The Faerie Lord (9 page)

‘Blue still doesn’t know?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Do you think she suspects?’ Pyrgus knew his sister very well. The slightest suspicion and she’d be on it like a terrier.

‘I doubt it,’ Nymph said. ‘I don’t see how she can. Now that Mr Fogarty is dead, you and I and Madame Cardui are the only ones who know.’

‘Blue’s smart,’ Pyrgus said. ‘We should never underestimate her.’ All the same, he was reassured. He watched the peacock wander off, then asked, ‘Is Henry very upset?’

‘Terribly,’ Nymph said. ‘I felt so sorry for him. I desperately wanted to tell him.’

Pyrgus glanced round at her. ‘But you didn’t?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Good,’ Pyrgus said.

After a moment Nymph stood up and walked across to join him at the window. ‘Were you watching the peacock?’

‘Yes.’ Pyrgus nodded. ‘I think he misses his mate.’

Nymph said, ‘Are you going back to the Realm?’

Pyrgus said, a little bleakly, ‘Yes.’

‘You don’t have to, you know.’

‘Yes, I do,’ Pyrgus told her.

Nymph licked her lips. ‘It’s dangerous. It’s very dangerous.’

‘I know.’

‘For everybody.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ll go with you,’ Nymph said.

‘Yes,’ said Pyrgus.

It was peculiar: they kept off the streets, but congregated in the taverns, as if a stomach full of ale would protect them from the fever. The man sitting opposite Chalkhill had a lot of stomach and a lot of ale. His breath smelled like a brewery.

‘Are you sure it was him?’ Chalkhill asked.

‘Skinny little runt, looks a thousand years old, wears a demonologist’s shawl? Sounds like the description you put about, Mr Chalkhill.’

It was a very rough area and a very rough tavern. Chalkhill was aware his expensive clothing made him stand out like a jester at a funeral. But nobody took your money seriously unless you looked the part. Besides which, he was armed to the teeth.

‘So where did he go?’ he asked his informant.

The big man stared at him silently.

‘Oh, all right,’ Chalkhill exclaimed. Since he’d gone back to his camp act, he sighed explosively and added, ‘Whatever happened to trust, I wonder?’ He produced a small bag of coin and tossed it on the table. Conversations at the neighbouring tables stopped at once.

The big man’s big hand swallowed up the bag and the conversations started up again. ‘Mount Pleasant,’ he said.

Chalkhill frowned. ‘Mount Pleasant?’ It was among the wealthiest districts of the city, not one of Brimstone’s old haunts at all.

That’s what he said,’ the big man confirmed, with an expression that suggested he wasn’t going to give back the coins.

Well, perhaps Silas had come up in the world. Or perhaps Hairstreak was funding him. His Turdship may have fallen on hard times, but Hairstreak wouldn’t be Hairstreak if he didn’t have a little something stashed away. Or perhaps the Brotherhood had taken up a collection. Or perhaps Brimstone was just visiting a rich relative.

What did it matter? If Brimstone was headed for Mount Pleasant, that’s where Chalkhill had to go. The old hag had made it clear she wanted results and she wasn’t noted for her patience. Not that he was inclined to hang about himself.

Chalkhill felt more exposed on the waterfront than he had in the tavern and stood nervously while three water-taxis sailed right past ignoring his shouts and waves. But the fourth mercifully pulled in.

‘Mount Pleasant,’ he exclaimed grandly as he stepped aboard.

‘Double fare without your chitty,’ the driver told him conversationally.

Chalkhill had no idea what he was talking about, but he was well used to rip-offs. He drew a stimlus from his concealed armoury and pointed it at the man’s head.

‘Perhaps on second thoughts …’ the cabbie said. He took a spell cone from his bag and cracked it. ‘You sure you want Mount Pleasant, Guv?’

Chalkhill put the stimlus away. ‘Of course I’m sure. Do I look like a … like a … like an unsure person?’

‘Not even slightly, sir,’ the cabbie said. ‘It’s just that I had an old boy an hour or so ago told me Mount Pleasant and when he got in, he didn’t want to go there at all.’

Chalkhill blinked. ‘How old?’ he asked.

‘How old what, sir? The old boy? Very old, sir. Mind you, he looked like a retired demonologist to me – still wore the shawl. That sort of thing ages you, I always say.’

‘Where did he really want to go to?’ Chalkhill asked.

‘Whitewell. Remember it clearly ‘cause it didn’t sound at all like Mount Pleasant.’

‘Which Whitewell?’ There were two in the city, one north, the other to the west.

‘The one past Cripple’s Gate. Now, sir -‘ The cabbie actually managed a fake smile. ‘It’s Mount Pleasant for you, sir. Nothing
unsure
about that, eh?’

‘Take me to Whitewell,’ Chalkhill growled. ‘The one past Cripple’s Gate.’

There was a moment of confusion, then Henry opened his eyes to darkness. He couldn’t remember where he was, or how he got here. He couldn’t even remember where he’d been. There was something about coming to the Faerie Realm with Nymph, then … then …

No, it was gone. He knew he’d been doing
something
in the Realm, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what. Every time he tried, it was as if his mind went soggy and a white fog swirled across his memory.

The darkness was absolute.

He was on his knees, on a hard floor. He shouldn’t be on his knees (which hurt quite a lot now he thought of them). Surely he should be standing up? Surely he was standing up – or maybe sitting down, but certainly not on his
knees
– before he … before he … ? Where the hell
was
he?

You didn’t often get darkness like this. In the dead of night there was always starlight or moonlight or reflections from street lights. Even in a curtained room, some light filtered through. But there was no light here at all. He thought he might be underground.

There was a dry smell of decay.

Still on his knees, Henry began to feel afraid. ‘Hello …?’ he whispered.

He felt the floor with one hand. It was hard, like rock, flat with a sandstone texture. It was cool, but not exactly cold, and dusty. The dust rose to catch in his throat and make him cough. For some reason he tried to suppress the cough, keep it as quiet as possible. So the cough turned into a little cough, hardly more than a clearing of the throat. He shouldn’t have said
Hello,
not even in whisper, not when he didn’t know where he was or who might be close by. He was in the Realm now and the Realm was different from his own world. The Realm was a lot more dangerous.

Henry climbed cautiously to his feet, very much aware of the thumping of his heart. He swallowed hard to get rid of the dust. Without moving from the spot, he reached out cautiously in front of him. His hands touched … nothing. He reached behind him with the same result.

The air was quite stuffy, as if he was in an enclosed space. He stretched out one foot. The floor in front of him seemed solid enough, but he really didn’t fancy walking forward in the darkness. He might be near the edge of a cliff or a pit or a crevasse.

What he needed – badly – was light.

He was still wearing his own clothes, the ones he’d been wearing when Pyrgus and Nymph turned up at Mr Fogarty’s house. (Pyrgus had looked old, Henry remembered, but couldn’t remember why.) Henry began to fish in his trouser pocket. Almost at once, with a surge of delighted relief, he found a Bic lighter.

And promptly dropped it on the floor.

He heard the little disposable strike the ground and skitter. Henry dropped to his knees again. It didn’t sound as if the lighter had dropped into a pit, but he was taking no chances. Besides which, his only chance of finding it again was to sweep the floor carefully with his hands. Which he did, disturbing more dust. He crawled forward slowly, on his knees, sweeping carefully, cautiously, a little at a time.

Something moved and he snatched his hand away, then froze. After a moment the renewed thumping of his heart died down a little. Whatever moved was really small, probably just a cockroach. Henry didn’t much like cockroaches, but at least they didn’t do you any harm. Unless, of course, it wasn’t a cockroach, but something poisonous, like a scorpion or a – But he forced himself to put a rein on his imagination. The lighter was his only hope. He couldn’t stop looking for it now.

He leaned forward and resumed the sweeping movement with his hands.

His left hand struck something hard. He felt along cautiously and came to the conclusion it might be a wall, but couldn’t make up his mind whether it was a natural structure or man-made. He might be in a cave. (How had he
got
here?) But he might equally well be in some sort of enclosed chamber.

Something rustled drily a little way in front and to his right.

Henry froze again, holding his breath. Every sound was magnified in darkness, he reminded himself. It might be no more than a mouse. But somehow, he didn’t think it was a mouse.
He needed light!

He found the Bic!

He couldn’t believe it, but his right hand, the one furthest from the wall, closed around it so tightly he half wondered that the plastic didn’t crack. He scrambled to his feet at once and flicked the wheel. A tiny flame flared, then died at once. The damn lighter had run out of fuel! He remembered now – he’d meant to buy a new one.

There was something white and naked crouching no more than ten feet away from him.

Henry’s mind began to work at lightning speed. Of course there was really nothing there. It was purely his imagination working overtime. That’s what imagination did when you were in the dark. And if there
was
something near him, it wasn’t living. It was some sort of statue, maybe a gargoyle, something ugly like that because what he’d seen – what he’d
thought
he’d seen -was too ugly to be real. So it was nothing, nothing to worry about. Just a statue or a gargoyle or nothing at all, a lump of rock.

While his mind was working, his thumb took on a life of its own and flicked the little wheel again and again. There was no more gas in the lighter, but it sparked bravely: sparked and sparked and it was so dark that even that small light, the light from the sparks, was enough to let him see the
thing
that hurled itself towards him.

As soon as Chalkhill set eyes on the place, he knew he’d struck gold. Brimstone usually favoured pokey, unobtrusive lodgings, but the Whitewell house was very different: a large, old waterfront property with the overhanging balconies that were fashionable five hundred years ago. It looked dilapidated to the casual eye, but Chalkhill’s eye was far from casual. He could almost
smell
the spell coatings, cunningly disguised but lavishly applied, that turned the place into a fortress. That sort of security cost a fortune and Brimstone was notoriously careful with money. There had to be something of importance hidden in there.

Whitewell itself was one of those districts that had seen better days. Many of the fine old buildings had been turned into tenements. One of them, almost directly behind Brimstone’s new home, overlooked both its river access and the street. The toothless old crone who lived there accepted Chalkhill’s coin with alacrity, offered him services in which he had no interest, then vacated the premises with an assurance that she would not be back from the tavern before midnight.

Chalkhill pulled a chair to the grubby window, fanned away a lingering odour of flatulence, and settled down to wait.

Brimstone emerged as it was growing dark.

Chalkhill drew back a little from the window, although it was hugely unlikely that Brimstone would look up. He watched as the old man scuttled down the narrow street and disappeared around a corner. Chalkhill waited fully five minutes to see if he would return, then decided the chances were Brimstone was headed for a cafe or a tavern to find himself something to eat. He was as frugal with his meals as he was with his money, but all the same, it would probably be at least an hour before he came back, and it might even be two. Chalkhill waited another few moments, just to be certain, then left the tenement.

There were too many people about to allow a leisurely inspection of the front door, but fortunately a narrow archway led round to the river walk at the rear of the house and there he found no people at all. He had some small chance of being seen from the balconies of neighbouring houses, but it was well worth taking, especially as it was growing darker by the minute.

Close up, his suspicions about spell coatings proved correct. But the interesting thing was they were so subtle. Most security wizards recommended coatings should be obvious to passersby, to act as a deterrent. Heaven only knew what Brimstone’s coatings were designed to do, but they were virtually invisible.

Chalkhill stood for a moment wondering if he had the nerve to test the spell. It was unlikely to be lethal force - that sort of enchantment announced itself in heaps of dead birds and rodents at the foot of the wall -but, knowing Brimstone, it was likely to be nasty. But he had to get past Brimstone’s securities if he was to gain entry to the house.

He stood for a moment longer, considering. Short of lethal force, the most popular securities were
lethes
and mind-benders. Any prospective burglar hit with a
lethe
promptly forgot what he’d planned to do and wandered off. Mind-benders were less specific. Some regressed you to childhood, so you pooed in your pants, some compelled you to sing loudly until the Guard arrived, some simply knocked you unconscious and left you that way until you were discovered, tried and hanged. None of them was pleasant, but even if he was found unconscious with poo in his pants, he reckoned he could simply claim he’d come to visit an old friend and triggered the spell accidentally. Brimstone might even believe it.

Chalkhill pushed through the coating to test the catch on the nearest window.

He was halfway along the street before he realised what he was doing. The house – Brimstone’s house, that he’d searched for so long – seemed drab and uninteresting. Not the sort of place you would want to rob or enter or even look at for very long. It was a nonentity of a house, a bore of a house, a –