpie ruffled its wings. “It isn’t good, but at least it would make sense.”

“But I don’t want them setting my tattoos off,” Crane said. “I am not a circus attraction.”

“No. I have no idea about this, Lucien. Can you get these things off me now, please?”

Crane unfastened the cuffs. Stephen gave a little gasp of relief, and the tattoo on his shoulder blade flurried into life. He reached over and put an electric hand on Crane’s chest.

“Nothing that I can see now. I don’t know. Though…I suppose it’s possible…” He tailed off.

“What is?”

“Take the ring,” Stephen said slowly. “It was dormant when we found it in Piper, it took direct contact with your blood to make it work then, but I’ve been wearing it and using it, and it’s, uh, responsive now. Alert. It’s done something to Pastern, marked him, without my or your volition. And in the same way…well, your tattoos are set off every time we make love, and we do that a lot…”

“Are you telling me that my tattoos are taking on independent life?”

“Well, not
life
as such—”

“This cannot happen, Stephen. Absolutely not.”

“There’s not a lot of point telling me that,” Stephen pointed out, far too patiently for Crane’s liking. “I’m not doing it.”

“You need to make it stop. Tell me you’re going to do that.”

“Lucien. Love.” Stephen tugged him back onto the bed. “I will do my absolute best. I need to deal with Lady Bruton and Mr. Pastern, then I can try to work this out. There are too many variables until we have the ring back, so you will just have to be patient. I realise that’s not one of your strengths, but it’s all I have. All right?” He waited, eyes intent, until Crane gave a reluctant nod. “Good. Come on, we need to get some sleep. Um…you know, Lucien, if it helps, I quite like you with a tattooed face. It’s very exotic.”

“For that,” Crane said, “next time it’s a gag.”