“Ornithologists will be wetting themselves,” said Vivien. “Can you see the helicopter? I can’t.”
Susan scanned as much of the sky as she could see through the rear window.
“No.”
“There’s a phone box,” said Vivien.
Merlin shook his head, and drove past the telephone box that stood lonely and proud at the intersection of two country lanes. It was one of the new steel-and-glass ones, and looked rather like it had landed there from space.
“We’re still too close to the murmuration. It’s too isolated, we’d be too easy to spot,” he said. “Let’s get into the next decent-sized village, call from outside a pub or somewhere.”
“Come to think of it, I am absolutely starving,” said Susan. “Can we get something to eat?”
“We can’t stop long, we need to get clear,” warned Merlin. “But I’m hungry, too. . . . I guess you could get some sandwiches or anything that’s ready-made. Vivien and I probably should stay out of sight as much as possible, though the police will be looking for a man and a woman, not two women. Or three, for that matter.”
“I’m more worried about the murmuration,” said Vivien.
“But the birds are way behind us now,” said Susan, looking out the back again. “What can they do, anyway?”
“Kill or stun us quite easily, I’d think. Imagine getting hit by a thousand starlings at once, at speed. Besides, any entity who can raise a murmuration and send it searching around someone else’s mythic wood can do other things as well,” said Vivien. “I really need to talk to some of the senior right-handed.”
“Whoever it is must have a cauldron,” said Merlin. “Summoning a murmuration of starlings might be the least of the things that they can do. And whoever it is might have Cauldron-Born somewhere close by. I wish we knew which one it is.”
“Presuming it isn’t ours, it has to be the Bronze or Copper Cauldron,” said Vivien. “Unless there are others our seniors haven’t bothered to tell us about. There has always been speculation the Bronze Cauldron wasn’t melted down after all, despite the firsthand accounts and Major Claypole’s report. I wrote an essay about that in fifth form. And though the Copper Cauldron hasn’t been seen since Roman times, it is only presumed missing. Maybe the Old One who has it simply went to sleep with it in some deep cavern, and now they’ve woken up.”
“But why use the cauldron now?” asked Merlin. “And why try to kidnap Susan? I mean, she could have been snatched far more easily from her home, before we even knew about her. Why do it now?”
“Maybe whoever it is didn’t know she existed,” said Vivien slowly. “Until she turned up at Frank Thringley’s.”
“But Frank knew about me already,” said Susan. “He sent Christmas cards every year, to ‘Jassmine and Susan.’”
“Sure, but he might have kept it quiet for his own reasons,” said Merlin. “An ace in the hole.”
“There were other people at Frank’s house, weren’t there?” said Vivien. “When you first arrived. Did you introduce yourself as Jassmine’s daughter, Susan?”
Susan thought back.
“Yes,” she said. “One man answered the door, the one with the sawn-off shotgun in the shopping bag. I wonder . . . even then I wasn’t as frightened as I should have been. I said I was Susan Arkshaw. And there was another man in the room when Frank talked to me, a bodyguard I guess. Oh, I’d forgotten . . . Frank asked how Mum was by name. He said he was pleased to see me . . . he said something about a ‘good time to visit.’”
“Frank definitely answered to some higher boss, and his people probably did, too, or at least would have afterwards,” said Merlin. “What if that boss was actually someone from the Old World, or somewhere farther up the chain there was a mythic entity involved?”
“It would be the first time one of the Ancient Sovereigns has ever involved themselves so much in mortal affairs,” said Vivien. “I mean, Sippers and changelings, half fay of various kinds, a few entities that like taking on mortal form, they can get mixed up with crime. And there’s the Death Cultists, I suppose, but I wouldn’t call them criminals, more like terrorists. And they’re usually only associated with the lesser or perhaps middleweight entities, the bloody ones, who seek human sacrifices. As far as I know, there’s never been an Ancient Sovereign associated with mortal criminals. Why would they?”
“Advantage over others,” suggested Merlin. “Mortals aren’t bound by the same strictures as those of the Old World. If you had both mythic entities and mortal servants at your beck and call, it would make you more powerful, right? I mean for things like breaking wards.”
“Yes,” said Vivien. “It’s just so unusual. Or it has been, before now.”
She didn’t sound convinced, but at the same time, was clearly unable to dismiss the concept.
“It doesn’t change our main objective anyway,” said Merlin. “Which is to get the hell away from here, and then identify Susan’s father—”
“And take me to him,” interjected Susan.
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Merlin.
“We need more information,” said Vivien, looking back to smile at Susan, taking the sting out of Merlin’s curt dismissal.
Susan wanted to say they had to take her, she felt the compulsion inside so strongly. But she kept her mouth shut, and thought about that. Maybe this feeling she had really was a compulsion. Perhaps her mind had been meddled with in the same way as the Birmingham thugs or the police who’d tried to shoot Merlin.
She didn’t think so, because she otherwise felt fine and perfectly compos mentis. But she still worried about it.
The lane they’d been following had no traffic at all, but there was an intersection up ahead with a more significant road, with a steady stream of vehicles flashing across.
Vivien consulted the road atlas as Merlin slowed down for
