Page 2 of The Magpie Lord
Crane’s brows drew together. “What?”
Merrick’s hazel eyes met Crane’s and held them. He put the bottle of spirits back down on the table with a deliberate clink. “Shaman.”
There was a silence.
“We’re not in Shanghai now,” said Crane eventually.
“No, we ain’t. But if we was there, and you started going mad all on a sudden and off again, you wouldn’t be sat there whining, would you? You’d be right out—”
“To see Yu Len.”
Merrick cocked his head in agreement.
“But we’re not in Shanghai,” Crane repeated. “This is London. Yu Len is half the world away, and at this rate I’m not going to make it to next quarter day.”
“So we find a shaman here,” said Merrick simply.
“But—”
“No buts!” The words rang off the walls. “You can go to some mad-doctor and get thrown in the bedlam, or you can sit there and go mad for thinking you’re going mad, or we find a fucking shaman and get this looked at like we would back home, because hereditary myarse.” Merrick leaned forward, hands on the table, glaring in his master’s face. “I know you, Lucien Vaudrey. I seen you look death in the face plenty of times, and every time you either ran like hell or you kicked him in the balls, so don’t you tell me you want to die. I never met anyone who didn’t want to die as much as you don’t. So we are going to find a shaman and get this sorted, unless you got any better ideas, which you don’t!Right?”
Merrick held his gaze for a few seconds, then straightened and began to tidy up. Crane cleared his throat. “Are there English shamans?”
“Got to be, right? Witches. Whatever.”
“I suppose so,” said Crane, trying hard, knowing it was pointless, knowing he owed it to Merrick. “I suppose so. Who’d know...” His fingers twitched, calling up memories. “Rackham. He’s back, isn’t he? I could ask him.”
“Mr. Rackham,” agreed Merrick. “We’ll go see him. Ask for a shaman. You got any idea where he is?”
“No.” Crane flexed his bandaged wrist and rose. “But if I can’t find him through any of the clubs, we can just hang around all the filthiest opium dens in Limehouse till we meet him.”
“See?” said Merrick. “Things are looking up already.”
Chapter Two
Crane checked the carriage clock again. Apparently time was standing still; certainly the hands had not moved perceptibly since he last looked.
“Have a drink,” recommended Merrick, who was finding minor tasks around the room. Crane didn’t know if he was keeping an eye out for suicide attempts or just equally nervous about the arrival of the promised shaman.
“You have a damn drink, this is your fault,” he said unfairly. “God knows what this character will be like.”It won’t work. You’re going to die. You deserve it.
“What do you call an English shaman then?” asked Merrick. “Did Mr. Rackham say?”
“We were speaking Shanghainese. I’ve no idea. Warlock, probably, or something equally ridiculous.”
“But Mr. Rackham—”
“Yes, yes. He said he was real, he said he was good, he said he would come at half past seven. I don’t have anything else to tell you, so stop asking.”Brute. Ingrate. You ruined his life too.
“Twitchy, aren’t you?” Merrick observed. “My lord.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Crane stalked round the room, too on edge to sit. He had always found hope harder to deal with than despair. Despair didn’t getdisappointed. And if you hoped, you were always a suppliant, begging for crumbs, and Crane did not take pleasure in supplication. Quite the reverse.
But somewhere in the roiling misery a thread of hope refused to die. If this was truly an English shaman... If this was a shaman problem, not his father’s blood legacy... If his mind was still his own...
The doorbell rang. Merrick almost ran to answer it. Crane very carefully didn’t follow. He stood listening to the exchange in the hall—“Mr. Rackham asked me to call. I’m here to see Lucien Vaudrey,”—and waited for the door to open.
