Chapter Eleven

"I'm glad you came." Leonora spoke in Shanghainese, locking the parlour door and putting the key on a side table. She looked drawn, older, obviously lacking sleep. "That bloody worm Rackham was supposed to call and collect five hundred from me today. He hasn't turned up. I keep thinking he's gone to Eadweard. You don't think—"

"I'm sure he hasn't," Crane said. "Leo, what do you want me to do about him?"

"I don't know. Could you not—well, couldn't Merrick do something? What did he do to that horrible tax collector?"

"Broke both his arms and threw him into a high-sided hog pen." Crane had no trouble remembering that incident. "And then stood there watching. I had to help him out in the end, I swear Merrick would have let the pigs eat him. It made the point, though, and we had no more trouble."

"Are there any hog farms in London?" asked Leonora wistfully.

"There are doubtless alternatives. Is that what you want?"

"I don't want to pay blood money for the rest of my life." Leonora's jaw firmed. "I will not let him keep me in fear, either. I don't deserve that." She paused, then added self-mockingly, "I just don't know how to prevent it."

"I wouldn't worry," said Crane. "The little shit's dead."

"He's what ?" The shock on her face looked as genuine as any Crane had seen. She leapt out of her chair and took a few paces. "Oh God. Lucien, this isn't Shanghai. You have to be careful. What happened? Why?"

"I have no idea. I went round to his rooms and found him dead."

"Oh!" Leo put a hand to her mouth and let out a relieved sigh. "Oh, thank God. I thought you'd killed him."

"I realise that. Thank you for your good opinion."

"Well, really—" Leonora looked round sharply at a rustle from the walls. "My damned cousins. They do eavesdrop, the nosy bitches. Avoid names. So what happened to him? Did he overdo the opium?"

"No, he was murdered." Crane saw Leo's eyes widen. "Just not by me."

"By whom, then?"

"Presumably someone else he was blackmailing." Crane looked round in his turn at a rattling, scratching sound. "I don't know about eavesdroppers but you definitely have mice."

"How horrid," said Leonora, who had once killed a cobra with her bare hands. "Are you serious, though? He's dead? Oh God, that's…wonderful. That's marvellous! Thank heavens."

"Thank a killer. It wasn't terribly pretty, Leo."

"Oh. No, I suppose not. Well, I'm sorry— No, I'm not. I can't pretend to be. I think really we have to consider it something of a stroke of luck, don't you? Eurgh." Her noise of disgust was directed, not at Rackham's demise, but at the wall. "Listen. The damned things are scuttling up and down all along the other side of the skirting board. How filthy. And I don't even think it's mice," she added, with distaste. "It sounds more like rats."

"Rats," Crane repeated, and the hairs all over his neck and arms rose up in response to the wave of fear. He rubbed his thumb and finger together gently, as Stephen did, and felt—imagined? Felt?—a strange greasiness in the air.

"—because it really isn't. Lucien, are you listening to me?"

"We have to go." Crane turned his head, watching the walls. "Now. Out."

"What? Why?"

"Rats."

"Darling, they'll hardly come in," said Leonora with amusement, and stared at him as he grabbed her arm. "What on earth are you—" Her gaze flitted beyond him and she gave a squawk. "Oh, how disgusting."

Crane turned and saw the rats coming out of the wall.

They looked like the usual vermin, grey-brown, matted, pink-clawed, but they were fighting their way out of a crack in the skirting, not with the desperation he'd seen in rats fleeing a fire, but with a mad aggression that brought the word rabid to mind. The first tumbled through into the room with another rat's nose butting hard against its bare fleshy tail, and as it found its feet it looked up at the two horrified humans, and opened its mouth in a yellow-toothed hiss.

Crane lunged for a fire iron. "Unlock the door. Now!"

"But it's just a fucking hell !" said Leonora, as the rat grew. It swelled visibly in front of them, eyes bulging black, claws convulsing, huge incisors gnawing the air. Leonora made a high keening sound in her throat as the rat's muscles bulged and inflated under the scabious skin. She bolted to grab the key from the side table, even as Crane brought the poker down hard on the rat's deforming, bubbling skull. It hit the floor at the second the key did, slipping out of Leonora's shaking hands, but that meant nothing, because there were five more of them in the room now, each growing monstrously, terrifyingly fast.

"Open it, Leo!" Crane caught the second rat in the jaws with the poker as it sprang, and brought the iron down on the third rat's spine as it leapt past him towards Leonora, but that wasn't enough or anything like it to stem the relentless tide. There were more of the things pouring into the room, lunging towards Leo, two on her now, teeth and claws ripping and scrabbling at her dress as she struggled with the key in the lock. Crane slammed the poker down on a monster's head until he felt bone give, grabbed another rat two-handed and hauled it off the heap of squirming animals, flinging it away. It rebounded off a table, which crashed to the floor taking a bowl of flowers with it, and leapt straight back at Leonora.

Stephen, Stephen, where are you when I need you?

Leonora was screaming, blood blooming through her muslin dress, as she wrenched the door open. A rat landed on her back. She shrieked with agony, fighting her way forward, and Crane waded into the stinking furry mass and pushed at the door, almost closing it on her as she crawled out. He pinned another of the monstrous creatures against the doorframe with his foot to stop it following Leo and, as she disappeared through the gap, slammed the door on it repeatedly till the foul thing went limp.

His back to the door, he was confronted with fifteen or so dog-sized rats. They looked at him with bulging, mad eyes, unmoving, and Crane stared at them with a strange fatalistic calm, which turned to absolute astonishment as they all simultaneously turned and rushed back to their tiny hole of entry in the skirting board, shrinking as fast as they had grown.

It took him half a second to register that he wasn't going to be torn to pieces, and then he realised there was a terrible noise on the other side of the door.

Crane jerked it open to reveal Leonora's two cousins, her aunt and three servants, all shrieking with useless fear. Leonora was on the floor, desperately struggling with the rat on top of her, trying to force its yellow incisors back as it lunged at her neck. He grabbed the thing by tail and haunches, pulled it off her bodily and, for want of a weapon, swung it brutally down against the floor with his full strength, again and again, till something inside it broke.

He dropped the carcass. His ears were ringing. Or no: everyone was screaming.

Leonora was bleeding freely from neck, shoulders and arms, her dress and flesh torn, making a dreadful sucking noise in her throat. Crane knelt by her. "Leo? Leo, talk to me!"

Her eyes were wide and blind with panic, and she grabbed for him with bloody hands, her grip tightening convulsively as a terrible shudder ran through her body.

"Someone should send for Dr. Grace," quavered Leonora's aunt inadequately, as the stunned group of onlookers clutched each other and made horrified noises.

"I'll take her to a doctor." Crane scooped her up. "Get everyone out of the house. Now." He didn't hear footsteps as he ran down the hall, so he yelled over his shoulder, "There may be more rats!" and heard the panicked cries as he wrenched the front door open and tumbled out into the street.

There was a hansom just a few yards away. He shouted at the jarvey. The man looked round, his eyes widened at the sight of the torn and bleeding woman, and he raised his whip to urge the horse on, but a flurry of magpies rose from the railings and took off past him, chattering wildly, their wings skimming his face as they swooped by. The jarvey recoiled in alarm, and by the time the six birds had disappeared, Crane had the carriage door open and was hauling Leo in.

It still cost him valuable seconds of argument and a ludicrous ten pounds to make the jarvey take them to Devonshire Street. The man at least whipped on his horse with alacrity, but even so the ten-minute journey seemed longer than the nights Crane had once spent in a condemned cell waiting for execution. Leonora lay still at first, but as the cab passed up through Piccadilly she began to twitch violently, and she was thrashing around so hard he could barely hold her when the cab jolted to a halt.

"Dr. Gold's surgery," said the cabman, yanking open the door. "And—oh my Gawd."

Crane looked down at Leo in the daylight and swore with spectacular foulness. Her face was, unmistakeably, hideously, swelling, like a bladder inflating under her skin. Her lips were drawn back over teeth that looked very large and very yellow.

Crane dragged her out of the cab, the jarvey's obscenities ringing in his ears, and stumbled up the steps to the door, where, for want of a free hand, he kicked the door violently until an affronted-looking nurse opened it.

"Dr. Gold," he gasped, but she was already calling urgently, " Doctor! "

A dark, curly-haired man stuck his head out into the hall. "What's the pr— Great Scott! Bring her in here. Quick, man, on the couch."

Crane put his bloody, convulsing burden on the consulting room couch. Dr. Gold told the nurse, "Hot water, now," grabbing for cloths to stanch the bleeding. "What happened to her?"

"Rats. Giant rats. The ones your wife—"

"Hold her." Dr. Gold stepped away from Leonora, took two steps to the door and bellowed, "Esther? Esther! " He hurried back to the couch as the nurse brought hot water in, and shooed her away. "Right, you know about my wife's job? Fine, makes life easier." He spread his hands over Leonora, and Crane saw his eyes darken as his pupils expanded. "What's your name? Hers?"

"Crane. She's Leonora Hart."

"How long ago did this happen?"

"Fifteen minutes— Oh, thank Christ," Crane said, almost folding at the knees, as Esther sprinted in, followed by Stephen. Esther went straight to her husband's side, but Stephen stopped short, eyes widening with horror. "It's Leonora," Crane told him. "The rats. The bloody rats got her."

"Hell's teeth," said Esther. "What happened?"

"Are you all right?" Stephen demanded hoarsely.

"Fine." Crane couldn't understand why he was asking, until he glanced down at himself and realised that his shirt and trousers were dark with blood. "I'm fine. They didn't touch me. Not even a scratch. They were trying to kill Leo."

"Still—trying," said Dr. Gold through his teeth.

Stephen and Crane both turned. Dr. Gold stood by Leonora's head, gripping her skull, pupils hugely distended, knuckles white. Esther held his shoulder tightly. He was perspiring. "Can't do this—"

Stephen turned and reached out a hand towards him, and Dr. Gold took a deep shuddering breath. Crane could feel the suction in the air as the three practitioners dragged power towards themselves. Dr. Gold's jaw was set and grim. Leonora jerked violently on the couch, and one clenching, crooked hand flew up in a clawing gesture.

"What's happening?" Esther snapped.

"Can't…stop it. Poison. Bloodstream. Everywhere. Too much. Hold her down ," said the doctor as Leonora's arms suddenly flailed. Stephen leapt to one side of the couch, Crane to the other, and they each grabbed one of her wrists. Crane gritted his teeth as he struggled to keep her still, unable to believe he wasn't hurting her.

Leonora's cheeks and neck were swelling and shrinking, and her nose and top lip were horribly mobile, sniffing, questing.

" Anitu ," said Stephen. "Migratory possessive spirit. Is there someone in there, Dan?"

"Don't know. Poison. She's too weak for this. I can't stop it."

Crane stared up at him. He had heard so much from Stephen about Dan Gold's skills as a healer. He had not allowed himself to think he could fail.

"Keep trying," he snarled.

"I am. Steph, more ."

Stephen's hands tightened on Leonora's arm. That was all Crane allowed himself to see, then he concentrated his gaze on his own hands.

If he looked at Stephen now, he knew what the man would read in his face. He wanted to beg, to plead, to command Stephen to use the Magpie Lord's power, right now, and save Leonora.

But he couldn't do that. Couldn't ask. He had no right. Stephen's life and future depended on the secrets he had to keep. Crane couldn't make that decision for him.

If Stephen kept his secrets, Leonora would die.

Paralysed, Stephen's life and Leonora's death on either side of the scale, throat thick with inexpressible rage and pain, Crane didn't look up when Stephen said his name quietly, or when he repeated it louder. He did look up when Stephen said, "For God's sake!" but it was too late, because Stephen had already reached over, and the scalpel he held seared across the back of Crane's hand, opening a long cut. As Crane's eyes flew to his face, Stephen sliced open the heel of his own hand, reached over Leo's thrashing body again and slapped his bloody wound onto Crane's.

"Steph!" shrieked Esther, with absolute horror.

"Hold on tight, Dan," said Stephen calmly. His eyes met Crane's for just a second, wide and strained with something that didn't show in his voice, and then he drew on the power, the tingling in his hands turning to needles of hot ice that stabbed through Crane's skin, and suddenly Stephen's eyes were full of magpies.

Crane felt it like a wave, cresting through his body, a rush of goose pimples through muscle and organs and bone. The hair prickled on his head, and stood up visibly on Stephen's, as his eyes flashed black, white and blue. Stephen pulled harder, lifting Crane higher, an almost orgasmic feeling of exquisite tension running through him. Esther was shouting and Leonora was wailing and Dr. Gold was grunting with agony or pleasure as Stephen lit the power in Crane's blood into spectacular, glorious life—

—and they reached the top.

Crane blinked. He felt a strange, calm, slightly dizzy sensation, not unlike a mild opium buzz, a sense of dissociation, as though he would have to move carefully to be sure his mind didn't leave his body behind.

Stephen's eyes were blazing gold around huge pupils, black and white shadows fluttering and flickering. His face was very still.

Dr. Gold, by contrast, was wearing an incredulous grin.

"Oh, yes." He swept his hands over Leonora, and the horrible thrashing stopped. " Oh , yes. Oh, this is beautiful. Let's get you out, shall we?"

"What the devil do you think you're doing?" His wife's voice was shrill.

"My job, my love." Dr. Gold smiled beatifically.

Esther turned and stalked away, arms folded, face red.

"Out you come now. Oh, this is easy, so very easy." Dr. Gold moved a hand like a conductor and a thick brownish smoke erupted from Leonora's wounds, eyes and mouth, pouring into the air and evaporating on the instant. "Out, out, out, gone . There. Dear me, what was all the fuss about? And now, let's fix this lady up." He looked down at Leonora's face and put both hands over it. One deep breath, then his head snapped back, mouth open ecstatically. The air around his hands was thick and viscous.

Crane glanced at Stephen, who was looking down at Leonora, face unreadable. His hand lay on Crane's, over her body. He was wearing the Magpie Lord's ring on his finger. Usually he kept it on a chain round his neck, to avoid the ancient carved gold attracting attention. It was too late for that now.

"Keep your hands clear, Mr. Crane," Dr. Gold said. "Here it comes."

It was, simply, healing. Down from her shoulder, the flesh knitted and mended as Crane watched with numb acceptance, the tears and bites repairing themselves. Leo's sick pallor changed to a healthier pink, her breathing became steady and gentle, and finally Dr. Gold lifted his hands from her head and looked down at unmarked skin, with only the slightest fading lines to show where the horrible tears had been.

" Tsaena ," Crane whispered. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Don't thank him," Esther said. "It's not his power."

The doctor looked up, eyes very bright. "But I can use it. Oh, I can use it. Mrs. Henville's cancer. Lucy Gillett's consumption—"

"No, no, no, no ." Esther's voice was harsh. "Stop this."

"But look at what I can do. Think who I can heal. So many people." His face was alight with wild wonder and greed.

"Stop this, Danny. Stop it now."

"Don't. I don't want it to stop."

" Stop it! "

Stephen jerked his hand violently away from Crane's, and the world snapped back to normality with a disorienting jolt, like the sensation of falling in a dream. Dr. Gold gave a cry of pain and rage, and reached a hand towards Crane, but Esther was right in his face now, talking urgently. Stephen span away and stood, facing the wall. Crane looked down at Leonora, unmarked and peaceful, at his own hand that showed no trace of a wound, at his lover's tense, hunched shoulders, then over at the Golds. Dr. Gold was sitting on a stool at the head of the couch now, face in his hands, Esther holding him with angry care.

As the power drained out of the room, the silence grew.

"So," Esther said finally. "Blood magic."

"It wasn't—" began Stephen, without looking round.

"You used his blood. You've been using his blood for months."

"Twice. I've done it twice. And it wasn't —"

"Don't lie to me." Esther's voice cut like a whip. "I've seen you riding this. What are you doing, cutting him? Drinking it?" Her tone was thick with anger and contempt.

"I haven't done anything like that." Stephen spoke flatly. His voice sounded hopeless. "That was the second time. If you don't believe me—"

"No, I don't believe you!" Esther screamed. "I saw you. That's the power you've been drawing on for months and I stood up for you in front of the Council and told them, no, Stephen Day is not turning warlock, and now this —blood magic right in front of me, and you don't even have the spine to look me in the face and admit it, you cowardly little—"

" Mrs. Gold! " roared Crane, in a voice trained by ten years on a trading floor. It rang off the walls, jolted Dr. Gold into looking up, and momentarily silenced Esther.

"Mrs. Gold," Crane repeated, with slightly less volume. "Mr. Day told you the absolute truth. That was the second time he's used my blood in that way, and the first time was to save my life. This business is none of his choosing or his seeking, it's my fault if it's anyone's, and if you need to shout at someone, Mrs. Gold, then you can shout at me and we'll see who shouts loudest."

"I don't want to shout," Esther said through her teeth, addressing the words to Stephen. "I want an explanation. You're telling me it's not blood magic. Very well, let's say that's true. Then how the devil have you been riding that power for months? If you've not been using blood magic, what's the source ?"

Stephen turned then. He was chalk white. "It's, um—it is a transference, but the blood is purely catalytic. You can see that. If I'd stripped that power out of him, he'd be a heap of dust."

"That's true, Esther," said Dr. Gold wearily. "I'd have noticed."

"A catalyst. And his blood has been a catalyst for the last few months because—?"

"It hasn't. Well, not, not precisely. It, um, I—"

Esther folded her arms. Her face was disbelieving, and disgusted.

"Look." Stephen shut his eyes. "It's, um…well, it is physical, only not blood, but it happens when, when we—" His voice dried up, and he flung a desperate look at Crane, who took two strides forward at that mute appeal, unclenching his fists from the white-knuckled nail-in-palm position that he had used to make himself keep silent, and put both hands possessively on Stephen's slender, shaking shoulders.

" Oh ," said Dr. Gold.

"Stephen and I are lovers." Crane held Esther's eyes as they widened. He didn't want her to look at Stephen. "Have been for some four months. That is what causes the transfer of power, as I understand it. No blood magic, no warlockry. It happens when we go to bed, it's something to do with my family line, it's not within my control or his. That's the long and short of it, and if you have any opinions to offer on the matter, you can address them to me." More aggression than he'd intended rang in the last words, but he was damned if Stephen would stand here and take abuse.

Esther stared back at him, face tight with emotion. Crane saw Dr. Gold's intent form in his peripheral vision. Under his hands, Stephen was rigid with tension, head bowed.

"Is this true?" Esther said at last.

"Yes. He—we— Yes."

"You and he. And he's a source."

"Blood, bone and birdspit." Stephen's voice was thin. "You can't tell anyone, either of you, not about him being a source. Please. Say what you need to the Council, Esther, tell them anything, I'll resign whenever you want, but we can't let people know about this. They'll tear him apart."

"You are not resigning on my account," Crane said harshly. "He has not put a foot out of line, Mrs. Gold. He has not done a damned thing wrong."

Stephen gave an almost-laugh. "Lucien, we're breaking the law ."

Esther was looking at Stephen. "And this is why you've been letting us think you've gone bad. To hide this. For pity's sake!" She turned abruptly away. Stephen twitched violently, and Crane gripped him tighter.

Dr. Gold let out a long sigh. "Oh, Steph. You might have said something."

Stephen made a strangled noise. Crane drawled, "Might he?"

"Yes, actually, he might. We're not imbeciles. Great Scott, man, did it not occur to you we'd understand?"

"I don't understand," said Esther, swinging back round. Her face was red. "You swine, Stephen Day. You pig . You horrible, vile—I thought—God damn you, I was so frightened!"

Her voice broke. Crane felt Stephen's body stiffen under his hands. He instinctively clenched his fingers on his lover's shoulders, but Stephen twisted free with a hoarse, "Es!", and bolted towards his partner.

Esther flung herself into his arms and wept, choking with angry sobs. Stephen muttered something incoherent, face pressed into her shoulder, and Esther thumped him on the back with a hard fist. "Why didn't you say?" she managed through her tears. "Why didn't you just say ?"

Crane took a step back from the pair, almost light-headed with relief, and heard a low whistle from the couch. He turned to see Dr. Gold jerking his head in summons, and moved over to him. "Doctor?"

"Nothing, really," said Dr. Gold quietly. "It's just that if Esther realises you've seen her cry, she'll never forgive you."

"Ah. Thank you." Crane turned from Stephen and Esther, who were now talking tearfully, urgently and simultaneously. He could hear Stephen repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and Esther's furious, "I don't care about that!"

He concentrated on Dr. Gold instead. "Are you all right, Doctor?"

Dr. Gold made a face. He looked rather worn. "I've had worse. So. You and Stephen."

"Yes. You don't seem surprised."

"Well, he's been my best friend for ten years and my wife's partner for five. We have had occasion to observe him. It's the total lack of interest in the fair sex that gives it away, over the long run," Dr. Gold added helpfully.

"I'll make a note."

"This business with the power started when he came back from that rather dramatic trip to the country in spring," Dr. Gold said. "Which I seem to recall he said was a blood, bone and birdspit job. Now, does that make you the chap whose ancestor was the Magpie Lord?"

"It does, yes. Lord Crane." He held his hand out.

Dr. Gold shook it. "Daniel Gold. Well, I can see why Steph's been keeping you quiet, quite apart from the other. I am right in thinking it was your father who hounded Steph's father to death?"

That was blunt, not to say brutal. Crane kept his voice level. "It was, yes."

"Mmm. Hardly an auspicious start, I'd have thought."

It hadn't been remotely auspicious. Crane's hated family had cast a very dark shadow over his first encounters with Stephen. He didn't intend to discuss that, so he simply shrugged.

Dr. Gold cocked an eyebrow. "One might wonder why Steph would enter into a, er, liaison under such unpromising circumstances."

"You'd need to speak to him about it."

"I'll do that, the next time I want to hear a pack of bare-faced lies. Lord Crane, I know Steph extremely well. And this is the first time I've known him risk arrest, disaster and the destruction of his professional reputation. Consider me fascinated that he's doing so on your account. Fascinated, and just a little concerned."

"I don't intend to let him suffer any consequences."

"I very much doubt you can avert them, in the long run," Dr. Gold said. "This strikes me as something of a dangerous game."

Crane checked quickly over his shoulder to be sure the two justiciars were still intent on one another. "I understand your concern, Doctor. Notwithstanding which, and with the greatest respect, it's none of your business."

Dr. Gold opened his hands, apparently unoffended. "Perhaps not. Although he's weeping over my wife in my surgery. That surely gives me some say in the matter, if only to ask him to take it somewhere else."

Crane wasn't sure how to answer that, so he didn't. The doctor continued, "We're fond of Steph, you know. Despite appearances. I don't wish to see him hurt."

"I trust Mrs. Gold feels the same."

Dr. Gold made a face. "Esther's bark is worse than her bite. Well, actually, it isn't, but she's entitled to do some barking anyway. Steph's put her through a miserable few months with all this."

"It hasn't been very entertaining for him either," Crane returned swiftly, and saw a glint of something like approval in Dr. Gold's expression.

"Well, as you say, it's his business. But watch your step, Lord Crane. And perhaps bear in mind that you may consult me in confidence, professionally speaking." Crane had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but Dr. Gold looked past him before he could ask. "Ah, the march of justice. Have you two finished?"

Crane turned to see that Esther and Stephen had come up behind him, both somewhat red of cheek and eye, but under more control. He flicked an eyebrow at Stephen and received a quick, watery smile.

"Er. Dan…" Stephen began awkwardly.

Dr. Gold gripped Stephen's shoulder and gave it a slight shake. "Stephen Day, you're a blithering idiot."

"I know."

"Good," Esther said. "And now that's all sorted out, we have work to do."