A Charm of Magpies 03 Flight of Magpies (7 page)

“That’s not fair,” Crane objected, although it wasn’t entirely unfair. “Anyway, love him though I did, Tom was a rascal.”

“Whereas Mr. Merrick is an upstanding citizen?”

“And Miss Saint lives up to her name,” Crane retorted. “If you ask me, they’re two of a kind.”

“That’s the worst thing you’ve said yet.” Stephen retreated to a chair, pulling his legs to his chest. Crane moved closer, not touching. “I suppose you’re right. I can’t stop her, if it’s her choice. That didn’t imply anything,” he went on at Crane’s angry intake of breath. “I didn’t mean that as it sounded, really. Look, I don’t like it, obviously, but… I’ll speak to her. If I can find her.”

“Merrick has her stashed somewhere. She ran to him in trouble, Stephen.”

“After I accused her unjustly. Yes. Perhaps he could convey my apologies. Tell her to come and talk to me. If she will.” Stephen had always taken a certain quiet pride in his work as a teacher and mentor, Crane knew, and he could feel his lover’s humiliation. “Meanwhile, I had better try and find out who this other windwalker was, I suppose. Oh God.” He sounded despairing.

Crane pulled the opposite chair closer, since Stephen didn’t look as though he planned to move from his miserable huddle. “Let’s just try to think, shall we? Who actually knows about the ring—that it’s worth stealing, or that they should come here to steal it?”

“I can’t think of anyone. I honestly don’t see how anyone could know. It’s not as though I use it lightly or wave it around. The only practitioners who’ve ever seen me use it are Saint, Joss and the Golds.”

“Well, and Lady Bruton.”

Stephen’s entire body went still. “What did you say?”

“Lady Bruton,” Crane repeated. “She saw you use the ring all right, when you raised the magpies and wiped out her coven. And you never got her, did you?”

Lady Bruton had fled, leaving her husband dead, when Stephen had defeated her scheme to strip the Magpie Lord’s power. Stephen hadn’t tracked her down, but he had assured Crane that action would be taken if she returned: that she was no longer a threat. It had been in the early days of their relationship, when Crane had not been quite so conscious of how habitually Stephen resorted to falsehood, and he had simply taken the man’s word for it. It occurred to him now, as something he didn’t like prickled up his spine, that he might have made more of a fuss about that.

“She knows about the ring. She saw you use it to call on an incredible amount of power.” Crane kept his eyes on Stephen’s face. “She’s well aware we’re lovers. It’s fair to say she has a grudge against you, for scotching her plans and killing her friend, that madman—”

“Underhill,” Stephen supplied.

“And of course we widowed her. She’s not the windwalker, but I suppose she could be working with him.”

“Yes.” Stephen’s voice was thin.

“But there’s a warrant out for her, or your equivalent, isn’t there? Is it not too dangerous for her to turn up in London?”

“I don’t know. I, ah…”

“What is it? What, Stephen?”

There was guilt on Stephen’s features. He was staring intently at his hands, wrapped round his knees. “I didn’t tell the Council the whole truth, about what happened at Piper in spring. If I’d told them everything, I’d have had to say that you’re a source, and I thought it would be safer for you if I kept that quiet. And since there weren’t any other witnesses, because everyone was dead, I, well…”

“Lied till you could have used your tongue as a corkscrew,” Crane completed for him.

“Well. More or less. Yes.”

“And? What aren’t you telling me?” Crane’s instincts, honed by years of trading and more of smuggling, were flaring now. He felt the sense of cold calm that came on him, often before he could consciously say why, in the awareness of impending trouble. The expectation of a double-cross.

Stephen shifted awkwardly. “Do you remember that Esther and I had something of a long-running feud with the Brutons?”

“I have a vague recollection of that, yes.” Sir Peter Bruton and his lady had planned a particularly unpleasant and drawn-out death for both Crane and Stephen because of that mutual hatred.

“Well, that, our enmity, was common knowledge. So when I made my report, not everyone accepted it. Even on the Council. Some people never believed the Brutons were part of Underhill’s madness in the first place. You remember, it was my word and Esther’s, we had no conclusive proof. And they were well born, well connected, and nobody knows what really happened at Piper, and…” He took a deep breath. “Some quite senior people—Fairley, John Slee, a few others—don’t believe she’s a warlock, even now. So, uh, no. There’s no warrant.”

“One moment,” Crane’s jaw was stiff with anger as he spoke. “I distinctly recall you telling me back in spring that if she showed her face again she’d be killed. You
told
me that. You said I had no need to worry my pretty little head about her, and now you’re telling me that she’d be welcomed with open arms?”

“I’m sure I didn’t say that—”

“You might as well have. God damn you, Stephen.” Crane pushed himself to his feet so hard the chair toppled backwards. “When are you going to stop lying to me?”

“That was months ago,” Stephen protested. “I thought I’d get her. I put the word out among the justiciary—”

“Which has done precisely how much good?”

“Well, what should I have done?” Stephen demanded, jumping up in turn. “You know blasted well I can’t let the Council know you’re a source. I don’t trust them. I don’t trust practitioners, and nor should you.”

“Not on the evidence of this conversation, certainly.”

Stephen’s cheeks flamed. “That’s not fair. I was trying to protect you.”

“By lying to me. Again.”

“What good would it have done to tell you?” Stephen’s voice was rising. “Make you sick with worry, for what? I was going to go after her—”

“But you didn’t,” Crane said icily. “Because you were busy. With your job.”

Stephen apparently couldn’t find anything to say to that. Crane felt the anger pulsing savagely through him and made no effort at all to hold it back. He had been so fucking patient, he had put up with so much, let the twisting little bastard rule him in every way imaginable, but this was one more kick in the teeth than any man could stand. “I quite understand that you can barely spare the time for us, to see each other, or wake up together, or take a few days at Christmas. I understand that you’re too preoccupied with your daily agenda to deal with a murderer who wants me dead. However, I struggle to see how you were too busy to even
mention
a significant threat to my continued existence instead of letting me believe it was under control!”

“Well, what would you have done if I’d said anything?” Stephen demanded. “What do you imagine you can do? Do you really think your money, or your personal killer, would be any use against a practitioner who wanted you dead?”

“We’ll never know. Because I haven’t had the chance. Is this what being short is like?”

“What?”

“Having your loved ones treat you like a fucking child.”

“Don’t give me that,” Stephen said savagely. “I am trying my best to do everything I have to do—”

“And it’s not good enough. You’re not doing all these things, and nor is anyone else.”

“That’s not—”

“You haven’t got the ring back,” Crane said over him. “You’ve done nothing to help Miss Saint. There’s this murderer you’re supposed to be catching, Lady Bruton to deal with, let alone fitting me into your demanding schedule—”

“Stop it!”

“No, you stop it. Stop lying to me, and stop clutching on to every job that comes your way as if you’re the only man in the bloody world who can do anything.”

“Well, I’m quite sure you can find someone else to suck you off,” Stephen snarled. His face was patched red and white with angry misery. “You seemed to be doing a damned good job of that earlier.”

“What? Oh, go to the devil. I turned him down.”

“Your restraint is amazing. Congratulations. What a pity Mr. Merrick doesn’t have the same self-control.”

That transparent effort to change the subject made Crane angrier than anything yet, far too angry to prevent himself rising to the bait. “Don’t even start. We talked about that.”

“No,
you
talked about it.
You
told me that it was perfectly reasonable for your manservant to prey on my student, and I listened to you—”

“
Prey?
” Crane repeated furiously.

“Oh, whatever you choose to call it. The fact is, she’s miserable, inexperienced and lonely. It’s amazingly easy to be seduced when you feel that way.”

“What did that mean?” Crane demanded, startled by how much it hurt. “Are you talking about us? What the
fuck
did that mean?”

Stephen looked slightly shocked by his own words. He hesitated for a second, then shook his head violently, taking refuge in anger. “I don’t have time for this.”

“You don’t have time for us?”

“I don’t have time to argue about what Mr. Merrick could possibly do that you wouldn’t defend, or who I’m supposed to let down out of the wide range of people who want something from me. I’m going.” He marched to the door, pushing past Crane. “Going to do some of those things that I haven’t done yet because I don’t work hard enough.”

“Oh, for— That is the precise opposite of what I was trying to point out to you.”

“Thank you for the insight.” Stephen stalked out of the room, into the hallway.

Crane thumped a furious fist against the wall. He had rarely wanted to hit anyone so much, the bloody stupid obstinate lying little shit, and the unhappiness boiling off Stephen’s set shoulders made everything ten times worse.

Stephen was shoving his feet into his boots. Crane stalked into the hall after him. “Stop this, for Christ’s sake. Have some sense.”

“Stop telling me what to do, blast you!” Stephen wrenched the front door open.

“Fine!” Crane shouted, exasperated beyond bearing. “Fine. Fuck off, then, fuck you, and fuck your ancestors.”

“And yours!” Stephen shouted back, and slammed the door behind him.

Chapter Six

Stephen spent the cold, miserable walk back to his rooms with his thoughts furiously circling. A voice in his head was screaming at him that he should run back and apologise, beg for forgiveness, but it was drowned out by the unhappy, frustrated anger. To be constantly pushed around by the Council was barely tolerable. To have his lover join in the chorus of demands and harassment and guilt, two minutes after that whole damned business with Merrick and Saint that Crane appeared to consider so trivial… He was not going to go back. He was an idiot ever to have believed this could work. Why had he let himself get tangled up with a Vaudrey in the first place?

Because you fell in love with him
, said the rational voice that refused to be silenced, and that was a worse thought than all the rest.

Stephen’s lonely, half-abandoned home was freezing, with the icy air of disuse. He needed to get the fire going, fast. He sent a line of force through the ether with savage strength, much as a normal man would slam doors or kick the furniture, and nearly took the chimney out as the coal ignited with a massive
whoomph
.

He dragged the heat back into the room before he did any permanent damage, cursing himself. That had been uncontrolled. He was never uncontrolled. Except with Lucien.

He sat on the bed with his face in his hands, and as the anger faded, the misery grew, and along with it, the sick sense that one way or another he’d made the worst mistake of his life.

He’d spent so much of his life learning not to indulge his emotions—undersized boys did well to keep quiet, and his powers had come on him when he was just thirteen, meaning endless exercises in self-control, and then it hadn’t been long before he’d become aware of his attraction to men, and that had been yet another thing to hide. The power that prickled through his hands had made it impossible for him to take lovers who weren’t practitioners unless he wore gloves throughout to avoid betraying himself, and that was scarcely sustainable. And since he was only aware of three other practitioners who shared his preferences, and he wasn’t fond of any of them, he had resigned himself to the occasional hurried backstreet encounter, where emotion didn’t come in to it.

He had never had a lasting lover before. He had never had to learn compromise or sacrifice. He had been alone, and then there had been Lucien. Lucien, who knew what he was, who found his hands exciting rather than freakish, who could be so astonishingly considerate and loving, but with that dangerously thrilling cruel streak running through his nature, a golden flaw…

Stephen had fallen hopelessly, irredeemably in love, and he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do about that now.

Lucien did. Lucien was staying in a country that he hated for Stephen’s sake. He tolerated Stephen’s job and his unpredictability. He
gave
: not just the gifts and the clothes, the meals and the luxuries, but his strength, his belief, his alarmingly ruthless decisiveness. His protection, no matter how little or how much Stephen needed it, any more than Merrick needed it. They both had it anyway, because that was Lucien’s nature.

Lucien gave and gave, and Stephen gave him nothing at all in return. Sacrificed nothing, compromised on nothing, understood nothing. Hopeless, useless fool.

He curled up on his narrow bed, under rough scratchy blankets, and lay alone, looking out at the dark with wide eyes. When he finally drifted off to sleep at about one in the morning, he dreamed the borrowed magpie tattoo was ripping and tearing its way out of his skin, flying back to where it belonged, and he had to get up and contort himself in front of the mirror to be reassured that the inked bird was still on his back.

By five o’clock he was in to the Council offices, just for the sake of something to do. He had intended to get on top of the paperwork, but it would have taken a grappling hook to do that, and as he stared at the dusty, unfiled, useless heaps of paper, he found himself concluding that Crane was right.

That was all there was to it. Macready’s team of three had been overstretched for months. Stephen’s team of four was down to two without Esther or Saint. Fairley and Slee’s faction on the Council violently opposed any increase in their numbers—
Interference on personal freedom
, they said, and
Trying to increase the power of the justiciary
—and somehow that meant that everyone nodded along as five justiciars were supposed to do a job that couldn’t be done by eight.

“We’re being shut down,” Stephen said aloud.

He needed to talk this through with Crane, listening properly this time. He wondered if Crane had calmed down yet, and when, or if, he might, and if Stephen even deserved him to.

He’s everything I could ever want, and I’m driving him away for a job I hate.

If I lose him, this will be all I have left.

He was in Macready’s office at the Council—a small boxroom, as little-used and paper-filled as the one Stephen and Esther occupied—when its owner came in.

“Good day, Day.” It was a mild jest Macready been making for seven years, and would probably keep making until one of them died, which in Stephen’s current frame of mind seemed a reasonably attractive prospect. Macready hung his overcoat on the stand. “Are you going through my desk?”

“Yes.”

“Saint’s file, I suppose.” Macready didn’t sound annoyed, or surprised. If the boot had been on the other foot, Stephen would have fully expected to find Macready rifling his own papers.

“The file on the windwalker thefts, yes. Have you got anywhere?”

“You must be joking. I’ve a hundred other things on my plate. I’ll have my chair back now.”

Stephen vacated it, but kept the sheaf of documents, flicking through them. “It needs to be dealt with. We can’t afford another justiciar out of action now.”

“Not with Mrs. Gold in an interesting condition, no.” Macready sighed. “Women justiciars. Honestly, Day, I don’t know why we allow them.”

“Ask Mrs. Gold. I’m sure she’ll tell you.”

Macready grinned. He was a burly man with a benevolent, permanently flushed face topped by a magnificently curled moustache. He looked like a butcher in his Sunday best, and enforced the law like a butcher on his day job. “What do you think about this business, then?”

Stephen planted his hands on Macready’s laden desk. “I don’t think, I know. The culprit is a windwalker, male. Medium height, youngish, agile, dark hair.”

Macready sat up straight. “What? Who? Where’s this from?”

“I can’t tell you anything more. You’ll have to trust me, Mac.”

Macready sat back, steepling his fingers, pulling a face. “I don’t doubt you, but you know I need more than that.”

“I’ll give you more when I can, but that’s your man, I promise you. Did you write round the other justiciary departments about windwalkers?”

“I did. And, believe it or not, one of them even wrote back. Apparently Hertfordshire had some trouble with a windwalker a couple of months ago.”

“Details?”

“Nary a one, but their chief—another blasted woman—is coming in for a quick word, in about…” Macready checked his fob watch theatrically. “Two and a half minutes. I suppose you’ll still be in my office then, will you?”

Stephen managed a smile, relieved and grateful. “I ought to tidy your papers before I go.”

“It’s still my investigation.” Macready’s tone was a warning. “And I’m not just taking your word for it.”

“I know. Thanks.”

The visitor arrived about fifteen minutes later, allowing Macready the opportunity to mutter about women who couldn’t read the clock. Stephen lurked in the corner, making himself unobtrusive, as a smartly dressed, unfashionably freckled woman in her thirties came in with a firm tread.

“Good morning.” She seated herself without invitation opposite Macready’s desk, making no apology for her lateness. “Nodder, Hertfordshire justiciary. I hear you’ve a windwalker problem?”

“A series of thefts,” Macready said. “Pretty daring, often from occupied houses. Jemmies the windows from outside, three or four floors up. Witnesses have reported a figure running through the air from more than one scene of crime.” He paused fractionally. “I’ve a description of a dark-haired man of medium height, but I don’t know how much weight to put on that.”

“I do,” said Miss Nodder crisply. “Bad luck, Mr. Macready, you’ve got Jonah Pastern.” Her tone reminded Stephen irresistibly of Esther’s husband, Dr. Daniel Gold. It was exactly the voice he’d use for
Bad luck, you’ve got the pox
.

“And who’s that, when he’s at home?” asked Macready.

Miss Nodder leaned forward, then glanced round at Stephen. “Are you in this conversation, or just skulking?”

“Mostly skulking.” Stephen had a particular knack for making himself unobtrusive. He felt mildly impressed that he’d been noticed. “But I have licence to skulk.”

The justiciar’s green eyes glimmered with amusement. “Skulk away, then. Pastern comes from Trumpington, near Cambridge. Farming stock, a good, religious family, so of course they threw him out when his powers came in, aged about twelve. He turned to theft for a year or so, until the justiciary picked him up and placed him with some practitioners in Cambridgeshire. Apparently he was unteachable and incorrigible. They kicked him out by sixteen and he set fire to their house in revenge.”

Macready muttered under his breath. Miss Nodder went on. “He turned up in Birmingham, then Manchester, and moved to Liverpool when Manchester was too hot for him, and—well, you read it.” She took a thick dossier from her bag and put it in front of Macready. “He’s a loner. Never pals up with other practitioners, doesn’t work with anyone. A habitual thief and a talented one. Utterly indiscreet, with no compunction about windwalking in public. What it comes down to is, he’s a nuisance.”

“Description?” Stephen asked.

“Five foot eight, black hair, deep blue eyes, twenty-six years old. Reckless, slippery…rather charming, if you like the type.” The slight twitch of Miss Nodder’s lips suggested she wasn’t entirely immune. “And rather good, too. It took us months to pin him down, working with the local police force. We finally caught him after he robbed the Tring Museum. I left him, in irons and in a closed carriage with a police constable guarding him, for twenty minutes.” She raised her eyebrows, mocking herself. “My mistake.”

“He killed the officer?” Macready asked.

Miss Nodder gave a crack of laughter. “Ha, no. I suspect the poor fool wishes he had. Pastern—well, to speak frankly, he seduced the man. He picked the constable’s pocket and unlocked the cuffs while the benighted idiot’s attention was, er, elsewhere.” She raised a meaningful brow. “Then he was straight out of the carriage and into the sky, and that was the last we saw of him.”

Macready was redder than usual. Stephen said, “In twenty minutes? Really?”

“Don’t ask. What a business. Anyway, that’s Pastern. We had him, and we lost him. And now it looks like he’s in London.” She leaned over the desk and pushed the dossier an inch further towards Macready. “And therefore, your problem.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Macready. “He’s your prisoner, Miss Nodder. You’re here to take him back. Aren’t you?” He spoke with unquestionable authority.

“Why would I want him back?” Miss Nodder rose from her seat. “Have fun.”

“But—what are you up in London for if not to get Pastern?”

“Shopping, of course. It’s my day off. I’m very fond of Hertfordshire but you can’t get the hats.” She lifted a hand in farewell. “Good morning, Mr. Macready. Nice to lurk with you,” she added to Stephen, and departed, apparently deaf to Macready’s splutters.

“Someone was just telling me I had to hand over more work to other people,” Stephen said. “That’s how you do it, is it?”

“Bloody woman. Bloody women. I’ve a good mind—” Macready rose hastily, snatched up his coat and hat, and followed Miss Nodder out, at a run. Stephen shut the door behind him and took possession of his chair, and Jonah Pastern’s dossier.

He honestly meant to concentrate on Saint, and on the ring. He was going to go back to Crane and show that he was putting them first, and if he did that, perhaps it would go some way towards the apology he knew he owed. He wouldn’t let the job interfere with his life this time.

But half an hour later, he was being dragged out of the building by a police constable.

“Murder, sir,” the young man repeated, clutching Stephen’s arm. He looked rather sick. “Your kind of murder, Inspector Rickaby said. He needs you at once.”

“When did it happen?”

The constable swallowed hard. “It’s going on right now.”

There was a cab waiting. The jarvey whipped up the horses urgently, and in not many minutes they were tumbling out and into a house in Lamb’s Conduit Street.

A scullery maid hovered on the stairs, looking too panicked to give directions, so Stephen just followed the screams.

He entered a large bedroom, wallpapered in an ugly shade of arsenical green. In the room were Inspector Rickaby, a man who looked like a doctor, standing helplessly, a woman, her expression a rictus of horror, and a man on the bed, writhing. His face…

“Everybody get out,” Stephen said, and then, throwing a command through the ether, “
Out
.”

“I’m staying,” said Rickaby grimly.

“Fine. Get rid of everyone else. You too, madam, this is not a place for you. Where’s Dan Gold?” Stephen stripped off his greatcoat and dumped it on the nearest chair.

Rickaby closed the door behind the last constable. “Not coming.”

“What? Did you tell him—”

“He’s not coming.”

Oh hell
, Stephen thought,
that must be Esther.
Nothing else would stop Dan from doing his duty.
Please God, let her not be losing the baby, please…
He shoved the thought away as he rolled his sleeves back, moved to the head of the bed, and reached for the man’s face.

“You want to touch that?” said Rickaby, with some alarm.

No, he did not. “What’s his name?”

“Alan Hunt. Sergeant Hunt. Of the Cannon Street nick.”