Flight of Magpies

by KJ Charles

  Saint was shaking her head furiously. “I did not and I ain’t and if he said I did he’s a fucking lying ponce!”

  Stephen clenched his fists, furious at her words, and at the pulse of alarm they sent through him. What does she know? “Don’t you dare speak of him like that.”

  “I’ll say what I want if he’s slipping you the duff!”

  He didn’t know what the cant expression meant, but it sounded bad enough. He gritted his teeth. “If you have something to say, say it in English.”

  Saint glared at him, spoke very distinctly. “I din’t steal anything off anyone. I ain’t seen your posh mate, nor I don’t want to, and I ain’t got nothing of yours, and you got no right to come round my gaff putting the gammy down—”

  “English!”

  “You fucking talk English!” Saint shouted, tears starting in her silver-blue eyes. She looked flushed and hurt and very young. “I can’t help it I’m not flash, and it ain’t fair to call me a thief cos I’m not good enough for posh sorts—”

  “Lord Crane saw you, Saint,” Stephen said wearily. “He caught you in the act. He saw your face.”

  “He’s a fucking lying mary-ann, and you’re another!”

  The words exploded between them in the icy air, knocking the breath from Stephen’s lungs. Saint put a hand to her mouth, eyes widening. “I—I din’t—”

  “Get over here.” This would be it, when he took her in. He would accuse Jenny Saint, the student he had taught and protected so often, and she would accuse him in return, him and Crane. It would be here at last, the inevitable exposure, the disgrace, the flight from justice that Crane was so ready to give him, and Stephen didn’t ever want to use. He was vaguely proud that his voice didn’t shake. “You’re going to the Council. Now.”

  Saint backed away, shaking her head. She spread her hands, as if to explain. Then the window sprang open, so fast that it took Stephen entirely by surprise, and Saint, already soaring sideways, hurled herself out.

  “Saint!” Stephen leapt to the casement and flung a savage line of force through the ether, grabbing recklessly for her, even as she slid down the other side of a pitched roof. There was a scrabble of booted feet on tiles, and silence.

  She was gone, and he had no way to follow.

  Chapter Four

  Crane woke late, to the realisation of absence. Not Stephen’s, he was used to that, but something more fundamental to the morning. There was no smell of coffee.

  He padded through to the kitchen, which was cold and silent. No Merrick there, and he wasn’t in his bedroom either. It looked to Crane’s eye as if he hadn’t been home.

  That wasn’t usual, but nor was it unprecedented. It was definitely inconvenient, since without the stove on there was no hot water. Stephen could heat water simply by putting a hand to it; Crane couldn’t. He wasn’t familiar with the operation of the patent stove or the boiler, and if it came to that, it was a long time since he’d made a cup of coffee for himself.

  “Congratulations, Vaudrey, you’ve become purely decorative,” he said aloud, and washed in icy water with punitive thoroughness. He dressed with haste, since his bedroom was decidedly chilly without a morning fire, sparing several unkind thoughts for his defecting servant, and was just putting on his boots when the back door thumped open, and slammed shut again. Merrick.

  “Tomcatting, or did you get arrested?” Crane called.

  Merrick strode into the hall, coat still on, grim-faced, and didn’t stop. Crane just had time to get out, “What—” and found himself shoved hard against the door.

  “The fuck did you do?” Merrick’s face was dark with anger. “The fuck are you playing at?”

  “What the hell?” Crane saw Merrick’s hand ball to a fist and caught it with his own. He’d taken enough beatings from his servant in his wild youth not to welcome one now. “What are you talking about?”

  Merrick wrenched his hand free. “What did you say about Miss Saint?”

  “How did you hear about that?”

  “What did you say?” It was very nearly a shout.

  “She robbed us last night,” Crane said. “Came in through the window, turned the desk over, took Stephen’s ring. I saw her.”

  Merrick looked at him for a moment, then without warning his fist thumped into Crane’s stomach. Crane doubled, gasping, trying not to retch.

  “You didn’t fucking see her,” Merrick said levelly. “So why’d you say you did?”

  Crane gestured, indicating he needed another moment to get air into his lungs, took a breath, began to speak, and brought up his interlocked fists hard into Merrick’s groin. The manservant saw it coming just in time to start moving back but it still connected sufficiently hard to knock him off balance, and Crane used the moment of pain and his own, longer reach for an uppercut that sent Merrick another couple of steps back, then grabbed a walking stick from the stand. He’d done enough short-staff fighting in China that it gave Merrick pause, but Crane saw his hand move, just a fraction, the first twitch of reaching for a knife.

  “For Christ’s sake!” he said, loudly, trying to jolt Merrick out of his fury. “What the hell is this? I saw her. Stephen didn’t want to hear it either, but I saw her face. Why in the name of sanity would I say I did if I hadn’t?”

  “I dunno,” Merrick said. “You tell me. Because she wasn’t here last night, because she was somewhere else, so you didn’t fucking see her, did you?”

  “How the hell do you know—” Crane stopped, belatedly put one and one together, and repeated, more calmly, but with a sense of impending doom, “How do you know where she was last night?”

  Merrick’s jaw set. “Cos I was with her.”

  “At two in the morning. Somewhere else,” Crane said, and then, wholeheartedly, “Fuck.”

  “What?” Merrick demanded. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Yes, I have a problem. You’ve debauched Stephen’s student!”

  Merrick’s face darkened. He took a step forward; Crane brought the stick swiftly up. “So? She ain’t his kid.”

  “She could be,” Crane said, inaccurately. “What is she, sixteen?” Thirteen was lawful, sixteen unremarkable; but Crane found no appeal whatsoever in youth and inexperience and had never thought Merrick did.

  “Eighteen.”

  “She doesn’t look it. Does magic stunt their growth?”

  Merrick ignored that. “Eighteen, and not young for it either, life she’s had. And if you reckon she can’t make her own decisions, you ain’t been paying much attention to shamans. And, mostly, it ain’t up to you. It’s up to Jen.”

  “Do you think Stephen will see it like that?”

  “That’s his problem.”

  “It’s bloody not.” Crane couldn’t begin to imagine how angry Stephen would be, or what it would be like if he and Merrick clashed in this mood. “Jesus. Could you not find someone to tup who isn’t under Stephen’s care?”

  “It’s none of his fucking business, or yours.” Merrick’s voice was entirely uncompromising. “I don’t tell you who to bed—”

  “Horse shit you don’t.”

  Merrick wasn’t to be drawn. “I don’t tell you, you don’t tell me, and I don’t need your boy friend’s approval either.”

  “Boy friend? You fucking tosspot, this is Stephen.” Crane thumped an angry hand against the wall. “And he’ll have every bloody right to worry about her. You’re three times the girl’s age, ten times her experience—”

  “You fuck men.”

  The words were clear and flat, like a slap. Crane took a deep breath, really angry now, but Merrick had a hand up before he could speak. “You said that on the boat to China, remember? I said, why’d your old man throw you out, and you says to me, I fuck men, and you remember what I said?”

  Crane remembered. He had been just seventeen, exiled from home, terri
fied and alone, and he knew his supposed servant had been tasked by his father to make sure he never returned. He had made the retort with all the sneering pride he could muster, knowing it would earn him a beating, maybe his last one, because he had had nothing left but defiance. And Merrick had considered his words for a few endless moments, shrugged, and replied, “Well, I don’t care if they don’t.”

  Crane’s life had turned on that moment.

  He rested his head against the door behind and lowered the stick, although he didn’t put it down. “All right. Noted.”

  “Jen knows what she wants. Ask her if you like. She ain’t a schoolroom miss.”

  “Perhaps not. But I didn’t know what I wanted when I was eighteen.”

  “Yeah, you did. You wanted not to be starving and whoring.”

  Crane glared at him. “Yes, true, but—”

  “But she’s too bloody young. Christ’s sake, you don’t need to tell me that.” Merrick stuck his hands in his pockets and sagged back against the wall. “You think I don’t know I could be her pa?”

  “You couldn’t,” Crane assured him. “She’s far too pretty.”

  Merrick didn’t notice the jibe. That alone told Crane much of what he needed to know. “Yeah, she is, but that ain’t it. I mean, there’s lots of pretty women, but… It’s just her. There’s something…it’s like…I dunno.” His hazel eyes met Crane’s with something close, in Merrick terms, to a plea. “I ain’t acting the goat.”

  He never did. Since the death of his wife in labour more than a decade ago, Merrick’s affairs had all been with older women, experienced ladies who had no desire to be trammelled with a husband and who knew how to avoid unwanted consequences. His taste for widows had become a running joke between them. He had never relished innocence, or youth, or vulnerability, any more than Crane did.

  “Oh bugger,” Crane said. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Serious, but you didn’t tell me about it?”

  “Yeah, well, Mr. Day, all that.” Meaning that if Merrick had spoken out, Crane would have had to tell Stephen, or lie by omission. He was grateful for that consideration, probably. “I reckoned you only needed to know if Jen decided, otherwise no point stirring the pot, right? And she ain’t yet, but now there’s this business, so—”

  “Hold on. If Miss Saint decided what?”

  Merrick raked a hand through his cropped hair. “Ah, buggery. No fool like an old fool, is there. I asked her, all right?”

  Crane stared. Merrick shrugged. He was reddening.

  “You’re going to marry her?”

  Merrick grimaced. “Asked her two months back. She’s still making her mind up.”

  Crane waved that away as a trivial detail. “Christ. Why didn’t you say so? Congratulations, you idiot. On the one hand, she has terrifying powers and can probably kill you with a thought if you annoy her, but on the other…handy to have around for reaching high shelves?”

  “Not like Mr. Day, then.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Indecisive, poor taste in men, needs a firm hand…”

  “Don’t even fucking start with that,” Merrick told him. “Oi, hold on. Did you just give me advice on women?”

  “Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach.”

  Merrick gave that the snort it deserved. Crane got to the essential point. “Does she know about me and Stephen?”

  “Ain’t told her. Brought up here, you know? Might need a bit of getting used to things.”

  “Yes, well, I think that’s going to be the case all round.” A sudden, horrible thought made Crane’s chest clench. “You, ah, you are staying, I take it. Not planning to set up your own household. Are you?”

  Merrick looked, just for a second, as appalled as Crane felt. “Don’t be bloody stupid. You’d starve in a week.”

  “Yes, and where would you steal your brandy then?” Crane agreed, with overwhelming relief. “Let’s see. We’ll need to take a town house. There’s not enough room here for four, especially if two of them are Stephen and Miss Saint. Which means more staff, trustworthy ones, so—”

  “Hold up, mandarin. She ain’t said yes.”

  “You got her into bed, I’m sure you can get her to the altar.”

  “Yeah? What with you just called her a thief, and her in trouble up to the neck?”

  “Bollocks.” That detail had slipped Crane’s mind, amid everything else. “That’s where we came in, isn’t it? Right, let’s straighten this out. You were with her last night, at about two. Awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wish I had your stamina. And I saw her, or thought I did, here at about two.” Crane put the stick back in the stand. “Therefore, we need to find out who I actually saw here.”

  “Yeah, we do. Because Mr. Day had a right go at her, and sounds like she had words back. Like, maybe things she shouldn’t have said.” Merrick made a slightly apologetic face on Saint’s behalf. Crane gave a resigned shrug on Stephen’s. “Plus, she reckons if she goes in and gets arrested, they’re going to do some God-awful thing to her. She’s scared of this bloody Council of theirs.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I got her safe.”

  And not telling me where, Crane noted. That was undoubtedly best. He needed to be able to say, “I don’t know,” if Stephen asked. “Right. Put some coffee on while I think about this. I’m in dire need.”

  Merrick gave him a look. “You can’t work the stove, can you?”

  “I’m the eighth Earl Crane and the twelfth Viscount Fortunegate. I don’t have to work the stove.”

  “Two extra names and you can’t lift your arms any more. Bloody lucky they didn’t make you a duke too or you’d forget how to brush your own teeth.”

  “Just make the coffee, cradle-robber.” Crane followed Merrick into the kitchen and seated himself at the table, thinking aloud. “Very well, then, what I saw… I didn’t realise it was a woman at all, initially. I kept saying ‘he’ to Stephen afterwards. It was only after she turned and waved at me that I recognised her. Or thought I did.”

  “What did you see?”

  “A dark figure, inside. When she went outside and turned, I saw fair hair in the moonlight, then I recognised her face.”

  “You saw her hair in the moonlight?” Merrick repeated.

  “Yes.” The pale silver-gilt glimmer was vivid in his memory. “Her hair, her face, brightly lit. Damn it. I must be wrong if you say I am, but I was—am—absolutely sure I saw her.”

  Merrick nodded slowly. “No, I reckon you saw what you said.”

  Crane frowned at him. “But—”

  “What phase is the moon at?”

  “Full dark,” Crane said without hesitation. Tracking that was an unconscious habit, second nature after years of moving illicit cargoes under cover of night. “It’ll be new moon in— Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck,” Crane repeated, with feeling. “There wasn’t any moonlight, was there? It was pitch dark in the room, and dark enough outside, but I somehow saw her face, bathed in light, all the way over by the tree. The—man, it was a man, in the room, he touched me, and then I saw… And—God damn it, he said something too, I’m sure of it. The shitster fluenced me.”

  “Sounds like.” Merrick’s face was grim. “What’d he look like?”

  “Let me think.” Crane shut his eyes, bending his memories to his will. He was resistant to fluence, Stephen had told him so, and he had had this experience before, of feeling his remembered reality shift and repattern itself as true memories swam to the surface and false ones dissipated. It was a sickening, dizzying experience, like trying to focus through drunkenness, and familiarity did not make the process any more comfortable, but he could grasp the truth now.

  There had been no moonlight. It had been dark, but they had
been close together, and he had seen something at least. The figure had been far sturdier than the slender Saint, no sign of fair hair, a deeper voice whispering instructions…

  “A man,” he said. “Dark, I think. Not particularly big, perhaps a little shorter than you. Young, or at least agile. A windwalker though. That was right.”

  “Windwalker, and he wanted you to think he was Jen.” Merrick gave him a cup of coffee, as one rewarding a bright pupil. Crane inhaled with gratitude.

  “No question. And he took the ring, nothing else, and he knew to find it here. He came to the flat to steal Stephen’s ring and to make us think Stephen’s student stole it.”

  “Yeah,” Merrick said thoughtfully. “I reckon we need to talk to Mr. Day pretty sharpish.”

  “I think we do. If only I knew where the bugger was.”

  Stephen stood in a small bedroom, its close heat stifling after the chill outside. His heart was thumping, breath coming hard, and he was staring at a naked man on the bed.

  The man sprawled over the coverlet, spread out on display. His legs were wide apart and his eyes were open, gazing at the ceiling. Stephen couldn’t stop looking at him.

  He jumped as the third person in the room put a heavy hand commandingly on his shoulder.

  “You’re not going to be sick, are you, Mr. Day?”

  “I’m fine.” Stephen slithered away from Inspector Rickaby’s touch. “Unlike this chap. Why am I here?”

  “What’s this look like to you?” Rickaby’s tone was thick with suppressed anger.

  Stephen scowled at the spreadeagled figure on the counterpane. The dead man’s body and face were a mass of open wounds—long savage cuts, some laying the flesh open to the bone, an anatomist’s diagram. Stephen could see layers of dark red muscle and yellow fat, reminding him of an uncooked side of bacon. Between the open legs, the genitals had been almost completely severed. Blood soaked the bedclothes and pooled on the floor beneath.