“Is he dead?” Oliver asked, nodding toward the dragon.
Blue Jay frowned and glanced up at the dark sky, snow flying past his face. “The storm gathers. He will be all right. Others were not so fortunate.”
Kitsune broke away from Oliver, managing to keep up with them. The blood was gone and she had said she was healing, but still she clutched a hand to the place her wound had been and her face was contorted with pain.
“The Hunters came, Oliver,” she said.
And when she reached out to brush her fingers against his, he could not mistake it for anything but purposeful. There was a sweet melancholy to her expression that made him want to hold her. He remembered how she had looked in the Inn in Perinthia, stripped naked as she prepared to shower, and he shivered. Julianna was his fiancée. Whatever was to happen between them, he still loved her. That much, he was almost certain of. Almost.
“I figured as much. What . . . I mean, did anyone else get out?”
The bridge over the Thames was ahead.
“There were Kirata,” Kitsune went on, her eyes distant as though she was seeing it all unfold in front of her. Her lips curled in disgust. “And Marra was there.”
Oliver shivered as he remembered the unsettlingly demonic goat-headed man whom they had seen only for a moment in Bromfield, just before they had fled. The cold intelligence in the creature had troubled him, and Marra had lingered in his mind like the memory of a nightmare.
“At least two of the Mazikeen were killed. One of them might have escaped, but not with us. Lailoken and Yuki-Onna are dead,” Blue Jay said. He lowered his head as he walked. “I have not yet had a chance to tell Frost that his sister is gone.”
Sister.
Oliver’s stomach did a sick twist as he thought of Collette, and realized what Frost had lost.
“Surely he will have felt it,” Kitsune said. “He knows.”
Oliver felt the seconds ticking by like an itching at the back of his neck. Already he’d let this go on too long. They had to get somewhere they could have a real discussion and figure out what to do next, get away from the people staring at them before the police arrived, which could be any moment. But he could not go. Not yet.
“The Mazikeen . . .” he began, and then sighed, shaking his head. “I’m a dead man. How the hell do we find this professor now?”
Kitsune touched his elbow, a pained smile at her lips. “Oh, no, Oliver. They located him before the attack came. Koenig is on Canna Island, off the coast of Scotland.”
It was like a spike of adrenaline to his heart. Oliver glanced around, feeling that he could even sense the approach of the police. But now that he knew Koenig was alive, and that Kitsune knew where he was, there had to be a plan. They had to get out of London and there was no way they were crossing the Veil again to do it.
“We’ve got to split up,” he said hurriedly. “All right, look, Blue Jay, I don’t know what you can and can’t do, but I do know that you can’t carry Gong Gong around and not draw attention, never mind the way you’re dressed. Word will get out about what just happened.”
Oliver ran his hands through his hair as though he might tear it out. “Do either of you know this city?”
“I have been here once before, long ago,” Blue Jay said.
Horns beeped. People shouted. Oliver struggled to think.
“All right, look, there’s a place called Trafalgar Square. There’s a statue of Admiral Nelson there. Ask if you have to— but not with the fucking dragon in your arms— cover him up or something. Meet me at noon at the base of the statue.”
“What are you going to do?” Kitsune asked.
“Fix this,” Oliver said, laughing a bit wildly, feeling hysteria overcome him. “I’m going to fix all of this shit.”
He said nothing of his father’s murder or of his missing sister. Now was not the time. Later there would be an opportunity. At the moment, all that mattered was getting out of London without further trouble.
They had reached the bridge and started to walk over it. From behind, there erupted a braying police siren. Oliver spun and saw a police car stopped at the corner where he had called Julianna, where the Borderkind had appeared in front of Battersea Park and likely shaken the faith those people had in the world around them.
“They’re coming. Any minute.” Desperate, he looked to Blue Jay. “You’ve got to get out of here with
him
.”
The trickster smiled. “We’ll see you at Trafalgar Square.”
Then Blue Jay dumped Gong Gong over the bridge. Oliver shouted but could not stop him. As he fell, the dragon seemed to awaken, twisting his body around, trying to spread his wings. He hit the water like an anchor and sank.
“What the hell—”
Kitsune grabbed Oliver’s hand. “He will be all right. He is the Black Dragon of Storms. He needed to sleep to heal. He saved our lives. Now he will wake.”
Upon those words there was a crash of thunder across the sky so loud that Oliver scanned the storm clouds for some sign of catastrophe. It sounded like the whole world was cracking open. Lightning played up in the clouds but did not reach its fingers down toward earth. The snow sped up, falling more heavily now. It had been a clear day not long before and now it was growing steadily into a blizzard.
Oliver looked down over the bridge to where Gong Gong had hit the water and saw a ripple on the surface of the river and a shape moving beneath, an enormous thing that seemed to make the water heave upward. Then it was gone.
“Until we meet again,” Blue Jay said.
It was not the blink of an eye, but a fraction of that. Blue Jay vanished, and where he had been was a small bird with the same cerulean feathers that had been tied in his hair. The bird flapped its wings and darted out over the Thames, weaving through the snowstorm as though at play.
Kitsune twined her fingers with his.
“We will be all right now,” she said.
The braying siren— so different in its grating wail from those in America— moved closer. Oliver glanced over and saw that the traffic had started to move, stubborn gawkers reluctantly giving way to the police car.
He shook his head. “No, Kitsune.”
“We’ll walk hand in hand,” she said, wincing slightly as she touched her abdomen again, then smiling weakly. “They will think us lovers.”
He stared at her. “You don’t understand, you’re unmistakable. A beautiful Asian woman in a fox-fur cloak. It might not matter, but if they ask you for identification and you don’t have any, they might want to question you about whatever those people back there saw, and we can’t afford that. If you’re being held, and the Hunters come for you—”
She held up a hand to cut him off. “I’m not thinking clearly. I shall see you at midday at Admiral Nelson’s feet.”
Oliver would never watch her transformation without holding his breath in astonishment. The cloak flowed around her. He watched those jade eyes as her face became the narrow, cunning face of the fox and copper fur enveloped her. The woman was gone. At Oliver’s feet was the small, lithe fox.
The police siren warbled.
Kitsune darted away across the bridge, northward through the falling snow, a small limp to her walk.
Oliver started to walk after her, taking his time, wanting attention to remain on him as she disappeared into the storm. A passing motorist shouted something at him. Then the voice was drowned out by the police siren and he heard the squeak of brakes in need of fixing as the car rolled to a stop beside him, engine rumbling. A door opened.
The siren cut out.
Back along the way Oliver had come, just at the beginning of the bridge, electrician Keith watched warily, keeping well back as though afraid a battle might break out.
“Oh, thank God!” Oliver said as the officers got out of their car and came toward him. He gave them no opportunity to ask questions. “You know, in the States we have a saying, there’s never a cop around when you need one. I’m so glad to see you guys.”
“That right?” said the larger and older of the two, his cap pulled down snugly over his thinning silver hair. “Got the impression you’d rather avoid us, sir. We’ve got a few questions for you.”
Oliver blinked in feigned confusion, remembering the exhilaration he had felt the first time he had ever stepped onstage as an actor. The freedom in it. There was freedom in this as well, for it was just another sort of performance.
“Okay.” He shrugged, mystified, brushing some snow out of his eyes. “Whatever you say. But, look, I really need some help. I was walking in the park and stopped to make a call. When I came out of the phone booth I had my organizer out— the one with my British money and my passport— and this guy, this fucking guy, he bumps me and then takes off running. Looked like an Indian, that’s the weirdest thing. Native American, I mean. Feathers in his hair and everything.”
The older cop crossed his arms and stared doubtfully through the snow.
“Right, I’m sorry, you’re saying this Indian nicked your billfold?”
They both tensed as Oliver reached into his back pocket for his wallet, pushing the tail of the peacoat up to get to it. “Well, no, I mean, I’ve got my regular wallet, but that’s just credit cards and a little American money. My organizer’s like my travel wallet. All the stuff I needed for my visit here. American Express Travelers Cheques, that kind of thing. I was just hoping you could take me to an American Express office. I can’t even take a cab ’cause I have no British money. I think there’s one by Buckingham Palace, right?”
He frowned as though he was thinking hard on the question and actually scratched at the several days’ stubble on his chin. With his rustic shirt and his peacoat and how badly he needed a shave, they probably figured him for homeless at first. What he wanted was for them to realize he was just another crazy American.
Oliver grinned and spread his arms, wallet clutched in one hand. “I’m kind of screwed here, boys. Help me out?”
The older cop rolled his eyes and gave a small sneer that spoke volumes on his opinion of Americans. The younger shook his head. He had a stoved-in nose like a prizefighter and wide-set eyes that made him look sad and sleepy. Snowflakes had begun to whiten the shoulders of their uniforms and the tops of their hats.
“Sir, we really need to ask you a few questions,” the prizefighter said. “Starting with your name.”
He gave them his shallowest American lawyer smile. “Oliver Bascombe, Kitteridge, Maine. U.S.A., obviously.”
“Obviously,” the older cop said drily.
Oliver gave them a sheepish look. “You can ask me anything you want, guys, but could we do it in the car? I’ve got a lunch date I’d really rather not miss. Met a girl here in London. Came for a few days and now I don’t know when I’ll go home. And I really need to get this thing sorted out. There wasn’t a lot of cash, but the Travelers Cheques . . . Anyway, can you ask me whatever you’ve got to ask me on the way? It would be a huge help.”
The prizefighter looked at his partner. The older man rolled his eyes again and stepped over to open the rear door of the police car, bowing like a chauffeur.
“By all means, sir. Hop in and we’ll have us a chat. We’ll help you get sorted.”
Oliver smiled broadly, stuffing his wallet back into his pocket. “Really? Thank you so much. Is this a great country or what?”
The whole situation was surreal. Oliver’s father had been murdered and mutilated, and his sister was missing. His own life was in peril and back home the police were no doubt wondering what had become of him as well. But on the outside, he was all smiles.
Happy and cooperative, he climbed into the car, brushing snow from his peacoat. The car rolled across the bridge, wipers clearing snow, the world beyond the windows beautifully white now. And the questions began. Oliver remained mystified. He didn’t know what the hell those people back at Battersea Park were talking about, he told them. The guy with the feathers in his hair, yeah. He’d seen that guy . . . fellow stole his organizer, after all. He even thought he recalled seeing the Asian woman they described, though he didn’t think she’d been bleeding. But a man made of ice?
That was just crazy talk. Weird, the things people imagined. And speaking of weird, wasn’t it strange how the weather had changed so suddenly?
Sort of nice, though, at Christmastime.
CHAPTER 17
T
he snowstorm in South London that morning had not been predicted by a single meteorologist, but it was over too quickly for any of them to have to apologize for the oversight. By ten minutes till noon, at which time Oliver was exiting Charing Cross tube station and emerging into Trafalgar Square, the day had turned a typical London gray and the temperature was falling. The wind across the square had a December bite that made pedestrians turn up their collars and vanquished any thoughts of lunch in the square or a pleasant stroll. The only people in Trafalgar Square that noontime were determined tourists and Londoners on their way from one place to another.
