The Wizard of London (33 page)

Oh,
yes, definitely desirable.

Was
it possible?

She
turned, unseeing, and sat down on the fainting couch at the window to think.

There
was a moment when she collected her ghostly servants that the body was still
alive, but soulless. The cold kept it preserved at that moment. If, while the
body was still in that state, she could transfer her own self to it—

No
one had ever done such a thing. As far as she knew, no one had ever tried. But
she felt herself trembling with excitement at the very idea that it could be
done at all.

She
should not try this herself, not yet. She should try it with two of the
children. None of her existing spirit servants, no; they were too useful and
she needed most of them where they were. But perhaps, if she could find two
children, very much alike so that they themselves would not be aware that the
bodies had been switched, she could test it out without risking anything.
Because she should try a switch first, before trying a substitution.

Then
if a switch worked, she could try disposing of the first spirit before
inserting the second. It would probably be useful if she could find a child
with a fierce will to live, unlike her usual recruits whose hold on life was
already tenuous. Yes…

And
then, when she was certain she had the method honed and refined—

She
could even picture it in her mind’s eye. Inviting David to a late supper.
Wine and brandy and perhaps a dose of opiates. Sending him up to bed—then
slipping into the room when he was too deeply asleep to feel the cold, opening
the window, and calling the Wurms just to be sure that it was cold enough.

The
real trick would be to warm up the body quickly enough after she inhabited it;
if she did not, she would die. That would require some physical means. Tricky,
tricky. Perhaps—yes. The timing would be crucial, but she could do all
this just before the maid was to enter the room to awaken her guest and ask how
he wanted his breakfast. The maid would find the cold room and the cold
body—but still breathing—and summon help. Only later would they
find Cordelia’s shell. Yes, indeed, tricky, but it could be done.

Yes,
that would be a good plan, further made valuable by having witnesses that
nothing worse than a mania for cold, fresh air had “killed”
Cordelia herself and imperiled David.

And
then there would be no more troubles over controlling David. She would
be
David. She could rewrite her will, leaving everything she owned to David as
well, so that when her old body was found, she would lose nothing of what she
had gained.

And
then, when age caught up with the David body, she could find another
protégé to school, and repeat the plan. Perhaps a girl this time;
perhaps by that point it would be possible for a woman to wield power in her
own right. But if not—look far enough and she could find a naïve
young male Fire Magician, probably among the disadvantaged, hopefully without
the inconvenient burden of parents, with whom she could repeat the process. Why
not? Childless men took on protégés all the time. If anything, people
would think how wise she was to have done so. The estate would have to go to
some collateral line, of course, but the bulk of the money and material goods
that were unencumbered could go to anyone. Herself, of course.

She
would be immortal. She would have all the benefits of age, and none of the
drawbacks. David’s Powers were different. Instead of the weak Power of
Air behind the Power of Ice, she would have the immense strength of Fire.

If
it worked.

And
that was the first step. She must find out if it could work, then perfect the
procedure until it was faultless.

And
this would be all the more reason to find those children and eliminate them;
David knew about them now, and knew what they could do. If she made him into a
wandering spirit, he would certainly go straight to them to expose her.

There
was a great deal of work ahead of her. Fortunately, she had never been afraid
of work.

Fortunate for
her
,
at least.

SARAH had an
unfinished daisy wreath in her lap, but she wasn’t working on it. Nan,
whose talents did not run to making wreaths and flower chains, had been
splitting grass stems into strings, and by now had more strings than Sarah
could ever possibly need.

Nevertheless,
she kept splitting, because it was a way to help her concentrate. She and Sarah
were having a “discussion,” and Sarah was winning.

“I
think we should try it,” said Sarah. Her normally sweet face was set in
an expression that Mem’sab would probably call “mulish.”

Ever
since they had helped to determine that the old well had been haunted by
nothing more sinister than bad memories, Sarah had wanted to investigate the
bridge, which had given off the same sort of unpleasant aura. Nan was not so
sure this was a good idea, and the oddest thing was, this was a complete
reversal of their normal roles. Usually, it was Sarah who was the cautious one.

Then
again, it hadn’t been Sarah who had been the one to experience those old
memories either. Maybe that was what was making the difference this time.

An’
I don’t get too sympathetic ‘bout her havin’ ghosts move in
…

It
was no use turning to the birds for advice either. Both Grey and Neville had
responded with the mental equivalent of a helpless shrug. Nan got the feeling
that neither of them felt as if they had enough information to give a good
answer. Like Nan, they didn’t like the idea, but they had no good reason
to oppose it.

Still,
on the other hand, Nan was also tempted. It felt as if this was something she
ought to be doing. They were only going to investigate. If there
was
anyone or anything bound to Earth there, surely Mem’sab and Sahib ought
to know about it. And if there wasn’t, then the nasty feelings ought to
be cleaned up and Mem’sab and Agansing ought to know about it. Nasty
feelings could affect people that were sensitive to them, and might cause a
mischief.

There
was a third aspect to this, which was that somewhere deep inside her, Nan felt
as if there was a grown-up person chafing to be out and doing things. She
couldn’t explain this feeling, but it was definitely there, and growing
stronger all the time.

She
had to wonder if Sarah wasn’t feeling the same. Maybe that was why Sarah
was so adamant about doing this.

“What
can it hurt to just go and
look
?” Sarah asked at last. “We
went and looked before and nothing happened. We won’t do anything, just
look! I want to fix it ourselves if we can, but not this time.”

Nan
grimaced, but she had to think that Sarah was right. “No touching the
bridge and reading it, then?” she asked cautiously.

Sarah
shook her head. “No. Just going there and getting the feeling of things
without touching anything. Maybe we can take care of this by ourselves and
maybe not, but we won’t know until we look it over.”

Nan
sighed. She had been losing this battle since it began, and there was no point in
pretending otherwise. She might just as well give in now as later.

“All
right,” she said, shrugging. “We can go and look. But nawt
more!”

To
her credit, Sarah did not lord it over her friend as some might have.
“Then let’s go now, today,” she urged. “Before anyone
thinks we might and tells us not to.”

Nan
raised her eyebrow at that. Sarah meant “Mem’sab,” of course;
there was no one else they had told about the bridge. And Sarah was sounding
just a touch rebellious. That was a change. Sarah? Rebellious?

“I’m
tired of waiting for things to happen
to
us,” Sarah added
unexpectedly. “I don’t see any reason why we have to sit here and
wait for trouble to find us, when we can go scout it the way a hunter would and
know what’s coming before it gets here!”

Nan
blinked. Put that way—She brushed the grass stems off her skirt and stood
up. “Let’s go,” she said decisively. “Mem’sab
ain’t convinced more trouble ain’t comin’ an’ I
don’t know as buildin’ up ‘igh walls and sittin’ behind
‘em is such a good notion.”

Now
Neville finally roused from his own indecision and quorked enthusiastically.
Grey just sighed. But she didn’t seem inclined to want to stop them, so
Nan took that as tacit assent. She followed Neville as the raven flew ahead, in
their usual pattern of going to a tree within calling distance, waiting for the
girls to catch up, and going on to another tree.

It
didn’t take them nearly as long to get to the bridge as it had the first
time they had wandered out that far—but the first time, they had been
doing just that, wandering, with no set purpose and no real hurry to get
anywhere. As they approached the structure, it seemed to Nan that the uneasy
feelings began at a point much further away than the first time.

“Was
it like this, this far away before?” Sarah asked, in an uneasy echo of
Nan’s own thoughts.

Nan
shook her head. “Dunno,” she replied dubiously. “Could be
‘cause we’re expectin’ it this time. Could be ‘cause we
know what’t’ look for. Could be misrememberin’.”

They
stood on the road, in the shade of a giant oak tree, and regarded the bridge
carefully.

When
you shut off those bad feelings, there was nothing about the bridge to give
anyone cause for alarm. It was a perfectly ordinary structure made of yellowish
stone, arcing over the river. It had three low stone arches, and ended in four
squat, square pillars, two on either side of the span. The river was smooth and
quiet, flowing by lazily. There were no sinister shadows in the bright sunlight
shining down on it.

But
when you let yourself open to those feelings, it seemed as if there
ought
to be sinister shadows everywhere, and dark forms lurking behind the pillars.
Now even Sarah began to look dubious and uneasy, as if she had just decided
this had been a bad idea, but wasn’t going to say so.

Nan,
on the other hand, was now determined to get to the bottom of all of this.
Never mind that she’d been against it before, now she wanted to know just
what it was that was at the root of all this.

“I’m
gettin’ closer,” she said shortly, and whistled for Neville to come
to her. He landed on her outstretched arm and jumped to her shoulder.

She
kept her eyes wide open, and pictured herself peering cautiously through a hole
in a wall as she approached the bridge one slow step at a time. It was at the
third step that she began to make something out.

It
wasn’t just memories. There
was
something there!

The
feelings came first, with the sense of a presence.

It
wasn’t like the horrible thing in Berkeley Square, though—this was
hunger, a great void of
need
and of loneliness, but not anything that
Nan would have called “healthy.” The closest she could come was to
those few times when her mother had gotten maudlin drunk and had hugged her too
tight and cried about what an awful mum she was, when all the time she wasn’t
so sorry that she wouldn’t go right out and spend supper money on gin as
soon as she sobered up. And this was to that experience as the sun was to a
candle.

Another
step, and Nan saw what it was, or saw something, anyway. Woman-shaped and
shadowy, draped in veils, and a vast pit of greed and despair so deep that Nan
knew if you fell into it you’d never get out again.

And
she had something.

She
had a little girl.

Not
a living little girl, but another shadow shape, like a sketch made in white
mist, a little ghost girl. The shadow woman held the girl ghost, who struggled
soundlessly against the shadow arms that held her, eyes wide open in panic,
mouth open too, and no sound emerging though it looked as if she was shrieking
in terror. The shadow woman, horribly, was crooning a lullaby to the ghost
girl, and even as Nan watched, the ghost girl began to fade into the shadow
woman. It looked as if the shadow woman was devouring it or absorbing it and
the ghost girl grew limp and stopped struggling a moment later.

“
No
!”
Nan shouted. She reached down blindly for a stick, and came up with a sword in
her hand. As she brandished it, she saw that Sarah had come to stand beside
her, with both hands raised over her head, white light coming from them.
Neville had flown down to land on the ground between the girls and the shadow,
and Grey, grown to four times her natural size, was beside him, feathers
fluffed and growling.

The
white light from Sarah’s hands lanced out, not to touch the shadow woman,
but the ghost girl. The fading outlines of the ghost girl strengthened, and she
renewed her struggles.

“You
let ‘er go!” Nan shouted again, flourishing the sword. “She
ain’t yours, you let ‘er go right now!”

The
shadow woman, who had until this moment, ignored the girls, now turned her attention
on them. Eyes like coals burned in the midst of her veils, and a terrible wail
burst from her, a sound that brought with it fear and anguish that battered
against Nan until she could hardly stand.

Sarah
did
drop to the ground, and the light from her hands went
out—but when the wailing stopped, she struggled to her feet again and
held her hands above her head, and the light once again shone from them.

Still
holding the struggling girl ghost, the shadow woman took one menacing step
toward them. Freeing one hand, she made a casting gesture, and Nan felt as if
there was a hand seizing her throat, choking the life from her. Neville and
Grey shrieked with anger, and flew at the shadow woman, but could not touch
her, while Nan tried to shout, and could get nothing out.

She
dropped the sword/branch, and clawed at the invisible, intangible hand, as her
lungs burned and she tried to get a breath. Her vision began to gray out—