Curse the Dawn

Page 51

“Sugar?” Marsden set a tiny teapot and a cup and saucer in front of me. The saucer had cookies. Lemon cream. Yum.
I looked down to find my coffee missing.
I reached for it and Pritkin shrank away from me, huddled over the mug protectively. “Fine,” I muttered, concentrating on my tea. I’d probably have to detox once we got switched back. Assuming we did. Now that I’d had a chance to think about it, I was feeling a little nervous on that point.
“You were going to explain how we ended up in the wrong bodies,” Pritkin reminded me.
“I’d rather clear up a few things first, like why we’re here. Wherever here is.”
“You’re in the country outside Stratford, my dear,” Marsden said, and then paused. “Oh, that does sound odd, addressing John that way. May I call you Cassandra?”
“Cassie. And Stratford where?”
He blinked. “Upon Avon.”
“We’re in Britain?”
“Yes, the Circle has been based here for centuries. Shakespeare’s old home has always drawn the tourists, you see. No one notices any rather odd types coming and going, as a result.” He sipped his tea. “Everyone just assumes they’re Americans.”
I scowled at him. “I thought the Circle was based in Vegas.”
“Oh, no.” He looked slightly shocked at the idea. “That wouldn’t do at all. I’d have never gotten any work out of the Corps then, now would I?”
“Our North American branch was based at MAGIC,” Pritkin clarified. “And can we return to the point?”
I decided to man up to it—since I could actually currently do that—and fished the ivory menace out of Pritkin’s pocket. “Meet Daikoku, one of the seven Japanese gods of luck.” I left off the “good,” since I hadn’t seen much sign of that, and filled them in on the rest of the legend.
Marsden was biting his lip and Pritkin was staring at me incredulously by the time I finished. “You knowingly invoked an unknown, potent magical object without placing any boundaries on its power?” He sounded like he didn’t quite believe it. “Have you gone completely mad?”
“It seemed better than the alternative.”
“It wasn’t,” he said harshly.
Pritkin could piss a person off in record speed at the best of times, which these weren’t. I felt my temper rising. “And why not?”
A muscle leapt in my cheek. I hadn’t known it could do that. “Because djinn are demons! They lure the foolish into a pact by dangling wishes in front of them, and as soon as anyone takes the bait, they have him! They can do anything to him they want, any amount of harm, as long as they fulfill the technical requirements of the wish!”
“Just ask Parsons,” Marsden agreed. “Only we can’t, of course.”
I glanced at devil dog, which had abandoned the puddle of mangled chew bone and was now lazily scratching. “The salesman promised that Daikoku isn’t a djinn.”
“And salesmen’s promises are never exaggerated!” Pritkin’s voice dripped sarcasm.
“We survived, didn’t we?”
“We would have in any case. Caleb—”
“Was going to take me in!”
“I could have talked him ’round, had you given me—”
“Oh, don’t even! We were surrounded. They’d pulled guns on us!”
“Guns no one chose to fire! They were attempting to capture you, not to kill you!”
“And you know this how?”
Pritkin slammed a hand down on the table hard enough to spill my tea. “Because you’re still alive!”
The low-grade headache I’d had for what felt like a hundred years was back with a vengeance. “Being captured by the Circle might be a death sentence for me,” I reminded him grimly.
“She might have a point, John,” Marsden spoke up. He’d been looking back and forth between us, like a fan at a tennis match. “That’s why I summoned you, actually.”
“Summoned?” The word didn’t make sense. “You summon ghosts or demons.”
“And Pythias.” He flopped a little chain out of his shirt. It had a small gold charm on it.
“Come again?”
“An old trick,” he told me, pushing the plate of cookies at Pritkin, who ignored it. “The holders of your office have a habit of being elsewhere at crucial moments—or should I say, elsewhen? In any case, the Circle had this constructed some centuries ago as a way of recalling the Pythias in times of emergency. Once activated, it will bring you to us the next time you try to shift.”
I stared at the wicked little thing in horror. “But if you could do that—why didn’t the Circle recall me ages ago to stand trial?”
“Because I’m a foolish old man who misplaced it—along with a few other things—after I was forced out of office,” he replied innocently.
“You kept me from shifting!”
“No. The charm merely brought you back when you tried it.”
“You almost got us killed!”
“Nonsense. John was with you. And I didn’t know I was going to be attacked the very moment you arrived, did I?”
I paused, having to rearrange my thoughts somewhat. I’d just assumed the mages had been after me. Everyone else was. “But they attacked us!”
“Doubtless thinking you were my allies.”
“But . . . who were they?”
“I don’t know most of them,” Marsden said. “But their leader was an ex-war mage named Jenkins. He was disavowed for financial fiddling some years ago. He became an assassin-for-hire afterward—a very successful one, by all accounts. But we could never catch him.”
“The man I pursued,” Pritkin said shortly. So Adidas had had a name.
“Why did he want to kill you?” I asked Marsden.
“Because Saunders hired him, of course. Even now, he might find it difficult to persuade anyone in the Corps to murder me!”
“You have a number of enemies, Jonas,” Pritkin protested. “Jenkins among them. We can’t merely assume—”
“Don’t be naive, John! If he could, Saunders would lock me up and throw away the key, but he’s afraid the trial would give me a public platform and he doesn’t want that. He prefers to dismiss my allegations as the ramblings of a bitter old man while he waits for his men to pick me off!”
“Saunders? Are you talking about the Lord Protector?” I asked, trying to make some sense out of this. Marsden nodded. “But why is the leader of the Circle sending assassins after you?”
“Because of you, my dear.”
“I don’t even know you!”
“But you do know Peter Tremaine. You released him from MAGIC’s cells yesterday. And he came straight to me. It seems that he discovered the truth about the honor-able lord’s activities six months ago—”
“What activities?”
“—but was locked away on a trumped-up charge to keep him quiet. Now that he’s out, he is as determined as I am to have the truth known. And he is convinced that you can help our cause.”
He beamed at me, all rosy cheeks and smiling eyes, and I felt my stomach fall. “What cause?” I asked fearfully.
He blinked, the thick glasses making his watery blue eyes look huge. “Oh, didn’t I say? We’re planning a coup!”
Chapter Twenty
I stared at the batty old man, speechless. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him; he clearly wasn’t joking. It’s just that I couldn’t imagine anyone suggesting suicide in such a bright and cheerful tone. No one sane, that is. I should have known that the Circle’s old leader would have an extra dose of crazy.
I don’t know what I would have said if Pritkin hadn’t taken that moment to face plant onto the table. After some wrestling, he ended up with his head between his knees and me crouched beside him, running a hand slowly up and down his spine. “Are you going to be sick?”
“No,” he said indignantly. And then promptly was.
“Oh, dear!” Marsden fussed as I held Pritkin’s head. “I should have thought—you’re both tired after all the excitement. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“Not if I have—” I began, and Pritkin kicked me. “I mean, yeah, tomorrow.”
After some general clean-up, Marsden led us to a large bedroom at the top of the stairs.
“There are towels in the bathroom, and I’ll fetch you something to wear.” He sized Pritkin’s current body up thoughtfully. “I picked up a few things in town today, but you’re smaller than I expected. Still, we’ll make do.”
I bit back a comment. He didn’t seem to find the idea of shopping for his intended kidnapping victim at all strange. But arguing with a crazy man was a waste of time. Not to mention that we were stuck with his hospitality until I could figure out how to get that damn charm away from him. Or get the phone working. Or get a partner with more energy than an anorexic mosquito.
“Where’s mine?” I asked after Pritkin collapsed onto the bed. He looked like he was already asleep, despite the truckload of caffeine.
“I beg your pardon?” Marsden inquired politely.
“My room,” I clarified.
He blinked at me. “Oh.” He seemed a little nonplussed. “Oh, yes, yes, of course. Well, I suppose I could put you . . . But we’ll need fresh sheets.”
He bustled off. I left him to it and went to find a bathroom. It confirmed my impression that Marsden wasn’t married. There were no curtains over the frosted windows and no rugs on the floor, but there was a washcloth that had dried into an upside-down flower shape hanging off a faucet. Thankfully, there were also towels in a pile on the edge of the tub, and a little tower of the kind of soaps people keep for guests. There was also a modern-looking shower, a radiator and a wardrobe holding even more towels.