All is Fair (9 page)

“All they’ve perfected in the Nether is how to control people and keep everything the way they like it,” Catherine said.

“Who’s ‘they’?” the gargoyle asked.

“The Patroons and the bloody Fae.”

“If we came back tomorrow with a thingymebob from the Sorcerer saying you could leave and never go back, would you take it?” The gargoyle was too interested in her.

Catherine sighed. “Oh, God, I’d be tempted. A few weeks ago I would have, and never looked back. Now…” She shook her head. “No. I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

“We should begin,” Max said, aware of the time.

“Perfect weather,” Catherine said, retrieving the largest box from the pile behind them. “Will said it was raining earlier. Must’ve cleared up.”

Max watched her tackle the modern packaging and listened to her swear like a mundane. She was different. None of the other people in the Nether he’d ever dealt with would have come up with such an unusual – and mundane – solution to the challenge.

“You’re sure this will work?”

“As sure as I can be,” she said as she slid the remote control helicopter from the last of the packaging. “I had a… friend when I lived in Mundanus. He had one of these. He made a payload carrier to fly M&Ms to me.” She smiled to herself. “It made him happy.”

As Catherine unwrapped batteries and fiddled with a reel of cotton, Max looked up at the statue of Nelson. The statue was still higher than them as the column was so tall but it was easier to see it from where they were.

“Don’t worry,” she said, pulling a small bundle of fabric from the inside of her coat. “It’ll work. Nelson must have had a really loud voice to be heard over all that cannon fire and yelling.”

“I’m not worried,” he replied.

“But it won’t actually be Nelson,” the gargoyle said. “So what difference does it make if the real one was loud?”

“For an Arbiter’s assistant you don’t know much about Animation Charms,” Catherine said and the gargoyle laughed. It sounded like someone scrubbing the inside of a cement mixer.

“I’m not–”

“Going to distract Catherine any further,” Max cut in.

“It’s nice not being called ‘puppet’ all the time,” she said. “Do you know how this Charm works?”

Max didn’t want to admit that he didn’t; it wasn’t a good idea to give the puppets any idea of the limits to an Arbiter’s knowledge. “I know the effects.”

“It’s just wish magic,” she said casually. “Just a narrow form of it, and weak too.” She’d finished unravelling the strip of fabric and an oval phial sat in the palm of her hand. She held it up and the sunlight made the contents sparkle. In fact, there was nothing else in there except sparkling, like a pinch of glitter suspended in a trapped gust of wind. “You can only cast it on one object and it’ll only behave in the way you’d expect it to. I got this for a teddy bear for a… cousin.”

“Where did you get it from?”

She tapped the side of her nose. “Trade secret.”

“The rules of the Treaty dictate you tell me,” Max reminded her.

“Oh, come on. You say that when I’m about to create a massive breach? Surely we’re off the hook here? I told you about how it works, that has to be enough.”

He let it go. If she decided not to help them he couldn’t force her. Even if they took the phial from her he wouldn’t be able to use it and there was no way he would let the gargoyle touch it.

The gargoyle had been remarkably quiet. It was staring at the phial and grinding its stone teeth together. “Would you be able to use that on a dead body?”

“Euw!” Catherine’s nose wrinkled as Max realised what the gargoyle was wondering. “That’s gross. I have no idea. You can’t use it on people – living people, that is – I know that. It has to be inanimate and this one can only be cast on something that looks like a person or an animal. There are more powerful ones. I heard Oliver Peonia used one to make some teaspoons dance at a garden party.”

Petra told them the Sorcerer of Essex was already dead when the magic turned his heart to stone. Could it be possible that the person behind that magic had animated Dante’s corpse to walk in and take his place at the table? The other Sorcerers wouldn’t have noticed at first glance; Petra said his face had been covered in make-up to give him a healthy appearance. The Sorcerers weren’t the most sociable of people and the others would have written off his silence as normal. Before they had a chance to find out what was going on, they were killed.

But how could that Charm have endured once past the threshold? There were wards against Fae magic. Could the person who killed Dante have found a way to mask it? It led the trail back to London. Who would know where to find Dante? Not even the other Sorcerers would know where he lived. Someone in his household? An apprentice perhaps, someone who had close access to him and also would be able to discover where the Chapters were under Dante’s command. Perhaps the source of the corruption was an apprentice compromised by the Fae.

“But why?” the gargoyle asked him.

“Because garden parties in the Nether suck,” Catherine replied, thinking he was asking about the spoons.

To kill the other Sorcerers, Max thought. Without the Sorcerers to run the Chapters and monitor the weak points between Mundanus and the Nether and Exilium, the Fae could work towards an escape. The puppets would be set free in Mundanus and the Fae would use them to find the best of humanity to become their playthings.

“Right, it’s ready.”

Catherine’s announcement refocused his attention. “Do it,” he said. They needed to get an Arbiter and use him to find the Chapter. Quite what he would do afterwards was uncertain, but there was absolutely nothing they could do to find a rogue apprentice without knowing where to start.

He made sure he and the gargoyle couldn’t be spotted from the square, not wanting to risk being picked off at a distance. If they only saw Catherine, the Arbiter would come to them and then he would reveal his involvement.

Catherine had tied the phial to a length of cotton attached to the bottom of the helicopter’s landing struts. After switching it on she very carefully used the small control box in her hands to make the craft fly upwards until the phial was hanging beneath it.

“Well, that’s the first bit done,” she said. “I was worried it would be too heavy. Let me just get the hang of the controls and then I’ll do it.”

Max watched the tiny craft fly around above the air-conditioning vents and lead lining of the flat roof. Its high-pitched whine was too quiet to be heard from the street or in the offices below. The gargoyle was as enraptured as a child by a spinning top. They’d bought it from a shop Catherine had described as a toyshop for grown-ups. Technology really had been advancing in Mundanus. The last time Max saw a toy plane it had been made of balsa wood and could only be thrown and left to the mercy of the wind.

“All right, are you really sure you want to do this?” she asked.

“Yeah! Yeah, do it!” The gargoyle cheered but she was looking at Max.

He had one last good look around and nodded. “Do it.”

By manipulating two sticks under her thumbs Cathy steered the helicopter over the edge of the roof and into the air above Trafalgar Square. Max looked down at the tourists and London residents and not one of them was pointing at it. He looked around again for any sign of Arbiters or her bodyguard but there were none. The Arbiters wouldn’t be far away though; it was a busy space that attracted a lot of attention and a lot of people who wouldn’t be missed immediately if they disappeared. Before his Chapter had been destroyed the area around the Roman Baths and the Royal Crescent were regularly patrolled after several tourists disappeared over a summer. The puppets exploited the crowds and used Charms to attract those who were lost. Max wondered if any had been taken in recent weeks.

“Bollocks,” Cathy muttered and the gargoyle’s claws scraped against the ledge as it gripped it tighter. “This is hard.”

Max could see the problem. It was hard to gauge the exact distance between them and the statue. The motion of the helicopter was making the phial swing back and forth so when a new approach was made it still missed.

“Let me have a go,” the gargoyle said.

“No, I nearly have it,” she replied, biting her lip. “I just need to practise.”

She made three more attempts, swearing every time she missed and then on the fourth the phial smashed into Nelson’s hat. “Yes!” Catherine yelled. “Gotcha!”

The sparkles showered over the statue as Catherine brought the helicopter back to land at her feet. As soon as it was switched off she went back to the gargoyle’s side and all three of them watched closely.

Nothing happened for a few moments and then it looked like Nelson shivered. “Did you see that?” the gargoyle asked.

“It’s starting to work,” Cathy said and they grinned at each other.

The gargoyle seemed to be enjoying the illegal activity far too much.

“Good lord!” A loud voice boomed out from the statue and Nelson’s head moved from left to right as if he’d just woken up. “What the devil am I doing up here?”

Catherine whooped with joy and the gargoyle clapped her on the back, which made her cry out in pain. As the gargoyle apologised Max watched Nelson hold out his one arm as if he were trying to steady himself, and then he crouched, just like any man would who found himself atop a plinth a hundred feet off the ground.

“How the deuce did I get up here? I say!” Nelson shouted down at the ground. “You there!” He was pointing at a man posing for a photograph beside one of the lions. “Fetch a ladder!”

Catherine’s prediction was right – probably because the Charm was manifesting what she’d expected him to be – and his voice was incredibly loud. The tourist looked up and almost fell over when he saw Nelson waving his hat to get his attention.

In moments all the people around the man were looking up. In seconds almost everybody in Trafalgar Square had stopped and most were pointing at Nelson. In less than a minute over half of them were holding up their phones and pointing them at the animated statue.

“What are they doing?” Max asked.

Catherine was flushed with excitement. “They’re filming him!” She clapped her hands. “It’ll be on YouTube in no time!”

“On what?”

“On the internet. They’re going to be talking about this on Twitter from London to Los Angeles before the day is out. This is so cool!”

Max had no idea what Twitter or YouTube were but he knew about the internet; the researchers at the Chapter used it and had mentioned it when briefing him before field trips. It was a giant library of information that anyone could access and it sounded like the events unfolding in front of them were going to be added to it. He had no idea that just anyone could enter information; he thought it was curated by librarians.

“You never said that would happen.”

“What the hell did you think would happen?”

“Are their telephones taking pictures?”

“Video. Bloody hell, Mr Arbiter, you need to come into the twenty-first century. It’s great here.”

The gargoyle gave him a worried look. “Lots of people will see it, not just those here.”

“Thousands. Maybe millions,” Catherine said. “It’s priceless.”

Nelson was getting more and more flustered. Every time he waved his hat the spectators below cheered and waved back, only making him more irate. “Will someone please send a carriage to Admiralty House? Why is no one helping me?”

If anything was going to set off an Arbiter intervention, it was this. Max couldn’t do anything about what the innocents were doing, but he could stick to the original plan. He took his pocket binoculars from a coat pocket and peeped through a gap to scan the edges of the crowd for Arbiters. It didn’t take long to spot one. Max didn’t recognise him but he was still unmistakably devoid of emotion and not swept up in the roar of the crowd at all.

The London Arbiter was walking through the crowd, scanning those around him to identify the guilty puppet. He stopped and pulled a phone out of his pocket, looked at it for a moment and then appeared to take a call. The London Chapter was using mobile phones! There was a brief exchange and then he looked straight up at Catherine.

“Shit!” The gargoyle ducked lower. “They’re onto us.”

“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Catherine asked. “Where is he?” She leaned out and looked for the man, who had taken his own binoculars out and was looking up at her. “Oh, I see him.”

There had to be another, someone who’d seen them on the roof and tipped off the one in the square. Max looked behind them and checked the fire escape but no one was coming up yet. No one had tried to shoot him, at least. Perhaps they didn’t want to risk it with the Duchess of Londinium as a witness.

Catherine waved at the Arbiter, then pointed to Nelson and gave a thumbs-up.

“What are you doing?” the gargoyle hissed.

“I wanted him to know it was us,” she said. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

Max watched the Arbiter stare at them for a few moments and then press a button on his phone. Trained in the rudiments of lip reading, Max focused on the man’s mouth and saw him speak Catherine’s full name.

“He’ll be here any minute,” Max said. “We just need to wait.”

“Damn, I wish I still had my iPad,” Catherine said sadly. “I’d love to see how people are explaining this. And I hope you’re right about me not getting into trouble. You will tell them I did it for you, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

The Arbiter put his phone and binoculars away, turned around and left the square at the opposite side to where they were. The person who’d tipped him off must have said he’d deal with it.

They waited. The gargoyle stayed hunkered down and seemed to have lost interest in Nelson’s antics. Catherine was entertained for a little while then started to look tired again. The thrill was wearing off.

“I thought they’d be here by now,” she said. “I’m getting cold. And Carter’s probably bursting a blood vessel. If you weren’t an Arbiter there’s no way he would have let us leave and I bet he’s freaking out about it.”

“I thought they would be here too,” Max replied. They had had ample time to secure backup, especially as they were using phones in the field. It was almost as if they didn’t care. “It’s like the Rosas.”