Cursed av-2 Read online

  “Was it an escapee?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, Talisid and I were wondering that. If it was some mage’s fault that the thing was there, then it makes sense they’d want to clean it up quietly. But we couldn’t find any trace that it used to be someone’s property. Besides, if they really wanted to keep it quiet, they would have gated away the body-oh. And another thing. There were signs of a battle at the lair-fire and ice magic-but no freeze or scorch marks on the barghest.”

  “What killed it, then?”

  “Nothing. At least, nothing I could see.”

  The ftt-ftt-ftt stopped. I looked up to see that Arachne was watching me, her needles still. “Elaborate.”

  “Um …” I tried to think of what to say. “It was just … dead. Wolf form. No marks. I thought it might have been death magic but …”

  Arachne didn’t answer. “Arachne?” I asked.

  Arachne seemed to twitch, then returned to her sewing, the ftt-ftt starting up again. “I see.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “Perhaps.” Arachne paused. “If you could establish the cause of death, I would appreciate knowing.”

  I hesitated a second before nodding. “Okay. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

  Arachne went back to her work. She didn’t say anything further, and I didn’t ask. “How many of them do you think there are?” I said after a pause.

  “Of which?”

  “Magical creatures like that barghest. Living here in our world.”

  “Few. Fewer each year.” Arachne continued to work, but there was something a little distant about her voice. “So many have been killed or enslaved. The survivors have hidden themselves in remote places or in other worlds. Perhaps what you saw today was the body of the last barghest.”

  An hour later, walking back home through the darkness of the Heath, I found my thoughts going back to Arachne’s words. I’m so comfortable with Arachne that I forget other mages think of creatures like her as aliens at best and monsters at worst. This was the first time I’d gone on this sort of hunt, and I’d had a good reason-but that didn’t change the fact that the creature I’d been intending to kill was basically not that different from Arachne.

  For the first time I wondered exactly how long magical creatures would still be around. As far back as mage histories go, they’ve always been there, but for a long time the number’s been decreasing, mostly because of expeditions like the one I’d been on today. Usually it’s only the dangerous ones that mages go after … but not always, and dangerous is pretty subjective. Now that I thought about it, the only magical creatures I’d seen over the past few months had been either working with mages or under their control. I hadn’t come across one in the wild for a long time. If things kept going the way they had been, then the only creatures left would be property, powerful enough to hide themselves, or dead. It would mean no more killings like the ones the barghest had been responsible for … but it would mean none of the gentler or more wondrous creatures, either.

  I wasn’t sure how much I liked the idea, and I wasn’t so sure any more that I’d done the right thing by agreeing to help Talisid. I headed home to sleep and to see what the next day would bring.

  chapter 2

  It was a new day and it was raining.

  My shop’s tucked away down a little side street in Camden, only a minute’s walk from the canal. The rail and road bridges that interlock the area make it tricky to find, but plenty of tourists still filter through. The sign above my door says Arcana Emporium, along with a description of the contents that’s technical enough to stop most people immediately thinking magic shop. A notice on the door lists my opening times as ten A.M. to five P.M. Mondays to Saturdays, and every now and again it’s actually right.

  As far as I know, I’m the only mage in England who runs a shop. Most mages think it makes me eccentric or just plain stupid, and to be fair they’ve got a point. Money isn’t a big concern to most mages. Sure, they need it, but it isn’t the primary medium of exchange the way it is to regular folk, for the simple reason that most mages who know what they’re doing and are willing to put in the work can leverage their power into as much money as they’re realistically likely to need. They aren’t all millionaires, not by a long shot, but they don’t generally have to worry about paying the rent either. So as a rule you can’t buy anything really valuable from a mage with cash, because cash isn’t scarce enough for them to value it.

  The real currency of the magical economy is favours. Mages are specialists: A typical mage is great at one thing and poor to useless at everything else. If he’s faced with a problem that requires a different type of magic from the kind he can use, he can’t do anything about it-but he probably knows someone who can. And that mage might need someone else’s help a bit further down the line, and so on. Established mages have whole networks of friends and contacts to call on, and let me tell you, mages take those favours seriously. Failing to pay your debts in mage society is bad. We’re talking “sold to Dark mages as a slave” levels of bad. Of course it still happens if the guy in question thinks he can get away with it, but it’s rarely a good idea in the long term and at the higher levels a surprising number of things run on simple promises. They might not be as good as gold, but they can buy you a hell of a lot more. That was the basis on which I’d been working for Talisid last night. He hadn’t offered payment, and I hadn’t asked, but all of it was done on the understanding that the next time I asked him for help he’d give it to me, no questions asked.

  Or maybe not. But life would be very boring if it was too predictable.

  Anyway, to get back on topic, what this means is that anyone with enough magical items to set up a shop is generally powerful enough that they don’t have any reason to sell said items in the first place. They also tend to be leery (for good reason) of putting large stocks of highly valuable items in an easily accessible place. Or maybe they just think serving customers is beneath them. Who knows.

  There’s a certain band of items, though, that you can make a business out of selling-the stuff that’s just useful enough to be worth keeping but not powerful enough that a mage would bother to trade a service for, like old or weakened focuses, or the kind of one-shots that don’t do anything dramatic. Then there are rare components, which don’t do anything useful on their own but are really inconvenient to run short of right in the middle of a ritual. And finally there are things that aren’t magical at all, like crystal balls and tarot decks and herbs. They’re pretty much useless for anything except window dressing, but they’re good camouflage.

  Put all of that together and you’ve got the contents of my shop. There’s a roped-off area in the back-right corner next to the door to the hall that contains the genuine magical items, or at least the weaker ones. Two shelf stands hold a collection of nonprecious and semiprecious stones, as well as figurines and materials, and a rack holds herbs, powders, and various types of incense that together make the whole shop smell vaguely like a herbalist’s. Staffs, rods, and blades of various types take up another corner, and you can get a good view out onto the street through a wide window, which was currently streaked with water from the steadily falling rain.

  And lastly, you get the customers.

  My clientele used to be strictly small fry. A tiny fraction who knew what they were doing, a slightly larger fraction who sort of knew what they were doing, and a whole lot whose knowledge of magic would fit on a Post-it note. After the business five months ago, things changed. My shop suddenly got popular, and adepts, apprentices, and even mages started coming along.

  Trouble is, along with the influx of knowledgeable people, I’ve also picked up a whole lot of idiots. On a Saturday like today, I’m lucky if one customer in five knows enough to be trusted. The rest …

  …well.

  “Hi, I’m looking for some gaff coins?”

  “You want the Magic Box, other side of Camden. Here’s one of their cards.”

  “Oh. Which tricks have you
got?”

  “None of them. You’ve got the wrong shop.”

  “So what do you sell?”

  “…”

  “Wait, this is supposed to be a real magic shop?”

  “…”

  “Oh my God, you’re serious! Ha-ha-ha!”

  “…”

  “Ha-ha … oh man, this is awesome. Okay, okay, I’m going.”

  “Um …” (giggling)

  “Can I help you?”

  “We’re looking for-” (more giggling)

  “…”

  “Have you got, um …”

  “Take your time.”

  “…a wand?” (chorus of giggling from all three)

  “No. And my name’s not Harry and I didn’t go to Hogwarts.”

  (yet more giggling)

  “Um … hee hee … what about …”

  “…”

  “Do you know how to find any vampires? Like, the really hot ones?”

  “I want a refund for this spell.”

  “Which spell?”

  “This one.”

  “Hmm … ‘A Spell to Make You Win the Lottery.’ I’m going to go out on a limb and say it didn’t work.”

  “I want my money back.”

  “Your money, right. How much did you pay?”

  “Fourteen ninety-nine.”

  “Uh-huh. How much would you expect to get from a lottery win?”

  “At least a million.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “And you don’t see a problem with this.”

  “What?”

  “Okay. The first problem is that you’ve got a product here with a sale value of fifteen pounds-”

  “Fourteen ninety-nine.”

  “Fourteen ninety-nine, sorry, which is supposed to win you over a million. Now, stop and think how that would work.”

  “I don’t care. I want a refund.”

  “Right. The second problem would be I never sold you this spell.”

  “I bought it from this shop.”

  “That would be quite impressive, given that I don’t sell spells.”

  “I know my rights. If you don’t give me a refund I’ll sue you.”

  “If your understanding of the legal system is on par with your grasp of economics, I don’t think I’ve got much to worry about.”

  “Oh, is that right? I’m going to call the police! I can get this shop closed down, I think you’ll find!”

  (stomp stomp stomp SLAM)

  “…”

  “Um, hello? Excuse me?”

  “Yes?”

  “Uh, could I get one of those spells to win the lot-tery?”

  “Hi!”

  “You again?”

  “Yeah, I decided I didn’t want to go all the way across Camden. So what tricks do you sell?”

  “We don’t sell tricks.”

  “Okay, okay. So what ‘magic’ do you sell?”

  “Could you not make a hand gesture in the air when you do that?”

  “Sure. Whatcha got?”

  “Just what you see.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Um, hi.”

  “Hey. What do you need?”

  “I heard you can … uh … find out things?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Uh … it was … can you find out something for me?”

  “Not likely.”

  “But I need to know! It’s really important!”

  “Fine. What is it?”

  “I … I need to know if my girlfriend’s cheating on me.”

  “Probably.”

  “What! Why?”

  “Because if you’re asking that question, the answer’s probably yes.”

  “So is there any way to use magic to talk with people who’ve … passed on?”

  “Passed on?”

  “I mean, died.”

  “No.”

  “But all those psychics say-”

  “Psychics make their living telling people what they want to hear. Magic can’t let you talk to someone once they’re gone, and as far as I know neither can anything else.”

  “So … there’s no way they can send a message?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing at all? Once someone’s dead, that’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they couldn’t tell anyone how they died, right?”

  “No, they-wait. Why do you want to know this again?”

  “Um, no reason.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “That death spell won’t work.”

  “Wh-what? I–I wasn’t …”

  “…”

  “Could-”

  “No, I’m not going to teach you how to do it.”

  “Hey, man.”

  “Oh, for the love of God. Why are you still here?”

  “Look, I’m just curious. Now, I know you don’t sell tricks over the counter-”

  “We. Don’t. Sell. Tricks.”

  “Hey, what are you so angry for? I’m just asking.”

  “I’m going to go through this one last time. This is a shop. There are things on the shelves. You want to buy the things on the shelves, bring the things on the shelves to the counter.”

  “C’mon, I’m not that stupid. I’ve seen loads of guys coming up. You must have some good stuff, right? I mean, for people in the know?”

  “And you want to know the secret?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. It’s a secret.”

  “Fine, I get it. I’m going.”

  “…”

  “Oh, one more thing-”

  Afternoon edged into evening. It had been raining all day, but as evening drew near, the clouds became thicker and the rain heavier. By five o’clock the light was dim, the window was translucent with running water, and the raindrops were drumming so hard on the pavement outside that I could feel the vibration through the legs of my chair.

  The weather had finally driven the customers away and only one was left, a guy in his twenties. He circled the shop a couple of times before drifting over to the counter. I didn’t lift my eyes from my paperback. He cleared his throat.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, hi. Yeah, I was wondering if I could ask you something.”

  “I don’t sell spells.”

  “…Okay.”

  I turned a page. “I don’t sell spells, and I don’t sell tricks. I don’t carry illusions or marked cards or weighted coins. I can not sell you an endless purse or help you win the lottery. I can’t make that girl you’ve got your eye on fall in love with you, and I wouldn’t do it even if I could. I don’t have a psychic hotline to your dead relatives, I don’t know if you’re going to be successful in your career, and I don’t know when you’re going to get married. I can’t get you into Hogwarts or any other kind of magic school, and if you even mention those stupid sparkly vampires I will do something unpleasant to you.”

  “…Ookay?”

  “Good. Now that’s settled, what do you need?”

  “You’re Alex Verus, right?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Hi, good to meet you.” A hand appeared above my book. “Martin.”

  I looked up and got my first good view of Martin. He was twenty-four or twenty-five, slim, with small blue eyes and dark blond hair that was spiky from gel and swept in a fashionable style from left to right. I guessed most women would have found him good-looking. He was wearing a button-down shirt and trousers, with a coat slung over one shoulder, and moved with a sort of casual confidence that made me think of money.

  I disliked him on sight. I probably would have disliked him anyway, but the haircut made it a lot easier. I said, “Hey,” and reached out to shake his hand.

  In the fraction of a second before our hands touched, I focused on Martin with my mage’s sight. The technique isn’t really sight-it’s a whole other sense, separate from the five-but for whatever reason sight seems to be the way all mages interpret it.
It lets you perceive magic directly rather than just the vague feelings a sensitive or adept gets, all the wisps and auras and strands that make up the currents in the world around you. Most are so faint you have to strain to see them but anything really powerful, like a mage’s spell, is dazzling. If you’re good-and I’m very good-you can pick out what the spell does, how long it’s been there, and even the nature of whoever cast it. I didn’t need any skill to recognise the silvery mist around Martin though. It was Luna’s curse, and it meant he’d been close to her. The mist was only a thin layer swirling gently around his skin. Despite all the time I’ve spent around Luna I’ve rarely seen her curse in action, and I wasn’t sure how long it would have taken for Martin to pick this much up. I didn’t think it was enough to put him in serious danger, but it might be.

  My hand clasped on Martin’s and the moment was gone. I couldn’t feel the silver mist over Martin’s skin but I could see it. It didn’t spread from him to me; that’s not the way the curse works. “Great to finally meet up,” Martin said as he shook my hand. “Luna’s told me a lot about you.”

  “She’s not supposed to.”

  “Not- Oh, ha-ha! Yeah, I see what you mean. Don’t worry, I won’t spread it around.”

  I had my doubts about that. “Looking for something?”

  “Yeah, I really wanted to have a look at some focuses and one-shots. They’re over there behind the rope, right? Mind if I have a root through?”

  “You don’t want to mess with those things unless you know what you’re doing.”

  “It’s fine, I know the score. Besides, you can tell me what they do, right?”

  I really wanted to say no. But the aura on Martin confirmed he was the guy Luna had been talking about and I didn’t have a good reason to tell him to get lost. Reluctantly, I walked over as Martin unhooked the rope and started looking through the contents of the shelves, asking me questions all the while.

  In between answering Martin’s questions, I asked a few of my own. According to Martin, he’d grown up here in London, moved away for university, then moved back to get a place of his own. He was a musician and played in a band. He was vague on the details of exactly how he’d learnt about the magical world. He’d just picked things up, he said. He’d been trying to break into mage society but was finding it difficult. He’d met Luna through a mutual friend. She’d mentioned my shop to him and he’d wanted to learn more.