The Demon's Covenant (47 page)

“I don't know,” she said quietly, and shut her eyes. “I guess we'll have to see.”

Sin was silent for a moment. Then she abruptly switched topics. “The demon's agreed to the plan?”

“Yes,” Mae said automatically, because if she even hesitated, Sin would know something was wrong and call the whole thing off.

Then she actually had to think about it. Nick had definitely not agreed, but she had told him and he hadn't said no, he'd just had the Nick equivalent of a nervous breakdown with the weather. He'd seemed amenable after that, but that might have just been because Nick was generally agreeable with people trying to pull all his clothes off.

He'd told Alan to betray him, but he didn't want Alan to do it. Mae thought of the way Alan had looked at Nick after Nick told him. She thought the odds were pretty good that Alan didn't want to do it either.

There was a very good possibility that Nick had told Alan about her plan, and they were both on her side now.

She might want to check before she bet people's lives on it, though.

“So there's a fence on one side of this marketplace?” Sin asked. “Do you think it'll be a good size to put my archers behind?”

“Uh, archers?” Mae said. She wondered if this was a secret second stage to their plan. Step one: Defeat evil. Step two: Enact Robin Hood play.

“Guns don't always work,” Sin reminded her patiently.
“Bow and arrow's better than any throwing dagger. You can pick off magicians at your leisure.”

“Can you shoot a bow?” Mae inquired, curious and a little thrilled at the notion.

“Yeah,” said Sin. “But I like my knives better. I'm not much for leisure.”

“I'd like a lesson someday.”

“If we win this one,” Sin said, “you can have anything you want. You'll be down here by seven, right?”

“At the latest. See you then.”

Cambridgeshire was four hours away, and it was after eleven now. She had to call Nick. Mae hung up on Sin and keyed in the N to get Nick's number from her contacts list right away.

Nick had his phone turned off.

Alan had his turned off as well.

Mae scrambled out of bed and ran to her wardrobe so she could get dressed and get to Nick's house. The mirrored door covered in her stickers presented her with a wild-eyed girl whose pink hair looked like a rosebush gone rogue.

Well, she could brush her hair after the battle. She found jeans and a Dorothy Parker T-shirt that said
MIGHT AS WELL LIVE
and went down the stairs, hopping on first one foot and then the other as she tied her laces.

She stopped mid-hop when she heard her mother's voice coming from the parlor.

“James, I don't have all day,” Annabel said irritably. “In fact, I didn't even have this lunch hour. I had to put off a round of golf with Elizabeth, and who knows when she'll be able to fit me into her schedule next?”

“Okay, Mum,” Jamie said. “But—but I had to tell you this now. I have a schedule too.”

“Elizabeth is a judge. They tend to have less time on their hands than the average teenage boy. You aren't even in summer school, despite the fact that I left several excellent brochures in your room. And on the hall table. And beside the fridge.”

“Maybe I'm not the average teenage boy,” said Jamie, very quiet, and Mae turned and ran back up the stairs into the parlor.

Annabel looked up from her seat. She was sitting with a glass of ice water in her hand, and she gave Mae a glance that took in her hair, her T-shirt, and the obvious fact that she'd just rolled out of bed, and then gave her a small smile that was probably against her better judgment.

“Good morning, Mavis.”

“Jamie, don't do it,” said Mae.

“Did anything weird ever happen around me when I was a baby?” Jamie asked. “Stuff breaking. Things flying through the air.”

“There was that one nanny who had episodes,” Annabel admitted. “But after two months we let her go, James, and you were only three. I doubt you were traumatized by the experience.”

Jamie took a deep breath and said, “I wasn't traumatized. I was responsible.”

“Jamie, don't
do this
,” Mae begged him. “Not today.”

“Mae, you don't get to choose,” said Jamie, not even looking at her. “I need to know that Gerald's wrong. I need to know that she—that she won't—”

He was standing against the mantelpiece, back straight and thin against it, like a soldier who expected to be shot. Mae couldn't argue with him anymore. She could only go to the
mantelpiece so she was standing with him, because somebody had to be standing with him. He had to know she was with him, always.

“I love you,” Jamie told Annabel. “I'll always love you. No matter what.”

Annabel went suddenly vivid red in both cheeks, as if she had been slapped, but she said nothing.

“Didn't you ever wonder if—if there was something different about me?”

“Didn't we already have this talk when you were thirteen?” Annabel asked, sounding a little helpless. “I told you not to worry about it. Sometimes I do wish you would use less hair product.”

“Mum, please,” Jamie said desperately.

“James, I do not know what you want!”

Jamie looked across the room at his mother, his face white and strained. He looked like a gambler betting money he did not have.

“I want you not to hate me because I can do this,” he said, and lifted a hand.

Annabel's water glass went flying out of her hand. The sunlight streaming through their gauze-curtained windows hit the glass and made the ice sparkle. Jamie gestured and the glass spun around in midair, glinting and lovely for a moment, such a simple thing, and Mae saw Jamie's face lighten, saw him glow with the belief that magic could be beautiful.

“Is this some kind of trick?” Annabel asked, her voice very cold, each word distinct, as if she was cutting her sentences apart with ruthlessly wielded silverware.

“No,” Jamie said. “It's magic. I can do magic.”

“James, is this a joke? I find it tasteless in the extreme.”

Annabel's voice wavered as she looked at the glass and registered the extremely obvious lack of wires or pulleys. The hand she had been using to hold the glass finally seemed to accept that it was gone, and tightened into a fist.

“What else do you want me to do?” Jamie asked, and the glass fell to the carpet, not breaking but spilling ice. He raised a hand to the mirror over the mantel and it broke in half, a fault line fracturing the reflected room and putting Jamie and his mother on two different sides.

That was what made Annabel jump to her feet. She was unsteady for a moment, as if the heels she was always comfortable in had suddenly failed her.

“Stop it!”

“Tell me, Mum,” Jamie demanded, his voice going uneven. “How do you feel about me now?”

The curtains were moving, twitching back and forth on the curtain rod like live snakes. The mirror was fracturing into glittering crazy-paving, about to fall to pieces.

“I said stop it!” Annabel ordered. “Stop behaving like a circus freak!”

Everything went still.

“Well,” said Jamie, cool as his mother had ever been. “I guess you answered that question.”

Annabel walked briskly back to her chair and picked up her briefcase, her hands fumbling a little to close the catch.

“I have had enough of this nonsense, James,” she said, straightening up. She still looked shaky on her heels, but her face was pale and resolved. She and Jamie suddenly looked very alike. “I won't—we can discuss your punishment later. I don't know—I need to get back to work. I never want to see you do anything like that again!”

“Like what, Mother?”

Annabel's mouth quivered for a moment and then set. “I wonder if Elizabeth might still be up for golf,” she said. “I am sick of wasting my time here.”

“Annabel,” Mae said. “Please, Annabel—”

Annabel looked scared, as if she thought Mae might start breaking things with her mind as well. She ran out the door and across the landing, heading down the stairs and back to her uncomplicated life, where things like this did not happen.

Mae felt frozen until the sound of Annabel's car engine broke her trance and made her run again, down the stairs, to make her go back to Jamie, to make her take it back.

The car was already going down the driveway, so Mae ran after it and thumped it. Annabel did not look behind her. As far as Mae could see, her mother did not even check the side mirror. The car just
accelerated
, Annabel was that desperate to escape her kids and all their weirdness. Mae lost her head and tried to run after it, to chase her and catch her and keep her.

She stopped running when the car hit the main road toward the city, and sat in the grass of the crescent with her head on her knees. Annabel had never gone before, not really, not like Roger. She had always kept her distance but never left.

Mae got to her feet and walked back up the hill to her house as soon as she realized that they had both left Jamie alone.

When she pushed open the front door, she heard Gerald's voice coming from the direction of the kitchen.

She hesitated, then kept pushing the door open, but much more gently, and slipped inside.

Gerald wasn't looking in the direction of the door. He was sitting on one of the stools at the counter, sandy head tilted
toward Jamie. Jamie was leaning against the kitchen surfaces with his arms wrapped around himself.

“I know it hurts, Jamie,” Gerald said. “I'm sorry it hurts. But it won't keep hurting. The pain goes away. I promise.”

Jamie gave a jagged little laugh.

“Jamie, look at me,” Gerald commanded softly, and Jamie pulled his fixed gaze from the floor and looked. “I promise you,” Gerald told him, serious.

Jamie's face softened, still sad but a little comforted and more than a little adoring.

Mae moved, barely letting her feet touch the floor as she did so, gentle and quiet as a shadow. She slipped up the stairs and into her room, inching her bedroom door open lest even a creak let Gerald know he and Jamie were not alone.

Nothing seemed to teach Jamie not to leave the door of his heart always open, not to believe people when they acted as if they liked him. Mae went to her chest of drawers and pulled open the second drawer.

She drew out the knife she had killed one magician with from underneath a folded shirt.

She'd dreamed about this knife, hated the thought of it, never wanted to use it again. Now the hilt fit against her palm and everything was simple. She still hated the knife.

But she was perfectly prepared to use it.

Mae slipped the knife into her pocket and went to make her way down the stairs again, but she was stopped short by the sight of Gerald and Jamie, who had relocated to the hall. She hit the floor so she was hidden by the stair rail and watched, one hand in her pocket gripping the knife.

She could run down and help Jamie in time. Gerald wouldn't be expecting her to have a weapon.

Jamie did not seem in need of defense at the moment, though. Gerald's hand was cupped under his elbow, guiding but not forcing, and when Jamie stepped away, Gerald let him do it.

“I don't want to go back to the house.”

“I think some of the other magicians could really help you,” said Gerald. “Ben's brother and he tried to keep in touch for a while. I want to be able to help, Jamie, but I don't have the experience.”

“You never wanted to see them again?”

“The magicians came and got me when I was eleven years old,” Gerald said. “And God, Jamie, I was so glad to go.”

Jamie looked up at him, eyes luminous with sympathy, and Gerald gave him a little pained smile.

“But a lot of the other magicians were like you. They had families who were well-meaning, or started out well-meaning, who tried not to be afraid, or pretended everything was all right. It didn't last. They'll always be scared of you. They'll always end up hating you, because you have more power than they do. Everything's about power in the end.”

“I don't think so,” Jamie said, but not angrily. He was looking up at Gerald as if he wanted to help him, to convince him, and of course Gerald would be able to see that and use it.

“No?” Gerald asked. “Then why does she hate you? Just because you're a circus freak?”

Jamie flinched as if he'd been hit.

“She had no right to say that to you,” Gerald continued. “She has no rights left over you at all. She's not your mother anymore. We're your family now. I'm your family now. I won't let anything hurt you ever again.”

Why couldn't Annabel have said something like this?
Mae thought, and was deeply and terribly angry with her, with
Gerald, even with Jamie for looking at Gerald with his heart in his eyes and on his sleeve, out in the open where Gerald could see it and play with it to win.

“We're going away, after we neutralize the demon.”

Jamie frowned. “Nick.”

“Sure,” said Gerald. “This place where Arthur hatched his plot and where the child that wasn't a child was born, where it all went wrong, it's the place to end things, but I want my Circle to have a fresh start. We're going to go to Wales. I want you to come with me.”

“What?” Jamie said, and almost smiled, an expression born more of nervousness than pleasure. “I can't—”

“Can you stay here?” Gerald asked him softly. “Will she want you here?”

“She's my mother!”

“And obviously, she loves you very much.”

The light above them, shaped to look like a candelabra, rang out like a dream catcher in the wind, bulbs chiming in their metal cases. Gerald looked up as the sounds went faint as the far-off peals of a bell, and then looked back at Jamie.

“Don't you see?” he asked, his voice tender. “You don't belong here. You belong with me.”