Sarah Brennan - The Demon's Lexicon

They chose the car park beside the railway station in Salisbury as an unobtrusive place to stop.

“I still don’t see why we’re going to the city,” Jamie said. “If the magicians want to call up demons near Stonehenge, shouldn’t we go there?”

“I’ll drive up to Stonehenge and take a look around,” Alan told him, “but it’s most likely the Circle is staying in Salisbury. It’s the middle of the day. They’re not going to want the tourists to see them conjuring up demons.” He hesitated. Silence fell and lingered, seeming embarrassed to be there. “Er, Nick can see illusions, so he’ll be going into Salisbury. Who—?”

Now there was a question hanging in the car like very awkward air freshener. Nick saw Mae’s hand reaching for the handle of her door.

“I’ll take Jamie,” Nick said, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and hauling him out of the car. He kept talking over Jamie’s startled squawk. “You have Mae.”

Alan looked absurdly delighted, but he kept himself together enough to say, “Let’s meet at Salisbury Cathedral in an hour.”

“Right,” Nick answered. “Where’s Salisbury Cathedral?”

“Um,” Jamie said, “I think that’s it over there.”

Nick looked over his shoulder and saw the cathedral, looming against the sky and brandishing its turrets in all directions. The gray, spiky thing reminded Nick of the cathedral at Exeter. There were supposed to be scattered bones under every inch of ground in Exeter Cathedral close. He wondered how many bones were buried around this one.

He nodded at Alan, and the car peeled away just when Jamie had nerved himself to say, “I’d really rather go with—”

Jamie looked somewhat forlornly after the disappearing car. Then his eyes slid uncertainly over to Nick.

Jamie had seen Nick at school, at home, and at the Goblin Market, which meant that Jamie knew him better than anyone but Alan.

It only now occurred to Nick that he was fairly sure Jamie was scared of him, and here they were stranded together in Salisbury.

Well, he was helping to save Jamie’s life. Jamie could learn to cope.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go check out the pubs.”

Jamie blinked. “Sorry?”

“Magicians like pubs,” Nick answered. “Same reason they like cities. Gives them an opportunity to mingle with people and choose a victim. If someone’s drunk enough, they can get marked in the bar and never know what hit them.”

“I’m on the wagon,” Jamie said. “Starting now.”

Nick made a noncommittal noise and started off down the road. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Jamie was behind him. Jamie was, trailing unhappily in his wake, and something else occurred to Nick. The boy had been thin to start with, and now his face was pinched and too pale. There were deep lines on either side of his mouth. The world had taught Nick a lot of things, and one of them was too-certain knowledge of what someone in pain looked like.

“The dreams the demons send you,” he said. “They’re bad?”

Jamie looked startled. “They’re not good. It’s cold, cold enough to really hurt, and there are voices whispering all the time. In the dream I can never see anything, but every time it’s colder, and every time the voices get closer.” He stopped and looked at Nick in that ridiculous, wide-eyed way, and Nick remembered him babbling about empathy. “Alan’s tougher than I am,” Jamie added softly. “I don’t think he lets the dreams bother him much.”

It was true that Nick would have noticed Alan getting thinner. Most k tho;

“Alan is tough,” Nick conceded, and eased his pace so Jamie might have some hope of keeping up. “Don’t look so worried,” he added. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Jamie seemed more surprised than reassured. “You won’t?”

“No, I won’t. Alan would kill me.”

Jamie blinked. “I’m very touched.”

They started at the unimaginatively titled Railway Tavern, proceeding on to places called the Bird in Hand and the Old Ale House. The pubs had all the usual fittings: a bar, a bartender, and customers. The Bird in Hand even had a sign that showed a young woman lounging on a gigantic hand, but no magicians.

Nick had never been to Salisbury before. The city seemed mainly residential and comfortable with that. He and Jamie walked down several streets, lined with aged rectangular houses that gave the impression of standing about in cozy groups, to get from one pub to the next. The buildings got older and Nick got more annoyed as they crossed a bridge and found little churches and shops rubbing shoulders, and still no sign of magicians.

They even stopped by some hotels on their quest from pub to pub. Jamie peered too closely at people’s faces in the street, searching for any resemblance to the magicians’ pictures Alan had drawn from the descriptions of Market folk, and Nick was on constant alert for the sight of something too perfect, too real, which would signal an illusion being used.

They were in a pub called the Chough when Nick returned from his investigation of every corner of the place to find Jamie sitting at the bar exactly where he had left him.

He had not left him penned in by two men, however. Nick’s first thought was of magicians, and he reached for his nearest knife before it occurred to him that Jamie’s earring probably had more to do with this situation than his demon’s mark.

It had been a long and frustrating search already. Nick was itching for a fight.

“These guys bothering you?” he asked Jamie softly, and gave the two men his coldest look. One of them stepped back.

“No, no, no,” Jamie said at once, looking wildly around at empty air, as if Nick had started to throw knives.

Nick could throw knives quite well, but that was beside the point.

“If you say so.”

“I do,” Jamie said. “That is, in fact, what I say. So — I hear there’s an antiques fair in town. We should check it out!”

Jamie, who rarely touched Nick, was so overwhelmed by concern for the people who’d been harassing him that he grabbed Nick by the elbow. Nick refused to move for a moment, staying immobile with no particular effort, and watched the men. Time stretched, weighed down with the growing fear and hesitation of the two strangers.

It relaxed Nick. He smiled at them, and the other man stepped back as well. Then Nick let Jamie pull him out of the bar.

He shook off Jamie’s restraining grasp and stepped away from him as soon as they were outside.

“An antiques fair,” he repeated, almost amused.

“Sometimes I panic,” Jamie told him.

“I’ve noticed that.”

They kept walking, and Nick felt his brief moment of cheer fading with every step. They had completed a circuit around Salisbury and ended up where they had begun. There had been no sign of magic from one end of the city to the other.

Nick’s gloomy thoughts were interrupted by Jamie, sounding hesitant. “That was — a little scary.”

“Was it?” Nick asked.

“Oh, right,” said Jamie. “Mae told me. Apparently you don’t get scared.”

“No,” Nick said. “I don’t. I don’t waste my time with useless fussing around, feeling scared or anxious or what the hell it is you people do. You two may be so complicated you’re falling over the knots you’ve made of yourselves, but I’m very simple.”

Jamie slanted a shy glance over at him. “No, you’re not.”

“Fine,” said Nick. “I’m an international man of mystery. Don’t fall for me. I’ll only break your heart.”

“Don’t worry,” Jamie murmured.

Nick almost liked him for that, even if he and his sister had apparently declared every day Make Nick Talk About His Feelings Day.