Chapter Five

Simon

It took me a while to find the place, but now that I'm here, it looks the same as it did last time, down to the heavyset man who opens the door.

"Yes?" he says.

I stare him down. "I'm looking for someone."

"This isn't the right place for that."

He can see my wings, so at least he knows I'm not a Normal. I had them folded against my back, under my shirt, but they popped out as soon as he opened the door. I wish I had better control.

"Yes, it is," I say, and then: "Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch."

He flinches. Looks me up and down. Wings, tail, tangled curls. I know I'm a mess. I don't particularly care.

"You don't belong here," he says.

"Do you know who I am?" I ask him.

He bites his lip.

"Do you know who I am?"

If I still had magic, the question would be full of it.

"The Mage's Heir," he says.

"Don't call me that!"

He swallows. "The Chosen One. Simon Snow."

My wings relax. I nod.

"Pitch," he says, like he's thinking it over.

"Is he here?"

The doorman says, "He was." He opens the door a little wider. "You'd better come in."

As soon as I step into the bar, the whole room turns my way. It's not crazy crowded, but the bar itself is crammed, and several of the booths are taken. In my jeans and jersey, tan as anything, I stand out like a flare.

"What's he doing in here?" the bartender barks at the doorman.

The doorman says, "Looking for Pitch."

If it's possible for the room to get tenser, it does. The bartender's hand freezes on a shot glass. He leans across the counter towards me, squinting.

"Oh," he says softly.

The bartender leads me through the shadows to the very back of the bar, where Baz flicked his cigarette onto Nicodemus's pool table. There's a few exhausted-looking vampires standing around the tables, but no sign of Nicodemus himself.

"Pitch," the bartender says to the prettiest of the group.

The woman raises an eyebrow. "Who wants to know?"

She looks like the most like Baz out of any of them. Most of the others are shabby, dull-eyed, but this woman has a kind of coiled strength to her. She's tall and young and frighteningly pale.

"Me," I say.

The bartender glares at me.

The woman sets down her glass and cue on the edge of the pool table. She folds her arms and examines me. "You're not even a mage," she says.

"I'm Simon Snow."

She lowers her eyebrow. Raises the other one, and then both of them. "Oh."

"Did Nicodemus take him?"

"The Pitch boy."

I nod. "Did you see him?"

She picks up her drink again, flicks back her long blond hair, and takes a sip. "I thought the Pitches wanted nothing to do with you."

I grit my teeth, frustrated. "Most of them don't."

The bartender's gone away somewhere, his help expended, so I'm alone in a bar full of drunken vampires with a woman who's acting like she wants to tear me apart. Just a typical Sunday morning.

"Did you see him?" I press again.

"Lucrezia," the woman says.

"What?"

"My name. Lucrezia Gall."

If I still had magic, I'd be going off. My voice is tight. "Merlin and Morgana. Lucrezia, then. Did you see him?"

Lucrezia chews her lip. Her fangs are out, even longer and sharper than Baz's. There's a speck on the end of one that looks suspiciously like blood. "Yes. I did."

"Where? When? Where did he take him?"

"If he took the boy, it was probably for a reason."

"He wants revenge."

Lucrezia shrugs. "Who am I to deny him that? We all have our petty little grievances."

Petty. She smiles at her own pun.

"It's not little. He'll kill him."

She tightens her grip on her glass. "Didn't Pitch refuse to let him save his sister? I'd call that even."

"He'll kill him!"

And something just wrenches inside me. It's a wave, a surge, something breaking. All at once I'm full up and hot, and there's red before my eyes and everywhere, and I can hardly breathe.

"Shit," says Lucrezia, jumping back. "Shitshitshit."

I don't understand what's happening. I haven't felt this way since before I killed the Mage. Before I pushed my magic out and filled the Humdrum up.

"Stop him!" one of the other vampire screeches.

Baz

He takes me to the numpties' den. Of course.

Because he knows. He knows how I froze up in the dark and the cold, and how I could barely make myself go back. Even to find out the Mage's treason. Even to save Simon Snow.

He's gagged me, so I can't cast or bite. He carries me over his shoulder. I'm not small, but he lifted me with ease. There was an expression on his face, when he saw me at the bar, like he'd been expecting me. I still can't figure out why.

We march through the back alleys of London, over Blackfriars Bridge, and down into the tangled bank at the other side. It's a weekend, and early enough that no Normals are out yet. Nicodemus is nervous. He keeps glancing around, his head bumping my hip.

He hasn't spoken since he met me at the door of the club. He said, "Pitch," and I said, "Petty," and then someone behind him shrieked out, "Stiff as a board!"

It's a bloody cheap spell, hardly used anymore. He must have really threatened the mage who cast it. It immobilizes you completely, and then you're helpless.

Nicodemus caught me as I fell forward, and dragged me into the club. The men and women sitting inside whooped until he'd pulled me through to the back room. Even the bartender smiled.

If I ever get out of here, I'm going to burn that fucking palace to the ground.

We reach the entrance to the numpties' cave, and Nicodemus hoists me off his shoulders to maneuver me into the hole. My heart's going crazy, everything in me shouting for me to get back, get out. I grasp for something to hold onto, but my arms won't move. Nicodemus's mage did their job well.

I didn't die the first time I came here, and I didn't die the second time, either. But I don't think there's going to be any escaping this time.

And then-

How can I describe it?

It's a shift, a change. It hits my gut, hollows out my insides. A shock in the magickal atmosphere.

Nicodemus doubles over, dropping me just inside the tunnel to the numpties' den. At the same instant, the spell on me breaks. The mage who cast it must have been affected the same way.

Winded from the fall, I grope for my wand.

Simon

I wake up in the back of a car.

There are two people in the front, talking in low voices. Lucrezia's driving. Her straight blond hair and slender form are unmistakable.

I shift up on my elbows, trying to stay quiet, but it's no use. Fucking vampires. The muscular, swarthy man in the passenger seat whips around immediately, and gives me a gleam of pearly fang.

"You got your magic back," Lucrezia says, without fanfare.

I make a noncommittal noise, because I can feel it's gone again, and if I think about it all too hard, I might explode.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

Her hands tighten on the wheel. "You would have killed us all."

"Probably," I agree wearily. "Why didn't I?"

"Me," says the man.

Lucrezia sucks her teeth, like she's bored. "Such modesty. He put you to sleep," she tells me. "Sweet dreams."

"You're a magician?" I study the vampire. Now that I think about it, I can feel his magic-sweet and cloying, almost offensive.

"A few of us are," he says. "Not many."

"Where are you taking me?"

Lucrezia says, "Wherever Nicky took the kid."

"Why?"

"Because Damien told me I should. And it's best to listen to him."

I look at her, and then at Damien. He says, "We don't want the Chosen One as an enemy."

"I'm not the Chosen One."

"Your name's still dangerous." He gives me a little nod.

"Well, thanks," I say.

Baz

It's not much of a contest. Without his borrowed magic, Nicodemus has got nothing. No fangs, no weapons, no magic. Nothing to live for except killing me.

"Head over heels!" I scream, and he drops right over.

"You bastard!" he shrieks. I know why he's so pissed; that's Ebb's favorite spell. I've seen her use it on misbehaving students at Watford. It's harmless. It's hers.

Simon

When they let me out of the car, I run.

They took me as close as they could get to Blackfriars' Bridge. I don't know for sure that Baz is here, but Lucrezia and Damien know that Nicodemus took him, and where else would he go? This is the beginning of every nightmare Baz has ever had.

Baz

"Hit the ground!"

Down he goes, and down he stays. He's panting and crying, a sniveling excuse for a vampire in cheap jewelry and Doc Martens. I can't see how Fiona ever loved him.

Simon

There he is.

Kneeling over Nicodemus. Wand in hand. Tall and straight and beautiful and Baz.

I almost cry with relief.

Baz

"I'm sorry," Nicodemus whispers.

I look at him. He could have been great. And this was the life he chose. This was the path he took.

He has nothing. He has nothing.

He lost the last of what he had when Ebb died.

I say, "No. I'm sorry."

Simon

I slow, because something's changed. Nicodemus is looking up at Baz with surprise written all over his face. And Baz-Baz has softened. He's getting down beside Nicodemus. He's touching his hand. He's saying something. I'm sorry.

Oh.

Oh, Baz.

Baz

I wait. Watch the emotions change on his face: hate, surprise, recognition.

Is that forgiveness?

I set down my wand.

Simon

I hope he knows what he's doing. Setting down his wand-that's unlike Baz. He must know what he's doing. He must.

Baz

And then he's up.

He's so fast. So fucking fast. He's scratching my neck, reaching for my eyes, shoving my head to the side so I can't reach him with my fangs.

Dimly, I hear a scream. It sounds like Snow, but that makes no sense.