Masked (2010) (11 page)

“Well done! Bravo!” she had placed her ivory staff to jut out from a ledge on the tower, and was standing on it like a gymnast, one foot in front of the other. She was wearing her long white coat and mask, her form-fitting white costume under it, black hair tumbling down her back. Very red lipstick and nails. Her voice was upper-class, unashamed, committed.

The Guardian grasped all this in one magic glance.

And then he was standing in the air in front of her, his arms folded, aware of every car and individual on the street below, every face looking out of every hotel room window. Aware of them in a distant way. Much more aware of her.

“Bravo,” she said. “Well handled, there.”

The White Candle was a thief who stole art, mostly from gay men’s houses (probably more because of her area of operations than anything else) through magical means. She imagined herself to be doing nothing particularly wrong. The Guardian disagreed. They’d crossed paths three times before. She’d somehow avoided capture every time.

“This is daring,” he said. “Even for you.”

“I couldn’t help but applaud your part in that little confrontation,” she said. “I can tell, you see. With my magic gaydar.”

“What?”

“Whatever that rainbow costume of yours says. . . you’re one of
us
, darling.”

The Guardian raised an eyebrow and stepped forward to confront her.

Jim woke up at the sound of the curtain being pushed back, the familiar slide of the window closing in the spare room. The soft concussion of air that marked the change.

Chris went to the bathroom, then came into the bedroom. He looked thinner than ever. Jim was sure he’d dropped half a stone in the last three weeks. Ever since this nonsense had started. It was all the Mighty Sphinx’s fault. If he hadn’t come out as really being that tiny librarian, maybe nobody would have started linking Chris, a man with a runner’s physique, with the insanely muscled Guardian.

The shape of their faces was different, even, because of the muscles. But if you had the thought in your head, and you got a good look. . . and of course the Guardian would never wear a mask. . .

Chris was still wearing his suit because they’d gone for a pint after work, before that bloke with the hat had popped up again. He took off the jacket and plonked it on the hanger, tried to smooth out the creases.

“How did it go?”

“Bang, zoom, to the moon. As bloody usual. I got the hat this time.” He held it up, and put it down on the side table.

“That’s what people were saying. It sounds like you were hard on Ben.”

“Yeah. S’pose I was. Couldn’t help it.”

“I see why that place does it. I’d feel the same if a bunch of twats came in and started taking the piss.”

“Me too.” Chris had finished undressing, and now he got into bed. “I kind of agree with it, even. I was chosen to be the Guardian by the Coven because I’m all about. . . well, letting people be who they are. But the Guardian takes that right up to eleven. He’s very focused. More—”

“Straightforward.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, he doesn’t really
do
complexity.”

“Right.”

Jim let himself lie with his head on Chris’s chest, like always. But it didn’t feel good now. He wanted to get to the point. “So then what did you do? After Tall Ben? I was kind of thinking you’d be here when I got back.” Benefit of the doubt. He wasn’t going to be the jealous one. The thought crossed his mind that he was being cruel anyway, that it would have been easier on Chris to yell at him. “Did summat else happen?”

“Kind of.”

“What?”

A long silence. Oh God. Jim found himself controlling his breathing. It’s just time, just move on through time, get to the tough bit, you’re strong enough to deal, you know you are.

“White Candle—”

Jim closed his eyes. “Again.”

The Guardian had stepped onto the roof and moved carefully closer to her. He could smell her perfume. It was trying to intoxicate him, to suggest all kinds of drama and exoticism about her, to mentally
take him to the bedroom mirror where she put it on—

He stopped himself. Yes, it was indeed just perfume.

What was wrong with him? He couldn’t sense any magic making him look into her face, making him concentrate on her eyes and mouth, making him consider how soft her hair was. Making his eyes glimpse her breasts and the shape of her pelvis.

There was no such magic coming from her. There hadn’t been the last time they’d met either.

He knew what was wrong with him.

And it was very wrong.

He knew everything was simple, when you took away the evasions and lies that made life complicated.

But he was not what he was supposed to be.

He felt like punching her into the next building for making him feel like this.

But that would be wrong too.

“How about you don’t run away, for once?” he asked. “How about you really take me on?”

“I could say the same.” Her voice was brittle. He could imagine the noises she’d make. He killed the thought.

And she’d suddenly laughed and thrown herself off the building.

He sped after her.

She danced across the rooftops, throwing glamours and dazzles and feints expertly behind her, some of which he walked through, some of which he had to smash aside, some of which he had to suddenly duck because otherwise they’d have had him.

A clever pattern of harmlessness, then punch, varying always, uncertainly deadly.

He ducked ducked ducked, chose a moment when she’d stopped throwing and had to leap, was in midair—

And flashed past her.

He pulled the air carpet from under her and heard the fragments of the levitation spell fall singing into the void over Oxford
Road.

Crowds were rushing onto the pavement from the Cornerhouse bar and the BBC and the hotels—

He caught her before she hit the ground.

She lay there in the crook of his arm, curled like a pussycat, an unperturbed smile on her big mouth. “If I’ve done something wrong,” she said, “then you should punish me.”

And then she kissed him.

And he let her.

“Oh, stop, stop right there!” Jim was sitting up, the quilt pulled defensively around him. “Did she really say that?! I mean, that’s the sort of thing you like, is it?! Or are these your smutty fantasies?!”

“Not
mine
—”

“Bollocks! If it’s not
you
, how come I recognized you, three years back? That’s why we’re together, remember, because I saw through your clever disguise of a pair of glasses!”

“But—”

“You’re saying
he’s
not
you
. Even though he looks just like you in a Charles Atlas Before and After. How come you remember everything he does, then? How come you can do a little bit of detective work as you, and then change into him and—?”

“I don’t know! I’ve got different. . . opinions than him—”

“If you act different when you’re him, maybe that’s just ’cause you with muscles knows he can finally get the
girl
, while mild-mannered you has to settle for—”

“Because the gays are
so
much less about the body beautiful than girls are!”

“Well tell me then! Tell me how you in a costume and muscles is different from you now, to the extent where it’s okay if—”

“I didn’t
say
it was
okay
! Even
he
doesn’t think it’s okay!”

“You don’t normally say you and him. Up until now it was all ‘I saved him’ and ‘I fought that villain!’”

“Because I was proud of it up until now!” And that was a bellow.

Jim found himself silent in the face of that.

He didn’t want to lose himself by matching that anger. He didn’t want to lose. . . this.

That was why this was so terrible.

But damn it, he needed something. Something to balance this huge gaping harm that, in that calm, laid-back voice of his, Chris had just. . .

“Beer,” he said. “Now.”

They went into the kitchen and sat down with a beer each and didn’t say anything until they’d each thrown it back and got another.

Chris tried again. Carefully. “It’s. . . like some sort of. . . drug.”

“The power, you mean?”

“No. I mean. . . all the muscles—”

“What?! Being macho means you go straight? My own research would seem to indicate—”

“I
mean
maybe there’s summat chemical that goes with these
particular
muscles! They’re not just my arms pumped up, they. . . replace my arms. When I change.”

“Your eyes are the same. Your teeth and hair are the same. Well, maybe your teeth are straighter. And it seems that’s not the only thing.”

“They only
look
the same. The eyes can do all the magic stuff. The teeth and hair are
bulletproof.
Until now, I always thought it was the same brain in here, but—”

“Oh, what? You’re saying being gay. . . or not being gay. . . is a
brain
thing?”

“Well. . . since
everything
about a person is a ‘brain thing’—”

“I mean, not a mind thing, but something to do with the physical. . . brain! You’re saying being gay is about your glands, a pituitary condition! So, you’re the same mind, the same bloke, but when that mind is in the Guardian’s body, with a healthy pituitary gland, all thoughts of faggotry—”