He left her. He did not want to run, because that would have looked like fear or some other ridiculous thing, so he loped through the woods, going easily, knowing that when he walked fast no girl and no crippled idiot could catch him. He held his hands clenched in fists, but he did not hit out at any thorns.
When black night was touched with the cold, unfriendly blue of coming morning, Nick went back.
The Goblin Market was in the process of being packed away. The remnants of the stalls stood forlorn as their owners stored their wares in boxes, and the few customers left lingered uneasily around the debris of magic.
The others were standing in the center of the clearing, near a fortune-telling stall. Jamie was looking uneasily around and saw him at once. Mae was leaning against Alan, cheek pressed against his shoulder. As Nick came toward them, she made a determined effort to twine herself around Alan and turned her face up to his.
It seemed that, indeed, anyone would do.
Alan stooped and gave her a soft kiss, light, but enough to show her she was not being rejected.
“No, Mae, I really can’t. It would be taking advantage,” Alan was saying.
The fortune-teller picked this unfortunate moment to lean over her stall and pluck at Nick’s sleeve.
Her crystal ball, left out in forlorn hope, stared up at Nick as if the woman had a huge third eye cupped between her palms. In the crystal depths, luminous points of green spiked like a tiny forest; above the green, streams of iridescent blue were looped like ribbons.
“See the future, young sir?” the old woman croaked theatrically. Merris Cromwell would have coldly recommended a cough drop.
The tightly interwoven blues and greens darkened. The impression Nick received was that of a shadow falling over a lake, a silhouette that grew more distinct, moving from a shadow into the lines of a face.
It was just his own face, his darkly reflected eyes staring out of the crystal.
Nick picked up the crystal in one hand and hurled it with vicious force at the nearest tree. The crash made Mae and Alan jump and look around. Nick caught their movement from the corner of his eye, but mostly he was staring at the glittering shards.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” he said.
They dropped Mae and Jamie home, Alan giving strict instructions for Mae to be put to bed and kept there. Jamie made solemn promises and held Mae’s hand tight with the air of an anxious nanny.
“You don’t need to worry,” he said, leaning into Alan’s open window. “And, er, Alan?” he added. “Thanks.”
He gave Alan a quick kiss on the cheek, and then disappeared through the gate with a struggling Mae in tow. It was rather a fancy gate, loops and swirls wrought in iron creating a picture Nick couldn’t quite make out. Through the intricate pattern he glimpsed an ivy-covered house, large and white, looming in the still-dark sky like a big expensive iceberg. The windows in the upper floors cast yellow light on the big garden and the tennis court.
These two had everything. They could have left Nick’s brother alone.
Nick crossed his arms over his chest and said stonily, “Quite a night you’re having.”
Alan said, “I’m not talking to you while you still have the fever fruit in your system.”
Not talking was fine by Nick. He stared out the window as Alan drove.
Usually the journeys back from the Goblin Market were all right no matter how long they were. It was not like moving; it was just the two of them without Mum. Alan played classical or country music and talked for ages about whatever his latest craze was, from vintage comics to philosophy. It was all just insane ranting to Nick, but he didn’t mind hearing it, and he always bullied Alan into letting Nick drive most of the way home.
This time there was silence. Nick did not offer to drive at all. He measured exactly where the halfway point was and when it came, he did not speak. Let Alan tell him to drive. Let Alan take care of himself for a change. Nick glanced over at Alan and saw his jaw set. He was not going to ask Nick for help; he was too proud to ask for anything that was not offered willingly.
Nick was viciously glad. It was Alan’s own fault. Let him suffer.
They continued to drive in silence, except for the tiny hitches of breath that began to rise helplessly in Alan’s throat. Nick listened to every stifled sound of pain.
Alan would never have let Nick hurt himself, no matter how angry with Nick he might have been. Nick knew that, but that was the difference between them. Nick was a jerk, and Alan was a suicidal fool.
The car drove into a lurid yellow morning, the terrible toxic color of leaden clouds filtering pale, sickly sunlight. There was a fine, continuous rain falling. Nick stared out at the wash of water down the glass and wondered if other people got as angry as he did. He’d seen Alan angry, but he’d never discovered in Alan’s eyes any savage urge for blood. He wished he wanted to yell at Alan or slam doors, wanted to do anything but lash out with extreme violence. He sat, fists clenched, too aware of the new sword at his belt and the knife against the small of his back.
When they pulled up outside their house and the purr of the car engine stilled, Alan let his leg relax and breathed out a sigh of pure relief. For a moment there was complete quiet.
Then Alan said, “While you were gone, I talked to Merris. She said she wouldn’t be able to help us with Black Arthur, but — I don’t know. I’ve heard stories about the experiments she does in her house. She won’t talk about them. What we need is an excuse to get into Merris’s house.”
That was just like Nick’s stupid brother, still worrying about Mum when he was the one in danger. What Nick needed was to get both marks off Alan, and that would be almost impossible.
“We need to kill a magician,” Nick snarled.
Dad had been killed by the magicians. They had spent their whole life running from the magicians, and now they had to seek them out.
“We’ve killed magicians before,” said Alan.
“When they came for us,” Nick snapped. “They live in magicians’ Circles. If we try to deliberately find one, we’ll find a nest of them. They have demons, they have magic, and they outnumber us.”
These were the facts. Alan knew them, and it maddened Nick to have to enumerate them. He did not add the next fact, which was that Alan was probably going to die.
“It’s a chance,” Alan said. “Jamie didn’t have a chance before. Now we both do.”
“Why should he expect you to die for him?” Nick demanded. “What would I do with Mum if you were dead?”
“I didn’t realize,” Alan said slowly, looking a little pale, “that your concern was so entirely practical.”
Nick stared at the dashboard. Alan was choosing now, of all times, to talk nonsense. Nick was in no mood for it.
“You weren’t being noble,” he informed Alan after a moment. “You didn’t want to give anyone a chance. Don’t lie to me. Don’t tell me it had nothing to do with that girl!”
Before Alan could tell him anything, Nick had wrenched open the door. He leaped out and slammed it shut behind him. He ran as he hadn’t run through the wood at Tiverton, as if he were being chased, down the gray side streets of south London.
He ran to the new garage he was working at. Nick found comfort in machines that were either working or broken, and if broken could be either fixed or destroyed. He found the garage as still as a graveyard, cars in various stages of repair like sad metallic specters.
Nick kicked a box of tools and sent wrenches and spanners flying out onto the cement. He wanted to overturn a car, and he felt sure he could. He was so angry he wanted to kill.
A car, winched up as high as it would go, collapsed with a crash behind him. Nick spun and drew his sword as a loose wheel rolled into the wall, and he noticed for the first time that the lock on the garage door was broken. Somebody or something had smashed it.
Nick was suddenly happy. He hoped this was an attack, that here at last was something he knew how to deal with. He turned in a slow circle, watching for a flicker of movement, for the slightest sound. Another car fell with a thunderous crash as soon as his back was turned.
“Got you,” Nick said, turning on the sound with his sword already arcing through the air. All he saw was a lick of flame leaping under the bonnet of the car.
It was a demon. It had to be. The crash had not been enough to start a fire and besides, Nick’s talisman was a prickling, harshly humming weight against his chest. There was a demon, somewhere close, and it would not show itself so he could kill it!
