Heart's Magic (44 page)

The alchemists swung their
weapons. In moments, "Kitty" was methodically reduced to splinters
of bone and rusting metal, smashed to bits by crowbars wielded by
powerful and angry men. The magic obviously did not impede physical
action.

With the machines
destroyed, the web of magic took on the violent red glow of the
crushed cat skull's eye sockets, visible now to the ordinary eye.
Elinor wasn't the only one who cried out for fear the demon would
escape. The crowd of locals had grown.

She poured magic into the
web. Hers, Harry's--any magic she could catch hold of. It came from
that place inside her, where the angel had touched her with power
flowing from the Source. She received magic from Thom and Nikos,
from the Enforcers beside her. They all offered it up and she took
what they gave to keep this evil from escaping into the world.
Amanusa did the same from her end of the alley, the blood magic
able to call to the beating hearts of those willing to help, to
share what they had.

More magic appeared, coming
from the determination of the ordinary people behind her to protect
their families and their homes. They didn't have much talent or
much magic but what they had, they gave, and there were many more
of them. Dozens, scores of people, all refusing to give in to the
evil. Even Nigel--Elinor felt his crippled magic coming out to take
part.

The web turned orange, then
yellow, glowing brighter and brighter. Elinor shielded her face
with an arm, but she kept pouring in magic in concert with Amanusa.
The net holding the demon soon burned with a blue-white ferocity,
as seconds ticked away into minutes. A howling inside the net rose
to a shriek that threatened to shatter buildings. And then,
abruptly, it went silent. The magic net collapsed in on
itself.

Elinor's knees buckled.
Harry caught her, but he'd been losing blood for so long, he
collapsed and they both crumpled to the ground. Archaios shouted
for Amanusa, for wizards, but no one moved. Not yet.

"Is it gone?" Thom asked
Grey what they all wanted to know.

Elinor waited, holding her
breath and Harry's hand in case they had to fight again, while Grey
looked and listened.

"Yes," he said a few seconds
later. "
Yes.
My
spirits confirm it. It has gone back to hell. The only escape we
left it." As cheers rose, he began picking his way along the planks
laid over the alley's mud toward Harry and Elinor.

"How could we do that?"
Harry asked. "Took an angel's 'elp the last time."

Elinor dove into his
bloodstream to check the damage. He had lost quite a lot of blood
through that slow seepage, but not as much as she'd feared. She
finally found the leaking blood vessel and stopped up the
leak.

"It wasn't fully here."
Grey was scowling down at Harry, hands on hips, when Elinor
returned from her visit. "Part of it was still in hell, not like
the other. That one brought its body with it. Nor do I think this
was as powerful a demon as the one Ferguson let out. Also--" He
backed out of the way as a stretcher appeared.

"Take Nigel first." Elinor
pointed. "He's in worse shape. And hand me his bag. I need to
borrow a few things from it."

"Isn't that your bag?"
Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

"Not any more. It's his
now." She pulled out a pair of restorative vials and handed one to
Jenkins, who was supervising Nigel's removal. "Give him this. It
will help. I think his collarbone's broken. Something is--the
machine hit him quite hard. I hope it's no worse than that. He
wasn't strong to begin with, which has complicated
everything."

"Don't take 'im to the
tower," Harry said. "We'll 'ave a hearing later, but his actions
today'll go far in decidin' wot's to be done with 'im."

"Where should we take him
then, sir?" Jenkins asked.

"Wizard's Hospital?" Harry
looked to Elinor for confirmation. It was a very small, very
exclusive facility, run primarily for magicians and high government
officials. She hadn't had time yet to begin her plans for
it.

She nodded, handing Harry
the other vial. "Drink it," she ordered.

"Yes'm." He did what he was
told. Elinor looked for mockery but found none.

"Bring a stretcher for
Harry, too," she called after Jenkins' retreating back. "He doesn't
need to be standing any more, not with all the blood he's
lost."

"Yes, ma'am." Jenkins' nod
echoed Harry's.

Pearl was waiting anxiously
at Harry's house when they all arrived back there.

"How did you know to wait
for us here?" Elinor asked her as the magicians followed several
large and sturdy footmen carrying Harry upstairs.

Harry hated every minute of
it, being carried. Worst part was, he didn't think he could walk a
single step on his own if he tried, much as he wanted to. Terrible
thing for a man to admit, even to himself.

"You and Harry were the
ones missing," Pearl said. "The odds were that one or both of you
had been hurt, most likely Harry. Where else would you come?
Besides--he's head of council now. That makes his house
headquarters, when we're not at the council hall."

"I would've thought you'd
be right there in the middle of it all," Harry grumped. "Elinor
won't stay home."

"Yes, well, Elinor's not
expecting, is she?" Pearl looked both annoyed and pleased with
herself.

"They did make an
agreement," Elinor said. "Before they married. That Grey would not
issue orders, but Pearl would have to behave sensibly."

"Ah." Would Elinor make
such an agreement with him? Harry could only hope.

Everyone--Elinor, Amanusa,
Pearl, Jax, Grey, even Thom, Nikos and John Fillmore--crowded into
Harry's bedchamber. And refused to leave while Harry's broken-nosed
valet got him out of his ruined clothes and into a nightshirt. The
ladies did turn their backs, but that was the only concession they
would make.

And since the ladies
immediately bared his right leg clear up to made-no-difference as
soon as he was tucked up in bed, Harry resigned himself to his
fate. Poking, prodding, fussing, and embarrassment.

He was engaged to be
married. If she actually did marry him, he could put up with fuss,
and baring his nether parts, or nearly, to the world. As much of
the world as could fit in his bedchamber.

They had just cut away the
blood-soaked petticoat bandage to expose his injury. Everyone
crowded round to take a look, even Nikos, Thom, and Grey, who knew
nothing at all about the treatment of injuries. How long would it
take for the fussing to end? When they did, would Elinor leave with
the rest of the crowd?

"It looks good," Amanusa
said, poking his leg hard enough to make Harry grit his
teeth.

"Now that I finally found
that little bleeder and stopped it." Elinor sounded caught between
disgust that she hadn't found it earlier and satisfaction that
she'd found it at all. "I need my bindweed ointment from my
stillroom."

"I'll get it," Jax
offered.

Elinor told him where to
find it and which chambermaid to take with him. Sally cleaned the
stillroom and knew where most things might be.

"So," she asked Grey as she
wet a cloth in the warm water sent up from the kitchen. "Harry told
me to ask you why the demon didn't escape the machine before we
broke it to bits."

"I don't actually
know,
" Grey said, leaning
against one of the foot posts on Harry's massive bed. "But it is
possible that because it possessed a machine, rather than a human,
it found itself trapped there. Humans, even when they are
possessed, can cooperate with those trying to dispossess them. Toss
the bugger out, in essence. With help. But this was a machine. It's
possible the demon got itself stuck. I would rather not research
demons, thank you, to discover whether my guess is actually
true."

"Don't you dare," Pearl
threatened.

Grey pulled her to stand in
front of him, arms around her from behind, and rested his chin on
her head. "Yes'm."

"Weren't you goin' to say
something else out there?" Harry needed distraction from Elinor
washing the blood from his leg, both from the pain and from her
touching him there. "When we were talkin' about how we got rid of
it without the angel this time?"

"Oh--that's right." Grey
lifted his head to stand straight. "You were all there, at Waterloo
Station when the angel shared power with us." He looked around the
room at the magicians present. "That power is gone now,
correct?"

The others all nodded, even
Harry.

"But it--" Grey groped for
words. "Left behind a conduit. A way for us to tap that same power.
Maybe not at the same level but it is the same power. I believe
that is what we did and that is how we did it."

The others nodded again,
thoughtfully.

While they were busy
thinking over what Grey said, Harry saw his chance. Elinor was
washing him clean as impersonally as she might any patient, looking
everywhere but at his face. He had no pride left, not when it came
to Elinor. He had to know now, no matter how many witnesses he had
to his desperation. "Elinor?"

"Yes, Harry?" Now, finally,
she looked up at him, her gray-blue eyes meeting his without
hesitation.

"Did you mean it? What you
said out there?" After so long, such determined resistance, he was
afraid to believe.

She didn't pretend she
didn't know what he meant. "Yes, Harry, I did. I do." She shot a
sideways glance at Amanusa and Pearl who took the washing cloth
from her and pretended not to be listening. Everyone else pretended
too, but none of them left. Didn't matter.

"I only just realized it
then." Elinor moved closer to his head, took his hand in both of
hers. "But I have--I think I have, at least a little, ever since
you offered me the chance to be your apprentice."

"Ah." He brought her hands
up and kissed them, one after the other, turning his hand to bring
them to his mouth. "Does that mean we can set a date?"

She blushed. Elinor
actually blushed. She rarely did. Not much embarrassed her, but
now-- "As soon as my family can come to town. They haven't had time
to write back and say when that might be--but I could write again
and hurry them along. Mid-March?"

"I want a date, Elinor. Not
an approximation." He wasn't being arrogant or controlling. He was
desperate.

She seemed to recognize
that and got flustered, rather than bristling up. "I don't have
a--"

Grey produced a calendar,
like magic. "The banns can be called by March 13. That will give
plenty of time for your family to reach London, Elinor. The first
quarter is the 15
^th
."

"First quarter of what?"
Now Harry was confused.

"The moon," Pearl said.
"Conjury marks the moon phases."

"Tonight's the first
quarter," Grey said. He drew a circle in the air with his hand.
"First quarter to first quarter--completes the circle
begun."

"Grey." Elinor stared at
him. "You're a romantic."

"I like it." Harry said.
"I've become somewhat romantic myself lately."

Elinor blushed, but she
didn't object.

"The
15
^th
is
a Tuesday," Amanusa said.

"So? You got anywhere else
to be?" Harry glared at her. He didn't want to put off marrying
Elinor any longer than he had to.

He got his wedding date.
But he still wasn't quite, exactly sure what kind of marriage it
would be. She said she loved him. She never had before, but... He
was still afraid. And that question he simply could not ask with
witnesses present.

Once Jax returned with the
wound ointment--it had taken a bit of searching to find--Harry got
his leg bandaged and everyone departed in short order to leave him
to rest. Elinor lingered, but not quite long enough. Jax and
Amanusa were still at the door. So Harry called her
back.

"What is it?" She turned
where she was, halfway across the room.

"Come 'ere for a minute."
He patted the bed beside him.

She looked puzzled, but she
came. Maybe it would be all right.

"Do I 'ave to go shopping
for a new 'ouse?" he asked, point blank.

Tears welled up in her
eyes.
Bloody hell.
Now what had he done wrong? But she leaned forward and kissed
him, slow and deep and so sweet that he forgot to worry.

"No, Harry." She rubbed her
smooth cheek against his rough. "I want to live with you in this
house. I love you."

He frowned at her. He
needed to understand. If he understood, maybe he wouldn't have to
worry all the time about messing up and losing her again. "Why?
What's changed? You were so set against me--"

"Not against
you.
" She sighed. "I was
afraid. And stupid." She shifted position, then stood and hoisted a
couple layers of skirt and petticoat. "Untie these blasted hoops,
will you, dearest? They're bent and broken and driving me
mad."