“I expect you to waste my time, Merlin,” she said, ignoring Susan. “But I don’t expect it from you, Vivien.”
“We’re not wasting your time, Aunt Una,” said Vivien evenly.
A walkie-talkie at Una’s belt squawked. She grabbed it and held it some distance from her ear. A male voice crackled out.
“Yeah, can’t find what you said.”
“Okay,” said Una. “What about you, Darren?”
Another, softer voice answered in the negative.
“Diarmuid?” asked Una.
“Nah, nothing of note. We’re going up on the roof.”
“Sabah?”
“Nothing here.”
Una clipped the walkie-talkie back on her belt.
“And you’re sure you’re not wasting my time?”
“I smelled laurel and amaranth, over decaying flesh,” said Vivien. In the face of Una’s disbelief, she didn’t sound quite as confident. “And Merlin felt a presence. Who have you got checking the wards? That’s a right-handed job.”
“Uncle Jake,” said Una. “What? He was available.”
“It’s not his area of expertise,” said Vivien.
“Does he even have an area of expertise?” muttered Merlin.
“Yes, he does,” replied Vivien. “An encyclopedic knowledge of novelists in the period 1920 to 1950, English and in translation.”
“I meant . . . oh, never mind,” said Merlin.
“Uncle Jake is perfectly capable of gauging whether a ward is compromised or not,” snapped Una. “So you smelled something, Merlin felt something, and you leap to the conclusion that it is a Cauldron-Born, when there haven’t been any for more than three hundred years. Now why would a Cauldron-Born even be here? And who would have made it and been directing it?”
Merlin shrugged. Vivien frowned.
“It’s been a very unusual day,” she said. “The goblins danced Merlin and Susan into the mythic May Fair. And before that, two ordinary mortal thugs, but whose minds had been adjusted, tried to abduct her. So if there was a Cauldron-Born, it was probably here for Susan.”
“Why?” asked Una. She gave Susan the kind of suspicious glance a chef might give a butcher about to hand over a piece of rabbit masquerading as chicken.
“We don’t really know yet,” said Merlin hurriedly. “Susan’s father is a person of interest. The Greats have told us to find out who he is.”
“Then you should get on with it,” said Una. Her walkie-talkie screeched; she lifted it and said, “What?”
“Nothing found. We’re all back in the lobby, zero on any floor. Uncle Jake says all is copacetic. Which I guess means okay.”
“Back to the shop, then,” said Una. “And Jake is not riding pillion with me; you take him, Diarmuid.”
“Why me?”
“Because I said so. Out.”
“I’m going to take a look at the wards myself,” said Vivien. “Jake can’t have checked all the entrances. What about the kitchen?”
“Good idea. You waste your time instead of mine. See you later.”
She spun on her heel and stalked out, like a cyclone reversing direction after the passage of the eye.
“I guess it wasn’t a Cauldron-Born,” said Vivien. “We’re . . . jumpy.”
Merlin didn’t answer. Then he spoke, slowly and thoughtfully.
“I can’t exactly remember the lesson on this, but wasn’t there something about Cauldron-Keepers using dead rats or birds sometimes? What happened with them?”
“Same as a human,” said Vivien. “Birds were used, more than rats, though both were apparently harder to control than humans. Different senses. And flying.”
“The thresholds of the doors and windows in this building are warded,” said Merlin. “But what about sewer pipes and so on? Rats can swim up those.”
“The water mains are, and I suppose any big pipes,” said Vivien. “But some could have been missed.”
“A Cauldron-Born rat would be a perfect spy. Sent out to track someone down, for instance.”
“We still come back to who, why, and with what cauldron,” said Vivien. “Look, I think we are simply getting jumpy. Let’s have lunch, then go to the Old Bookshop and get the aunts to look at Susan’s library card. If they can identify it, we follow that up. All right?”
“I guess so,” said Merlin. He looked at Susan.
“Can we take the swords?” asked Susan.
“I’ll find a bag,” said Merlin immediately, as Vivien started to say, “No,” but then thought better of it.
“I can’t cloud lots of people’s minds at once,” she warned. “So don’t go waving those pigstickers around unnecessarily.”
Merlin produced a vintage leather cricket bag adorned with the cryptic gold monogram “PDBW,” unstrapped it, and opened it up to receive the swords, replacing them in their scabbards before he put them carefully inside. Susan was interested to see her saber went into an entirely iron scabbard, lined with wood, whereas Merlin’s was heavy, ancient leather, banded and tipped in greenish bronze. It looked like it had been preserved in a peat bog for a thousand years.
“If you wouldn’t mind carrying this,” he said, giving the bag to Susan. “I think I should keep my hands free.”
“Happy to,” said Susan. She stuffed her bundle of clothes into the bag as well, and swung it experimentally. The bag would make a reasonable weapon in itself, even without getting the swords out in the first place. A violent swing from the heavy bag could easily knock someone down.
“At least a Cauldron-Born rat would be easier to hack apart,” said Merlin. He opened the door and added, “Harder to spot, though. And if it tried a surprise attack . . .”
He hesitated, then said, “You know what? Though their lunchroom is as awfully provisioned as the New Bookshop’s, why don’t we go straight to the Old Bookshop and eat something there? Skip the pub. If we hurry, we can probably cadge motorbike rides with Una’s lot. Always fun. Provided you don’t fall off the back.”
“And strength in numbers,” said Vivien. “You really do think a Cauldron-Born of some kind was here, don’t you?”
Merlin didn’t answer, instead hurrying to the lift. Susan and Vivien hadn’t waited for his reply, and all three moved swiftly down the hallway. When they got a few paces away, they all rushed to press the call button, Merlin’s left forefinger getting there first.
Chapter Eleven
Be a writer, if you
