A Little Knowledge (12 page)

“Near the children’s play area. It’s showing up as Peonia—is that right, Rupert?” There was a muffled “yeah” in the background. “It’s just gone off, so if you go now…”

Max was already shrugging his coat on. “Proceeding to the scene now.”

“Cool. Keep us—holy shit!”

A flash of the office interior burst into Max’s mind, Rupert and Kay sitting cross-legged on the floor with half-eaten burgers on paper and cardboard cartons of chips beside them, both looking up from a laptop screen. Kay was staring, slack-jawed, right at him—or rather the gargoyle.

“Sorry I scared you,” it said in its gravelly voice. “I gotta go and help.”

“Yeah…” Rupert said to Kay with a mouth full of half-chewed burger. “That was the next thing I was going to tell you about.”

Max blinked away the image, returning his attention to the coffee shop. A glance at the mobile helpfully showed a red phone symbol labelled
end call
.

He limped down the stairs as the gargoyle opened one of the windows, climbed out, and scaled the wall to the roof. Max knew it was heading to the main Peonia residence in the town, hoping to spot something if the Fae-touched stayed in Mundanus and went home into the Nether through the house gates. It was going to take longer, having to keep high and out of sight of the mundanes, but Max knew the gargoyle would take the best route.

The sky had brightened further and the clouds had broken enough to give stretches of blue sky. It was still cold, but innocents would be walking in the park, and there would be children, too. Max walked as quickly as the ache and the walking stick allowed, heading for the park he knew well. The bracers Ekstrand had made kept the gargoyle silent as it made its way towards the top of Lansdown Road by the inconvenient and circuitous route that kept it out of sight.

Victoria Park was huge and sprawled over more than fifty acres of land, but Max knew the paths well enough to get to the children’s play area without consulting one of the maps posted on boards around the perimeter. He passed families bundled up against the cold wind and tourists walking with maps in their hands. He kept his collar turned up and folded down the flaps that ran around the edge of the new hat, not caring if it looked amusing or not.

He listened to snippets of conversation as he passed couples and people speaking into mobile phones, but nothing was relevant. Then he heard the singing. It drifted on the breeze, light and female. A nursery rhyme, repeated twice, then again. He stopped, not wanting the sound of his cane to interfere, then headed towards it as quick as he could. It was coming from the northern side of the play area. He cut through a cluster of trees, emerging near a row of benches overlooking the adventure playground.

“Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle…”

A woman sat on one of the benches, staring straight ahead, singing quietly. A large pram was parked next to the end of the bench.

“That’s the way the money goes…”

The woman was young, wearing a black woolly coat and a bobble hat. Max moved closer.

“Pop goes the weasel.”

Her back was straight and her right hand rested on the handle of the pram, pushing it up and down just enough to rock it gently. As he rounded the bench enough to see her face he expected her to turn at the sound of his approach. But she stared out, looking away from the pram, oblivious to him.

“Half a pound of tuppenny rice…”

Max hooked his cane over his forearm and reached into his pocket to rummage for the Sniffer.

“Half a pound of treacle…”

He pulled it out and pressed the button to start it off.

“That’s the way the money goes…”

As the Sniffer sucked in the air barely feet away from the woman, he closed in and stood in front of her. Her eyes focused too slowly on the buttons of his coat. She looked up, not flinching at the sight of his expressionless, ugly face.

“Pop goes the weasel.”

“Is that your child?” Max pointed at the pram.

“Half a pound of tuppenny rice…”

He was too late. He moved around and peered beneath the lace-edged canopy. Shaded from the sunshine and tucked neatly beneath a yellow blanket was a lump of mud, crudely formed into the shape of the stolen baby.

The Sniffer detected Peonia magic, as Kay had said.

The mobile phone sang in his pocket again. Moving away from the woman, who was still singing, he looked at the screen. The same number as before was calling him. It took two attempts for him to swipe the button, and it finally stopped singing. He lifted it to his ear, turning his back on the victim.

“Where are you? Have you found anything?” It was Kay again.

“At the park. I’ve found a victim. She needs to be taken in and…” He stopped. There was no Chapter to take her to. “I need to speak to Rupert.”

“’Sup?”

“Sir, there’s a woman who’s been Charmed and her baby has been stolen. She’s singing a nursery rhyme repeatedly and is detached and unemotional. She seems oblivious to the fact her baby has gone.”

“There’s a chance it’ll be broken if the baby is brought back to her. If not, we’ll make the Peonia lift it before we take them to the Patroon. I’ll send Kay to keep an eye on her whilst you get the baby back. How many Peonias are there in this city?”

“Only one family, sir. But you can’t send Kay. Her soul’s intact; she’d be at risk.”

“Whoever took the baby isn’t going back there in a hurry.”

“But where will we take the woman afterwards? She can’t just—”

“Max, get the baby back, for fuck’s sake, let me worry about the rest.”

The call ended. Max wasn’t certain if the Sorcerer appreciated all the clean-up involved in a breach of this kind; his former Chapter Master would have handled it all. Getting the baby back was first priority, though. If it was taken into Exilium before he could retrieve it, they might never get it back. But whoever stole it would have to take it into the Nether first, as there were no places in Bath that led straight to the Fae prison. Ekstrand had made certain of that a long time ago.

He set off towards the Peonia’s residence when a flash of Lansdown Road appeared in his mind. The gargoyle was up high, watching a young man hurry up the hill carrying a large leather bag. It was rigid, flat-bottomed, and big enough to hold a baby temporarily. Max could see that it wasn’t tightly closed at the top and could only assume the baby was still alive. After a last glance at the singing woman he set off in pursuit. He had to get to that parasite, and make it clear to all of them that there was still someone watching over this city. Otherwise that stolen child would be only the first of many.

Sam raided the hotel minibar as some arsehole from the government talked on the news about how there wasn’t enough money to keep paying for all the beds in a hospital straight after a report about how they’d spent millions bombing people in some distant nation. He found the remote, flicked over to another channel with a programme about some superstar he’d never heard of looking for a wedding dress, and turned the TV off. Everything was fucked, and now he knew why. The most powerful people in the world didn’t give a shit about anything except money. And why was there no fucking lager in the fridge? He laughed at himself mirthlessly. As first-world problems went, that was pretty shitty.

There was a knock on the door. Assuming that Des had finished dinner and wanted to go through the diary with him, he went to the peephole and saw Mazzi on the other side of the door. He opened it and went back to the fridge without greeting her.

Mazzi entered, closed the door behind her, and put down her briefcase. “What the fuck was that?”

“I could ask you the same thing!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You let me stand there and look like some fucking nutjob.”

“You did that all by yourself, Sam.”

“Why didn’t you back me up? You know about the Fae. You talked to me about them! Why didn’t you support me?”

Mazzi shrugged off her black jacket, revealing a deep red silk blouse that rippled as she moved to the window. “Because I don’t know what I believe. Amir told me all sorts of stories, towards the end, and I…I don’t know what to think about it.”

“But Copper must have!” He watched her shake her head. “And you talked about the Sorcerers like you knew them!”

“I know some people commissioned some very particular pieces from Amir, that he called ‘sorcerers.’ He told me about iron and copper protecting people from the Fae, but I thought it was a metaphor!”

“Bullshit! You said it like it was true.”

She looked down into the street below. “You didn’t need any doubts, then. Amir had just killed himself and bled all over you! And then you started saying the same sort of things he mentioned to me and I…I don’t know. Maybe there is something more to it—”

“There is!” Sam yanked a bottle of wine from the minibar and looked for the bottle opener. “I’ve seen the Fae, I’ve crossed over to their world.” Her stare made him want to smash the bottle against the wall. “Christ! Don’t look at me like I’m some fucking lunatic. Why would I make shit like that up?”

“Fair point.”

Sam pulled the cork from the bottle. “Drink?”

Mazzi shook her head. “No. I have to go and meet a friend. Look, what you did down there was stupid. I’m not talking about the Fae part, I’m talking about the environmental stuff.”

Sam poured a large glass for himself. “I could have said a lot more. It’s important to me.”

“That’s the stupid part. They could see that.” She came over to him, stood close enough for him to smell her musky perfume. “These are the wrong people to make into enemies.”

He stepped away and took a large swig of the wine. “I’m pretty certain they’re the wrong sort of people to make into friends. Present company excluded.”

“Fine. I get it. You’re not one of us. Not yet.” Mazzi headed for the door after collecting her jacket and case, looking thoughtful. “What are you doing next Wednesday?”

“The diary knows, not me.”

“Clear the day. I’m going to help you.”

“To do what?”

“To understand what it is to be one of us. Amir thought he was doing the right thing by keeping you ignorant, but I don’t think it was. I’ll pick you up, okay? 10 a.m.”

Sam nodded and watched her go. Even after the glass was empty he didn’t feel any better. Was she telling the truth about Amir and what she knew about the Fae and the Sorcerers? Whatever game Mazzi was playing, it was clear that no one else in that room had known what he was talking about.

And she was right about him being stupid. Not because of what he’d said; because of what he
hadn’t
said. He’d had the opportunity to really drive home what those bastards were doing to the Earth and he’d let himself be intimidated out of it by some stern faces and privilege.

Sam’s phone rang and the number displayed made him smile. “Cathy! God, it’s good to hear from you.”

• • •

Max’s leg was throbbing with pain by the time he reached the street the gargoyle was waiting on. It was hiding in a bush across the road from the large Victorian villa it had tracked the Peonia to, taking care to keep out of sight.

The house was detached and set back from the road, surrounded by a high wall. It wasn’t an anchor property that Max recognised, so he walked round to the side, checked that no one was watching, and got out the Peeper to check the house was reflected into the Nether. The new version of the tool looked quite similar to Ekstrand’s: a small telescope in two sections that could be twisted. Rupert’s was made of some sort of Bakelite, rather than brass, and felt much lighter. Max pressed one end against the brick of the garden wall and twisted the casing until a tiny green light flashed on the side. The Sorcerer seemed to have a fondness for little green lights.

Max peered through the lenses, seeing the Nether beyond the wall. Satisfied, he pulled an Opener from his pocket and stuck the pin of the door handle into the brickwork. After one last check to make sure no innocents were nearby, along with a check from the gargoyle’s position too, Max turned it.

The outline of a doorway burned its way into a rectangle until a new door appeared and Max stepped through. The Nether’s silver sky was now above him and he glanced back into the green and blue of Mundanus before pulling the Opener out and letting the door close and disappear behind him.

He took a couple of steps towards the house, knowing from the gargoyle that the Peonia had gone in through the back door and was unlikely to be looking out of the windows. There was no sound of cars or birdsong any more, but the silence was broken before he reached the house.

A horse-drawn carriage was coming down the Nether street and pulled up outside the gates. Max carried on. If the visitor was unaware of the crime in progress they would be a distraction that could give the Peonia the chance to get the baby into Exilium. If the visitor was the one taking delivery, Max would be ready.

Max heard the gate open as he reached the front door. A footman was holding the gate open as the passenger got out of the carriage. Disinterested, Max tried the handle of the front door. Like most reflected properties in the Nether, it was unlocked, so Max carried on inside and let the door close behind him. He didn’t want to knock and alert the Peonia to his arrival.

A baby was crying in a room off to the right from the entrance hall. A maid rushed out of it, pale-faced, only to run into Max and scream.

“Is there a mirror in that room?” he asked as sounds of servants hurrying from other parts of the house battled with the baby’s crying.

The girl shook her head and then squealed as the door-knocker was employed behind them.

“Whatever is the—” A butler froze at the far end of the hall. “Get out of his way!” he hissed at the maid who shrank back against a wall to let Max pass.

He’d made it to the room that contained the baby before the door was opened. “It’s the Master of Ceremonies!” he heard the maid squeak before he went in. Surely Lavandula wasn’t involved in something like this?

The room contained a large dining table and chairs. The leather bag was open on top of the table and, judging by the sound, the baby was still inside. Oliver Peonia was standing next to it, looking inside with an assortment of expressions ranging from horror to despair.