He thought for a moment that he needed to go warn Alan so they could all start packing, but then he remembered. They were chasing demons now. If there were magicians here, they had to stay and hunt them.
He should really go, he realized. He didn’t need to be caught and laid off for setting fires.
“So,” he said to the dying flame and the empty room, “I’ll get you later.”
He did not feel like going home, so he took a walk, and then returned to work, where everyone was wondering who the mystery vandals were. Nick nodded to all the theories, and then popped a car bonnet and got down to work. He worked grimly and silently, two shifts, until it was dark and someone told him to get out and enjoy what was left of his night.
Nick just nodded a final time and left. He went home at last and got into bed without seeing anyone. Sleep, black and consuming, swallowed him whole.
He woke late as usual and came downstairs to find Alan playing with a piece of toast. He looked pale and worn as an old bone, after only one night with a second-tier mark. There were violet shadows under his eyes, and he did not look up from his plate as Nick approached. Nick could usually sneak up on anyone but Alan. He went over to lean his forearms on the back of Alan’s chair and frowned at the back of Alan’s neck.
“Don’t,” he said, and saw Alan jump at the unexpected word, so close, and then relax. “Don’t do anything like this again,” he said. “All right?”
Alan reached behind him and grasped Nick’s upper arm. His thin fingers only half closed around the swell of muscle, but he held on.
“I promise I won’t put any demon marks on myself for the sake of any fetching pink-haired girls or their brothers ever again.”
Nick hung over Alan’s chair, uneasy but not exactly wanting to break away, and said in a rough voice, “You’d better not.”
Alan offered to run him to school, but Nick said he’d take the Tube. He knew Alan must really be tired when he agreed. Nick had no intention of going to school. He knew what he had to do.
Anzu had given him the name of a Circle. The Obsidian Circle: Black Arthur’s Circle. He knew that much, but he did not know how much power they had or where to find them. He did not have time to wait for the next Goblin Market. He could draw a basic circle of summoning. He would dance again and alone.
He needed answers. He needed his other demon.
He needed Liannan.
On one of the bleakest roads in Camden, there was a small gray lot behind the American Methodist Church. It was filled with builder’s dust and rubble years old, and there was a large metal Dumpster in it that was heaped with an assortment of rubbish.
On a Monday morning Nick didn’t think he would be disturbed here.
He drew the circle of summoning and confinement carefully with a white piece of chalk he had stolen from an art shop on the way. He’d taken a few protective charms from Alan’s bedroom, and he laid them carefully at intervals around the circle. The circle had to be secure. He was taking risks, but he would not take that risk. If a demon ever got out into the world, free of a magician’s control, it could mean the end of the world.
Nick was planning to take risks only with himself. He had no fever fruit, he had no dance partner, and he had never spoken directly to a demon before. If he slipped up, the demon would have him. If he could not manage to offer something she wanted, Liannan might not even come.
He was betting that she would come. She had always seemed like she wanted to come to him.
She was not a woman, of course. That was only a shape she chose to trick humans, but Nick thought it would be easier if he could pretend she was a woman. He had called girls to him before. There was nothing so easy whether you were walking into a classroom, a club, or down the street. All you had to do was send out the right signals, give her the right look, turn your body the right way, and never for a moment let it cross your mind that she might not be interested.
Nick was not carrying his sword, so he laid down his knives before he entered the circle. It was a gesture. He was surrendering and inviting the demon in.
He could not let himself worry about scuffing the chalk marks that showed the lines of communication, or the lines that meant the boundaries between the worlds. If he got distracted from the dance, she would never come.
Pushing away the reality of a gray sky in London, he thought about night, the taste of fever fruit, and the taste of a girl’s mouth. He thought about being in a nightclub and catching a girl’s eyes gleaming under the colored, moving lights. He thought about Mae’s skin under the lanterns of the Goblin Market.
The right words were, as ever, the hardest part. He swallowed and heard his voice come out rough, commanding a girl rather than coaxing her. That worked, sometimes.
“I call on the one who gave me the name Liannan! I call on she who loves water and lives in ice, she who follows men invisible and drives them mad. I call on the face men follow through a winter storm to their deaths. I call on Liannan.”
He thought about practicing the sword in darkness, his whole mind narrowed into nothing but the movement of steel in the night. He danced and remembered fighting, training his aching body until he knew only the desire for perfection, the perfect kill, the perfect kiss. He threw back his head, arched his back, and called Liannan to his side.
When he opened his eyes, there was nothing but the tarmac, the worn building, and the chalk outlines of what looked like a child’s game. Nick waited for a heartbeat, despaired for a breath, and then saw pale fire building from one chalked-in line.
It was a very pale fire, almost colorless, as if water had learned how to burn. Liannan rose from a high flame the color of a fountain with her head bowed, like a goddess rising from the sea. The fire settled over the circle, lapping gently as the sea at low tide around them, and she stood before Nick and lifted her face to his.
His talisman sent a pang of sheer agony through his body, and he gave a quick gasp. She smiled.
She was smiling; she who was a legend in lands where men would follow her into ice and shadow for a smile. She was dazzling, and she would have been even more beautiful if she had not been so pale. Pallor lay over her like a veil, making the color of her eyes impossible to distinguish and cooling the fire of her red hair, as if the vivid color was seen under frost.
“It’s been a long time,” she said, her voice ringing like the chimes at the Goblin Market.
Nick crossed his arms and stared at her. The less he spoke, the less chance there was she could trick him.
Liannan tilted her head. “Do you like this?” she asked. “I remember you always had a fancy for red hair.”
Nick actually preferred blondes, but that hardly mattered. She thought he was a different man, centuries dead, and probably dead by her hand. Demons found it hard to tell humans apart.
“It’s all right,” Nick said grudgingly. “I have two questions for you. I know I didn’t dance with a partner or take the fruit. Tell me your price for answering them.”
“My price.” Liannan’s voice changed to a whisper that sounded like a waterfall. “I will answer one question — if you take off your talisman.”
Every dancer always wore a talisman, because a demon could mark you if you were in a circle, as easily as they could take a mark off you, if you did not wear some protection.
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If he refused, though, she would go. She had chosen her shape, and it was a shape to seduce rather than to force. He could stop her if she tried to mark him.
Nick nodded, and for the first time in eight years, he took off his talisman and cast it to one side.
Losing the talisman should have made him feel vulnerable, but he felt nothing but relief. He always carried the talisman and thought of what had happened to Alan without one. He carried it and bore with the endless prickling discomfort, the pain doubled whenever a demon was near or spells were performed in his presence. He was free of pain at last, and he felt wonderful.
This new freedom made him feel more confident rather than less. He didn’t need any warning. He could deal with demons on his own.
He looked at Liannan and smiled. A smile spread over her face in return, a sad, beautiful smile, with just the
