Page 3 of The Magpie Lord
“Your visitor, sir.” Merrick ushered the shaman in.
He was incredibly unimpressive. Short, for one thing, barely five feet tall, narrow shouldered, significantly underweight, hollow-cheeked. He had reddish-brown hair cut unfashionably close, possibly against a hint of curls. His worn suit of faded black was obviously cheap and didn’t fit terribly well; bizarrely, he wore cheap cotton gloves. He looked like a clerk, the ten-a-penny kind who drudged in every counting house, except that he had tawny-gold eyes that were vividly glowing in his pale rigid face, and they were staring at Crane with something that looked extraordinarily like hate.
“I’m Lucien Vaudrey,” said Crane, extending his hand.
“You’re Lord Crane,” said the visitor, not extending his. “I had to be sure. But you’re a Vaudrey of Lychdale, aren’t you?”
Crane looked at the naked hostility in the other man’s face and posture, and strolled to a conclusion, since he hardly needed to jump.
“I take it you’ve encountered my brother, Hector,” he said. “Or possibly my father.”
“Both.” The little man spat the word out. “Oh, I’ve encountered your family alright. It’s something of an irony to be sent to help one of you.”
Crane shut his eyes for a second.To hell with you, Father, if you’re not already there. You won’t rest till you’ve destroyed me, will you?He struggled to control his voice against the anger, the crushing despair. “And your purpose in coming here tonight is to tell me that any member of my family can go to the devil? Very well. Consider me told, and be damned to you.”
“Sadly, I don’t have that luxury,” said the visitor, upper lip curling into what was probably meant as a sneer but ended up a snarl. “Your friend Mr. Rackham demanded a favour on your behalf.”
“Not a terribly impressive favour,” said Crane, his own sneer calling on eight generations of earldom, as well as the gaping hole in his chest where hope had been. They had waited four days for this man during which he had had another attack. Everything had depended on this last throw of the dice. “I understood he was sending a shaman, not a pint-sized counter-jumper.”
The other man dumped his battered carpetbag on the floor and clenched his fists. He took a belligerent stride forward, aggressively close to Crane, so that he was staring up into the much taller man’s face. “My name is Stephen Day.” He jabbed a finger into Crane’s chest. “And—”
He stopped there, mouth slightly open. Crane very deliberately pushed his hand away. Day didn’t react, the hand held in midair. Crane raised an eyebrow. “And?”
Day’s reddish brows twitched, drew together. His tawny eyes were staring into Crane’s, but not quite focusing, his pupils wide and black. He tilted his head to one side, then the other.
“And?Did you by any chance meet Mr. Rackham in an opium hell?” enquired Crane coldly.
“Yes,” Day said. “Give me your hand.”
“What?”
Day grabbed Crane’s hand with both his gloved hands and stared at it. Crane pulled back angrily. Day kept his left-hand grip, but raisedhis right hand to his mouth, and dragged his glove off with his teeth. He spat it onto the floor, and said, “This will feel strange,” as he seized Crane’s hand with his bare skin.
“Christ!” yelped Crane, trying again to pull away, this time with alarm. Day’s grip tightened. Crane looked down with disbelief. Aside from a jagged scar running across his knuckles, Day’s hand looked perfectly normal, if rather large for his small frame. Lightly dusted with dark hairs, gripping and turning Crane’s fingers, but everywhere Day’s skin touched his, he could feel a tingling flow, like a thousand tiny cold pinpricks, alive, electric, streaming into his blood. He gritted his teeth. Day’s thumb gently brushed over the inside of his wrist, and he felt the skin rise into goose pimples.
“What thehellis that?”
“Me.” Day released Crane’s hand long enough to remove his second glove, also with his teeth, then grabbed it again. “Well, someone wants you dead. How long has this been going on?”
“About two months.” Crane didn’t bother to question what the man meant. The fizzing sensation was getting stronger, rising through his fingers into his wrists, prickling at the wound under the bandage.
“Twomonths? How many times have you attempted suicide?”
“Four,” said Crane. “Three times in the last fortnight. I think I’m going to succeed soon.”
“I’m amazed you’ve failed to date.” Day scowled. “All right. I am going to deal with it, because I owe Mr. Rackham a favour, and because this is not something that should happen to anyone, even a Vaudrey. My fee is ten guineas—for you, twenty. Don’t argue it, because I would measure your remaining lifespan in hours rather than days right now. Don’t provoke me, because I will not need much provocation to walk away. You’ll need to answer my questions fully and frankly, and do what I tell you. Is that clear?”
Crane looked at the other man’s intent face. “Can you stop what’s happening to me?”
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Then I accept your terms,” said Crane. “Are you really a shaman?” The pulsing counsel of grey despair was beating at his mind, a large part of him wanted to kick the little swine downstairs, and the smaller man’s roiling anger did not inspire confidence in his goodwill, but Crane’s hand was electric with the current flowing through Day’s fingers, and those tawny irises were almost completely obliterated by huge black pupils. Crane had seen Yu Len’s eyes dilated in the same way, and a tendril of genuine, terrified hope was unfurling once more through the darkness.
“I don’t know what a shaman is.” Day looked Crane up and down, head slightly cocked, squinting. “Sit, and tell me about it.”
Crane sat. Day pulled up a footstool and knelt on it, looking intently at—through?—Crane’s head.
“I came back to England four months ago, after my father’s death,” Crane began.
