Sarah Brennan - The Demon's Lexicon

Nick had caught the magician. He should get to decide what to do with him.

Alan ran a hand through his hair as he always did when he was worried, leaving a fuzz of curls in the wake of his fingers as if he felt the outside of his head had to express the turmoil inside. “I’m trying to think of what’s best for everyone.”

“I don’t care what’s best for everyone!” Nick snarled. “I only care about what’s best for you.”

Jamie flattened himself against the wall, and even Mae jumped. Only Alan continued to look tired and unaffected, and Nick was frustrated enough to wish for a moment that his brother would just this once be like everyone else so Nick could scare him enough to do what he wanted him to do.

“The Circle may know by now that we have him,” Alan said slowly. “They’ll be on the alert.”

“There were no other magicians around to see us take him. Don’t you think I looked? Let’s kill him now and get the mark off you,” Nick argued. “Before they notice he’s gone and send something after him.”

“We can’t kill him yet. We need two magicians, and we won’t be able to surprise the Circle again. We need to get information from this one before we kill him.”

Nick did not know what to do. Alan insisted on acting as if Jamie’s life was worth as much as Alan’s, and no matter how much Nick disagreed, he knew with a wrench of furious despair that he was powerless to change Alan’s mind.

“Alan,” he said at last. “I swear I’ll catch another magician. I’ll do whatever you want. Only let me kill this one now and get the mark off. Alan. Please.”

When Alan looked at him steadily, Nick had to look away. Alan knew Nick, and knew what Nick was thinking: that he would try to catch another magician, but he might fail, and what did broken promises matter if Alan was safe?

“I don’t think we should take my mark off now,” Alan said at last. “I think we should take off Jamie’s.”

“Oh no,” Nick breathed. “No.”

If Alan thought for a moment that Nick would let Jamie be saved while Alan was still in danger, he was dreaming. Nick opened his mouth to say so.

Unexpectedly, Jamie spoke. He said, “No.” Everyone looked at him and his mouth quivered, but he pressed his lips together for a moment and went on. “You wouldn’t have a second-tier mark if it weren’t for me. We wouldn’t have this magician if it weren’t for you and Nick. It wouldn’t be fair to — I want you to go first.”

“Thank you, Jamie,” Nick said savagely. “At least somebody is showing some sense—”

“Shh,” Mae ordered, speaking for the first time. She was leaning against the wall, studying their prisoner, and now her eyes narrowed. “I think he’s waking up.”

Everyone fell silent and stared at the magician, who was chained to a chair in the middle of their sitting room and was now stirring.

He was very young, as magicians went. Nick usually only saw magicians in their true forms after he or Alan had managed to kill one, but he did not think any of the corpses had been as young as this. He looked about twenty, but Mum could not have been much older when she joined the Obsidian Circle. Youth did not make him any less dangerous.

It did make him look less dangerous, and he was not a very threatening specimen in any case. The magician had a shock of sandy hair, standing up on his head and then falling into his eyes like the petals on a rather floppy daffodil, and beneath the sandy mop he had a narrow, inquisitive face. There was something about his features, perhaps his long, pointed chin, that vaguely recalled a fox. Apart from that he had a friendly, freckled face, the face of a young man whom old ladies would instantly trust.

He opened wide gray eyes, blinked, and looked dismayed.

“Oh Lord,” said the magician. “Now I am in the soup.”

Nick was not in the least worried about himself or Alan. They knew what magicians were. He was worried about Mae and Jamie, and what their reaction was going to be once they got over the revelation that magicians looked and acted entirely harmless, entirely human. Until they didn’t.

“We’re going to kill you,” he said deliberately. “There will be no negotiation. I want to kill you now, but others of the group think you might have information we need. So we’re going to have to torture you first.”

He added the last sentence so Mae and Jamie could know the worst at once and deal with it however they had to. He didn’t want to have to cope with hysterics later.

“I think I could be persuaded to offer you some information without being tortured, if it’s all the same to you,” the magician said. He had a rueful way of talking, as if inviting sympathy, and a soft Irish accent.

Nick did not often have much use for his switchblade, since the moment it took to flick the weapon open could be a moment that made the difference between life or death. Now he felt he could take his time, and he appreciated the cold, quiet snick the knife made opening, and the way the magician’s face paled as he heard it.

“Talk.”

“My name’s Gerald,” the magician said promptly. Again his rueful voice asked them all to laugh a little at the name and see him as a little more human.

His shrewd, friendly eyes traveled over them all, making eye contact and assessing weaknesses. He didn’t even look at Nick, which confirmed Nick’s opinion of him as intelligent. He looked at Alan for a long moment and did nothing, looked at Mae and smiled bravely, and then let his eyes settle on Jamie.

“We don’t care about your name, magician,” said Alan. “Any more than you cared about the names of the people you’ve killed.”

Gerald looked genuinely indignant. “Killers? Is that all you think magicians are?”

“Not really,” Nick said, playing with his switchblade. “If I did, I’d think I was a magician.”

He knew he should shut up. Mae and Jamie were looking from Nick with his knife to Gerald chained in his chair. He knew they were making comparisons.

“I was born a magician,” Gerald said. “It isn’t about anything you do. It’s in the blood. You’re born with the call toward magic, toward power, and one day, no matter what you do, the magic will find you.”

He looked from Jamie to Mae as he spoke, Mae who loved knowledge as much as Alan did, and obviously he found enough encouragement in her face to go on.

“People think we can’t do much magic without demons, but that’s not true. The power that makes calling them easier shows itself in other ways. When I was a child, strange things happened around me all the time. The Obsidian Circle came to recruit me. Nobody had ever understood me before, but I’d always been a magician. One of my ancestors ruled half his country with his power. Magicians see the world differently. Everything is gray and flat and cold, nothing means anything, until you have the demon in your summoning circle and you have some control of the world at last.”

“It’s nice that you feel fulfilled by feeding people to demons,” Alan said mildly. He took a knife from his boot and turned it over in his hand, watching his blade catch the light. “Have you got anything useful to say, or do you need encouragement?”

Nick saw Jamie glance, startled, at Alan’s hard eyes. Soft-spoken Gerald must have been looking better by the minute. If they silenced Gerald now, though, they would look even more brutal.

“It’s not like your Market is as pure as the wings of a dove,” Gerald said sharply. “Do your friends know what it takes to prop up the Market? You’re funded by blood money!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick said, bored. “But I know it’s not useful.”

“It’s not always a question of feeding people to the demons, either,” Gerald said, still looking at Mae. “Some people want it. Some people ask for it.”