The Warlock's Curse (16 page)

Jenny gazed around herself with wonder as they entered. Looking down at her, Will felt a sudden thrill of pride. He’d never come here with a pretty girl on his arm. All in all, it was a much nicer feeling than he’d expected. He could get used to this.

“You’ve never been here before?” he asked her, before immediately realizing what a dumb question it was. Jenny said she’d been to Stockton with her dad, and he certainly wouldn’t have taken her out dancing.

“I’ve never been to a place like this at
all
,” Jenny breathed, wide-eyed. “The girls at my school all try to keep up with the newest steps ... but none of us have ever actually gone to a dance hall!” She watched the dancers swirling across the polished wood floor, the girls in frothy white gowns of embroidered linen and lace. She looked down at herself ruefully. “Gosh, I’m not even dressed right.”

“It won’t matter once we’re moving.” Will pulled her toward the floor. “Come on.”

They had to push their way through to get a good place, but they were soon moving together smoothly, her hand on his shoulder, his hand on her waist. Will had an extensive experience of female waists—in the context of the dance floor, anyway—and he discovered that Jenny’s was comparatively very fine; firm, smooth, and warm.

“You must come here a lot,” she said. “The coat-check girls all know you. I heard them giggling.”

Will grinned ruefully. “Pask and I have given them plenty to giggle about.” When Jenny blushed at the implication, he added quickly, “Not like that! I mean, we just tease them, that’s all. Give them a hard time.” Damn it, that was the wrong choice of words. He felt his face getting red too.

“I have simply got to get some new clothes.” Jenny quickly changed the subject, looking not at Will’s face but instead at a particularly lovely gown spinning past them. “I haven’t a stitch beside what I’m wearing.”

Will’s face remained red, and he said nothing. Jenny looked at her hand, resting on the breast of his suit jacket. “You’ll need new things, too,” she mused.

Will shrugged. “I don’t need much. Besides, I think I’ll be getting a stipend from Tesla Industries eventually. Maybe I can hold out until then.” He struggled to recall his diligent skimming of the apprenticeship contract—hadn’t there been something in there about money?

“We’ll figure it out,” she said, giving his chest a confident pat. “Meanwhile, I’ll just keep track of how much I spend on you. We’ll settle it all up when we get divorced. Don’t worry, I’ll give you easy terms.”

“Oh, really?” Will smiled down at her. “I hope you’ll keep in mind that I’m providing
you
a service as well. Keeping you safe from mashers, showing you the sights of Stockton, driving the car. There’s got to be some value in that.”

“With a car like Pask’s, you’re virtually ensuring you never get put out of a job, William,” Jenny smirked.

“Why do you always call me William?”

“It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but everyone else always calls me Will. Or sometimes Bill.”

Jenny made a face. “I don’t like ‘Will’,” she said. “It makes you sound stubborn and perverse. Or like a legal document associated with death. And Bill is even worse. It makes you sound unpaid and unwelcome, something to be dodged. I like William. It’s a beautiful name. Though you’ll notice I don’t include Wordsworth in that estimation.”

“And what about ‘Edwards’?” he said, softly. It seemed a more serious question than the ones that had gone before.

Her face was impassive. “I’ll be ‘Hansen’ again, eventually.”

“But you’ll never be ‘Miss’ again. You’ll be a
divorcee
. Doesn’t that bother you? You act like you don’t care.”

Jenny shook her head sharply, forestalling further conversation. And Will realized that it
did
bother her, and she
did
care, but while she’d planned out the tactical logistics to a nicety, the emotional logistics had yet to be worked out. And until such time as they could be, she was determined not to think about them at all.

They slowly made their way off the floor after the song ended. It was hot, and the band was launching straight into an up-tempo castle walk—a popular favorite—and a stampede of couples rushing onto the floor made it hard to pass. As they were moving toward the refreshment counter, they passed a cluster of very distinctive young people. Each one wore clothing of unbroken black—the boys even wore black shirtfronts and black collars and black ties. But it wasn’t their bizarre outfits that distinguished them; it was their sickly, sallow complexions, seemingly smudged with purple bruises. The girls emphasized this ugly contrast by heavily ringing their eyes with black kohl. They smoked black cigarettes in ebony holders, blowing the smoke upwards in elegant arcs. Jenny stared back at them as she and Will stood in line for drinks.

“Dorians,” she whispered to him.

Will nodded, sparing the group an amused look. The black-clad youths were devotees of the British writer Oscar Wilde, specifically his famous Lippincott’s serial, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” They fancied themselves living the American version of
La Vie Boheme
. To achieve the dark, wan, sickly look that they seemed to associate with that Bohemian life, they used—or rather misused—magic. The special cigarettes they smoked—”Golden Bat” brand, which came in an exquisite green and gold package—had been specially charmed to have a variety of effects on the smoker. They were as stimulating as the cocaine that came in medicine bottles, and they bestowed a distinctive glamour on the hair and eyes, lending both a dramatic, fascinating gleam. The final effect derived from the first two; the charm placed upon the tobacco was sufficient to induce the mildest form of magical allergy—too little to cause any real harm, but poisonous enough to give the users an “interesting” pallor.

“They’re all over the place in San Francisco.” Jenny’s tone was intensely disapproving. “They’re like a plague.”

“And now they’ve spread to Stockton,” smirked Will. “Can Fresno be far behind?”

But Jenny clearly didn’t think they were funny. She stood glaring at the Dorians so hard that eventually one of them—a girl—noticed and raised a plucked eyebrow, and blew a thin plume of glowing smoke in her direction. The purplish smoke curled in the shape of a bat—a hallmark of the expensive cigarettes.

“People shouldn’t use magic that way,” said Jenny, and this time instead of whispering she said it loudly, so her voice would carry. “It’s not healthy, and it’s an insult to everyone who’s really suffered and—oh, it just makes me mad!” Will might have had to break up some kind of fight had Jenny not turned and started shoving her way toward the door. Will didn’t catch up with her until she was already retrieving her canvas duster from one of the giggling coat-check girls.

“Come on, Scuff. They’re just a bunch of
poseurs
. What’s got you so upset?”

“I’m tired,” she said flatly. “I want to go back to the hotel.”

When they got back to the hotel, however, Jenny’s mood had not improved. She tore the hairpins out of her hair and slammed them down on the side table.

“As if the Black Flu epidemics were just some kind of ... joke!” she muttered, as she went to her grip for a boar’s-hair brush. She sat on the edge of an ottoman and began to brush her hair; the action seemed to calm her. “Some kind of fashion statement! Almost a million people, all over the world—dead! And that doesn’t even take into account all the millions more who have suffered. Mothers, and fathers, and—” She closed her mouth and brushed with a vengeance. Will sat on a chair watching her. Her hair gleamed in the electric lamplight.

“And your family isn’t helping matters any!” she said, out of the blue.

Will raised his hands, startled. “What has
my
family got to do with the Black Flu? I lost a sister to it myself, you know!”

“Your brother Argus,” she hissed. “California’s Man of the People—he based his whole campaign on an anti-immunization platform!”

Will groaned. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to discuss less than politics—especially his brother’s politics. But the question of mandatory Panchrest immunization had divided the nation—and it was true, Argus’ passionate partisanship on the issue had swept him to victory.

The Panchrest—the life-saving medication that had halted the Black Flu epidemics—was able to stop the deadly allergy because it blocked the natural magical channels in the human body. It “gummed up the works,” so to speak. And the effect was irreversible. Those who took the Panchrest were rendered immune to magical allergy—but also unable to work any kind of magic at all.

This was a matter of little concern to the members of the Malmantic Generation; since the strange generational allergy was discovered, it was clear that magical practice was outside the reach of humanity’s new breed. However, there was the question of the Old Users, and the disquieting advantage they enjoyed. Their ability to use magic without impairment was an ever-increasing source of concern.

And so, some had begun to argue that the Panchrest should be administered, preventively, to every United States citizen—young and old. Supporters trumpeted the scheme of mandatory immunization as a critical necessity to public health—but their deeper motivations were just as clear. Mandatory immunization would bust the “Magical Trust.” Older businessmen would have no magical advantage over their younger comrades. No longer could they take advantage of Haälbeck Doors, or a hundred other little charms that they currently employed to their mercantile advantage.

The political faction Argus had aligned himself with—the Anti-Immunizers—argued that the government had no place interfering with the ability of the older generation to conduct their business. They argued that legislating such a fundamental rearrangement of the human system was unconstitutional. And they argued (probably most persuasively, in Will’s opinion) that as the Panchrest had been developed very quickly, in response to the national emergency of the Black Flu epidemics, that no one really knew what its long-term effects might be.

But it was clear that Jenny didn’t share any of these concerns. The fire in her eyes was as clear a sign of that as if she were wearing an “Immunization Now!” button on her lapel.

“If those ...
poseurs
... were forced to take the shot, they wouldn’t be able to flaunt their bad behavior,” she said. “Your brother is on the wrong side of that issue. I tried to get him to see it on our drive down, but he didn’t want to listen.”

So that’s what Lillie had meant by “full of opinions.” That must have been one heck of a ride down from San Francisco. If there was one thing Will knew about “California’s Man of the People,” it was that he had no interest in listening to opinions that weren’t his own.

Will couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Jenny bracing Argus on the issue, and this fanned the flames of Jenny’s annoyance. She threw her hairbrush back into the grip and stormed into the bedroom, unbound hair streaming behind her in a glorious halo.

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he called after her back, unnecessarily.

“Darn right you will,” she said, slamming the bedroom door.

Chapter Five

Ben’s Letter

E
ven though the couches in the suite were deeply cushioned, Will was too tall to sleep on any of them comfortably. At around 3
A.M.
, he gave up the attempt and stretched, resigning himself to wakefulness. He went out onto the balcony and looked over the channel. The waning moon cast a pallid light over the water, and despite the late hour, barges were being loaded to make the trip down river to the Port of San Francisco.

On the sidewalk below, he saw a group of young people walking together, heading home. They moved in a somnolent procession, as if on their way to a funeral—it was the same group of Dorians who’d made Jenny so mad at the dance hall. One of the girls was shading herself from the moonlight with a black parasol. It was a ludicrous, pretentious display—but also strangely evocative. And for some reason, it reminded Will suddenly of the mysterious letter from his brother Ben.

Hurrying back inside, Will went to the hall closet where he’d hung his suit jacket. From the pocket, he retrieved the copy of
The Warlock’s Curse
with Ben’s letter tucked inside. Sitting down at the leather-covered writing desk, he withdrew the letter, spreading it out flat.