Chapter 22 #3
Nigel shrugged. “Garden is too great a secret to be made known. So Debbie and I will keep it.”
“And what about that shop girl of yours?”
Nigel’s eyes flared.
“Is she in on your secret too?”
“Leave her out of this.”
Fabian chuckled again and took another, larger bite of cake and cream.
“Of course,” he said, around his mouthful.
“Of course, you’d share Garden with that chit, even as you keep it from your own brother.
What? She do you some little favors? In the back of the shop, maybe, or upstairs in your moldering apartment?
A little slap and tickle and, in exchange, you reveal the Great Magical Secret of the Moden Age. ”
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Why not?” Fabian took another bite, then pointed his ganache-smeared fork at Nigel’s nose.
“Are you going to pretend she means anything to you? Will you try to convince me you’ve gone and developed feelings for a whisp of a tea witch and her pathetic scrying talent?
” He barked a laugh, loud enough that patrons at nearby tables cast him sidelong glances.
“I’m warning you, Fabian,” Nigel growled, “not another word.”
But his brother leaned forward on the table, anti-glitter sparking around his eyes.
“You’re pathetic, Nigel. The Grimshade Lord one minute, chosen lover of the greatest sorceress of our time.
Now look at you! Proprietor of a little tea shop, shagging the shop girl in the hall closet while the kettle boils over—”
A black film descended over Nigel’s vision. The thunder of diabolic realities roared in his head, whorling in a storm of fury as he rose suddenly and loomed over his brother. His eyes flashed, transforming to glassy orbs of onyx.
“It’s a flower shop,” he snarled.
Then he picked up the cake and smashed it into Fabian’s face.
Gasps erupted across the room. Wait staff and the dignified host all rushed in, exclamations of horror and protest on their lips.
Many hands reached for Nigel, but he brushed them off brusquely.
“No! No, don’t touch me. I’m just leaving.
” He withdrew his wallet and dropped a wad of bills on the table.
“My treat, Minister Supreme,” he said. “And good night to you!”
With that, he turned and marched from the dining room, out into the grand and glittering foyer.
So dark was the cloud oppressing him, he passed by the coat-check without a thought.
The doorman was only just fast enough to open the door for him, or he might have broken right through the glass without noticing.
Only the sudden blast of freezing air on his face brought him to a startled stop at the top of the front steps.
“Mister!” a voice called behind him. A coat-check girl in a crisp black uniform darted out, Nigel’s hat, coat, gloves, and scarf in hand. “Wait up!” He turned to receive the items, shoved hastily into his arms. “Merry Green Yule,” the girl said through chattering teeth and darted back inside.
Nigel paused to pull his coat on. He was just shrugging it onto his shoulders when Fabian burst through the doors.
Bits of cake dripped from his cheeks and jaw.
The mousse and cream had done its work, smooshing the disguise spell and throwing it wildly askew.
Nigel could see glimpses of his brother’s own face appearing through veils of anti-glitter, even as Ebenezar Prodigimus’s features struggled to reassert themselves. “Nigel!” he roared.
Nigel faced him, buttoning his coat with frozen fingers. “You’d better duck up to your rooms before some wardsman strolls by and sees you,” he said coldly. “Even dolts like the SSSD can’t fail to notice a malfunctioning spell like that.”
Fabian cursed and closed the distance between them with a quick stride. “You’ve got to help me,” he said, dropping his voice. “It’s not just about Garden, you know.”
“I thought as much.” Nigel sneered and drew his gloves on, one after the other. “The Brotherhood has got its claws into you. Hasn’t it.”
Fabian breathed heavily, air panting through his lips in white clouds. “They want her back, Nigel,” he said. “They want her back and whole and in power. They’ve got hold of her spells. One of them, in any case. But they need a power source.”
“They need Garden,” Nigel growled.
Fabian nodded. “If they don’t get it, they’re going to murder me.”
“Not my problem.”
“How is it not your problem? You brought this about, Nigel! You killed her in the first place!”
“Oh, I thought you didn’t believe her dead? Coming round to my way of thinking, are you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think! What matters is what the Brotherhood thinks! And they think their queen—their empress, their goddess—is just on the far side of the Veil, waiting to be summoned home and restore them all to power. They’ll stop at nothing to get her back.”
“Well,” Nigel shrugged, “they’ll need more than Garden, in that case. If I remember those spells correctly, they require a blood relative. A female blood relative. But, as you pointed out, all the Thorpewillow females have been done away with, either by the Authorities or rival sorcerers.”
“Not all.”
“What?”
Fabian swallowed. His halfway enchanted face looked haunted in the light pouring from the large, glass hotel doors.
“The Brotherhood haven’t been idle. Ever since Jastira’s fall, they’ve been on the hunt for a worthy host body.
I believe . . .” He licked his lips, glancing around nervously.
“They don’t tell me much, you know. I’m not one of them, not officially.
Maybe if I can come through, if I can get them Garden, then .
. . but never mind that. The important thing is, they believe they’ve found the last living female descendent of the Thorpewillow line.
They haven’t got her yet, but all their resources are trained on tracking her down. It’s just a matter of time until . . .”
Nigel stared at his brother. He felt something in his brain trying to click into place. Something that didn’t want to click. Something that part of him was actively not allowing to click.
“You’re mad,” he said.
“I’m desperate.”
“You’re a power-hungry lunatic.”
“You got all the fame and glory, Nigel. What was I left with? Crumbs. Always your crumbs.” Fabian grimaced. “I’ll have my day, you know.”
“You won’t have Garden.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Fabian made a move then. Not a terrible move, not entirely without skill.
Had he made such a move on a student, it might have worked.
Or on a non-practicing, academic sort of sorcerer, one who knew the theory but did not actually perform magic.
He might have even pulled it off against certain members of the Brotherhood.
But when he summoned up a handful of Dire Matter and hurled it straight at Nigel’s face, Nigel caught it as easily as a cricket ball, turned it around, and sent it back at his brother.
It struck—a mere glancing blow. Nigel had enough wherewithal not to repeat the Lancelot Mortimer debacle. Still, the force was strong enough to knock Fabian into a perfect pirouette before he collapsed in a pile of half-enchanted limbs. Right there on the steps of The King’s Crown Hotel.
Nigel looked back and forth. It was so cold, all the doormen were inside, not standing out in the freezing air.
No sudden shouts of surprise or alarms erupted through the snow-bound night.
It would seem no one had actually seen the brief altercation.
As for the energy transfer, Fabian seemed to have sourced from his own life-force, as all amateur sorcerers did.
Which meant no telltale evidence left behind.
Stepping to Fabian’s side, Nigel knelt and hastily murmured a levitation spell.
Anti-glitter accumulated under his brother, raising him a few inches off the ground.
Nigel took hold of his hands and pulled him hurriedly along, dragging him through the air around the building and into the covered parking lot.
There, Nigel waved the anti-glitter away.
Fabian landed hard, but Nigel spared him no sympathy.
He’d not even bothered to declare an official challenge before he hurtled that spell. He deserved whatever he got.
But what was Nigel supposed to do with him now?
He looked this way and that. Rows of powered-down automagic mobiles met his gaze. No one else. Nothing else. All was very quiet and still.
First removing his gloves and stuffing them into his pocket, Nigel reached into the front of his suit coat and withdrew the folded handkerchief. “Good thing you came prepared,” he murmured.
Unfolding the fabric to reveal the seven drops of distilled Dire Matter, he walked in a circle around his brother, squeezing out each drop at even intervals until Fabian was entirely surrounded.
As he went, he muttered the words of a dark incantation.
Words of a dead and damned language, spoken only by those corrupt souls willing to risk all for power, for glory.
Or, in this case, for the swift removal of a troublesome sibling.
Nigel stepped back. The air above the circle and his brother’s unconscious body went a little dark and wibbly-wobbly. “I summon thee,” Nigel intoned, holding out both hands in sinister configurations. “Heed my voice, O Creature of the Dire. Heed thy Master and appear before mine eyes!”
A form manifested, emerging from the aether of otherrealms. A being not of this world, but of the Dire Dimensions. Black as ink, black as sin. The size of a carthorse, with huge yellow eyes, and fangs like razor-edged swords, and . . . and . . .
Nigel blinked. “Gronk Cat?” he whispered.
“Meow,” said the massive demonic entity.
Nigel swallowed. Strains of The Gronk Cat Boogie, heard far too many times that season, appeared in his head.
Hastily, he cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and assumed the voice of sorcerous authority with which he had summoned and compelled countless dark spirits in his day.
“Gronk Cat,” he said. It was always best to use a spirit’s name when issuing a command; it solidified control.
“Gronk Cat, this . . . this boy has failed to hang holly above his door.”
The black spirit turned its lantern eyes down at Fabian. It began to growl softly. The tip of its tail twitched.
“I charge you, Gronk Cat,” Nigel continued, “to bear him away to . . . to . . .” He cast about for inspiration. “To the Phrigidos Isles. There to suffer punishment for . . . lack of festivity.”
Gronk Cat lifted his enormous head. Then, with a deft paw, it rolled Fabian over and picked him up by the back of his coat like a scruffed kitten. He looked at Nigel again, a solemn contemplation.
“Begone,” Nigel said.
Gronk Cat blinked. Expectantly.
“Away with you.”
Gronk Cat tilted his head.
Nigel grimaced. Then, with great reluctance, he sang: “You're so mean, Gronk Cat, watch out. Green Yule's coming, let’s twist and shout. Boogie Woogie fun, we’ll dance it out.” He made a last configuration with his hands, a sign of propulsion, and finished the incantation: “Show Gronk Cat what it’s all about. ”
He ended with a push of power.
The portal wavered. Anti-glitter seethed in streams of raw magic.
Gronk Cat, satisfied, turned about-face. His tail flicked high, gently hooked at the end. Fabian still suspended in his jaws, he pranced into the abyss and vanished from sight.
The portal closed, leaving seven dark stains on the pavement.
Nigel released a long, chilled breath.