Page 62 of The Magpie Lord
“Lucien.” As Crane turned, Stephen lunged awkwardly sideways, intent unmistakeable, and Crane met his mouth with his own. Their lips hit painfully. Crane moved to cover Stephen’s mouth with his own in one last, desperate kiss, and felt the other man’s teeth sink viciously into his torn lip.
It was excruciatingly painful. He jolted, but Stephen was pulling as he bit, and sucking hard, dragging Crane’s bloody lip into his mouth, and chewing on it, even as Bruton’s fist hit the side of his head, so Crane’s flesh tore again as they lurched apart.
“Degenerates,” said Bruton with disgust. He grabbed Crane’s arm, hauled him to his feet. “I’m glad you’re dying today.”
Crane looked round, bewildered, betrayed, mouth aflame with pain. Stephen was hunched over, head down, shoulders rounded, a small, defeated heap.
Bruton pushed Crane forward a step towards the obscene altar and the knife.
“Wait.” Stephen was still staring at the ground. “Stop. Please. Just...one moment. One.”
Bruton turned, face twisted with contempt. “Go on, Day. Beg.”
“One,” the little man whispered. “One...”
“Onewhat?”
Stephen looked up. His lips were red with Crane’s blood, and his eyes were wide black pits ringed with molten gold.
“One for sorrow,” he said, and there was a soft clink as the iron at Crane’s wrists fell away and hit the grass by his feet.
Stephen blinked, and a flutter of black and white danced across his eyes.
“Two for joy.” He spread his chainless arms wide, and something that wasn’t there, something black and white with a flash of metallic blue, seemed to unfurl beneath them.
“Peter!” screamed Lady Bruton.
“Day!” roared Bruton.
“Five thousand for justice,” said Stephen, and the magpies of Piper rose off the trees around them in one huge, terrible, boiling cloud of black and white and glittering blue that blotted out the sun.
Then the birds descended.
Bruton bellowed something and grabbed Crane’s arm. He felt a sudden awful suction, like the way the candles had bent towards Stephen but in his own body, and the instant realisation that Bruton was trying to strip him was matched by an equally instant physical reflex as he spun, snapped his skull forward and broke Bruton’s nose with a crunch.
It was a dogfight after that. Crane didn’t try to see what was going on, in the swirling mass of beaks and claws and feathers, the clouds of dust that the wingbeats raised from the dry ground, the endless, awful screaming. He didn’t look to Stephen. He simply tried to keep Bruton busy.
Aside from his powers, the man was close to Crane’s height and much bulkier, a little younger, much less tired. He had every advantage except one: he fought like a gentleman, not a Shanghai dock rat.
Crane went for eyes, ears and testicles, using teeth and nails and knees. The magpies screamed and clawed and stabbed around them, and Crane hit and twisted and ripped. The two of them rolled on the ground together, Bruton desperately trying to fend off Crane’s vicious assault, Crane equally desperate to keep the man occupied, until, with a grunt of effort, Bruton gathered the shreds of his strength and an invisible force pushed Crane violently away and flung him onto his back on the earth, knocking the breath out of him. Magpies rose away from the ground in a cloud.
Bruton roared something incoherent through bloody lips, rising, pulling his hand back to strike, and there was a sharp, loud retort that echoed off the stonework around them. Bruton jolted, a stunnedexpression on his face, and fell forward. Crane looked down at the shattered bloody mess of his skull, and up at Merrick, standing a few yards away, holding a smoking pistol.
“I thought I told you to go to London,” Crane said.
“Yeah, well.”
There was a hoarse shriek from the other side of the Rose Walk. Merrick turned and sprinted and, instinctively, Crane followed. They both vaulted benches and dodged through thorny growth, and skidded to a halt. Miss Bell stood, features distorted with effort, both hands out, as if trying to push away the scratched, bloody Lady Thwaite.
“Oi!” bellowed Merrick.
Lady Thwaite looked round and gave a cry of fury. She pushed hard in the direction of Miss Bell, who staggered back, her face twisting.
“Put down the gun! I’ll kill her!” Lady Thwaite crooked her hands in a clawing gesture, threatening, but there were tears running down her cheeks.
“Step away from her,” said Crane. His mouth was agony as he spoke. “You’ve already lost.”
Lady Thwaite turned on him with a tear-stained face full of hate, and froze.
