A Dangerous Magic

by Donald Hounam

  “Shut up, Frank,” says Ferdia.

  Caxton’s busy in her notebook again, drawing something vaguely resembling a human hand. “What about the hand of glory?” She looks up at Marvo. “You get the hand of an executed criminal and dry and pickle it. When you go to burgle a house you set up the hand as a holder for a candle made of human fat and it puts everyone in the house to sleep.”

  She draws around the outline of the hand again and looks up at me triumphantly. “If a hand of glory, why not a head of glory?”

  “Why not an arsehole of glory?” I say. “Stick your corpse face down—”

  “Don’t try to be clever with me.”

  “Then don’t talk crap!” I pick up my case. “There’s no such thing. It’s a myth.”

  I’m heading for the door.

  “Who said you could go?”

  “I’ve got stuff to do.”

  And I’m gone.

  Chapter Nine

  Holy Matter

  I’ve got a choice. I can spend a long and boring day running routine contiguity tests between a bullet I pulled out of an unidentified body and a cupboard full of loose guns, on the off-chance of getting a match. Or I can check out a dead saint.

  Time for a history lesson. Saint Oswald of Oxford. Born 1445. Died, rather unpleasantly, 1493. Alchemist, theologian, and the first important cleric to propose bringing sorcery out of the cellars into the heart of the Church. Appointed Bishop of Oxford just in time to find himself on the sharp end of a witch panic. Defied a lynch mob at the altar of the cathedral. Lost his head. Literally.

  You know what they say: history gets written by the winners. The Society of Sorcerers was founded twenty years later and the surviving witch-finders came to a significantly stickier and longer drawn-out end than Oswald.

  He was declared a martyr. But, somewhere in the confusion surrounding his death, his head got lost . . . only to turn up sixty years later, at the back of a cupboard in the cathedral—miraculously preserved!

  That’s what saved the cathedral. It had cost a fortune to build—and it was costing an even bigger fortune to stop it from falling down again. It’s no use littering the joint with collection boxes unless you’ve got something to pull in the punters. And for some reason people will shell out good money to pray to bits that fell off dead saints: fragments of bone, clumps of hair, loose teeth. They’re called relics, and my personal favorite is the Holy Prepuce, Christ’s foreskin, which you can still pay to admire in several different cities across Europe.

  Anyway, they gave Oswald’s head a wash, pickled it, and stuck it in this flashy reliquary in the crypt of the cathedral—where I vaguely remember seeing it as a kid. I still think there has to be sorcery involved in Wallace’s murder, and if Marvo’s right and it’s got something to do with his book . . . well, maybe I should drop in on Oswald and get reacquainted. It’s right next to the Bishop’s Palace, so maybe I’ll get to see Kazia, too . . .

  It’s uncomfortably bright and sunny, and I’m standing on Seven Bridges Road, clutching my case and staring across at the cathedral: a massive pile of marble, dirty white with bands of red and green, like a shop-soiled wedding cake. The wind isn’t much warmer than it was yesterday, but for once I had the sense to wear a sweater. I button up my jerkin, pull my hat down over my ears, and look up and down the road.

  It’s busy. A line at an omnibus stop. Kids on lunch break, huddled on benches around the green.

  A voice behind me: “I know you.”

  I look around. Yeah, he knows me because I know him: Norrie Padstowe. Ugly gorilla with a beer belly and curly hair that used to be bright red but has gone gray now, leaving just his nose to shine like a shipping beacon.

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Yeah, you’re Joe Sampson’s kid.” He pulls out a string of beads. “The nekker—”

  There are words that work . . . well, like magic. Shout “fire!” in a crowded theater and everybody’ll bolt for the exit. Yell “nekker” on a busy road and it’s the opposite, like a magnet.

  The effect is slow at first. An old priest stops in his tracks and sticks one hand up in the air, index and little fingers raised like horns.

  “Yeah, the nekker!”

  Who could forget Norrie? Once an idea wormed its way into his thick head, it took explosives to shift it. Or industrial quantities of alcohol. He used to prop up the bar at the Brazen Head with my dad. I thought he’d drunk himself into a hole in the ground years ago, but here he is, large as life and dead set on being a pain.

  “Nekker!” His voice rings across the cathedral green.

  It may not be real magic, but it sure works like it is. A couple of kids have stopped to stare. One puts her hand to the other’s ear and whispers something. A bus has pulled up at the stop, clouds of steam rising from the horses’ flanks, but the dummies in the line are too busy whispering and staring to get on board. The driver turns and the sun glints on silver as he raises a charm to his lips.

  Along the green, there’s a row of almshouses built recently to show that somebody cares. Despite the cold, a middle-aged woman is sitting on her doorstep, her hand shading her eyes as she stares back at me.

  And suddenly the tide’s crashing in, lifting me off my feet and carrying me out into the road. Someone’s grabbed my case, and I’m hugging it for dear life, trying to prevent it from making things worse.

  “You’re making a mistake. He’s a drunk, for Christ’s sake—”

  “No I ain’t!” Norrie’s waving his beads frantically. “He’s a nekker, I tell you—look for the mark!”

  They’re all over me, yelling and screaming and elbowing each other out of the way. My hat’s gone. They’ve got my jerkin up at the back and they’re tearing at my sweater. Someone’s tugging at my belt. Fingernails digging into my skin.

  “It’s on his back,” someone yells.

  “No it’s not! It’s on his arse!” Back, chest, scalp, groin—they’ve all heard of this mythical sorcerer’s mark, but they can’t agree where it is. The good news is that now we’re all close up in one big heap, the grown-ups can’t tell one kid from another and everyone’s just throwing punches at random. I let my legs buckle and slide to the ground. Someone lets go of my ear and I slam down hard on my case, narrowly missing the broken fragments of some idiot’s glasses. I get kicked in the stomach. Someone falls on top of me and someone on top of him.

  My case is whimpering. Norrie’s beads roll past me. Through the dancing forest of legs I glimpse a burly, middle-aged man in round sunglasses, watching from the edge of the scrum. There’s something about the way he just stands there, arms folded, legs astride, like he’s weighing up what he sees . . . I dunno, it kind of spooks me.

  One thing at a time. I kick and roll. I see blood running down a screaming face. I’m free—on my feet, case clutched under my arm—running like hell.

  Down an alley between the almshouses, over a fence—trampling someone’s vegetable patch—jumping another fence. Through the railings along the gardens of the Bishop’s Palace, I can see Charlie’s lion basking on the lawn in the sunshine. It’s going transparent; it’s done what it was built for and in a day or so it will just fade away.

  I stop, panting for breath. There’s nobody on my tail. Beyond the railings, a uniformed jack is watching a small dog with a pink flea collar snuffle around in the palace flowerbeds. Charlie’s work: the active half of the search elemental, still trying to sniff out the missing head.

  A bit of trespassing will get me into the cathedral, without having to go back around by the green. I grab one of the railings. There’s a low warning growl. I haul myself up. The growl is louder, more threatening, and the railings start curling over at the top to stop me from climbing over. Charlie’s lion has lifted its head.

  I’m hanging there, trying to figure out how to get over in one piece, when I spot something else: the kid from inside the palace yesterday, standing in the shrubbery with a spade. He’s got his hand over his eyes and he’s staring at
someone coming out of the back door of the palace.

  I jump as a hand clamps on to my shoulder. The woman from the almshouse doorstep is gazing into my face, her eyes screwed up. “You ain’t no policeman.”

  I can’t stop her dragging me down. She stinks of alcohol and it’s a miracle she can stand, even with one talon clamped to my shoulder.

  “Do I look like a policeman?”

  She hauls out the inevitable amulet. “You’re a sorcerer.”

  “So what?”

  I’m wondering if I can offer to turn her into anything, when I see what’s fascinating the kid with the spade: Kazia is kneeling on the grass, tickling the dog’s nose. Another reason to go over the railings—if I can get away.

  “You look like my son, when he was your age.” The woman has jammed a pair of cracked glasses on her face and is still peering up at me, squinting against the sun.

  “Some guys have all the luck.” How do I get out of this?

  “He’s a manager at the works out in Cowley. Don’t come to see me no more. Better things to do.”

  “That’s kids for you. No gratitude.”

  The bloke with the sunglasses—the one who was watching me get pulled apart—he’s appeared out of nowhere and now he’s just standing there, fifty yards off, watching us. He folds his arms slowly. It seems like a good point to end this conversation and make myself scarce. I pull away from the woman and try to massage some life back into my shoulder.

  “There was a demon.”

  OK, she has my attention again.

  “Last night, around midnight.” She points across the palace gardens, where Kazia is staring back at us. “Down by the river.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “Like a dog.”

  “Maybe it was a dog.”

  For a moment, that seems to shut her up. But then: “That’s what the detective said. Stupid woman. Full of herself.”

  “That’d be Beryl Caxton.”

  “Who’s she? Do I know her?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I ain’t blind and I knows a demon when I sees one.”

  “What was it doing?”

  “Your friend Beryl says she was just taking it for a walk.”

  “Who?”

  “Beryl.”

  “No, who was taking it for a walk?”

  “This woman in a nightdress. But it weren’t on a lead, it were in front, leading her. And there was this man following her . . .”

  “Where was it leading her, the dog?”

  “Told you: not a dog—a demon. Didn’t stay to find out. Ask him.” She points to where Sunglasses was standing a moment ago. Her voice softens to a sinister whisper. “He’s gone now, but he were there last night, too. Didn’t have them dark glasses on, though. He’d have walked straight into the river if he had.”

  Inside the palace garden, Kazia is just standing there, staring at me.

  What the hell? I point toward the cathedral. She nods.

  It’s cold inside and almost pitch-dark. During the Channel Islands War, they bricked up all the cathedral windows to save the stained glass from the Montgolfier raids and never got around to knocking them out again. No sign of Kazia yet. The scrape of my boots on the stone floor echoes up into the roof as I scuttle behind a pillar and scry Caxton.

  I’ve got halfway through the woman’s story about the people with the dog when Caxton says, “Stop wasting my time.”

  “But I’m not. I mean, just before midnight—and she says it was a demon.”

  “Rubbish! I’ve interviewed her.” Caxton’s face jumps around in the scryer as the glasses go on and the corner of her notebook wobbles into view. “Her name’s Amber Trickle.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Caxton frowns down at her note. She raises it for me to read. Trickle it is.

  “She’s a drunk.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Thank you, Sampson. A drunk and an attention-seeker, and she’s blind as a bloody bat!”

  I could make the obvious cheap crack, but I say, “Something spooked the elemental on the gate. OK, I’d be dead surprised if it was a demon, but you’ve got a witness who says she saw a man, a woman in a nightdress, and a dog. Nothing about anyone carrying a body. And she said there was this other bloke—”

  “Haven’t you got something useful to get on with?”

  The mirror mists up and I’m staring at myself. Still not a pretty sight.

  I put my scryer away and follow the line of candles up the nave. Tonight’s the night, all right. Clergy scuttle around like black beetles. And I can see crews setting up these whopping big scryers in the side chapels. Like elemental work, it’s the sort of thing you can do when the Gift is taken away. A single sorcerer can instantiate a dozen scryers in an hour; then, once they’ve been set up and pointed in the right direction, any old post-peaker can stagger in and put down his beer long enough to say the right words at the right moment.

  I avoid a bright pool of light at the top of the nave and turn right into the south transept, where I remember there’s a door leading through the cathedral cloister to the Bishop’s Palace. But I don’t get far.

  “Brother Tobias!” My stage name, remember.

  Stay cool, Frank. “Who let you out?”

  Brother Andrew makes a face. “They’re making me do the Mass tonight, for Saint Oswald . . .”

  He’s still droning on about how fed up he is and how it’s all, like, totally unfair, when, to my amazement, Kazia appears out of the darkness behind him.

  Her haircut is extreme, but it works for me. I’ve got the same buzz I get before doing magic—and the same giddy feeling. My legs are trembling. I may fall over.

  “Are you listening?” Andrew whines. “I said to them, I want nothing to do with it.”

  Any chance of a thunderbolt, Lord? I’d promise to be good. “With what?”

  “The Mass. What’s your problem, Brother?”

  “Forgive me, Brother, it’s these bloody demons!”

  That works. He jumps back, crossing himself. Right into Kazia. “Hey, watch where you’re going!” he snaps.

  “Watch yourself!” She shoves him away and turns to me with this sort of forlorn smile. “You were there yesterday.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry about . . .”

  What am I sorry about? Was Wallace really her father? Looking at her—and I’m dead happy to look at her—I don’t see any resemblance to the portrait in the library.

  Andrew hasn’t finished yet. “Can’t anyone see? Oswald was one of the false prophets foretold—”

  She steps in front of him and holds out her hand to me. “My name is Kazia.”

  “Frank,” I croak.

  I don’t know whether it’s because I’m a sorcerer, or just because I’m me . . . Anyway, people usually avoid touching me, so any hand is a novelty. Hers is soft—well, what did you expect? She’s trembling . . .

  “Are you all right?” I ask.

  I can feel my pulse racing and think maybe she can feel it too. I’m wondering how long before I’m supposed to let go . . .

  “You are the other sorcerer,” she says. Her hand slips away like a wraith.

  In the candlelight, her eyes are so blue that I could just dive into them . . . if there wasn’t this weird thing, like a film across them, hiding whatever’s swimming around beneath the surface . . .

  “The junior forcer, yes.” Why did I have to say that?

  “Sorry?”

  “It’s what people call us. Forensic sorcerer.”

  I’m struggling to prioritize. I mean, I’m with this girl who’s turned my knees to jelly, only I’m really nervous about talking to her in case I say something truly stupid. I just want her to stand there so I can stare at her—like, fix her in my memory. But I still need to go down and take a peep at what’s left of Saint Oswald.

  I turn to Andrew. “Can we get into the crypt?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see the reliquary.”
<
br />   I’m already sorry I asked because Kazia’s got this unhappy look on her face. Too late, though.

  “Just curious,” I hear myself say. “They opened it at the Mass when I took my vows but I’ve kind of forgotten.”

  “I suppose so,” Andrew groans. Oh dear, I’ve upset him, too.

  And he’s not alone.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Kazia whispers. For a split second I think she’s angry with me. Then I realize she’s disappointed. Which can’t be right.

  My sense of duty is a fatal flaw in an otherwise exemplary personality. “I’m sorry, I kinda need to see this . . .”

  “But—”

  “You can come too,” says Andrew. Obviously she works for him, as well. He grabs a lantern and takes off down a flight of wide, shallow steps into the darkness beneath the cathedral floor. I follow him, then turn. Kazia hasn’t moved. To my own amazement, I hold out my hand.

  OK, she doesn’t take it. But a sad sort of smile—maybe it’s just pity—flickers across her face. She slips past me and follows Andrew.

  It’s years since I’ve been in the crypt. It’s a death trap, scattered with tools and materials from the restoration work that’s been sucking up money ever since they built the joint. A couple of workmen are playing cards by candlelight on the flat top of a tomb. They grin as I duck just in time to avoid braining myself on a low arch.

  Looking around the walls I can see enough spare parts down here to build an army of saints. They’ve got the forearm and left index finger of Saint Thomas Becket; a lock of Mary Magdalene’s hair; the skulls of Saint James the Lesser and Saint Michael of Abingdon; various ribs belonging to Saint Paul, Saint Peter, Saint John of Patmos, and a dozen more besides. All in caskets and jars, some made of gold, some encrusted with rubies and emeralds, glistening resentfully in the flicker of Andrew’s lantern and surrounded by thousands of glass and metal charms nailed to wooden panels.

  Down at the back there’s second class: the ossuary is a maze of shelf-lined corridors, stacked with the skulls and bones of hundreds of years’ worth of dead termites that nobody’s willing to pay to see. Let’s not go in there—it’s spooky and claustrophobic. Let’s concentrate on the girl just ahead of me.