Accursed (7 page)

She shut the door behind her.

“Tamara, is that you?”

The voice floated on the darkness, shuddery with doubt and weakness. Henry Swift had been prone to headaches and a general malaise, not a malingerer but a gentle soul who could not abide conflict in any way. The loss of his wife had only exacerbated the fragility of his spirit, and had made Tamara quite protective of her father, despite the fact that she had little in common with him. He’d been a man of little passion and even less imagination.

He is,
she corrected herself. That sort of thinking made her prey to the very voice that had just issued from the shadows.

She gestured at an elegant lamp that sat atop the chest of drawers that stood in the corner.
“Accendo,”
she commanded, and the wick ignited with flame, soaking up oil, sending a flickering light out across the room.

In a high-backed chair, next to an empty bed, Henry Swift sat with his arms chained behind his back. The bonds were attached to the legs of the chair. Where her father had once been a jovially rounded man, now his features were thin, almost cadaverous. Dark circles stained the skin that sagged beneath his eyes. The moment the room brightened he looked up at her, with an expression that seemed helpless and lost.

“Tamara?” he offered again in that same querulous voice.

It would have been tempting for her to think a miracle had happened, hearing that voice, seeing the pleading look in his eyes. But she had learned painful lessons in the past about unfounded hope.

“Oblis,” she replied darkly. She proferred the bowl of soup. “I brought you something to eat. I am quite rushed, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to endure your usual chatter this evening.”

“You don’t have to stay at all, daughter,” the demon said, still in her father’s voice. Yet now the trembling was gone, and a malign spark flickered clearly behind his eyes. “I’m quite capable of feeding myself.”

Tamara sniffed. Next he would suggest that she unchain him. There were magical bonds in place throughout the room, as well, but she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of setting his hands free. It was a game he played, and she had tired of it months ago.

“You’ve been terribly quiet since my guests departed,” she said, bringing a spoonful of the cold soup to his lips. Tamara fed the demon so her father’s body would not die, and Oblis ate for the same reason.

“It was rude of you not to bring your friends inside to see your dear father,” he said. “I’ve known some of those young ladies their entire lives.”

“My father knows them. You do not.” Tamara fed him another spoonful of soup. “What are you scheming so silently up here, Oblis?”

He gazed salaciously at her, running his tongue lewdly around his mouth as though to relish the sight of her, rather than the flavor of his meal. “How I might split you in two, lovely daughter, how it will feel to fuck you till you bleed.”

Tamara gaped at him in revulsion, and for a moment she was frozen with her disgust. Oblis brought his knee up beneath the bowl and the cold, clotting soup splashed up at her. With a sneer Tamara raised her right hand and instantly the air crackled with bright green light, magical energy that formed a shield, keeping the contents of the bowl from ruining her dress.

The bowl fell and shattered on the ground. Cold soup dripped from the air onto the wooden floor. With a hushed sound the magic evaporated, and Tamara lowered her hand.

“I think that’s all for your dinner this evening,” she said.

“You asked a question,” the demon replied. “I simply answered.”

Tamara pushed aside her disgust just enough to produce a taunting smirk. “You are a Vapor, Oblis, nothing more. Without my father’s flesh, you’re chimney smoke with a rotten child’s temper. And you haven’t the tumescence, I’m afraid, to live up to your imaginings.”

Her father’s upper lip curled back and the demon fumed.

“Enjoy the party, Tamara. You’ll need me soon enough.”

This was the voice of Oblis, now, like a capricious child in timbre, but with a rough, graveled edge. It brought her up short as she was about to leave the room. Already, William would have grown impatient awaiting her. But there was something in those words, that tone. This wasn’t merely empty bluster.

Frowning, she turned to face him again. “Why would I ever need you?”

“You both shall, and soon,” Oblis sneered in that hellish voice. “You wanted to know how I spent my afternoon, once your whorish friends departed? My throat was ragged and parched. I paused for a breath. And then, rather than making all that noise, I decided that I would
listen.
”

“Listen to what?” Tamara asked.

Oblis only smiled.

T
HOUGH IT WAS
only a few doors farther along St. James Street from White’s Club, the Algernon Club had little in common with its neighbor.

From its earliest years to the days when Beau Brummel sat by the vast bow window at the front of the building, holding court and casting judgment upon passersby, White’s had always been about being noticed. White’s Club was conspicuous.

The very nature of the Algernon Club was to be
inconspicuous.
To the unknowing public strolling past on the street, it was simply another address along St. James. There was no bow window, nor in fact any window at all that offered outsiders a view of what lay within. The gentlemen at the Algernon had no interest in putting the duke of Argyll on display, even if they had been willing to allow such a buffoon to darken their doorstep.

Otherwise, the differences between the Algernon and other gentlemen’s clubs were less evident. In the many rooms of the first floor, members gathered in small groups, some standing in darkened corners and others seated comfortably around low tables. The air was redolent with the smell of burning pipe tobacco, and the servants wore black knee breeches not unlike those worn by the employees of Boodle’s. The dining room was always in use, it seemed, with the kitchen acceding to all demands. Glasses clinked as gentlemen toasted one another’s health, or that of their families or fortunes.

There was a card room, but it wasn’t common for games of chance to be played at the Algernon Club. Where cards were employed, it was far more likely to be in an example of prestidigitation, a new pass that the amateur magicians of the club wished to teach or to learn. The professionals were another matter entirely. They shared nothing with the other members, unwilling as they were to reveal their techniques to anyone who might one day become a competitor.

Yet from time to time—ordinarily in the rooms upstairs where only the club’s directors were allowed—other sorts of magic were addressed.

Tonight, however, a more mundane task had presented itself. Each month the directors gathered in the Board Room to consider applications for membership. The room bespoke the wealth of the club’s early-eighteenth-century founders. The ceiling boasted a series of hand-painted and hand-carved medallions, and the intricacy of the crown molding and the woodwork that framed the hearth was stunningly artful. A grandfather clock stood at one end of the chamber, and at the other were two separate doors, one through which the directors had entered and the other for servants.

Both were presently locked.

A tablet stained with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics hung above the fireplace; an enormous portrait of the queen, only recently commissioned, had been placed beside the clock. Above each door was a long, horizontal seascape, showing dark silhouettes of double-masted ships riding high on storm-wrought waves. The two pieces seemed to be halves of a larger painting, though one revealed the dark heart of the storm, and the other showed a break in the clouds, with just a hint of clear sky.

Lord Blackheath loved the seascapes that hung above the doors. Since the first time he had entered this room—the day after he had been named a director of the Algernon Club—he had tried to discover their origin, but to no avail. Nowhere in the club’s records was there any mention of the founders acquiring those paintings. It seemed as if they had always been there, as though they themselves were a bit of magic.

A mystery. Lord Blackheath had a fondness for mysteries, small and large.

“Now then, gentlemen,” he said, “have you any further candidates for membership this evening?”

Lord Blackheath studied the faces of the men who had gathered around the table, the youngest of them perhaps forty and the eldest, Sir Horace, eighty-seven. They glanced at one another, a susurrus of low conversation ensuing, and after several moments determined that they were through. Thirty-two new members had been considered tonight, and only three had been admitted. the Algernon Club differed from other gentlemen’s clubs in the criteria it utilized to judge applicants, but its members were no less discriminatory. More so, in fact.

“Very well,” Lord Blackheath said. He settled into his dark leather chair and steepled his fingers beneath his graying beard. “There is one final candidate
I
would like to bring to your attention. I have taken the liberty—as director of the Algernon Club—of inviting him to attend Sir Darius’s birthday gala, so that you may all have a chance to evaluate him.”

Sir Horace cleared his throat. His back was so bent that he seemed always about to pitch forward onto the table, and when he turned to focus on Lord Blackheath it was painful to watch him shift his body. His flesh and bone were mutineers, unwilling to obey his commands, and so he had to force them to do so. Yet his eyes were alight with clarity and intelligence.

“You have that right, Blackheath, but it’s damned unusual for you to exercise it. Who is this man?”

“Sir Ludlow’s grandson, William Swift.”

The reaction was immediate. Sir Horace’s face darkened and he sputtered. Several of the others began speaking all at once, and all of them protesting. Lord Blackheath only waited for the torrent to subside.

Sir Horace rapped his knuckles on the table and the room fell silent. The ancient man stared at Lord Blackheath.

“We’ve discussed the boy before, Blackheath. Ludlow was always clear about him. William Swift could not perform the simplest coin pass or card trick if I showed it to him with my own two hands. He’s got no interest in magic. To admit him simply because his family has a legacy with this club . . . that’s the sort of thing you find at White’s and Boodle’s, but the Algernon Club simply does not work that way.”

Lord Blackheath nodded. “I’m bloody well aware of that. But I believe we must take a closer look at William Swift. You must admit that now that Ludlow’s dead, he bears watching.”

Sir Horace sneered. “You think that boy is the new Protector? Ridiculous!”

Blackheath narrowed his gaze. “
Someone
prevented Balberith from rising several months back.”

From a shadowed corner of the room came the sound of a man clearing his throat. Lord Blackheath knitted his brows and glanced at the figure in the corner.

“My lord Melbourne?” he said.

The directors of the Algernon Club had never formally admitted Melbourne as a member. Politically, it would have been unseemly for the prime minister to be associated with the club. And though he had an interest in the mystical, he had no skill with magic, neither stagecraft nor spellcraft. Thus, he was usually a silent observer.

Not so, this evening.

“We should not presume that the Protectorship passed to a member of the Swift family. Ludlow may not even have chosen a successor. If he did not, Albion might have chosen anyone. If it is a Swift, however, it seems more likely to be Ludlow’s son, Henry, who has not been seen outside the walls of his home since his father’s death. Word is that he is ill, but that may be merely obfuscation. From all that we have heard of William Swift, he hardly seems up to the task.”

Lord Blackheath nodded slowly. Melbourne had pulled the center of power in the room away from him, and now he used silence to draw it back. One by one the directors gave him their full attention as they awaited his response, the pause lengthening and growing awkward.

At last, Blackheath glanced around the table once more and spoke. “There are many possibilities, but I am certain we can all agree that not enough effort has been expended attempting to discover the identity of the new Protector. Not knowing his identity could be dangerous for us all. I say that William Swift bears watching. Sir Horace pointed out that William has never shown any interest in magic. About that he is certainly correct.

“But it may be that magic has an interest in him.”