Bartimaeus: The Golem’s Eye (38 page)

I gave a hop along the desk. The boy slipped off his seat in sudden panic and began to back away. “No! Leave me alone!”

“Sorry, can’t be done.” He was making too much noise; I could sense movement in a room below. “Don’t blame me—I haven’t got any choice.”

The crow jumped onto the floor and began to change, swelling to ominous size. The boy screamed, turned, and flung himself at the door. An answering shout came from beyond it; it sounded maternal. I heard heavy feet hurrying up the stairs.

Jakob Hyrnek wrestled with the handle, but never completed a single twist. A giant gold beak descended on the collar of his dressing gown; steel claws rotated in the carpet, slicing up the boards beneath. He was swung up and around, like a helpless cub dangling in its mother’s jaws. Mighty wings flapped once, overturning trays and sending gemstones pattering against the walls. A rush of wind; the boy was launched toward the window. A wing of scarlet feathers rose up to enclose him; glass shattered all around, cold air buffeted his body. He cried out, flailed wildly—and was gone.

Anyone arriving at the gaping wall behind us would have seen nothing, heard nothing, except perhaps the shadow of a great bird flitting across the grass and some distant screams ascending into the sky.

38

T
hat afternoon, Kitty walked past the Druids’ Coffeehouse three times. On the first two occasions, she saw nothing and no one of interest, but on the third, her luck changed. Behind a gaggle of excitable European tourists, who took up several outlying tables, she discerned the calm figure of Mr. Hopkins, sitting quietly on his own, and stirring his espresso with a spoon. He seemed engrossed in his occupation, absently adding sugar cube after sugar cube to the dark black mix. But he never touched a drop.

For a long time, Kitty watched him from the shadows of the statue in the center of the square. As always, Mr. Hopkins’s face was bland and quite expressionless: Kitty found it impossible to read what he was thinking.

Her betrayal by her parents had left Kitty more exposed than ever, friendless and alone, and a second hungry night in the cellar had convinced her of the need to speak with the one ally she had any hope of finding. Nick, she firmly believed, would have gone deep into hiding; but Mr. Hopkins, always at one remove from the rest of the Resistance, might still be approachable.

And here, sure enough, he was, waiting in the appointed place; yet Kitty still hung back, wracked with uncertainty.

Perhaps it was not strictly Mr. Hopkins’s fault that the raid had gone so badly wrong. Perhaps none of the old documents he had studied had mentioned Gladstone’s servant. Nevertheless, Kitty could not help but associate his careful advice with the terrible outcome in the tomb. Mr. Hopkins had introduced them to the unknown benefactor; he had helped orchestrate the whole scheme. At the very least, his strategy had been woefully lacking; at worst—he had recklessly endangered them all.

But with the others gone, and the magicians on her heels, Kitty had few options remaining. At last, she stepped out from behind the statue and crossed the cobblestones to Mr. Hopkins’s table.

Without a greeting, she pulled out a chair and sat down. Mr. Hopkins looked up; his pale gray eyes appraised her. His spoon made little scratching noises against the edges of the cup as he stirred. Kitty stared at him impassively. A bustling waiter approached; Kitty made a cursory order and allowed him to depart. She did not say anything.

Mr. Hopkins withdrew the spoon, tapped it on the cup’s rim and laid it carefully on the table. “I heard the news,” he said, abruptly. “I’ve been looking for you the last day and more.”

Kitty uttered a mirthless laugh. “You’re not the only one.”

“Let me say at once—” Mr. Hopkins broke off as the waiter reappeared, set a milkshake and an iced bun before Kitty with a flourish, and departed. “Let me say at once how … dreadfully sorry I am. It is an appalling tragedy.” He paused; Kitty looked at him. “If it is any consolation, my … informant was profoundly upset.”

“Thank you,” Kitty said. “It isn’t.”

“The information we had—and which we shared openly and completely with Mr. Pennyfeather—made no mention of a guardian,” Mr. Hopkins continued imperturbably. “The Pestilence—yes, but nothing else. Had we known, we would never of course have countenanced such a scheme.”

Kitty studied her milkshake; she didn’t trust herself to speak. All of a sudden, she felt quite sick.

Mr. Hopkins watched her for a moment. “Are all the others—” he began, then stopped. “Are you the only one—?”

“I would have thought,” Kitty said bitterly, “that with an information network as sophisticated as yours, you would
know
by now.” She sighed. “Nick survived, too.”

“Ah? Really? Good, good. And where is Nick?”

“I have no idea. And I don’t care. He ran, while the others fought.”

“Ah. I see.” Mr. Hopkins toyed with his spoon again. Kitty stared at her lap. She realized now that she did not know what to ask of him, that he was as nonplussed as she was. It was no good: she was quite alone.

“It is of course inconsequential now,” Mr. Hopkins began, and something in his tone made Kitty look up at him sharply. “Given the nature of the tragedy that has taken place, it is inconsequential and irrelevant, of course, but I suppose—what with the unexpected dangers you encountered, and the misfortune of losing so many of your admirable companions—that you did not manage to bring anything of value out of the tomb?”

This statement was so rambling and circuitous that it immediately had the opposite effect of what its cautious speaker intended. Kitty’s eyes widened in disbelief; her brows slowly lowered into a frown.

“You’re right,” she said crisply “It is irrelevant.” She ate the iced bun in two mouthfuls and took a sip of her milkshake.

Mr. Hopkins began stirring his coffee again. “But then, nothing
was
taken?” he prompted. “You were unable …” His voice trailed off.

When Kitty had sat down at the table, she had had the vague intention of mentioning the staff to Mr. Hopkins; it was, after all, of no use to her, and it was possible that the benefactor, who had wanted it for his collection, might be prepared to give her some payment in return—money for survival was now uppermost on her mind. She had assumed, under the circumstances, that Mr. Hopkins would draw a decent line under the whole business; she had not expected to hear him pressing her so openly for booty from the haul. She thought of Anne, death hard on their trail in the darkened nave, agonizing about dropping her bag of treasures. Kitty’s lips became a hard line.

“We loaded up with the contents of the tomb,” she said. “But we couldn’t escape. Perhaps Nick managed to get something out; I don’t know.”

Mr. Hopkins’s pale eyes studied her. “But you yourself—you took nothing?”

“I dropped my bag.”

“Ah. Of course. I see.”

“I had the cloak in it, among other things. You’ll have to apologize most profusely to your informant; that was one of the objects he wanted, wasn’t it?”

The man made a noncommittal gesture. “I don’t recall. I don’t suppose you happen to know what became of Gladstone’s Staff, do you? I believe he
did
have his eyes on that.”

“I imagine that was left behind.”

“Yes…. Only there was no mention of its being located in the abbey, nor any sign of it in the skeleton’s possession as it traveled about London.”

“Nick took it then.… I don’t know. What does it matter? It’s not valuable, is it? According to you.” Kitty spoke casually, but she was watching the other’s face as she did so. He shook his head.

“No. Quite so. My informant will be disappointed, that is all. He
did
so have his heart set on it, and he would have paid lavishly to have it in his hands.”

“We’re
all
of us disappointed,” Kitty said. “And most of us are dead. He can live with it.”

“Yes.” Mr. Hopkins tapped his fingers against the tablecloth; he appeared to be thinking. “Well,” he said, brightly, “what of you, Kitty? What are your plans now? Where are you staying?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

“Do you require help? Somewhere to stay?”

“No, thank you. It would be better if we stayed out of each other’s way. The magicians have traced my family; I don’t want to put you—or your informant—at any risk.” Nor did Kitty wish to associate herself any longer with Mr. Hopkins. His evident unconcern at her colleagues’ deaths had startled her; now she wished to be as far removed from him as possible. “In fact” —she pushed her chair back—“I should probably leave now.”

“Your concern does you credit. I obviously wish you continued fortune. Before you go, however”—Mr. Hopkins scratched his nose, as if wondering how to phrase something a little difficult—“I think perhaps you should hear something I’ve learned from one of my sources. It affects you quite closely.”

Kitty paused in the act of rising. “Me?”

“I’m afraid so. I heard this little more than an hour ago. It is very secret; most of the government doesn’t know about it themselves. One of the magicians hunting for you—his name is John Mandrake, I believe—has been researching your past. He has learned that some years back a Kathleen Jones appeared at the Judicial Courts, charged with assault.”

“So?” Kitty kept her face still, but her heart was suddenly beating fast. “That was a long time ago.”

“Indeed. Going through the record of the trial, he discovered that you had launched an unprovoked attack on a senior magician, for which you were fined. He regards this as one of the first attacks by the Resistance.”

“Ridiculous!” Kitty exploded with fury. “It was an accident! We had no idea—”

“Furthermore,” Mr. Hopkins went on, “he knows that you did not launch this attack alone.”

Kitty sat very still. “What? He doesn’t think—”

“Mr. Mandrake believes—whether rightly or wrongly is perhaps beside the point—that your friend … What was his name, now? Jakob something …”

“Hyrnek. Jakob Hyrnek.”

“That’s it. He believes Master Hyrnek is associated with the Resistance, too.”

“That’s ridiculous—!”

“Even so, at some point this morning, he sent his demon to take your friend away for questioning. Oh dear; I
thought
it might upset you.”

It took Kitty a few seconds to gather herself. When she spoke, it was haltingly “But I haven’t even
seen
Jakob for years. He knows nothing.”

“Mr. Mandrake will doubtless discover as much. Eventually.”

Kitty’s head spun. She tried to gather her thoughts. “Where have they taken him? Is it … the Tower?”

“I hope, my dear, that you aren’t thinking of doing anything rash,” Mr. Hopkins murmured. “Mr. Mandrake is considered one of the strongest of the young magicians. A talented boy; one of the Prime Minister’s favorites. It would not be advisable—”

Kitty forced herself not to scream. Every moment that they delayed, Jakob might be being tortured; demons worse than the skeleton might be surrounding him, goading him with their claws … And he was wholly innocent; he had nothing to do with her at all. What a fool she was! Her reckless actions over the last few years had endangered someone for whom she would once have given her life.

“I would try to forget young Hyrnek,” Mr. Hopkins was saying. “You can do nothing—”

“Please,”
she said. “Is it the Tower of London?”

“As a matter of fact, it is not. That would be the ordinary way of things. But I think Mandrake is trying to do things quietly by himself; to get one up on rivals in the government. He has abducted your friend in secret, and taken him to a safe house for questioning. It is unlikely to be heavily guarded. But there will be demons—”

“I have met Mandrake.” Kitty interrupted him fiercely. She was leaning forward urgently now, knocking against the milkshake glass, which jerked sideways, slopping liquid onto the cloth. “I have met him, defied him, and walked away without a backward glance. If this boy hurts Jakob,” she said; “if he hurts him in any way at all, believe me, Mr. Hopkins, I will kill him with my own hands. Him and any demon who stands in my path.”

Mr. Hopkins raised his palms off the table and lowered them. It was a gesture that might have meant anything.

“Once again,” Kitty said. “Do you know where this safe house is?”

The pale gray eyes regarded her for a time, then blinked. “Yes,” he said blandly “I
do
know the address. I can give it to you.”

39

K
itty had never been inside Mr. Pennyfeather’s secret storeroom, but she knew how to operate the mechanism of the door. She trod down the metal lever hidden among the debris of the cellar floor, and pushed simultaneously against the bricks above the log pile. The brickwork shifted with a slow, weighted inward swing; there was a sudden chemical smell and a crack opening in the wall.

Kitty squeezed through and allowed the door to close behind her.

Utter blackness. Kitty stood frozen. Then she stretched out her hands and felt hesitantly on either side, searching for some kind of switch. First, to her utter horror, she came upon something cold and furred; even as she jerked that hand back, the other closed over a hanging thread.

She pulled it: a click, a hum, and a soft yellow light came on.

The furry object, Kitty was immediately relieved to see, was the hood of an old coat, hung up on a peg. Beside it were three dangling satchels. Kitty selected the largest one, placed the strap over her head, and considered the rest of the room.

It was a small chamber, ringed from floor to ceiling with rough wooden shelves. Here were the remnants of Mr. Pennyfeather’s collection: the magical artifacts that Kitty and the rest of his company had managed to steal over the preceding years. Many objects had already been removed for the abbey raid, but there were plenty of items remaining. Neat rows of explosive globes and mouler glasses ran side by side with one or two Elemental Spheres, Inferno sticks, silver throwing stars, and other easily manageable weapons. They gleamed brightly in the light: Mr. Pennyfeather appeared to have kept them well polished. Kitty imagined him descending to the cellar and gloating over his collection alone. For some reason, the thought unnerved her. She set to work, packing as many items as she could in her satchel.

Next she came to a rack of daggers, stilettos, and other knives. Some, perhaps, had magic within them; others were simply very sharp. She selected two, tucking a silver one into a secret casing on the inside of her right shoe, placing the other in her belt. When she stood, her jacket hung down over it, concealing it from view.

Another shelf held several dusty glass bottles, of varying size, mostly filled with colorless liquid. They had been taken from magicians’ houses, but their purposes remained unknown. Kitty gave them a glance, then moved on.

A remaining rack of shelves was filled high and low with objects that Mr. Pennyfeather had found no use for: jewelry, ornaments, robes and vestures, a couple of paintings from middle Europe, Asian bric-a-brac, brightly colored shells, and stones with odd whorls and patterns. Stanley or Gladys had observed some kind of magical aura on each one, but the Resistance had been unable to activate them. In such cases, Mr. Pennyfeather had simply stored them away.

Kitty had intended to ignore these shelves, but as she returned to the secret door, she saw, half-hidden at the back, a small, dull disc, heavily covered with cobwebs.

Mandrake’s scrying glass.

Without knowing quite why she did so, Kitty picked up the disc and dropped it, cobwebs and all, into the inside pocket of her jacket. Then she turned to the door, which on this side was worked with a conventional handle. She tugged it open and stepped out into the cellar.

The staff was still lying where she had thrown it on the floor that morning. On sudden impulse, Kitty picked it up and carried it back into the secret room. Useless as it was, her friends had died collecting it; the least she could do was stow it away securely. She dropped it in a corner, took a last look around the Resistance’s storeroom and clicked the light off. The door creaked mournfully shut behind her as she strode across the cellar toward the stairs.

The safe house where Jakob was being held was in a desolate part of east London, half a mile north of the Thames. Kitty knew the area fairly well: it was a region of warehouses and wastelands, many remaining from the aerial bombardments of the Great War. The Resistance had found it a useful area for operating: they had raided several of the warehouses, and utilized some of the derelict buildings as temporary hideouts. The magicians’ presence here was comparatively light, especially after dark. Only a few vigilance spheres tended to pass this way, and those that did could generally be avoided. No doubt this obscurity was exactly why the magician Mandrake had chosen it, too: he wished to conduct his interrogation undisturbed.

Kitty’s plan, such as it was, was twofold. If possible, she would extricate Jakob from the house, using her weapons and her natural resilience to hold Mandrake and any demons at bay. She would then attempt to spirit him to the docks, and there take passage to the Continent. Remaining in London was impractical for a time. If rescue and escape proved impossible, her alternative was less pleasant: she intended to give herself up, providing Jakob was set free. The implications of this were clear, but Kitty did not hesitate. She had lived too long as an enemy of the magicians to have qualms about the consequences now.

Keeping to the back roads, she made her way slowly across east London. At nine o’clock, a familiar wailing drone sounded out from the towers of the city: in response to the abbey raid two nights previously, a curfew was in operation. People passed her on both sides of the street, heads down, hurrying home. Kitty paid them little heed; she had broken more curfews than she could remember. Even so, she sat on a bench in a small deserted park for half an hour or more, waiting for the kerfuffle to die away. It was best there were no witnesses when she drew near to her objective.

Mr. Hopkins had not asked her what she planned, and she had not volunteered the information. Other than the address, she wanted nothing more to do with him. His callous indifference at the café had appalled her. From now on, she would rely on nobody but herself.

Ten o’clock came and went; the moon was out now, high and full above the city. Moving cautiously on plimsolled feet, satchel heavy against her side, Kitty flitted through the deserted streets. In twenty minutes she had arrived at her destination: a short, dead-end road, a cul-de-sac, with small factory workshops on either side. Pressed into the shadows at the corner, she took stock of the land ahead.

The street itself was narrow, lit by only two lamps, one a few yards farther on from Kitty’s corner, the other away near the end of the road. These, and the white moonlight shining down from above, gave the buildings marginal illumination.

The workshops were generally low, of one or two stories.

Some of them were boarded up; others had their doors and windows caved in, gaping black and open. Kitty stood and watched them for a long time, breathing in the night’s stillness. It was a general rule with her that she never passed open, unknown spaces in the dark. But she could see and hear nothing untoward. All was very quiet.

At the end of the road, beyond the second streetlight, was a three-story building, somewhat higher than the rest. Its ground floor had perhaps once been a garage of some kind: there was a wide opening for vehicles to pass through, now poorly covered with netting. Above this, broad blank windows marked out old offices or private housing. All these windows were black and empty—except for one, where a dim light shone.

Kitty did not know which of the buildings was Mandrake’s safe house, but this—the only lit window on the entire street—immediately attracted her attention. She kept her eyes fixed on it for a while, but could make out nothing, except possibly some kind of curtain or sheet drawn across. She was too far away to observe it clearly.

The night was cold; Kitty sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Her heart was beating painfully against her chest, but she ignored its protests. It was time to act.

She crossed to the pavement opposite the first streetlamp and stole forward; one hand on the wall, the other resting easily on her satchel. Her eyes were never still: she scanned the road, the silent buildings, the blackened windows up above, the curtained window far ahead. Every few steps, she stopped and listened, but the city was silent, closed in upon itself; she moved on.

Kitty now drew opposite one of the gaping doorways; she kept her eyes firmly on it as she passed, her spine-skin prickling. But nothing stirred.

She was close enough now to see that the lit window up ahead was covered with a length of dirty sheet. Evidently, this was not very thick, because she now made out a shadow passing slowly behind it. Her brain struggled unsuccessfully to make sense of the image; it was human, that much she could tell, but more than that was impossible to say.

She crept a little farther down the street. On her immediate left was a broken doorway, the interior a gulf of solid black. Once again, Kitty’s hackles rose as she tiptoed by; once again, she kept her eyes fixed firmly on it; once again, she saw nothing to alarm her. Her nose did twitch at a faint scent, an animal smell drifting from the deserted house. Cats, perhaps; or one of the pariah dogs that plagued the derelict zones of the great city. Kitty moved on.

She drew abreast of the second streetlight, and by its light studied the building at the end of the road. Just inside the lip of the wide garage opening, before the rash of netting, she now saw a narrow door set into the side wall. From this distance, it even looked slightly ajar.

Too good to be true? Perhaps. Over the years, Kitty had learned to treat anything this easy with extreme caution. She would reconnoiter the whole area before finally committing to that extremely inviting door.

She set off once more and, in the next five seconds, saw two things.

The first was up at the lit window. For the briefest of moments, the shadow passed again behind the sheet, and this time its profile was clear. Her heart gave a jolt; she knew it for certain then. Jakob was there.

The second was at ground level, a little way ahead, on the opposite side of the road. Here, the streetlight threw its light in a rough circle, spilling out across the street and onto the wall of the building behind. This wall was punctured by a narrow window and, farther on, by an open doorway, and Kitty now noticed, as she edged a little closer, that light entering the window could be seen through the doorway, stretching in a flat diagonal across the internal floor. She also noticed—and this made her halt, mid-stride—that outlined neatly along one edge of this splinter of light was the silhouette of a man.

He was evidently standing pressed flat against the inner wall of the building, just along from the window, because only the very edges of his brow and nose could be discerned in the silhouette. They were rather prominent features—perhaps they protruded farther than their owner had allowed for, just out into the light. Aside from this, he was doing an extremely good job of lying in wait.

Scarcely breathing, Kitty backed up against the wall. With a crashing weight, the realization came: she had passed two doorways already—both had been broken open—and there were at least two more before the street’s end. Chances were, each had its hidden occupant. Once she had reached the house at the end, the trap would be sprung.

But whose trap? Was it Mandrake’s? Or—a new and dreadful thought, this—Mr. Hopkins’s?

Kitty ground her teeth in fury. If she went on, she would be surrounded; if she retreated, she would be leaving Jakob to whatever fate the magicians planned. The first option was possibly suicidal, but the second could not be countenanced at any price.

She adjusted the satchel strap so that it hung more easily across her shoulder, and flipped the bag open. She took hold of the nearest weapon—an Inferno stick—and edged forward, keeping her eyes fixed on the silhouette in the doorway.

It did not move. Kitty kept close to the wall.

From a concealed place just ahead of her stepped a man.

His dark gray uniform blended perfectly with the night: even in full view, his tall and bulky form seemed only half there, a spirit conjured from the shadows. But his voice, harsh and deep, was real enough.

“This is the Night Police. You are under arrest. Place your bag on the ground and face the wall.”

Kitty made no answer. She slowly backed away, angling out into the center of the road, away from the open doorways behind her. The Inferno stick lay lightly in her fingers.

The policeman made no attempt to follow her. “This is your last chance. Stop where you are and lay your weapons down. If you do not, you will be destroyed.”

Kitty retreated farther. Then: a movement to her right—the silhouette in the doorway. From the corner of her eye, she saw it shift position. It bent forward and as it did so, the features changed. The protuberant nose began to jut forward alarmingly; the chin swung up to follow it; the bulging brow receded; pointed ears rose from the top of the skull, flexing and shifting. For an instant Kitty glimpsed the actual tip of a jet-black muzzle in the illuminated window, then it dropped to the floor out of view.

The silhouette had vanished from the doorway. From the room came a snuffling, and the sounds of ripping cloth.

Kitty bared her teeth, flicked her eyes back to the policeman in the road. He, too, was altering; his shoulders lurching down and forward, his clothes peeling away from the long, gray bristles erupting along his spine. His eyes shone yellow in the darkness; his teeth snapped angrily as the head descended into shadows.