“I still don’t know how she got a suit that fitted,” said Merlin.
“I hope I haven’t made a very bad mistake,” mused Vivien.
“Your premonition average is running about eighty percent,” said Merlin. “Remember when Dad almost caught us three years ago when he came back unexpectedly when we were stealing that special bottle of champagne from his cellar? If you hadn’t sensed he would, there’d have been no end of uproar.”
“The 1959 Dom Pérignon,” said Vivien, with a sigh. “We didn’t appreciate it.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Merlin. “But to the matter at hand. Do you have a specific feeling for why Susan will need salt and steel? Anything definitive?”
“No,” said Vivien. She shivered. “But I do have a presentiment of danger.”
“Yeah. But when, and where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should stay here, too,” said Vivien. “I was going to go back to the New Bookshop to check through the Harshton and Hoole records, see if we’ve got anything at all about that cigarette case. A mountain design, and a gift to seal a treaty or bargain, that can’t be very usual. There might be some correspondence on it. Which means the microfiche, since everything prior to 1979 has gone to the salt mine.”
“Sooner you than me,” said Merlin.
Vivien held up her right hand.
“Obviously. So should I stay or go?”
“Go. The wards are extant. Barlow is here, as well as Mrs. L, and we have the alarms. All three cabs are checking in through the night, and there’s an extra shift of D11—two cars—working out of Tolpuddle tonight, if it is gangsters we have to worry about, like that Superintendent Holly reckons.”
“Who?”
“Chief Superintendent Holly. Head of Organized Crime, but he had Greene’s job years ago. He was around earlier, asking questions.”
“That’s unusual,” said Vivien. “Unprecedented even.”
“Greene says he’s lazy and about to retire, only going through the motions. He’s upset because there’s a surge in gang violence and he thinks it’s related to Frank Thringley. And Susan. Because she was there, and those Brummy gangsters tried to lift her.”
“The gang connection again,” said Vivien. “I think I’ll look up Holly’s record while I’m at it.”
“Reg Holly,” said Merlin. “You’d better be careful; don’t ask for his file through the usual channels. Greene says he’s influential. And he seems to get on with Merrihew.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can dig up, and I’ll duck in here early tomorrow morning, before I go to work in the shop. Are you planning to sleep at all?”
“Maybe not,” said Merlin.
“Look after yourself, stupid brother,” said Vivien, heading down the hall. At the top of the stairs she stopped and looked back. “And take care of Susan. I like her.”
“Me too,” said Merlin. He frowned, wondering why this was so. Susan wasn’t at all like anyone else he’d been involved with before, in looks and background and behavior. She was certainly attractive, but there was more to it than that. He liked how she moved, and how she talked, and the way she’d taken everything that had happened in her stride, no matter how fantastical it had to be to someone who’d never encountered the Old World before.
Whatever he was beginning to feel for Susan, Merlin realized, it didn’t feel casual. But casual was his mode; he didn’t want anything else. Or at least he never had before. . . .
Chapter Thirteen
A shadow creeps along the wall
More shadows sweep across the hall
Many shadows leap and dance and fall
But shadows need both dark and light
No shadows crawl in blackest night
SUSAN WOKE AGAIN, DEEP IN THE NIGHT. FOR A MOMENT, SHE DIDN’T know what had woken her, before she became awake enough to recognize a ringing bell, a very loud bell like a fire alarm, though somewhat muffled. It came from somewhere lower in the house.
Two seconds after that realization, Merlin knocked on the door. Harsh and very loud.
“Susan! It’s me. Get up and get dressed!”
He came through the door a moment later and rushed to the rear window overlooking the garden, raising a hand to shield his eyes as the back was suddenly flooded with harsh white light. The clangoring bell was louder with the door open.
Susan leaped from the bed and into her underwear without bothering to take off her giant Wombles T-shirt, almost levitating into bra and underpants, and then she hauled the boiler suit up over everything, tucking the T-shirt in.
“What’s happening?”
“Perimeter alarms tripped in the rear, triggers the lights for the back, and a bell in Mrs. L’s room,” said Merlin, who was at the side of the window, tilting his head cautiously to look out. “Stay low, don’t come closer.”
Susan concentrated on lacing up her Docs.
“Shit!” cried Merlin. He ran from the window, back out through the door, to shout down the stairs.
“Greene! Don’t shoot until they’re well on the property! Don’t—”
The crack-crack-crack-crack of four rapid shots interrupted him. Merlin came back and looked through the window again.
“Damn! Clever. Susan, get your sword and lock the door.”
“What’s happening?”
“Stalking horse. Two gunmen, tricked out in vests holding quicksilver. Greene’s shed their blood on the boundary; blood and mercury will negate even those wards briefly and . . . I thought so . . . it is a Cauldron-Born. Lock your door!”
He exited, stripping off his glove, his left hand silver-bright.
Susan grabbed her saber, unsheathed it, and went over to lock the door, before returning to the window, her heart beating faster than it ever had before.
She copied Merlin and stayed to one side, leaning out cautiously to take a look. A man in a blue hospital gown flapping open at the back was walking slowly across the lawn, stark in the floodlights. He seemed like a lost drunk at first, someone concentrating too hard on walking steadily, till she noticed his head sat strangely on his neck, and then, with a terrible shock, that the shadow trailing behind was not human at all, instead a mass of smokelike, writhing tendrils that only connected to the man at his heels and did not mimic his upper body or movements at all.
Susan gasped as more shots rang out. Someone—Greene or Mrs. London—was shooting from the back door. She saw the rounds’ impact, fragments of flesh and bone spraying out where they hit in head and chest, but there was no blood and the Cauldron-Born barely staggered, as if he’d encountered a gust of wind, no more.
Then Merlin was there, with his old sword. He ran past, incredibly swiftly, striking at the Cauldron-Born’s knees. But it suddenly accelerated, leaping over the scything blade and twisting, almost managing to grab Merlin as he sped past and turned himself and then there was a sudden exchange of sword strokes and clawing hands, very fast. The sword hewed pieces from the Cauldron-Born but it was like striking chips from hard wood, and Susan gasped again as the Cauldron-Born almost managed to grab hold of Merlin’s arm. She knew instinctively that once it had him in its grip, it would never let go.