The Wizard of London

instance.”

“Do you always look on the bright side, Nan?” Sarah asked, in a teasing tone of voice that told Nan she was being twitted for her pessimism.

Nan was just about to let her feelings be hurt—after all, just how was someone whose own mother tried to sell her to a brothel keeper supposed to think?—when her natural good humor got the better of her. “Nah,” she said dismissively. “Sometimes I get pretty gloomy.”

Sarah stared at her in surprise for a moment, then laughed.

It was fully dark when they arrived, and the cabby dropped them off right at the front door. “The lady sed’t‘go on in, an’ up’t‘ the room up there as is lit—” he told them, pointing to an upper room. Light streamed from that window; very much more welcoming than the rest of the darkened house. Before either girl could ask anything further, he snapped the reins over the horse’s back, and drove off, leaving them the choice of standing in the street or following his directions.

Nan frowned. “This don’t seem right—there aughter be servants about—”

Sarah, however, peered up at the window. “Mem’sab must be with someone who’s hurt or ill,” she said decisively. “Someone she doesn’t dare leave alone.” And before Nan could protest, she’d run up to the door and pushed it open, disappearing inside.

Bloody ‘ell. Nan hurried after her, with Neville croaking his disapproval as his box swung beneath her hand. But she hadn’t a choice; Sarah was already charging up the staircases ahead of her. Something was very wrong here—where were the servants? No house in Berkeley Square would be without a servant to answer the door! And as she rushed through the door, she noticed something else. There wasn’t any furniture or pictures in the front hall either—and that was just wrong all over.

She raced up the stairs, with her feet thudding on the dusty carpet covering the treads, aided only by the light from that single door at the top. She wasn’t in time to prevent Sarah from dashing headlong into the lit room —so she, perforce, had to follow, right in through that door left invitingly half ajar. “Mem’sab!” she heard Sarah call. “We’re here, Mem—”

Only to stop dead in the middle of the room, as Sarah had, staring at the cluster of paraffin lamps on the floor near the window, lamps which had given the illusion that the otherwise empty room must be tenanted.

There was nothing in that room but those four lamps. Nothing. And more importantly—no one.

“It’s a filthy trick!” Nan shouted indignantly, and turned to run out—

Only to have the door slam in her face.

Before she could get over her shock, there was the rattle of a key in the lock, and a further sound as of bolts being thrown home. Then they heard the sound of footsteps rapidly retreating down the stairs.

The two girls looked at each other, aghast.

Nan was the first to move, because her immediate thought was that the men she’d been sold to had decided to collect their property and another girl as well for their troubles. Anyone else might have run at the door, to kick and pound on it, screaming at the top of her lungs. She put down the hatbox and freed Neville. Even more than Grey, the raven, with his murderous claws and beak, was a formidable defender in case of trouble.

And Neville knew it; she felt his anger, and read it in his ruffled feathers and the glint in his eye.

Grey burst from the front of Sarah’s coat all by herself, growling in that high-pitched, grating voice that she used only when she was at her angriest. She stood on Sarah’s shoulder, every feather erect with aggression, and wings half-spread.

Nan growled under her breath, herself, and cast her eyes about, looking for something in the empty room that she could use as a weapon. There was what was left of a bed in one corner, and Nan went straight to it.

“Sarah, get that winder open, if you can,” she said, wrenching loose a piece of wood that made a fairly satisfactory club. “Mebbe we can yell fer help.”

She swung the bit of wood, feeling the heft of her improvised club. With that in her hand, she felt a little better—and when whoever had locked them in here came back—well—they’d get a surprise.

“Nan—there’s something wrong—”

At the hollow tone in Sarah’s voice, Nan whirled, and saw that she was beside the window, as white as a sheet.

“Nan—I don’t think a stick is going to be much use now—” she faltered, pointing a trembling finger at the lamps.

And as Nan watched, the flames of the lamps all turned from yellow to an eerie blue. All Nan could think of was the old saying, flames burn blue when spirits walk…

Nan felt every hair on her body standing erect, and her stomach went cold, and not because of some old saying. No. Oh, no. There was danger, very near. Sarah might have sensed it first, but Nan felt it surrounding both of them, and fought the instinct to look for a place to hide.

Neville cawed an alarm, and she turned again to see him scuttle backward, keeping his eyes fixed on the closed door. The lamp flames behind her dimmed, throwing the room into a strange, blue gloom. Neville turned his back on the door for a moment, but only long enough to leap into the air, wings flapping frantically, to land on her shoulder. He made no more noise, but Grey was making enough for two. His eyes were nothing but pupil, and she felt him shivering.

“There’s something outside that door,” Sarah said in a small, frightened voice.

“And whatever ‘tis, locks and wood ain’t goin’‘t’ keep it out,” Nan said grimly. She did not say aloud what she felt, deep inside.

Whatever it was, it was no mere ghost, not as she and Sarah knew the things. It hated the living; it existed to feed on terror, but that was not all that it was, or did. It was old, old—so old that it made her head ache to try and wrap her understanding around it, and of all that lived, it hated people like Sarah the most. That thing out there would destroy her as casually as she would swat a fly—but it wanted Sarah.

Grey’s growling rose to an ear-piercing screech; Sarah seemed frozen with fear, but Grey was not; Grey was ready to defend Sarah with her life. Grey was horribly afraid, but she was not going to let fear freeze her.

Neither was Neville.

And I ain’t neither! Nan told herself defiantly, and though the hand clutching her club shook, she took one step—two—three—

And planted herself squarely between whatever was behind the door and Sarah. It would have to go through her, Neville, and Grey to reach what it wanted.

I tol‘ Karamjit where we went—an’ when Mem’sab comes ‘ome wi’out us—

She knew that was the only real hope, that help from the adults would come before that—Presence—decided to come through the door after them. Or if she could stall it, could somehow delay things, keep it from actually attacking—

Suddenly, Grey stopped growling.

The light from behind her continued to dim; the shadows lengthened, collected in the corners and stretched toward them. There was no more light in here now than that cast by a shadowed moon. Nan sucked in a breath—

Something dark was seeping in under the door, like an evil pool of black water.

The temperature within the room plummeted; a wave of cold lapped over her, and her fingers and toes felt like ice. That wave was followed by one of absolute terror that seized her and shook her like a terrier would shake a rat.

“Ree—” Grey barked into the icy silence. “Lax!”

The word spat so unexpectedly into her ear had precisely the effect Grey must have intended. It shocked Nan for a split second into a state of not-thinking, just being—

Suddenly, all in an instant she and Neville were one.

***

Knowledge poured into her; and fire blossomed inside her, a fire of anger that drove out the terror, a fierce fire of protectiveness and defiance that made her straighten, take a firmer grip on her club. She opened her mouth —

And words began pouring out of her—guttural words, angry words, words she didn’t in the least understand, that passed somehow from Neville to her, going straight to her lips without touching her mind at all. But she knew, she knew, they were old words, and they were powerful…