by Juliet Kemp
Reb pursed her lips. “He’s shady in a lot of ways – well, in all ways, really. He and I don’t exactly get on, but for this… Well. He’s done a bit of work with spirits, which is more than I have. I don’t just mean to be unhelpful, you understand. It’s not my area. I don’t even know if I could do anything, even if I understood more about what happened. Cato’s a competent enough sorcerer when he’s sober.” She grimaced. “Which at this time of night he undoubtedly won’t be. Tomorrow, it’ll have to be.”
The angel’s shoulders drooped. Reb was worrying at her knuckle again.
“I am really not comfortable with this,” she said after a moment, “but without knowing more about it… You can stay,” she nodded at the angel, “until the morning. Around lunchtime Cato should be useful again.” She looked at Jonas. “Thank you. I suppose.”
It was a clear dismissal.
Well then. That was that. Home, and not before time, and this problem off his hands. He began to shift his weight to get up, and then cold fire shot through his skull and he heard Reb’s voice again. There’s stories about the cityangel. He knew, cold-certain, like a flicker – although it wasn’t a flicker, it didn’t have quite the trappings of one, that if he left now, he wouldn’t come back. Or if he did, the angel would be gone, if this Cato was any good, or they would just have disappeared, or… He’d hooked this fish; now he had to play it, or lose this chance for good.
He shifted his weight back again, and Reb frowned.
“I found the angel,” Jonas said. “I want to see them safe to this Cato. I know the squats better than you anyway.”
“It is my city,” the angel said, sounding irritable. “I know…” They trailed off. “It was my city,” they said, and the sorrow behind the statement made Jonas’ guts ache.
“I know fine well where Cato lives,” Reb said, rolling her eyes. “Go home.”
Angels and fishes, wouldn’t that be better. Get out from this weird situation. Go back to… trying to find out what his flickers were, and get rid of them, and hadn’t he been doing that ever so well so far? It wasn’t just the cityangel, either. Cato. The only other sorcerer in Marek. The only other chance he knew of. If he stuck it out here, he could speak to Cato tomorrow, or at least meet the man, have an introduction of sorts.
He wanted to go home; and he didn’t allow himself to think about whether he was thinking of his cosy room back in the squats, or a hammock on a rolling ship. But.
“It is a matter of honour,” Jonas said, in desperation, counting on Reb having the customary Mareker lack of knowledge about Salinas customs. (And it wasn’t wholly untrue, not if you squinted at it right.)
Reb rubbed at her head, then threw up her hands. “Whatever. Fine. It’s late and I cannot be doing with arguing any more. Tomorrow you can escort us to Cato’s and we’ll sort this all out and satisfy your honour.”
She got up and opened a cupboard, throwing a few blankets out onto the floor. “You can both sleep on the floor here.”
Jonas thought longingly of his bed. But this was an opportunity, thrown in his lap. He had to hold it.
“I do not sleep,” the angel said.
“In this body you do,” Reb said.
“I have not yet,” the angel contradicted her, and Reb swung round to face them, rolling her eyes.
“No wonder you look so bloody strung out then. Well, it’s up to you, but I recommend you lie down with a blanket and see what happens. And another thing – what’s your name?”
They stared at her for a moment, dark eyes wide, then said, “I am Marek.”
“Yes, well, you can’t go round calling yourself Marek,” Reb said. “Try something else.”
The angel looked almost panicked.
“Eli,” Reb suggested. “For Eli Beckett. Marek-related, if that’s how you think of yourself, and Eli’s neutral.”
Jonas wondered suddenly if the angel had been there, when Eli Beckett and Rufus Marek and their team found the island that would become Marek, and if it had been there when Marek died before they could start back again, and which if any of the myths and stories about Beckett and Marek he’d heard in his months here were true, and what they had been like, these mythic historical people that the angel had known, had made a deal with…
“Beckett,” he said, staring at the ex-angel, rocked with a sudden sense of correctness. “It’s Beckett.”
Reb looked sharply at him.
“Beckett,” the angel agreed, and smiled, sudden sweetness passing over their face. “I remember Beckett.”
Hearing that, Reb’s face held a sudden hunger, then she rubbed her hand over her eyes again and turned away. “Well. Time to sleep, Beckett.”
Beckett may have claimed that they didn’t sleep, but by the time Jonas himself was settled in his blanket, and Reb had vanished into the other room, the one without the heavy door, they were already snoring. They looked somehow more human in sleep. Jonas rolled onto his back, and set himself to working out a private way of discussing his flickers with Beckett. But his eyes drifted shut despite himself, and he was asleep.
FOUR
When Jonas woke up the next morning, sunlight was leaking through the cracks in the shutters, casting slivers of light across the floorboards. It was unsettling. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept past dawn. And then sounds round here that he could hear from the street outside were different from in the squats.
Beckett was already awake. Or at least, they were upright, eyes open, sitting awkwardly in the middle of the floor. As Jonas sat up and stretched, one of the inner doors rattled, and Reb came out of what was presumably her bedroom. The other door, the one with the bolts, Jonas would bet money that was where she did her magic. He was just as glad for the bolts.
Reb nodded grumpily at both of them, and set about making an infusion on the stove.
Well, that put paid to any idea of asking Beckett about his flickers just now.
“Open one of the shutters and let me know when Ceri comes past with her pastry-cart,” Reb said, without looking round from the stove.
“So,” Jonas said, when they were all drinking tea and eating pastries, unable to bear the silence any longer. “Is it true that Marek doesn’t have any other spirits? Cos I’ve not seen one all the time I’ve been here.”
Beckett raised a shoulder in an approximation of a shrug. “In general my race choose not to come into my dominion unless directly invited. Spirits are not particularly sociable, in the main. Unlike humans.”
“But you said Cato talks to spirits, and works with them, and so on,” Jonas said, looking over at Reb. “And he’s in Marek.”
“That is a spirit invited in briefly to speak with a particular human,” Beckett said. “It is not the same as a permanent resident, nor even an independent visitor.”
“Not that spirits are often permanently in one place, or on this plane,” Reb said.
“Never,” Beckett said. “We would never remain permanently on this plane.” They looked, if it were possible, even more uncomfortable.
“Spirits don’t have to involve themselves with the human plane at all,” Reb said into the awkward silence, “and when they do, they don’t have to involve themselves with humans. That’s mostly angels and demons – though those are human terms themselves. Angels are helpful to humans. Demons largely aren’t, or at least are doing it for their own reasons, which might include helping you for a while, but it’s not a moral statement. Angels have made a moral choice to work with us on our plane, though not at the cost of damage to themself, in general. Demons will make deals, but otherwise they’re not too bothered with their effects. I believe there’s plenty of other spirits who just aren’t interested in humans, or in this plane, or both.”
“We don’t deal with spirits, Salinas don’t,” Jonas said. “But we see them sometimes, out on the waves. They don’t seem that interested in us, the ones we see.” Which fitted into Reb’s description of types, he supposed.
“No spirits, no magic,” Reb said. �
�Safe, in a way, I suppose.”
“Magic, spirits, it’s all the same, right? Spirits are all about magic,” Jonas said.
Reb spread a hand and tilted it from side to side. “Yes and no. Sorcery involves in some sense accessing the spirit plane, that is true. By blood sacrifice, or by working with a spirit. Oftentimes, blood is easier than finding and negotiating with a spirit. But Marek is different. Marek’s cityangel is here, all the time. They act as a mediator, I suppose you could say, for any sorcerer working within city limits. That’s why Marek’s magic doesn’t involve blood, unlike everywhere else; and why it’s more powerful, and more reliable. But. The cityangel may permit access to the power of the spirit plane, but the sorcery itself must still then be done, and that’s the same as anywhere else.” She shrugged. “But what I don’t know anything about is how spirits go about their business, or indeed how and why Marek is as it is. Not my field. Never was.”
“But it is this Cato’s field?” Jonas asked.
Reb nodded, her lips tight. There was a silence.
“I wish to speak to Cato,” Beckett said.
“Well then,” Jonas said brightly. “Now we’ve all had our breakfast, we can go find Cato, and hopefully he’ll be sober. Right?”
Reb glared at both of them, then stalked over to finish her pastry by the window.
“Sod this,” she said, after another period of uncomfortable silence. “Let’s go. If Cato’s asleep we’ll wake him up, and if he’s still drunk I’ll sober the little shit up myself. Come on.”
k k
Reb stalked irritably through the streets, Jonas and Beckett trailing behind her. Jonas wondered, uncomfortably, how obvious it was that Reb was a sorcerer, and what in the name of the sea-beasts they looked like, the three of them. Something unnerving was prickling under his skin, something like but not quite like his flickers. And how was he going to ask Cato about his flickers, in front of Reb and Beckett? He wasn’t, was how. He’d have to come back, once he knew where to come.
The sense of foreboding wasn’t going away. He couldn’t tell if it was cousin to the flickers, or if it was just normal – reasonable – discomfort at this weird situation.
The squats took up several streets north of Old Bridge, a series of blocky three- and four-storey apartment buildings that consisted mostly of single rooms, sized for individuals or for families, with a few slightly larger two-room apartments. There were shared ground-floor water-closets that emptied via pipes into cesspits on the edge of the city, and a couple of large bathhouses at the south-east edge of the area. The buildings were owned and maintained by the city, and they were free to live in. Apparently, Jonas had been told, the squats had been the solution, a couple of hundred years previously, to a surge in unemployment combined with a lack of affordable housing in the city for what Asa described as “the folk who made it run – messengers and servants and shop-folk and marketers and so on, you see?”. Given the position of Marek, hemmed in with mountains, sea, and swamp, land was limited. The Council had set the unemployed to building the apartments, paying them a stipend for doing so, and then made the apartments available to whoever needed them. Free or no, anyone who could afford rent elsewhere preferred to do so – the squats were clean but very basic – but it was a system that seemed to work.
Jonas’ own room, in the same building as Asa and Tam, was close to the river side of the squats, a couple of streets north of the most coveted apartments, the ones right on the edge that looked out from the densely built squat streets over the river and up to Marekhill. Cato, it seemed, lived a few more streets north, where the mostly-legal subculture of messengers and day servants and the odd highly respectable fence gave way to dealers, thieves, thugs-for-hire, and those who sold things to them. And, apparently, dubious sorcerers.
Reb took the turns without pausing, and ignored the curious gazes from the knots of people hanging out by open front doors, chewing or smoking.
“You been here before, then?” Jonas asked.
“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate.
They turned another corner, and Reb stopped in front of a closed door.
Reb swung round and hissed something unintelligible over Jonas’ shoulder, and he recoiled as someone behind him swore and backed away again. Half a year in Marek and you’d think he’d know enough to be paying attention. He’d never come to this area though; Asa and Tam had warned him off early on.
No one answered Reb’s knock. After a moment, she put her hand to the door and pushed; muttered under her breath then pushed again. Jonas’ ears popped, and the door swung open onto a narrow corridor and stairs leading up. Reb ignored the doors off the corridor and headed straight for the stairs.
“Reb?” Jonas said tentatively, after the first flight. “You recognised Beckett nearly straight off. Cato’ll surely know even quicker, if he knows about spirits. Should they maybe stay outside the door? Just until we get a feel for Cato’s, ah, position?”
They’d reached a landing at the top of the second flight of stairs. It was dark and musty-smelling, lit only by the city-provided emergency glows. Reb muttered something uncomplimentary about Cato’s position, but nodded grudgingly as they reached a door with a C scrawled on it in red paint.
“You’re right. Beckett, stay out here while we test the waters.”
Beckett nodded.
Reb knocked; then, when nothing happened, knocked louder. As the pause lengthened, she rocked back on her heels, tapping her thumb against her index finger.
“Can’t you just…” Jonas suggested, waving a hand at her, after another few moments.
“Of course I could,” Reb said. “He’ll have wards up, of course, yes, I could deal with those too. I hardly think he’s likely to be inclined to help us if we break his door down when he’s asleep, though, do you?”
Jonas hunched slightly into himself at her tone.
Reb hammered on the door again, loud enough this time that an annoyed shout came from a door further down the corridor. There was still no reply from inside.
Jonas’ back began to itch, and his head was throbbing. He pinched at the bridge of his nose, then… he was inside an untidy room, a multicoloured patch of space he couldn’t quite focus on in front of him and reaching towards Beckett, already engulfing them, Reb slumped against a wall in his peripheral vision, dread coiling over his skin…
Beckett was looking at him, head slightly tilted, as he came back to himself, suppressing a gasp. Reb didn’t seem to have noticed anything. She was running her fingers over the door lightly, head cocked to one side like she was listening, and frowning.
“What is it?” Beckett asked.
Reb shook her head. “It’s warded from the outside, not from the inside.”
“So he’s not in there?” Jonas said. His breath was still coming a little short from the flicker. “You said he was likely to be out drinking last night – maybe he’s just not back yet.” In some gutter somewhere, perhaps.
Reb shook her head again. “This isn’t that sort of ward. It’s all done up tight. The sort of thing you do when you’ll be away for a while, not when you’re going out for the evening.”
“He’s gone away?” Jonas said.
“Well, except that seems tremendously unlikely,” Reb said. “He’s a sorcerer. We don’t leave Marek, not as a rule. Cato’s never left the city since I’ve known him.” She rolled her eyes. “He barely leaves the squats unless he’s working.”
“He could be visiting elsewhere in the city, couldn’t he? Or working, come to that.”
“I suppose,” Reb said. “But why would he bother? It’s not just out for the day wards. Why would he stay somewhere else when his room is here? Marek’s not that large. And his workroom is here.” Her fingers were still tapping against the door. “I wouldn’t… well. It’s odd, that’s what I’m saying. And I can’t help but find it particularly odd when the sorcerer who knows about spirits goes missing just when this thing has happened to Beckett.”
Beckett had move
d closer to the door now, head to one side. They looked almost as if they were smelling the air.
“There has been another spirit here,” they said, abruptly. Their face settled into a scowl. “Another spirit. In my city.”
“You’re sure?” Reb said, then shook her head. “Stupid question.”
Beckett, still scowling at the door, didn’t reply. Reb chewed at her lip, then seemed to come to a decision.
“Right. I really shouldn’t be doing this, but, given what we’re here for, and that there’s been another spirit here… Stand back.”
She laid one hand on the door, muttering under her breath. Jonas couldn’t hear the words, but the rhythm caught at the nape of his neck. Reb dipped her other hand into the bag at her belt, withdrew a pinch of something, and threw it against the doorframe, left, right, top. The pressure at the back of Jonas’ neck popped, and the door swung open. He followed Reb over the threshold.
The room was in a state of massive disarray. Clothes and papers were strewn across the floor, with half-eaten food in various states of decay on every surface. The only remotely tidy part was a small table in one corner with two shelves of small jars above it, and a bowl, mirror, and feather nib placed on the table. It was immediately obvious that Cato wasn’t there; there was nowhere in the room for a full grown human to hide. The room reeked of smoke and herbs that Jonas couldn’t immediately put a name to; with an overlay of rotting food, and human urine coming from the half-full chamber pot in the corner.
His back prickled, and he stood in this room, looking at a dark-haired, brown-skinned Mareker with a bony face, a little shorter than himself, talking animatedly and gesturing at the jars and the table. He blinked and looked around, but Reb still hadn’t noticed. At least this flicker hadn’t been like the last one. That must surely be Cato that he’d seen; so he would get to talk to Cato about his flickers at some point, even if he wasn’t here right now? Not for the first time, Jonas wished that his flickers came with a time stamp.
Reb was turning around slowly with a dissatisfied expression. “You might as well come in,” she called to Beckett.
