Magic for Nothing

by Seanan McGuire

  “That is a fascinating story, Miss Brown,” said Reginald slowly. “Regardless, you cannot be awake when we remove you from this shop. What would you suggest?”

  I grimaced. “My jet lag is so bad you could wait fifteen minutes and I’d probably start snoring?”

  He raised an eyebrow. I sighed.

  “Okay. Chloroform it is. Just try to keep it brief? I’d rather have a clear head when you tell me what I’m trying to sign up for.” I yawned. I couldn’t help myself. Jet lag really was a terrifying mixed blessing: I was about to let myself be knocked unconscious by two members of the Covenant of St. George, who might not be buying my cover story the way I was trying to sell it, and I couldn’t work up a decent panic over the idea. I was reaching “mild annoyance,” and that’s where I ran out of steam. At least if they knocked me out, I’d be able to get a nap before I needed to talk to anyone else.

  (And I did need to let them knock me out for real. I can feign unconsciousness pretty well on the other end, but no one has the muscle control to fool a pro into thinking they’ve been successfully drugged.)

  Leo clapped the chloroform-soaked rag over my mouth and nose. The characteristic paint-thinner and rotten fruit taste of chloroform overwhelmed my senses, and the world went gracefully away, taking me with it into the dark.

  I was alone. Well, that, or I was in the company of someone who was so good at being quiet that they should probably sign up for the Creepy Lurker Olympics. I didn’t open my eyes, instead focusing on my arms and legs, trying to determine whether I was tied down. There’s this thing people always do in the movies, where they wake up, try to move, and dramatically discover their chains. Amateurs. There’s no way to do that without making noise and attracting attention. I didn’t want either of those things.

  But there were no manacles around my wrists, and no cuffs around my ankles; unless the Covenant had managed to devise weightless restraints, I was free to move. I opened my eyes.

  The room I was in was dim but not dark, like the people who’d put me here wanted to be sure I got the sleep I needed. There was a wall to my left, and a bedside table to my right, complete with lamp, in case I needed more light. I touched my thigh, and found my jeans. They hadn’t undressed me or changed my clothes. They might have searched me—I would have searched me—but if they had, all my ID matched the identity I was claiming as my own, and I had my St. Julian pendant around my neck, which was a form of ID in and of itself.

  The hardest thing about packing to fly to London had been leaving my weapons behind. I’d felt naked getting on the plane, and would probably have been paralyzed with fear walking into the bookstore, if not for the miracle of jet lag. I was starting to think that all dangerous activities should come directly after a transatlantic flight. Regardless, a Covenant search wouldn’t have turned up anything more dangerous than the Swiss Army knife in my suitcase, which was there mostly so I’d seem more believable as a world traveler.

  I wanted to check on Mindy. I didn’t know if the room was bugged. I rolled into a sitting position, waking the chloroform headache that had been lurking patiently in my skull, and let out a pained moan that tapered upward into a squeak. I hate chloroform. People think it’s a game, but nothing that knocks a person out is actually funny. The hangover is never worth it.

  Once the room stopped spinning, I lifted my head and got a better look at it. It was . . . well, it was a room. A proper room. I was sitting on a proper bed, the sort of thing you’d find in a cheap hotel or a college dormitory. There was a dresser against the wall in front of me, next to a glass-fronted bookshelf filled with actual books. My suitcase was next to a chair, with my backpack propped against it; on the chair was a folded towel, two washcloths, and a bar of soap.

  “Hello?” I said. I didn’t have to work to make my voice sound querulous. The headache, and a slowly-waking, bone-deep hunger did that for me. Chloroform and jet lag. The perfect pair.

  No one answered. Either the room wasn’t bugged, or the people doing the bugging didn’t feel like tipping their hand yet. That was fine. I could do some tipping of my own.

  “Hello?” I said again, pushing myself to my feet. A wave of nausea swept over me. Pain and hunger are not awesome when taken together. Swallowing the urge to vomit, I took a shaky step toward the door. “Is anyone there? Can I have some toast? Or maybe a bucket?”

  No answer. I glanced at my backpack. The urge to check on Mindy was so strong it hurt, and I couldn’t. It was too much of a risk. She’d understand. She knew what she was doing when she signed up for this journey. It still ached to turn my back on her and reach for the door.

  The doorknob turned easily. All this, and they hadn’t even locked me in. I opened the door.

  Leo was right outside, looking at his watch. “Ten hours, seventeen minutes,” he said, looking up. “Good evening.”

  It took a moment to realize what he was talking about. I blinked. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I am not.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  He cracked a smile. “Again, I am not, and also, language, Miss Brown. You’ve been asleep for over ten hours. Jet lag alone will do that to a person, if it’s bad enough, and when it’s jet lag plus chloroform, well . . . honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d been out for another three hours.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Half-seven in the evening. We’re about to sit down to dinner, if you’d like to join us.”

  “‘We’ being . . . ?” I was starting to feel like I’d fallen into a really weird BBC production, probably scripted by Neil Gaiman, possibly featuring half the cast of Downton Abbey. If someone walked by in a bonnet, there was a strong chance I was going to scream.

  “My family and I. Come on. Some food would do you good.”

  He was right about that. Eating is one of the only things that really minimizes a chloroform hangover. I still hesitated, giving him a careful sidelong look. “Does that mean you’ve decided to trust me?”

  “On a provisional basis, yes,” said Leo easily. “We went through your things—you knew that was going to happen, I won’t insult you by pretending otherwise—and didn’t find anything to set off any alarm bells. You seem to be legitimate. It’ll be a while before there’s a final verdict, of course, so I wouldn’t get too comfortable, if I were you.”

  “Understood,” I said, trying not to let my face show how relieved I felt. If they hadn’t found anything suspicious, they hadn’t found Mindy. Really, that was the important thing. All the rest was just details. “I’d love food. Am I okay to come down as I am, or should I change my clothes first?”

  “If you’d woken an hour ago, I’d be suggesting a shower,” said Leo. “As it stands, run a brush through your hair and put on a different jumper, and my mother will at least see that you’ve put in an effort, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Um, I’m going to . . .” I gestured over my shoulder.

  Leo nodded. “I’ll be here.”

  “Cool,” I said, and shut the door in his face. Not quite striking a blow against the Covenant that would echo through the ages, but it was still pretty satisfying, especially since I was going to have to make nice with these people.

  Very, very nice. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that infiltrating an organization of monster hunters that had managed to stay under the radar for centuries would be as easy as walking in and saying “what’s up, I wanna join.” There were going to be tests. There were going to be trials. There was every chance in the world that they were going to ask me to do things that went against my moral code.

  But first, there was going to be dinner. I still didn’t know whether the room was bugged—I was leaning toward “yes,” given how quickly Leo had shown up after I woke—so I didn’t call for Mindy, just turned on the light, hoisted my suitcase onto the bed, and got to work making myself halfway presentable.

/>   My hair was still relaxed and well-behaved from the henna. I brushed it as smooth as I could before pulling off my shirt and pulling on a clean sweater. It was demure enough to wear around people I was trying to make nice with, but had a deep enough V-front to show my St. Julian medallion to good advantage. Every little bit helps.

  Makeup would probably have helped also, but there was only so far I was willing to go for these people when I was planning to fall right back into bed after dinner. I didn’t have a mirror. I looked down, determined that I wasn’t showing too much boob, and called it good.

  Leo was still waiting in the hall. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of me, and said, “Well, then, you did that faster than I’d expected. Come on. Everyone’s dying to meet you.”

  “I’m excited to meet them, too,” I said.

  He offered me his arm. I took it. In for a dime, in for a dollar, as the sages say.

  My temporary accommodations were at the end of a long hall, one wall of which was lined in doors, while the other wall was lined in portraits—real, painted portraits. Leo saw me looking as we walked, and grimaced.

  “My illustrious ancestors,” he said. “The Cunningham line is ancient, distinguished, and all too fond of leaving our elders on the walls to look down their noses at the new generations, which must, after all, be doing something wrong.”

  “Kids these days,” I said, deadpan. He couldn’t see the part of my mind that was racing, wondering whether I was about to play Dorian Grey. If there was a painted Price somewhere in this building . . .

  Leo laughed. “Exactly so. We’re always getting into trouble, with our rock music and our flashy trousers.”

  “I like me some rock and roll,” I allowed.

  “You seem like a rock and roll kind of girl,” he said.

  I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or not. I sort of hoped for “not.” If he was flirting, I’d have to figure out how to deal with it, and no one with a hall full of painted ancestors to remind him of how spiffy keen the Covenant was would do what Dominic had done and run away with a scrappy American cryptozoologist. Even if I wanted him to which, thus far, was not so much. He was nice and he was helpful and he was the enemy. I’d forget that at my peril.

  Please don’t be flirting, I thought, and kept walking.

  The hall ended at a narrow staircase. Leo let go of my arm, taking the lead. Halfway down, I could hear voices. All the way down, they were joined by the faint rustling sounds that accompany any large group sitting down to dinner but not eating yet. They were waiting for us. Way to make a good first impression. I don’t like anyone who gets between me and my food.

  “Chin up,” murmured Leo. “We haven’t decided to kill you yet.”

  I forced a smile, trying to look like I thought he was kidding. Timpani would have thought he was kidding. Antimony, though, Antimony knew he wasn’t kidding.

  The stairs ended in a nicely appointed parlor that looked basically like I’d always assumed a London parlor would look, which meant either this place hadn’t been redecorated since before World War I, or they maintained the house for the benefit of unexpected Americans. I was inclined toward the first, given the way the wallpaper had weathered. The Covenant had always operated on a “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” basis according to Dominic, and that ideology was reflected in their home décor.

  Leo led me to a pair of swinging, slatted doors and pushed them open, revealing a dining room easily the size of the living room at home. There was a chandelier. An actual chandelier, like that was a reasonable thing to have in a private home. There were also eight people, all of them already seated, who turned to look at us the way cats look at mice.

  I did not pull away from Leo and run for the hills. I am still very proud of myself. “Um,” I said, to the largest gathering of Covenant members that anyone in my family (not counting Dominic) had seen in decades. “Hi.”

  “Hello,” said a woman, whose sandy brown hair and pointed chin marked her as Leo’s mother. She offered a warm smile that would have looked sincere, if it had touched her eyes at all. “You must be Timpani.”

  “Annie’s fine, ma’am,” I said. “My folks were carnival people, and they got a little creative with the names.”

  “I see that,” she said. “My name is Joanne Cunningham; you may call me what you like.”

  Ah: so this was a guessing game, and I could tell that if I guessed wrong, I was going to regret it. “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Cunningham,” I said.

  She thawed fractionally. “Thank you,” she said. “Leo and my father-in-law, you’ve already met. This is my husband, William Cunningham,” she indicated the man next to her, who nodded, “my mother-in-law, Louise, and my other children, Chloe and Nathaniel.”

  That left two people at the table unnamed. Unlike the Cunninghams, who all seemed to have been hired from the same Central Casting office, they were dark-skinned and black-haired. The man was in a nice button-up shirt and slacks; the woman was wearing a bright orange sari over a white sheath dress.

  “Our guests, Hasin and Kumari Pillai,” said Joanne. Either she was the family spokesperson, or the rest of them had decided it was better to let her handle this sort of situation. “They were very interested to hear of your arrival, and wanted to meet you for themselves, since there’s a chance you won’t be staying around long enough for a more general introduction.”

  Translation: at least one of them was probably with whatever served as the Covenant’s security wing, and if I slipped up tonight, I was going to disappear. But no pressure.

  Leo led me to a seat, blessedly next to his, which meant I could watch to see which spoons he reached for over the course of the meal. Hopefully, any slips in my table manners would be chalked up to a combination of “jet lag” and “American heathen,” and not taken as a sign that I was nervous and needed to be interrogated to find out why.

  Once we were seated, Chloe and Nathaniel rose and vanished through a door at the back of the room, returning with large serving trays that would have seemed more ordinary in a restaurant. Leo stood to help them set out the food: roast leg of lamb, rosemary potatoes, green peas, and three cheese plates, one for each third of the table, each with an assortment of cheeses and jams. The trays went against the wall, and the Cunningham children retook their seats.

  (It was odd to think of them as “children”: Nathaniel looked to be the youngest, and he was at least my age. But the attitude of the older people at the table made it clear that the kids were supposed to bring out the food. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were also supposed to clean up and do the dishes. Oh, family.)

  “We eat from communal trays, so no one thinks it’s poisoned,” said Chloe, while Nathaniel drew a finger across his throat in a slicing gesture. “Of course, we could have taken the antitoxin first. Eat up!”

  “Chloe,” said Joanne sharply. “Do not taunt our guest.”

  “Is she a guest now, Mum? I thought she was still a prisoner. Possible spy. Or did the blood test results come back already?” She smiled in my direction. “In case that didn’t make sense, while you were asleep my dear brother stuck a needle in your arm, and took a bit of your blood for analysis. Have to make sure you’re a human being, and not some unspeakable terror trying to infiltrate and devour our delicious flesh. What do you think of that?”

  “I think I wish they’d waited until I was awake and could give permission, but I understand why it had to be done,” I said. Blood analysis is still the best way to detect certain types of human-seeming cryptid, like dragon or wadjet females. Fortunately for me, my blood didn’t have any secrets to betray. “It explains why I’m so hungry, though. Can someone please pass the lamb?”

  Chloe looked nonplussed. Apparently, I wasn’t rising to the bait the way I was supposed to. That’s me, always ruining everyone’s fun.

  “Reginald tells us you belonged to the Black Family Ca
rnival,” said Hasin. He sounded Scottish rather than English, with a more pronounced accent, especially on his consonants. “Terrible what happened to them.”

  He didn’t say “what happened to your family.” I took note of that, even as I cast my eyes toward my plate and said, “I wasn’t there. I should have been there. I know there probably wouldn’t have been anything I could have done, but maybe . . . maybe one more person would have made the carnival seem like a big enough target not to be worth taking. Maybe . . .”

  “It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference,” said an older female voice. I glanced up to find Louise Cunningham looking at me sympathetically. No matter what else happened, I could apparently snow grandma. “Apraxis wasps have been known to destroy entire towns, when they were desperate enough for new minds to absorb. You would have been taken with the rest if you’d been there.”

  “You can’t know that for sure,” I said, barely above a whisper.

  “No, I can’t, and neither can you. But I can be confident enough to tell you that what happened to your family wasn’t your fault.” She shook her head a little. “You mustn’t blame yourself for things you didn’t do and couldn’t have prevented. That way lies madness.”

  “It’s interesting that your response to what happened wasn’t to tell yourself that monsters aren’t real and try to find another explanation,” said Chloe. “Most people refuse to believe the truth, even when it’s staring them right in the face. What’s so special about you?”

  Wow: dinner and an inquisition. I took a deep breath. “I know this is going to sound a little unbelievable, but when I was a kid, I saw a Bigfoot . . .” I began.

  Somewhere in the middle of my story, even Chloe started to nod. Maybe I didn’t have them yet, but I was getting there.

  Maybe this was going to work out after all.

  Six

  “When your back’s to the wall, just remember: you’re allowed to take those bastards with you.”

  —Alice Healy